Upset that my school is now a "success story" for migration to Windows

[movieman]

People don't want to learn how to use a new OS; they want to do their job as fast as possible. From that point of view, Linux has nothing to offer them; they can do their job just fine already in Windows.

Yet there's a far larger jump from XP to Windows 7 than from XP to Gnome, and from the last version of Office to the latest version of Office than to Open Office. So by your argument, people who've been using home computers for the last decade would be better off with Linux.

What I think you really mean is that people would rather spend their time trying to figure out where Microsoft moved things to today than take a risk on anything that doesn't have a Microsoft logo on the front. As they say, 'no-one ever got sacked for buying Microsoft'.

[movieman]

FGLRX is a mess, but I don't use it at all, and I haven't had a graphics drive issue on Linux (except subpar 3D performance) in years.

I have fglrx running on my AMD machine at home. Right now it's completely broken by kernel changes and ATI apparently have no intention of releasing an updated driver for my IGP.

I know whose GPUs won't be going into my Linux machines in future.

[BlackStar]

I have fglrx running on my AMD machine at home. Right now it's completely broken by kernel changes and ATI apparently have no intention of releasing an updated driver for my IGP.

I know whose GPUs won't be going into my Linux machines in future.

Try the latest open-source drivers. You might be surprised.

[movieman]

Can we really expect "gamers" (probably the single largest Windows user group) to switch to Linux?

No, I believe you'll find that the single largest Windows user group are people who use their PC for web-browsing, email and writing the occasional document. If they play a game it's probably Farmville.

But I agree in a sense: games are one of the two reasons I still have Windows available as a dual-boot option on our fastest PC. That's also probably a good reason why schools should not be running Windows on their PCs... students should be using them to study, not to play WoW.

[movieman]

Try the latest open-source drivers. You might be surprised.

Actually, I tried the latest version that came with the distro and it wouldn't let me set the resolution correctly, so I resorted to manually patching the fglrx source. But that's not an option for most people.

Given that it's about a five line change to the source, you'd almost think that ATI would have released a fixed version instead of abandoning anyone with older chipsets.

[RealNC]

Yet there's a far larger jump from XP to Windows 7 than from XP to Gnome, and from the last version of Office to the latest version of Office than to Open Office. So by your argument, people who've been using home computers for the last decade would be better off with Linux.

No, I don't think that's true. The changes in Windows are easy to figure out, since there's a lot of hand-holding. Dialogs always tell you things in a manner that assume you don't know anything.

And anyway, the changes from XP to 7 are mostly troublesome with administrative tasks. We're talking about users here who don't even have access to the windows control panel. From that perspective, XP and 7 are virtually the same thing, especially since lab computers have desktop effects/themes usually disabled.

Also, it's much easier to go from old Office to new Office than go from old Office to OpenOffice.

IMO, for Linux to succeed, it has to give people something they want but currently don't have. I can't think of what that could be currently. Furthermore, the "fix it yourself and stop complaining; patches welcome" attitude of Linux is not useful for getting more users. According to many projects, that's fine; they don't want those users. Well, then stop posting about people using Windows instead of Linux if you don't care. From that point of view, all is currently fine and as it should be. What the hell are you complaining about?

[Max Spain]

I too am enrolled at a school that likes to force the One Microsoft Way upon its students. At least that is true in my department (CompE/EE). Some of the classes are OS agnostic, but for others, we are required to use a M$ OS. This is obviously an inconvenience for many in the student body as walking around campus will show you that several students get their computers from a certain fruit company which sells its wares in the campus bookstore.

As far as FGLRX goes, I am a Ubuntu user, and every time a kernel gets updated, you just have to reinstall the driver. It's not terribly difficult, just inconvenient. Even a former Windows gamer like myself can handle such a task.

Interestingly as far as gaming goes, there is one guy who frequently plays HoN in the uni computer labs and he uses the Linux boxes for it. Go figure

Also Capt Obvious told me that anybody who says that old M$ Office (XP, 2003) is more similar to new M$ Office (2007, 2010) than Open Office is an Obvious Troll.

[that guy]

As opposed to the Linux cluster, where I have to download packages from all over the place to make it work [...]

Yeah, if only Linux distributions integrated some kind of package management...

As for that fglrx thing... I don't know why the big argument. If it works, good for you. If for some reason it doesn't work, use the open source drivers. The driver doesn't matter unless you're playing 3D games, in which case you're probably better off on Windows anyway. Seriously, people are talking about drivers as if it was some kind of expert area that nobody can touch. I've used the 3 different driver families for my RadeonHD, all worked on the first try and I've never had any problem that I couldn't fix by downgrading to the last good version.

[movieman]

No, I don't think that's true. The changes in Windows are easy to figure out, since there's a lot of hand-holding.

That's news to me: I had a hard time finding anything when using Windows 7.

We're talking about users here who don't even have access to the windows control panel.

Then they'll be happy with Gnome, since it's using the same basic interface as every major GUI of the last decade.

Also, it's much easier to go from old Office to new Office than go from old Office to OpenOffice.

So you think that a completely different interface is easier for people to use than what is basically a copy of the older Office interface?

Seriously, if you're going to make these kind of claims then there's really no point in this discussion; nothing is going to convince you that Windows is not the One True Operating System. I've had to help friends who've switched from XP to Widows 7 and it ain't pretty.

[kraftman]

Well, looks about right to me. Having your box break after every Ubuntu kernel security update (happens every time) because fglrx won't work anymore is not exactly user-friendly. And you need some geek skills to recover from that.

There's a simple solution - don't use fglrx, but Open Source drivers. Using Linux you don't have to care about viruses and all of such mess.