Windows 8 Beta

[Chalenge]

MS also has Linux running under their Virtual PC technology now so you can expect more headaches I guess. Im not sure why anyone would want to do that. I use legacy Windows versions so I can make use of older hardware like wide format printers or scanners. I dont see Linux as an advantage.

[Skuzzy]

According to the linux supporters linux distros shouldn't make any difference in supporting software. I have been in the same kind of understanding about this as you Skuzzy. Could you give me some practical examples, I'd love to bash the fundamentalist supporters on a couple bulletin boards

I have already cursed the amount of distros myself when trying to find problem solutions and programs never seem to work the same between them.

Red Hat has one way of installing software, Ubuntu has another way, Slackware yet another and so on.
3D graphic support is spotty, at best.  Take the three I mentioned above.  Tell me how to detect any given set of input devices and what the capabilities are.  I can tell you, Slackware does not have ANY ability to do that.

I could go on and on.  The Linux developer community, at large, is really good at providing technical support for most hardware platforms, but generally are poor at providing simple end user type of functionality to get the hardware working.  What about audio support?  Where is the 3D API for audio?  I know most Linux distros have very limited support for a very limited set of sound cards.

What compiler is standard?  What dev tools are standard?  You want Windows programmers to work on Linux, then you have to provide GUI stuff to replace existing tools they use.  There has to be a comfort level with the OS before anyone will go there.

Linux is just too far away from being a practical alternative to Windows.  It keeps getting better, but it needs a lot more work.

I am not saying you cannot make a Linux distro work, but if it takes a user downloading gigabytes of tarballs in order to get it to work, then it is not a real solution.  This is one of the biggest stumbling blocks Linux faces.  Its own users are its own worst enemy.  They eschew the elegant in favor of the clumsy and defend it vigorously.

I like Linux.  I use it at home.  I am comfortable with the CLI and prefer it over the GUI.  I do not mind the clumsy methods of installing an application.  It is simple, to me.  However, what is simple to me is not simple for most users.  If you want Linux to be a mainstream OS, you have to make it easy to use AND consistent from distro to distro.

[Reschke]

From having been in the sales side of hardware years ago when Linux started out being the "next cool thing" and trying to learn how to work in it it was cool. But for me after I got out of that side of business I quit messing around with Linux and honestly I can't go back to it unless they dumb it down just a little bit but then the various Linux distro's wouldn't be cool enough to be good enough. They would be mainstream and that isn't going to work for the mentality that I still see when talking to my tech buddies who still run it and use it every day. One even went so far as to say at dinner with friends that when Linux started making easier for everyone to use it that he would find another obscure OS to use. I recommended he start using BeOS since they are even more of a niche market OS than Linux.