How Linux Users Should React in a Windows World

This is supposed to be an advantage of being "multi-lingual" in OS space. Yeah. If you want a glass of water, open the floodgates - you'll get much more drinking"opportunity" this way!

Hehe. This is exactly why I always clain *not* to know Windows. So I can avoid repairing everyone's broken boxes.

It's not an outright lie though. I haven't seriously used Windows since Win98. But although WinXP and Vista are different from Win98 I can still find my way around them pretty well, and I still know a lot more about Windows than the average office drone.

The usualy way if fixing Windows problems still is "Reboot. Not fixed? uninstall and reinstall application. Not fixed? Uninstall and reinstall Windows." This hasn't changed since Windows 1.21 (I still have that one on two 5.25" floppies).

If you find a solution and become attached to it, the solution may become your next problem.

Quoting:The usualy way if fixing Windows problems

You missed something, Windows has support these days! That means, whenever there is something that is broke, there is always some 'free/shareware tool' to fix it. Like Regcleaner, Windows Washer, Anti Spybot SD and so on. You download the demo-version which installs extra crap you don't need, and in no time half of your OS is full of software to manage the other half. If the half that manages the other half needs to be fixed, there's normally some app that does just that. Until the 30 days are over, than there's a problem - but none which Astalavista.box.sk can't fix, though it does introduce new problems. So new apps are needed to move the crap Astalavista puts on your box. After that, run anti-Spyware, anti-virus, BSO-Deamon, probably some root-kit detector these days, remove everything from the software list you don't need, look at the task manager to identify tasks you don't know and search for them on the net; kill if necessary, and you should be save.

Oh, I miss using Windows! Just spending 70% of the time to keep it running for the other 30% of the time.

Here's the problem with fixing people's Windows boxes: They usually don't have anything backed up, and if you did manage to get their user files backed up, do you spend countless hours trying to figure out what's horribly f'd up, or do you just do a reinstall of Windows?

And the reinstall is complicated by the fact that everybody's running pirated software to which they don't have the discs, and they'll lose their beloved MS Office that they shadowed for free from some friend or other ... not to mention Photoshop and all the rest of the junk they got the same way.

Wow, the cynicism is thick enough to cut into quivering squares like some kind of repulsive, smelly Jello. Talk about seeing the glass half-empty. Well, ok, 95% empty. But that's still 5% filled!

Quoting:There's nothing I can do to change this, short of leaving town

So... What's keeping you?

Quoting:When my boss buys some additional software for say graphics processing, I download a FOSS application

Speaking of which, I've been teaching myself to use Blender over the last couple of days. What a fantastic application that is!

>>...hard core one eyed Windows user who believes that Linux is too hard to use...

Just the other day I had one of the users at my work say they couldn't use Linux because it's too hard.

Me: "Can you point and click?"

User: "Yeah, I can point and click."

Me: "Well there you go then."

He took a Mint live CD with him.

You folks totally misunderstand the role of Windows in US corporate desktop computing.

Windows is not there to make you productive.

Windows is there on every desktop to monitor you and proxy you and keep you from doing things that the corporation might get sued for you doing.

Windows is there on every desktop because the CIO's "cousin" got a trip to Redmond, and an his "cousin" got an envelope full of Franklins from the MSFT large account manager.

Windows is there on every desktop because a few important Directors had rounds of bikini golf in the Bahamas with some Hot 20-something sales staff. During a "conference".

Windows is an instrument of repression. Roll up your sleeves, raise the Black Flag, and begin slitting managerial throats. Well, metaphoricall speaking. Don't really do this, you'd end up in jail. But a "desktop metaphor" is just as good as a real desktop, right?

>Windows is an instrument of repression.

There's a point at which one gets to be a little too tightly wound.

If corporations were using Linux desktops in greater number, then Linux would be an instrument of repression. An instrument is at the mercy of the one who wields it.

Quoting:So... What's keeping you?

We moved here to get away from the city. My partner loves living in the bush, and so do I actually. We're saving to buy a 40 acre block of land, cos that's where we want to be. This job will pay for that. Once we have our land and and income from it secured, I'll leave.

> My partner loves living in the bush, and so do I actually.

I knew you had to have your good points Tracyanne. :)

> We're saving to buy a 40 acre block of land, cos that's where we want to be.

We have about 45 acres here. It's 4 miles outside of a small town of 2000 people, and 20+ miles from the nearest "city" of 30 thousand. The closest real city is Pittsburgh, which is about 120 miles away. If I have to put up with supporting Windows machines to get this, it's a small price to pay.

Quoting:I knew you had to have your good points Tracyanne. :)

But we won't tell everyone will we.

Quoting:If I have to put up with supporting Windows machines to get this, it's a small price to pay.

Agreed!!!

My plan is to move to Bieszczady some day :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bieszczady_Mountains

Quoting:then Linux would be an instrument of repression.

And it can be far more efficient at that than Windows. Yay, Linux! :)

>And it can be far more efficient at that than Windows. Yay, Linux! :)

I knew there was something I liked about you!

Pollyannas are boring.

Tracyanne -

No, not a small price, but offset by sufficient reward. Good for you.

dinotrac wrote: > If corporations were using Linux desktops in greater number, > then Linux would be an instrument of repression. An instrument > is at the mercy of the one who wields it.

Precisely so. Hence, my suggestion of doing nothing to disturb the all-Windows corporate order. Under Windows, you still have the excuses of "my machine rebooted", or "oops, Windows/Excel/Word/PowerPoint crashed". Under an all-Windows regime, you know that those perpetrating the repression have the handicap of not really knowing or understanding the system(s) they use, as well as being at the mercy of the baroqueness of Windows.

Don't get labeled as "not a team player". Follow whatever stupid processes required of you. I'm given to understand that this is known as "screwing up by the numbers" in some circles, and "work to rule" in others. Be the Werner Heisenberg in your Corporation!

You would use m$winders just for MONEY? You are joking of course.

> You would use m$winders just for MONEY?

No. I support Windows machines for money. I use Linux.

> You would use m$winders just for MONEY?

I've turned away microsoft work, because IMHO the extra bit of money I might earn working with a microsoft OS doesn't compensate for the stress and worry of being responsible for it.

If the nightmare scenario ever came to pass, in which I'd have to work with microsoft windows in order to remain employed in the IT world, I'd become a chiropractor, or perhaps a tour guide.

Quoting:Just sit right in front of them with your Linux box and work. It's only a matter of time before they ask you to show them what Linux looks like and if they can have a Live CD to test it out. Then bag 'em :-)

I Love It!!

A friend from my work just hosed his Vista installed laptop and after coming over to my place and seeing my laptop running Linux, I have all the desktop enhancements running and running it well. He asked for a live CD to check out..

Bagged!!

Quoting:I've turned away microsoft work, because IMHO the extra bit of money I might earn working with a microsoft OS doesn't compensate for the stress and worry of being responsible for it.

I tell prospective IT employers that I refuse to be responsible for keeping Windows up and running.

Quoting:Bagged!!

Score one for Scott! Seeing is believing. You can tell someone over and over again how much better Linux really is and they will ignore you (or tell you they like the sound of it but never switch anyway). For them, seeing you actually use the machine day in and day out without any problems drives the message home.

Quoting:I have all the desktop enhancements running and running it well.

I have them (or most of them) running on the Asus I bought in 2002, that I mention from time to time.

I have the OpenGL stuff that comes with PCLinuxOS running on it and I gotta tell you, its cool.

I can wiggle the windows and all kinds of stuff, "scotty likey cool looking effects"

I like to demo the Compriz/Fusion desktop on the Asus because it is simply incapable of running Windows Vista - at lease the expensive Edition that has the fancy graphics, and yet it obviously runs state of the art 3D desktop with a Linux OS installed on it. That gets people's attention.

Yeah, grab them by the eye-balls and their hearts and minds will follow!