OT: Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption

[Ken Nordquist]

Mike McCarty wrote:

> Well said. Just another "I hate MicroSoft and am envious of
> their success." story. Somehow, in these days, being successful
> has become eeeevil. I think it may have to do with the idea
> that there is a limited amount of wealth in the world, and
> when someone amasses wealth, then someone else is losing
> wealth. I know that I have encountered that sort of belief
> in strong union supporters who believe that there are a
> limited number of jobs around, and we have to spread them
> out over the people who exist.

That's a bunch of crap.  I tried Windows when it was v2.0 and crashed so 
often DOS apps were more attractive.  I LOVED 3.1 and 3.11 and even 
liked WIN95.  I started using Excel and Word well before they became 
office suite giants (and loved them).  I do not begrudge Gates, et al. 
one cent...  in fact, I applaud their initiative, drive, and 
success(es).  That success is the epitome of the American Dream.

I became disillusioned with Microsoft when they started bullying 
companies, created the registry fiasco, rushed incomplete (and inferior) 
products to market, and has produced an operating system so insecure it 
spawned an industry of virus / adware / spyware software companies.  I 
have worked (as a profession) on every Windows OS since 3.11 through 
XP.  I am underwhelmed.

I too cut my teeth on RH v6.0.  I must have installed it two dozen times 
before I got the hang of it...  which coincides with my experiences with 
WIN 2.0 - with the notable exception that Linux did not crash unless I 
"experimented" and crashed it.  It did not fail on its own, it failed 
because I did not know how to use it.  And I had similar experiences 
with Windows...  tweaking DOS, etc...

After the Code Red debacle, I made a conscious choice to leave Windows 
behind...  I was M$ free until late last year when I had to use Windows 
for school.  Much to my chagrin, I had to install XP Pro to complete 
course work.

The XP Pro install took over three hours from start to finish where (on 
the same machine) a typical Fedora installation took me just about an 
hour.  The third party apps I had to install to complete my course work 
did not work as advertised (which was the norm), were slow to start, and 
would lock up or crash randomly.  On the other hand, on the same machine 
(pre-M$), I had a Fedora 2 system up for 130+ days without rebooting (I 
did not update the kernel) and used it for web development (Jedit,  
Apache / MySQL / PHP), school (OpenOffice), email (Evolution), and web 
browsing (Firefox).  The window appearance was comparable with the XP 
Pro install.

Lastly, I recently purchased an HP Pavillion notebook with the AMD 
Turion 64 chip which came with XP Media (32 bit).  It came with two 100 
G hard drives so I used one drive for XP and installed Fedora 4 (64 
bit).  The two issues that I had to resolve with Fedora was getting the 
wireless to work (which was made more difficult by the manufacturer 
telling me the wrong chipset for the computer) and the ATI video driver. 
Since resolving those two issues, I boot Fedora with no problems and no 
crashes / lockups / other mishaps.

It is important to note that the ONLY reason I kept XP was that I 
recently became addicted to a game called "Call of Duty" and since 
Windows is the only OS it will run on, I decided to keep it.

When I boot into XP, a good 20% (one out of five) of the time, I watch a 
black screen for about two minutes until the HP splash screen appears.  
During these times, XP takes about twice as long as Fedora to boot up 
(measured to the log in screen).  Chances are about even that I will get 
a pop-up message that the HP wireless helper will not work (even though 
it seems it is working).  Also, if I push any of the keys which control 
the sound output (mute, volume control) on the keyboard, XP takes 
significantly longer to boot and then will not work as advertised.  With 
my XP, I was lucky enough to have a plethora of marketing / adware 
installed (which I never asked for) to suck money out of my wallet which 
instead uses system resources that I prefer to use elsewhere.  When I 
delete the shortcut, I am told that I have to uninstall the program...  
yet, when I go to uninstall these programs, they (mysteriously) are not 
there.  Plus, because Windows is so vulnerable, I have to have 
anti-virus / anti-spyware/adware software installed which also uses 
system resources I prefer to use for other things.

Bottom line is:  I do not use Windows (except for gaming) because it is 
an inferior Operating System.  It is buggy, prone to unexplained 
crashes, vulnerable, and Microsoft has become a monolith which is poorly 
suited to react to the multitude of deficiencies and vulnerabilitities 
of its products.

I use Linux because it is a vastly superior operating system, not 
because I am anti-Bill Gates.  I use OpenOffice because it does what M$ 
office does without the price tag.  I prefer the *nix method of putting 
together small tools which can be used together for a big job as opposed 
to a "one-size-fits-all" application designed by someone whose primary 
goal is to profit from selling me something, not solving my problems.

So...  stop the boo-hoo'ing about people being anti-success...  we are 
not anti-success, we are anti-shoddy products...  which is what M$ 
Windows is.

Regards,

Ken Nordquist