RH recommends using Windows?

[Noah Silva [Mailing list]]

> >
> Only reason why I have a Windows XP computer at home is, 1) Games.

I never understood the Games angle (I mean I play sometimes with
whatever's installed, but I don't ever HAVE to have Game X)... but if it's
important that much for a desktop distro... why not incorporate WineX?
It's cheap, at least the likes of Suse could easily include it, if their
CDs cost $$ anyway.  (And mandrake caters specifically to home users...).

> Multimedia formats?  DVDs, DivX, and various other formats play just
> fine under linux.   While he has his opinion, I can have an opinion he

Amusingly this isn't just true, they play BETTER in linux.  I can play
almost any movie with mplayer.  I installed one player, and can play 99%
of movies.  Almost all windows users end up installing Quicktime, Windows
Media Player, and Real Player.  And mplayer plays them very very nicely.
The only movies I ran across so far that I couldn't play were some fairly
new RealVideo movies, which I was able to play with Helix Player
(from real, for linux..).

> is quiet wrong.  After losing my precious email for the 10th time,
> services (ssh, apache, telnet, ftp) you can have a more secure computer
> for home usage than the average home windows computer.

Not only this.. kids install games and screensavers and "barbie's
playhouse".  Even home users who use their computers more for actual
productivity will in many cases be better off with linux.

In reference to the 90 year old grandpa example that was given:  probably
he wants to use WWW, email, word processing, and ... that's most of what a
lot of home users do.

I bought my aunt a PC, and loaded windows on it, thinking it would be
needed.  so far, it is used for:
a.) Web browsing with Mozilla
b.) _ocasionally_ word processing with staroffice.
c.) Web mail. (see A)
d.) Sometimes AIM (with AOL's client).
e.) Printing web pages, word processing documents...

She hasn't installed any software on it, and I don't think she's wanted
to.  It could just as well be linux, and it would be easier for me to fix
then if there were problems (ssh...).

On the opposite side of tis very non-demanding user is the very demanding
very technical user (like me), who often use linux or something more
exotic.  Only the middle segment really needs windows, and I have seen
some of them convert.  (especially after telling them "oh you won't like
it, it's too hard...", some people like challenge he he)

 -- noah silva