Ubuntu usability test

[Nils Kassube]

Liam Proven wrote:
> 2008/12/27 Brian Fahrlander <wheeldweller at gmail.com>:
> > Ari Torhamo wrote:
> >> Have you used a thumb drive on their stuff, then used it on ours?
> >> Big difference!
> >>
> >> I haven't used a thumb drive on Windows, but indeed they work very
> >> well on Ubuntu.
> >
> >   Try it sometime.  Some versions (XP Home, I believe) act like
> > you've just inserted some kind of alien probe; no less than six
> > messages, all of which the user can do little about, "Unconfigured
> > Device Discovered" and "New drive attached" and so on. The thing is,
> > the client KNOWS it's new, wants to see it, and expects no
> > configuration to be required. Under Linux it's install-n-use.  XP Pro
> > seems less spastic about it.
>
> Er, no. XP Home is just XP Pro with a bunch of features disabled
> (local policy editor, admin account, multiprocessor support, domain
> connectivity, stuff like that.) They are the same product; XP Pro just
> has more features turned on.
>
> There is no difference in their device handling.
>
> Now, I could credit there might be differences in device handling
> between different service pack releases, but not between Home and Pro.
> In which case, all you're doing is propagating FUD, and that is never
> helpful, so I suggest you don't.

How is that FUD? FUD would be intentionally misleading but Brians 
statement doesn't look too wrong and the possible error doesn't seem to 
be intentional. He didn't say that XP Home and XP Pro are fundamentally 
different products. And XP Pro does exactly what Brian described: several 
useless messages if I connect a previously unknown device like a USB 
disk. So he even thought that XP Pro was better than it actually is - I 
wouldn't call that FUD.


Nils