HELP WINDOWS XP

[Mark Kirkwood]

Smoot Carl-Mitchell wrote:
> A couple of points on the discussion in this thread.
>
> The Ubuntu install process is very good and seems to improve with each
> iteration.  In many ways it is easier than installing Windows from
> scratch.  Windows has an advantage in the market because most users do
> not install the OS - it comes prepackaged from an OEM vendor.  A user
> who is intimidated by the installation process should probably buy a
> computer from an OEM vendor with GNU/Linux preinstalled.  The Ubuntu
> support page also seems to have a list of OEM vendors and support
> organizations:
>
> http://webapps.ubuntu.com/marketplace/northernamerica
>
> For Ubuntu and Linux to penetrate the mainstream market, it is important
> the support ecosystem be as strong as possible.  We cannot expect all
> new users to come to Linux via installing the OS themselves. Windows
> would have never achieved its market dominance without its channel
> partners and OEM relationships.  Of course once they became the dominant
> desktop OS, they illegally leveraged their monopoly to shutout other
> vendors offering alternative systems, but that is another story.
>
>   
I think these are the keys points.

It is easy to forget that few (if any) newbie users actually install 
windows.

You guys might find this little anecdotal story interesting. About 2 
years ago I installed a pc for my mother running Linux (Gentoo actually 
- might switch it to Ubuntu soon ... but thats another story). Now she 
could not do a Gentoo install herself! (it is a reasonably complex 
install!), but she has no trouble *using* the Gnome desktop, and likes 
Firefox and Thunderbird. She also is quite happy extracting off digital 
photos from a camera via gtkam (she probably does other stuff, but I 
can't recall right now).

In fact I think she adapted better than many more experienced computer 
users (she had used a Mac with OSX10.4 previously) - maybe Gnome is more 
similar to OSX/Aqua than it is to Windows... But critical to the success 
was the fact that she knew that if she encountered anything she did not 
understand - then she could call me (I wondered if I'd get deluged with 
calls, but I received very few in fact).

And the point of this little ramble? Just to confirm - ease of install 
is obviously important (in fact Ubuntu is very easy to install), but 
many folks will get someone *else* to install it for them regardless! 
And also, yeah quality of support is vital. I guess too that I'm 
thinking that "quality of support" need not, and perhaps should not mean 
the same as it does in the windows world. Things like this list, and 
good online docs may mean that in fact our support *is* already very 
good (being a recent Ubuntu user, I have not checked out the online docs 
very much, so not sure what they are like).

Of course like all open source os's, we are a little at the mercy of 
hardware vendors with respect to device support, and odd quirks (laptop 
suspend/resume being the most obvious manifestation of this). I think 
Ubuntu does pretty well here (I started using it as neither Freebsd nor 
Gentoo would resume properly on my Asus proj31) - but clearly there is 
still hardware that foxes it - this is an ongoing challenge, hopefully 
things should improve as vendors get more interested in supporting or 
contributing to the various open source os's (e.g. ATI's change of 
attitude after being bought by AMD - should see better Radeon support 
coming in the near future).

regards

Mark