Selling Linux to Windows Users

[Dotan Cohen]

2008/12/9 Mark Haney <mhaney at ercbroadband.org>:
> The 'there are no viruses in linux' talk is exactly what's going to give
> us trouble.  There ARE  viruses in linux.  The problem is a matter of
> popularity, the more widely used an OS (see the recent Mac problem with
> a posting about antivirus software) the more likely writers are going to
> target it.  The security structure of linux (and Mac) is such that
> viruses are more difficult to cause widespread damage, but they still /can/.

And for single-user systems, a user-account infection is no different
than a system-wide infection.

>> - Freedom. Of what? If I made the free choice to leave Windows on a
>> machine... I have just as wide a choice of apps to run on it. Where is
>> Linux giving me more freedom?
>
> I'm not sure where you're going with this.  But the point is, you are
> not beholden to one company for patches or timely security updates.
> That's a good thing if you ask me.  There are holes in Windows 7+years
> old that MS still hasn't patched (or just patched as in the SMB exploit).
>

Not true. If I use Fedora / Ubuntu / Distro of the month, then I rely
on that distro's support via their repos. That usually lasts no more
than three years, while XP has been supported for about eight years
now. NOT UPGRADING is important to some people.

You say that I can hire a third party to do third-party support for
Linux? Same for Windows. And there are 7+ year old security bugs open
in Linux distros, if not in the kernel itself.

> I do not forget about drivers.  This is the core of a decent system.
> Driver stability is paramount.  And the drivers in linux are much better
> than they used to be.  But then, even Windows drivers are crappy too.
> Part of that is due to the vendor not really opening the API completely.
>  It's not always the fault of the OS.
>

Drivers on both OS are crap. On windows they cause BSOD, and on Linux
they either don't exist or provide only basic functionality.

> Not always, with a .deb file or an RPM, you still have the option of
> using the package manager to manage it.  How many users now download the
> tarball and compile from source?  Not many.
>

If there is a .deb. Find me a .deb for real professional software like
Labview, Maple or Mathematica.

> Sorry, Kopete supports everything I could ever need in an IM client.
> Pidgin has become something of a laugher to me.  It's become so flaky.
>

For you. But some of us want video or audio with out text.

> I like OpenSolaris, but not enough to run it on my laptop.  Anything Sun
> does creeps me out.  Which is why I've begun migrating away from MySQL.
>  Sadly, because I've used MySQL for 10+ years.
>

Really? I like Java >= 1.5 and Javascript changed the web. I use
Virtualbox and OOo extensively. Sun hardware is what powers NASA. What
freaks you out about MySQL? I use it on every site I run.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il

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