Would have made my first six months with openSUSE after years of windows tinkering a lot easier on me. While a little dated chronologically it still covers the topic well I think. My expectations and assumptions coupled with my self acclaimed semi-advanced (from 3.1 through xp) windows skills made me my own worst enemy. I have NOT to date installed, nor have I had the misfortune of dealing with a Vista Box and W7 just seems like a distant drifting and unlikely possibility to me now.
If you really want the security and performance of a Unix-based OS but with a customer-focussed attitude and an world-renowned interface: Buy an Apple Mac. OS X is great. But don’t get Linux: It will not do what you want it to do.
Its a good soap box topic and I think we all have our own experiences here …
Some of us (like myself) had the fortune of using VMS or Unix, even BEFORE we used MS-Windows based PCs, so while the move to both MS-Windows and also to Linux operating systems was still undeniably difficult at times, it was not so painful.
I still recall my dealing with Apple DOS (on an Apple-II+/IIe) and IBM-DOS and Microsft CP/M (on early 8086 based PC) back in the 1980’s and then later in 1990 and 1991 with Windows-3.0, 3.1 … and while there was pain with Apple/Microsoft DOS, the excitement of having a PC in my home, as opposed to only dealing with mainframes was a strong incentive to ignore the pain. I could not afford a mainfame at home. The MS-Windows-3.0/3.1 pain was lessoned by having had to play with some early MacIntosh’s in the office. The fun of learning and doing something that was not possible previously at home helped me put up with the pain of learning.
Moving to Linux in 1998 was an equal adventure for me, because the capabilities of Linux with its terminal based tools that could run in parallel with an X window environment was something that I always believed was sorely lacking in both Apple and Microsoft home PC desktop environments at the time. That view/belief of mine coupled with a basic user knoweldge of VMS and Unix made the Linux learning curve more of a fun experience, than a painful one. I actually liked the terminal (and still do).
Roll forward 10 years until today, and users today have a different perspective.
They believe all their previous computer knowledge should be transferable and applicable to a new computer operating system, and when it is not, the fault in their view is not in their attitude, but rather the fault is in the computer operating system developers for not designing a system where they can transfer their knowledge seemlessly.
Things are evolving as computers become more powerful, and as software and operating systems can do more and more, and there may come a day when one can seemlessly move from one operating system to another, but its not this day. I venture as computers become more interactive (with voice recognition and robotics and even more networking and virtual environments being introduced) that there will still be significant differences in operating systems for another 1/2 century or more. ie the capability to seemless move from one operating system to another operating system will happen only long after I’ve passed away.
A different perspective true!! but not so different as some would think.
I too came up through the ranks of mainframes (PDP1170), dumb remote serial terminals, apple 11/11e/11c, pet2000, dgs-z80, PC … and if there is one thing I’ve learned the basic flow and concepts have not really changed; learn the the underlying concepts and past skills are a valuable tool.
Things are evolving as computers become more powerful, and as software and operating systems can do more and more, and there may come a day when one can seemlessly move from one operating system to another, but its not this day. I venture as computers become more interactive (with voice recognition and robotics and even more networking and virtual environments being introduced) that there will still be significant differences in operating systems for another 1/2 century or more. ie the capability to seemless move from one operating system to another operating system will happen only long after I’ve passed away.
You are probably right here simply because of resource bumps in the road. The technology sector claimed by moving away from parallel, serial, modem-pools, and buss based cards to the far superior USB with it’s multi-connection structure we could avoid the expense of SCSI devices and all would be well. If we take them at their word, all USB compliant devices would be capable of faster easier data transfer, easier device drivers to write and maintain, and universal compatibility for all OS’s.
USB compliant devices are in most cases faster, but developers of USB devices have all but derailed easy device drivers and universal compatibility by claiming proprietary rights to how their devices work. At least with the old technology, each device had a document stating how you could control the device outside the scope of some proprietary application. I knew if the device could use epson control codes or ibm483 ones and switch between them by a specific esc sequence, I could run the device from any computer home/hobby/dumb-terminal/mainframe/pc …
The hardware issue is becoming so pronounced that devices which did work with windows sometimes with a patch, now suddenly don’t work. Take my epson printer for printing on cd/dvd’s. It worked under Win2K, WinXP from the install CD, Windows Vista required a patch (which epson no longer provides). Windows 7 will never be able to use the CDprint function, Using Gimp under Linux it is now possible to use a transparency template and manual print control to support all functions. Point is computer users everywhere are being negatively affected by USB and other device like Video-card secrecy.
The MS-Windows-3.0/3.1 pain was lessoned by having had to play with some early MacIntosh’s in the office. The fun of learning and doing something that was not possible previously at home helped me put up with the pain of learning.