While I see Earle's side in this, I must somewhat agree with Jonathan's stance on this. I think that one of the biggest hurdles people coming from the MS world to Linux is laziness. Let me explain.

When my father purchased his first x86 computer, (Windows 3.1 / MS-DOS 6.2) he knew nothing about computers and had to spend the time in a book to learn DOS and Windows and how they interact with each other. He had to spend the time to read and learn about how to install drivers, edit config.sys and autoexec.bat, and modify Windows to do the things that he wanted to do. Since then, he has only had to learn the fairly minor differences between Windows versions through the years to keep running his programs and doing the work he does on his machine. If you think about it, everyone had to learn basic computer fundamentals when they started no matter what version of Windows that was. We all had to learn the Operating System stuff.

For many people, it's been years since they had to learn an Operating System. They learn the differences in new Windows versions, but most of what people know about the previous version can be applied to the new version. When people decide to try Linux, they are saying that they want to learn a new Operating System, yet most people don't think about it this way. They try to apply what they know about MS operating systems into Linux and simply fail out of frustration because of it.

Those that DO understand that they are learning a new operating system, and spend the time to read and ask questions to learn it, are wanted in the Linux community. Those people that don't understand that they are learning an new operating system, and don't seem to want to learn it, they just want it "to work" are the very people that I think Jonathan is talking about. From what I've read, Earle, you are not one of those people. You have spent enough time to learn the things you needed to learn to get Linux to work or you, and a host of others as well. I applaud your effort and am happy to have you in the "Linux Community."

On another note, it seems that Earle is as much a Linux Advocate as I would guess the rest of us are being that he has turned quite a few people on to Linux, with good results. Earle, don't get to pissed at Linux people that gripe a little about those on the MS side. It's easy to get frustrated at the MS camp because of their general lack of understanding of what they are actually participating in, even though they don't know it.

Just my 2 cents guys, please don't flame me too bad. ;-)

On 5/7/07, Jonathan Hutchins <hutchins@tarcanfel.org > wrote:

On Monday 07 May 2007 05:58:26 pm Earle Beason wrote:

> Quite frankly I don't understand Linux, I don't know how to code , I
> don't know all the in and outs, however I am learning it as I go.

I guess I've been very unclear about this.  No, you're not a "luser".  You're
willing to learn.  (In fact, I suspect that learning may be one of the
reasons you're into Linux.)

The people I mean to express scorn for are the people who come into support
channels on IRC and say things like "Don't tell me to use the console, I
don't want anything to do with text mode".

I meant to point out a certain stage of learning and development common to the
average SuSE user in that they still rely on Windows.  I, myself, was at that
stage for about six years while I ran Linux professionally on text-only
servers, and I'm still a bit of a newb when it comes to some of the GUI
stuff.

People who are willing to learn a little, and who want their computer to do
what _they_ want to do, not what what some corporate shill thinks they should
want to do are the people who should run Linux.

There will always be people who shouldn't run Linux though.  Some of them try
because it's a free way to pirate and run Windows games.  They have no
interest in how the system works or what it's doing, they just want to click
and go.

I don't consider Windows users undesirables.  I don't hate people because they
use Windows.  There are some users who I really think shouldn't user Linux
because they really aren't willing to learn anything new, and those people
should use Windows.
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