Swimming in the Pensieve

An article was posted on the Mepis forums (link); a reply to which I have reproduced below.

The reply falls into the category of background static, with respect to the thread of conversation.

Now, I have my own advocacy practices which, I believe, work well; and, considering the fact that I have absolutely no interest in the mortgage industry, I really have nothing substantive to add to the thread itself, except dealing with the following “flyer” posting. Doing so within the thread of origin, would be disruptive, so I’ll amuse myself with addressing it here–in this little Internet cul-de-sac, roughly equivalent to a backyard patio. We’re just chatting a bit, here.

OK…I have no idea what’s up with the question marks in that posting, but I’ll just ignore them altogether.

Are you sure?

If you’re starting a company, it’s a sure bet that you have little-to-no experience with the kinds of issues you’re going to run into with a bunch of users on a network. It’s enough of a hassle with normal users, in a *nix environment; however, adding windoze clients/users to the mix is going to make you hate the day you decided to consider windoze as a viable client platform.

How long have you been using computers and how much experience do you have in securing an infrastructure? Do you even have any long-term experience in using Linux, or have you just seen it and think it’s too hard to deal with?

Bull Pucky! windoze is one of the most ridiculously expensive and restrictive (client AND server) Operating Systems out there. You DO NOT get it free with a computer purchase. You pay on the order of $100.00 to $399.00 more for the computer that it comes loaded on–for a restricted OEM version, which is locked to the machine that it came installed on.

False. It does, admittedly, crash less often than its predecessors; but it is, undeniably, too unstable to use for what some might consider “crucial data”–and that means many things to many people and organizations. If “I’d rather not lose that.”, it’s certainly not going to be handled or processed in anyway by any version of windoze.

Provided you have the driver CD, of course. I deal with plenty of orphaned hardware that windoze simply cannot handle without additional support; however, I see such hardware as being trivial to install and use with Linux.

If you mean, “use it ignorantly”, you’re right. Anybody can use your windoze–including some kid in Romania or Canada. They don’t even need your permission, and I doubt that you’ll ever be aware that somebody is using your machine without your knowledge or permission.

TCO, for windoze, is approximately 2 to 8 times more expensive than it is for Linux.

windoze is a constant nightmare to support and maintain.

Probably because you actually have to lay-out money to get it.

I agree. So is windoze xp. Both are of abysmally-low quality, to boot.

OpenOffice.org and StarOffice are both quite a bit better than mso, if you don’t mind my saying so. ODF is also a consideration, and mso can’t do ODF natively.

You’re setting yourself up for some serious problems.

Something for nothing, I’d wager. Certainly not a F/L-OSS attitude. That’s an attitude peculiar to the win-user community.

I believe so, too.

Is this what we’re really talking about…the luxury to forego thinking? Probably not. I’d wager that you actually mean that Firefox and Thunderbird are of such high-quality that it isn’t even arguable.

Provided you don’t need CMYK colorspace and proprietary pre-print controls. Personally speaking, I do have Photoshop installed on Linux, and it works just fine; however, I use the GIMP because it is a far better fit for the way I do things. I go back to Photoshop, once in a while, just to remind myself just how good the GIMP really is. I now find PS more difficult (counterintuitive) to use, making very little sense in the overall UI structure. It is very inefficient with my time.

The GIMP programmers, obviously, had a great deal of respect for my time, invested in using the program.

Uh-huh. You haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. OSS programs are far better than that to which you have thus far alluded.

It would be far better to learn how to use Linux and take advantage of those applications within the kind of secure, stable, multitasking, multiuser environment that windoze will never be.

What, exactly, do you need in a Free Application that outlook provides for cost?

Overall, I get the impression that you’re merely looking to start a business on a shoestring budget; don’t want to learn anything at all; and want to “get everything for nothing.”

You’re seriously fooling yourself.