Sorry, fat-fingered the send. Continued below... On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 9:29 PM, Harry Penner <hpenner at gmail.com> wrote: > On Aug 25, 2010, at 21:03, Adam Morris <adam.morris at redstargaming.net> > wrote: > > > On Aug 25, 2010, at 7:07 PM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com<mbmiller%2Bl at gmail.com>> > wrote: > > > >> On Wed, 25 Aug 2010, Adam Morris wrote: > >> > >>> You obviously haven't been using Linux for long. I've seen more > elitism > >>> in the Unix and Linux communities than one would find in any of the Ivy > >>> League schools, and that includes the Professors... > >>> > >>> Annoying as he'll to those of us who would one day like to see the > >>> general public using Linux. > >> > >> It's a step in the right direction. First it's "elitist," then it > >> attracts users who want to be elite (or is it spelled "1337"?), then you > >> have enough of those people around so that the average guy/gal asks his > >> geeky friend, "how can I fix my Windows virally-incapacitated Windows > >> machine?" and the friend says, "I don't have a lot of time for that, but > I > >> can install Linux on it with loads of great free software and I'll help > >> you to keep it working." That's actually how my son first got Ubuntu on > >> his laptop. He has another dead Windows box at home (also loaded with > >> viruses -- why does that alwayss happen to teenage boys?) with a 64-bit > >> processor ready to run Ubuntu next time I get my hands on it. > >> > >> Mike > > > > That's a good point. Still, there are many (and I mean too many to > count) Linux users I've met over the past 11 years who would rather mock and > ridicule their friend who is running Windows than help them install Linux. > Those are the people I'm talking about. > > > > Using Linux does not make you better than anyone else. Some of the > brightest people I have met use Windows for the sole fact that it suits > their purposes. Having to learn a new OS would simply interfere with other > more productive uses of their intellect. At the end of the day, It comes > down to personal choice and needs. > > > > I also want to add, I've seen some pretty dumb twits using Linux over the > years... Most people possess the ability to learn something technical. What > separates an intellectual from an idiot is how that person uses that > knowledge. > > > > -Adam > > > I think it also has to do with age and occupation. I've seen "Linux > is only free if your time is worth nothing" in sigs and it's partly > true. Before ubuntu it seems to me it was mostly younger/student > types whose time really is worth close to nothing, or the curious > types (usually engineers, scientists, academics and the like) who > either were already Unix literate or saw it as something potentially > worth learning for their work. Older people with nothing to gain from > learning something new don't want anything to do with an OS that wants hours > of your time to learn how things really work under the hood. Ubuntu has > reduced the investment cost of using Linux to a large extent, but even my > wife (a former IT support manager) occasionally asks why we have to use > "this crazy thing" instead of Windows when a CUPS error or some other minor > problem occurs. > I think that until something like Ubuntu makes it as easy to use as Windows, Linux will continue to be the province of the 1337 and the motivated. Unfortunately it seems that the more accessible Linux becomes (judging by Ubuntu) the more it approaches Windows in terms of hardware requirements. (One of the reasons I got into Linux was to keep old machines useful.) It does seem like the best of both worlds, though: a system that's (reasonably) easily usable by a non-tech that can do crazy powerful things in the hands of someone who knows the basics of *nix. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20100825/0ba74d51/attachment-0001.htm