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paul sutton wrote: | | Windows users just expect things to work.
No most users just expect things to work, and it is entirely reasonable expectation if you buy a new PC with an OS installed.
Think how bitterly disappointed the average Windows users must be when shortly after they take it home it stops working.
| We need to look at this from a beginner point of view, it goes back to | is Linux ready for the desktop, there is no full answer to this
Yes there is - yes it is suited for most desktops now. Sure there will always be applications that don't run under GNU/Linux, just like I couldn't find a decent free Kriegspiel program for MS Windows, you pays your money and takes your choice.
All the customer need ask is are there enough applications for my needs. For me the answer has been clearly yes, and for many years now. In most cases most of the applications will be preinstalled, with most of the rest available through a quick and easy download.
| However for home users, who want to play all the new games that are | out, the situation is different, and they won't want to bother with | reading manuals, compiling software etc.
Face it is you want to play (action) games, a dedicated hardware device is generally better.
There are big name professional games being released for GNU/Linux now (literally this month for some of them), but I wouldn't buy a GNU/Linux box if gaming was a big thing I wanted to do with it.
But the hardcore PC gamers will probably stay with Windows, if this is your friends target market forget it. Windows may suck, DirectX is pretty good.
| what people fail to mention is the extra work that goes into | getting it too work, (e.g dvd drivers, nvidia, drivers etc), not much | for us, but for some will not be good enough.
Your friend is selling them the hardware, so he should ensure all the hardware has suitable drivers so it just works. Why would you then fiddle with the DVD drivers, or Nvidia drivers if it just works?
This is precisely why I mentioned my work with UserLinux. We are looking at creating IHV who will produce UserLinux ready PCs. We will be talking with local clone PC builders to see if we can come up with agreed design basics, and possibly also minimum specifications.
UserLinux plan eventually full hardware certification schemes, but that would be way over the top for small businesses.
| so I really could do with some help on marketing and as I said hes | better off chatting to people from the Lug, who can argue points far | better than me.
We are creating marketing material as well.... But please pass him my details.
| One thing even as I type this Mozilla mail is acting weird and the mouse | won't highlight and goes sluggish sometimes, this is even with 512 mb | of memory, (windows version works better), thats what we are up | against, I am used to quirks and work round them.
Nope that is just your box - I use Mozilla mail rather a lot - I saw this behaviour with an old version but it was rare - currently 1.7.5-3 Mozilla Debian package under GNOME - seen nothing like this.
Heck some versions of Outlook go AWOL when they get more than 16384 <sic> emails in one folder, don't believe the Windows world is "perfect".
| But he will not see | it that way as he is used to running Windows and knows what he is doing.
As always whatever the advantages of one software package over another, if you know how to drive one far better than the other you'll get better results. This is part of why die-hard Windows admins don't convert in flocks - because they can drive Windows. It might drive like a tank, but they know not to run over walls, and to turn before the gun barrel destroys something. Put the same driver is a Porsche and he'll crash and burn - probably very quickly.
I'm concerned the motivation so far espoused is cost, other vendors I've spoken to are fed up cleaning up spyware, and viruses. But I guess it all depends how aggressively you charge for that sort of service, and how quickly you get bored doing the same thing.
He'll probably want someone who knows what they are doing to teach, and support them in the early days if he does go ahead. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: Using GnuPG with Debian - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
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