IP: Requested -- ANONYMOUS POST -- Linux competes with Windows 98 -- not

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>
>From:
>http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/crg733.htm
>
>
>OPINION
>
>
>Linux: Windows competitor ... NOT!
>
>Wanna learn Linux? How much time do you have?
>
>By Will Rodger, USATODAY.com
>
>Microsoft Group Vice President Paul Maritz seemed a
>worried man when he took the stand in the Microsoft
>trial last winter.
>
>A specter, he said with dread, was haunting Microsoft.
>
>Promoters of free software -- Open Source
>revolutionaries -- were massing beneath the black and
>white banner of Linux.
>
>At the head of the mob was a bespectacled Finn named
>Linus Torvalds. He, along with fellow revolutionaries
>Eric Raymond, Larry Wall and Paul Vixie were exhorting
>the masses to churn out free software
>
>"It seems trite to say it, but it's almost as though the
>village blacksmiths of the world can now build axles in
>their back yard and assemble them together and compete
>with General Motors," Maritz said then. "And that's
>literally what is going on. We have ? proof through the
>Linux operating system."
>
>Microsoft spent much of that trial trying to show that
>Linux, like the hand-held Palm organizer and the fringe
>Be operating system, is a "competitor" to Windows 98.
>Microsoft needed to show that to avoid being labeled a
>monopoly. But the strategy failed, and Microsoft now
>seems all but certain to lose its case before Judge
>Thomas Penfield Jackson.
>
>The Redmondians lost their argument because Linux, in
>fact, is remarkably difficult to use. I should know --
>after several weekends of experimentation at home, I?ve
>determined I?ll need to sit down and study hard to
>achieve even minimal competence with the operating
>system.
>
>Small wonder Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson dismissed
>Microsoft?s assertions that Linux and Windows 98 compete
>for the same customers.
>
>"The target is people who are very sophisticated with
>computers," says Tim Scanlon, a Northern Virginia
>computer consultant who has spent the last 15 years of
>his life working on Unix computer systems. "By
>definition this is someone who is not (an average) user."
>
>My own experience has uncovered a host of problems that
>Microsoft and Apple licked years ago. Since I added
>Linux to a computer at home, I find I can?t make my
>cable modem work because the device that connects it to
>my PC won?t work with Linux. I can?t make my standard-
>issue laser printer work because -- contrary to the
>assertions of the point-and-click interface in the
>configuration settings -- Linux does not know it is
>there.
>
>I have the same problems with my PC?s sound, since
>the "sndconfig" program designed to handle that part of
>the computer isn't working either. It's so not working,
>in fact, it doesn't even have the good graces to give me
>an error message when I try to start it up.
>
>This, by the way, is a fairly common trait of Linux
>software. Sophisticated programmers, after all, don't
>want to spend time on things like warning messages when
>there are so many more urgent matters to address.
>
>Scanlon tells me my problems are pretty minor for
>someone who knows what he's doing. A new circuit card to
>hook up to my modem plus a few changes to some internal
>configuration files should set things straight.
>
>But even simple tasks like those are far beyond the
>Linux neophyte.
>
>To get my printer to work, I must first learn a powerful
>yet hard to use word processor called the vi text
>editor. Vi (pronounced vee-eye) is all command lines --
>no menus, no point-and-click, just glowing letters on a
>blank screen. Once I?ve figured out how to use that,
>I?ll be able to write the short string of code the
>printer needs to talk to the PC.
>
>The documentation that came with the operating system
>does give me a few tips on using text editors, but not
>nearly enough to do what I need. For that, the manual
>told me, I need other books that go into greater detail.
>
>Running Linux from publisher O?Reilly & Associates tells
>me a bit more about how to use text editors, but still
>not enough to make me feel comfortable with the job. And
>a third book, Teach yourself Linux in 24 hours, offered
>a few more pointers, but only enough to make me
>minimally competent.
>
>None of this looks like anything I ever had to do with
>Windows.
>
>As difficult as the printer problem has been, I expect
>hooking up that cable modem will go more smoothly.
>
>When it does, I?ll be sure to write about it on my new
>copy of StarOffice for Linux. Of course, I need to
>install that, too. The accompanying documentation tells
>me I should install the software just as I would any
>other new package, but doesn?t offer any specifics I can
>understand without a bit more research.
>
>Of course, I?m still not worried.
>
>I mean, how hard can it be?