"If I want to go from A to B with my car, I don't want to devote my time to first find out how my car is working."
That's a quote from a Windows user who expressed it adequately :Linux users first have to know how the car works, before it can get them from A to B.
In Windows it's easy : you get into the car, and drive to B. It's more intuitive to use.
I'd like to say that I prefer Linux over Windows, because it's been a couple of months that I try to get the hang of it - but I don't.
I used "Pardus", a very interesting "live cd" for Turkey (it will be used as THE national operating system : it merges open source, linux and windows, but you'll first have to set the language to English to be able to use it). I used every flavour of linux that worked flawlessly on my hardware : Suse linux 10, Novell Linux desktop 9, knoppix, Libranet 3.0 (bought it for 89 dollars, you can't say I didn't try), kanotix. And kanotix still is my favorite because of excellent hardware support. I installed it on my computer and my laptop (yes, there is a harddisk install script) dualbooting with windows , but I don't use it that often. Because for videocapping from tv, and for every other action I do with the computer, I have every possible program I need in Windows. To make Windows a little bit safer, my browsers are Firefox and Opera. And I use the mail client of Netscape.
It requires a different kind of thinking to use Linux. It is as if a right-handed person suddenly has to do everything with his left hand. Or it requires a different brain ; I think that Linux-users are more intelligent.
And you need a lot more time to find how everything works, that's why I quit using Linux Furthermore : hardware manufacturers almost exclusively deliver windows drivers.
When Lorenz talked about "imprinting" (remember the little goose that adopts Lorenz as its mother, because he is the first thing it sees), I guess this also applies to the human that is exposed to his first computer operating system ever : it just grows on him, or we get accustomed to it. I'm in my fifties, and had to learn everything by myself : I began by buying a second hand computer with windows installed, and I consulted the internet for everything I didn't know. Fortunately for me, about 90 percent of all computer users use Windows, so I quickly found answers to every possible question, because numerous people have the same problems, and decide to dedicate a website to it in the flavours superintelligent over normal to dumb. In the library there were numerous book about the use of windows.
Furthermore, almost every kid grows up with windows, and consequently learns to program within the windows environment. Which leaves us with tons of free programs of beginning programmers for every possible task we would like to execute. And this is a second pillar of the strength of Microsoft.
However, the several Linux distributions now try to convince the average user, and are trying to put systems together with the same ease of use of Windows. That's why Novell has taken on Suse linux : it gives Suse linux for free to the public, let the public solve all the difficulties, and will then integrate all the useful features into "novell linux desktop" (you can still get this excellent os for free, with a free update during 90 days - after that you'll have to use the paid option if you want further updates), which will be the client software for businesses that use the Novell server software. As I see it, the new Linuxes will have to be paid for, because a lot of effort will go towards the support of the hardware. And every distribution is working on easy package installation (e.g. :klik in kanotix live-cd, a bit like the exe in Windows, which contains all dependencies it needs)
About the imprinting : in Thailand the most succesful OS is Linux, as the government is
giving it all its support in the educational system, + Linux seems to be the system that best supports the Thai language.
So I guess that Microsoft won't be able to break that monopoly. Or they'll have to change
their pricing policy.
The only thing I deplore in Windows is that I'm not able to grant myself, being logged in as user - just for the period of the installation of a program the rights of a super-user (or administrator in Windows terms) as is possible in certain Linux-distributions. Because this is the safest option qua security.
As Windows easily gets corrupted by wrong installs (divx or xvid drivers, etc), I make back-ups frequently, and I have clones of my hard disk. So yes, windows isn't clearly the best system, but I have my workarounds for the worst situations. And I have my collection of 1001 utilities, functioning perfectly in Windows. At 50 it's too time-consuming to replace all this.
The proof that it is not that easy to migrate from Windows to Linux is offered by the city of Munich, where they have given themselves two years more to finish this collossal task, as every administrator as well as the computersavvy employees had their own hand-crafted scripts, and now have to port everything to Linux
I didn't intend to be advocate of the devil - only it turned out that way.
But I'm curious with every new Linux distribution to see the evolution.
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