Re: Linux on the desktop - it's come a long way, but is it there yet?

["Rich Braun" <user=44@nabble.blu.org>]

 Matt Shields wrote: 
> You should read the article about some private school in this month's Linux 
> Journal.  They converted to linux 99.9% 5 years ago. 

OK OK I give up trying to bring up a point on this list.  This point is 
interesting but completely besides the point that I was trying to make. 

A private school converting to Linux simply isn't likely to run into the 
problems that I raised:  getting a two-monitor setup configured with rotation, 
getting sound to work, and whatever else comes up every single time I've 
switched to a new Linux distro. 

I'm typing this on the new system (complete with Firefox 3.0 out of the box) 
with both monitors set up.  The portrait-mode one has a sluggish performance 
but it otherwise looks fine, just as long as I don't go into certain of the 
*THREE* or maybe even four different display-related system management menus 
buried in different places. 

My point is this:  display setup is controlled from exactly one menu in 
Windows (accessible two different ways, control panel or right-click anywhere 
in the background), and it's been fully debugged to the point that a neophyte 
can accomplish any setting without having to resort to googling for parameters 
that have to be entered into a kernel boot prompt or somewhere equally 
obscure.  Criticize M$oft (or Apple for that matter) all you want--but they 
have a QA department responsible for eliminating the .0001% rate of customer 
complaints related to things like buggy display drivers in dual-head rotated 
mode for blind people living in Latin America needing to run a 10 year-old 
version of Quickbooks with whatever other oddball requirements they might 
have.  When  you have a billion customers, that small percentage adds up to a 
lot of customer-support work if the code ain't right. 

Linux has a huge number of users too:  why do we have to live with this kind 
of stuff?  Googling error messages for two weeks every time we upgrade? 

Item #5: 

5) 
If I activate certain of the screen-"savers", the motherboard eats 30 watts 
(!) of additional electricity in order to perform the 3D calculations.  (Maybe 
they need an Energy Un-star icon next to these selections. ;-) 

-rich 


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