A little
excerpt from here:-
In
the end, it looks like what the majority of software consumers really
want is recognizable brand names that are heavily promoted on TV, in
prestigious magazines, by major retailers, and -- possibly most
important -- come pre-installed on name-brand computers.
What bullshit!
Whoever wrote this crap must have
either been drunk or had smoked something not quite legal shortly
before.
I installed Red Hat 9 (the version
Mimos was dishing out on CDs some months back) on my AMD K6-2 500 over
the weekend and I found some interesting problems.
1. Version 9 does not recognise
my Sound Blaster Vibra 16 integrated sound card when version 7.2 does
2. I can set up the printer drive
for my Panasonic KX-P1121 dot matrix printer which is in Epson
emulation mode and during the test print it started throwing paper and
any other software like Open Office can't print and just feeds paper.
3. It does not recognise my
ArtNet USB modem.
So in as much as I'd love to use my
Linux machine to go on the Internet I however can't, so it's like a car
without wheels.
As an end-user, what I want is an
operating system which works with my PC and equipment and Red Hat 9
does not satisfy that need.
However, Windows 95, 98 and XP work
fine with all the above peripherals, letting me get down to work,
rather than crack my head for hours trying to solving the problem.
Now if my bank or mobile telephone
company gave me so much trouble, I'd switch to one which served me well
so can anyone expect end users to tolerate the deficiencies of Linux
when there are functionally better alternatives.
The last reason I'd use any
software for is image or bragging rights.
BTW. I wear jeans from Kamdar --
mainly because they have my size when I've outgrown Lee and Levis.
Nothing to brag about though but very practical.
Charles
> Here are 2 articles that asks
the question above.
> The first is a discussion about:
>
> How can free software compete with commercial
> developers?
>