30 Aug
2008
30 Aug
'08
12:04 p.m.
On Saturday 30 August 2008 14:48, Tony Mori wrote:
Well, I have a machine out in the kitchen here that my other half, her son,
and my two oldest grandkids (both 18YO girls) use as a matter of course,
with little problems. If there's a question or an issue they can just ask,
which they do, once in a while, but they're pretty good at figuring things
out, too.
Ugh.
First off, you're a bit late, as that entire
conversation came and went
over a week ago, but that's OK, I'll go with it...
----- Original Message ----- >
<Devil's Advocate Mode>
Not _that_ much less, though.
Linux $0, *BSD $0, OpenOffice.org $0. And you
don't have to be a
student or teacher. It's the same price no matter what TLD your email
address is behind.
I would disagree with that - nothing is free. My time is worth something,
and unless you are volunteering up your free
time to support, it ain't free.
Second, I work for a multi-billion dollar company, and there is NO WAY on
this earth any minutely-responsible IT department is going to run ANYTHING
unsupported in a production environment, especially with SOX and other
requirements.
That being said.... Yearly support+maintenance for my RHEL server is $798
per server... My Microsoft yearly fees for support+maintenance on my Windows
servers is $710 per server in our True-Up agreement.
That is CORRECT - costs me less for Windows Infact, some
will even send you the install CD's for free incase you
can't afford the network bandwidth.
Note that this is 2008 and current Linux Distros are very very
friendly. Infact, it's a lot easier to install Linux than it is to
install Windows these days, and they do support most hardware out there
without futzing with drivers, and they'll work just fine with older
machines - no need to buy a new computer every time MSFT puts out a new
rehash of its malware.
There is NO WAY on this earth I am putting Linux on my wife's laptop, and
the kids machines. First off, Linux is awesome geekware, but it is NOT for
the masses - I'll throw the little NetBooks out there as examples.
Put the Asus EEE PC with Linux next to version with XP / Vista, and there
is NO comparison - it even LOOKS like a cartoony toy. Second, that would completely handicap my and my kids
abilities to play
online games because, well, there ARE NONE for Linux..
At least not anything good
There are a few things they've tried to do that don't work, yeah. Of
particular obnoxiousness is some site apparently made by Electronic Arts,
who I used to have a hard time with back in the c64 days. I'd call 'em:
"Hey, this system won't load _your_ software, what's the problem"
"The disk drive needs to be properly aligned."
"I just aligned the drive." (We did a lot of those...)
"The disk drive needs to be properly aligned..."
and it never got any further.
Nope, it won't load and run *.exe files, for sure. Which I see as a good
thing.
There's
really no excuse to use that nasty Redmond trash anymore.
Well, if you want to interoperate in the REAL business world there is...
If you want REAL support, there is.. don't even TRY telling me that my wife
should go on forums / UseNet for support - get REAL!
If you want to be able to game online, there is..
If a simpleton needs to take their linux laptop/desktop for fixing, there
is (Circuit City / Best Buy / Tiger / CompUSA / Etc..) Maybe in a mom-and-pop shop, but any serious IT
organization is NOT going
to run free stuff without some (outside the company) support.
If they are, someone needs to get fired. That is NOT fiscally responsible
and is, in itself, a SOX gap.
Now, please don't get me wrong - I love linux / FreeBSD and the like...
I started with 386BSD 0.1 back in 1994, and Linux back then as well, when
it was just a boot+root floppy.
I have my share of Linux servers in the office, and the have 60GB+ Oracle
databases on them, and yes, they have RH support plans,
and I have a few Linux boxes at home, but, the answer to EVERYTHING, it is
not.
It is for me. :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin