2009/8/26 Dave <dave(a)staffslug.org.uk&gt;: Next time you're at the dentist, let him know about OpenMolar :) https://launchpad.net/openmolar Cheers, Al.

2009/8/26 Walter <walterj(a)btinternet.com&gt;: I think one of the other fairly critical things, is that when it comes to it average Joe wants his web browser and spreadsheet or movie player to just work, when you are sitting in an office environment, you dont want to have to spend most of your time tinkering in order to get something to work when there is already a fully functional system out there already, i.e windows. I've seen this as one of the major things behind the lack of Linux up-take. They thinks it's so much messing around before, during and after initial setup (which sometimes it is) that they find its a pain to use. -- Kris Douglas

Isn't the term 'Joe Average' rather than 'Average Joe'   best wishes 'woman stupid' (with degree)   jenette palmer --- On Wed, 26/8/09, stuart bell <sailing1(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: From: stuart bell <sailing1(a)gmail.com&gt; Subject: Re: [Staffslug] Linux Take-Up To: staffslug(a)staffslug.org.uk Date: Wednesday, 26 August, 2009, 12:13 PM 2009/8/26 Dave <dave(a)staffslug.org.uk&gt;: I think that most of the sheeple just feel safer in the crowd. _______________________________________________ Staffslug mailing list Staffslug(a)staffslug.org.uk http://lists.staffslug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/staffslug

There is also the issue of software support. Unfortunately, there's a slew of Windows-only software that people rely on that hasn't got a chance of running in Wine. Jon 2009/8/26 Dave <dave(a)staffslug.org.uk&gt;

Do you not think that one of the issues is that people assume because its "free" it's going to be crap?  I was really impressed and now I prefer using it to Windows.  Considering that people have put so much time into developing it unselfishly its pretty good! jenette palmer --- On Wed, 26/8/09, Gordon Burgess-Parker <gordon(a)gbpcomputing.co.uk&gt; wrote: From: Gordon Burgess-Parker <gordon(a)gbpcomputing.co.uk&gt; Subject: Re: [Staffslug] Linux Take-Up To: staffslug(a)staffslug.org.uk Date: Wednesday, 26 August, 2009, 1:24 PM I think that while those issues may be a factor, I don't think that's the major factor. IMHO the MAJOR factor is that no-one's HEARD of Linux. It starts when a new computer is purchased - have you tried to find a computer in ANY of the major retail outlets such as Curry's, Comet, PC World etc where Joe Public generally go to buy a computer, with anything other than Windows? There IS only Windows on offer. Yes there may be a boxed edition of Redhat on the shelf, but there are NO OEM Linux machines on display. (I have to say I bought my Toshiba NB100 with Ubuntu 8.04 Remix on it from Comet, but the salespeople weren't really clued up on Linux AT ALL...) Secondly the home computer market (as opposed to corporate) is geared towards gaming, Photoshop and ITunes. Many games will not run on Linux, AFAIK ITunes doesn't have a Linux version and while the Gimp is extremely good, it's not Photoshop! Many mobile phone pc packages don't have Linux equivalents, and while the next model Garmin Satnavs are apparently going to use Linux software, they have no intention at this moment of porting their web updater to Linux! Having said that - I think that if you presented a computer already set up with Linux to someone who has used Windows, they wouldn't find it at all difficult to use. I speak from experience, having introduced Linux at home on the fly as it were, and all people did was to just say "where's such and such"? -----Original Message----- From: staffslug-bounces(a)staffslug.org.uk [mailto:staffslug-bounces@staffslug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Dave Sent: 26 August 2009 10:07 AM To: staffslug(a)staffslug.org.uk Subject: [Staffslug] Linux Take-Up I was thinking the other day (and this morning as I sat in the dentist office), what do you think is stopping people moving to Linux (or any other distro that is not M$ based)? There were a few ideas that jumped around in mind head, and I was wondering what everyone else thought? My ideas were: - Fear of the unknown - Lived with M$ for all of their computer lives (leading back to above) - Learning curve? (I know that with newer/certain distros, it's getting very graphical, but there isn't any c:\ !) - Hardware issues What do you think? Dave _______________________________________________ Staffslug mailing list Staffslug(a)staffslug.org.uk http://lists.staffslug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/staffslug _______________________________________________ Staffslug mailing list Staffslug(a)staffslug.org.uk http://lists.staffslug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/staffslug

I would add: Most people stick with whatever was preinstalled on the machine they buy and as others have already mentioned, there are limited options to buy a PC with Linux preinstalled. A lot of people seem to think that "PC" means "a computer with Window on it". MS encourages this. Even Apple encourages this in its "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" ads. So to a lot of people, the idea of a PC without Windows seems odd. Maybe we need a new term for a computer with Linux on it? On the positive side, Linux adoption is increasing, and more people have heard of it, even if they don't (knowingly) use it. Personally, I think that the breakthrough for Linux in the home will come with either phones or some sort of "web appliance", where people are not thinking of it as a PC and don't expect it to run Windows. Dave wrote: