What is Digg?265 Comments
- ScornForSega, on 02/19/2008, -6/+363This is what I got out of it.
1. The school wanted low overhead, so they move to linux.
2. Users complained 'cause it wasn't Windows.
3. They switch to Vista/Office '07.
4. Users complain 'cause it's Vista.
5. The school now spends 4x as much on IT and still gets 100% of the complaints.
Moral of the story: tell the users to STFU and GBTW.
(I work in tech support and I approve of this message.) - hamobu, on 02/19/2008, -10/+101Great article. In summary, people were asking for windows machines at work since that is what they had at home, but the reason why the school switched is that Windows and office came pre-installed on new hardware and this was not negotiable. The school administrator is disappointed since he found that Linux boxes were more stable and easier to maintain than previous Win98 boxes. Right now people are finding it difficult to switch from Linux, and people who had the most problems with Linux now have the most problems with Vista.
- mikelieman, on 02/19/2008, -2/+87"people who had the most problems with Linux now have the most problems with Vista."
So --- The issue isn't one O/S or another, it's that there's a constant fraction of the user population who experiences learning new things. - tcardone05, on 02/19/2008, -3/+81So basically, people don't like change?
- crackah, on 02/19/2008, -5/+70***** me, If people find the UI changes difficult using Vista from XP, try switching XP to Linux, or XP to Mac.
- DeviateSeptum, on 02/19/2008, -4/+51If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They should have kept the Linux machines. Also if a school wants to create students who are competent with computers, the students need to learn to adept to whatever OS is running. Personally, as a personnel officer, I would be reluctant to hire somebody for an IT company if they can't switch between OSes easily.
- wrestlingnrj, on 02/19/2008, -2/+41I prefer to call 'users' 'the enemy', it makes my job a little easier to deal with.
- manicallday, on 02/19/2008, -1/+36This is interesting. I really think that Linux is ideal for schools, because of the cost and amount of freely available educational software. Further, what are these teachers doing on their work computers? Further, I really think that support is overrated. I would rather just Google the answer any day of the week than sit on the phone.
- damentz, on 02/19/2008, -0/+25back then, windows didn't have features the IT guy needed for individual roaming profiles so they _had_ to change. Linux already did everything that he needed, it was just missing support from the big guys like Adobe, so it looked inferior.
"After the move back, Perkins said he had noticed that the people who had been least comfortable with Linux were also among the least comfortable on Windows."
And the people that complained just sucked at computers anyway FYI. They will always suck because they think that technology is a waste to learn.
Also, the school didn't like Linux because they still couldn't use it like they used it at home. Corporate desktops need to have strict software and usage policies to stop users from mucking up the systems that are shared with all the other students. The change to vista made no difference either since they still couldn't use it like they wanted at home (due to rules). - nblsavage, on 02/19/2008, -12/+37I just hate vista for the automatic 10% decrease in performance...with no perceivable benefit.
- VinceNoir, on 02/19/2008, -1/+23Funny thing for me... I'm a 100% Linux user (Gentoo, thank you very much)! But, I have had no problems adapting to any flavor of Windows. And UI-wise, I've found each version of Windows to be a marked improvement from the previous. XP Pro was VERY organized and streamlined (even though it was butt ugly). Vista looks to be more of the same. Of course, whenever I'm in Windows I feel crippled because of so much that it lacks in both the GUI and the command line. So I'd say that the people who complain about Vista are people who just don't adapt well. That is definitely the segment of the population that will complain about ANY software.
- inactive, on 02/19/2008, -14/+32They must all be here on digg, because even though I have had near zero learning curve in my switch to Vista from XP people around here complain about how Vista has moved things around, even though no one can demonstrably show me how that has happened.
- snotrokit, on 02/19/2008, -3/+19I am an IS manager and I support Scorn's message. I have a very strict no Vista/Office 2007 policy in place. I have a computer with Vista and 2007 in a corner that I pull out when users snivel. I let them use it for a while, they all run like hell.
- zate, on 02/19/2008, -0/+15I took great effort to migrate my wife to using programs on her windows system that were also available under linux in preparation to switching her over.
We switched and for the most part it was great. The reason she is back on XP now though is google took the cheap way out of making Picasa work on linux. Its simply run under wine and not all the functionality we need is there. Namely the video support.
I found it frustrating that linux was ready, but some of the software was not. - deadcrickets, on 02/19/2008, -1/+16Make sure it has only 512MB of RAM and it'll fix any complaints they had about Linux.
- inactive, on 02/19/2008, -16/+31FUD
- aussieNickuss, on 02/19/2008, -9/+23This school is in Victoria......I don't know what it is like in other states, but using Linux now days would have no financial benefit anymore as Microsoft Windows and Office is volume licensed to all Victorian schools by the Department of Education. All staff PC laptops (IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads) come pre-installed with everything, and MacBooks come pre-installed with office for Mac AND boot camp is setup with a DE&T image XP and Office.
There is a common ISO image of XP and Office that all schools use. I believe Vista is also available, but our school hasn't received the media yet (I think they've been waiting for SP1 which came out a couple of days ago). - norman619, on 02/19/2008, -1/+14The enemy keeps you employed :)
- Agret, on 02/19/2008, -0/+13I can quickly adapt to any linux window manager but i had difficulty understanding why the UI in Vista was so damn simplified, they changed the names of everything even though they didnt have to >_>
- Sawta, on 02/19/2008, -5/+17I'll gladly digg up any Linux article that doesn't soley consist of the same old:
"I switched to Linux. It was hard to use at first, then I used the forum. After a month or two, I got really used to it. I tired to get someone else to try out Linux, but they just 'didn't get it' or haven't gotten around to it yet. I wish there was more compatibility with Linux distro's!"
It's nice to know that people are willing to try out a new operating system every now and again (I'm personally excited to try out Red Hat on my campus for one of my classes), but it gets a tad stale reading the same thing over and over again; although I guess that's what digg is all about :P - insanebrain, on 02/19/2008, -3/+15***** Useful Document ??
- MWeather, on 02/19/2008, -2/+14Meanwhile Damn Small Linux still works on my 75mhz laptop.
- smacksaw, on 02/19/2008, -6/+18I don't care what the system is, the UI should be a simple dashboard with a launchpad of very limited numbers of applications. It shouldn't look like Windows OR Linux. It should simply launch programs from giant buttons on the middle of the screen. People should not be able to see any folder other than their folder. This is a school. And they should run MS Office on some machines or have virtualisation on the Linux boxes if it's really that important.
What they've done is idiocy. It wastes money. Money that should have gone to other IT costs, like more computers. - VinceNoir, on 02/19/2008, -3/+15You deserve a "Wow! Just... wow"! since you are obviously an idiotic troll. Nothing you said was in the article. Not a single word. But two can play at that game (FTFIA: from the ***** imaginary article):
There were many people on staff at the school who were paid by Microsoft to try and take care of this "linux problem". They were constantly armed with reason why Linux wasn't working for them and it is suspected that some of them allowed a crack team of paid Linux crackers to break into the system and introduce instability. Soon after each of those events, Microsoft sent Steve Ballmer over to throw a few chairs around and tell the administration that they'd better get their asses in gear and buy the new Windows, or else. Talk about your dealing with the mafia... A successful deployment of Linux was hampered by the crack dealing approach of Microsoft (hooking users at home to make them force their workplace to comply with the borg). I'd say that most Linux zealots are right, Microsoft is running a huge conspiracy to undermine any large Linux deployments and make them seem expensive while at the same time concealing the prohibitive costs of running Windows. - daftman, on 02/19/2008, -3/+15XP to KDE is quite a similar experience. KDE looks and feels like windows.
Mac to Gnome is also a quite similar experience. Add on a little compiz and you get the Spaces/Expose effects. - dx33, on 02/19/2008, -0/+12Wow. So you mean to tell me that clueless users complained about Linux to get Vista and still couldn't use the computer. Shocking.
- jstone, on 02/19/2008, -0/+11An alternative that can do everything the average user actually needs?
(Note that I said "average user." These alternatives are not as good for the power user.) - gcauthon, on 02/19/2008, -1/+11It's a school. Practically nobody would know how to use Windows either. Practically nobody would know how to use a computer, period. You could stick an Amiga in front of most school faculty and they wouldn't know the difference. Most people are not computer geeks. Most people would not have an addiction to Windows that requires them to go "cold turkey" like they're some kind of junky.
- teh_techie, on 02/19/2008, -1/+11MCSE's can sometimes know even less than IT noobs... I've seen em!
- Scotchman, on 02/19/2008, -1/+11The school in question is a private school, so I doubt it would get the same volume licensing benefit as the state schools from the Victorian Government.
- ahsteele, on 02/19/2008, -1/+11Right, but you understand computers.
A lot of people are not capable of Googling an answer to a problem if it is beyond the benign. - Sawta, on 02/19/2008, -1/+10They needed to use something extremely cheap. Mac products are usually more pricey than basic PC's that come with Windows..
- BingoPower, on 02/19/2008, -2/+11Great job you did helping him secure himself there!
- sancho, on 02/19/2008, -2/+11SSUK:
I was one of the ones who moaned about XP. I still think that it's bloated and bulky compared to Windows 2000, and I still think that it doesn't offer any benefits. The biggest difference is that hardware has caught up, and so XP runs better on commodity hardware NOW than it did THEN.
Will this hold true for Vista? Probably. It doesn't change the fact that there just haven't been significant gains in Microsoft's last two revisions of Windows. Those few "improvements" which aren't eye-candy are largely incompatible with the previous OS just because Microsoft wants to create a market for the new OS. - benitojuarez, on 02/19/2008, -6/+15Dont digg him down he makes a damn good point.
- stix213, on 02/19/2008, -0/+9This is an article about a private religious school, not a public school. I'm sure the public school system doesn't share those volume licenses with schools outside their jurisdiction. Why are people digging you up?
- BoneheadFarker, on 02/19/2008, -2/+11Take the money you would normally spend on license fees and give it to someone with experience and knowledge with installing Linux systems instead, and you will come out ahead. A moron can screw up a MS based system just as easily as they can screw up a Linux based system...
- blakyce, on 02/19/2008, -0/+9My experience is that some IT guys can come across as impatient and smug to users. Us users are pretty dumb to the ways of computers, just like we are dumb to the rules of HR, the rules of finance systems and why they can't keep our offices at a comfortable temperature. If you viewed users as the unknowledgable people they are instead of the enemy you might find the overall experience better.
- Vegabondsx, on 02/19/2008, -2/+10I have no problems with Vista's interface. I do have a roommate though that hates vista and refuses to upgrade just because the interface is different enough from XP.
- obzidian, on 02/19/2008, -4/+12wow I feel like I'm at Slashdot. :P
- trogdoor, on 02/19/2008, -1/+9You may be waiting a long time then...
- MWeather, on 02/19/2008, -7/+1510%? How'd you get it to run so fast?
- TypeEE, on 02/19/2008, -1/+9reviews are out that showed it will not speed things up. It only fixed bugs.
- ppvanzella, on 02/19/2008, -0/+8You change the color of the grass, the user starves.
- sancho, on 02/19/2008, -0/+8Windows 2000 offered something above and beyond me, 98, and 95--stability. It was an extremely solid OS, it almost never crashed (on me, at least), and it offered security features not available on the consumer versions of the OS.
- TeacherOfHeroes, on 02/19/2008, -0/+7"However, the school did not become a Linux-only zone - there were 35 dual-boot XP machines (which came in later) running Adobe applications. Perkins says that, interestingly enough, when these machines were being utilised for general use the students almost always booted into Linux."
"And although the staff desktop machines ran Linux, the staff also had access to a number of XP machines, including 12 laptops available for general use. These, says Perkins, were rarely borrowed."
Yeah, thats some anti-linux revolt he's got going on there...
Perhaps its you that should read the article again. Now that they've moved back to windows, the same people are having trouble adjusting to vista/office '07, so a logical conclusion is that it's just the people who don't like change making noise. - ja1217, on 02/19/2008, -1/+8You obviously didn't read the article.
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