Re: Experience the New Windows

[Atul Chitnis <achitnis@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Raju Mathur wrote:

> While I agree with most of what you say, I'd beg to bring up my own
> situation about an year ago (i.e. before I switched to my hot
> 550MHz/128MB/512KB cache box).

Raju! Shame on you! You betrayed the spirit of Linux! Why throw more power
at Linux when you can throw more Linux at power? ;-)

> So Linux isn't necessarily faster or more efficient than Winduhs,
> especially in the desktop space.  On the new box, Winduhs and Office97
> still load up much faster than Enlightenment and SO.  Of course, I
> could use a lower-end window manager, but I don't particularly like
> twm:-) and we should be comparing apples to apples.

Unfortunately, I completely agree with you (heck, what is this world
coming to??? ;-)

I guess this *can* be fixed (or at least made to *appear* to be fixed
until actually fixed ;), but it takes an effort.

The problem we are facing (for the moment at least) is that on a level
playfield, Linux cannot compete with Windows the way we would like it to.
This is not an unfixable situation, but it isn't going to get fixed by
*wishing* or blindly advocating.

An issue that I also begin to see more and more of is the fact that many
people (even on this list) haven't actually used Windows properly for
quite a while, so are not quite clear about what a typical Windows user
would have to give up if s/he switches to Linux. It would help a lot of
Linux developers/advocates/etc. followed the advice (was it Confucius?)
that rings true even today:

"Know thy enemy".

Atul

--
----------------------------------------------------------
Atul Chitnis       | achitnis@xxxxxxxxxxx (PGP:6011BCB8)
Exocore Consulting | http://www.exocore.com
Bangalore, India   | +91 (80) 3440397 Fax +91 (80) 3341137
----------------------------------------------------------