[Lilux-help] Inventory

[Patrick Kaell]

Eric Dondelinger wrote:

> Hmm... they *do* want to use that printer/scanner/copier or digital
> camera they buy. Getting those to work with their computer is an
> administrative task. They do it on Windows.
> On some Linux distributions, that's also a matter of a very few
> mouseclicks. Not so on many others - to which I'd count, say,
> slackware, gentoo, debian.

Don't think so. Windows is much easier. Under Windows users usually have 
full administrator rights. Additionally they just have to follow the 
camera's manual and insert the driver CD. That's all. Here is another 
anectotical story: Before going to Englang for studying my sister needed 
a laptop. I recommended an iBook. Very easy to use. Several month later 
she wanted to connect a the neighbor's USB printer to her laptop. 
Basically, it was very easy. MacOSX recognizes everything automatically, 
the driver CD wasn't even needed. For security reasons (MacOS X is Unix 
based!), there was a popup window asking the administrator's password, 
before installing the printer automatically. Guess what: They waited 6 
hours before deciding to call me to ask the password! They thought it 
would be an error, because on the neighbors Windows machine something 
like this was not needed. It wasn't even mentioned in the printers 
operating manual!

>>I have already seen this. There are people who buy a new PC after 3
>>years, because their old PC has got too slow. Not slow compared to new
>>technology or too slow with new demanding software. No, it has got much
>>slower than it was 3 years ago with the same software in absolute terms.
>>We all know that this is because of the aging Windows installation with
>>filesystem fragmentation, dead registry entries and unused DLLs. These
>>people do not know that they can reinstall Windows because they have
>>never installed it. They think that the processor becomes *tired* after
>>3 years!!!. Like an old car engine with a high kilometrage!
> 
> 
> That sort of user exists, no doubt. But most users will still
> ask some relative or friend first before going out to buy some
> new computer. Let's also be honest and say that the problem
> you're talking about is being cured (at least partially) with
> the NT based systems, as the roots of much evil lay in DOS/Win9x.

Two month ago, my girlfriend's father called me because his Win XP 
preinstalled Aldi PC (with a Pentium 4!!!) became very slow with many 
disk accesses. The system was a year old. I saved his data, reinstalled 
everything. The result was *very* impressive. Before the reinstallation 
the system wasn't usable anymore.

Especially the NT based systems suffer from this problem. DOS was almost 
  immune against this type of aging (for filesystem aging there was a 
defrag program). Win 3.11 was based on .INI files and didn't have a 
registry!

The registry based Windows systems age very quickly when you often try 
out new programs.

> If we're already bashing Windows slowness, let's not forget that
> other cause: virus/worm/trojan infections, and their pseudo-cure
> $Big_Vendor antivirus software.

Right.

Patrick Kaell