Re: Gresham's Law

[Harmon F Seaver hseaver@xxxxxxxx]

>:	 I assume that those who use windoz are
>:	 essentially incapable of navigating the linux morass.
>
>In other words, anyone who wants to do graphics on the 80x86, Windows
>being the only gui with any apps. Why am I unsurprised that you share
>the same assessment of the computing public as The Megacorp That Sized Up
>the PC Market and Visited PCJr and Warp on Us. People are a good deal
>smarter and better informed as what you post assumes us to be.

  If you take a look at most windoz users in either a corporate or
academic setting, you will quickly realize that most of them, despite the
fact of having used windoz for years, day in and day out on the job, are
incapable of even installing or configuring even windows, let alone anything
else. I'm not saying they are dumb -- the people I work with are certainly
not dumb -- they all have at least a BA, most a MLS, yet most cannot do the
simplest windoz configuration. Like figure out how to change screen colors,
resolution, etc. Some cannot even figure out what to do when they accidently
maximize a window.
  These people *must* have their computers totally configured for them by
the sysadmin -- and, since that is the case, it is far better to have the
sysadmin set up OS/2 or Linux/Solaris, since they are vastly more powerful
and robust, and from the point of view of the least knowledgable end user,
essentially the same anyway. And any sysadmin who is only capable of setting
up a windoz or w95 system isn't worth their salt, although presently that is
the case in most libraries, at least. At any rate, most windoz *users* are
simply incapable of installing any system, even windoz. And those that do
accrue some semblance of skill in windoz often fail miserably when they
attempt to install a better platform like OS/2, as Leslie commented. If
their hardware is a good enough clone of the PC standard, they might luck
out. Likewise if they try to install a version of Linux like the Caldera
one, but if there is the slightest glitch, they are lost, and thus you have
these complaints with which we are all familiar.
  So I stand by my statement -- most windoz users are just plain incapable
of installing Linux, not becuase they are dumb, but simply because they
aren't bothering to learn the basic skills. Most car drivers don't fix their
own cars either, although if they knew enough about it to realize how badly
they were being ripped off, they would do so. It's the same reason most
secretaries never took to XY, they barely could deal with wordstar or wp,
and up until XY3+ there was just this frightening command line. Probably
more laziness than stupidity.

--
Harmon Seaver
hseaver@xxxxxxxx

"Some mon just deal wit' information. An' some mon, him deal wit' the
concept of truth. An' den some mon deal wit' magic. Information flow aroun'
ya, an' truth flow right at ya. But magic, it flow t'rough ya."
     -- Nernelly, A Jamaican "Bush Doctor," 1982

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Copyright, Harmon F. Seaver, 1995. License to distribute this post is
available to Microsoft for US$1,000 per instance, or local equivalent.
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