Will you recommend fedora to a newcomer?

[Timothy Murphy]

Many of the comments in this thread 
which claim Windows is much easier than Linux
are actually comparing _running_ Windows on a machine on which
it is already installed
with _installing_ Linux on a Windows machine.

In my experience, installing Windows on a bare machine
is often difficult and sometimes impossible.
I was never able to install Windows-2000
on my Sony Picturebook (C1VFK) after installing a new disk
(because the old one failed).
Sony's own CDs did not install,
and when I enquired I was told that they only worked on a given machine,
and installing a new hard disk counted as a new machine.

A standard Windows CD installed, but was missing
all the Sony stuff, sound, USB, Bluetooth, camera, jog dial, etc.
Amusingly, the only way I got Windows to work with the new disk
was to dd a Windows partition on another Picturebook under Linux,
and copy it to a partition of exactly the same size.

In my experience, if you compare two machines,
one with Windows installed and one with say Fedora + KDE installed,
the Linux machine is at least as easy to use for standard tasks.

Some things are certainly easier on the Windows machine,
eg saving and displaying photos.
But against that the Windows machine is sure to get viruses.




-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland