On Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:05:02 -0600, Mike McCarty wrote: >>> Could someone explain why this is important? >>> Mike >> I'll try to explain. >> If we ever expect to quit having our local CIO's roll their eyes at us [...] > Ok, you want to use Linux at work, and don't want to do any work to > convince the company it's worthwhile. Ok. [....] > Ok, again, a Sun workstation with Solaris sounds like a better overall > deal to me. But I now see a point. Let me suggest, however hesitantly, that there MAY be another point -- depending on your interest. For those of us who are hopelessly subtechnoid, but heavy users, even getting linux can be quite difficult. For my first home computer after retirement, in 1998, I needed one I could walk out the door with, because I was already heavy into the Net. (I could do, and had done, a lot online because I had been point man to the Net for my subunit since my outfit went online. Nice work when you could get it. <grin>) I had to take W98 of evil memory. Not even W95, already known to be a lot more stable, was available without a two-WEEK wait at a computer boutique. This was in Northern Virginia -- right outside Babylon on Potomac, and about as heavily computerized and strongly connected as any area you could name. Out in the mountains -- the *near* mountains (only two or three hundred miles farther from Megapolis), where we live now, it would have been a lot worse. To begin with, there are no computer boutiques -- nor even a large computer store: there's a small one, and the University bookstore, and a Walmart. Out in central Idaho, where I'm from, it'd be worse, if what my family tell me means anything. If I don't want a Dell, my known options here are M$ -- and having a friend, if I can find one, build a machine FOR me. I found one, fortunately, the last two times -- in California. And I live in a town with a large technical and engineering school. So what? Two things: one, it matters to some of us -- probably a lot of us, as the baby boomers retire, and retirement releases them from their empolyers' choices. Two, IF the subtechnoid market has any effect on all you Alpha Plus types -- and I can't judge that, but there are lots of people, including Alpha Plus types, on other linux lists who can, and think so -- THEN it would be a great help. The likes of me would be urging slightly junior colleagues, as they also retire, not "Get linux" (which has negligible effect) but "Get a machine with linux already on it." They would look at one *in the shop* before buying, and might. -- Beartooth Oldfart, Neo-Redneck, Linux Convert FC4; Pine 4.64, Pan 0.14.2.91; Privoxy 3.0.3; Dillo 0.8.5, Opera 8.51, Firefox 1.0.7, Epiphany 1.6.5 Remember I have little idea what I am talking about -- but some, for once.
