On 29 Oct 2003 13:43:23 GMT, stewartconnor@aol.com (Stewart Connor)   
   succinctly stated:   
      
   >>   
   >>*shrug* Most consumers just want their computer to work and do what   
   >>they want it to do. They are not interested in learning all the   
   >>innards and ins and outs of the machine.   
   >   
   >So the conclusion to be drawn is that once the system is set up "they" dont   
   >care if it is linux or windows.(of course this is assuming the financial drain   
   >of windows, the repeated crashes due to what, VIRUSES, was not of concern to   
   >them.)   
      
   There's more. Little Johnny wants to play the latest 3D game that   
   requires a certain kind of video card. Although drivers for this card   
   exist for *nix, they don't work with this game (lack DX9 support). And   
   Dad needs to bring his work home from the office where it was created   
   with Office 2003 (like it or not, Office is pretty much a standard in   
   the business world) but OpenOffice, as cool as it is, doesn't have   
   full support.   
      
   That's not a hypothetical, that's a machine that came in my shop. I   
   searched and searched for drivers for that card that would work none   
   of them supported DX9 on a non-Windows system. Doesn't matter who's   
   fault that is, the bottom line is that the system was unable to   
   provide the desired level of functionality the customer required.   
      
   In Dad's case he needed to work with documents that were based on Word   
   and had includes from Excel, Powerpoint and an Access database (used   
   to be called OLE, dunno what name it is this week, so I call 'em   
   includes). OpenOffice flat-out barfed and there was no getting around   
   it.   
      
   *shrug* Although they're getting better, the various *nix variants   
   aren't quite ready to completely take over the desktop. But when they   
   do (and they will, eventually) the virus writers will refocus their   
   efforts. Although there are some hackers/virus writers who target   
   Windows because it is from the Evil Empire(TM), most of them are   
   targeting the OS that represents the largest installed base. If IBM   
   had not fumbled the ball and everyone were running OS/2 the problem   
   would still be there.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)