[mythtv-users] On the verge of giving up

[Kevin Hulse]

On Sun, Sep 23, 2007 at 03:43:54PM -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> On 09/23/2007 12:33 PM, Rich West wrote:
> > Success stories like that are becoming more frequent, which makes 
> > further inroads in to the desktop.
> 
> At which point people can spend hundreds of hours re-learning how to do
> everything they've spend the last 12+ years learning to do with
> Windows/Windows applications so they can save $150/5yrs or so by using

	Within the last year, my mother-in-law has replaced an old PC
with a new PC just due to the problem of bit rot, trojans and not being
able to surf freely. So the cost is a bit more than just the licensing
cost of the OS.

	There's also the extra maintenance to consider: cleaning up
after windows malware incrementally or trying to prevent it.

	Then there's the occasional gratiutous user interface changes
of the core OS (98 vs XP vs Vista) and of the applications. Have you
even seen the new office. That new UI just may trigger some defections.

	Your analysis is a little too superficial.

> GNU/Linux and FOSS.  (Oh, right, most everyone buys Windows from OEM's. 
> Therefore, they'll only save $20/1-2yrs or so.  Maybe even enough to
> cover the cost of an SD subscription.)

	...which gets me to one of my favorite computing rants:

	If it's just another GUI then there shouldn't be any pain
	or fear in switching to yet another GUI application to do
	X. The whole point of the GUI being invented was precisely
	so that pain would not exist.

	You could even figure out how to do new and interesting things
	that you'd never even heard about or considered before rather
	than the whole thing being entirely too much like how people
	used MS-DOS 5 and Word Perfect.

> 
> Mike "GNU/Linux can only win if it's so much better than Windows that
> it's worth learning***" Dean
> 
> ***And, IMHO, it isn't even close.  (For me it is because of the "F" in
> FOSS--and the fact that I can actually fix the problems I encounter. 
> For non-developers, though...)

	I dunno. Apple TV and Vista MCE both look pretty enough in the stores.

	I wonder what would happen if they had to deal with 1000 recordings
	and 1500 videos. What other purely system issues would creep up. What
	sort of wifi issues does the Vista MCE fanboy from Forbes have to deal 
	with? What are all of those "configuration" issues he just tries to 
	sweep under the rug?