My wife "dist-upgraded" to Tiger and it messed up her user profile...

[aysiu]

It's funny. A year ago my wife and I were both very much Windows people. We'd used Windows almost all our lives, and the little exposure we had to anything else was being forced to use OS 9 at work (she at her job last year, I at my job three years ago).

Now, she's a Mac addict, and I'm a Linux addict.

Last night, she was cursing her computer and frustrated almost to the point of tears--her printer would not work. It worked before she "dist-upgraded" from Panther to Tiger, but now it didn't work. She tried reinstalling the driver, uninstalling it, reinstalling, rebooting--just about everything she could. She Googled her problem, went to various Mac forums. Nothing worked. She'd hit Cmd-P and Enter, and it would look as if it were about to print, but nothing would print. She asked me to help out, and the best I could do was figure out that her user profile was somehow corrupted (I logged into the guest account on her computer and could print fine).

She did some extra research and found a third-party Mac printer problem diagnostic tool that has a 7-day free trial, and it ended up fixing her problem. It was a very harrowing experience for her, though.

Why do I share this?

I guess it's partly just to revel in the fact that my wife is equally as tech-savvy as--if not more tech-savvy than--I am, and she's able to use Google well and find solutions. I hate sissy girls (i.e., not real women) who can't figure out basic computer problems by themselves and almost pride themselves on their ignorance of computers (Tee hee, I can't even find out where the button is to launch my email...). I'm glad I'm married to a real woman.

I'm also tired of people complaining "Why can't Linux 'just work' like some other operating systems 'do' (Windows and Mac)?" My general experience (it's all anecdotal, of course) has been that no operating system "just works." Any time you install it or upgrade it or do something funky to it (or even if you've done nothing at all), something can go wrong. Not once did my wife ever say, "Damn it! Why can't Apple computers function properly like Windows?" She understands computers can get screwed up. Yet, we constantly get people posting threads about how Linux sucks or Ubuntu doesn't work.

My wife and I have had more problems with her Powerbook than I've had with Ubuntu (it hasn't just been the printer incident), and we're both happy with our respective OSes. She won't worry about needing to use Crossover Office to use Dreamweaver or Flash MX, and I won't ever need to shell out US $115 to upgrade to the latest Ubuntu.

To each her own.

[Brunellus]

Linux catches a lot of flak becaus people generally haven't paid for it. Apple immediately gets the "I've paid money; it must be good!" benefit of the doubt.

[Stereotypical Rage]

*hugs his Ubuntu tightly*

I never want to go back to MS again!

[BoyOfDestiny]

I think my favorite complaint is "Linux has trouble running my windows games! Why should I have to tweak something to make them work?"

Always makes me think of Charles Babbage (He made the first mechanical calculator)

"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

P.S I somehow know someone is going to mention the abacus... He did not invent the abacus...

[PatrickMay16]

I'm also tired of people complaining "Why can't Linux 'just work' like some other operating systems 'do' (Windows and Mac)?" My general experience (it's all anecdotal, of course) has been that no operating system "just works." Any time you install it or upgrade it or do something funky to it (or even if you've done nothing at all), something can go wrong. Not once did my wife ever say, "Damn it! Why can't Apple computers function properly like Windows?" She understands computers can get screwed up. Yet, we constantly get people posting threads about how Linux sucks or Ubuntu doesn't work.

This is getting on my nerves now, too. People keep coming to this forum and linuxquestions.org just to make a long post about how linux is terrible because they weren't able to use it after ten to fifteen minutes of having it installed. For me, it took at least half a month before I could learn how to use things well enough, and a month and a half before I became entirely comfortable with things and how they work in GNU/Linux. (well worth the effort)

Yet these people come along and complain that after 30 minutes they realise that Ubuntu is "crappy" or something and post one of those "LINUX IS NOT READY FOR THE DESKTOP" threads.

Like you said, no operating system "just works". I've had horribly annoying problem in Windows too, like viruses or wondering why something isn't working properly (like a problem I have in windows with sharing files on my computer.) In Ubuntu, I've had problems, but I came past those. Some problems in windows I haven't been able to get past.

[Qrk]

Well. Windows helps because you haven't had anything to upgrade to for what, five years?

I agree though. The other day I was working on a Mac and it crashed. I was so surprised... lines of text just started running down the screen. I had no idea what to do. In Linux I'd do ctrl alt backspace (but I haven't had to do something like that for a year or so), but I didn't know how to do that on a mac. So I decided to turn it off... but I couldn't find the power switch. (it was a gen-II imac) After some searching I finally found it on the back, hidden around the base.

I was so happy to get back to my beloved Gnome desktop. No bouncing icons, no strange 'finder' thats running but not running at the same time, no menu that changes every time you click on something. No doubt it I were used to using a mac, I'd have learned all that. But ubuntu is for me.

[drizek]

i just used OSX on my dell laptop today and i wasnt too impressed.

it is understandable that the hardware support was total crap, OSX isnt really designed for x86 yet. however, i just dont get what hte deal is with OSX. i really dont understand why people like it so much. the apps feel dumbed down, and offer less functionality than the OSS equivelants. it does pretty poorly in the perfromance/stability department too. im not really sure if this is just because it is still not optimized for x86 or if it is actually slower than windows/kubuntu. The one thing that i like was just the shadows which worked really well even on the intel GMA 9xx integrated graphics. I was als impressed with the speed of spotlight, but i was unable to really test out how powerfull it is cause i didnt have many files. Other than that though, the OS seems to be just eye-candy and hype without much real substance.

Although maybe i would have had a different experience if my mouse actually worked(had to use touchpad), had sound, correct resolution, wifi.

as for the "just works" thing,

i have a 1280x800 lcd and it was running at 1024x768. i had no clue how to fix that. in linux, it is really easy to change resolutions, especially if you are using a distro like suse that has a GUI for it.

basically if you ever have problems with your OS, you have to,

Windows-Restart the computer, run an adware scan, virus scan, defrag the harddrive, restart again. If it still doesnt work, reformat.

Linux-RTFM NOOB!!!!!!!!!!!

OSX- I dont know, i havent figured it out yet. Apparantly if something doesnt "just work", then it doesnt work at all.

[aysiu]

Even though Mac OS X is mighty slow (my wife's Powerbook has 1 GB of RAM and is much slower than my Ubuntu with 512 MB of RAM), it's slick-looking, and I think this is the major reason people like it--the looks. In fact, I always gravitate toward Mac-like themes for KDE, Gnome, and XFCE. I like Aqua. I like Mac icons. Spotlight is pretty amazing, and it beats the pants off of Beagle. Dashboard is smooth, unlike gDesklets. Mac OS X may suffer a bit of usability (depends on what you're used to, I guess), but it is slick and smooth and looks nice, and that's one of the things my wife likes about it.

I don't want this to turn into a Mac-bashing session. Let's just say that people should find the OS that works for them and not think that any OS always "works."

[drizek]

yes, i have to agree with that. there is a lot of effort put in to make it slick and smooth and pleasant. the aqua stuff really isnt my thing though, but i can see how others might really like it compared to linux/windows because it is well thought out.

[mrtaber]

I can relate so much to your story. My tower has been through so many OS's over the past year. Recently, I decided to install XP Pro (don't ask). The install worked, except I had no sound, and no network connection after the install! This was serious, since I was turning the machine into a music server for my house. Come to find out, I had to dig out my motherboard CD and install those drivers manually. I was shocked.

By contrast, I've never had any Linux distro fail to find my onboard network connection (or onboard sound, come to think of it) upon installation.

I really like OS X, but my biggest complaint (the pokey, less-than-well-thought-out Finder) is supposedly being completely re-written for the next release. It's going to be integrated with Spotlight (that should rock). I must say, when I first heard of Spotlight, I thought of it as pure marketing fluff. Now, I can't imagine not having it. No more wasted time organizing files, and rifling around the computer to find something.

Mark