On Jan 16, 2004, at 12:57 PM, Craig White wrote:

> there is a large amount of 'the devil you know is better than the devil
> you don't know' factored into this equation.
>
> Obviously Windows works for a large segment of the desktop computer
> market - and we can debate the hassle factor and the satisfaction
> factors.
>
> A person that is very knowledgable about one type of system should be
> able to make the other work without too much trouble.

My experience, and it's just one data point, is that Windows is indeed 
more friendly to install on newer hardware than Red Hat. And I 
certainly am *much* more comfortable around any kind of Unix like 
thingee than I am with Windows. If fact if I hadn't had a copy of 
Windows XP to load on the machine temporarily, I probably still 
wouldn't have Linux installed. The fact is that neither Windows nor Red 
Hat had the correct drivers  for the graphics, sound or ethernet chips 
on this new mobo but Windows still booted into some kind of GUI and 
made a connection. From there it was easy to install the right drivers 
off the "Divers & Utilities" disk that came with the computer.

Red Hat just wanted to black screen during the install.

Of course the worst horror of the Red Hat install was that after 
spending the better part of a day looking for drivers for video, audio 
and network interface I discovered quite by accident that the source 
code for same was buried down in a folder on the CD with the windows 
binary drivers.

My point is just that Windows is majority OS so this mobo maker had 
gone to some length to make sure that Windows would install easily. The 
board shipped with printed instructions but only for Windows users. 
This maker was also actually pretty Linux friendly. At least they 
provided the source code for drivers for all the devices. But the level 
of sophistication expected of the Linux installer was way beyond what 
was expected of the Windows person. This is fine so long as Linux is 
used in the enterprise. I will have to be addressed before Linux is 
ready for the consumer market.

Of course it will be addressed when Linux is popular enough so it's 
sort of a chicken and egg situation.

BTW, I have seen situations where RH and other distros installed with 
the click of a button, just not on cutting edge hardware.