[NTLUG:Discuss] RE:

[Patrick Parks]

I would like to also add that as we migrate from Windows to Linux, we
still have to deal with the companies that we work for that are still
running MS software. I for one am a consultant, and the companies I
consult to and the company I work for use MS products, which means I
still have to use them. Being a consultant, I use my own computers, and
laptops, not company owned. So there has to be an understanding out
there in the community that we still have to deal with MS software, not
nessecarily by choice, but because of the choice of other companies to
use it. I hope that in the near future projects like Wine, and VMWare
will work out all the bugs, and perfect what they are trying to
accomplish, so that we can rid our systems of MS software permanently.
But until then some of us are still bound by the chains of MS by the
decisions of others to use their software. I hope I did not come across
the wrong way with my 2 cents on this, but it is very frustrating trying
to migrate from windows to linux. Linux has a lot of good documentation
out there, and I personally prefer to use it over windows, but there is
still a lot to be desired as far as migrating windows users over to it.
I consider myself to be an above average computer user, and still find
myself hitting brick walls trying to get things to work in linux. It
does not bother me that much, I love a challenge, and hit it head on.
But the average computer users see this as a flaw in the OS. They do not
understand the things that we on the list do about the OS, and never had
to before. I need to stop because I am rambling on, but I hope everyone
understands my point. 





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|     Patrick Parks      |
|  www.patrickparks.com  |
|patrick at patrickparks.com|
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On Thu, 2001-09-13 at 14:33, Aaron Goldblatt wrote:


    > would venture to extend the notion of promotion to the migration of users
    > from Windows, which in my opinion, is a tremendous hurdle when you consider
    > it. 
    
    I would concur.  I myself have only recently concluded my migration from 
    Windows to Linux.  The big hurdle in my migration was (get this) email.
    
    I have tens of thousands of emails that previously were stored in Eudora for 
    Windows.  Eudora uses mbox format, which makes conversion easy.
    
    The hurdle wasn't moving the files: The hurdle was finding an MUA that met my 
    needs.  I wanted:
     - mbox format support, or direct conversion support to the new format
     - Multiple POP3 account support
     - Filtering support of the sort found in Eudora
     - GUI-based was preferable but absolutely not required
     - SMTP or injection into a qmail outbound queue is required
    
    I was willing to accept multiple packages to accomplish these tasks -- 
    fetchmail and procmail combined with mutt, for example, but this idea still 
    had very serious drawbacks.
    
    Problems I encountered, some of which I've never been able to resolve:
     - Pine's interface.  Yuck.
     - Mutt's configurability is nice, but the documentation is poor (if you're 
    new to it)
     - I've never found a regular expression howto or teaching document, so 
    things like Procmail (or even grep) are extremely painful for me.
    
    I finally settled on Kmail, from KDE.  But it took me two years of fiddling.  
    I always found myself back in Windows because of the email situation I was 
    unwilling to compromise about.
    
    <rant>
    
    The migration issue is a Very Big Deal for a lot of people, and I suspect if 
    there was more help in overcoming those hurdles on the part of our community, 
    we might see more change than we do.  Linux is still considered by the 
    unwashed masses to be an operating system for wireheads and geeks, and while 
    I sort of like that (and I hate the idea of people too stupid to turn on a 
    computer using Linux), I also recognize that the significant hurdles we face 
    come from Microsoft's dominance.  We can't simply ignore Microsoft's 
    products, if only because we need to teach people how to get away from them.
    
    There was an article on Slashdot (I believe) last week about the biggest 
    problem facing open source and free office suite developers: Microsoft 
    interoperability.  Perfectly working filters that import and export Microsoft 
    Office-formatted data.  That is a huge issue standing in the way of desktop 
    migration, even for me.
    
    </rant>
    
    ag
    _______________________________________________


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-- 
Patrick Parks
www.patrickparks.com
patrick at patrickparks.com
972.416.8377 (Home)
972.354.7712 (Fax)
504.723.6460 (PCS)
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