Re: Microsoft Bashing
I agree in full. I have used Linux on and off for 20 years or so and every time I think "Linux should be able to do that." I either find it can if I use 3 different programs or it can't unless I install WINE and run the program I want.
IT managers also know this, they know they can just buy some hardware, some Microsoft OS and it'll just work and it'll be compatible with every other company as they likely use Microsoft software too. If Linux worked and worked well it would be adopted but there's so much fragmentation that outside of the server side of things it's not worth the hassle. In 2012 I decided to run Linux (and only Linux) on my PC, normally I dual booted, ran a live system or had it on my secondary PC never my main one. I decided to buy a PCI wireless card, on Windows that's easy, look at the specs and the price, work out which one offers the best VFM and buy the one I want. On Linux it's find one I like, then spend ages trawling through technical documents to find out what chipset it uses then finding out if that chipset is compatible with Linux and that's just one piece of hardware.
I still have trouble with one of my laptops showing a black screen if I want to run Linux live on it unless I switch to the safe graphics mode because Linux does not do what Windows does and show a reduced graphics mode automatically.
I have a laptop connected to my hi-fi, all it has to do is store my music. play them and show visualisations I have used Winamp for 20+ years because it's awesome, and the media library is perfect I spent hours, easily 5, trying out every Winamp alternative on Linux and other media players only to find the only one that had a library I liked Quod Libet - didn't support visualisations, i then spent more hours compiling a visualisation program from source because Linux devs are allergic to compiled binaries, listing where dependencies can be found and the make command can't list all the missing dependencies in one go rather it lists each one as it comes across them.
Needless to say the visitation program didn't work, it was at this pint about 4am and I took a deep breath, reached for my XP CD and wiped the drive and regretted spending 30 minutes transferring my music to the HDD.
I could go on but I won't for fear of writing a novel about the whole thing, I like the idea of Linux but often in practice it does not do what i want and all I want it to do is function properly. One day i'll find a reason to use it over Windows but for the last decade I've happily bought Windows because i'd rather buy Windows than have Linux for free.