[Tfug] 2 weeks of Hackintosh fun..

[Claude Rubinson]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 01:33:12AM -0700, John Gruenenfelder wrote:
> But... that's not what the user sees.  The user sees this as a
> failing of Linux and/or name-your-distro and becomes annoyed.  And
> so the myth lives on.

Now this is something that I find interesting.  Like many of you, I'm
the resident geek for friends and colleagues.  Unlike many of you, I
haven't worked on Windows in years or Macs ever.  So, I'm generally of
little to no help when people ask.

So, when I do get roped into helping somebody out, I often can't fix
the problem either and I assume that it's because I don't know the
system very well.  What seems to happen, however, is that, while
they're frustrated, they're also relieved.  It's as if my inability to
complete the task validates their frustration.  Where they were
blaming themselves, now they can say (and, indeed, have said) "I'm
glad it's not just me."  Somehow, the proprietary software companies
have taught their customers that they (the customers) are
incompetent, that they are to blame.

But when a peripheral doesn't work under Linux, though, it seems that
Linux (or the distro) is to blame.

I'm curious as to the dynamics behind this.  Don's suggested that FOSS
users are different than proprietary-software users (i.e., they'd
understand why the hardware wouldn't run).  But John's saying that his
sister understands the issue and is still likely to blame Ubuntu/Linux
rather than the vendor or Microsoft.  That seems curious to me.

I would suspect that John's sister would completely understand that a
Mac-only printer wouldn't be expected to run under a Windows system.
And I can understand a sentiment of "I've already bought this printer
and I'd like it to work."  That's really no different than Shawn's
observation that what keeps a lot of people from switching away from
their proprietary systems is support for proprietary software.  But
when a Windows-only printer doesn't run under Ubuntu, it reflects
poorly on Ubuntu?  That seems odd.  And, yet, it does reflect much of
the sentiment that's out there (and that we've seen in this thread).

Claude