Re: barriers to adopting Linux by newbies

[Robert Citek <rwcitek@alum.calberkeley.org>]

On Monday, March 8, 2004, at 07:41  PM, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-03-08 at 12:29, Robert Citek wrote:
>> Good point.  Difficulty with installation and not having phone support
>> could both be significant barriers to adoption by newbies.
>
> $109 Red Hat Linux Professional Workstation (RHEL 3-based):
>   http://www.redhat.com/software/workstation/
>
> Available at _any_ local CompUSA or similar retailer.

Almost.  I couldn't find it at OfficeMax, OfficeDepot, nor BestBuy the 
last time I checked.  Could be they sold out.  All three did have 
Windows XP.

>> MS solves this in two ways:
>> - Windows pre-installed on new hardware (WalMart and others offer
>> pre-installed linux)
>
> Because Microsoft prevents any other OS (not just Linux, but BeOS was
> one not too long ago that _also_ has an "under the table" _true_ story)
> from being installed on tier-1 OEMs as standard (_only_ as a
> non-standard, additional charge, option).

I agree that MS plays dirty.  But having Windows pre-installed is still 
a barrier to adoption.

>> - phone connection directly to MS
>
> For $35 per support call!

Sorry.  My bad.  What I meant is an Internet connection directly to MS 
via phone (modem).  I haven't used Windows in a while.  But I remember 
it was super-simple to connect to MSN (or whatever the MS ISP is 
called) via the modem.  In fact, it took some hunting to figure out how 
to connect to an ISP other than MS.

>> What other barriers exist for adopting linux?
>
> Economies of scale.  That's about it.

I don't follow.  What is being scaled?

The point of me asking the question of what are the barriers is to 
identify what they are and then figure out how to address them.

Regards,
- Robert


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