Experts Make Using Linux Look Harder than It Is
On Newsforge, Robin Miller wrote a column called Making Linux look harder than it is. He begins:
Many "gurus" teaching new users about Linux make it look harder than it needs to be, and apparently fail to explain that yes, you can make PowerPoint-style presentations in Linux, you can view Web Pages that use Flash animation and other "glitz" features, and that you can manage all your files though simple "point, click, drag and drop" visual interfaces. Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?
This is a good and useful question to be asked at this time. For at least a year, we have advocated the use of Linux as a base operating system combined with liberal use of VMware to developers trying to gain fluency on the Linux platform. If everyone that ever considered using Linux took a step back and looked at what is actually available on the platform, instead of focusing on what is not available, it might look like a stronger alternative to Windows than it is generally considered to be.