I'd like to take issue if I may, let's be fair!
good enough to share a corner with SuSE so I suppose we can say they support the concept! So where was Applix even if it does only seem to spell in Ameriglish; the only Corel Office was for 'doze, virtually nothing was web-based and many stands said, "the government don't specify it and none of the schools are asking for it." That's the commercial world for you only supplying what people ask for! :-)
Often a lot of the Windows stuff is a pig to deploy on networks too. i.e. you get told things to the effect of "we don't know what needs changing in C:\WINDOWS to get the program to work, but it's *easy* to just run the install program on every machine". Yep! you just run setup and off it goes. sometimes you need to restart the computer afterwards. Too easy by far. I suppose that you could write a batch file, as I did on our Novell server, and low, every machine that needed the program to be loaded got it, I only had to switch it on. Wow, that was hard!
(Let alone such stupidity as programs which need write access to files to be able to open them.) That IS silly! :-)
However good the program if it takes literally weeks to get installed then it's rather pointless. Can't fault that, Applix took me weeks to load, then I found I'd waisted my time anyway. So, yep I have to agree there!
Since Linux applications don't have anything like the Windows registry and don't tend to want to overwrite /lib and /usr/lib this kind of hassle is far less likely to happen in the first place. I hated the registry when it appeared, lots of ini files dotted all over the place was much nicer, you knew were you stood! So sticking them all together in /lib is different in what way (other than not having a uniform layout and a natty little editor)?
Thus you can simply put the program somewhere on the file server which is shared to all workstations and fully expect it to work. This is possible with a few Windows programs, some more will work if you copy the appropriate DLL's through a login script but the time consuming ones require individual configuration of each workstation. Surly this is due to the far sighted idea (although it didnt really work out that way in the end) of using DLLs, just a few of them that everyone used for common procedures, instead they became so widly used that they are almost pointless. But don't you need a complete LINUX progam for it to work? There is nothing to stop you compiling a single file program, it's just gives flexibility to software houses.
(IME with the latter catagory often the software vendor dosn't have much of a clue about how Windows works in the first place.) Don't know what IME means but... I bet your wife makes sure that you have a nice crisp white shirt ready to wear every morning and yet has no idea how the washing machine works, what chemicals are in the soap or what that triangle sign in the collar of the shirt really means. The workings SHOULD be transparent, that's progress.
So, how about making a point of enquiring loudly if the stands are supporting open-source (they often haven't got a clue!) when some piece of useful software catches your eye? Becta was encouraging in their support for multi-platform approaches but Capita (SIMS/EMS) 1) didn't know what I was talking about and then 2) when someone did they don't expect to make any changes.
That's interesting. When did you ask them this? Since I spoke to them of Thursday complaining about their effectivly forcing the use of Windows NT for the next version of SIMS. The idea that the "S in "SQL" is "standard" appears to be beyond people... (Managed to get them to admit that their being a "Microsoft Solutions Provider" might render them less that impartial.) They also ACTUALLY force one to use NT for mentor3 and capita are very keen on Fox Pro and have no idea what SQL is 'cus they don't use it! Also (by the way), Capita will not support 98 workstations but do support 95! even though they're more stable, and tell customers all sorts of scare stories (we've never had any probs.)
okay that's enough ranting, off to hear my boy read now. Oh, sorry, there was a point, LINUX and windows ARE different, but as far as non technical users are concerned, LINUX has miles to go before it is easy to use, it's moving fast, but still has a way to go.
Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763