[PLUG] Deflowering Linux Virgins

[Mike Connors]

Tim Wescott wrote:
> Has anyone done the experiment (lately) of asking a bunch of experienced 
> Windows users to be productive in a work environment using Linux?  How 
> do all the various disciplines respond to being asked to get work done 
> in Linux and all the (to them) unfamiliar applications that come along 
> with it?  What sort of approach works (clearly, sitting them down and 
> saying "this is your computer, be productive or be fired" isn't going to 
> work well)?
Are the everyday gen biz apps really that unfamiliar? Thunderbird, Firefox, Open Office are pretty darn similar not to mention IMO easier
because they don't throw a million feats at you.

Also, most desktop Linux distros look and function awfully familiar to MS Win. Now some other apps like Gimp, Scribus & Dia might have a bit 
of a learning curve.  

There has to be a decoupling from MS apps and a re-education. word processing != MS Word, Spreadsheets != Excel, Email != Outlook/Exchange.

I think what got MS where they are is by getting these everyday gen biz apps into as many work places as possible. And then the worker ants 
take the poison home to their friends and family.

Has anyone done a study on what feats most people actually use with MS prods? 

I'm not against MS per se. I'm against group think, default behavior, and this notion that there can't be viable alternatives. At my last 
"corporate job", I walked past dev & QA comps and saw them running FreeBSD, CentOS, Slackware, Debian/Ubuntu. I thought it was awesome...