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Does the popularity make their jobs easier?

listenallyall 6y ago
Is that a serious question? Is selling Windows software that a user can install in 5 minutes easier than selling Linux software which likely requires a municipality to buy all new computers (and all the local government budgeting that involves), teach all its employees a new OS, standardize on things like distros and window managers, and then maybe be able to run it? Yes, it's much easier.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Where it's sketchy to find Windows is inside the chassis of some piece of specialized equipment with its own control panel. You may not even realize that what you're working with is a full-screen Win32 app until you get a bluescreen or taskbar popop or something. Then you learn that in addition to the domain-specific software/hardware and what you're trying to use it for, you've got a whole Windows desktop worth of reliability risk in there. If it's just a touchscreen or hardware buttons, you may need a key to open a panel where the keyboard/mouse are, or to bring your own keyboard/mouse, in order to navigate the Windows part of the interface to fix the problem. Obviously if it's intended to be networked to existing desktops for control over a LAN, the client software will be Windows, but even then you hope the server isn't.
- craftinator 6y ago
  > selling Linux software which likely requires a municipality to buy all new computers What are you talking about? Why would using Linux require a new computer? It runs on like... Everything. I have a laptop from 2003 running this year's Lubuntu. I have a microcontroller with 32 MB (yes mega bytes) RAM running Linux right now. I've installed it on Chromebooks. It works nearly anywhere
  - dang 6y ago
    Would you please drop the swipes from your HN comments? "What are you talking about?" is bad enough. "Ur a cunt" is obviously in bannable territory, regardless of what you were replying to (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26128020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26128020). We've had to ask you many times to stop breaking the site guidelines. If you can't or won't fix this, we're eventually going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, so please fix this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
saiya-jin 6y ago
Everybody knows Windows a bit. Even my retired mom who isn't a native english speaker could click few times on Next button, which might be enough to deploy controlling software with default settings. Good luck with Unix. Outside our tech bubble working on Unix is still perceived as hollywood-style hacking of the bank and folks really have no clue, unless its done in GUI just like... you guessed it, Windows. Folks wouldn't even touch it.

Is that a serious question? Is selling Windows software that a user can install in 5 minutes easier than selling Linux software which likely requires a municipality to buy all new computers (and all the local government budgeting that involves), teach all its employees a new OS, standardize on things like distros and window managers, and then maybe be able to run it? Yes, it's much easier.

closeparen 6y ago
Where it's sketchy to find Windows is inside the chassis of some piece of specialized equipment with its own control panel. You may not even realize that what you're working with is a full-screen Win32 app until you get a bluescreen or taskbar popop or something. Then you learn that in addition to the domain-specific software/hardware and what you're trying to use it for, you've got a whole Windows desktop worth of reliability risk in there. If it's just a touchscreen or hardware buttons, you may need a key to open a panel where the keyboard/mouse are, or to bring your own keyboard/mouse, in order to navigate the Windows part of the interface to fix the problem. Obviously if it's intended to be networked to existing desktops for control over a LAN, the client software will be Windows, but even then you hope the server isn't.
craftinator 6y ago
> selling Linux software which likely requires a municipality to buy all new computers What are you talking about? Why would using Linux require a new computer? It runs on like... Everything. I have a laptop from 2003 running this year's Lubuntu. I have a microcontroller with 32 MB (yes mega bytes) RAM running Linux right now. I've installed it on Chromebooks. It works nearly anywhere
- dang 6y ago
  Would you please drop the swipes from your HN comments? "What are you talking about?" is bad enough. "Ur a cunt" is obviously in bannable territory, regardless of what you were replying to (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26128020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26128020). We've had to ask you many times to stop breaking the site guidelines. If you can't or won't fix this, we're eventually going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, so please fix this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

saiya-jin 6y ago

Everybody knows Windows a bit. Even my retired mom who isn't a native english speaker could click few times on Next button, which might be enough to deploy controlling software with default settings. Good luck with Unix. Outside our tech bubble working on Unix is still perceived as hollywood-style hacking of the bank and folks really have no clue, unless its done in GUI just like... you guessed it, Windows. Folks wouldn't even touch it.