About ZorinOS, Linux and that -other- OS...

Please pardon the length of this posting - it is an explanation which I cannot see any way to shorten and it seems important to clarify this before I ask further questions.

I am posting in the Newbie's area because I happen to be the only guy that a few folks know who happens to have some Linux exposure over time; so as such they are looking to me as being somewhat experienced compared to their total lack of any...

As for myself, I am not a total newbie and not any sort of total devotee either (as posted in my intro here).

Here's my story, which leads to some questions:

OK, I admit it=> as an old DOS guy when win-doze took over I was appalled, and having no real choices but to accept that, years ago...
I instead found ways to keep it from losing data and crashing. It's been JUST good enough but NOT a happy thing all this time. (Like being held prisoner in a place without any severe discomforts but still wanting to GET OUT !!!)

So all the years since then I've waited & hoped for Linux to become as simple & easy as the rotten win-doze 'virus' has been (knowing I wanted it & would help others to get there as well).

The dream-time is what I'd describe as when some Linux distros would be 'grandma & grandpa ready'; and having tried aplenty over time...they weren't there quite yet.

BUT...
Now it looks like that time has come.

I've had one very cool success thus far=> an 80+ year old friend of mine is now using the ZorinOS I installed for him as his everyday OS, very happily.
(And looks back at his years as an M$ user with a frown too.)

My own measure of this success as it applies to myself revolves around being able to tweak a Linux installation so that it is every bit as easy & simple to use - and with all possible functionality duplicated so as to be able to use one just as I use the other.
More of a quest for a work-alike situation than any sort of look-alike situation.

YES=> Linux IS NOT ween-dooz=> NO ARGUMENT HERE.

My ambition:
I have 2 PCs in the same room right across from each other; a simple turn of my chair to reach either.

I want to be able to use each closely enough as if I am a totally non-technical end-user doing my daily thing.
(And I've almost reached that goal too !!!)

Now it's time for me to meet this challenge for myself and my own daily usage.

(Wow - you read all that - Thanks !!!)

Hello (name removed) and thanks for your interesting response.

2 separated trains of thought in return:

Thing the 1st=>
I was 'doing PCs' since before there WERE any - meaning in the times of the ancient processors and so forth, and when DOS came along I was juuuust fine with it.

Ween-doze however...NOT FINE. Not even close to OK.
A stupid idea for stupifying people - badly done - crawling with unslain bugs - and as time passed it was just one bad paint-job after another bad paint-job applied to try and hide and maybe to smother those bugs without EVER truly fixing them.

I coped with it despite the extreme distaste it has always inspired - even managed to get succeeding versions to behave well enough so that data-loss was not a regular thing. (And I've waited=> and HOW I have waited !!!)

Thing the 2nd=>
I like desktop PCs, and I like having a desktop too - and having things neat & accessible...so what comes next, frankly, offends me once again despite it's inevitability.
And that is=> touchscreen-centered-EVERYTHING.
What this means to me is two-fold; desktops are more or less done with already as THE FORCE in the personal computing platform (clamshell form-factored NBs have been dead almost 2 years already in case that escaped notice), and since people are messy & sloppy by nature the touchscreen-centered world will simply enhance that messiness.

And what has all that blather to do with wonderful, reliable, intelligently made Linux ?

It's simple really:
Time to shine more brightly than ever before because mikro$oft knows quite well that ween-doze is a lost cause and multitudes of their former profit sources are trying to make do with ONLY non-weendoze hand-held devices already.

This cannot last however simply because the desktop has it's place and cannot be replaced fully & completely with those lower-powered devices.

SO=> as the ween-doze desktop dominance fades for very good reasons and folks adopt more and more things powered with an 'alternative OS', it is a getting-ready step for what CAN come after...Desktop Linux !!!

=========>BUT<==========
For that to occur, I'm sorry to say that guys like me will have to keep asking for familiar-looking and -working desktop things and tricks so that when folks finally wake up a teensy little bit from their tablet-ized trances, they can easily get a nice, familiar desktop MINUS the ugly, horrible, resented, hated Redmond Domination.

So scowl away at me all you wish, you scowlers.
Be as high- and heavy-handed as you wish also...

Now that I and others who are JUST like me are upon this path (with decades held desires for a BETTER (but familiar) desktop to share with those less inclined to work at it a bit) - we are NOT just going to shut up and go away.

Sorry.
We've been held back and tortured TOO LONG.
Time for better choices.

Like ex-smokers who powerfully disdain just the very smell of smoke; we who have been FORCED to accept krapware DO exist in HUGE numbers and now WE WILL BE HEARD !!!

I sincerely think that the devoted, long-time Linux Hothead Types mentioned in (name removed)'s post are intelligent enough to see and embrace this opportunity for what it is (but only time will tell).

Win-Borg's power to assimilate is already OVER=> so say I and many others.
Now it is OUR TURN to join, be joined, or assimilate what we need.
Why fight against the inevitable ???!!!

1. MILLIONS of ween-doze users NEED an OS to replace it.
2. Linux is the logical alternative.
3. People dislike change, and most dislike having to learn new things, and resist both strongly.
4. For those folks to accept Linux it NEEDS to be very much like what they already know.

Hence look-alike & work-alike distros; AND a need for such distros to be polished a bit.

Complications are NOT desirable; command-line centeredness is 100% TABOO; ease & familiarity are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to any possible success in this.

My attempt in this is to prove to myeslf, for the benefits of others (as explained earlier) that it CAN be done; to do it; and to be able to show it as having been do-able.

GUI-centeredness is here to STAY (look at the countless tablets now in usage).
Fiddling & diddling endlessly as a hobby is for the very few.
What I describe as my goal is needed by THE MANY - the non-technical - who need things to be visual no-brainers.

There. Does that help at all ?

PS:
Here is a wonderful talk by Linus Torvalds in case anyone has not already viewed it=>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShbP3OpASA

swarfendor437 wrote:The problem is there will always be some programs that are written specifically for that 'other' OS - enter 'Ulteo'!

With Ulteo's Open Virtual Desktop (OVD) technology, corporations are able to quickly install and deploy an OVD Session Manager with one or more OVD Application Servers. After defining users and creating a “publication”, end users can access the applications provided by Open Virtual Desktop using different possible modes:

* Windows or Linux Desktop with a mix of remote Windows and/or Linux applications
* Application Portal, to run remote Windows and/or Linux applications from web links
* Application Publishing, to get remote Windows and/or Linux applications seamlessly integrated in the local end-user desktop

1. MILLIONS of ween-doze users NEED an OS to replace it.
2. Linux is the logical alternative.
3. People dislike change, and most dislike having to learn new things, and resist both strongly.
4. For those folks to accept Linux it NEEDS to be very much like what they already know.

Hence look-alike & work-alike distros; AND a need for such distros to be polished a bit.

Complications are NOT desirable; command-line centeredness is 100% TABOO; ease & familiarity are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to any possible success in this.

My attempt in this is to prove to myeslf, for the benefits of others (as explained earlier) that it CAN be done; to do it; and to be able to show it as having been do-able.

1. MILLIONS of ween-doze users NEED an OS to replace it.
2. Linux is the logical alternative.
3. People dislike change, and most dislike having to learn new things, and resist both strongly.
4. For those folks to accept Linux it NEEDS to be very much like what they already know.

Hence look-alike & work-alike distros; AND a need for such distros to be polished a bit.

Complications are NOT desirable; command-line centeredness is 100% TABOO; ease & familiarity are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to any possible success in this.

My attempt in this is to prove this for myself, and for the benefits of others that it CAN be done; to do it; and to be able to show it as having been do-able.