[CS-FSLUG] "Final" answer from PowerNotebooks.

[Nathan T.]

A lot of vendors don't know how to sell Linux systems nor do they even
try. Have you ever gone to a store and had a salesperson walk you over
to a Linux system, confidently show you its features and how some
parts of it works, tell you about its advantages and then offer you a
complimentary support packages from the store just like they would
offer you if you were purchasing something running Windows or Mac OS?

Didn't think so.

It may seem to those stores like they aren't going to be able to sell
Linux no matter what, but I think if they went to the same trouble to
sell a good Linux distribution as they do to sell Windows they
wouldn't have any trouble finding willing customers, many of which
with the help of books which the store could put right next to the
Linux display would probably find it a nice OS. It would help if the
books were written specifically for that distribution and were at
least as current as the version of the distribution that is shown on
the computer and on the shelves. Perhaps Mandrake and SUSE should
invest in having such books written for them just like Linspire did,
not thick manuals, but instruction books like one might read to learn
electronics or how to program.

Anyway, that's not likley to happen in big stores. Its more likely
that the little guy's are going to take this big step first and that
still won't be for quite a while. I'm surprised that despite being
this aware of the truth about MS and how the customer doesn't really
own their copy of Windows, and has to go through all sorts of checks
as if they were criminals just to find out that after all that they
still have to worry about DRM, Palladium and TCPA, people still use MS
and defend it as if it was still a good option. After reading that MS
Office 2000 could only be [re]installed so many times before you would
have to buy a new copy, I had gotten the message. I reinstall a lot
simply because Windows XP keeps breaking, I wonder how many more times
I've got to go before it won't work any more,  I also wouldn't be
surprised if it waited until I had removed my old Windows partition
during the new instllation process before telling me that it won't
reinstall.