Keeping people on Windows...

I've always said, converting a user to Linux is easy. Keeping them on Linux is the hard part. The reason, users expect 100% perfection from Linux, where they wouldn't expect it from Windows. An example, a new Linux user tries to get program X working, if it doesn't work by a single click I hear grumbling "Windows wasn't this hard". Eventually they do go back to Windows, and spend hours trying to get program X working on Windows, due to incompatibilities.

I always shake my head as they don't realize that it's not that Linux wasn't easy it's they prefer Windows and Windows problems over Linux. Which a preference is much different that a systems capabilities.

Recently I was reminded of this while trying to get games working on Windows 7. Out of all the games I want to play on Windows, I've got a total of 1 working out of ~30. I spent 2 hours yesterday trying to get even one of them working. Problem is the Direct3d is not functioning for anything other than 64-bit programs. Eventually I gave up and went back to Linux.

I guess the same is true for me. Getting me to use windows is easy, but keeping me on windows is impossible because I prefer Linux.