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posted by janrinok on Sunday April 06 2014, @08:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the but-not-the-year-of-the-Linux-desktop dept.

A recent poll by The Inquirer asked, "Which operating system will you use after Windows XP support ends on 8 April?"

Among respondents, 33 percent said they will move to Windows 7, 17 percent will stick with XP, 13 percent will switch to Linux, 11 percent will get Windows 8, and 5 percent said OS X.

So most will switch to Windows 7, but many would rather stay with Win XP without support than switch to Linux.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by number11 on Monday April 07 2014, @03:03AM

    by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 07 2014, @03:03AM (#27269)

    FUD works, everyone knows that Linux is full of daemons! It is better to stick with XP without any security (which is actually not that much of a change) than to go to the dark side!

    It's a threatening change for the average non-techie user. The ones in corporate environments ask "Does it have Outlook?" The individuals, "Will my MSOffice [2003|2007|2014] work with it?" AFAIK LibreOffice doesn't have ribbon menus. Not that I'm complaining, but I deal with some people who are remarkably resistant to change.

    However, I see that some places (e.g. the UK gov't) have contracted for 12 months more support for XP. What do you figure the chances are of those patches becoming generally available? If not from MS, then from someplace else that has access to copies of them? I'd lay money that the patches will be on Pirate Bay a few hours after they come from MS.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @04:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @04:57AM (#27294)

    the UK gov't) have contracted for 12 months more support for XP

    ...and perhaps more than that.
    The per-machine numbers on that are just STUPID. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [theregister.co.uk]

    Someone deserves to not simply be fired, but publicly flogged.
    (I just took someone to task about medieval behavior, but in this case it's completely deserved.)

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by dilbert on Monday April 07 2014, @12:59PM

    by dilbert (444) on Monday April 07 2014, @12:59PM (#27433)

    I'd lay money that the patches will be on Pirate Bay a few hours after they come from MS.

    You're probably right about this, but I see two problems here.

    First, there will immediately be copycat patches available that are actually rootkits.

    Second, assuming an XP user was clueful enough to find a non-rootkit update for XP on TPB, wouldn't that imply they understand tech enough to not be using XP in the first place?

  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday April 07 2014, @02:45PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Monday April 07 2014, @02:45PM (#27520) Homepage Journal

    AFAIK LibreOffice doesn't have ribbon menus

    IMO that's one of its strong points; lack of having to deal with MS Office any more is one of the nice things about being retired. I'm using Open Office to write my books as L.O. won't do full justification.

    I love KDE and Linux but some OS software can be maddening. GIMP's interface is a mess, and I tried to turn a text log file into a table. I finally gave up in frustration; O.O. would only open it in Write, its spreadsheet won't import a text file and its database requires Java, which I refuse to install on my machines.

    I'm happy with O.O. Write, but does anyone know of a good open source spreadsheet or database?

    --
    A man legally forbidden from possessing a firearm is in charge of America's nuclear arsenal. Have a nice day.
    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 07 2014, @03:13PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Monday April 07 2014, @03:13PM (#27550)

      GIMP's interface is a mess,

      GIMP is the poster child for bad interface design. If there's a more horrid interface out there, I'd be interested to hear about it. "Funny" enough, there actually used to be a single-window plugin for it that they dropped. Did they finally compile that option into the mainstream release yet?

      and I tried to turn a text log file into a table. I finally gave up in frustration; O.O. would only open it in Write, its spreadsheet won't import a text file

      My first thought is to wangle up a bash script to make the log into a CSV and then import that...but I'm pretty sure I just heard "normal" computer users everywhere scream out in agony at bash-caused melty eyeballs. Barring bash, I'd think you could do a find-and-replace to CSVatize it.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 1) by GmanTerry on Monday April 07 2014, @05:14PM

      by GmanTerry (829) on Monday April 07 2014, @05:14PM (#27625)

      Does Office still have those super annoying paper clip and dog animations? They were so annoying.

      --
      Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
      • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday April 07 2014, @05:54PM

        by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Monday April 07 2014, @05:54PM (#27640) Homepage Journal

        No, that went away ten years or more ago. They have much more subtle ways of infuriating you now.

        --
        A man legally forbidden from possessing a firearm is in charge of America's nuclear arsenal. Have a nice day.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12 2014, @09:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12 2014, @09:54PM (#30612)

      does anyone know of a good open source spreadsheet
      Bookmark this link as a boilerplate for future needs:
      search?q=site:alternativeto.net+intitle:Excel+inur l:Linux [google.com]
      Resulting page [alternativeto.net]

      or database?
      search?q=site:alternativeto.net+intitle:Microsoft+ intitle:Access+inurl:Linux [google.com]
      I'm shocked that as a Linux user you haven't encountered pointers to that site before.

      [LibreOffice's and OpenOffice's] database requires Java
      Keep an eye on LibreOffice. They're working like Hell to get rid of that dependency.
      LibreOffice Calc also recently got a new engine.

      -- gewg_

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 07 2014, @03:06PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Monday April 07 2014, @03:06PM (#27543)

    AFAIK LibreOffice doesn't have ribbon menus. Not that I'm complaining, but I deal with some people who are remarkably resistant to change.

    I think you're saying they're now resistant to switching away from the Ribbon, but that still makes my eye twitch.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Monday April 07 2014, @05:00PM

    by etherscythe (937) on Monday April 07 2014, @05:00PM (#27618) Journal

    The ones in corporate environments ask "Does it have Outlook?"

    Funny you should mention that; (some) Office applications are the support mussion for WINE (feature parity is the v. 1.0 spec).

    --
    "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"