[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by runningbird

Yeah, the whole ideal of open source software is a big reason I tried to make the switch. I think open source software is a great thing, and can (and is) helping society in some major ways

I agree.

It's just that at this point; switching is a major commitment. I get by, but there are so many things I cannot do;

When you first learned to use Windows, you did invest a lot of time and energy in doing so. Maybe you didn't realize because this happened in a natural and playful way when you were very young, or maybe because you thought it was "learning how to use a computer" when it really was "learning how to use Windows". But the fact remains that you did have a learning process.

So why aren't you ready to go through a similar learning process for Linux? I don't understand this attitude that many people have, like "I don't want to have to learn anything new in order to switch". Linux and Windows are two very different OS. You were ready to learn in order to use the one, why aren't you ready to learn in order to use the the other?

To me that's like someone saying "Ah, no! I already learned how to play soccer. I won't play tennis! It should be enough to know how to play soccer in order to play tennis.".

I can't even open a zip file.

It is very easy to open a zip file in Linux. I have no clue about ZenWalk. If you were using debian you could learn it in two minutes.

Isn't it funny that when some program isn't in Linux because it's proprietary software, people blame Linux instead of blaming the proprietary software.

It is indeed a revolutionary effort where many many people pour in much more than they get back in the return. But it just isn't practical for everyone to immerse themselves in it to the point of being completely competent, which may even extend to doing some developmental work when you hit a special need.

As it was already said several times, if you used Ubuntu you would not need to be completely competent at all! You can use Ubuntu happily without knowing one single shell command. The graphical user interface takes care of everything.

I had never heard of ZenWalk before so I can't know for sure but maybe it's just not the right OS for a beginner. If you're a beginner at weightlifting and buy a 100kg barbell and can't lift it, who is to blame? Weightlifting, or you? Maybe instead of saying that weightlifting is such a huge effort that you can't do it and that no normal people lift weights, you could buy lighter weights.