Anybody here use Linux?

[Sally]

Did you miss that whole Iraq/UN/France-Germany-Russia thing that happened
last year? You must live in a cave...

No, of course not but I don't see why it would affect your choice of
distro. I'm British and our forces were/are there as well you know. It
wouldnt make one bit of difference to the distro I choose, the make of
car I drive etc...

 

[gothika]

On 25 Jan 2004 21:46:13 -0800, (e-mail address removed) (jamotto) wrote:
Here's what you need to do to ensure you'll get your rebate.
Take all the necessary items to be mailed off, i.e. the original
receipt, the box upc code and the form and scan them together as one
image. also scan the addressed envelope you will mail them in.
When you mail it send it registered/certified mail, so you can get a
signed receipt from whomever receives it at the rebate center.(This
alone is usually enough to let them know you are serious about getting
your rebate.)
I've had problems in the past with hardware/software manufacturers
trying to give me the brush off or a line of bull when I inquire why I
didn't recieve my rebate.
I just send them a legal notice with printed copies of the scans of I
took showing that I enclosed everything as well as a copy of the
return receipt with the employees signature stating that legal action
will promptly follow and that a grievance has already been filed with
the US attorney general's office and I always get my rebate within a
few days.
That having been said I agree that rebate offers are just scams of the
most obvious sort and are usually not worth the hassle and cost to
persue them.
What they count on is that the majority of consumers will not follow
through or that they'll lose their receipt and not be able to.
There's also the fine print clauses that are rife in the contract
aggreement. The print of which is so small that you'd need a 20 power
glass to even read it. Some limit you to a single rebate per household
or for US buyers only etc...
If they were truly up front and honest about honoring their rebate
offer they'd work it through the retailer who'd take it off at the
register and do the rebate through the store.

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

No, of course not but I don't see why it would affect your choice of
distro. I'm British and our forces were/are there as well you know. It
wouldnt make one bit of difference to the distro I choose, the make of
car I drive etc...

I try to boycott, in particular, French products. They way the tried to
stonewall our efforts, only for us to find out the corruption involved and
the deal making despite UN embargo's agains Iraq turns my stomach. I'm not
here to start a political debate about it all, but I'm a staunch Bush
supporter and French products of any kind are not allowed in my house.
German products I'm a little lighter on because they didn't go the extreme
distance France did, but I won't be buying a Mercedes, BMW, or VW anytime
soon either.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
6:22pm up 8:58, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 1.57, 1.88

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Matt]

Lastly, I do agree that for Linux to really hit the mainstream it needs to
solve the latest/greatest hardware problem. OEM's need to step up to the
plate. I think the corporate desktop boom that'll probably happen the next
2 to 3 years will certainly help, but I think mainstream Linux is at least
5 years away in getting really good OEM driver support for hardware.

When linux reaches a certain market share (5% ?), hardware makers will
not be able to ignore it. They will hire linux hackers for peanuts to
write good drivers (Nvidia is already grabbing about all of the linux
video card market by building a good linux driver). By then the Open
Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.

 

[Matt]

still a big problem for an avg. user.


Well, maybe if you shop the gateways and dells, you've got a problem. If
you built your own, it's highly likely that linux will like it. -Dave

True if you build using a motherboard that was very popular a year and a
half ago and you choose your video card and printer carefully. Obsolete
hardware is cheaper anyway.

 

[gothika]

I try to boycott, in particular, French products. They way the tried to
stonewall our efforts, only for us to find out the corruption involved and
the deal making despite UN embargo's agains Iraq turns my stomach. I'm not
here to start a political debate about it all, but I'm a staunch Bush
supporter and French products of any kind are not allowed in my house.
German products I'm a little lighter on because they didn't go the extreme
distance France did, but I won't be buying a Mercedes, BMW, or VW anytime
soon either.

JEEZUUS! Another Bushite.

 

[BarryNL]

JEEZUUS! Another Bushite.

And one with a Sesame Street level grasp of politics. Schroder actually
won an election on an anti-US platform and she thinks France was more
against the US! The US just decided that it could afford a fall out with
France more than it could with Germany or Russia and so painted France
as the main opponent. Anyone who takes this 'I boycott French products
but not German/Russian' might as well just buy an 'IQ<80' hat and be
done with it.

 

[JAD]

Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.

5 years and windows will be buried? matt you are the optimist

 

[JAD]

Obsolete

hardware is cheaper anyway.

This is a positive for moving to nux?

 

[DYM]

It's a marketing scam. Many consumer items in the U.S. (especially
electronics and computer components) are advertised as costing $____ "after
rebate". Let's say a DVD player is $30 US after rebate. So you pay sixty
bucks for it, and then you have to mail in for the rebate. To send away for
the rebate, you need an ORIGINAL sales receipt, and an ORIGINAL UPC CODE
(cut off the box). Plus, you need to fill in a form of course. You have to
send all this information away by mail. It's a scam, as most rebates are
rejected, even if they are claimed correctly. The most common scam is that
you did everything right, but the rebate processing company will claim
(incorrectly) that you didn't send in the UPC code. Thus the rebate is
rejected.

What it boils down to is that it is a way to trick U.S. consumers into
paying more for certain items by promising to give them a discount AFTER
THEY BUY something, and then deliberately failing to honor that promise.

You'll see lots of people claim that they have no problem claiming rebates.
These are the same people who SHOULD be purchasing lottery tickets on a
regular basis. When more than 50% of rebates are automatically rejected,
someone who's never had a problem claiming a rebate obviously has luck on
their side. -Dave

I've never had any problem getting a rebate. Yes, it's kinds a scam,
as they are counting on a large percentage of people to not bother
mailing it in.

Stores (such as Best Buy, Compusa, etc) will print up a seperate
receipt for rebatable (?!?) items.

Yeah, it's kinds a scam, but I have yet to have a rebate refused.

BTW, where can I see where you got that 50% number you quoted.

DYM

 

[Dave C.]

True if you build using a motherboard that was very popular a year and a
half ago and you choose your video card and printer carefully. Obsolete
hardware is cheaper anyway.

I don't build obsolete hardware. I've never had a problem installing linux
on any machine I've tried, including various notebooks that were brand new,
and not last year's model. I think you are confused. What linux has a
problem with is not obsolete but rather "cheap". For example, for a long
time linux would not work with winmodems. So if you paid less than a
certain amount of money for a brand new, current model modem, linux would
probably not recognize it. But even that is no longer true. -Dave

 

[Matt]

Office and other basic application software will be much better. That
is when the landslide will come and Windows will be buried.

5 years and windows will be buried? matt you are the optimist

I don't think it's unrealistic to expect something like a steep sigmoid
curve for linux market share. Maybe 25% of computers are replaced each
year. If half of those buyers switch from Windows to Linux, that is
about a 10% annual gain. My crystal ball indicates something like:

2007 5%
2008 8%
2009 12%
2010 20%
2011 30%
2012 40%
2013 49%
2014 57%
2015 64%
2016 70%
2017 74%
2018 77%
2019 79%

These numbers are extremely speculative. Can somebody point to some
reliable statistics on the the growth of linux?

 

[Rod Johnson]

GPAN and fetchnews are the oly way to go if your stuck with an expensive
dialup account like me. sniff sniff ah the wonders of non socialist
economies.

Rod

 

[Rod Johnson]

Man that is really sad. My ten year old uses linux and xp- guess which he
likes better. Can't beat enlightenment for eye-candy.

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

And one with a Sesame Street level grasp of politics. Schroder actually
won an election on an anti-US platform and she thinks France was more
against the US! The US just decided that it could afford a fall out with
France more than it could with Germany or Russia and so painted France
as the main opponent. Anyone who takes this 'I boycott French products
but not German/Russian' might as well just buy an 'IQ<80' hat and be
done with it.

First of all, any proof of this wild speculation of yours?

Second of all, it's well documented the great lengths France went to try and
prevent us from going forward. Germany and Russia did nothing but vote
against us. France went well beyond that.

Third, I do not only boycott French products, but I make a solid attempt at
avoiding any products from any of them. However, sometimes you can't
prevent it. There aren't any real desktop Linux alternatives. Fedora is too
young and Red Hat abandoned us.

Lastly, I'm not trying to make this into a political discussion at all. I
just stated my reasons for not going with Mandrake Linux and that was that.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
10:56pm up 1 day 13:31, 2 users, load average: 0.29, 0.32, 0.14

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Dashi]

When linux reaches a certain market share (5% ?), hardware makers will not
be able to ignore it. They will hire linux hackers for peanuts to write
good drivers (Nvidia is already grabbing about all of the linux video card
market by building a good linux driver).

Yeah right! I had the pleasure of installing the Linux Nvidia drivers to
Mandrake 9.2 tonight.

What a pain in the ass, I decided to remove Linux altogether from my system,
guess what, it's like a virus, harder than hell to remove.

It has you jumping thru hoops for what should be an easy task.

Linux sux big time.

Dashi



By then the Open

 

[Dashi]

The average computer user is not going to use Linux as an operating system.
To archaic and not intutitive at all.

Dashi

 

[Dashi]

It's a marketing scam. Many consumer items in the U.S. (especially
electronics and computer components) are advertised as costing $____
"after
rebate". Let's say a DVD player is $30 US after rebate. So you pay sixty
bucks for it, and then you have to mail in for the rebate. To send away
for
the rebate, you need an ORIGINAL sales receipt, and an ORIGINAL UPC CODE
(cut off the box). Plus, you need to fill in a form of course. You have
to
send all this information away by mail. It's a scam, as most rebates are
rejected, even if they are claimed correctly. The most common scam is
that
you did everything right, but the rebate processing company will claim
(incorrectly) that you didn't send in the UPC code. Thus the rebate is
rejected.

What it boils down to is that it is a way to trick U.S. consumers into
paying more for certain items by promising to give them a discount AFTER
THEY BUY something, and then deliberately failing to honor that promise.

You'll see lots of people claim that they have no problem claiming
rebates.
These are the same people who SHOULD be purchasing lottery tickets on a
regular basis. When more than 50% of rebates are automatically rejected,
someone who's never had a problem claiming a rebate obviously has luck on
their side. -Dave

Very true, nothing but a scam!

Dashi

 

[Dashi]

Hey Ed:

What is the incentive for companies to offer mail in rebates?

Could it be that you are offering them an interest free loan for the period
between when you pay up front and the rebate arrives in your mailbox?

Just another consumer ripoff.

Dashi

 

[Dashi]

No, of course not but I don't see why it would affect your choice of
distro. I'm British and our forces were/are there as well you know. It
wouldnt make one bit of difference to the distro I choose, the make of car
I drive etc...

Sally I bet that you are a good looking babe, do you like Americans?

Dashi