I mentioned the other day in the comments of my Ubuntu post that my girlfriend decided to get herself a iMac, this weekend we went to pick it up from the Apple store in Regents Street.
After the traumatising walk through soho carrying a computer in my arms when we got it home all seemed fine to begin with, but then when it came time to test out the iSight the thing was dead. It produced either pure white or pure green but nothing else.
I was really dreading taking it back as it would mean she would be without a computer for a while and just general be a total pain, I searched the Apple support forums and they got me nowhere but then I searched the forums and came across someone who had the same problem, they unplugged their iMac from the wall for 30 seconds and that fixed it, I did the same and voila, one happy mac.
So not too bad, but still a bit infuriating.
While we were there I also picked up a iPod Nano for Emma, I've not really looked at these in detail before and must say it's a very sexy bit of kit. Though comparing it to my 3 year old iPod I have doubts about the build quality, for example the plug where the power/doc goes in doesn't nicely click into place it's more a matter of forcing it in, not sure if that is normal but it sure is annoying.
Is your grandmother going to know how to search the forums to find out that she has to unplug the thing for thirty seconds for it to start working? ;-)
Touche - but at least the iMac came with 3 years phone support, they'd have told her :P
Dapper is officially called "Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS", where the LTS is "Long Term Support" - 5 years on the server, and 3 on the desktop, or the other way around, or something.
Having quibbled you and all, I also think your Mac is more gran-friendly than Ubuntu for now. We'll see with Dapper+2 in April next year ;-)
Its one thing to say they'll support it and another to actually do it. I put little to no stock in a brand new company saying they'll do something for 5 years. Also ask yourself what use will a linux box be running 5 year old software by then?
If MS were to say they'll support a OS for 11 years, I'd believe them, why? They supported NT4 for 11 years - releasing security updates till 2004 still, it would be like still supporting Linux 1.2.13 today and using it in production, i think the Linux development cycle completely does not lend itself to this.
The kernel not having a stable branch, the blatant disregard for backward compatibility, the willynilly changing of user interfaces even on the command line, the complete lack of working in a way compatible with your general enterprise user, its all bad for having long term support on Linux.
I'm all for Ubuntu succeeding and I wish they would cos god knows we need a good Linux desktop, but they are on the wrong track if they think doing that without delivering the features a general user needs. A general user does not only have OGG files, a general user does not just have the few video codecs they ship and a general user does not have the few cards that opensource supports. Ubuntu is going to have to make a distro that supports all the general user stuff and if that means they'd charge for it I'd buy it.
Also the 3 year support I am talking about isnt just patches delivered through software update etc, its actual phone based support, hardware replacement warranty the works.
Looks like the Ubuntu folks found your blog post about Ubuntu, posted to it, then read your other posts, and instead of posting about whatever topic it was on, decided to instead turn it into an Ubuntu reply. LOL!
On the bright side, these folks responding to your posts seem genuinely concerned about your grand-mother's computer usage. LOL!