Very true, but unless you know anybody who is a die-hard Linux user you can't call anybody. Remote desktop support may be possible too, but only if you give away your password (and then you run into privacy/security issues).

However, I always find forum support (as well as mailing list support) to be more helpful anyway.

I'm thinking that if someone really wanted to help someone else this way, they'd use straight SSH rather than something like VNC, just because then you could probably get to the problem faster (just about 90% of problems in Linux-based OSes can be solved from the command line), and it would be a lot faster (much less protocol overhead).

Of course this doesn't solve the security/trust issue (in fact giving someone straight command-line access to your system kinda makes it worse ), but all I'm saying is that "remote desktop" support might be overkill in some cases.

Actually, what we asked you was: would you allow your employees to run Windows on your company's computers? (if you ever own a company).
Or would you chose a distro of your liking and make that the company "standard"?

I would probably make sure my employees have only Linux (but any distro) on their computers.

However, that aside, by the way that person posted it was merely out of fear. Fear of trying new things. That's where those kinds of people are in the wrong.

By the way that post was worded (i.e. "don't know how to use Fedora or SuSE so I'm trying to get rid of them with Win XP), it smells like someone trying to troll here and has nothing to do with a company forcing Windoze on them.

OK, but the real question:

You said that if a company forces Windows on employees it's like an evil dictatorship.

Members asked that if you would own a company and forced Linux on employees, why would you not be an evil dictator?

Because I would accept *any* Linux distro, while most companies that force Windoze on employees only use one version of Windoze.

Besides, technically any Linux distro is its own operating system.

Well then, by your standards you are a dictator, just like Ballmer.

This wasn't part of the discussion. The topic at hand was you comparing Ballmer and Jobs to Hitler and other dictators because they don't allow their employees to use anything other than Windows.
If you won't allow your employees to use anything other than Linux then, by your logic, you are a dictator.

Distribution doesn't really matter, all distros are still Linux but with a slightly different set of apps installed by default.

True, but @easuter: I would *not* tell users to just use Linux, but *any* OS as long as it's open source. That's all I really care about.

As long as it's FOSS, it's perfect. If it's proprietary, it's crap. That already makes me better than Ba££mer who only cares about Windoze.

Sigh...you are still dodging the main point: you compared Ballmer to Hitler (for christ's sakes) because he wouldn't allow the freedom to chose an operating system.

You are only giving your imaginary employees a limited scope of freedom, so maybe you're not Hitler...perhaps just a Goebels.

What everyone is trying to tell you is that companies are NOT countries or democracies, you're comparing completely different things.
A company like Microsoft is still accountable to its shareholders while dictators tend to be accountable to nobody. Get the difference?

Yes, I do -- which is why in my opinion government shouldn't leave business power unchecked. That's how we had such low wages, sweatshops, and child labor here in the U.S. during the late 1800's. The same thing goes for M$ today: They bully everybody around just because they want money. They then create a monopoly and expect to get away with violating the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts? Not a chance!

Agreed +1

Makes you wonder what bribery M$ used to force Asus and Dell to drop linux...

I know. Thankfully Google is trying to reverse that trend with their Linux distro that has a browser as a DE.

Umm, no...I prefer to be able to do things other than browse the web, TYVM. Why replace a desktop monopoly with a "cloud" monopoly? To me that actually makes the situation worse...

Ummm... what's a "Windoze"?