Talk about promoting the cause, providing the sound bite in the mp3 format, rather than something like Ogg Vorbis or another patent-free format?

M2TS Converter

C'mon all of you - you DON'T THINK that there's never been a call like this to a Windows Reseller, or an ISP, or a hardware distrubutor, or heck even just some poor company who sold (if you can recall) "Y2K compliant Mice"????

To sit around and hash about how this is some fault of Linux is foolish - it's about some people CLEARLY not having enough horsepower to be purchasing computers on their own. It's why there's Geeks at BestBuy! And those Geeks are NOT spending even 1% of their day helping Linux users! They are spending 90% of their day helping Windows users, 5% helping Mac users, and the other five is for the junk the store makes them do (clean a counter, etc).

So, to interpret this as as some GRAND problem with Linux is ridiculous - the guys working the help lines for VACUUM CLEANERS get stupid calls like this! If you don't think so - you've NEVER worked or seen a call center or help service in action. Period.

Best one I ever got at our help desk - guy calls up and confidently says,
"I want to learn Unix, TONIGHT!"
And - this was in the days before a GUI desktop was available from our computer center for the users!!!

We howled for days, whenever he was heard of seen, we always called him the "Super Genius" (think it and say it like Wile E. Coyote says it), because his brain was capable of learning an OS in a day.

Funny!

What is so baffling about seeing a clueless-linux-user. Everyone has to start somewhere. I'd help the new guy, but he probably wouldn't even want to use windows after I gave him my knowledge. Google IS your friend.

I agree with the webmistresses statement, that if a person has the audacity to ring up a magazine and leave abusive messages on an answering machine, prattling on and blaming the software when it is clearly PEBCAK (problem exists between chair and keyboard) then he got just what he deserved. It is not a fault of Linux, nor the Linux Community, that these days the only level of intelligence required to be a "computer user" is to be able to push a power button. If people actually took the time to educate themselves a little bit in the first place, then clearly they would not find themselves in such a dilemma, and then worse still, feel the need to not just blame but even abuse a completely innocent party for their own complete and utter ignorance. As for the availability of support in the use of Linux, well....I've been using it in many of it's flavours since about 1994, and have found that there has always been an incredible and vast amount of support and technical help freely available for new and experienced Linux users alike, if ONLY people actually open their eyes and look for it, and put a bit of effort in to it, instead of pointing fingers and expecting every body to do everything for them. Get a grip, and keep it in perspective. This guy is clearly a tool. ;-)

When you have a technical problem with your new pc, which you got at CURRYS, is from ACER, shows a big sign LINPUS during boot up who will you call?
Acer? no!
Linpus? no!
the stupid idiots at Currys that sold you something you can't even begin to use? no!
you call a magazine from another country and argue with a voicemail!

The lessons I draw from this are:

1) There is a need for more publicized support forums, telephone hotlines, etc for new Linux end-users. The fact that this poor person had to take a stab in the dark to call a magazine office on another continent shows that the hardware manufacturers, and yes, the overall Linux community is not all that it can to grow the Linux userbase. The fact that Linux-based netbooks like the Acer mentioned in the call are 4 times more likely to be returned than Windows versions after purchase is another indication that this is the case.

2) Rather than reflect upon this and learn from it, the immediate reaction of the staffers at LJ are to laugh at this man by posting the MP3 as an amusing tidbit for the website, which even garners more sneering comments from the fanboy audience. Sad.

Does anyone of you recall what the original problem was? I doubt it was this guy's accent.

Well, this is just another proof that Linux is clearly "frankly stupid" from an ordinary user point of view.

It's not a standard proper English accent, but it does sound English...There are people I have met who are from England who sound like that. Infact it's pretty normal. But then again, I'm from Yorkshire...

He says right in the beginning that he's from England.

I didn't understand a word he said, anyone care to "translate"?

Well, Im pretty sure he is not really from England. Sounds very much like an swedish accent to me.

Well, we all wanted "linux" to be popular at the turn of the century, NOW, it's more popular, He He.
Since Linux, I've developed a small computer business, I can tell you, that 'caller' is not much different from the average Windows-Computer user -- They have no clue, even worse, some don't know that they don't have a clue, it's just downright painful sometimes.
It's such a pleasure to talk to a Windows user who actually understands the word: "Partition" and "CPU" Such a person, a WOMAN I might add, I talked to today.

I have used Ubuntu since 2005. I still am at a loss to know exactly what is going on with my java. I have several versions, several jdks, vms. One program wants this one, one wants that one. Gcj, 1.5 1.6 !!!!

Setting up paths (Export JAVA_HOME=????) Sheesh! And this is with Ubuntu and the great community to turn to. Imagine the special distros such as those used by the eeepc.

I would expect a distro to be able to handle common archives such as zip and tgz (maybe stuffit is macs still do that).