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Comment by microcolonel | Hacker News Reader

Of course these users would likely be well served(for the most part) by a GNU/Linux distribution, and with many of them the difference between XP and Windows 8 may be greater than the differences between XP and a typical CentOS installation, or even some of the more adventurous environments. The great thing is, in relation to the concerns Microsoft has put on this infographic, Windows 8 is not the natural choice.

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the difference between XP and Windows 8 may be greater than the differences between XP and a typical CentOS installation

It's a matter of opinion I suppose, but I'm strongly inclined to disagree with this. Unless we're just talking about "where the equivalent to the 'Start' button is", or other very superficial things.

Even in exceptional cases, such as users whose entire interaction with the OS is launching a web browser (and I expect this is far rarer than most people think because they forget about how often those people end up needing to print, or save off a set of PDFs, or a million other minor but common tasks), I'd still expect XP->CentOS to be at best equivalent in retraining cost compared to XP->Windows 8.

That's absolutely not the case. One of Microsoft's strengths has always been backwards compatibility, and the ability to run legacy applications in compatibility mode. I work in a large organization with literally hundreds of legacy medical applications running on XP. We're planning a migration to Windows 7 as all of the apps have been certified with the exception of IE6 dependencies (which will be delivered via Citrix). We could certify approximately 0% of our applications by switching to CentOS.

Except that they wouldn't - software incompatibility, browser incompatibility... It's similar to getting grandma to run Linux.

Software incompatibility certainly. But I don't think most people will notice browser compatibility issues if they move to Firefox or Chrome on Linux.

Do you realize how many legacy applications have IE dependencies? Most people in the real world will notice.

Why do so many commenters on tech sites believe "mum" or "grandpa" only run a browser?

Agreed. Also, if people understand the reasoning behind moving from Windows XP, they will find linux more attractive, since updates are free and frequent for most distributions, and similar OS migrations are unlikely to happen again. This is a real opportunity for desktop Linux.

Not if they're playing games.

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