Jason Straight wrote:
> Yeah, but personally I find it offensive that people try to judge linux for
> the desktop and push it to be something it's not. Linux has made it as
"Something it's not"? Are you writing this in good old tty1? I somewhat
understand how you feel, but be sure that if so many people "judge linux
for the desktop", they are not all wrong. The point is to make things
smoother for everyone.
far as
> it has on it's individuality and now that linux is in the limelight everyone
> wants to change it to make dummy distro's that Joe Blow with an IQ of 60
> could install. Which I actually don't have a problem with, but I don't want
> to see any linux distro stupidify itself for the under endowed at the expense
> of taking away the power that makes it linux for all the power users and
> linux savvy users that have brought it where it is today.
What is a "power user"? This term do not refer to any reality to me.
Everybody once was a beginner.
> It irks me as it would to hear people complaining that airplanes aren't easy
> enough to fly, or it's too hard to read your webpage you should make it with
> bigger letters for nearly blind people, or less big words for stupid people,
> or less packages for lazy people, or less options for impatient people, or
> ....
Computer science is precisely for lazy people. See : you are typing on a
keyboard instead or walking to me. Making things easier and faster is
precisely what computers are built for.
> As it is I think mdk offers what it offers which is a lot because that
> guarantees that it has more of the things people want, it also means there's
> more of what they don't, but it's easier to deslect packages (cumbersome as
> it might be) than it is if you get another unix and have to download and
(...)
I only said that if you do not select packages by hand, you happen to
install *too many* applications, in my humble opinion. What people love
is to discover : islands, foreign countries and programs. It makes them
feel that they are *active*, that they are *free*. Installing a package
is already so easy with tools like MandrakeUpdate: so why don't we let
the user choose which programs he wants *after* he has explored the
basic applications, the ones which are installed by default? This is the
way to make newcomers say "Linux is cool, it has tons of fun apps, you
can install them with just a click".
> I just personally would be pissed to see mdk take away packages and my
> ability to customize my install to cater to the ignorant, so mandrake being
> my distro of choice I feel the need to protect that :)
There is absolutely no need to protect anything : I do not want Mandrake
to take away packages. I simply think that all those packages should be
installed *by the user*, when he feels that he needs more applications,
or when he gets bored with the ones you gave him.
Short story : I remember when I first typed "win" at the C:\> prompt. At
that time, I did not care at all that my hard disk was empty. In fact, I
felt this was great : I had SPACE to fill. And before filling the disk,
I had a new "toy" to play with : moving windows, seeing how the GUI was
done, getting used to the basic stuff, etc. After a few days, I was
ready to install new applications, and that's how I really learnt
everything since then : by doing myself.
Let's sum it up : we all want to have an OS that suits everyone's needs.
It is more possible than with any commercial OS. But if you don't set
boundaries to what the OS provides by default ("the right things") for
virtually everyone, you will make a very big OS, with more bugs, less
integration, etc.
I stop because nobody will read such a long mail... :(
Gr�goire
