Dale schreef:
> Holly Bostick wrote:
> 
>> 3 (Tough Love): You don't want to get rid of KDE, but there's a 
>> good chance you don't need all of KDE-- you might consider trimming
>>  it.
> I plan to let my mom use it if I move so I hope I can keep it all.

Now, see, that's where you lose me.... because your mom *may* use the
computer if you move, you want to keep every possibility of KDE
available for her?

What is your mother actually likely to use the computer for, if she in
fact does use it (which you don't even know if she will)?

If she's never heard of an MP3, and isn't likely to download any, she
doesn't *need* amaroK/juK/noatun (kdemultimedia-meta), no matter how
nice it is. Kscd (for audio CDs) will be fine.

If she doesn't have any DVDs or download films, (k)mplayer and xine and
its ilk are a waste of space.

Is she really likely to change her wallpaper or window decoration a lot
(or ever)? If not, kde-artwork is pretty pointless.

Is she likely to administer users or create cron jobs? No? So much for
kdeadmin-meta.

Has she a digital camera or video camera? A fax? Does she edit graphics
files? Take screenshots of her desktop? No? Well then The Gimp and
kdegrapics-meta doesn't have to be there either.

Does she do a lot of document editing? Of MSWord documents? Does she
really need OO.o, or even KWord for this? Might abiword not be
sufficient, or even kedit or kate?

You see where I'm going with this. I admit that I'm a bit hot on this
issue; my bf's mother was recently forced to accept a computer by her
other son (hand-me-down). She does not know anything about computers,
and in fact doesn't want this one (but everyone is figuring that she
"needs" one, and once she gets used to it and sees the capabilities,
she'll love it. I'm not so sure myself, but it could go that way, of
course). At her recent birthday party, she was complaining that all of
her friends and family (who are experienced, "average" users) were
giving her advice like "you need to get cable internet", and that sort
of thing-- while she's trying to master Windows Solitaire *in order to*
*learn how to use the mouse*. We have a printer (hand-me-down) to give
her, but what's the rush when she doesn't know what a text file (or a
*.doc file) is,  or what programs are needed to open or view them-- in fact,
she doesn't have any text documents-- much less a need to print said
non-existent documents (which if needed she could create in Notepad just
as well as OO.o Writer, and probably easier).

I'm also hot on this issue because this was always my major complaint
about Windows. Microsoft, like any company, wants to create a positive
experience for the users of their product, so that the user will
continue to buy their product. That's normal. What isn't "normal", imo,
is their design philosophy-- that the only (or most successful) way to
ensure a positive user experience is to control the user's environment
so severely that it only encompasses those areas that Microsoft is
guaranteed to deliver a positive experience in. So MSOffice saves files
in a proprietary format that MSOffice reads best. Optimization of
webpages created in Frontpage (free with MSOffice) display perfectly in
IE, and poorly in Mozilla. *.wmv files are beneficial to use due to the
compression, but are hard to play in media players that are not WMP. And
the list goes on-- though I'm still not sure why the \My * folders
(Documents, Media, Music, etc) are placed on the C:\ drive by default
when the most common way to "fix" Windows is to reformat and reinstall
(thereby deleting your C:\My * files).

The reason that I will not use Windows is that *the ability to control*
*my environment is an essential part of a positive user experience* for
me. Therefore I must object to your efforts to create a positive user
experience for your mother by controlling her environment excessively.
This position is supported by the fact that you *cannot* provide every
single bell-and-whistle available-- you simply don't have the disk
space. So for you, if you want to encourage your mother (and the
greatest encouragement is a positive user experience), the best way to
do that is to customize the PC to her actual needs, rather than trying
to cover every possible eventuality of what you *think* she *might* want
*someday*.

I'd say, strip the system down to the bare minimum of what she's likely
to need "daily" (and what the system can reasonably support to run
quickly, since a slow computer is not part of a positive user
experience), and let her get comfortable with that-- if she then expands
her horizons and needs more functionality, she can ask you (mother-son
bonding, an added benefit), or she can learn about Gentoo at her own
pace and have the thrill of accomplishment just like you've had.

Just my 5 Euros,
Holly


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