On Mon, 31 Jan 2000, Chester Martel wrote:
> The biggest improvement among vendors would be an 'easier' anybody can
> install package and/or better installation documentation. Reading this
Honestly, I think RedHat (and maybe others) has that already, at least for
new installs. I was able to install a standard workstation install of
RH6.1 in under 5 minutes. For the newbie, they provide a ton of
documentation, both in printed format and on the CD.
> list would indicate that upgrades are not problem free. If possible,
Admittedly, that still true, although the mainstream distributions are
getting closer there, as well. There are a lot of files whose formats
change between versions, and a lot of the utilites change the way they are
configured to non-standard methods (case in point being RH's AnotherLevel
method of configuring your X window manager). It's difficult to write
good scripts to modify old files to use new formats, in all possible
cases.
At any rate, those things are being worked on. I didn't really formulate
my thought very well, but what I was actually thinking was what things
need to be worked on that currently aren't? One area I think that needs a
lot of work is documentation. There is already a lot of good
documentation out there, but it's becoming outdated, and for newer
packages like KDE and Gnome, documentation is a bit sparse.
One of the things I'm getting at is I'd like to contribute to an open
source project, but I'd like to be able to contribute to an area that
doesn't have a lot of existing work going on. So I'd like to get into
a project that is just getting started, but I'm also thinking about
creating my own project.
Besides that though, I just wanted to get an idea of what people think
Linux is missing, particularly in the context of continuing to be a viable
platform for both servers and desktops, both in and out of the enterprise.
I've been thinking about what would make Linux more easily accepted in the
home, for example. I have to admit to a certain prejudice which, since I
already know Linux very well, leads me to think that Linux is already as
ready for the home user as say, Windows or MAC. I can already do pretty
much everything I need to do on a Linux system, and in most cases as well
or better than on my various Windows installs.
Is it really just commercial software availability and people's mind set?
Most of the arguments I've heard people make are, IMO, not really valid
anymore, with the advent of the latest distributions, which offer so many
features to make using linux easy. Just some thoughts.
--
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" "Who watches the watchmen?"
-Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347
Derek D. Martin | Senior UNIX Systems/Network Administrator
Arris Interactive | A Nortel Company
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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