Yeah, linux is a crappy piece of software. What isn't? But at least, it
was all written by kind sirs who awed nothing to you.
Anyway, Windows is no better. Even Windows needs the touch of
a techman for it to run smoothly and not crappily.
Things, all things, should be made idiot-proof. Technicals oughta be
as simple as possible, without compromising on workness.
One thing that should not be compromised is lazyness. We ought not
encourage people to needlessly and inefficiently work.
Entries in mailing-lists should also be simple. Constructed of
simple
and short sentences, structured simply, carrying a simple message.
-----הודעה מקורית-----
מאת: shlomo solomon
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
נשלח: ש 1/11/2003 19:32
אל: IGLU IGLU
עותק לידיעה:
נושא: the problem
with LINUX
I'm afraid this is going to start a **war** and that's not my
intention, but I
really feel I've got to get this off my
chest.
Firstly, let me say that I've been using LINUX on and off for 6
years and that
it's been my only OS since deleting OS/2 (z"l) 3 years ago.
So I'm a
committed LINUX user. And I have no intention of using anything
else -
although my wife and kids all use Windows - and of course that makes
me the
primary sysop for their machines :-(.
My problem is that
LINUX (as much as it's progressed over the years) is still
much too hard to
install, set up, and use. As things stand now, it's not
really a viable
alternative for John Q. User. As opposed to other OSs (that
will remain
nameless), there's still too much tweaking required. And for
a
non-technical user, it's just impossible.
If I just consider my
own setup since upgrading to Mandrake 9.0 (I've used
Mandrake since 7.0),
the solutions to most of the problems I had, were beyond
what the average
user could have handled. Sure, IGLU was very helpful, which
is again proof
that if you GOOGLE around and RTFM before asking questions,
the list
members are usually very good about helping. But, why should this
help be
needed? I won't go into the details here, but those who have read my
posts
over the past couple of months know that I had problems with USB
printer
support, iptables, file permissions, etc. And most recently, I
haven't been
able to use my FlyVideo2000 card. Although all the problems
(except the
FlyVideo2000 card) are solved, it all required too much effort.
As someone
wrote to the list recently (sorry, don't remember who - and this
is not an
exact quote): I want the computer to do useful work - tweaking is
only a
means to that end and not the purpose of having the computer.
So how
can we expect the non-technical user to even consider LINUX? I
consider
myself a technical user - but I've given up on the TV problem, so
what does
that say? I know it's **sexy** to talk about self compiled
kernels, etc. And,
in fact, on MDK 8.1 (and previously) I did compile my
own for various
reasons. But, should I really have to compile a kernel just
to watch TV? And,
more importantly, what about my next door neighbour, who
doesn't even know
what the word compile means? How does he get to watch TV?
Basically, all this
keeps LINUX as an OS for **experts**.
As I
said, I don't intend to start a war - I am a committed LINUX user - but
it
really shouldn't be so hard.
--
Shlomo Solomon
http://come.to/shlomo.solomon
Sent
by KMail (KDE 3.0.3) on LINUX Mandrake
9.0
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