On 16-Aug-99 Richard Salts wrote:
> Somebody was saying to me that he believed Linux was a good corporate tool
> but not a good op system for home use because of it's steep learning curve.
>
> What do the list subscribers here think? Think Linux-Mandrake isn't ready
> for Prime Time yet?
>
> I wonder. Are there any home users on this list?
This note is in response to most of what has been said in this thread, and I
apologize in advance for my extreme wordiness. :)
Sure, I'm a home user. I started using Linux with RedHat 5.2 in February. One
of the first things I did was download and compile KDE; that made transitioning
to Linux very easy. Even though I was a complete newbie to Linux I was able to
get on-line and do whatever I wanted, and immediately cease using Windows for
anything other than occasionally playing a couple games. And when I DID boot to
Windows for that, I found the slowness and instability to be even more
unacceptable than I considered it before. It was like driving an old, slow car
that breaks down on a regular basis for so long that you get used to it, then
switching to a nice new sports car that never has any problems, and then having
to use the old car one day... then it breaks down, and you think "WHY did I
EVER put up with this piece of crap?!?!?" That's what using Windows after Linux
was like.
I eventually stopped using KDE and switched to using smaller, faster window
managers (my current favorite is WindowMaker, but I also like XFCE and fvwm2).
Once one adjusts to Linux, one realizes that the command line is not so
difficult, and that running programs from an xterm instead of a Start Menu is
not only just as easy, but faster. I still appreciate KDE for helping me
during the transition phase though.
I also deleted Win95 from my hard drive about a month ago, and I have not had
any desire to reinstall it since then. So the idea that Linux is 'not for the
home user' seems very silly to me.
At this point I will admit that I am not an 'average' user--I've been using
computers since I was 9 years old, they are probably my biggest hobby, and I
feel very motivated to learn computer-related subjects. BUT that also puts
this question in my mind: If I learned DOS at 9 years old as if it was no big
deal (I did not use a GUI until I got a computer preinstalled with Win3.1 when
I was 15), and if DOS was the commonly accepted standard operating system that
everyone with an IBM-compatible PC used, then WHAT is so hard about Linux?
If you're a newbie home computer user, and you look at a computer showing a DOS
prompt, and a computer showing Linux running X with KDE, which are you going to
pick?
And yet, somehow, NOW Linux is considered too difficult for a home user? I
don't buy it. The problem isn't that Linux is too hard, it's that most people
will simply become as lazy as they can possibly get away with. And modern
society is culling people's desire and ability to learn by making it so they
don't have to; Windows and Mac OS's are perfect examples of that. In the short
run that can easily seem like a good thing--but it forms habits that bleed into
other areas of life. When people can't learn how do anything because reading a
little instruction manual seems way too inconvenient, that is a big, big, BIG
problem! Not just for computer users, but that suggests scary things about the
direction society as a whole is going in.
I can picture the future now. One day someone will invent the PantsBot, a
machine that puts people's pants on them for them. It will be mass produced
and almost everyone will buy one, and it will gradually become common practice
for everyone to have their PantsBot clothe them every morning. Then one day
some people will get a strange idea--putting their pants on themselves! They
will, for the sake of saving people money (the PantsBot is expensive and needs
to be upgraded whenever a new style of pants comes out--and clothesmakers are
paid off by the PantsBot company to make new styles of pants every year so they
can all keep making money), and more importantly for the sake of mass social
improvement, suggest to people that they put their pants on themselves without
the aid of a PantsBot, but by then it will have been so widely used for so long
that people will respond, "It seems like putting your pants on yourself would
be very inconvenient. I'm not sure if the average pants wearer would be able
to do that."
I will conclude by mentioning that I think the biggest block to making Linux
more widely used by 'average' users is not the fault of Linux NOR the fault of
the users. The problem is compatibility of the hardware that's preinstalled in
the computers that the users buy, and the fault is with the hardware
manufacturers who make nonstandard hardware and only provide drivers for
Windows, and with the computer manufacturers who put this hardware into their
computers without even asking themselves, "Gee, what if Windows really ISN'T
the only OS my customers will ever want to use?"
-Tom
