On Sunday 05 January 2003 21:39, Jason Greenwood wrote: > As for copying CD's, I agree, you COULD use the command line but why > would you?? There are many GUI based CD ripping/burning/copying
Well, when my sister wanted to learn how to copy an audio CD, and i started thinking about the (several) ways to do it.. After some thought, i threw away the little "manual" i was writing on a piece of paper for her, and told her "open up the xterm and type "copy-audio-cd"... she thought it was easy, i did not need to explain anything else to her, so we were both happy. :o) > utilities out there. When trying to convert Windows users to Linux I > ALWAYS try and use GUI apps., otherwise Windows users tend to think of > Linux as a geek only OS, which is totally wrong. Besides, I find Windoze Of course, i would never tie them up to the CLI, but when the time comes to burn a CD, nothing beats "burn-audio-cd" ;oPPP ---WARNING, LONG OT, UN-CALLED FOR RANT --- Anyway, none in my family understand exactly what is the difference between Linux and Windows (they do not have a clear idea of what an OS is) and rather than "geek" they tend to think (and i've heard them say so once or twice) : "Damian's computer is 'experts-only'." And there are times when they get fed up with the "Works almost like windows, but a little different" --And i'm not talking about KDE, they have no probs with it, it's the programs themselves, they do not feel exactly at home with them -- and end up falling back to the dissapointing "never mind, i'll do it at the office tomorrow." My personal opinion on this is that they do not care about typing "burn-audio-cd" (she was relieved it was that easy), but they do care about stuff being done fast and simple. OpenOffice is a prime example. When my father launched OO because he needed to edit a spreadsheet, he said "It's almost a copy of excell!". I liked that comment because i hoped for him to get used to it quickly. But then, he wanted to do this and that and the other thing i do at the office and blah blah .. and he quickly lost his patience, because it's "almost the same, but instead of clicking here, i had to go there, and how was i supposed to know?" And that led him to take four or five times the amount of time to accomplish the same tasks. One might argue about the re-learning being a one-time-only kind of thing, but after many discussions with my parents relating "why is my computer so hard to use" i was drawn to a very bitter conclusion: Most users DO NOT know what an OS is, they do not WANT to know (quote from my father: "If I want to open the door, i should not be forced to know about the lock's inner workings") and they learn how to do the stuff they need to do, and repeat it when they need it without even thinking about it. Truly, they "know" nothing about the PC. they just use it the way they learnt to, and if you change them that, they are utterly lost. If they have to re-learn how to accomplish a task, then it doesn't matter if the program they have to use is a MS-look-alike. To them it's almost like learning from scratch. And they do not want to bother. As you can see, i'm very interested in this stuff and my family is the "guinnea pig". (is that spelled correctly?) > users REQUIRE eye candy to find an OS usefull. ;) My computer is FAR prettier than Windows, rest assured :o) Besides, everyone that uses this computers find Mandrake's menu layout very logical and simple, they find the apps they need to use without problems, web browsers, IM and e-mail programs work just like in Windows so no problem there.... I would say Linux is almost ready for the Desktop. And, more than eye candy, it's ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED that they feel they do not need to give it a lot of thought about how to achieve their PC-related tasks. In my opinion, the easiest way for Linux growth is to get people to use it when they are yet to learn anything else. > > Regards, > > Jason Bye. Damian
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