On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, Pete Ryland wrote: > On Sat, Jan 05, 2002 at 08:54:37PM +1100, Karl Clements wrote: > > Look at the number of idiot computer users windows and mac has given the > > world? > ... > > until that happens linux belongs as a server, or as a desktop for someone > > with half a clue. > > This raises an interesting point. > > Think of the last time you saw your average "mum and dad" use a computer. > Most likely you were astounded by their lack of understanding of the basic > concepts and metaphors of their system. Your average child, on the other > hand, understands far more, and can apply that knowledge when learning new > applications, etc. > > What I'm getting at, is that maybe mainstream linux adoption will not happen > for some time. Not because linux doesn't have application X or game Y or > whatever (and these days, it probably does!), but because it will take a > generation before clueful (and unbiased) users become the purchasing > decision makers.
I'd like to think the Linux generation is well on it's way. Perhaps we should survey visitors to the SLUG website for an age bracket. Maybe I can convince Anthony to add the same for EverythingLinux. We get the odd person in the warehouse every so often buying for someone under 15, occasionally under 10 years of age. As for mum and dad, well in my case my Dad's got a 386 with about 4Mb of RAM and Win3.11 unless it's been taken to the tip. I said the computer probably wouldn't be suitable for viewing web pages but it'd be ok for email but I couldn't convince my stepmother to allow Dad to make calls to my system to pickup mail. When my real Mum was alive I had the thing polling for email via Fidonet (um I forgot the term for the personal non-echo-mail thingy... was it 'netmail'?). She seemed quite OK using Fmail and Frontdoor under DOS and I think that's saying something, the older generation are probably OK with a simple 80x25 text screen and no mouse to worry about. -- ---<GRiP>--- Web: www.arcadia.au.com/gripz Phone/fax: 02 4950 1194 Mobile: 0408 686 201 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
