Benno,
I think the bug is a communications issue rather than a technical one, unless I am missing something here. This is is a hypothetical example:
Dumbo (that's me) sees an application on the internet he wants to try. He clicks 'download'. Easy. A little window says 'Download in progress'. A pause . A little window says 'Download complete'. A little sign pops up saying 'Install? Yes, No'.
Dumbod clicks 'Yes'. A brief pause then a friendly little window says, 'Install complete'. Dumbo then happily clicks on the new Icon or application name and, hooray!!, it runs.
Dumbo is not even aware that there is another way of making things happen via typing in text in a window he has never seen. That is there for the technically competent. But Dumbo will recommend Linux to a friend because it is easy to use and so much easier on the pocket than the Microsoft one.
That is the communication issue. I have no idea of the technicalities of being able to make that happen in the various distros. I suppose it may be anything from really simple to bloody difficult. I take your point about no one Linux community. So my suggestion should be addressed to those who really want Linux to be acessible to 'everyone'. I am sure hundreds (thousands?) of other people have made similar suggestions.
John.
Benno wrote:
On Mon Dec 06, 2004 at 07:43:05 +1100, john gibbons wrote:
Thanks Rick, for your offer to help. My long winded reply to a similar offer by Ken describes what is actually bugging me. I greatly admire Linux and what the Linux community are out to achieve and what sounds like a whinge is really meant to be a suggestion. Or my clumsy attempt to contribute. I would appreciate your comment.
John,
The thing is I don't think there is "one linux community". Linux the kernel
is used in such a wide variety of applications by a diverse number of people.
I don't really think there is one community. In my opinion there are a number
of different operating systems based on the Linux kernel.
Each of these operating systems, Redhat, SuSe, Debian *is* trying to address the issues you mention, but in different ways. Everyone working on these projects undestands the problems you are bringing up, but to solve them, they need to know when something isn't working, which is why a specific bug report from you would help them make their operating systems better.
Benno
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