Bob, I'm going to ask an apparently stupid question. Since I've been
a diehard Mac user since the Lisa, and it has always let me get so
much of my work done that I never even thought about looking at
anything else, will you please, as succinctly as possible, let "us"
know how this thing called Linux, in all of it's various flavors?
works. How can something as enormous as this potentially is, be
coordinated to the point that something truly useful emerges? I find
it pretty bewildering, and cannot see how it can fit into my
computing life. Keep in mind that I was over 50 when I undertook the
mastering of a new tool and didn't even know what a "k" was at that
point.
Many TIA,
Joe Wilkins
On Mar 3, 2007, at 8:33 AM, Bob Warren wrote:
Luis wrote:
> A passing suggestion: Try Ubuntu 6.0.6 LTS. It now has
installers for > proprietary/'non-free' gfx card drivers, which
used to be a bugbear > withe some distros.
> If you're looking for a little more eye candy then try Kubuntu.
> All fits on one CD, and the Synaptic Package Manager is a breeze
to > use, although for the gfx drivers I used Envy from the
terminal > (Install Envy via Synaptic, logout, do a Ctrl+Alt+F1
to get to a > terminal login. Login, run envy. Does ATI and Nvidia).
> Running sweet on a 2 year old Dell.
Richard wrote:
Thanks to a recommendation from Phil Davis, I installed it two months
ago and have been quite happy with it. Much simpler and more well
integrated than the Red Hat installation I used to use, and cheaper
than my copy of Linspire. Right now Ubuntu is my favorite Linux by
far.
Now if only we can get some of the other distro builders to stop
reinventing their wheels and contribute their resources to Ubuntu
instead.
And when that happens (somewhere between the time pigs fly and when
hell freezes over) we'll have to get the Gnome and KDE teams to
integrate into a single fully kick-ass window manager.
When those two tasks are done, Linux will be well poised to kick
Microsoft's butt on the desktop at least as effectively as they've
done on the server.
------------------------------------------------------------
My own understanding is helped by a linguistic model. Some time ago
people had the idea of taking what they considered to be the "best"
characteristics of the world's languages and rolling them together
into a single optimized form, and what emerged was "Esperanto". It
failed miserably. One reason for this could be the fact that it was
not a "natural" language and that the scientists did not appreciate
the complexity of linguistic mechanisms. For example, natural
languages are biological products, and as such they are necessarily
only half logical.
If you asked speakers of Portuguese or Bulgarian to stop wasting
their time and to speak another language instead, they would
probably get around to doing it when pigs fly or hell freezes over.
But asking them to speak a "second" language is a different matter.
When I asked a taxi driver in Amsterdam why everybody's English was
so fantastically good, he answered me with a question: "What's the
use of Dutch?" Yet Dutch shows no signs of dying in Holland.
No, a "natural" language (English) has become the second language
of the world. This was helped by the fairly large number of native
speakers, but above all it was helped by the enormously diverse
distribution in different places. (More people speak Chinese for
example, but the distribution of Chinese extends little beyond
China itself.)
Ubuntu is perhaps poised to become the world's second operating
system, and it is quite well distributed already. The Ubuntu
company (Canonical) have the professionalism, the ethics and the
clout. Does that mean that Red Hat, Linspire, Puppy and the KDE
interface need to die? Far from it. I see no reason why they should
not maintain their followers, their peculiarities, and their
dignity, and to continue to make their valuable contributions and
innovations. They are doing their thing! "Live and let live" is the
lemma we need to practise in my opinion.
The very last thing we want to see is another monster like
Microsoft, but such a situation could well arise again if we do not
maintain the very mechanisms Linux was designed to neutralize. I'm
talking about freedom, openness, diversity (multiple perception),
clean competition, ethics, and the like.
Talking is easy, particularly since I am not a professional
programmer with professional responsibilities. I can do what I
like, when I like, without suffering any serious consequences. But
even taking into account the much more difficult situation of the
professional programmer and the dependency he/she suffers, there is
something of a drug culture associated with the continuing usage of
Windows and the enormous reluctance to change for the better. Yes,
Microsoft gained a monopoly because Windows was the first and only
operating system for PCs on the market, but that does not totally
explain the momentum of their monopoly nowadays. Drugs pretend to
be our friend, but in fact they are unfailingly our enemy, and in
they end they can even kill us. Yet when we are dependent on a
drug, even if we have the motivation to change in some way,
actually doing it is the most difficult thing in the world, unless
we have some idea of how to achieve it. In the final analysis, I
think the general secret in all of this is to stop thinking in
terms of "either/or" and to start thinking in terms of "both-and".
Nobody needs to leave Windows entirely in order to use Linux, so
why use the "cold turkey" method in alleviating oneself of this
drug we call "Windows"? No, keep it around to do the little things
it is really useful for (i.e. "exploit" it), but also investigate
the exciting and creative aspects of the promising new world known
collectively as "Linux"!
Sorry, you pressed my button...
By the way, Ubuntu is entirely free. If you cannot manage to
download it, they will even send you a CD free of charge.
Bob
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