[Wolves] Promoting Linux

Steve wolves at mailman.lug.org.uk
Fri May 9 11:27:01 2003


09/05/2003 10:49:10, Matthew Revell <matthew@understated.co.uk> wrote:
If you're interested in US governments taken bungs
>from corporations, read Michael Moore's Stupid White Men.

very good book indeed. Worth checking out is Bowling for Columbine, a rabble rousing piece of film if ever there was 
one



>1) Plug and play, what's that?

>2) Why is that programme called XCrupleFFT77.9.-1XC and not just Funky
>Chess?
>3) GNOME, KDE, eh? I just wanna look at naked ladies.
>4) Hmm, so where's the uninstall option?
>5) Er, I just installed something, where did it go? Oh,
>/usr/bin/opt/xwz/, yes, that makes sense now that I've read The Unix
>File System Paradigm by Anthony Geek.

I'd have agreed with these points maybe 2-3 years ago, but there's been vast improvements in all these areas with most 
of the distros i think. Useability is vital and features like hotplugging, automatic menu entries in all the 
windowmanagers, apt-get, urpmi and meaningful app titles (or at least putting what the app does in brackets next to 
the wacky name) are making things a lot easier.

One of the issues is where is the line between making things easier for end users and treating them like fools? Xp 
bugs the shit out of me as there are all these options by default, little alerts telling me that 'D is nearly out of 
space do you want to try and make some room?' - 'NO I PARTITIONED IT THAT WAY, NOW SHUT UP', stuff that might be great 
for someone who is very new but highly alienating for everyone else.

I use mandrake, and find it strikes the right balance

ste