[cumbria_lug] Observations

[jenruss+jen at mail.plus.net]

> I think that stigma is dissolving now as Linux gains various massive
> rollouts -- if people are aware that Google's 10,000 boxes are running
> Linux, and it's being deployed on 500,000+ upwards systems in China,
> and IBM are planning to use it extensively on desktops, it'll change.

I can't see the Google and China things changing the opinions of the man on
the street in Britain as they're too far removed from what he sees every
day. IBM may well make an impact, though. We'll have to wait and see :-)

> The more Linux tries to be like Windows, the more it will suffer from
> the same problems. There are fundamental design flaws in Windows which
> should never be copied. Linux should strive to be a great general
> purpose OS, not a Windows clone; ReactOS is available in that case.

Perhaps I wasn't clear in what I meant. I don't necessarily mean copying
Windows in how it works behind the scenes, but how the user interacts with
it. I mean things like the default settings for mouse clicks being the
same, like there being a single default email client, a single default
browser, etc. I mean things like autorun, easy point&click installs and
things generally being where the user expects them to be. I mean not having
to manually mount or unmount drives, and having one desktop by default. I
mean not having too many bells and whistles that they're not used to. There
are several things about Linux that still confuse me, because I'm so used
to Windows, and still use it at work. It's mainly silly little things like
when I double click a name in my address book, I expect it to create a new
email, not edit their details. It's things like these that confuse, and
scare, people who don't know Linux, because they make it feel different and
unfamiliar.

A lot of this is entirely superficial, and could be easily done by amending
the defaults of most of the current distros. The majority of users really
don't care, or need to know, what's going on behind it all. I'm sure most
Windows users don't know what the registry is, let alone why that is or
isn't a good thing.

hugs,

Jen

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