[dundee] Linux on the desktop

[Martin Habets]

First of all, a very interesting article. Thanks for pointing it out!

I must say I don't understand the mind of a Microsoft user: like the author
I have spend most of my life on *nix.

In reading it all it seems we need several levels of distributions, to battle
the different levels of fear.
The most conservative I could think off would be a knoppix-like CD that boots
into fvwm95, and uses the existing NTFS/FAT filesystem to write user files.
The other instruction would be (like Windows): not don't try to change anything!
On the other end of the spectrum we have the distrubutions that can be configured
to taste completely. In between there is plenty of room for pre-packaged distros
that come with KDE or GNOME or whatever.

A related issue is the need to gui-fy the command line and configuration options.
Must say I don't have a good answer to this one, partly because I don't want to
solve this one: how many good developers are wasting their (and our) time programming
gui interfaces? I'm seeing more and more programs that provide multiple interfaces:
Gtk, Qt, ACSII, bare X, ...

One of the other main threads seems to be a need for consistency, or rather: an
interface that looks/feels/behaves consistent. The discussions on KDE vs. GNOME
are somewhat based on this. Even though personally I don't see any need for this
consistency at all, I can understand that Windows-users would demand it.
Part of the problem is that these modern environments take on too many aspects:
Display Manager, Window Manager, Theme Manager all in one. We must tear them up,
and most importanty separate the Window Manager from the other parts. Why? Well,
application programs only deal with the window component and not the other parts.
Sidenote: The X-Windows server can ignore a request from a Window Manager, and
impose it's own behaviour.

Regarding the "trap" issue:
- Linux is quite incomplete as to complete configurations, or their documentation.
  Sure, the individual man pages are complete and detailed and good. But how to
  combine all the variables into a working configuration? The most notorious
  example is XF86Config off course.
- Many people actually *like* the tinkering: Linux is also a hobby. And millions of
  these hobbyists together have an unsurpassed knowledge base (via email and chat).
  This is a problem if a) computers are not your hobby or b) computers are your job
  (in a commercial sense).
  It is a serious problem, but don't deny one group their fun for sake of another.

Someone once said freedom comes with responsibility. For open source software freedom
comes with flexibility. Giving up freedom is a "religious" issue for purist/hackers,
but it scares the heck out of M$ users. How can I deny my ethics to try and understand
why the bird won't leave it's cage?

I must agree that the Apple hardware is the best commercial hardware I have worked
with. On a professional level it has the 64 bit processor that can run big- or
little-endian, providing a good interface to existing (old) commercial hardware.
For private use it has very fancy I/O interfaces.
The mouse and the price are the biggest problems for Apple indeed. My powerbook has a
trackpad on top of that too. And Apple is not open source friendly. I don't like Mac
OS X, but that is just because I'm used to FREEDOM. Call me spoiled...

Martin
Free at last, free at last. Thank god I'm free at last! - MLK


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