[Gllug] EU patents

[Christopher Hunter]

On Tuesday 01 Jul 2003 1:23 am, Will Napier wrote:
> Fantastic and specific proposal to have a law making illegal the
> supplying of a system with a preinstalled OS. However my novice
> experience of trying to install mandrake 9.1 and get all my gear to work
> makes me feel that linux has a way to go before it is truly accesible to
> people who are less enthusiastic than I am.

One of the major failings in the Linux world is the RTFM attitude from both 
existing users and software vendors.  We must all remember that the reason 
that the average Linux user is much more adept than the Windoze user is that 
(s)he HAS to be.  

Linux (despite the efforts of the Mandrake / Suse camps) is still harder to 
install than Windoze.  Hardware handling is still relatively crude, and most 
kde / gnome software is poorly integrated.  The diehard Linux users will 
protest that "everything can be done in a shell), but how often do you have 
to use DOS during a Windoze install?  In some respects, the configurability 
of Linux is its' downfall.

It would probably be best to create a "default" installation - used by ALL 
flavours of Linux.  It needs a simple shell, X, and a basic window manager 
and a hardware integration tool that operates flawlessly.  If the user then 
wants gnome, kde, openoffice and so on, they then choose those from a menu 
after basic installation.  Adding and removing software options MUST be 
really simple - Debian apt and RH RPM are quite close to working, but both 
require more user intervention than Windoze "add / remove software" does.

The Linux diehards will howl at the above, but you have to remember that the 
majority of people are pretty stupid (why else would they buy computers from 
PC World?).  If we want widespread acceptance of Linux, it's adoption MUST be 
made as simple as possible.....

Chris

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