[Gllug] Hi!

[Matthew Smith]

Jose Luis Martinez wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 9:44 AM, <isabell121 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Surely if you use Linux you use Linux, there aren't many people out
>> there who do that I've found!  The younger generation using Linux is good,
>> in my opinion!  Or is Ubuntu just for new people, noobs?  Which distribution
>> would you suggest, then?
> 
> I love Ubuntu, all my family, including my 70 year old mum, uses it.
> 
> You will find that the older guard on the list have a sane, albeit I
> would say a tiny tinsy bit over sensitive, distrust of graphical
> interfaces in general.

There are also a lot of these people who have a history of using 
Unix/Linux to run servers, not desktop computers.  Graphical interfaces 
are undesirable on a server because they waste processor cycles and 
because X has its share of security problems.  GUIs are the norm for 
desktop use, and unless someone knows different, I don't believe there 
are the text-only office applications that there were in the early 90s. 
  I recall seeing people debate on the Usenet groups in the mid-1990s 
and one of them said he didn't use a word processor; he used LaTeX for 
all his text-producing needs, which struck me as both rather macho and 
toffee-nosed towards people who don't want to learn a new markup 
language just to write a letter.

As for Ubuntu, it's not for noobs; it's Debian with an easier installer 
(actually, Debian took on the installer developed by Ubuntu before 
Ubuntu went to installing from the live CD), more up-to-date packages, 
easier access to restricted material like codecs and drivers, and a 
slicker online infrastructure.  It's not popular because it's easy but 
because it's good.  With my skill set, I could easily use Fedora or 
OpenSUSE, and would like to have one of my two systems running an OS 
other than Ubuntu for application testing purposes, but I found them 
less reliable than I would have liked.  Don't let anyone tell you Ubuntu 
is a beginner's OS or any such nonsense; it is simply well tuned to the 
desktop user's needs.

Regards,

Matt Smith

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