[Gloucs] hello

[Simon Lewis]

Im siting here on a Mac Book, the reason I'm running OSX rather that  
Ubuntu is due to the following 2 reasons:
- General support in linux for laptops 'extra' buttons is poor - I  
didn't fancy spending 2 weeks working out how to get button X working  
correctly
- The integration of the desktop is not great - don't you wish that  
all your contact information was available in all programs and that  
all applications looked the same....

I would very much like to help on an install day but I think its  
important to think about users.  The technically competent user will  
find Linux on there own, they will happy spend weeks in their spare  
time learning about the shell and the file system and generally love it.

Then you have Joe pubic, they have a £500 laptop from PC world and  
they have XP on it, they are fed up with reinstalling their PC every  
4 weeks after some 'creative' surfing leaves there PC in what can  
only be described as a 'state'... These are the ideal people to sell  
Linux to but as soon as they want to install/do anything they will be  
changing back to XP as fast as they can.  Unfortunately Linux  
requires a high amount on knowledge to get going,... you need to know  
about kernels, packages, root privileges, how to edit config files...  
the average person simply wont bother spending that sort of time to  
get things going.  This is where I feel that install days will only  
go so far, you can take a horse to water but you cannot make it  
drink.  Although Ubuntu is a relative doddle to install the average  
person would be more comfortable on a mac.... everything does indeed  
just work..... installing applications is as easy as a drag and drop  
for most things... this type of simplicity of operation and  
configuration is what is needed on the Linux desktop.... Untill then,  
anyone who installs linux for a friend is agreeing to be a sys admin  
for that person for the foreseeable future, something that has  
recently made me do the unthinkable and recommend someone to use  
Windows (a heavily bolted down version) and recommend all 'creative'  
surfing is done using a web appliance (thankyou VMWare).  Good  
technology and free software can only go so far.... sometimes it is  
easier to shoot the horse than make it drink...

Anyway, something to think about..

Simon



On 28 Sep 2006, at 02:15, Maximillian Murphy wrote:
>
> -- Another fun and impressive thing we could do is to invite a  
> LinuxBios chap to come and display a three second powerswitch to  
> loginscreen boot.  Even a six second boot would be superb.  I grant  
> that this is blue sky technology as far as ordinary linux users is  
> concerned.  However it would make the point that linux is more than  
> capable and has a high performance userland future ahead of it.