[Lancaster] Re: Install Fest

[Adam Stirland]

I agree.  My SO is very anti-"having to p*ss around for weeks learning
something new to just do what I can already on winows in 5 minutes"
She doesn't like the "fiddlyness" of Firefox, she doesn't like the "to
much going on" style of my KDE desktop, she sick of hearing the Windows
vs. Linux vs. Mac flame wars.  All of those points (especially the last
one) have slowed her "transition".  Removing the GUI would kill the
transition and she wouldn't touch it with a barge pole and that goes for
a LOT of people (Mac AND Windows users) that I know.  The fact is, a lot
of people have been brought up on or turned over to GUIs and suddenly
removing that familiar blanket from them will be too much of a shock too
soon.  As Martyn said, most people will just want to browse the net,
send emails, etc.  The last thing they want to do is have to learn
hundreds of commands just to boot up.
As a good example, when my SOs PC  has an application hang, she just
hits CTRL+ALT+DEL, clicks on the process that's gone awry and clicks
"End Process".  If an app hung on Linux and I said, "Oh, you just have
to: ps ax | grep foo | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kill",
she would just hit the reset button and start looking for the WinXP
Install disk.

People's lives are already (in their opinions) full of stress and
complications so the last thing they want to do is have to relearn
everything they already learned to do on Windows.  I've slowly but
surely impressed my SO with Linux by showing her GIMP, OpenOffice, etc.
but she still says "well, Photoshop and Office can do that" and her
biggest complaint is "why does it install all this cr*p that you'll
never need or use" (I'm a fan of installing everything on the disk).
But then I just say "Photoshop can't do this, Office can't do this, look
- you can make it install hardly anything, isn't Gnome nicer than
Windows' desktop, isn't KDE cleaner, etc, etc."
The point is too much too fast can do a lot of damage (I tried ramming
Linux down her throat at the start and she resisted MAJORLY).  People
want to do what they usually do on their computer so they don't want to
learn a load of new ways to do it, just one simple way that is very
similar to how they already do it.

Just my opinion.

Incidentally, my SO still uses Windows but 'dabbles' with Linux when
she's forced to use my laptop because I'm hogging the P|C playing Doom3
or Counter Strike.  >:)
I can probably come down with my Fedora and Ubuntu CDs and some Slax and
Mepis live CDs.  It'll be a good opportunity to meet you all.  :)

Adam.

P.S.  Martyn - I accidentally left that Ubuntu-64bit CD at work and then
went on holiday for a week (only got back last night)!!!  I'm at work
tomorrow so I'll pick it up and shove in in the post box on the way
home.  Sorry mate.

Martyn Welch wrote:

 >> Easy - grab all processes, select the ones that contain "foo" but not
 >> "grep", take the first thing on the line (the pid) and feed 'em into 
kill.
 >>
 >>
 >
 >
 > No - not easy.
 >
 > Most linux users should not have to understand what a process is, let 
alone why they would have to kill one or how to select which ones to kill.
 >
 >
 >
 >> Most linux users would probably just type "killall foo" - the effect is
 >> largely the same; my version has the advantage that it works (bar ps -ef
 >> and $2 on SysV) on pretty much every *n?x system in existence. Then, I'm
 >> not really a Linux user - I'm a *n?x user who happens to use Linux 
as their
 >> most common flavour.
 >>
 >>
 >
 >
 > And is thus counter productive when "killall foo" - 10 characters, 
will suffice on the systems just about everyone on this list will be 
using. *Even if they did need to know how to kill processes*
 >
 >
 >
 >> Correct. The people who aren't even used to a GUI, however, will 
often find
 >> a command line easier if you show them how to use it.
 >>
 >>
 >
 >
 > Read: "hours of training"
 >
 >
 >
 >> We teach children out of picture books, and adults out of books with 
words;
 >> the common paradigm of computer teaching is to never take people 
beyond the
 >> "child" stage, but if you're faced with an adult who wants to learn 
as an
 >> adult teaching them how to use a command line is often a far better
 >> technique.
 >>
 >>
 >
 >
 > But you are forgetting one v.important thing - all those adults 
started off as children and thus has years of teaching with pictures and 
whom have learnt the stuff that they saw in those pictures.
 >
 > But we are not generally dealing with adults whom want to learn about 
the OS in front of them in any detail. We are faced with people who want 
to write letters and emails and browse the web. They see computer 
maintenance (if they see it at all) as a necessary evil. Thus the GUIs 
are a much safer way to go. It's a lot easier to muck things up from the 
command line as root than through a GUI.
 >
 >
 >
 >> I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, mind - which is why I didn't
 >> suggest Slack base at all, I suggested a derived distro which has a GUI
 >> software installer and configurator.
 >>
 >>
 >
 >
 > Please don't play the devil's advocate so much. We need to provide 
support for whatever we install and the regular contributors to the LUG 
would not necessarily have the time, skills or patience to deal with 
unfamiliar systems, especially if they aren't sitting in front of the 
system concerned.
 >
 > We need to be pragmatic.
 >
 >
 >
 >> Install SuSE/Mandrake/Ubuntu if they've got hardware that'll handle 
it.
 >
 >
 > Bingo.
 >
 >
 >
 >> If they haven't, I still say better to try *something*, especially a 
something
 >> that you know you've got an expert on the mailing list for, than to say
 >> "no, you'll have to use a pirated copy of Windows 95, sorry".
 >>
 >
 >
 > Dubious.
 >
 > If it isn't going to run OpenOffice well then it might be counter 
productive. Though if it is running a pirated copy of windows and it is 
not powerful enough (which would be hard to prove without digging) we 
should politely point out to the owner that they are breaching copyright 
and should get a newer PC.
 >
 > I'd rather install OpenOffice, FireFox and ThunderBird on their old 
windows (as long as it is legal) than trash there current working system 
to install something half-baked on it.
 > Shoddy installs are not going to help, rather hinder.
 >
 > Martyn
 >
 >
 >
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