[Nottingham] Better than Windows? was: Response on awareness day

[Andy Davidson]

David Aldred wrote:
> (1) all came with a standard 'install' alias which could point to whatever the 
> distro's installation method of choice was (or could even download & 
> config/make/make install source if there was no packaged version available), 
> so that all the user had to do was get into a root console and type (say) 
> 	install digikam
> and have it happen?

I'm not sure this would work - several unixes often have multiple ways 
of handing different packaging utilities on the same distribution.

Then there's the deal with installing stuff which isn't packaged.

> (2) set up a standardised set of links so that you didn't actually have to 
> know where a distro put its files to be able to find them (so that a howto 
> telling you to look in /usr/local/bin for something didn't have to be 
> translated to /opt or /usr/local/sbin)

If this happens, this is due to the pollution of what /bin and /sbin are 
for - /sbin was for statically linked binaries, /bin was for dynamically 
linked binaries.  You might be thinking that you're confused between 
/bin, /usr/bin, and /usr/local/bin (and maybe /opt or /export or 
/badger) - but if you're the sort of user that cares about the 
difference between these paths, you ought to have discovered the 'which' 
and 'find' commands by now.

> (3) had meaningful names or aliases for installable software, and a proper set 
> of sources built in from the start.

Aliases for installable software ? What does that mean ?

Propper set of sources ?  I don't want 17GB of source dumped on a virgin 
system !

> something called 'gutenprint', which, great though it is, doesn't exactly 
> spring to mind when you start off with "Epson RX 620" in your mind.

If manufacturers actually shipped modules and sensible installers with 
the printers ....
> *Then* it would visibly beat Windows hollow for ease of use 
... because it'd be the same as what Windows users have.