[Wolves] Promoting Linux

[Matthew Revell]

On Fri, 2003-05-09 at 11:26, Steve wrote:

> 
> 
> >1) Plug and play, what's that?
> 
> >2) Why is that programme called XCrupleFFT77.9.-1XC and not just Funky
> >Chess?
> >3) GNOME, KDE, eh? I just wanna look at naked ladies.
> >4) Hmm, so where's the uninstall option?
> >5) Er, I just installed something, where did it go? Oh,
> >/usr/bin/opt/xwz/, yes, that makes sense now that I've read The Unix
> >File System Paradigm by Anthony Geek.
> 
> I'd have agreed with these points maybe 2-3 years ago, but there's been vast improvements in all these areas with most 
> of the distros i think. Useability is vital and features like hotplugging, automatic menu entries in all the 
> windowmanagers, apt-get, urpmi and meaningful app titles (or at least putting what the app does in brackets next to 
> the wacky name) are making things a lot easier.

As Linux stands today, it's harder to, say, add wi-fi, than under XP or,
I imagine, OS X. Also, there appears not be system wide standard apps:
e.g. Evolution opens Mozilla for web links, KMail opens Konqueror. I'd
imagine these are fairly simple issues to resolve for one of the
commercial distros, which they could then release to the rest of the
Linux community. I'm not expecting answers on these issues from this
list but I reckon we do need to know Linux's weak points so that we can
find workarounds or defend them :)


> One of the issues is where is the line between making things easier for end users and treating them like fools? Xp 
> bugs the shit out of me as there are all these options by default, little alerts telling me that 'D is nearly out of 
> space do you want to try and make some room?' - 'NO I PARTITIONED IT THAT WAY, NOW SHUT UP', stuff that might be great 
> for someone who is very new but highly alienating for everyone else.

Well, that's the beauty with our community: there's room for everyone.
I, for example, can happily use RH9 which does boring stuff like detect
my hardware, but doesn't try to hand hold me all the way, like Lycoris.
XP bugs the shit out of me too. That's why, even tho' I have my shiny
laptop back, I'm still on my old deskptop running under RH9. I prefer
Linux ... but more of that in another post.


> I use mandrake, and find it strikes the right balance

Minor thing, tho', it has a message that reads, "Really Halt?" I mean, I
know that might be kinda' the correct way to put it but it's bloody ugly
English. :) Sorry, I'm tired and nitpicking but I reckon we need to be
fully aware of Linux's weakness before we can promote its strengths.

Matt.