Am Sonntag, 9. September 2012 schrieb Camaleón: > > I quite much agree to the installation stuff. > > > > > > > > I put Linux on the laptop I bought with my father for my father. He > > used Firefox and Thunderbird and some crappy photo management > > software. > > > > > > > > I put KDE on it plus Iceweasel, Icedove and Digikam as applications. > > And each a button for internet on and off (this Debian Lenny > > installation is using HFC USB based ISDN adapter for accessing the > > net, thats why I am reluctant to upgrade to Squeeze or Wheezy, cause > > I have the gut feeling that ISDN on Squeeze or Wheezy is quite some > > fiddling again.) > > > > > > > > Well that just works. > > (...) > > And you know why that works? Because "you" wanted it worked, not your > father. Now imagine your father has to do all the job by his own, do > you still think he is going to maintain his current setup? I really > doubt it. > > Now imagine a different scenario. Your father buys a computer with a > Linux distribution on it which is already preconfigured. At a first > glance it seems to be a good idea: the computer is cheaper because > there's no OS licence that needs to be tributed and the guy of the > shop instructs your father about the advandatges of the Linux systems > -less viruses and malwares, rock-solid...).
Well may father came with an outdated Ubuntu box he bought in some discounter and asked me to install it ;). So it wasn´t exactly my wish to have this working. But then maybe my statement that I won´t fix any Windows if it gets broke may have contributed to his decision. But I think he wanted to have a glimpse at what his son is working with all the time and thats this has been more of a reason for his decision. > Back to home, your uncle sends a "beautiful" PowerPoint file by e-mail > to your father and despite LibreOffice can open the file with no > problem your father ears no sound. And here is where the real linux > hist[eo]ry starts... at this point, unless your father either a) shows > a real interest in solving the problem by himself or b) you or someone > else is near to solve the problem, 99% of the time your fictional > father will simply jump to Windows. So ignorance of real open standards, well standards that mean to be interoperable from the beginning, harms the adoption of Linux? Ignorance of a standard that has been formalized way before Microsoft paid their standard through the comitee members. Ignorance of a standard thats way easier to grasp cause its documentation is to the point… What a pity. But then I - as a corner case or not - don´t give much about being able to view a power point presentation. If I cared about being a corner case I wouldn´t be where I am now. If 99% of all people decide to give up their freedom when using their computers I do not need to follow. Just as if 99% of all people decide to jump through a window and get themselves hurt I do not have to follow. But unless you plan to have world domination of Debian on all desktops I see no point in going on with this discussion… Actually everyone is free to use the operating of their choice or non- choice so either people advertise Linux to other people by showing it off and probably helping installing it to change the situation or not. I do think that having Windows is often the result of a non-choice of the operating system. Just like having Android on a smartphone btw. If you learnt Linux in the school and get bought a Linux machine by your parents and enough others have a similar socialisation how do you care about any Powerpoint file at all? Frankly, I do not care anymore. I say openly how I see Linux. I show it off to interested people. And if someone is not interested, I let them have their way. But if someone needs help and has Windows I am quite reluctant about it meanwhile. Cause I have better things to do with my life than wasting countless hours on fixing Windows systems. Been there, done that and found other stuff to be more joy for me. If people insist of running around an advertising pillar with an advertisement of how good Windows is without looking in another direction than where the pillar is that is perfectly their choice. And I do not get what their choice has to do with Debian. Frankly, is non- adoption of Debian by any amount of those users something that makes your life more miserable? If not, why do you care? When I learnt something from life it is that I can ever only change myself. I cannot change anyone else. So why even bother trying to do this? If you feel your mission is to raise adoption of Linux on the desktop, then by all means follow all ways that you see fit that invite people to try it out. Sell pre-installed computers, give computer courses, whatever. If not, then just be happy with what you have. Its a lot with Debian GNU/BSD/Linux in my eyes. Really a lot. My life is not more miserable due to having just a user base of 1,5% with Linux on desktops. Well maybe sometimes I wish some more good games. But when I look at the PC game market I am quite sure I´d ditch 99% of those games for unnecessary violence that just ends in it self and is displayed in a unnecessarily explicit way. I want story, I want characters that evolve, I want colors, I want a beautiful world. So I am not interested in all that end-of-the-time, pessimistic and violent ego shooter shit that people tend to call games. Even if 99% of all gamers want to play these? Why do I have to follow their way if it is not mine? I do think open source application put a lot effort in making Linux and applications running on it more accessible to the casual user. I am grateful for that. Quite some applications got better this way. Not all of them, but quite some. Apart from that… if someone wants to try it out, fine. If not, why bother except for the cases where I receive concrete and constructive feedback on how to improve the situation and I want to put myself in a position to do something about it? -- Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201209091723.53083.mar...@lichtvoll.de
