Like your note, Don, this will be my one and only. I've used unix variants since 1981 through the present at school & work (air traffic control transponder design, radar system design, RF propagation modeling, etc.), and as a result use linux at home. So I'm biased to begin with but want to offer a few words in defense of linux while at the same time agreeing with much of what you said.
Windows developed in a hobby environment and from the start was geared toward the guy at home. Unix started as a trimmed down - compared to Multics, where it derives its name - multiuser professional environment. The OSes are coming from two different places, and when they end up on the desktop new users have very different first experiences! Windows wants to be friendly, Unix in general has no such ambition. About man pages, they are great memory refreshers when you already know more or less what to do but aren't a way to learn unix. Similarly, you wouldn't learn EE from data sheets. Linux, by the way, is only the kernel. The programs are mostly open source, so everything is fully distributed. (Meaning we're stuck with whatever names developers choose.) There is no central voice or power to direct or pull things together. Groups like The Linux Documentation Project (tdlp.org) try to tackle docs, others tackle other things. You get pockets of helpful admins, groups who look down their noses at "mere novices," freshly minted enthusiasts who think they know more than they do, and so on, but no official Voice of Unix. I don't think linux will ever be mainstream because it's not "in business." However, it's powerful, based on simple design concepts, and for better or worse is more organic and free flowing in its evolution than MS or Apple Oses. MacOS, incidentally, is layered on top of FreeBSD, and shows what can be done with commercial focus. 73, Mike ab3ap On 07/10/2012 12:24 AM, Don Wilhelm wrote: > Let me give one OT "RANT", and then I will shut up on this subject. > Suffice it to say that I have been extremely disappointing in all Linux > distributions because of the lack of any organized support fort the > users - the attitude seems to be "if you don't already understand the > nuances of Linux, we will shame your questions and be very unhelpful. > Check out the various forums and "FAQ" lists to verify this attitude. > [...] ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
