On Wed, 2003-09-03 at 09:39, Patrick wrote: > its the same as me saying my cellphones broken if i dont know how to > make > calls on it.
you're missing one simple point: cellphones are simple. a two-yearold can figure them out. push buttons, talk. you're done. can you remember your first time trying to install/use mysql? "how do you start this thing?" "what do you mean i haven't installed the database? what did i just do then?"... my first serious linux experience was redhat. i installed kde, but wanted a server... i just wanted the comfortable gui-feeling... command lines were scary. nowadays i read that article and sorta laugh at the trouble the guy was having... but here's the kicker: he wasn't doing anything terribly insane. he wanted a computer to watch tv on and record his shows. in windows, this is a 20min process of "double-click, next, next, ok, finish". in linux, its 2days or (in my case (thank you ati AIW)) never. the guy's right on two very good points: 1. the current interface is scary for people who want it to "just work"(TM). a reasonable gui skinning of the command line stuff would do great things for a distro. imagine, just double click "upgrade system" on your desktop, have it popup a window with all the command line stuff scrolling by and nice pretty watermark... then when it's all done, a nice gui "done". my grandmother would actually be ok with using linux then. linux needs "finishers". people who write the code that installs the mysql db and auto-configures the config files in /etc/ for people who don't know how and don't want to know. 2. sadly, linux also needs corporate support. not the "we back linux" mantra recited by ibm, but actual driver support from hardware manufacturers so that products like video cards, sound cards and various usb webcams etc. "just work" out of the box, rather than requiring a long, painful search for howtos etc. i love linux. gentoo especially, but it's only good for people like me... not this guy. so if we want people like him (and my grandmother) to use it, then we have to work on #1 and push companies to do #2. -- a moment of joy in a lifetime of suffering... take it, while you can - abassador londo molari, babylon 5 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
