> We can't make Linux "better" and "ready for the desktop"-- which does > *not* mean we have to do everything via a GUI, dagnabit; people can > certainly use the command-line comfortably *if they know how*-- unless > we identify where people are falling over it and how to remove the > obstacles to their understanding and ease-of-use. Difficulties using > error output effectively looks like an obstacle to ease-of-use to me. > Heaven knows I won't know what to do about it if I do find an "answer" > (or the beginnings of one), unless that answer is "add to the docs", but > we all contribute what we can, and asking the question in the first > place is what I can :-) .
Unfortunately, Holly, I don't think linux will be ready for the desktop for quite awhile (yes, that does make me sad). Because of the wide use of windows any replacement OS (be it linux, bsd, macosx, or whatever) would have to function in a similar way before it would be accepted. The following would be a base set of requirements for such a replacement: 1. Boot totally into a gui - no startup output. Those messages are great for someone trying to diagnose an issue, but are just confusing to some and unnecessary to most, which is why windows boots to gui and totally hides this kind of information. 2. Totally configurable via gui - no low-level file editing. As power users this is something that we want/need, but the windows user expects to pull up a dialog for the program and click checkboxes to turn things on and off. I can just imagine the dialogs necessary to configure something like postfix or sendmail ;-) 3. Less service-oriented and more interactive. Sure we run ftp servers, web servers, mail servers, etc. And we expect them to go off and do those things without bothering us. But at this point the windows user expects visual feedback on everything - a mail icon indicating there's new mail in outlook, blinking network light showing network activity, other tray icons with menus allowing you to get to the background 'services' right away. 4. Self-updating. M$ has been pretty poor in this respect but they are actively working on it and getting better. My windows box downloads updates automatically, installs them with a nice progress bar (and not a lot of detail), and either a) handles whatever is necessary to get the new updates used or b) asks me to reboot for the changes to take effect. The whole process is totally brain-dead, and that's what the average windows user is going to expect. I think all of these things would have to come to pass before linux would make it on the desktop, and I'm not sure I believe they will ever happen. Nobody wants to take linux in the direction of windows (thankfully), and since most of the linux developers are power-users they have no reason to want or include this kind of brain-dead junk in their software. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
