Holly Bostick wrote:
Matt Randolph schreef:
[I just thought I'd chip in my two cents on the question of whether
Linux is easy or hard. It's turned into more like my $11.62, so it's
a good thing it's broken into sections.]
Linux is easy.
<snip of Matt's tour-de-force, virtually all of which I agree with,
except it still assumes that a 'knowledgeable user'; i.e. an admin, is
involved, which was the point of the whole debate-- Windows users
believe that they should always be 'pure users' and the very fact that
they or someone must 'admin' Linux automatically makes it "too hard">
The only thing that is harder to do in the Linux world that in the
Windows world is to find commercial software and some driver support.
In the Windows world, you don't have to ask yourself "is this
software available for my OS?" In the Windows world, you buy the
hardware first and then check to see if it's compatible AFTER you
start having trouble getting it to work in your computer.
Which is, btw, completely bass-ackward to start with, which was my
original point (the assumption that 'pure user, no admin necessary' is
possible is fundamentally wrong, and patently false based on the
observed evidence).
You can't buy a couch on a whim without taking into account the
measurements of your doors/room first (well you can, but if you can't
get it into your house, no vendor is going to say, 'oh, sorry, that's my
fault'). If you do, and the movers can't get the couch up the
stairs/through the door/into the room, whose fault is everyone
(including you) going to say it is that you can't use the couch?
*Yours* for not determining that the device (couch) was appropriate for
your environment before buying.
This idea that somehow computer hardware is different (fostered by MS,
where everything supposedly 'JustWorks') is completely contrary to
knowledge and experience we have of the Real World --where you can't
just buy 'anything' without checking something first (you try on
clothes, or at least check the size, you make sure that electrical
appliances have the right connectors for your wiring or needs, heck, if
nothing else you make sure the color matches your room or shoes).
Judgement is an 'admin-level task', and it is unavoidable that judgement
should be involved in such a situation as buying computer hardware
(because we are currently unable to create computers that are able to
either make such judgements for themselves, or are so flexible/standard
that such judgement does not need to be made at all).
The fact that the OS manufacturer with 90+% of the market is actively
fostering the complete untruth that judgement is not only outdated and
uncool, but furthermore completely unneccessary in Our Modern World
(ha!) is, shall we say, "deeply disturbing" to me.
Holly
I don't think Knoppix really has an administrator. It really is an
enduser only flavour of Linux. It's sort of a "fire and forget"
distro. Sure, someone had to go to a lot of trouble to get it set up
just right in the first place, but once that was done it can perform
reliably without further administrative intervention. The enduser not
only probably won't set the root password, the enduser doesn't even need
to know that it is unset. Or even that a root account exists!
I don't believe this sort of user experience is limited to read-only
systems like Knoppix, though. Look at Lindows/Linspire. How about
those $200 Linux computers they are (or were) selling at Wal*Mart
(strewth!). I expect those machines ARE intended to provide the enduser
with an essentially administratorless (to coin a word) experience.
Linspire (at least used to) have the user running everything as root.
But do you think the enduser always knows that? I think the enduser
simply knows that when they pay to install OpenOffice.org from
Linspire's private apt servers, it just works; it installs without their
ever having to `su` or `sudo` or anything. That Linspire user
essentially is the admin, though she doesn't know it and she almost
certainly doesn't behave like one. That's true for Windows XP users too
(personal users, at least). The default Windows XP account runs
everything with administrative privileges. But that doesn't mean
there's an admin at the controls. Microsoft has tried to shift the most
frequently performed critical administrative task, namely installing
security updates, from the user's shoulders onto their own. I think
portage and apt achieve similar (nay, superior) functionality for Linux
users, and I don't think that's a bad thing.
Should Linux users be able to get away without administering their
systems? Well, I think Linspire users should be able to get away
without administering their systems themselves. For their target users,
Linspire systems should me largely maintenance free. For these people,
any administrative tasks that must be performed should probably be
handled by corporate HQ as much as possible. Professionally written
scripts should be used and a cron job should download and install
updates to those scripts.
Should the rest of us be able to get away without administering (or
attempting to administer, in my case) our systems? Of course not.
That'd be daft. You wouldn't agree to ride in a car without a licensed
driver behind the wheel, would you? Well, I suppose some people might
if one was driving it by remote control. I don't think we're really
disagreeing on this point (not about the car, about the initial question).
Secondly, I didn't mean to imply that it was appropriate for Windows
folks to buy hardware without first verifying that it is compatible with
Windows. I'm merely saying that, for many Windows users, it is probably
quite common behavior. They may even be able to get away with it more
often than not.
Does a savvy Windows user or an administrator or even a pimply-faced
computer gamer do this? Of course not. These types of users will sit
down and research the prospective hardware purchase carefully beforehand.
But how often do you think John Q. Enduser somewhere walks into a store
and buys a mouse or a hard drive or even a wireless NIC combo without
doing a lick of homework first? I'd say it probably IS more often than
not. He was probably goaded into the purchase by the 75%-off mail in
rebate which he will promptly fail to send in properly anyway.
What I think I hear you saying is that being able to get away with this
foolish behavior should not be one of our goals. I did not mean to
imply that careless hardware shopping should be encouraged. Rather, I
used this as an example to try to illustrate how lacking driver support
slows the growth of Linux. If Linux is going to grow it's user base
significantly, it's probably going to have to attract quite a few of
those careless boobs too. And if Linux can't be made to work on their
hardware, do you think they are going to run out and buy a new computer
or will they simply rethink the decision to try Linux?
Although careless hardware shopping should not be encouraged, being able
to get away with it (that is, having nearly ubiquitous hardware support)
should indeed be one of our goals.
I was not aware that any company was trying to encourage careless
hardware shopping. If knew it to be so, I'd be as unhappy about it as
you appear to be. Well... I do suppose that is what those mail-in
rebates ARE trying to do. And I am certainly unhappy about that
(disgusted, even).
I guess there's another reason Linux is a superior OS: it makes you behave.
- Matt
[Oh, and thank you for your kind comments.]
--
"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" - W. of O.
--
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