With no successful use of Linux yet and after reading this list for several weeks, an interpretation or view of Linux has formed. Ray, you have touched on some issues from a broad perspective so I will say this here. Maybe there is a more appropriate forum. In a course I took recently, I took on the proposition that all interpretations are valid and none is the truth. The truth is all that is and cannot be comprehended by the mind. Any interpretation is valid because it allows us to think about an aspect of the truth. Everything known with the mind is an interpretation, from nuclear physics to M$ sucks. I have greater or less freedom and power depending on what interpretations I choose or invent. So what I offer is not the truth and is intended to open something up, to assist something that is evolving and wanting to come forth.
I suspect that Heimo and others are doing what I have done. I have used my very limited grasp of Linux jargon (language used in a specialty) to ask help in using Linux and communication is difficult. I share the vision expressed in various Linux discussions of Linux providing an alternative to MS Windows for desk top computers with personal and small business/organization applications. This would mean that I would only need to learn to use a GUI and particular applications via the GUI. With a mouse click or two I could see a neatly categorized and searchable compilation of many available applications, what they do and screen shots if helpful. Another click would install one. At any time, another click would completely uninstall an application. Most requests for help would be answered in the form of "Click this and this and this." Where are we now? My interpretation of "newbie" is non programmer or non developer (I don't know the jargon well enough here). If I am going to make use of the software freely and generously provided and the information and advice that you pros freely and patiently give, I have to learn programming to the level of file structure and nomenclature; installation procedures and organization; editing, file management and various other utilities. From my experience with Fortran programming I suspect this would take weeks or months of eight hour days. Thus the cost to individual users is greater than for MS. What is at the heart of the gap between vision and achievement? I say it is a matter of acknowledgment. We human beings cannot live alone. We are alive and fulfilled to the extent that we participate with and are recognized by others. "RTFM." Are we potential users put through the newbie initiation so that we get a taste of the incredible complexity you pros have mastered? So that you know that we have some appreciation of what you have provided? After all, if Linux did provide an alternative to MS Windows as I described, it would all just work. Most users would not know you or of your dedication it took to accomplish that. A secondary or consequent lack seems to be an extensive array of small, routine program elements like drivers, install and uninstall sequences, GUI links and things I know nothing of. This lack is consequent in this interpretation because these routine things are least appreciated and don't even provide the intrinsic satisfaction of a creative accomplishment. I expect MS has a large budget to pay programmers to "grind it out." Like John Lennon and I believe many Linux fans, I dream of an economy of generous giving to supplant our economy of cautious trading. This will be more consistent with the love of others and joy of life that we left in childhood. And Linux developers have given much. Until providers of food, fuel, etc. give some of their time, an intermediate step might be workable. What if an opportunity were provided for users to make donations to developers? Public TV is a model of this. Some ideas: Program elements could contain identification of the developer in a standard format so that payments could be made like with shareware. Distributors could collect donations and distribute this back. This might initially be focused on the routine stuff that is lacking. Imagine this: every GUI window has a standard button which links to a www on-line donation page. A wide open channel for users to express their heart felt appreciation. I don't know the legalities of this. Maybe Linux would have to be registered as a religion. Hail Linus! :) Sincerely, Bill - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
