Derek,
On 29/11/2004, at 1:22 PM, Derek Smithies wrote:
However, (in my defense) I note a certain sadness.I think that Linux on the desktop is quite usable and intuitive in general, but it is setting it all up, and fixing problems that needs MAJOR improvement. I sometimes struggle with setting things up under linux (e.g. the Synaptics touchpad driver on my PC laptop - builds fine, manually installs fine, edit XFConfig manually fine, reboot. crashes. whoops forgot to modprobe evdev in the init scripts...)
We read often of comments, "linux is ready for the desktop" and the like.
Yet, if people on the linux list are advocating that "my parents" get a mac, then clearly those comments on the readiness of linux are wrong linux has to improve its usability.
Indeed, watching the recent spate of emails from our Hari Krishna friend,
I have to agree with you Hugo.
Linux is not ready for "my parents" to use
An eMac will arrive from the factory completely set up, they just have to plug in power, keyboard, mouse and maybe a modem/phone line, and turn it on.
Although they would probably never have any problems with a Mac, if they did,
a) the error messages are a lot more helpfull, and
b) there is an 0800 helpline they could call.
They will never have any problems with hardware or drivers, because basically if its not built in its not supported :)
To install software, they just drag the its icon on the CD to the hard drive.
To set up the ISP they just type in the phone number, user name and password when asked during the first start-up/welcome/run-once program that comes up.
Regards, Hugo.
