On Thu 08 May 2014 09:34:34 NZST +1200, C. Falconer wrote:

> Perhaps its time to drop all the frippery and return to the core values
> of Debian where "it works" is more important than eye candy, and there

Define "it works". Spending half a day studying the 'net, then half an
hour editing a text file just to make X work which should "just work" is
a form of "works". As is a something that pops up on the desktop after a
plug in event and says "cool, I created the config, works now" with a
button "OK".
When it comes to suggesting it to other-OS user, or simply for getting
some real work done, I know which one I pick to avoid embarrassing
myself too much.

> is no concept of Long Term Support because that's the default.

Oh really? My own real-life experiences with that are:
1) We all know the stale/beta/broken. It's too true. Stale simply
doesn't have the required drivers for the not-so-young hardware,
beta/broken just doesn't seem like a good idea for anything supposed to
be stable for some time.
2) No free-time developer cares about stuff 3 years old that they last
used themselves 2.9 years ago. Consequently, the promised
long-term-support updates simply don't happen. It's a hollow promise.

Both these points make Debian a bad choice for a desktop OS.

> In other linux-related issues, my Nana still runs XP.   Her sole use of
> the computer is email via a web browser.

Tick tick tick tick tick....

> Has anyone got a suggestion for essentially a web-kiosk distro ?
> I'd build a plain debian install, but are there any other suggestions ?

In your case, the factors are:
Someone needs to show the user initially the new stuff.
It needs to run on existing old hardware.
Someone needs to install updates frequently (i.e. you).
Those updates are ideally either provided for some time, or a complete
upgrade can be performed painlessly and quickly for both user and you.

The combination of plain debian and you might be a best fit for the
case.

Volker

-- 
Volker Kuhlmann
http://volker.top.geek.nz/      Please do not CC list postings to me.
_______________________________________________
Linux-users mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.canterbury.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/linux-users

Reply via email to