At 20:35 6/24/98 -0400, Dale Leonard wrote:
>If RH makes X windows a little easier to configure, then MS will have
>NOTHING on Linux, as most people (esp. newbies) are uncomfortable with
>the command line interface.
In the first place, I don't think Linux vs Win95 is as appropriate as Linux
vs NT. But if we are going to make Win95 comparisons, let's remember that
very few newbie Win95 users have to download their OS and/or install on a
virgin machine, or onto a machine that already has another OS that they'd
like to preserve. They get the OS intstalled on machines whose
configuration has been planned and tested by competent people.
If you gave a Linux machine with a tried and tested configuration to a
newbie user, they would be productive. There still aren't as many casual
end-user apps for Linux as there are for Win95, but the user would be able
to do things like email and web surfing using Netscape. They'd be able to
use Corel, StarOffice, or Applixware for personal productivity with about
the same ease as they'd use MS Office.
The problem for newbies is not that either Win95 or Linux is significantly
harder to use, it's that Win95 newbies get spoon-fed that OS, while Linux
newbies have to do it themselves. For most peopl, getting started with
Win95 on a new computer is little more than plugging in the cables in
turning on the power.
Ralph Nader's recent anecdotal study revealed that's it's practically
impossible to get a non-Win95 PC from any well-known PC vendor. That shows
that marketing, and not technical merit or ease of use, is the major
obstacle here.
Tony
--
Anthony E. Greene <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<http://www.pobox.com/~agreene/>
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