On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, Jon Biddell wrote:
> If I insist that she use, for example, KDE, and am willing to educate her in
> such, I achieve a wider acceptance of Linux as a viable desktop environment.
> The whole thing revolves around her LEARNING a new desktop environment,
> or rather having the desire and motivation to learn, which sadly many
> people do not have.
Personally, I've been very surprised to how my sister has learned KDE. I
mean the one button clicks are something a little annoying in my view, but
besides that, she hasn't had a problem with it. A few of her friends also
come over to do the odd document or web browsing on her computer and we
set them up with logins and they adapt just fine.
Needless to say, I've been happily surprised.
> >I use StarOffice. It's a little slow, but it works. Compatibility is
> >fairly good, however, StarOffice -WILL NOT- open password protected MS
> >Office documents.
>
> Very true - and it also will not read Access databases.
Databasing in general is sketchy at best in StarOffice but everything else
is superb. I don't blame them directly for not supporting Office's
password protected files no matter how much I wise they did :) Currently,
I load up MS Excel Viewer in Wine and use Wine's new Clipboard server
functions to copy and paste it from XLView -> StarOffice :P
> Am I betraying "the cause" ? Not entirely, I am using EvilWare for what it
> is good for - wasting time and playing games.
As I am forced to do :)
> Ever tried that approach in a dedicated Windows environment ? Most
> of the Windows programmers I know (and appologies to any SLUGgers
> who are in this category) are anally-retentive about their code, their
> precious API programming, and generally won't share - their thinking
> being something like "it was hard for me to write - why should you get it
> easy ?".
I have to admit that I still have a bit of an attitude like this. I have
no problem participating in open source developments and stuff, but if I
write a new proggie from scratch I still cannot wrap my head around
releasing the code to everybody :/ It's a personal thing I guess.
Perhaps a little greed too, and I'll get over it one day :) Just some of
this code I wrote ages ago and don't want to see vandalised :)
> A new user is often daunted by the installation process - although
> the SERVER / WORKSTATION option in Redhat is a pretty good
> compromise for a newbie. What we need is some enterprising
> SLUGger to write *the* installation script, a real no-brainer for
> first time users - yes, I know how hard it would be...:-)
SuSE's YaST2 isn't bad either. It's a GUI to do the install, has a ltitle
more than server / workstation but not too much as to confuse the user.
It's worth taking a peek at as it was designed for newbies aswell.
Personally I'm not a fan of Redhat or Mandrake, but this is just personal
opinion about their business and marketing tactics and because of a lot of
bugs I've seen with the two thanks to some of the path screwing around
business :/
> A brave man, and an attitude I think most Linux users would aspire to at
> some point.
I don't really think I have am as determined as people think I am. I have
been surprised many times by the determination of newbies to get their
systems working. There are times when I will give up on getting some
newbies' systems to do what they want it to exactly and they'll say "I
don't care if I have to do this or this or this, and I can wait 5 days".
Pleases me somewhat :)
> and 3 - I like to eat !!!
*grins* Maybe that's why I only weigh 40kg :P
> <pontification mode off>
Now there's a new word I have to learn.
Andrew.
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