"All that means is that you probably still
can't utilise Linux properly

I (and several others I know) use Linux as their
desktop because of efficiency, not because of
political/ethical/... reasons."

OK. So please tell me, what people do on Linux better and more efficient
than in Windows???????

Beside Internet which is obvious and it's only a small part of a computer' activities.

What is done more efficiently and better on Linux?????????

In which program?


Regards easy installation of Windows XP on new machine.

1. Start machine.
2. Insert CD with Windoze.
3. Press Enter to install.
4. Press F8 to accept EULA!
5. Press Enter to format partition.
6. Punch serial number.
7. Select country for your modem.
8. Select basic network settings.

25-35 minutes and all done. Usually no glitches here

Up to here Linux is a win.

Now Windows is a king!!!

6. Put CD with all motherboard drivers (Chipset, video, modem, network, sound)

That will take about 10 minutes at the most.

7. Go on the net. Another 3-5 minutes. If ADSL - about 1 minute. Just type user name and password.

Put MS Office - 10-15 minutes.
Put Adobe Photoshop - 10 min
Put Antivirus - 10-15 min (Norton)
Put Q3A - 10 minutes.

Put two machines on network - 10 seconds up to 3 minutes!!!

Beat that!

Usually with all of that, if MSI or Gigabyte motherboard is used I don't have a single glitch to putting system and to get it running perfectly.

With these programs Win XP will not crash for months! Only users will create some problems when they will start installing bloody Kazaa, yahoo messengers, Bonzibody, Fastdownlad, SaveNow and other crap.

I don't like M$ personally but I like how this is easy to do.

Problems are starting when not common devices or special settings are required.

Win XP are even more stable and faster, when all candy crap is disabled.

I would never go back to Win 2000. The same kernel as Win XP.


Peace...

How much did you pay for XP and all the programs you listed above? I not only like Linux philosophically and for its stability, but for its price and sense of community.

And when I installed OpenOffice, the Gimp and other programs came with Linux. They weren't high priced add-ons. And I wonder why Red Hat didn't include anti-virus software?

They sure do and lots of them.

You should play QuakeIII: Arena on a Linux box, see how much better it is ;P

"How much did you pay for XP and all the programs you listed above? I not only like Linux philosophically and for its stability, but for its price and sense of community."

A lot... but... an average user has two options.

Get a machine with Windoze and pay for it.

Get a machine with Linux and pay for the service, because an average client will have no chances to install drivers and programs.

Someone has to do it for him.

And every new program needs some assistance.

Most people are prepared to learn only what is a MUST.

I've never learned many functions on my NOKIA. I'm not interested.

i use it and I'll rather have a Quake game than open Nokia manual.

Tomorrow will be another model anyway!

"You should play QuakeIII: Arena on a Linux box, see how much better it is ;P"

I play it a lot on line! ADSL.

So... what is better? I'm keen to hear because THIS would be the factor to use the Linux.

When it comes to installing my old PII 200 I'd have to say Windows XP was 100%
automatic. I only told it what country I was in etc, and my IP. I went from
Installing XP to playing a Win32 Doom port.

But yeah with regards to what smcptyltd said - using Linux is more about being
literate and knowing alot of non-uniform utilities & software.


And being able to be stupid -is- an advantage when it comes to using
computers. Although I don't want to take that too far - oh why oh why must
every configuration thing in XP be a wizard?

don't go saying how great that f%$#ing XP is around me except to say it's nothing but a great big f^%$ing WHORE

after what i've been thru the last 24 hours thanks to that bloating bitch...,

- perry

I fail to understand, why this should be done over and over again, individually. Here you give an excellent boost to the notion that Linux should be made easier to use.

An what would Jonny Homeuser see?

I guess in some instances one has to trust .

Sorry Tinkster, I don't know anyone who has had this problem.

Here we go again, my argument is intended for the desktop user. If a desktop user has a problem in this area, you cant shrug your shoulders and tell them to write new code. If you want too see professional, automated installation, download Realsoft3D for linux. It is the best installer I have seen for linux or windows.

I'm sorry, I can't agree with this hype / conspiracy theory. MS are in buisness to make money, as is the buisness anyone here gets paid to work for is. They would not have gotten their product into as many homes as they did if they were not smart.

Do you have a television? Do you think the fact that it came assembled, with a remote-control is the manufacturers attempt to keep you stupid Tinkster? If so, the whole world is out to get you.

This is absolute nonsense that belongs on the X-Files more than on this forum.

Ditto.

This I agree with.

A television has a simple purpose: paint pictures on a screen to be passively absorbed. Whether that makes you stupid is another argument *g* but, no, the ease of use of a TV does not make you stupid *about* TVs in the sense that the remote control results in you *under*utilizing the TV. It doesn't turn you to certain channels that only show children's programming. Things like that. Though it doesn't really encourage learning about the devices in depth *as* devices.

A computer has no particular purpose - it's basically an anything box. And if you don't know how to use it, you're missing out. And the ease of use, remote control equivalent of a computer *does* channel you into children's programming - or, taking that literally, no programming at all. The MS GUI and equivalents are *restricted* channels that allow you to easily set up a box that lets you go to MSN on IE and buy stuff or whatever, but that's about it. To make them do anything else is actually *harder* for the average home user than it would be to make a Linux box do whatever struck their fancy.

The unspoken subtext of 'Where do you want to go today?' is 'Well, it doesn't matter, becase we're taking you where we want you to go.' It's indisputable, to me, that following the path of least resistance and buying a computer with Windows pre-installed and clicking on the eula and loading up the default browser and signing up with the default ISP and surfing to the default places already implanted in the 'favorites' is easier. And, as long as you toe all the lines and don't go shooting dancing paperclips and panting dogs, you might encounter few difficulties. As long as you let the applications reformat the text you type into their notion of how things should be typed. Etc. But deviation brings penalties.

In Linux - at least my Linux - there *are* no such defaults and automations, or precious few. Yeah, it's *work* to set it up, but there's no resistance to my doing so. I'm free to run what I want, how I want, where I want. Given that I *don't* want to toe the line and suffer dancing paperclips, Linux is 'easier'.

This is part of why I hate the IDEs with K this and K that and the Mandrakes that put crap in my bookmarks. That's a lot of work and headache to *undo* stuff that isn't necessary to begin with.

yup, that sure sounds like a slacker to me....

- perry

First, I'm a rank newbie to Linux. Let me admit that right off the bat. I have been working with various versions of the Evil Empire's operating systems for ten years and a command line interface doesn't bother me.

Now, at work, I currently support over 550 users at an Enterprise level, Fortune 500 company (around the world, this organization probably has over 100,000 desktops deployed). They process orders and handle financial billing issues. With the exception of one or two, they are not CIS majors, have absolutely NO interest in writing code, and only want to get on with their work. For them, the computer at their desk is a tool. It allows them to process orders and financial transactions, and it keeps a record of those. It allows them to communicate with their peers across the country and even around the world. These people are often called upon to put in overtime. They have families that they want to spend time with. They are not geeks.

Above, I have described most of the people that I directly support. The organization that I support fathered the GUI, the mouse, and Ethernet, yet most of its employees are not computer professionals. They view their machine as an appliance.

I began playing around with DOS 6. I moved to Windows 3.1 and then WFWG (3.11). I currently support a mixed environment of Win NT4, Win2k and Win XP desktops, with NT4, 2k and Netware 5 servers (SUN supports the Solaris boxes).

I have had several issues this morning that required me to ask for assistance. One was for clarification on issues that were not fully documented in the eighty or so pages that I read on them (SCPM and YaST). Yes, I did RTFM, and I still had questions.

In another instance, although I had set /etc/inittab to 5, I was automatically presented with a desktop, without even being prompted for a login and password. It turned out to be a setting in KDE that must have changed when I went from inittab 3 to 5. This had occurred without my intervention, and I consider that to be an unacceptable security issue!

Later, while attempting to set up SCPM through YaST, the application locked up. I did not know its process ID to kill it. It would not close through Alt-F4. I could not even shut the machine down to close it.

Last, when my screensaver applies, I am now queued to log in to a new session when I try to log back in. There is nothing I can do other than to either start a new session, or go back to the screensaver. I don't even begin to imagine WHAT man page that one is listed in!

The last issue here hits the nail on the head. For all of its faults, M$ Windows is fairly intuitive, while *NIX is not. While that may be fine for the few, if it is EVER to see widespread implementation on the desktop of corporate America, it will need that appliance-like nature.

You are not forced to do any of this with windows. With a custom install, I have no paperclips installed in my office suite. My default webpage is google. I deleted the favourites folder with a click. My default web browser is Opera. My default JVM is sun's, not MS'. And I use my own service provider. There is a tab in the options for office, in which if you uncheck the master checkbox, you will have no spelling, grammatical or formatting 'suggestions' by the application.

I take youre point, and I understand that the 'paperclip' is being used here as an analogy for everything that people find obtrusive in windows, but the fact is that all these things can be disabled when you know how to use the operating system. This infact is quite similar to Tinksters argument

The fact is that both fans of one system tend to sensationalise the situation in their favour. Somebody has to play the devils advocate here It's healthy!

If you are out of arguments, don't try to mix hardware with software and invent yourself arguments.

And mine was directly directed to you, who
seems to think he's quite advanced. Either
tell people to use man (rather than expect
that all tools that aren't written by M$ but by
a lot of individuals to suit their own idea of
what the tool is meant to do to behave the
same way "dir" did - man is a standard, --help
[or /?] is not.). Or, YOU (not User Doe) write
the help code for the tools that don't do what
YOU think they should be doing, and submit them.


As a matter of fact my TV doesn't have a remote
control (doesn't bother me though, it's never turned
on for more than an hour a week, anyway). And no,
I don't think that the make of a telly (or it's tools) are
intended to make people stupid - the fact that watching
TV *might* make some people stupid is a whole
different story :} And there is a big difference between
computers and TV's that you overlooked: a television
is a means of passively perceiving - a computer is a
means of actively doing something. If I flick the wrong
switch on my TV I will either not see what I wanted, or
maybe nothing at all. If I do the wrong thing on my
computer (because I refused to learn something about
it) I may end up losing the outcome of my precious
time that I spent working on it.
If I look at a tree I don't need to know how photosynthesis
works (even though I might be curious enough to think
about it), if I intend to drive a car I will, however, have
to read at least a few basics of the machine (it's even
a legal requirement to get yourself acquainted with your
car before you use it).

But since you came back to this TV analogy:
I still think that people who don't manage to set
the time on their VCR are stupid - that infamous
"blinking 0" generation ;)



Cheers,
Tink

In fact this is all I'm going on about. All
the things you can do on your Windows
the average user won't do, they probably
don't even know what a jvm machine is
in the first place, nor that MS's version
might work differently from what Sun does.

So again, it comes down to knowledge.
And just because the average user is in
the habit not to not think about what he's
doing doesn't necessarily make that a good
thing.

Knowledge and the use of gray matter are
"goods" in themselves. And applied to the usage
of tools I believe they're inevitable.


Cheers,
Tink