Hi everybody,

I'm pretty concerned about some things I'm reading all along the Linux community, and I wanted to say some words 'cause I think they're important enough to do so. If I'm wrong, please remove this thread if you're able to do. Thanks.

I often watch people arguing about what is the best distro or OS ever, arguing about advantages and disadvantages of this or that distro, I even watched people flaming users of other distros and especially OSs. I can just say one thing: Please stop this.

Why? It's pretty easy: The development of Linux is now at a point where it is getting pretty close to achieve the "normal" user as a probable user; in short terms, Linux is almost ready to encounter everyone's desktop. Projects like Knoppix show that auto-configuration of hardware is no longer a problem and the end-user doesn't have to take care about how it is done. There's simply something that keeps things going, and that's exactly what the "normal" user expects from an operating system. There is good software under Linux for "normal" users, I'll just name the products of Mozilla foundation as an example: Firefox and Thunderbird are doing damn good jobs. We've good pretty good multimedia Software: XMMS and Amarok, for example, provide excellent audio playback, as good as any other software does. mplayer is the killer app for viewing anything that smells like a picture stream.
The applications I've named are just examples, there are much more people providing excellent software for almost any kind of job. Now to the important part:

The success of Linux on the "normal" user's desktop depends on one thing, in my opinion: It has to be the better choice. It has to be much better than the OS the "normal" user is using currently to bring him to switch his OS. Humans are comfortable, and once they get comfortable with something, it's kind of hard to make them change something with it.
In my eyes Linux has so much advantages, but de facto nobody (except the geeks we are) knows them! It also depends on us to change that. How we can do? This is my guess:

1. As I said, stop bashing other distros. Every distro has it's advantages and disadvantages. Let everybody use what he wants - in short terms, "free as in freedom".
2. Show your friends/neighbours/family/whoever that using Linux is no geek thing. If you want them to switch, stop talking about "chmodding userperms" and non-understandable things like that. Show them that you're an individual that wisely thought about his choice of OS and is happy with it. Nothing more. Give them the chance to get happy with their way of life.
3. Stop bashing other OSs. If you want, tell anybody what disadvantages other OSs have (calling mommy at home, ....). But leave it here. Also every OS has advantages... got it? :-) You can't force people to change. It they want to keep what they use, they're happy with it. Let them be happy. And, most important: Don't think about them as losers. They aren't. It's just their way of life.

I think it's slowly but surely getting time to enter the desktop of everyone's computer. Let's take the "big whoop" and bring things on together. In one point we are all the same: We use a wonderful OS. And that is what we should concentrate on.
I want to finish with Neil Armstrong: "It will be a small step for us, but a big one for the world."

Regards to you all,

Seppel

You got some good points. I for one have been guilty of bashing,
and it's not producing positive results for anyone. So, I repent.
Thanks for sharing your feelings...

here here.

i've done some bashing too, but recently i realized it doesn't matter what someone is using(be it windows, linux, fedora, or debian), as long as they like it.

Hi there,

also thank you for sharing your thoughts. I just wanted to add that you can repost this thread anywhere if you want as long as you don't change it and add a link where it was originally posted. This is public reading, and if you think it is good enough, make it public elsewhere. :-)

Greetings,

Seppel

My sentiments exactly.

It's amazing how many people put on "airs" about using a supposedly more "geeky" distro like Debian, Slackware or Gentoo than a person who uses Mandrake or Fedora.

It's all about choice. Not only that, it's about your needs. Different people have different needs and have any of you considered that people like your fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts and grandmothers need a choice other than Microsoft?

Forcing everybody to learn the ins and outs of Linux is just not right.

Consider this: has your non-technical friends ever installed even Windows? Have you ever taught them how to use regedit? They just "use" Windows and similarly we need a Linux that they can just "use". They need an easy-to-install, easy to use version of Linux and the bottom line is that distros like Mandrake, SuSe and Fedora make it easy for the average desktop user.

So as long as there are choices for every kind of user, I'm happy

What about DOS? Can I still bash people using DOS? Please?

I think you didn't understand what I tried to say. Don't bash anything. If anybody's using DOS, let him use it. There are reasons why he does it, and if he wouldn't like it, he wouldn't use it. Your can of course have your personal thoughts and arguments about DOS (and anything else - thoughts are "free as in freedom", no matter what), and of course can discuss _seriously_ and _sensible_ against DOS, but please stop telling sentences like "DOS is a crap" or "DOS is the worst shit that was ever programmed". I've read about the programming of DOS and that it was perhaps not done the best way, but it also worked somehow and had some advantages (I'm no DOS expert, so don't ask me on that :-).
Short terms: Have your thoughts, _discuss_ about it, but don't bash.
Thanks :-)

Greetings,

Seppel

Edit: Sorry - I didn't read your post right. You wanted to bash people using DOS, not DOS itself. Don't bash people for using DOS, neither bash them for anything else. Only people without a sounded opinion do bashing.

Can I still use /bin/bash?

Sorry, sometimes you have to be honest and call and spade a spade, guys.

Compared to DR-DOS, MS-DOS really was crap.

Sometimes what is a spade to one man is really a piece of junk to another.

A spade is a very useful implement to a gardener, but it is totally useless junk for the CEO of a multinational company.

A spade still remains a spade, but it's usefulness is different in different contexts.

What I'm saying is that, while MS-DOS may be useless to many people, I still know some people who are totally comfortable still using DOS accounting software written in DBase III+ a long time ago.

I used cp/m, dos and dr-dos a long time. Long after that windows crap turned up

MS-DOS really was crap compared to DR-DOS.

Crap is a relative term.

BTW, a spade is very useful to a CEO. They use them to bury their former bosses.

No. In no case at all. This is the worst tool for bashing ever ;-)
I'm guilty! I use it every day.

Greetings,

Seppel

I don't know DR-DOS, can't say anything about it. MSDOS may be crap indeed - but there is no need for bashing people who use it.

I still use Win 3.1 and DOS in an old, really old, extremely old laptop. I found it quite funny to play around with. And it has actually a handful of good games installed on it: Wolf3D, Commander Keen, Prince of Persia, Out of this World... Those were the days . I have 3 OS'es in that machine by the way: Dos, Win 3.1 and Grey Cat Linux 3.0.

I don't think anyone should be bashed. But we can say when something is wrong for sure, we don't want turn into conformists and accept everything and be all alike, wearing the same clothes and eating the same food don't we?. Sometimes, telling what's wrong with and what we like or not, leads to change and change is always good when we move forward...