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View Poll Results: Do you want a Linux with an Interview Style Install and Setup?
I'm a newbie/novice and Yes, I love that idea. thats just what Linux needs. 906 53.83%
I'm an occassional user, I don't care either way. 222 13.19%
I'm an experience/hardcore user and I don't need it to be any easier. I am happy with it the way it is. 555 32.98%
Voters: 1683. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 04-10-2003, 12:03 PM   #16
jonr
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One simple fact of computers and human life that seems consistently overlooked in discussions like this--on every forum I've visited--is that there are people who don't have tons of spare time to spend tweaking their computer setups or mastering arcane commands and intricate operating systems. They are people who work for a living or have busy lives that don't revolve 100% or even 90% around their computers, but who want to use computers for writing, spreadsheets, communication, graphics applications, research, and even a little infrequent relaxation with games.

Why, then, don't they "just use Windows"?

Because they also have a moral sense that tells them they're doing something deeply unethical if they support Microsoft's greed-driven, invasive ethos by their purchases and by signing their privacy away.

I have enormous respect for all computer geeks, and wish I'd been born with a true geek mentality myself. But I also wish some geeks would get this simple point through their heads: there are people who need to spend time away from their computers, yet who need to USE their computers, and want to do so in a morally responsible way.

These are the users who'd be well served by Linux and open-source software if only it could somehow, someday, be made easier to use.
 
Old 04-10-2003, 12:11 PM   #17
tcaptain
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Quote:
Originally posted by jonr
One simple fact of computers and human life that seems consistently overlooked in discussions like this--on every forum I've visited--is that there are people who don't have tons of spare time to spend tweaking their computer setups or mastering arcane commands and intricate operating systems.

...(snip)

These are the users who'd be well served by Linux and open-source software if only it could somehow, someday, be made easier to use.
That's ok. Just as long as we agree that "not having a lot of spare time" doesn't mean (which these days it seems to) "can't be bothered to think for myself so YOU do it for me!"

This point is made over and over and over...someone posts up a problem sometimes they say its urgent and they don't have the time to read a manual. Well lo and behold, the answer was posted a couple of hours later using a 20 second google search....if that person had used google on his own in the first place he'd have saved 2 hours.

You can only make things so easy before you start taking away the options that made the original thing great in the first place.

My argument is that it already is easy. Not no-brainer...but easy...and its getting easier all the time. And you have the help of an AWESOME community that's willing to help (and LQ is a GREAT example of this).
 
Old 04-10-2003, 12:18 PM   #18
jonr
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'You can only make things so easy before you start taking away the options that made the original thing great in the first place.'

Well said. I agree. (And I have spent hours searching for solutions before posting some of my questions, which seemed like they should already have answers, somewhere.)

Yes, I do worry that if Linux were to become commercialized, then it would soon be another Microsoft situation, and then what would be left for people with moral integrity to use? So it appears to me that Linux (which I'm incorrectly using as a catch-all term to include open-source everything) must remain basically non-commercial: and that means it will never be completely smooth sailing.

Better difficult than enslaving.
 
Old 04-10-2003, 12:21 PM   #19
dai
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What Id really like to know is why so many people either say Linux rocks and Winblowze or vice versa.

Both have a place in the market, all be it diferrent people use each O/S in different ways.

In my opinion if you want an easy GUI to play games word process watch DVD's etc then use Windows.

If you want something "Different" that can do most of the above (relatively easily) plus more then use Linux.

However one point there can be no real argument about is Linux is far superior in terms of Server software mainly due to the "GNU/GPL" and the fact that there is so much support freely available.
 
Old 04-10-2003, 12:24 PM   #20
jonr
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My point is not that Windows doesn't work well (sometimes) or that Windows doesn't have some great applications (it most surely does). It's simply that I cannot use Microsoft products anymore and feel I'm not doing something deeply immoral. Buying into that kind of greed and into that kind of attitude that treats all users like PROBABLE criminals (not just potential ones) is something I will not do any longer, period. I will stop using computers first. I made that decision some time ago and I am sticking to it.
 
Old 04-10-2003, 12:28 PM   #21
RVK
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Linux is easy....

The problem is, people think they're using Windows when they're not. Linux is a different thought process.

In my opinion, if you take someone who's ONLY ever used Linux and let them try Windows, they'll be seriously frustrated. Have you seen how stupidly difficult it is to manage your resources in Windows?!?

-R
 
Old 04-10-2003, 12:44 PM   #22
tcaptain
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Quote:
Originally posted by dai
Both have a place in the market, all be it diferrent people use each O/S in different ways.

In my opinion if you want an easy GUI to play games word process watch DVD's etc then use Windows.
There's a place in the market for an easy OS sure. But in my opinion, there's no longer a place anywhere for Microsoft and its business practices (I'm sure the Mob is reading the papers and taking notes from them).
 
Old 04-10-2003, 12:50 PM   #23
dai
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Quote:
Originally posted by tcaptain
There's a place in the market for an easy OS sure. But in my opinion, there's no longer a place anywhere for Microsoft and its business practices (I'm sure the Mob is reading the papers and taking notes from them).
Definitely take your point I dont like the way Bills taking things.

What with his current plan to have super-servers set up all over the world where we save all our information so he can see it all.

This and past practices (Opera + plus broken Style sheets etc...) Dont really do the companies image much good
 
Old 04-10-2003, 12:53 PM   #24
Paul Parr
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jonr,

Thank You! Finally Someone said it, Perfectly!
I love computers, but I have a Job and a family, and other responsibilites too. I get home at 6pm, I eat dinner, I spend time with my family if possible, then when my kids are in bed I go to my computer at about 9pm. (These days with Linux researching
I end up going to bed around 2 or 3 in the morning, only to get up at 7am to get ready for work. THATs 4 to 5 hrs a night tryig to learn and setup Linux. I am maybe a newbie but I am no dummy, and I think I have come a long way in the short time I have had Linux, but its too overly complicated to fit comfortaly into my busy schedual and life. When I do sit down to use my computers I want to enjoy it and I want it to work, period.

tcaptain
You need to get off the train wreck your on. Don't assume no one puts any effort into learning linux, sure some don't, but the rest of us do, and we are the one screaming the loudest because we have put in the efforts and its still not helping. Not everyone may be as Linux savy as yourself, so don't penalize others for not knowing as much as you might. We can all be expert users. Nor do all of use want to, don't flame us for it.

Isn't the Linux community suppose to be about support, helping those who want to convert to do it.
Excuse me for saying so, but its comments like yours that not only prevent the birth of Linux Newbies but also scare them away for good. Its the newbie phase that is so critical to winning over permanent Linux users. The problem is the learning curve with Linux is far to high for most newbies with little time to spare. How does that help the growth of the Linux community? Especially if you got your copy of Linux as a free download with no support or documentation, its easy to say forget it because its to difficult, on the other hand if you bought a boxed set and spend money on it you might be inclined to work harded at it, if you have the time.

I am here because as "jonr" said I don't agree with M$ and their unethical practices like stealing stuff from other OS's, Charging for Licenses, their greed and the limitations they set on you, to name a few. I want a "better" alternative that does eveything Windows XP does and more, as easy as they do it. Microsofts reputation aside Windows XP is a great product, but I want more...much of the extras, flexability, and power that Linux offers on top of what I get from Windows XP.

I want the BEST of both Worlds. Whats wrong with that?

P.S.- No one said anything about taking anything away from Linux, just adding simplicity to it for those who need it as an option.

Last edited by Paul Parr; 04-10-2003 at 01:02 PM.
 
Old 04-10-2003, 02:39 PM   #25
Mara
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Paul Parr, you wrote
Quote:
but I want more...much of the extras, flexability, and power that Linux offers on top of what I get from Windows XP.
I'm wondering if it's possible. When a program is written in can be really easy to use or really flexible. It's very hard to mix the two togeter.
To make a program easy to use means to include everything, write good default options, wizards etc. It makes the program big.
To make a program flexible means to think about different possible options users may want to have, give the user a possibility to configure the program. It makes a program big.
When you want to have easy to use and flexible program it makes it not 2 times bigger, but more. A bigger program means more bugs, makes the program hard to debug and so on.
It's always a tradeoff, unfortunately.

The biggest problem I can see now is because of drivers (no drivers, drivers licensing problems, different methods of installation and so on). It is really hard to make a program that can download/compile/configure a driver, when there can be 1000 possible methods and the driver uses one of them and we don't know which one.

Similar thing with software. The only method to run out of dependencies is to have everything in binary format, with dependencies in one package. But such a thing will make a 4 cd distro fill 4 dvds (or more). And there's no simple solution.

I know it doesn't make much sense...
 
Old 04-10-2003, 02:53 PM   #26
Paul Parr
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Exclamation I am not sure if that makes any sense

Mara,

Think about it...Windows XP comes on a Single CD, and Linux can come on up to 8 CDs or even DVDs.

How can you say making Linux easy and flexible to use would make it far to large?

Thats makes no sense at all. I think Windows XP supports far more hardware out of the box than Linux does and comes with many things Linux is missing by default.

 
Old 04-10-2003, 02:59 PM   #27
neenee
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hehe. nice one Paul

hmm.. i'd like to add one thought of my own:

most, if not all people who i hear complain about linux
being difficult, are those who come from windows or
other cruise-controlled operating systems. to those
who started with linux, i think it is as easy as windows
is for those who started with dos / windows.

it's like comparing languages. to people in korea, korean
is easy as they learnt it young. but english is difficult to
them. the same goes for english people wanting to learn
korean.

oh.. and about linux not having support for everything
with a new install; that's one of the powers of linux. you
have control over what is installed. that way you decide
where and when you make the trade between functionality
and performance.

hm.. this thread begins to lean towards 'windows vs linux',
which was not the purpouse of it i think... *shrugs*

hmm *looks up and reads.. that looks about right. yup.

*walks away into the shadows...

Last edited by neenee; 04-10-2003 at 03:04 PM.
 
Old 04-10-2003, 03:01 PM   #28
Mara
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Re: I am not sure if that makes any sense

Quote:
Originally posted by Paul Parr
Mara,

Think about it...Windows XP comes on a Single CD, and Linux can come on up to 8 CDs or even DVDs.

How can you say making Linux easy and flexible to use would make it far to large?

Thats makes no sense at all. I think Windows XP supports far more hardware out of the box than Linux does and comes with many things Linux is missing by default.
Does XP come with 10 window managers, 5 spreadsheets, 2 office suites, compilers, headers for everything and so on?

How big can be kernel+libc+some needed libraries+kde/gnome (but not both) in smaller versions (not all apps)? Now - much less than a cd (half of it, I guess). Drivers are not big. I'm now counting how much does modules for a kernel with support to everything take - I guess 30-40MB.
Linux distro !=(is not equal to) Windows XP

Much more software comes with Linux.
 
Old 04-10-2003, 03:03 PM   #29
jonr
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Re: I am not sure if that makes any sense

Quote:
Originally posted by Paul Parr
I think Windows XP supports far more hardware out of the box than Linux does and comes with many things Linux is missing by default.

But the hardware manufacturers are best buddies with Microsoft--that's why Windows supports so much out of the box. There are surely financial incentives of MANY KINDS available to hardware and software firms, in supporting, in many cases exclusively, the Microsoft platform.

By contrast, there's no financial incentive at all in providing drivers and other software, and hardware, for Linux. It would, at least at this point, be an act of altruism, and while not unheard of, an altruistic corporation is about as close to oxymoronic as you can get.
 
Old 04-10-2003, 03:09 PM   #30
trickykid
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When you say Linux, your talking about the kernel. Linux isn't gigabytes in size, its all the apps that are included that a distro bundles with it.

Linux isn't hard, most just make it out to be harder. You have to be smarter than the computer. Think different. Don't expect it to do everything for you. Linux was never intended to take over the desktop market and still isn't. Though major distro's push this as it's better for them cause it means more exposure and more money.

Stop comparing Linux to the Windows ease of use though, cause its never been intended to be a Windows, but the opposite.

Last edited by trickykid; 04-10-2003 at 03:23 PM.
 
  


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