Re: Re: Ok. Heh, is there still an smtp-based list out here:D

David Haley schreef:

> If the user isn't ready for the OS then perhaps that's precisely because the OS
> isn't ready for the user. 

But we're not starting even. The OS may not be "ready" *for users who
have been trained for some 20 years in the Windows way of doing things
(and I've used Windows since 3.11, but 95 and later users don't even
have my experience with non-GUI applications--WordPerfect was *great*
under DOS), and Linux for the most part has resisted the temptation to
deform its design to compensate for the fact that the userbase has been
crippled for all that time.

The jury is still kinda out as to whether that's a "good idea" in that
it's not good for marketability, but it certainly is admirable in the
sense of having the courage of your (design) convictions.


> I think that argument can go both ways. The main
> problem I see with Linux and the "normal user" is any kind of system
> maintenance. For most normal use (email, office, web, chat) Linux is just fine
> -- depending, of course, on the distribution you choose to use. I might not
> recommend Gentoo or straight Debian for complete Linux beginners, for instance.
> 

Well, as a Gentoo user, I'm not completely sure about that. Depends on
the user, tbh. I, on the other hand, wouldn't recommend Ubuntu to a
beginner, as I, who have used RedHat, Mandrake, several flavors of
Debian, SuSE, Slackware, and Gentoo, couldn't get anything to work using
it. Yet 'everyone' says it's the most trouble-free newbie distro to be had.

OK. <shrug>

But this all comes down to the fact that if you are your computer's
administrator, you should know how to administrate it effectively for
your needs. The problem is that everyone is trained by Windows into
believing that the OS itself is adequate to do its own administration,
which-- if Windows is meant to be the example of this philosophy-- it is
not. But we're talking about a userbase that truly believes that
"reformat and reinstall" is a perfectly normal, acceptable, and proper
repair strategy for all problems great and small.

So it's likely only to be expected that asking such a userbase to learn
even the most minimal list of commands necessary to administer a machine
would be considered unreasonable by those users.

But that doesn't mean that it is in fact an unreasonable thing to ask.

It just means that the users think it is.

People used to think that the world was flat, too, but it was still
round, the whole time.

Holly







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