some consideration on fedora demo

Dear Penguins,

I found the demo of last meeting very interesting, but I have some 
considerations to share with you.

Ok installation is easy, more or less now all distros are easy to 
install, i think the scary point for a new-bye is still the 
partitioning.
Then After installation Audio, Video, and the rest is working but this 
is the minimum for an usable OS.
I was surprised that Orinoco card, introduced as the best "plug and 
play" wireless card, it could not work. Steak and egg seems not have 
"Linux friendly" Wifi but the card was not working. About the 
"friendly" concept I think if you expect that the world should be 
friendly with you you should start first to by friendly with the world. 
I "plugged" my Ibook almost everywhere (OK not exactly EVERYWHERE!!  
:-) and it found its way to work without my intervention. I almost sure 
I can log on almost every WIFI network around without to worry about 
"friendly" encryption or protocols, it work

I think for a modern Laptop Computer Wireless capabilities are 
fundamentals, WIFI GPRS and Bluetooth are not options if you need to 
work on the road.

Before to choose Mac OSX as my working platform I have evaluated to 
switch to Linux completely but the possibility to connect virtually 
everywhere to internet was for me a constraint difficult to overcome. 
My need was to migrate all my daily work activities on a different 
platform with a very (VERY) short adaptation period.  No time to hack 
the kernel or patch it or find drivers wrapped or something too much 
complicated, remember: I'M JUST AN USER!!

I have setup a small linux server for my office running mandrake 9.2, 
Samba, printers server, Web server for intranet. All my colleagues   
are happy about it, and they start to know that there is something else 
in the OS world, not only windows. Using the mandrake tools setup this 
services was very easy, as it has to be for a USER.

For my personal daily work I think Mac OSX is one of the best choices 
for an Open Source entusiast, plus it is very friendly with the world, 
even that part that still stick on proprietary and closed  standards.

BTW I  consider myself a Linux user and I would like to learn more, in 
the meanwhile I'm waiting for the day when you can plug a PCMCIA card 
or a USB device in a linux box and start to using it.


Tomorrow I will leave for Holidays, I will be back middle of september, 
take care and continue to spread the Linux vangel on the four corner of 
the Middle Kingdom.

Ciao a tutti!!

Matteo

_______________________________________________
blug-general list
[email protected]
http://list.beijinglug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/blug-general