-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Saturday 12 June 2004 13:32, Scott Leighton wrote:
On Saturday 12 June 2004 11:01 am, dmc wrote:
Scott Leighton wrote:
On Saturday 12 June 2004 10:44 am, Donn Washburn wrote:
Care to straighten this Guy out?
Not really, he's dead on right. I agree with him 100%.
Scott
He is only partially correct and burying half-truths and uninformed perspective within a presumably thoughtful article leads to others parroting the same unclear thinking.
He needs to start with the context that hardware is only difficult to address because hardware manufacturers release inadequately complete driver sets.
Why, he's talking about his experience with a Linux distribution versus Windows. What makes you think that he is obligated to explain his experience in terms of what hardware mfgs choose to do or not do.
He never mentions *which* distro. Did he just jump right into Slackware? Maybe Gentoo? Not easy distros for most people not already used to Linux. If he has so many "friends" that run Linux systems, why didn't he bother asking them how to do things, since he obviously was too stupid to try and actually figure anything out on his own? Why didn't he ask on the distro's newsgroup or mailing list...is he too stupid to know those things exist too? In wonduhsXPee NG's, the most found answer to people saying some piece of hardware isn't working is "You should have done some research first"...but apparently this guy doesn't think that has to be done with Linux. Hypocrasy *and* double-standards if ever there was any.
He needs to observe that even when hardware manufacturers market defective devices (e.g. winmodems) Linux folks have been able work around some of that junk and force functionality.
Ditto. He's a user, a user could care less about the politics of whether or not manufacturers choose to support any particular OS. A user simply cares about whether or not the box 'works'.
Then it's time that 'Joe User' learned that because he has a computer now, it's not there to let him remain stupid or get more stupid/lazy. It still requires 'thinking'. I know too many winduhs users who buy or download some silly app, only to call me up and ask me how to use or install the damn thing!
He also needs to observe that a pattern of Microsoft manipulation has long-since been documented wherein they have pressured hardware manufacturers to refuse to release sufficient data to allow Linux folks to do what they (the manuafacturer) should -- package Linux drivers along with MS and Mac drivers.
That crap is nothing but excuses. A user cares nothing about it and frankly is sounds like whining to me.
Not just "excuses", but valid ones. Many drivers in Linux that *make* hardware work, had to be written from scratch because the sorry-assed manufacturers have their lips so far up M$'s ass they tickle the back of Billy-boys throat! It only 'sounds' like whining to *you*, because you have no clue to the reality of it all or just don't seem to care.
He needs to note that SuSE 9 and 9.1 and Mandrake 10 and other newer distros load and run with similar levels of ease to XP -- but that just as with XP one must choose approved hardware -- because XP will not run on any hardware anywhere anytime -- though there are far more companies configuring their PC's to favor XP compatibility than those doing so for Linux -- the advantage of M$'s current superior user-base position in the marketplace.
You are flat out wrong. There is no similarity in ease of use between Linux distros and XP. XP wins hands down. You have an agenda you want to push, the author doesn't.
Not wrong at all. Go visit microsoft.public.windowsxp.general for a week, then come back here and say that. Also, since the author decided to put his FUD on the 'net, making it public, he's trying to carry his own agenda.
I like Linux and am now a SuSE user of a little over 1 month. I have no intention of going back to windows, but the fact is that none of the Linux distros are ready for home desktop use by the typical non-technical user. It is far too complicated to get things running and configured correctly and the author of the article hit it right on in his points.
My 65 year old mom uses SuSE 8.2. She uses it just fine. When she downloaded her first tarball, all she did was call me and ask me if there was anything special to do, and I gave her instructions that she wrote down (I guess that's too hard for other Joe Users to do too, right?), and she went on from there. The only thing I did during installation, was to tell her about partitioning, but I let *her* do it all. She is *not* a tech person in any sense of the word. She emails, watches a movie now and then and chats and writes her book using OO...that's about all she knows or wants to do with it.
'nuff said.
Whatever.
The sign of a really open mind...NOT. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3rc2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAy7YVH5oDXyLKXKQRAhD5AKCegy4GYTTN4IoJa9UsCZinWh6NWACdFVdo sRCVfRnVl7sSFB/m+4CI464= =45OX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----