It may come as a shock to you but no one says that Linux is ready for the desktop. I don't think Linux is ready for my Aunt either. I am willing to put up with the problems because I am sick of Microsoft and every other box software "sellers" calling me a thief until I prove otherwise. I may be a freeloader who hasn't given anything back but no one is going to fine me because I lost my SuSE 8.1 box. Check in every year or so because I have seen Linux improve over the last three years and I am sure that even your middle age non-computer type would be able to use it in another three years. Then I would have never allowed not-computer types to use Windows 3.1 ten years ago, but they still did some how. ;-) pben On Sunday 16 February 2003 08:51 am, Michael Satterwhite wrote:
As a general desktop, that is.
I was thinking of the problem I had yesterday trying to restart printing services (which I still haven't found in the documentation).
For Linux to be a general desktop system, it needs to be usable by the general population at large. A middle age non-computer type would *NEVER* be able to use Linux. Until it reaches the point that it can recover gracefully from something as simple as a printer running out of paper, it really isn't going to make large inroads against Windows. If you told an average user "just restart the print service", he'd reply "Why do I have to do that? Windows kept going automatically."
There is no question that in many ways, Linux is superior to Windows. Until it grows a bit more in the area of being able to recover from simple problems, the average person isn't going to use it.
I'm a Linux newbie, so I really don't know what's happening in this area. Is there work being done on this type of recovery?