On Tuesday 10 June 2003 12:48, Alex Daniloff wrote:
The thing is that you *can* get the apps to work. Maybe not by simply downloading a single package. Instead you have to download a dozen to get all of the libaries, etc.
Shared libraries is a major strength of Linux. Can you imagine having multiple sets of libraries where each one of them is linked to its very own individual package only? Kind of Microsoftish approach with their .dll's.
On the other hand. I consider myself a linux expert compared to the majority of the users, but a "knowledgable user" compared to many on this list. However, I personally find the mechanism for installing new software very annoying in comparison to Windows.
Annoying in the absence of the expertise in Linux :)
Today I had to install two new products on my Windows machine at
work and they installed very easily.
True Linux experts will use Linux even at their work places and convince and teach their colleagues and management how to do the same.
Recently I wanted to install something on my Linux machine but I found out I was
missing a
couple of things that needed other things to install, which needed
still
other things.
And after this, you're still calling yourself a "Linux expert" !?? :)
Alex
Excuse me for stating the obvious and inciting a flame war. But your statements seem blatantly eletist and a tad an the crass side. We are not talking about Sys admins, programers, devs, gurus, etc..... The very nature of this particular thread is What? Linux on the desktop in a CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT. It is not Linux on the desktop in the enclaves of a guru's dev lab. We're talking secretaries, accountants, customer service reps, nurses, doctors, lawers, marketing departments, sales officers, sales clerks, middle managers, upper management, people in accounts receivable, people in accounts payable, Home offices, Small offices, yada yada yada! And eventually home end users who figure out that theres is absolutely no reason to run dll as an app, have the OS contact M$ servers to "authenticate" the OS ownership or to match a table of hardware unigue identifiiers to see if it has been place on another machine, or to worry about having a redirect to a malicious site on a constant and ongoing basis because some M$ programming drones don't know what the fuck they have written into the umpteen millions of lines of code in their freaking OS because their division bosses are trying to meet deadlines rather then do proper testing to get the next product out the door to pump sales in order to jack stock prices to keep their share holders and boards happy with ever increasing revenue streams. WE are talking about making it viable for a corporate environment with admins that have experience with Windows and need to come over to a safer, more effecient and cost effective altenative than being blackmailed into the next upgrade, series of time consuming, server crashing, hack ridden programs and patching tasks. It can be argued that in a corporate environment many of the installation functions are not set for end user desktops in order to provide safety and stability to a networked series of desktops. It can also be argued that sys admins are those that install, after testing, new apps and verious upgrades for the corporate body. That's what they get paid for. But answer me this. Why would I want to buy a product that 90% of the ISPs won't develop for unless their is a distinct advantage to doing so? You do not gain clientele by mandating that you need to be an expert in a specific field in order to use my products. This only works in select fields and they have a very limited market. If, however, you goal is to provide a product for the mainstream and the overall general populus then telling them that in addition to buying and using the product is it recommended that they have either two years experience in computers systems or a bachelors degree in said comp sci/sys admin to use the product then I suggest you stick to servers and to drop any notion of providing a product for the end user, Joe and/or Jane Q. Public, gamers, Mom and Pop home users, small business owners, home photo and film buff/video enthusiast, home recording/music enthusiast, etc, etc, etc, etc,.... Fortunately, this does not appear to be the way thay many of the presently "successful" Linux distribution companies have chosen. I believe they have publically stated a desire to produce, market, and sell a desktop product that is both affordable and usable be your everyday average persons. Having taken this position I further believe that they are aware of the need to put together a product that is functional and meets the needs of this demographic. If they were to take the opinion and stance you suggest then I submit that they are doomed to failure - no one group of any mass will use the product, no OEM would even consider making it available in their product line and the company would soon be bankrupt or forced to drop this product line and return to offering only Middle and High End Systems. This is fine if that's what you want to make - however I'm sure that most will agree that SuSE has decided to produce and market a version for the everyday person and doing so have decided to taylor said product to meet "their" expectations - not yours. So, unliess you have some viable suggestions about what would make it easier for people that do indeed have busy lives and really don't want and shouldn't need to know the advantages of apropos, grep, sed, ./configure, make, make mrproper, make clean, make dep, make install $LIBPATH=. --with-oss=yes, --with-sequencer=yes, prefix=. etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. then please step away from the gui and return to your console. Thank You! Cheers, Curtis :)