On 04/27/2003 06:22 PM, zentara wrote:

By the way, what is the last release that used yast1? 7.4 or what?

7.3 -- Joe Morris New Tribes Mission Email Address: Joe_Morris@ntm.org Web Address: http://www.mydestiny.net/~joe_morris Registered Linux user 231871 God said, I AM that I AM. I say, by the grace of God, I am what I am.

Tony Alfrey [2003-04-27 07:21]:

On Sunday 27 April 2003 03:22 am, zentara wrote:

...

On Sat, 26 Apr 2003 22:36:05 -0400

Mike Grello wrote:

...

Here is a tip for SuSE (and increasingly most Linux distros), if I wanted Windows I would've bought Windows. If you are going to treat the user like an idiot, then (s)he should not have to have some smarts to fix what you broke.

I'm sorry I have to agree with you. Yast2 has become a nightmare, it used to be what made SuSE so easy. <snip>

Thank you for your rants; very informative. I was waiting to see what the comments would be about 8.2 before I frantically rushed out to install a new SuSE. I think I will stick with my 7.2.

I agree with the previous posters that it should -- must, IMO -- be possible to cancel automatic hardware detection, but keep in mind that many people are having no problems with 8.2. It's the first distribution that did a -- so far -- flawless upgrade (from 8.0) for me. It's _really_ nice to be able to keep all the tweaks the prior installation had. -rex

begin Anders Johansson's quote: | On Sunday 27 April 2003 16:30, rex wrote: | > I agree with the previous posters that it should -- must, IMO -- | > be possible to cancel automatic hardware detection, | | insserv -r hwscan but *of course*!<g> -- dep http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within the envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere.

begin Ben Rosenberg's quote: | Well, as you said you don't do .0 and .1's you would know that this | has been the way to remove services in SuSE for 3 versions now. So | I don't think this command is a revelation...it's been common place | much in the way under RH they use chkconfig. fine. no problem there. my point is that i suspect that people looking for a "don't detect hardware" checkbox might not think to find someplace to type "insserv -r hwscan" or, if they found such a place, to type that string. | I also find it amazing that for the longest time people said " if | it doesn't hold your hand and do A, B and C then it won't displace | Windows.." and now that it hold's your hand..even to the point of | holding it down as MacOSX and WinXP do...now people are bitching. I | just don't think that anyone can be satisfied. the complaint people (including me) have, i think, is with the belief that it be either-or. in needn't be. the manual install in 8.2, for instance, seems to differ from the automatic install only in that it drops occasionally to the ncurses frontend of yast, but is otherwise the same as the automatic install. (there may be some point farther along in the process where its manualarity is more profound; it blew up either way while looking for a modem here.) it would be great if the manual install, in that the item is already there, be a link to a manual install, and perhaps have an actual human-readable equivalent of "insserv -r hwscan," which i suspect a substantial number of users would not recognize even if it were placed before them. i have no reason to doubt your statement that that command has been in use since 8.0. which makes it just fine for those who have used 8.x and have followed the discussions. however, if suse's target market is limited to that group, its userbase is likely to diminish, don't you think? -- dep http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within the envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere.

begin Ben Rosenberg's quote: | Yes, I think there should be a section in YaST2 for people who | depend on YaST2 to do what they need as far as system | administration that lets one decide what services are run at boot. | I know there is a run level editor but I'd say that 10 out of 10 | newbies wouldn't know what a run level even is. So maybe renaming | the run level editor to something like "services editor" or | something like that might work for the OSX and Windows people who | come over to SuSE...since that's what it is under those platforms. i'm not sure that this would be enough, because the whole idea of services is a mystery to a lot of those people (and to an impressive number of linux users, who still think that you need to be running ftp as a daemon in order to be able to ftp files from the internet, or sendmail as a daemon in order to send mail). it is here that the desktop/server border is extremely confused under linux, and where proper configurators/documentation could go very far in demystifying linux. it's a little puzzling for the new user who is told that he doesn't need a mail server to send mail, but he does need a video server if he is to use a gui. who is being served is an often overlooked issue. | My point was that hardware scan and the rpmchecker are two things | that people seem to like. I heard NO end to how Mandrake was better | then SuSE because it did a hardware scan at boot and configured new | hardware automatically. Newbies seem to love that silly crap...I | however would rather just have hardware scanning as a function in | YaST2 or something like that. I'm not much of a fan of auto | anything..with certain acceptions. i don't think anyone is criticizing the *existence* of such things (except insofar as they malfunction, which they do at a rate of >0), but instead seeking to make it easy to disable them, right up front, first thing. they can get in the way, especially when they encounter something unexpected, or when they themselves are unexpected by, for instance, upgraders who are simply seeking newer versions of stuff that can be problematic to get some other way (such as a non-backward-compatible glibc). | After years of hearing complaints from various sections of the | population about this OS or that OS..that app or this app. I've | come to the conclusion that it's not Linux that isn't ready of the | unwashed masses..it's computers. I even hear complaints about OSX. | *shrug* do you think this then raises an issue with the way distributions are marketed? or with the tools they provide? i think back to the horror stories when plug-n-play first came out (especially as regards irq conflicts). we have seen pure hell erupt in all its malevolent glory with pcmcia, usb, acpi, and so on. i wonder if competitive pressures force this stuff to be shipped before it's soup, before the standard has really been established. | I think what it boils down to is that computers are not VCR's as | people expect. I think most don't want to be bothered with truly | learning what they are using...10% seems to be enough for them. and sometimes it is. what distributions need to sort out is how to provide for both. there has been traffic on this list in the last couple of days which asserts (unless i read it wrong, which is possible) that one cannot on a suse 8.x system download and build the latest xfree from cvs, install it, and have it run. if my reading of those posts is correct, that is in and of itself a very troubling turn of events, because those who have bothered to learn some stuff have had yet another skill rendered not just useless but potentially harmful. it seems to me that it is possible to create a system which makes allowance for inexperience without locking out those whose knowledge is somewhere between the 10 percent you mention and 100 percent. -- dep http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within the envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere.

dep, I would say that my point is that if they fail, they should do so harmlessly. mg On Sunday 27 April 2003 14:44, dep wrote:

begin Ben Rosenberg's quote: | Yes, I think there should be a section in YaST2 for people who | depend on YaST2 to do what they need as far as system | administration that lets one decide what services are run at boot. | I know there is a run level editor but I'd say that 10 out of 10 | newbies wouldn't know what a run level even is. So maybe renaming | the run level editor to something like "services editor" or | something like that might work for the OSX and Windows people who | come over to SuSE...since that's what it is under those platforms.

i'm not sure that this would be enough, because the whole idea of services is a mystery to a lot of those people (and to an impressive number of linux users, who still think that you need to be running ftp as a daemon in order to be able to ftp files from the internet, or sendmail as a daemon in order to send mail). it is here that the desktop/server border is extremely confused under linux, and where proper configurators/documentation could go very far in demystifying linux. it's a little puzzling for the new user who is told that he doesn't need a mail server to send mail, but he does need a video server if he is to use a gui. who is being served is an often overlooked issue.

| My point was that hardware scan and the rpmchecker are two things | that people seem to like. I heard NO end to how Mandrake was better | then SuSE because it did a hardware scan at boot and configured new | hardware automatically. Newbies seem to love that silly crap...I | however would rather just have hardware scanning as a function in | YaST2 or something like that. I'm not much of a fan of auto | anything..with certain acceptions.

i don't think anyone is criticizing the *existence* of such things (except insofar as they malfunction, which they do at a rate of >0), but instead seeking to make it easy to disable them, right up front, first thing. they can get in the way, especially when they encounter something unexpected, or when they themselves are unexpected by, for instance, upgraders who are simply seeking newer versions of stuff that can be problematic to get some other way (such as a non-backward-compatible glibc).

| After years of hearing complaints from various sections of the | population about this OS or that OS..that app or this app. I've | come to the conclusion that it's not Linux that isn't ready of the | unwashed masses..it's computers. I even hear complaints about OSX. | *shrug*

do you think this then raises an issue with the way distributions are marketed? or with the tools they provide? i think back to the horror stories when plug-n-play first came out (especially as regards irq conflicts). we have seen pure hell erupt in all its malevolent glory with pcmcia, usb, acpi, and so on. i wonder if competitive pressures force this stuff to be shipped before it's soup, before the standard has really been established.

| I think what it boils down to is that computers are not VCR's as | people expect. I think most don't want to be bothered with truly | learning what they are using...10% seems to be enough for them.

and sometimes it is. what distributions need to sort out is how to provide for both. there has been traffic on this list in the last couple of days which asserts (unless i read it wrong, which is possible) that one cannot on a suse 8.x system download and build the latest xfree from cvs, install it, and have it run. if my reading of those posts is correct, that is in and of itself a very troubling turn of events, because those who have bothered to learn some stuff have had yet another skill rendered not just useless but potentially harmful. it seems to me that it is possible to create a system which makes allowance for inexperience without locking out those whose knowledge is somewhere between the 10 percent you mention and 100 percent.

* Philipp Thomas [04-28-03 18:03]:

Mike Grello [Sun, 27 Apr 2003 19:48:13 -0400]:

...

I would say that my point is that if they fail, they should do so harmlessly.

And for this one line of reply you needed to quote 60+ lines? Wow, the way to the delete button most be *really* hard.

[60+ lines of totally unnecessary full quote deleted]

Careful Philipp, you will be called cop and threatened with /dev/null for daring to critize TOFU or hijacking. But I agree. -- Patrick Shanahan Please avoid TOFU and trim >quotes< http://wahoo.no-ip.org Registered Linux User #207535 icq#173753138 @ http://counter.li.org Linux, a continuous *learning* experience

* Mike Grello (mgrello@sc.rr.com) [030427 17:48]: ->Ben, -> ->I also have Mandrake, and have never had the hw scan eat my mouse. Mandrake ->hw scan has an option when it runs to "butt out". This is a good compromise. -> ->i.e. ->(paraphrased) ->I see your mouse seems to have changed, should I: ->1. Try to identify your new mouse (in real time, using the same rules that I ->used to identify it correctly the first time) ->2. Kill Your mouse ->3. You tell me what mouse you use ->4. Butt out, the world is not perfect, change nothing (note if you had a power ->failure, or your dog tripped on the mouse cord, and all is well, choose this ->one, but 1. will work also, as I am using the same method I used to identfy ->the mouse 4 months ago when you installed). Well, under 8.1 I changed some hardware on my workstation in the office. It stopped on boot and said " You changed this..blah..blah.." and fired up YaST2 to configure it. I just told it to quit and the boot continued without any other problems. I haven't changed anything at work since and on the homefront I just rebuild my box with a ton of new hardware the week before 8.2 hit...so I just backuped everything and did a fresh install. So I don't quite know how 8.2 handles it because I've only had it "detect" new hardware on 8.1. *shrug* I wasn't advocating hwscan or anything like that. I've been using SuSE long enough and many kinds of hardware ..I don't need an autodetect but some do. I hope SuSE gets the problems ya'll are having fixed. Please..everyone who's having issues send email to feedback@suse.com because 9.9 out 10 SuSE employee's DO NOT subscribe to this list and won't hear your cries. Let them know the problems your having and let them fix them. -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I'll tell you what you should see.

On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 10:29, dep wrote:

fine. no problem there. my point is that i suspect that people looking for a "don't detect hardware" checkbox might not think to find someplace to type "insserv -r hwscan" or, if they found such a place, to type that string.

Is that who's complaining, though? I get the impression that some of the people whining about the hardware scan act like power users. Couldn't a power user do a google search and find the answer? That's the irony. Blame SuSE for holding your hand too much, when the answer is pretty easy to find. http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=suse+hwscan+turn+off&btnG=Google+Search http://groups.google.com/groups?q=suse+hwscan+turn+off&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=bxn%258.36303%24Yf1.1589314%40news010.worldonline.dk&rnum=1

i have no reason to doubt your statement that that command has been in use since 8.0. which makes it just fine for those who have used 8.x and have followed the discussions. however, if suse's target market is limited to that group, its userbase is likely to diminish, don't you think?

Huh? Preston

On Sunday 27 April 2003 14:46, dep wrote:

begin Preston Crawford's quote: | Is that who's complaining, though? I get the impression that some | of the people whining about the hardware scan act like power users. | Couldn't a power user do a google search and find the answer? | That's the irony. Blame SuSE for holding your hand too much, when | the answer is pretty easy to find.

when the hardware scan locks the system during install on a blank drive, what may or may not be easily located on google is academic. -- dep

dep, I get the feeling you think of most computer users as incapable of installing an OS, or anything else for that matter. In part you might be right and I can see where you might have come up with an idea like that, but I think many fail to understand the type of person that would undertake installing Linux. Most people purchase a computer with everything already installed, right? Very few of those people, in fact the majority of those people never touch it beyond that. Sell them a computer with Linux installed and all the programs they are likely to need/want, give them access to the internet, etc. and you will never hear anything from them again either. Now we come to the others that decide there has to be something better available to use on a computer. Those are not your typical users. Those, although some don't, will do research, ask some friends, READ some manuals before undertaking this change. In order to understand what has to be done, then one needs to understand their hardware and that PCs are not all created equal. Again, a simple READ of either a manual or site/s will help you before you start. Problems after that? Hmmm, the manual spoke of a mail list, a support database, FAQs and the list goes on. You have to wonder sometimes why SuSE goes to the trouble of printing those darn useless manuals, don't you? ;o) For those that decide they already know everything and jump into installing without doing a bit of research beforehand, most will fall back to the manual or a mail list or a friend for help. I think you and others expect too much from a Linux OS though. You want it to read your mind, take care of everything without any problems so you won't have to whine about it being so unusable later. Nothing performs like that! Not Linux, not windows, not OS X or anything else available. With anything, if you invest the time into it, it will reward you many times over later. I realize this has gotten off the subject somewhat, but I don't think your complaining has any basis as good as SuSE 8.2 is now. Your reviews are bad and I suppose, to be an attempt at journalism, but that seems to be giving you some trouble too. :o) Not trying to be insulting, really, it's just that you don't seem to think things out before plunging head first into these things. Patrick -- --- KMail v1.5.9.1i --- SuSE Linux Pro v8.2 --- Registered Linux User #225206 On any other day, that might seem strange...

begin O'Smith's quote: | I get the feeling you think of most computer users as incapable of | installing an OS, or anything else for that matter. don't, then, trust your feelings. -- dep http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within the envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere.

begin Preston Crawford's quote: | > when the hardware scan locks the system during install on a blank | > drive, what may or may not be easily located on google is | > academic. | | Agreed. Shouldn't a power user have access to another computer | somewhere? a power user should have access to an electrical outlet or charged battery. a suse user should not have to consult google in order to get the goddammed distribution installed. nor should access to a second machine be necessary in order to get it installed. i suspect that if the system requirements on the box included "second computer to search for installation clues," it probably would not be that big a selling point. thanks for playing. -- dep http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within the envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere.

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Ok. I realize you have 8.2 and this is a free public list. But you've been absent from this list for quite sometime. There is no frelling need to re-subscribe just to be an asshole. Take you attitude and shove it. If you don't like SuSE or you don't like the answers you get here..leave. It's as simple as that. You've insighted several flame wars on the list in the last 3 days and it's getting damn annoy. There should be this much of a discussion over a damn serial mouse. YaST2's hardware detection screwed up..big deal get a new mouse..if you want one I'll send you one. But shut the hell up and quit being a jerk to the people of this list. It was annoying 6 months ago .. a year ago ..two years ago. Go review Redhat and yell at their users for a while.

I've got a box of clips and a box nades, go Ben - I got your back :) On a more serious note. Dep only seems to make himself known in a light that casts a negative and confrontational aspect on whatever he seems to address of late. Frankly, I'm more interested in putting these sorts of observations in a light of commentary and suggestions about improvements in the development cycle or to help/learn about something. Coming across as if I have an axe to grind will get me nowhere. Seems this perspective alludes others though. I'm going to go play tribes/ut2k3, or install another M$ based game with the new WineX 3 version - works quite well.... another couple of releases and it maybe bye bye windows for good :) I don't have time to talk about how someones mouse/modem failed and give up.. I'd still be tied to windows if that were the case. Cheers, Curtis. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+rKlP7WVLiDrqeksRAqR4AJ0ZCs+7UDNdf3Bdv+vYNeOEVjD6pACfcOaa OZby+11X4Wa2bfWmcVQzjx4= =FqSx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Yes, I found myself wanting to read the fine journalism of Eugenia (I love to review the install process of distros and what their fonts and icons look like) Loli-Queru after I read Dep's piece.

Well, that gave me a laugh! What's a shame is that while Eugenia is a seriously crap writer, dep isn't. He used to do decent, thought provoking stuff. If he put as much effort into researching and writing about interesting topics as he does about complaining about things, I suspect he'd get a lot more hits at his website. -- "...our desktop is falling behind stability-wise and feature wise to KDE ...when I went to Mexico in December to the facility where we launched gnome, they had all switched to KDE3." - Miguel de Icaza, March 2003

On Monday 28 April 2003 18:45, michael norman wrote:

...

On a more serious note. Dep only seems to make himself known in a light that casts a negative and confrontational aspect on whatever he seems to address of late.

This won't me much to non GB people if you've never seen it but dep is another Victor Meldrew (tv series One Foot In The Grave).

Absolutely brilliant show, one of my absolute favourites It was remade in the US, very weakly and cowardly (no insults worth the name), by Bill Cosby as "Cosby" (not to be confused by his earlier "The Cosby Show"), starring among others Madeleine Kahn. I'd seen the show, but when I found out it was supposed to be a remake of "One foot..." all I could say was I DO not *believe* it

On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 10:08, Ben Rosenberg wrote:

I also find it amazing that for the longest time people said " if it doesn't hold your hand and do A, B and C then it won't displace Windows.." and now that it hold's your hand..even to the point of holding it down as MacOSX and WinXP do...now people are bitching. I just don't think that anyone can be satisfied.

*shrug* I don't say this to start a flamewar and anyone who gets to out of line with replies will get procmailed to /dev/null... 'nuff said.

That's what I find stupid about this argument. As a former Mac and Windows refugee (I started on Mac, moved to Windows, then to Linux) I find Linux, particularly SuSE, to be perfect for me. I can get my hand held when need be or when I don't have the time to decipher text files and the rest of the time I usually admin the system from the command line. It's solid, professional and I think it really lets you have your cake and eat it too. It's the best combination I've seen, at least. I don't get it. I use my computer as a desktop computer in addition to running a web server, tomcat, programming java and a number of other things. It does them all much better than my Win2k box at work and it gives me the flexibility to manage it as I see fit. Preston

On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 22:37, Michael Satterwhite wrote:

Actually, I *DO* believe that until Linux has the capability to hold people's hands, it's not going to be adopted by the average person using Windows - many of whom want to turn on the computer, read their email, maybe print a greeting card or two without knowing more about the computer than they do about the workings of their toaster.

OTOH, the nature of Linux is that there are going to be users who don't want *ANY* handholding - and they are the current core Linux users.

Ideally, we need to accommodate both. Installation options to choose the type of user would be useful. I do disagree that the default should be to turn off the handholding, however. The type of user that is knowledgeable enough not to need this handholding can easily choose to turn it off. The normal person migrating from Windows may not be comfortable changing options.

I agree with you. Also in some installation programs you are offered a typical, minimal, and custom option. It could be something like an expert setting, for those who prefer that. The more handholding, the more it will be usable/accepted by the big mass. -- Frits Wüthrich

On Sunday, April 27, 2003, at 10:28 PM, Curtis Rey wrote:

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...

OTOH, the nature of Linux is that there are going to be users who don't want *ANY* handholding - and they are the current core Linux users.

Well, your right. Though many of the gui oriented are coming to Linux/SuSE as is evident by the increase of the nature of the posts that I've seen over the last 3 years. (which also makes one wonder how many ex-windblowers aren't using the list because of the mind set that permeates this group in the belief that , like windows, they're on their own and don't subscribe or think

/snip/

, perhaps the shell/console minded are also thrown off - just perhaps. They see the gui, aren't comfortabe with it, and therefore perhaps they presume that they don't have an options. This is the way of windows and I could see some admins that have had to deal with a M$ server install having this experience and thinking "great now what". Just a thought/observation.

At the present track of the gui installer development that SuSE is doing, I will literally be able to throw a set of SuSE discs and a formatted and unused set of hdd's setup in a machine and have my Mother install it. And I think this is the right direction to go for the general public. I strongly agree, however, that the gurus and stanch penguinistas should "always" have a means/method of going the route they now best and are more comfortable with. Losing this would be as silly as not having a gui installer in the first place. I mean do your really need an Xserver to setup most servers on the farm?

Cheers, Curtis.

As a crossover from many various mac OS's with minimal experience in any other operating system before coming to SuSe and this list I'm made a few observations myself: First Suse has an incredible configurable and simple installer. Since coming on this list about 2 yrs ago or so, I have had the pleasure/displeasure of installing many operating systems. As a newbie to linux, suse has the easiest and most relieble installer. (save a few of the red hat preconfigured server packages. i.e., ip cop and clarke connect) It beats windows hands down in speed and hardware detection, and is simple enough for a migrating newbie. Secondly. My observation has been that if you know enough about unix/linux then you should be able to figure out how to turn these things off. I prefer gui's myself. Migrating from a mac, that was all I knew. I, with observations of this list and some direct response, have some of them out. If I don't want something to start, I do a little research and turn it off. Simple enough. I don't have nearly as many options under the mac (especially osx which is incredible) and even if I'm given an options in windows, it does it how ever it wants to anyway so why even bother giving me an option. Thirdly. I've noticed that some of you guys will never be happy. If it came to your door for free, walked up to your computer and jumped right in and loaded it's self. Ran perfectly forever, someone would gripe because it knocked instead of rang the door bell, or left the easy chair reclined when it was done. It does keep life entertaining and usually does pass some informative information. (such as some of the command line hints in this thread) Anyway, just my two cents. Thanks for all the invaluable information. Especially ben, anders, and ckm. Not knocking any of the rest of you, they've just been here longer. thanks again will

Ben, I am not one of those people (as is evident from the post). mg On Sunday 27 April 2003 13:08, Ben Rosenberg wrote:

* dep (dep@linuxandmain.com) [030427 09:50]: ->begin Anders Johansson's quote: ->| On Sunday 27 April 2003 16:30, rex wrote: ->| > I agree with the previous posters that it should -- must, IMO -- ->| > be possible to cancel automatic hardware detection, ->| ->| insserv -r hwscan ->

Well, as you said you don't do .0 and .1's you would know that this has been the way to remove services in SuSE for 3 versions now. So I don't think this command is a revelation...it's been common place much in the way under RH they use chkconfig.

I've read a lot of ranting about YOU in the last 10 emails. And now I think Richard Bos and I have justified our advocation of apt. With apt if I mark a package to be held..well it's held and not upgraded. One of the annoying things about apt at first is it's anal retentive dependency needs but ya know everything works...and I have no dependency issues.

I also find it amazing that for the longest time people said " if it doesn't hold your hand and do A, B and C then it won't displace Windows.." and now that it hold's your hand..even to the point of holding it down as MacOSX and WinXP do...now people are bitching. I just don't think that anyone can be satisfied.

*shrug* I don't say this to start a flamewar and anyone who gets to out of line with replies will get procmailed to /dev/null... 'nuff said.

On Sunday 27 April 2003 12:22, zentara wrote:

I have an old laptop. SuSE 7.2 installed in less than 30 minutes. Bip,bango,done! 8.1 takes a whole day of messing around with yast2.

I assume you mean the time outside of the copying of packages 8.0, 8.1 and 8.2 takes me less than 5 minutes interactive use when installing from scratch. When I'm upgrading it's not even that. Waiting for packages to be installed can take forever, especially if you install the lot, but I spend that time watching Blackadder reruns

begin Tony Alfrey's quote: | But there should be a button on the GUI "choose auto detection" | so that this can be turned off, and the default should be "off". i agree. it would be nice to have this runtime switchable, so that one could see what the installer would do -- especially useful with things like soundcards -- but absent this, being able to defeat it beginning with the first screen of the installer would be a great improvement. -- dep http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within the envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere.

John, I guess I am not arguing against hand holding, but rather a death grip. You may use the GUI if you like, and sometimes it is more convienent, but it should feed the same text files, regardless of distribution, and it should be possible to edit those files by hand. mg On Sunday 27 April 2003 14:52, John Pettigrew wrote:

In a previous message, Mike Grello wrote:

...

Here is a tip for SuSE (and increasingly most Linux distros), if I wanted Windows I would've bought Windows.

But, surely, is there not room for consumerf-cused distros as well as hardcore distros? That is, distros that *do* hold your hand and make things easy. This is one of the things i like about SuSE - it doesn't demand that I use the command line for everything. Linux heresy, perhaps, but I only use linux because it does the job (of a desktop, business PC) better and more stable than Windows.

John

On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 15:04, Ian David Laws wrote:

I have never really like the YAST2 setup YAST was better and quicker especially on old machines and the configurations did what you told it to do.

Miss Yast1 too, but in truth I like Yast2 more now.

Maybe SuSE should publish 2 boxes one for the Linux console type and one for the Desktop. 1st box called "Linux Users" 2nd box called "Linux for Windows users" both box can even be the same but with a choice at the start what way you wish to install/configure. But I do not think any distrubition will ever meet the middle. M$ have made sure that anyone even old people can use the computer. (preinstalled)

Easier and probably cheaper to get expert install or ncurses install going from the get go. One thing no-one has touched upn is the fact that people have their own ideas what a desktop should be, or even a server. My server has no monitor and no gui on it at all, but I am sure that others do run X on their servers... So instead of two boxes the installation should proceed depending upon selection, an expert or manual install where you get prompted to skip automatic hardware detection. The answer lies in the pre-install of software onto hardware as others have alluded to take on Windows, with an extensive ad campaign, not just in paper, but on prime time TV. Trust me, this will make Ballmer lose his mind :). Deals with OEM's are the way to go.

The Linux companys are trying to convert these people. The only problem there hardly any computer firms selling Linux pre-installed.

Exactly. Although Wal-Mart has them on-line and I believe a firm in the UK is doing something similer. Matt