Helps if I spell words correctly!!
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-----Original Message-----
From: stuart@bolin.org.uk
Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 07:52:30
To:
Sure if we can convince people to switch from Ubuntu to openSUSE its fine, but the real question is, how on earth do we convert the billions if dissatisfied windows users to seriously consider making the switch?
openSUSE is a very stable, technically advanced OS, but as with Linux
in general there is a lot of friction for first time users. The
installer is perhaps the first important hurdle. If the install
process overwhelms the user with questions about things they don't yet
understand, they'll get confused and abort the install. When I tried
out Ubuntu 10.10 a few months ago, I was pleasantly surprised by its
easy installer. As much as I like openSUSE, the Ubuntu installer is
much convenient in my humble opinion.
Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MPJi4FTuQQ&feature=fvwrel
I want to draw attention to two things:
- The installer starts copying files when the partitioning is
finalized, which saves time.
- The partitioner is, in its easiest form, a simple draggable slider
that lets the user set the amount of space used by Ubuntu. I've opened
a related openFATE request some time ago:
https://features.opensuse.org/311027
Here are some general reasons why Windows users may not want to switch:
- "At least I know the Windows way of doing things. I don't want to
learn use an OS that does things differently." -- Here are a few
examples: the RPM packaging system (as opposed to downloading EXEs
from the software vendors), the file system (/path/to/file versus
C:\path\to\file), the absence of drive letters (drives are mounted as
a directory, e.g. /mnt/cdrom), symbolic links, several desktop
environments (as opposed to "Windows Explorer"). I could go on, but
you get the point.
- "It doesn't have iTunes, so I can't manage my iP[a-zA-Z]+ with the same ease."
- "I can't use Microsoft Office on Linux." -- Although LibreOffice is
the best free alternative to MS Office I've seen so far, it doesn't
offer 100% compatibility with MS Office and it has an Office XP-era
interface. (LibreOffice is provided for free of charge and is
maintained by devoted developers in their spare time, so I know that
they're already doing the best they can with the few resources that
they have.)
And finally something else that causes friction for new openSUSE
users: it's a pain in the neck having to install proprietary support
for formats such as MP3. I know there are complicated copyright issues
involved with this, but if I recall correctly Ubuntu *does* offer an
easy way to install these codecs. It's just one of those little
annoyances I have with openSUSE. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a
hater... I'm just trying to think about how friction could be reduced
for new users.
Pieter
2011/3/7 Chuck Payne
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 11:39 AM, Bryen M. Yunashko
wrote: Guys, before this turns into a long spam thread of people voting... this email was *not* meant to vote for either statement. You can USE either statement according to what fits your needs and audience best.
Though I appreciate Manu and JDD's votes, even if JDD tends to delete the entire previous thread before responding. :-)
Bryen
On Mon, 2011-03-07 at 18:58 +0530, Manu Gupta wrote:
B
On Mon, 2011-03-07 at 06:38 -0600, Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:
As we get closer and closer to 11.4 release, we proudly boast that openSUSE will be the first to ship with LibreOffice. Unfortunately, there is already some dispute to that, as some have pointed out that Pardus Corporate version ships with the stable version of LibreOffice.
Congratulations to Pardus (and possibly others) that are shipping it.
We must modify our message going forth or we'll lose credibility. Discussing with some others quickly on line, we have the following two statements that you can choose to use:
A) openSUSE 11.4 is the first major distribution to ship LibreOffice
B) openSUSE is among the first shipping LibreOffice.
Both are good, safe statements that retain truth.
Thanks! Bryen
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Bryen,
It might not have been clear and that is why the voting. Too me I could read into that we could use both.
Chuck
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