Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1156 mails)

[kc8chq@xxxxxxxx (Robert C. Russell)]

This is a wee bit late, but I thought to put in my two cents.

As a Un*x newbie I want to make a comment as regards Linux. I'm impressed
with linux, but a computer professional recently told me, until Linux is
an easy to install it will "never" be widely used.

I have stuggled with Linux, Slackware to start(X never would install),
followed by Debian, which installed fairly completely, including X,
though I've never managed to get any internet access running. In these
past couple of weeks SuSE 5.2 has been installed, and has impressed me
with the level of customization that is available out of the box, though
YaST grabbed two swap partitions instead of the one I selected(I am
running SuSE 5.2, Red Hat 5.0(a free disk provided by Linux Central) and
Debian 1.3; I'm now to one swap partition for all three) and in error, I
think it put my mouse on cua0 and my modem on ttys*(I think that is
backwards :-( )

My area of knowledge is AutoCAD, but I'm not afraid to sit down with good
documentation, but it must be complete. This e-mail comes courtesy of
juno and OS/2 Warp 3.0, for which Netscape has never functioned(internet
access has been via a great terminal program from Germany, called Z.O.C.,
but it is a lot more work.)

The point in a nut shell is, as another friend said some 12 years ago is
most people want a "turn-key system" and I think that is true of most
Americans(myself not included, I was "given" my first 486/33 in April of
last year and built my first machine in September, though it is basic
lacking sound). Most computer users have no idea there is "something"
better out there than M$, but slowly applications are being limited  to
NT and Win95. AutoCAD is no longer available for Unix.

I work for an electrical-mechanical consulting firm. When I look at the
potential of Linux as a server for a LAN(gee would it be nice to not
handle all those floppies) do I get excited, but alas a newbie will never
convince an employer of the potential, not to mention the cost savings
over(cough) M$ NT. Get enough Linux into the small places and you'll get
it into the BIG places.

Sorry, for getting on the soap box.

Best regards,
Bob Russell
kc8chq@xxxxxxxx
    Micro$oft, what do you want to spend today?
If Microsoft built Cars:
- Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a
new car.

- You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought
a Car 95 or a Car NT. But then you'd have to buy more seats.

On Thu, 14 May 1998 22:19:42 -0500 "Dana J. Laude" <dana@xxxxxxx> writes:
>
>Tim Schaefer wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> Please, seriously, don't confuse my frustration with some kind of 
>personal
>> dislike for anyone at S.u.S.E.  My comments are purely towards the 
>software.
>> I guess what it really boils down to is that Yast is quite well 
>done, except
>> for the most important stuff, such as I've complained about.  But 
>think
>> also that if an experience UNIX user has problems, how far Linux has 
>to
>> go before wider acceptance is possible.  And for those of you who 
>think
>> Linux will stay the domain of geeks, this is changing faster than 
>YOU
>> think.  I consider the SuSE distribution the only one I'll use, so 
>here
>> again, I am quite happy with everything, except what I mentioned.  
>There
>> are some improvements I'd like to see to yast, and a few other 
>tools.
>>
>> >When i started on linux, i didn't know anything about this OS but i 
>found
>> >most of the things i needed in the documentation, reading it 
>carefully.
>>
>> I've used UNIX for 11 years, and the man-pages are still shitty, on 
>almost
>> EVERY UNIX out there.  It's cool to write bad man pages, kind of a 
>tradition
>> in UNIX.  UNIX still requires lots of hacking with software to get 
>it to
>> work right.  But this is not acceptable, and should be no excuse for 
>badly
>> written docs.  Several people out there helped me off-line, and 
>thanks to
>> them I've learned exactly what I need.
>>
>> Many Linux people like to think about how superior Linux is to other 
>x86
>> Unix's, and NT, and Win95, but the reality is, unless the docs tell 
>someone
>> what to do, or explain things beyond vague, the OS is useless.  I'd 
>like to
>> replace my NT system, but can't until I can get Linux working as a 
>router
>> for my email, and network, and get the scanner working, and a 
>firewall,
>> and ...   Unless these are working I can't shut down my NT system.
>
><snip>
>
>I've been watching this thread, and although Tim is guilty of not
>digging a little deeper for the howtos and such, he does also have
>a valid point.  Most of the man pages and howtos are WAY out
>of date and provide minimal valuable information in the consise
>sense of terms.  I realize programmers program and docs are
>a secondary issue, (in most cases) but there ya go!  For Linux to
>go mainstream it needs to be *easy* to setup, period.  Even if
>the install requires a advanced and new user option that the latter
>would provide mount points etc on based on a series of quesitons
>such as:  Win95 is installed on drive ?, etc and then do a install
>with Lilo setup for various os's.  Ahh, hell... just my .2 cents
>worth, time to get another brew. ;-)
>
>Btw, any god like person using Speek Freely?  Also, which
>version of Bind is with 5.1?
>
>Dana
>
>--
>To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@xxxxxxxx with
>this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e
>

_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at <A HREF="http://www.juno.com";><A HREF="http://www.juno.com</A">http://www.juno.com</A</A>>
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]

--
To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@xxxxxxxx with
this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e