That's a well written statement, Stephen, and good advice. When Linux becomes ready for the "Julias" of the world then, hopfully, they'll drop by in the future to retest the waters. Meanwhile, they'll pay out their hundreds of dollars in software and license fees until Linux and it's desktops catch up. You and I are natural nerds, lots of folks aren't. If a "Julia" type had encountered my recent problem with the Zip100 drive, and desparately needed to install it, they would have been forced back to the dark side. But, of course, there are situations that arise in the WinXX environment that are equally as difficult to overcome, if not more so. I'm currently encountering a Win2000 Pro configuration problem at work that I'm having trouble solving. A simple problem, really, but if you don't know where the special setting is it may as well be nuclear physics. The problem is: I've lost my ability to drag a desktop icon onto the toolbar. The toolbar refuses to accept it. I've looked through all the services, settings, control panels and even used regedit.exe to try and locate a setting in the registry. So far, nada. I'm glad it's not anything major or show stopping, like the time several years ago when, on my NT box, my scsi got crossfooted with my serial port and nothing on earth could switch them. NT offered no way to switch them and saw nothing wrong with that situation! That's when I left NT for Win95 and crash-hell. I upgraded to Win98SE when I had to install a CDRW that the hardware&network support staff where I work gave me so I could burn CDs. It required a USB port, an animal not found on the WIn95. Win98SE was as crash-prone, if not more so, that Win95... I sure missed the stability of NT. Then the HWNT boys gave me a Win2K CD. Now I only crash about once a week and I only reboot two or three times a week when W2K decides it doesn't want to fire exe's any more. By comparison, I installed a SuSE 6.4 at work to handle a mission critical job last September. It has been up 24/7, except for backups and power outages, and hasn't crashed once. But, unlike your opinion in your 1998 'flame bait", I feel that SuSE + KDE2.1 + SO5.2 (no, while KOffice is making fine progress it is not there yet for serious office work- SO is) makes an excellent combination for the large number of Microsufties who are tired of getting gouged and keeping Gates the richest man on the planet. Julia may be an increasingly uncommon exception. JLK On Thursday 01 March 2001 18:01, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
On Thursday 01 March 2001 13:03, Julia Maddocks wrote:
that's really a really great idea for people who have the time, or maybe it's part of their job - I use my PC as a tool, have a job which is unrelated to IT and a family, so I need software that I can use without spending hours learning how to use it.
This samba thing has made me realise that I'm not sure Linux is for people like me, although I am keen to use an alternative OS to the dreaded W98, I don't have the time to put into learning enough about it to use it to do simple tasks.
snip
Julia
-- Julia Maddocks O O O O O O O O O \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Playwork and Childcare Consultant
Julia,
I could not agree with you more. I spend most of my waking hours working on Linux. I do it because I believe in it, and because I find it challenging. In the past 3 years Linux has come a very long way toward the ease of use you seek. It isn't there yet, and I get discouraged at times. If linux does not serve your immediate needs I sincerely recommend you use what does. It would be complete folly for people to disrupt their lives simply to use Linux - take it from a fool. {;-)>
When I began working with networks and PCs Microsoft was not even a serious player in the networking business. Setting up DOS to connect to a network required playing with autoexec.bat, emm386, config.sys, ODI drivers, memory exclusions and etc. Other companies such as Novell published their protocols so that other vendors could interoperate with them. This made it easy(sic) for Microsoft to connect its computers to a real network operating system. Networking capability was one of the things that made the PC become so popular, and Microsoft so rich. As soon as Microsoft figured out how to build their own network OS, they did so. Unfortunately the stabbed their erstwhile collaborators in the back, and did not openly publish their protocols. Furthermore, they have often adapt technologies which have been created by industry wide cooperation and modify it just enough to make their implementation incomputable with others who are true to the standards.
It's better that you do what is best for your life today, and not kill yourself with Linux. All I would ask is that you check back every once in a while to see if things have gotten better. I truly admire the effort you have put into this. Some people in the Linux community think the fact that people such as you give up is some kind of evidence that you are not as good as them. This has been true of the Unix community for as long as there has been a Microsoft. This attitude is called arrogance, and it is the reason Bill Gates is the wealthiest man in history.
Here, note the date on this message: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde&m=90349986314191&w=2
Please remember some of us who spend countless hours working on these systems do so in order to provide you with a system that works the way you want it to.
Steve