In a former lifetime long ago and far away I had to support a SNMP based network management application for a Networking Company. The Application worked (with various levels of success ) under both various flavors of Unix and MS Windows. The Unix guys were all very difficult to work around and would not share what they knew because they seemed to be afraid someone would take their job. I had the miss-fortune to support the Windows side of the house and often said that I was too User Friendly to do Unix even though I had often played with Linux since 1992. BTW, They thought Linux was toy also (They seemed to feel it was not Unix unless it was Solaris or HPUX or AIX.) Unfortunately, I have also met Microsoft bigots or VMS bigots. Oses , for some reason, seem to attract them. What we understand best is what we tend to think is best. In the past couple of years I have gotten to know Linux quite well in a TCL / CGI based Test Automation environment and enjoy working in it a lot. However, when my eighty-year-old mom wanted me to build here a system, I built her a Windows 98 System. She would not be able to deal with the complexities of Unix. Linux is closing fast on user friendliness but it is not there yet for the simple non-technical user. Part of the joy of working with Linux is that it does require some expertise to do even simple system type things but once they work they can work as well or What I found is that both families of OS have their weaknesses and strengths. For example both sets of Oses can have conflicts with libraries and can cause great amounts of hair loss trying to debug problems. I suspects a good Microsoft System person has just as much competence as a good Unix / Linux guy. I know the terms good Unix guy or a good Microsoft guy sounds like an Oxymoron The key to making any OS work is tapping into the Verbal tradition around the OS and understanding the sometimes subtle differences of assumptions. Forums like this one or in News Groups is a very good way we can build understanding and bridges and understand the differences if we attack each other in the process. Regards pab -----Original Message----- From: Michael Hasenstein [mailto:mha@suse.com] Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 4:45 PM To: usb Cc: Matthew Johnson; suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: [SLE] This will be controversial usb wrote:
The problem with the people who are $$$$$Micro$$$$$ofter$$$ is that they only look at what M$$$$ does and other don't, never at what others do and M$$$ doesn't.
Of course they do, what else? I'm also getting VERY tired of having a lot of applications in Linux, esp. for graphics and office stuff, where each of them has one really-needed advantage over all others, and they all are completely different, so that you end up using all of them if you want to do any serious work. For example, when I work on some graphics I use xpaint, xv and sometimes gimp (extremely hard to get the result you expect unless you're really into it and read the manual - and don't tell me that's normal, I can use many other such programs incl. on the windows side without ever having to read any docs and I get what I want! exception: gimp.). For office, abiword is the only one that reads/writes Psion Word documents (my handheld PC, Psion's still the best, although I bought it a loooong time ago), Koffice does this and that, soffice can do yet another thing better than all others. And then there's KDE/Gnome and all the apps that have been developed TWICE, like nautilus/konqueror, email clients, browsers (oh my got, yet another full category with at least 4 apps that all have different strengths/weaknesses that should be combined into ONE program), you name it. I am really, really tired of all this wasted development energy, sometimes. I guess I just have to acknowledge that while Linux is great for servers and for corporate IT, for the (home) desktop it may never get there, at least not with the current system of how people develop for it. There ARE people out there who just want to achieve some goal using a computer as just a tool. Michael -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com