jfweber@bellsouth.net wrote on 13 June 2004 12:32
well, comparing apples and apples, as it were, your 6 year old w/ linux would likely be attempting to install and rpm file, and if they have seen windows work they very likely would do something like, "click on the file " they want to install, at that point , up pops a window which says , would you like to install this w/ yast2( ?) not certain is says yast2 it may just say yast... average 6 year old would likely say ( click) "yes" and the thing would be installed, unless there were depency issues, in which case small child would yell for local parental unit, w/o a doubt!
The problem with Linux is dependencies. So the need to 'yell for help' is exactly my point. Yes, YaST can work, but more often than not I have found it necessary to work out exactly which package is missing, identify whether it's available from the SuSE disc or not and then install that package. This is not helpful, nor intuitive. Given that most XP software is designed for a standard XP machine this is not likely to happen on XP and in general dependencies are installed as part of the process where there are any.
Now if you have a really smart kid who has watched you do it, and remembers what to type, complete w/ --force at the end, you might wind up w/ something that doesn't work. OTH, if they install a windows ( any version) program that needs other "libraries" or programs to work, you get a system w/ a program that wont run and very likely a kid who is kicking the bed for you to get up and fix it... 6 year olds can be extremely persistant.
I have rarely come across this case with commercial software under XP. The issue of quality and redistributable libraries with 'non-commercial' software is off course a completely different subject.
Installation of new software is to my mind one of the reasons why Linux is not well suited to unskilled users
not sure this is true, compilation of programs is likely beyond the levels of most newbies... but that isn't such a bad thing. Also, as a good parent, who would prefer not to have all your computer time together consisting of "okay honey, then what did you install" probably wont put the files needed to do compilations on said kid's computer... at least not until the little dear understands that it really IS better to wait til parental unit has been infused w/ an adequate amount of caffeine to do more than make strangling gargling sort of waking up sounds. ;)
This seems more flippant than anything - yes the demands of youngsters wanting to learn about *your* computer are frustrating, whatever the OS. The point I was making is that when a new, .egitimately required piece of software is required to be installed on a system I believe that XP makes the process generally easier and more reliable. I then pointed out that the many people who respond on this list by saying 'well my 6 year old has no problem' are not recognising the influence that they have on the outcome of such activity by a 6-year-old.
Until the linux installation processes are as slick and reliable as they currently are in windows XP
So, why did the kids at my daughters house throw out XP in favour of an Xbox, for the boy to play games on and a ps2 for the girl???? The only reason they had any windows stuff was for games, a bit of investigation showed they were playing Dos games... so XP was overkill, and after the worm right before the last worm it was gone.. Slick?? So what, wormy.. bad idea, at least we have a builtin firewall that in the home versions closes damned near everything, if not everything...
So XP was not necessarily less easy to use, it just didn't meet the needs of the users. Arguably games consoles are better, especially for unskilled users, than any form of OS based computer workstation. This is not like for like. The XP worms are a problem. I strongly believe that were the resources of the world balanced the other way round then the Linux community would be facing something very similar. There are always going to be security holes, the XP model does make things more difficult, but it is not impossible to be secure. Mostly this is common sense and awareness. The thing about linux users is that they tend to more sensible about their computing, more aware of the issues with security and more willing to take action to secure their systems. If there were as many computer 'iliterates' using linux as currently use windows we would have as many worms doing bad things with our systems. This is because there would be far more of those idiotic, but not stupid, virus writers looking for ways to make a splash in the world news with their latest moronic creation.
No it isn't that we don't understand what windows does well. We do, but we also understand that what it does badly, will ruin your computing day, week-end, posibley the next week or so before you get back to where you were when it hit the fan... And, it seems extremely difficult to get windows users to understand "backups". Doesn't have to be complex, but, for instance, if you make your living as a writer; back up what you write, to media NOT built into your computer, and do it daily...
The average user to whom a computer is a tool neither needs nor wants this knowledge after installation.
unfortunatly this is true, but at least some are begining to understand... However, somethings are assimilated by osmosis... so the next generation gets more critical...
The one real problem I see w/ linux is the lack of documentation that is clear and easy to understand on one reading. WE can go into the details of what this program will do once it's installed.
But, currently, if you self compile something that is kde, or gnome, it gets put into user local.. except, of course, all it's libraries are looked for in ( for Suse anyway) /opt kde(x) or /opt/gnome... but even moving it there doesn't always help.. Probably one of the biggest pushes behind teh rpm( type) movement for installing stuff.. at least yast puts it where it will work... usually. ( and yeah, if you don't move it to /opt/whichever, you still have to run SuSEconfig... )
This is the problem with Linux, you have to have an understanding of the system, worse your specific choice of linux flavour before you can begin to successfully install a large number packages. The biggest problem for me with linux is the way in which RH, Mandrake, SuSE and Debian all differ, not what is common to them. There have been other discussions about this, but the acceptability of Linux is being compromised by the framentation that these differences demonstrate. Damon