On Thu, 2002-02-21 at 16:30, Keith Winston wrote:
On Thu, Feb 21, 2002 at 03:47:10PM -0500, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:
[snippety-doo-dah]
Windows makes some of the simple things easier than Linux (at least when you are first starting out with Linux), but the hard things will ALWAYS be hard, regardless of OS.
Well, give that another moment's thought. Linux already HAS all the geeks, and SuSE has a goodly portion of 'em. The people whom Linux (and the various distributions) wants now are the NON-geeks, the folks who just want to press the [On] button and then start working on ordinary tasks that they do every day. This means that the most basic setup stuff needs to be made either intuitive or automatic/bullet-proof. "Most basic" includes: - finding and supporting video cards to some standard higher than VGA (worry about fancy features and non-standard 3D accel later) - finding and supporting pointing devices to some standard that includes two buttons and maybe a wheel - finding and supporting sound cards sufficiently to play audio CDs and system sounds - finding and supporting modems and ethernet cards. It's *NICE* if your distribution happens to support the new 4D blit-blatter functions of your bleeding-edge video card. But, if it doesn't, then it should still support VESA and XVGA. If you are a Windows user, trying to set up a Linux install, you need to be talked to in terms that 100 million Windows users have learned to recognize. If you start off trying to configure a dial-up connection or a LAN connection, you don't need to have terms like "host" thrown at you, when "host" means your ISP on the other side of town... and then the wind changes and "host" means your own computer. If you don't have an internet hookup, then it really, really, really is not helpful for the "Help" to keep trying to open URLs at some site on the other side of the world. It isn't all that helpful that man pages and info pages sometimes contradict. To the new person, trying to puzzle it out in isolation ("isolation" being what you've got when you can't figure out how to get connected, and your work schedule doesn't let you attend Linux User Group meetings...) means that each and every man page or info or HowTo, or FAQ is just as important and valid as any other. (Try to imagine the mess I made when I first tried to set up SuSE 5.x and traced through every man/info/HowTo that made any mention of e-mail or dial-up or network or... I had so many daemons and apps and processes and servers and... and ... but I had no way to know. To the newbie, all the words carried the same weight. Never, anywhere did any man page or info, or HowTo ever say "not only do you NOT need such'n'such app/daemon, but you must not use it if you are using the method described here." I had already heard from several people that "Linux is like UNIX. Instead of big, cumbersome programs, everything is a separate, refined little tool that can be put together with others to do what you want. Thus many of the small-but-important tools have been perfected, and have not changed for years." That's why I was running things from the 1980s along with all the other stuff I started up. I had started (or at least attempted to start) things that **nobody** uses anymore, but that keep getting dragged from release to release for "compatibility" reasons. Needless to say, the mess and the damage were considerable. The fellow who finally got me reading e-mail from my dial-up ISP spent literally HOURS weeding out all the unnecessary stuff. Basically, I ended up with Netscape and pppd, but only after he had turfed sendmail, procmail, fetchmail, biff, mutt, pine, several things to do with networking, several servers, forwarders, most of which had just been started, but not really configured, and many of which were in direct/mutual/multiple conflict. 'Cuz, y'see I had also taken somebody else's advice: "Don't wait until you are absolutely sure you understand it, or you'll never get started."
Can your brother set up a SQL database that feeds dynamic data to a web site? Can he set up a strong firewall that also masquerades internal machines and port forwards mail and ssh to internal servers? Can he set up a secure public kiosk for web browsing that can't be tampered with? These are all things that are hard in any OS, and I think, harder in Windows than Linux.
But, that's the point... he doesn't *want* to do most of that stuff. He just wants to do the things he does everyday with Windows. He wants to turn it on and start working, or turn it on and start playing. He is turned OFF by having to open the hood and tinker in the engine, while referring to a manual that includes everything back to the Model-T Ford.
The software I run on my home network would cost me over $14,000 if I licensed them from Microsoft. I can no longer afford to run Windows even if I wanted to, unless I want to give up a lot of the features I am using every day.
Y'know what's amazing? What's amazing is how the same set of statements can take on a whole different complexion with just a tiny shift in the point of view. My wife would look at that paragraph of yours and say: "Listen, Bud, just what do you think my time is worth, anyway? There's no way I want to spend $20,000 worth of my precious time to learn how to do a bunch of things the obscure Linux way, just to save a few thousand dollars 'cost of convenience'." See, you are speaking from the point of view of someone who would be in there tinkering "just 'cuz it's neat", even if you didn't need to, in order to do your job. That's the hobbyist or the geek mentality. Like I said, Linux already HAS all the geeks it needs. Linux wants to harvest some ordinary folk who have interests that DON'T involve the workings of the box and of the OS. Y'see, to a certain fraction of the populace... oh, heck, let's just say "the majority", time that is used attempting to understand the OS and to make it do what is required (and what the other OS seems to do naturally, without deep learning), is time taken away from making a living, or time taken away from precious recreation moments. Most people who have gotten beyond the personal- immortality mindset of teenagers have come to know that time is really all they have. Sure, it may be beautiful and fulfilling to delve into the mysteries and acquire deep understanding that allows you to make the system sit up and beg. But, it's only beautiful and fulfilling to people who are bent that way. The shocking discovery is that other people not only fail to get misty-eyed over a well-written shell-script, they actually resent the time needed to make it work. To them, it is not time well spent, it is time that caused them to miss a work deadline, or time that should have been their relaxing and happy weekend... but wasn't. I'm some kind of a hybrid, in that I am interested in the workings, but even I have found that my work suffers the next day after I've stayed up until 02:00, failing to get something working... and then up at my usual 05:45.
To drag out the tired old car analogy, if you want to drive a minivan, Windows is for you. If you want to drive a race car, Linux may be more to your taste. It is fast, powerful, and dangerous. It requires a level of driving skill not required by minivan drivers. I prefer the race car, but I understand it's not for everyone.
The race car is great for he who has independent wealth or sponsorship to support the costly endeavor. A race car needs a pit crew. You can't just pull into any garage and have it serviced. You need special tires that can't be bought in the local tire shop. You can't even drive it on the roads, unless you have enough wealth to buy your way out of the fines and punishments. A race car goes fast and provides thrills, and then you have to strip down the engine and rebuild before you take it out again... onto the track. Meanwhile, the minivan can be serviced anywhere. It probably won't ever need to have the engine rebuilt. It wears out a set of tires after a couple of years, not a couple of hours. It has room for not only the dog, but the girlfriend, too... AND the skydiving equipment for both of you. Unlike the race car, the minivan can carry the stuff you use for your life and your business and your recreational pursuits, and it can even be a place to sleep, in a pinch. The race car requires the driver to be a dedicated professional, whose life is competition, and who had better show some successes if he wants to keep the job and the access to the speed machine. The minivan takes regular unleaded fuel, it doesn't require more than a standard drivers licence, and is a tool that is used part-time to provide comfort and utility in life. It is not a focus and an end in itself. Unlike the race car, the minivan doesn't need high-intensity, full-on, undivided attention just for normal operation and survival. Anyway, I'm suggesting that the expanded target audience, that Linux/SuSE now seeks, is the audience of ordinary Windows users. I mean, think about it. There's not a big audience in people who don't have computers and aren't likely to get one soon. So what's left is: - people who have computers and already use Linux (mostly early adopters, by definition) - people who have computers and run Windows - the small numbers who use other OSs. Guess where the opportunity lies? Cheers, -- Kevin McLauchlan Chrysalis-ITS, Inc. "Ultimate Trust(TM)"