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

On Fri, 24 May 2002 13:44:53 -0700, Michael Hasenstein wrote:

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.

Now for a really controversial view. I have just decided that while Linux is great for the desktop, I prefer OpenBSD for servers. The development energy that goes into the Linux kernel and into applications for Linux is truly a wonderful thing. Someday, really good things will result from this, as the various projects look over at their competition and borrow their better ideas, covered by open source licenses. It might be ugly now; I say, let it be so, for we really don't lose. Whether that will ever make a dent in the Microsoft Office world is a question I avoid as much as possible. Ultimately, the tools that will be available under Linux will surpass those available for Windows. Even now, I think Abiword and Gnumeric are all I need for "productivity tools." The best hope for the desktop market, surprisingly (or not), rests in Microsoft's greed. I hear an awful lot of griping about the licensing for Windows XP, but from what I can see, Microsoft has no intention of altering its course. Arrogance carries a price. Sooner or later, Microsoft must surely run aground, propelled by its own misbegotten ideals. I see the current Linux development effort as attempting to produce something that is all things to all people. I see a lot of energy going into this, and as I said above, I believe the results will eventually be wonderful. But, in the meantime, I don't see how you do this without lots of extra code -- which to me suggests lots of extra bugs, and lots of extra security problems. Add what I consider a mess in Linux packet filtering (moving in the direction of more, not less, messiness), and I'm switching my servers and routers to OpenBSD. But the plus side of all this is that we're getting ever better desktop applications, better support for odd hardware, and probably a few other things where innovation really counts for more than security. That and the reliability factor, I think, make for a really good desktop system. So it is my desktop and laptop that will remain on Linux. -- David Benfell, LCP benfell@parts-unknown.org --- Resume available at http://www.parts-unknown.org/resume.html

Charles Griffin wrote:

I think the guy is basically right -- until linux can install perfectly without requiring users to drop in to the command line to update the XF86Config file in order to get nvidia drivers working, or to change the font installation directory, or to change symlinks and edit lilo.conf and fstab in order to get a cdrw working, or do other such things, it is not ready for the masses. ...

This won't help at all. There are two parts to a system: 1) system administration. Stuff people on this list are comfortable spending time with, but for by far most people computers are just a tool and they want to spend 0 time on this. It's just like me and my car: if I ever have to open the hood it's time to get another one (many years ago, in East Germany, I had a big tool box with me in my "Trabant" and was able to - and had to - do basic repairs right on the road, incl. removing and cleaning the carburator, so it's not that I'm completely clueless although todays cars are much much much more electronic-ed). 2) appliactions. Well, see my other response under this subject.

usb wrote:

... Would'nt have some difficulties out there, if used to linux whole yr life long, Yu, now, wd be forced to understand the M$ skills at once ?

I read comments out there abt multiple apps for linux, duplicate, triplicate,...

Are You sure there are'nt 5 or 6 browsers which work under M$ Window$ ?

But one is actually enough. In Linux, you have pages where you need to switch to the other browser, or if you just have netscape 6.2 (or 7PR1 or mozilla) you have the crash and freeze issues, apart from mem. usage. Just MS IExplorer seems to be enough for all webpages out there, it seems. I'm not complaining about diversity as such, I'm complaining about having essential features distributed over var. different applications, in Linux made worse because of all these different windowing toolkits with different looks and behaviours. I consider "usability" and "stability" essential functions, that's why just netscape/mozilla (stability) for browsing or gimp (usability) for graphics is not good enough.

As very often repeated, I am not an informatician, and b4 passing over to linux, i resisted myself to leave my direct,simple windows 3.11.

Nevertheless, my linux installation works...... better than my WIndows 2000 partition... which becomes crazy when i add a second HDD to my PC.

Of course, linux manages it without any problem.

I learned to love Macs for Digital Video works. We used to have a G4, which is where I made my first steps with RealVideo encoding and Digital Video (have a Sony TRV 900). The Mac went away, so I made a "video PC" out of one of our PCs - with MS Windows, Adobe Premiere, etc. It's amazing how many things go wrong! And it's not IRQ and other low level issues. Everything on the PC works, all the (video) hardware, and all the software, and they also work together, sort of. But it is amazing how hard it is to get a good looking result, when on the Mac it was just a few clicks away! Okay, I have just introduced yet another sideline from the original subject, I see. Michael

Hello And thank you all for your wonderful help in the past. I'm running TCP/IP and Netatalk to network my linux machine and a MacOS9 machine.Recently,I recieved another PC for which I've installed Suse 7.3.I'd like to throw this into the network,as it were but am unsure how to go about this.I'm using a 4 port hub so I've got the hub room. Please help TIA RRMP

On Friday 24 May 2002 17:23, Anders Johansson wrote:

It feels a little strange defending SuSE against an @suse.com, but here goes (big snip) The last is OEM preinstalls. That is the real key.

//Anders

It does seem odd that one would be defending SuSE from one of it's own employees? What is that all about? I tend to agree with Anders also in his last sentence, that OEM preinstalls of Linux will knock down the last barrier to people accepting it for desktop use. Most people would never have a clue about the OS, simply because that was what was on it when they purchased it. Linux is no more difficult to use than anything else, if the user only uses it for 90% of the things people purchase a PC for in the home. I look at it as a newbie still, coming up on 1 year of desktop usage, and find that if I install it, get logged in on the internet, it almost becomes boring to use because there are so few things needed or reliability problems. But that is not why most of us here use it either! We want to tweak, experiment and continually update things, which in turn allows Linux to be a dream come true. It allows us endless hours of tinkering, but for most casual users, they don't need that. I can attest to that just recently as I converted my wife's dad over to Linux. I put together a new computer for him and offered an even swap if he would agree to use Linux for a couple of weeks, just to prove to him his computer problems would go away! Doesn't look like I will have to wait those two weeks, as he is so pleased with his SuSE setup already. Oh, Peter Banks, he is near 80! The complexities of Linux are available to those of us that want to see them, but hidden to those that don't. The selection of programs is a plus as I have found and anyone converting to it have found as well. That is choice for the user and I can't say I have seen anyone having to use many programs to do one thing. Unlike Anders, I do play around with graphics programs and Gimp is one of the best available. I also use others with Linux too, because they are there and useful making graphics things easier. As far as IE being useful for anything, that makes me laugh! :-D I just today had to correct a customer's machine because her company tried to use their software with IE and because of the constant patches needed, kept breaking their software. I find myself laughing outloud now when someone mentions IE and security in the same sentence. :-D See, it happened again! ;o) Patrick -- --- KMail v1.4 --- SuSE Linux Pro v8.0 --- Registered Linux User #225206 Magic Page Products -- Amiga-SuSE-PC Sales & Service URL: http://home.sprintmail.com/~tracerb

On Friday 24 May 2002 21:07, Michael Hasenstein wrote:

usb wrote:

...

... Would'nt have some difficulties out there, if used to linux whole yr life long, Yu, now, wd be forced to understand the M$ skills at once ?

I read comments out there abt multiple apps for linux, duplicate, triplicate,...

Are You sure there are'nt 5 or 6 browsers which work under M$ Window$ ?

But one is actually enough. In Linux, you have pages where you need to switch to the other browser, or if you just have netscape 6.2 (or 7PR1 or mozilla) you have the crash and freeze issues, apart from mem. usage. Just MS IExplorer seems to be enough for all webpages out there, it seems.

That isn't an accident; MS has been pushing its browser out there for 6 years now, hence the antitrust case! Do you remember the days when Netscape and Mosaic and Cello were the dominant browsers? Pretty much every website around rendered OK in Netscape. The fact that IE works with nearly all sites is a product of the browser monoculture; it's not because IE is a particularly good bit of code. I don't mind using 3 different browsers (Konq, Galeon and Mozilla) - because I tend to use them for different things. Konq is good at pretending to be other browsers; so I can do my online banking with it. Galeon's good for casual 'click on a link and browse' stuff, because it's lightweight and fast. Mozilla's good for the 'view <foo> with bells and whistles turned on' bit.

I'm not complaining about diversity as such, I'm complaining about having essential features distributed over var. different applications, in Linux made worse because of all these different windowing toolkits with different looks and behaviours. I consider "usability" and "stability" essential functions, that's why just netscape/mozilla (stability) for browsing or gimp (usability) for graphics is not good enough.

I agree with what Anders said about choice. I *like* having a nice big toolbox with lots of tools in. Half the time, a specific tool *will* do a specific job better than anything else; a general-purpose tool kludged into doing the same task won't do it as well. With regard to the rest of the thread... Would it be such a tragedy if Linux *didn't* make massive inroads into the home market? It's a professional-quality workstation and server operating system, and has all the hallmarks of one - you can get 'under the hood' and do esoteric stuff with it; it has a large number of development and security and network tools that you can do interesting things with. As long as there are enough Linux users and geeks to keep new ideas flowing, then fine. We don't *need* the mass market. The mass market is full of grannies who want to do a few very basic tasks with a pretty interface. Fine. If SuSE can be bolted down to the point where it is safe enough for everyone to use, them so much to the good, and SuSE can hopefully make pots of money. But if the effort of doing so makes it *harder* to do Real Stuff with SuSE, then we end up going down the dark path to Windows. The needs of geeks are totally different to the needs of the average home user; I would much rather see SuSE do one job *well* than try to do both jobs passably well. To use a slightly more colourful analogy: consider the jigsaw. A jigsaw is a useful and very versatile tool. You can do all sorts of great and cunning stuff with it. But it's a tool, and not a general panacea. You *don't* give jigsaws to everyone, because a fair number of them would probably end up taking chunks out of themselves with it. You could paint it bright pink and put warning stickers by the dangerous bits, and people would *still* end up losing fingers. The only way to make a jigsaw safe for everyone is to take the motor out and file off any sharp edges. At which point it can safely be given to a baby - but it's not really much use as a jigsaw any more. I'm all for making Linux user friendly, and consistent to look at; but if it means reducing or hindering the ability to use the *right* tool for the job, then I'm going to use GNU/Hurd or *BSD instead. Linux is a tool. If you want to do something useful, chances are it can help. But, like any tool *not* made like Fisher-Price, if you mishandle it, it will bite you. And you need to have some vague glimmering of an idea about what is going on when you press the button; a computer is *not* a television. That is the way of things; and I'm happy with that state of affairs. Gideon.

On Friday May 24 2002 1:41 pm, Charles Griffin wrote:

--- Matthew Johnson wrote:

I think the guy is basically right -- until linux can install perfectly without requiring users to drop in to the command line to update the XF86Config file in order to get nvidia drivers working, or to change the font installation directory, or to change symlinks and edit lilo.conf and fstab in order to get a cdrw working, or do other such things, it is not ready for the masses.

Man have we missed the boat!!!! How many Windoze installs "install perfectly without requiring users to drop in" to the registry? or to a dos prompt? How many times have you ever gotten a video card and a raid controller to work exatly right, together? Come on people. The real issue is that there are 4 programs all half baked that do the same thing, and NO INSTALL routine. Why can't we look at how OpenOffice does its install, separate it out to its own smaller project and use it for all the wonderful apps out there? Why don't we get all the disseparate projects together and combine them into no more than 2? Why does Linux need 15 different browsers? Why not 2 or 3 that really knock you over? Now that I have paid for my Linux distro (SuSE pro 8.0) I feel I have a small vested interest in seeing it suceed. And, I agree with Charles, I like what Linux is all about, and I like the OS as a whole. But here are some things Linux needs to really become the M$ Killer: 1. An Application delivery mechanism, that leverages a directory of some kind (LDAP, NDS, or NIS). This way you could deliver applications and uninstall applications by associating them to an application object. (ZEN for Desktops kind of thing). 2. A remote control feature that lets you control the active desktop. Telnet is good, and VNC is better, but every now and then you need a PCAnywhere, (especially when you are trying to support a remote user). 3. A "setup.exe" for apps. the whole "./configure -> make -> make install" should never be seen by a new user who is not "deeply technical" and wants to know what is going on behind the covers. This could be used by some distros, and not by others depending on what you want in a distro. 4. Support from Hardware vendors to provide their own drivers with equal functionality to their Windoze counterparts. (Hey some of you very talented programmers could help here instead of writing another text editor and wasting your talent). Thanks for listening to my rant, I'll shut up now, and try to learn more about this OS. -- See Ya' Howard Coles Jr. John 3:16!

Is really clicking on a rpm file within KDE or GNOME more difficult than installing a file within Window$$$$$$ ?

Yes! In my experience as a newbie it certainly is. In Windows I never had a problem installing any program - ever. Not so in Linux. I'm trying to install gphotocollect by RPM and I have huge dependancy problems. I've lost count of the other PRMs I need but it is certainly over 20 and its not ended yet. It could all be my fault though - but that is what we are talking about isn't it - how easy it is for beginners. Installation was a breeze with SuSE 8 (dual boot), install driver for my scanner -easy. Internet, etc - no problem. But from here things are getting tricky - I can't even upgrade abiword without problems (as documented by others). I'm happy to spend time learning but many others are not. Cheers Dave

Wow. That's either some serious selective memory or some amazing good luck. You mean to say you never installed a program in Win while other programs were running (despite the pop-up installation box telling you to close everything) and experienced the glorious chaos that typically ensues? I did that all the time. Now in SuSE I run Yast2's online update ~ or install other software while runing mozilla, openoffice, and two or three other things at once. I've never had linux freeze up, choke, and turn blue, like Win used to do for me several times a day. If you had such amazing success with Win, I recommend you return to it.

No offence meant Brian. I'm going to stick with Linux thanks. My point was that as a beginner, in my experience, Windows is easier to install programs - thats all. And as I have always closed all other apps down and, as you say, with luck, I have NEVER had a problem installing a program under windows. I've had plenty of Blue screens and freezes in my time but never at an install, nor has Windows refused to install. I have other reasons for swapping to Linux. All the best Dave