From: Mark Evans
To: Adrian Wells Cc: suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] BETT comments - lets be fair! Date: 18 January 2001 07:32 [Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
I'd like to take issue if I may, let's be fair!
good enough to share a corner with SuSE so I suppose we can say they support the concept! So where was Applix even if it does only seem to spell in Ameriglish; the only Corel Office was for 'doze, virtually nothing was web-based and many stands said, "the government don't specify it and none of the schools are asking for it."
That's the commercial world for you only supplying what people ask for! :-)
Or maybe people only ask for something they know a supplier supplys, or suppliers only keep records of equiries of things they supply.
Often a lot of the Windows stuff is a pig to deploy on networks too. i.e. you get told things to the effect of "we don't know what needs changing in C:\WINDOWS to get the program to work, but it's *easy* to just run the install program on every machine". Yep! you just run setup and off it goes. sometimes you need to restart
computer afterwards. Too easy by far. I suppose that you could write a batch file, as I did on our Novell server, and low, every machine that needed
program to be loaded got it, I only had to switch it on. Wow, that was hard!
So how do you get a batch file to supply the user input which SETUP.EXE is now sat there waiting for? The basic assumption of Windows setup programs is that someone, who knows what they are doing, is sat in front of the machine...
(Let alone such stupidity as programs which need write access to files to be able to open them.) That IS silly! :-)
It's a consequence of software producers only testing their software on stand alone machines. Remember that with commercial software, especially where there is some kind of "captive market", quality control isn't high on the list of priorities.
(IME with the latter catagory often the software vendor dosn't have much of a clue about how Windows works in the first place.) Don't know what IME means but... I bet your wife makes sure that you have a nice crisp white shirt ready to
I'm not married, so your bigoted analogy breaks anyway.
wear every morning and yet has no idea how the washing machine works, what chemicals are in the soap or what that triangle sign in the collar of
shirt really means. The workings SHOULD be transparent, that's
Hi mark, My reply was to the questions, not you, please don't be offended, but your probably right about me being a bigot. I'm sure that the NME would agree with you! And I think that I agree with most of what you have now said. But a few of points. 1) Sorry that you don't support Charset iso-8859-1 (why not, your using LINUX aren't you? So tweak it!) (Charsets are never an issue on my crappy old 98m/c here) - I have never had Netscape on the LINUX box display anything big enough to read at less than a foot from the screen! - how DO you do that? 2) An observation, it's always the beleaguered that whine. Windows users don't harp on about other OS, but everyone has a pop at windows. You have to admit that most PC users on the planet use windows and whether they are sheep or flies has no bearing, the machines work for them, so there MUST be something to be leant here, sticking your head in the sand or pointing out the bad things doesn't help. - or maybe it could, see below. 3) I'm not a great fan of windows per sa 4) I think that the ratio of administrators to users is in the users favour. 5) Yes windows is a waste of time as a workstation, especially in a school. 6) Pressing return during an installation is hardly taxing on the grey matter, even if you have to run around fifty machines once in a blue moon, but in any case many set-up script files can be modified - if your very keen. Sometimes I give the user choices when installing my software, sometimes I force the issue. It installs either way, no need to find who complied the OS etc. it just works. 7) you may have realized that by now I'm not a fan of thin client either! So, lets have a list on a postcard of 5 things in LINUX that sucks and 5 things in other OS that are groovy, put them all together and improve LINUX even more and make it a real rival for those other OS out there. I'll try to start it off (in no particular order.) LINUX Bad bits. 1) Hard to find installed apps. (what does "Find Apps" do anyway?) 2) messy config. files. 3) Installing Apps - what a palaver! 4) Almost too flexible - hence doz. of different flavours ( this can/will cause fracture ). 5) Too many unnecessary user settings - Most things don't work because you forgot to set xyz or point this at that - that's why I have a computer, to do the bits that I shouldn't have to worry about. - This really should be catered for by the person writing the software, not the installer! Other OS good bits. 1) circa Win95 help files. These are brill. 2) MAC, Win etc. app installation. 3) Initial support for new technology by industry. 4) Ease of installing out of the box. 5) MAC, WIN, confidence from users, purchasers and business in general. PS I thought MACs were the way to go when I had a classic II, but they have stagnated. Modern MACs are just fast, coloured classics in see-through boxes. At least Windows machines have evolved. ---------- the the the progress.
A better analogy would be a car (or for that matter washing machine) manufacture who didn't supply service manuals.
So, how about making a point of enquiring loudly if the stands are supporting open-source (they often haven't got a clue!) when some piece of useful software catches your eye? Becta was encouraging in their support for multi-platform approaches but Capita (SIMS/EMS) 1) didn't know what I was talking about and then 2) when someone did they don't expect to make any changes.
That's interesting. When did you ask them this? Since I spoke to them of Thursday complaining about their effectivly forcing the use of Windows NT for the next version of SIMS. The idea that the "S in "SQL" is "standard" appears to be beyond people... (Managed to get them to admit that their being a "Microsoft Solutions Provider" might render them less that impartial.) They also ACTUALLY force one to use NT for mentor3 and capita are very
keen
on Fox Pro and have no idea what SQL is 'cus they don't use it! Also (by the way), Capita will not support 98 workstations but do support 95! even though they're more stable, and tell customers all sorts of scare stories (we've never had any probs.)
okay that's enough ranting, off to hear my boy read now.
Oh, sorry, there was a point, LINUX and windows ARE different, but as far as non technical users are concerned, LINUX has miles to go before it is easy to use, it's moving fast, but still has a way to go.
So far as *SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS* are concerned (which is what the original post was about) Windows has light years to go before it is as simple and straightforward as Linux.
Even the oft repeated claim about Windows being easier to use, is suspect. Since Windows allows (even expects) non technical users to perform system administration tasks. (As well as doing a great many things which baffle the same people who which it is supposedly "easy to use". e.g. forgetting about network printers at random, remembering old passwords afther they have been changed, spewing up CPU registers in hex, etc.) Whilst Windows might be a good choice for the average, end user administered, "home" machine. Put it on a network with a system administrator and it becomes less than ideal. Indeed abilities such as the easy end user install of software then become a liability.
-- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763