As long as Linux has that horrible BSD printing (works like microsoft) system, it's not ready for any desktop. Rusty Jerry L Kreps wrote:
Bernard Peek wrote:
In article <4.2.2.20000306193019.00a48f00@mailbox.uottawa.ca>, bsh
writes That depends on whose desktop you are referring to. Most corporations have an IT department to configure software and hardware for the users.
That's not true.
Most IT staff are employed by corporations that have an IT department, but that's not saying the same thing. Most companies are too small to have a separate IT department. So for Linux to be adopted as a desktop system in most companies it has to be able to be used by someone with no formal training in IT. They should be able to get the OS installed by reading the instructions in the manual, which should be no more than 100 pages. Installation on any standard PC system should normally take no more than an hour.
After repeated lockups and crashes on my workstation running Win95 I decided to reinstall. I scrubbed the C drive and put Win95 on fresh. The IT folks came by and installed Lotus Notes and the network copies of Corel WP and Quatropro and installed the Internet proxy. Total time: about 1.5 hours.
The next day an IT person dropped off my new HP CD-Writer. It required Win98 so I had to scrub C againt and install Win98 SE. One hour later it was on. I can't count the number of reboots required during the process. Well, 5 minutes after completing the install and preparing to install Notes, Corel and the proxy, while using Explorer (fm) I got a BSOD! Bad sign! Five hours later the IT folks (very sharp I might add) still were not able to get Notes going because M$'s 'Messaging system' was interfering with the Corel installation. They have yet to find a way to remove the Messaging system. Probably part of M$'s anti-competitive artifically created incompatibilities practice I suspect. It's not like they haven't done that in the past... duh.
After that time the system should be able to dial an ISP, print a letter and play a mean game of solitaire.
Using the workstation to play games is not allowed in my office.
<snip>
If the current rate of progress keeps up, Linux will be ready for the average users' desktop in two or three years.
Maybe one or perhaps two years at the most. For many people, like myself, it is ready now! If Linux, running KDE for example, will do all that you need to do then it is ready. The advantages are that Linux doesn't crash and most of the apps are free or very inexpensive. Not only that, there are fine commerical apps being released almost on a daily basis.
-- Bernard Peek bap@shrdlu.com bap@shrdlu.co.uk
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