Linux on the desktop?

[Nelson Garcia]

MHO:
User friendliness is a matter of opinion, as evidenced by this thread.  For
example DOS, a command line OS, was too friendly in some respects except for
not having a GUI.  What most people equate with friendliness is the
interface, not what's behind it.  I would argue that Linux is a friendlier
OS than MS and Mac (interfaces aside) because of the degree of control that
it provides.

At any rate, it's only a matter of time before somebody puts together a
distribution that has all the features that current 'average' users
conditioned and educated by MS and Mac can relate to easily and, therefore,
perceive as friendly. In the heart of that distribution will be the same OS
that they would have found unfriendly otherwise.

It's all in the packaging, users want to be helped not taught - no typical
Microsoftie wants to read a man page and not find any examples or not be
told "click here to make it do what you want".  While we LUGs want to "own"
our computers, others are just happy to "do stuff and don't care how it
happens" like my wife says.

Perhaps user-friendliness can be an added feature, like slapping on
Bastille-linux to secure your machine, you could slap on "Friendly-linux",
paperclip icon and all.  Who knows, maybe Microsoft will come up with it and
charge everybody $95 per user license.  Now that's friendly.

My last bit of opinion is that the user friendliness in Linux cannot be put
in a box.  It comes from groups like this and from the interaction common
among its users.  All things that I have benefited from greatly since the
first time my friend offered to install linux for me (free of charge).
I think we are friendly enough.

Aloha,
Nelson