[luau] Dvorak: Is Linux your Next OS?

[Warren Togami]

----- Original Message -----
From: "kilauea" <kilauea at hawaiian.net>
To: <luau at videl.ics.hawaii.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 11:56 PM
Subject: Re: [luau] Dvorak: Is Linux your Next OS?


>
> I disagree with the contention that Gimp is a wimp. I don't use
> Photosnob but I like Gimp. Of course Dvorak doesn't say just exactly why
> Photosnob is better. I wonder if this is a "softer fuzzier" version of
> the old M$ 'unquestionably superior' FUD. Photosnob will never be able
> to top Gimp on that important little feature commonly referred to as
> price.

I agree that Gimp is very powerful and good right now, but its interface is
so unintuitive so graphic designers and normal users are immediately turned
off unless someon shows them the basics.  I personally don't like the
MDI-like window navigation, and I much prefer the model used by Adobe
Photoshop.  I suspect it shouldn't be too hard to modify Gimp to make it
more like Photoshop in layout, but nobody feels like doing it so it never
got done.

>
> Speaking of the 'unquestionably superior' FUD ... I also disagree with
> the contention that windoze is easier to use than Linux. It really
> depends on the individual user; windoze is only easier to use if you
> don't mind rebooting your system frequently, trying to remember and
> restore everything since your last save (assuming that the windoze file
> system didn't meltdown also). However, Linux is easier to use if you
> know how to put a CD into a drive. Linux is also easier for those who
> can read.

I'm sorry, but Windows is unfortunately easier than Linux in almost all
ways.  They even made installation sickeningly easy.  With any modern "XP
Certified" PC, you can simply pop-in the Windows XP install disk and it
installs with almost zero prompts.  The freaking installer has music and
animations flying around.  Scared the crap out of me.  Then about the
stability of Windows... Windows 2000 and XP is stable.  This really angered
me at first in early 2000 when I realized this.  I could no longer
truthfully use "Windows crashes all the time." as a reason to tell people to
use Linux.  Now if you have Windows stability problems, it is almost always
due to 1) Hardware problems 2) Crappy Drivers, or 3) Spyware and Viruses.
My Windows 2000 desktop hasn't rebooted for 4 months, and my Windows XP
laptop hasn't rebooted for a month (I suspend to disk and boot into Linux
rather than reboot).

I'm sad to say this, but Windows 2000 and XP are simply better desktop
operating systems than Linux at the moment.  It is still much harder for
Linux to install, configure, install software and make everything run
smoothly.  Even the latest Mandrake 8.2, despite being vastly improved in
all respects, still needs some Unix knowledge to customize into anything
useful.

However, Windows is still a horrible server platform in both security and
performance.  That is where Linux has and always will excel.

I also haven't given up on the Linux desktop.  I'm throwing hundreds of
dollars a month toward developers working to improve the Linux desktop.  I'm
giving money to KDE, Mandrake, Red Hat, CodeWeavers and Transgaming.  One
day... we will surpass Windows in the desktop and my contributions today
will be worth it.

Please join me and support these developers.  Some of those groups can be
tax deductible donations (like KDE and Gnome).