[luau] Dvorak: Is Linux your Next OS?

Warren Togami warren at togami.com
Tue Mar 19 22:17:12 PST 2002


----- Original Message -----
From: "Yuser" <yuser at hi.net>
To: <luau at videl.ics.hawaii.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 11:55 AM
Subject: Re: [luau] Dvorak: Is Linux your Next OS?


> > 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.
> >
> What do you define as better?  Maybe you are more familiar with Windows
> and therefore feel more comfortable with it.  This is the case with almost
everyone

I am very familiar with both Windows and Linux.  I was talking mainly about
the reasons why normal people would have to accept Linux on the desktop.
These reasons of primarily ease and familiarity, secondarily to function.
Fortunately the Linux desktop has largely caught up to both Windows and
MacOS user interfaces.  Installation has become much easier with
distributions like Mandrake and SuSE.  System, networking, and printing
configuration is very easy with supported distribution supported hardware.
KDE and Gnome desktops have achieved parity with Windows and MacOS in
several aspects, with all aspects constantly improving at an unprecedented
rate.

All of this has led to a very usable desktop platform.  However the areas of
3rd party software installation, 3rd party driver support and installation
of said drivers are still far below the level of ease acceptable to the
average home user.  Until then, Linux desktop will continue to not be
desktop operating system for the average home user, useless those home users
have a knowledgable Linux administrator to do those installations and
configurations for them.

That is also why Linux is today a viable and cost effective business and
educational desktop platform.  Those places can have admins that take care
of the hard stuff for the end-users.  The end-users then use a system that
works well.

The issue of 3rd party software and drivers is steadily improving too, and
once it reaches an acceptable level of ease of installation, then the
average home user stands a chance to figure out Linux on their own.  If they
have to type anything at the command line then it is already too hard.  Mac
OS X, the first truly usable end-user Unix desktop operating system proved
that this is possible.  We must have enough _effective_ GUI hiding the
complexity from these end-users, and they will accept it.  And like Mac OS
X, all of the Unix flexibility and source will still be there, so power
users and programmers lose nothing.




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