Ubuntu's success

[Derek Broughton]

Rocco Stanzione wrote:

> I /msged one of the responders to ask why, and there ensued a lengthy and
> unbelievable discussion about how Mandrake was the worst Linux distro
> because
> it was too easy!  Because it had all these newfangled gui configurators
> and
> frontends that all these whippersnappers came to depend on, etc.  This
> from a
> user of apt.  So, in Debian's defense, they as a community seem to enjoy
> their barriers to entry, and I attribute their reputation to the bad
> apples who misinterpret the broader first-learn-Linux-then-use-Debian
> attitude as an excuse to deride the uninformed.

There's certainly some of that.  As one who came to Debian via Corel Linux
(which _could_ have been Ubuntu years before Ubuntu, if Corel had really
wanted to work with the community), I've seen the Debian community get
steadily more comfortable with GUIness :-), but there's still a lot of
the "if it isn't done with a CLI it isn't worth doing" attitude.

> If a third of the new users who say "screw this, I'm going back
> to Windows" have legitimate technical frustrations, a third are just being
> jerks and a third are fed up with the treatment they get when they seek
> help, I think we can win a lot more users by wooing them with respect and
> letting them know in advance that we intend to.

A noble sentiment, but I'm afraid on my _best_ days, all I can do is wish
them well with their lesser OS.  Now, when someone expresses their
frustration but shows a willingness to try, I'll go all out to help, but if
they come here saying "screw this", well it's all I can do to simply not
respond at all :-)
-- 
derek