GNU/Linux Advocacy

[Eric Dunbar]

On 21/02/07, Peter Garrett <peter.garrett at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:56:39 -0500
> "Eric Dunbar" <eric.dunbar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > As for running old hardware -- if someone's running old hardware, I
> > highly doubt they're particularly concerned with running the latest
> > software!
>
> From the security point of view, much better to be running a recent kernel
> and apps that have been patched than to run Slackware 4 or Red Hat 5 . The
> GUI is also much more pleasant with recent software, and even a Pentium
> 200 with 64 MB RAM can run quite acceptably using a nicely customised
> recent IceWM or Fluxbox etc.
>
> Until last year when the motherboard died, one of my machines was exactly
> as above, running Ubuntu with a choice of Fluxbox or Xfce4.

You aren't one of the "target" market for expansion of Linux mind
share. Regular users (i.e. someone who doesn't know what a CLUI is, or
the difference between a user and an administrator account ;-) do not
have the know-how to install Linux onto such systems and USE them, nor
do they have access to the resources (people) to do so.

Linux has a bright future, but, until it gets picked up by Dell or
some of the other big OEMs and gets pre-installed WITHOUT Windows
side-by-side it will not become big on the desktop.

Plus, there should be no need to dive into the CLUI or modify .config
files to set 100% of day-to-day operations that other OSes (like
Windows/Mac OS X) do smoothly through the GUI -- e.g. resolution
configuration should work 100% of the time (right now
GNOME/KDE-controlled screen resolution changes work maybe 1 in 10
tries for me (regardless of the distro and CPU), IF THAT... I don't
use Linux as my desktop so I "just live with it" when I have to do
installs), networking shouldn't be a bizarre dance (if you're on a LAN
it's fine, otherwise, good luck).

Linux is ready for computer geek usage! It's not "there" yet that I
would feel comfortable giving an install CD to regular main stream
users and saying, this is the operating system you will use for the
next 2 years (though, it has come a long way since I first started
playing with it in 2002).

I'd still rather give them Windows (yuck) simply because that many
more people know it and auto-installers work much better on Windows
than on Ubuntu (Synaptic is simple to use but it's hardly _usable_ by
the casual computer user (which make up the bulk of the computer using
population)).

But, _with support_ (even infrequent), Ubuntu on the desktop is a
perfectly viable option for _a lot_ of people. If all their needs are
are word processing, web browsing and e-mail (95% of the casual
computer user's computing tasks) then Ubuntu is fantastic. Once you
start deviating from the basics you start running into much less
refined software and proprietary software may still be a much better
way to go (granted, there's some FANTASTIC stuff available in the
repositories, but, it's hard to find the gems in the ore).

Anyway, for me it's a moot point. I use Linux for what it's REALLY
REALLY REALLY good at -- running a server.

The rest is window dressing and for fun. I play with OO.org to see
what it's about (I give it to students who don't have MS Office at
home so they have a "real" word processor), and I might even do some
light word processing in Abiword (fantastic word processor IMNSHO)
but, when I need to do spread sheets, I fire up Excel 2004, or when I
need to do serious word processing I'll use either Word 2004 or Pages
(FANTASTIC layout program (Word sucks, OO.org is downright atrocious),
I'm still not convinced by its word processing interface though, my
spouse (a "casual" computer user) figured Pages out right away and
much prefers it to Word or OO.org) ;-).

PS Has anyone ever found a page layout program like PageMaker 4? Are
there any OSS solutions to page layout that aren't overly complicated?