The future of linux

[jcallen at narsil.com (Jerry Callen)]

Derek Martin wrote:

> 1) ease of installation:  Did she install Windows?

Probably not. Most vendors pre-install Windows. A few vendors
offer Linux pre-installed, but it's no where near as common as
Windows.

> 2) ease of maintenance:  What maintanence?  Once she's got an account,
> and you've set up her printer (did she set up her own printer on
> Windows?), what does she need to maintain to run e-mail and WP?

Many Windows users don't really have an "account" or understand why they
would want one. After all, a "PC" is a "Personal Computer", right?

In our house, I *do* have a Windows PC with multiple "users" (the people
in my family). What's interesting is that if you really *want* to have
multiple users, Unix does a far better job than Windows: the use of
.files in one's home directory is a well-established and pretty universal
notion in Unix, whereas per-user settings for Windows apps are either
non-existent or handled in various ad-hack manners. 

So the issue of an "account" is either irrelevant (and therefor an 
unnecessary complexity for Unix) or important (and a big plus for Unix).

Regarding printers: I've personally had very good luck (and I guess I
really do mean "luck") setting up printers under Windows. It's been a
little harder under Linux. It's hard to guage how hard it *really* is
under Linux because I was already familiar with Unix printing by the
time I had to configure my first printer for Linux. I suspect someone
with less Unix know-how would find it a bit daunting.

I also suspect most folks unfamiliar with networking would find Windows
easier to configure for networking, especially if they are hooking
up via cable modem with DHCP; it more-or-less "just works." OTOH,
I find myself really struggling to fix networking problems on Windows
if something goes wrong; on Linux, I know which files to tweak and
commands to issue. Again, though, I suspect most casual computer users
won't find that to be a plus for Linux.

> 3) everyday use: The user interface for KDE/Gnome is almost identical to
> Windows, from an every-day use perspective.  Once the apps are
> installed (which also really isn't that hard), what's the hard part there?

I'm not sure most non-Unix-savvy people would find installing new apps
all that easy. It's pretty mindless under Windows, and in my experience,
it *usually* works.

Once the apps are installed, I agree that there's not much difference
between Windows and Unix.
> 
> I'm not just trying to be argumentative here, I'm really looking for
> answers.  I keep hearing these statements being made, but no one has
> presented a plausible argument to back them up, so far.  If you have one,
> I want to hear it, so that maybe I can help work on a fix.

I think it's hard to be objective about this stuff; most of us on this
mailing list just know too much about Unix to be able to see it from
the perspective of a new user.

I'm in the process of bringing Linux into a client's site where all
they've ever known is DOS and Windows. Realistically, nearly all of the
users will remain on Windows, and Linux will be used primarily as a
file server (yea, Samba!). However, one or two programmers, who've
been using mostly DOS for the past 10 years, will wind up logging into
the Linux servers and using compilers, scripts, etc. These folks are 
not dumb, but the one who's starting to learn Linux is finding the 
learning curve to be pretty steep. If you've never used a multi-user
operating system before, even such basic concepts as a "process"
and the notion of a "home directory" take some getting used to. It's
been a real eye-opener for me.


-- Jerry Callen                      Mobile: 617-388-3990
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