Desktop Relevance

[david-8uUts6sDVDvs2Lz0fTdYFQ at public.gmane.org (David Kramer)]

Eric Chadbourne wrote:
>>> Eric Chadbourne wrote:
>>>
>>> There's so much documentation and a large and friendly community
>>> learning about Linux won't be difficult at all for you.
>>>
>>>> become more user friendly considering Ubuntu
>>> Yuck!!!  Fedora rules!  ;-)
>  > David Kramer wrote:
>> ... And there you have it.  This is, and always has been, a part of the
>> UNIX/Linux adoption problem.  With Windows, there's Windows.  And with
>> most releases, there's maybe three different levels, and it's usually
>> pretty clear which you need (home vs pro vs ultimate).  With Linux, not
>> only are there too many choices for the uninitiated to make, but there
>> are zealots behind each one touting how they are the one true $FOO.
> 
> 
> Oh lord David that's not fair.  I assume you're bored and lookin' for 
> conversation.

I *pray* for boredom.  I live in interesting times.

> 1.  What the heck's wrong with the "uninitiated" having choices?  I just 
> got a loan to buy a new motorcycle.  I know very little about mechanics. 
>   I did some research and to the best of my uninitiated ability picked 
> the best one.  I prefer the multiple choices.  It's so much more 
> pleasant than another choosing for me.  And you know what, if I made a 
> mistake, that's ok.  I'll do better next time.  Kind of the same for my 
> favorite OS, programming languages and database.

You're not the kind of person I'm talking about.  Odds are 90% of the
people on this mailing list are the kind of people that do their own
research and selects what will work best for them, not just what's the
most popular/common/easy option.  I took a good three weeks to select my
last cell phone.  My friend wanted "one that came in purple".

The average person going to buy a computer is not going to be able to
browse through DistroWatch and figure out which two or three distros
they should download and try.  A computer is a tool that needs to simply
work.  To us, a Learning Experience is a good thing.