On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 01:20:05PM +0100, Satelle, StevenX wrote:
| I agree, for the avenge home user Linux is a no-no.
What is "the average home user"? What can a software vendor assume
that person is capable of? Incapable of?
| I'd never put it on my Fathers PC. He has problems finding the power switch,
Can he install and maintain a "working" windows system? How would
windows actually be easier for him to use?
| In my opinion Linux is not yet ready for the enterprise. Until it is
| set-up so that even people who learned computers in college can
| admin it.
Really, colleges should teach useful stuff. I say this as a 5th-year
(in a 5-year program) Software Engineering major. Very few of the SEs
here know what system management is about. I suspect the same holds
for CEs (Computer Engineering - making the hardware, but not the
chips) and CS majors. The IT majors are taught the most about
managing systems, but aren't taught much about *nix. (oh, yeah, I
haven't even mentioned any non-computer majors) If you're going to
base your evaluation on what the average college graduate is capable
of, then also evaluate the quality of that education.
| I work in an Enterprise and I can truly say that very few people
| here would be able to do simple things like map a network drive
Are those people sysadmins? I sincerely hope not.
Really what it comes down to is roles. There is the "admin" role, and
there is the "user" role (which also has a sub-role "power user").
*Users* don't need to know how the dumb thing works. Your father is
an example of a user. He doesn't know and doesn't care how it works,
as long as it does the job he needs it too. (just like most people
who write things on paper don't need to know the physics of how the
their ballpoint pen works) OTOH the *admin* _MUST_ know how it works
so that he can set up the system(s) and keep them running.
The car analogy is great here. With cars there are 3 primary roles --
"passenger", "driver", and "mechanic". Passengers need no knowledge
of the car itself. Drivers need some education to know how to drive
it. Mechanics need to be able to tear the thing apart and put it back
together again. No one makes the (ridiculous!) claim that "cars
aren't ready yet, first they need to be repairable by the
'passenger'". (note that a passenger can be a 4-month old baby)
You could easily install debian on your father's computer, set it up
with X and a decent desktop/window manager. Create some launchers so
he can just click a button and run the programs he needs. You can set
it up with the decent graphical programs that are easy enough to use,
and he wouldn't have to learn anything deeper than that. Once you've
installed the system, run through the login procedure with your father
(or setup [gkx]dm to auto-login as him) and show him the launchers and
the basics of the interface. It's the same thing you would need to do
for him with windows, except it wouldn't be windows.
-D
--
A Microsoft Certified System Engineer is to information technology as a
McDonalds Certified Food Specialist is to the culinary arts.
Michael Bacarella commenting on the limited value of certification.
http://dman.ddts.net/~dman/
Attachment:
pgpfviRW16SGm.pgp
Description: PGP signature