RE: Linux: a gentle, growing approach
Ben said (snipped not in rudeness but to keep it short):
just a rant. don't be offended.
ben
I did speaketh:
Ben I totally understand your point. I actually do agree with a lot of what
you say. Good life story as well :-) I know that microsoft makes its users
dumb and preys on that. Microsoft is like a drug, it breeds dependency and
sucks your money.
I actually don't really use dselect at all (a few times to help get kde 3
onto my system, big thanks to Thomas Schoepf for his time and effort). I
use apt and dpkg. You are absolutely right, they are all you need as a
general rule. I don't pretend to know either apt or dkpg inside out, but
given time I will.
As to Debian...as i've stated previously I'm not going to change over to any
other distribution. Debian is home. It feels right. And i'm learning
heaps! I've learnt more from 5 weeks of debian gnu linux than I have from
using redhat. No disrespect to redhat intended. They do drag a lot of
newbies into linux. As others have said...sooner or later everyone makes
their way to debian ;-)
Remember i haven't been with debian for very long, so I don't know the
development goals and history for either dselect and tasksel et al. All I
know is what they offer now...they seem ok to my newbie eyes, but i'm sure
that experienced users can point out issues that they perceive with them.
That's just an ongoing cycle of improvement I think.
As to developers working on tools etc to make linux easier for the average
user, why not? I think along the lines of that if linux is hard to use and
understand less people will swing across to it, and therefore continue using
microsoft and being trapped in the microsoft way. This will continue to
make microsoft all powerful in the fiscal world and will give it more and
more leverage to damage open source (or at least attempt to). We don't want
that. I don't want a software monopoly, I want choice. That's why I've
chosen open source software for as much stuff as I can use. Being realistic
as well, I know I need to use microsoft products in a lot of places in order
to fit in. It doesn't make me happy..but...until the world changes.
Linux is better in nearly every technical department over microsoft windows
and from my eyes deserves to replace ms windows based purely on technical
merit and not advertising bullshit or monopolistic behaviour. I've seen
newbies come to linux and try it...and then pass cos they won't stick with
it and try and learn. That's sad and I want to avoid that happening. Not
everyone wants to stick with microsoft, a lot don't. But they don't want to
learn linux inside out either. Agreed - it's a bad habit they've picked up
from using microsoft software (in general, apple mac os and os/2 warp are
partly to blame as well). I want to see linux win - it deserves to.
I guess what i'm trying to say (i suck at writing lol, i'm much more
eloquent speaking) is that I want to learn linux. Not neccessarily in total
detail, but a fair bit of what makes it tick. That takes time. And a lot
of effort and patience. Not everyone else that comes to linux is the same.
It would be good if they were...but...i'm trying to think about those people
as well, and keep them using linux. That's just my thoughts on this very
complex issue.
Dave
PS i'm not complaining about curren tools, or developers or telling them
what they should be doing. The main thing from a developer point of view i
guess is making linux the best operating system in terms of technical merit
and performance. Well it already is ;-) Keeping it there lol. I apologise
in advance if anyone is offended by my email comments - none is intended
Reply to: