On Sun, Jul 26, 1998 at 06:21:42PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > Joseph> I had Running Linux. Many man pages still confuse me. Most > Joseph> don't have a long time to learn, they need to know what they > Joseph> need to know now---otherwise they will happily continue to > Joseph> use windoze.. > > In that case, I think you should respect their wishes, and not > try to foist an OS on them that does not meet their requirements. The only thing that makes windoze a requirement for most of them is that knowing how to use it is "mandatory" because "it's all there is." That's monopolist tactics, not a requirement to use windoze. All they need is something they can install now and learn how to use---the internals can wait till they need to know them. This is exactly how I've been doing it. Debian was the only dist that was willing to give me something to work with while I learned how the guts worked. Now, not everyone is going to be able to go from knowing nothing to a bo -> hamm upgrade "the hard way" in a week or less, but you'd be amazed what even the totally clueless can do if they have a hand and are willing to put some effort into it. Now, it's not been perfect (you may have caught some of me being quite frustrated with exim's procmail pipe transport example from the docs not working. Considering that I never did figure it out (I'm STILL dealing with the backlog of email caused by trying...) and that you yourself said that setting up global default to use procmail is a standard thing to do with a MTA which supports it, I found a rough spot in exim--or at least Debian's package with the results of answers to my configuration questions. My suggestions for improving Debian's user-friendliness are for the most part finding the rough spots one at a time and polishing them so they aren't as likely to scratch a user who is expecting it to work as designed. That and getting rid of things like the install-mime everytime a multimedia program is upgraded.. =p However, you might note that when I suggested we do away with it, I suggested also what it could be replaced with. > Joseph> That's the majority of users. If we don't like the Wintel > Joseph> duopoly, we have to provide a viable alternative. > > I love the Wintel duopoly. It brings computation to the > masses. I may not like the OS, but I think wintel has indeed > transformed computing as we know it. Linux is not for everyone, and > that may well include people who have no time/motivation to learn. Motivation is not the issue. They have that or they'd tell me to take my Linux and shove it. However, the time they can't spare all at once. I didn't have a week to take out of my life and fiddle with it. I needed it to work from an end user standpoint in 24 hours. That meant ppp, email, ftp, http, a text editor I could use, and a clue how to share data with OS/2. Having used a Slowaris shell, that translated to: base install, sendmail since smail didn't work (MUCH thanks to netgod for getting that to work for me at ALL), pine, ncftp, a kernel with HPFS support, lynx, and lots of trial and error with bo's ppp setup. The kernel and ppp were the only hangups, and the kernel was explained quickly by reading the menuconfig help. hamm's ppp setup is such that I would have had it working first try after getting chat to behave itself. ppp was a rough spot that was polished with hamm. And if I need a truly idiotproof method of setting up ppp in hamm, there are tools to help with that. dwww has saved my feathers a few times as well---it reads just fine file formats I have no idea how to read (yet.) > I think we should really work on ease-of-use and > ease-of-management issues, and this is where a major improvement is > needed, but I do object to the goals set out here. And the goals do > make a difference. I think you misunderstood me. I'm not trying to cater to the person who likes to claim they can't find the power switch so sombody else will do the work for them. I'm talking about people who want something better than they have but can't afford to give up about 2 weeks to figure out everything from sendmail to the innards of NET-3 howto.. They need it to work well enough so they can use it without having to wade through mountains of obsolete documentation (if it's in print, it's obsolete) to learn the system well enough to have it tell them what they really want to know.
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