Re: Please, help Linus install Debian!
hi!
I don't think Debian is user-unfriendly. My former favorit disto was SuSE - I
sticked with it from the first days till 10.1. The reason why I quit using it
was the "user friendly" way it worked. Some people called it "Nünberger
Windows" :-)
Form my point of view the main problem is that the distributions are not
culture-neutral. I dont think that Windows is in any way culture neutral.
But most pupils in the 1. world are grown with the prejudice that the Windows
way is the only way - and are somewhat upset that there is an other way of
computing. I'd say the effect is like walking through your backdoor and
suddenly you find yourself in Shanghai. No question, you can make a good
living there, but most people don't expect it. And even less want to take
their bags and move that road - it's just so cosy back home, despite the dog
next door and the neighbours, the taxes ... you name it.
I think the battle will be won or lost in the classes, where the next
generation users are grown. Get them used to Linux, and they'll take it for
natural. Get them used to Windows, and they'll take that for god given.
That's the place where the battle is won - and thats why things like
skolelinux or olpc are so important.
And if you belief it or not, your operating system carries an ideology. In
this case "consume" versus "think" ... I vote for the "think" part ;-)
Greetings,
Nikolaus Klepp
The cultural differnces between Windows and Unix is like migrating from from
japan to europa.
Am Mittwoch, 25. Juli 2007 22:50 schrieb Gilles Pelletier:
> Le 24 Juillet 2007 15:23, Martin Steigerwald a écrit :
> > Am Dienstag 24 Juli 2007 schrieb Gilles Pelletier:
> > > So, it seems Linus has the same problem as me(1): I'm sure he
> > > could install Debian, but he just doesn't want to get through the
> > > hassle.
> >
> > Hi Gilles,
> >
> > What hassle exactly?
>
> Didn't you read the reference I gave:
>
> <http://lists.debian.org/debian-knoppix/2007/07/msg00000.html>
> from: "I treid Etch, recently, and it was too many headaches."
>
> And things most probably get worst as you install servers and all the
> paraphernalia.
>
> It's not that it's impossible to install, it's just that the user is
> never taken into consideration. It just seems you need a part of of
> inborn knowledge. It's not made with the tender loving that tender
> loving care Shane Geiger refers to about Knoppix. It's still a distro
> whose nonsense would get most newbies infuriated.
>
> In terms of user-friendliness, a simple beginners distro such as
> PCLinuxOS is light-years ahead of Debian. (Save for the partitioning
> tool which is really crappy, though. Too bad they didn't use
> GParted.) It seems those guys have checked how beginners manage to
> install their distro. Debian certainly never tried this. Hence, all
> the nonsense.
>
> My point, and Linus' point, apparently, is that distros must be
> user-friendly. If you don't want the help of all the tools provided,
> you can still do everything by hand, but the point of putting out a
> distro should be to make it most usable.
>
> That's all. Otherwise, yes, you can "manage" to install Debian.
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