I hope I'm not speaking out of place, I'm a long time user first time poster, recent subscriber. Id like to point out that there's a very good reason Linux and debian are so popular. For many people, there is no choice. Unix is and has been the industrial standard for a long long time. Debian as the most popular Linux among programmers has become the most user friendly, and easy to maintain Linux. It doesn't take a spock from star trek to see why so many people use it. Forgive me for generalizing but it seems to me like most of the complaints in a recent review of debian fell into two categories. First, concerns for the user , and second, differences from windows. As for the user, Unix, and Linux were made by and for programmers and the reason it has become so easy to use and robust, is because many of the people who use it, when they see something wrong, they fix it. Debian, has become the most popular Linux because more good programmers use it. In order to maintain that edge over other Linux it must continue to cater to, and attract good programmers. I'm not saying that its for experienced users because it doesn't take a lot of experience to make a bash script, it doesn't take any experience at all to test run an installation system. A wide range of people with different skill levels can be useful. However if someone who can barely write a bash script tries to make changes to things they don't understand they can end up having bad changes slip by quality control and cause trouble. This problem is solved in the commercial world by teaching windows first so by the time a student learns about Unix they already have some discipline and some c like programming classes. I may be wrong about this but it seems to me the same problem is solved in the open source community by not making the operating system friendly to the very lowest skill level. This way people who are just beginning have to get assistance from a live human being, usually someone they know or people on an irc channel. People don't like to help people who act like they know everything, so generally in order for beginners to learn what they need to know to continue learning, they need to display a certain level of humility, in order to induce other people to help them. In other words if things were too easy for users they would try to become programmers before they are ready, and although there is a quality control mechanism to deal with exactly that situation, its all volunteer and so, reducing the strain on it is good. As for the differences with windows, it would be a mistake to use windows as a standard. Windows was originally meant to look like x so that people would believe they were getting an industrial tool like x. It focused on the way it looked and neglected the way it ran programs. Some things that windows does may seem like the right way to do things because you learned windows first but believe me, the differences are different for a reason, and trying to do things the windows way would make doing them the Unix way less efficient. Furthermore, Microsoft is aggressively against Linux. Any standard Linus matches Microsoft will change, they have proven that again and again. So following Microsoft standards is not only technologically retarded but administratively costly. In conclusion the person who wrote the review seemed like a smart fellow, maybe a little too smart, and should perhaps apply some of that intelligence towards considering how phenomenally popular debian has become, and why, before taking too strong a stance regarding its suitability for people who may or may not be quite like himself. Rich Graham ---------------------------------- E-Mail: rich59123@attbi.com Date: 05-Mar-2003 Time: 06:46:05 Switching to windows if you are used to Unix is a lot harder than switching to Unix if you are used to windows. This message was sent by XFMail ----------------------------------
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