Re: In Praise of Dos (RE: Mutt & tmp files)
My Gnome/X/Debian GNU/Linux Desktop is much "slicker" than
anything I have ever been able to do with Windows. The Gnome
apps have a fairly consistent interface as well. There is a steeper and
longer learning curve to learn how to really use X and Unix, but I would
say that is an asset for members of the technocracy rather than a
drawback. I honestly don't know what you are talking about. Using
the NT box I am using now to post this message is sheer torture, but
I have to have one Windows desktop and support one Windows server
here at work. I would say the functionality of Linux is currently and
rapidly surpassing that of Microsoft OSes, and that perhaps you haven't
found or learned the right environment and apps. With Windows,
everthing gets set up and it works the way MS decrees it will. With
GNU/Linux, you have a huge number of choices. Part of becoming
a real user of open source is spending a lot of time evaluating different
enviroments and applications to figure out what it takes to make a
system really consistent and usable for you. Even if you pick some
things that aren't quite finished as part of your enviroment, if they
are part of an active project, they will be working much better soon.
Once I set up my box, my roomates (non-tech) can use it to surf the
web, read their email, write papers, browse newsgroups etc with a
fairly consistent and truly complete suite of free applications.
>>> Petro <petro@auctionwatch.com> 11/19/01 12:10PM >>>
On Mon, Nov 19, 2001 at 12:30:34AM -0800, Martin Christensen wrote:
> >>>>> "Petro" == Petro <petro@auctionwatch.com> writes:
> Petro> On Mon, Nov 19, 2001 at 10:24:05AM +0900, Howland, Curtis
> Petro> wrote:
> >> ps: From a personal perspective, I think Linux is about where
> >> Windows 3.0 was. This is not a troll, just a usability thing.
> Petro> No, it's about where win3.11 was in a lot of ways. Modulo
> Petro> the stability &&etc.
>
> I am just dying to find out why this is so. I find the unices I work
> with to be much more usable than any incarnation of Windows. So what
> exactly do you put into 'usability'?
Consistency of UI, availibility and integration of applications,
"slickness" of look and feel.
Under 3.1[1] applications had widely varying "look and feel", and
were not well integrated, nor was the windowing system well
integrated with the underlying OS (it didn't provide "proper"
abstraction of things like file-systems, processes etc.).
With Windows 95, Microsoft changed a lot of that. Not that they did
it *well* (the Win95 style interface gives me hives), but they
provided a fairly consistent (if awful) interface, and a good deal
of abstraction of the underlying hardware/OS.
Linux is still at the Win3.11 level in those regards.
Does this mean Linux isn't useable? Well, considering I've had at
least one Linux box running at home since late 1993/94 (and had it
installed on and off for about a year before that), I would have to
say it's perfectly usable for those inclined to learn, those who
have specific tasks it needs done. But I wouldn't put it on my
mother-in-laws computer, or my moms. Then again, I wouldn't give my
Mom a windows machine either (I gave her a Mac about 3/4 years ago,
and she hasn't bothered to plug it in yet).
I like Linux, I think it's a *good* OS, and it's coming along quite
nicely, but that doesn't mean I think it's easy to use. IMO, one of
the biggest problems Linux is facing in it's quest to take the
desktop is that (1) there are too many different groups working on
UI stuff, and (2) Most of them think that the Win95 LOOK is right,
but don't bother trying for the consistency.
Of course, my primary desk-top machine at home right now is a Mac
running OS X. Which has some UI issues as well.
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Share and Enjoy.
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