RE: larry

["Peter Cole" <peter.c@data-care.com.au>]

Ever tried Ubuntu?

I'm using it on my AMD64 system at the moment, although only the 32 bit version and I'm pretty happy with it.

I have Sarge on my laptop and my mail server, which I'm also happy with, but it was a nice change to just install Ubuntu and let it do its thing without too many hassles at all.

It's still really Debian underneath, so I'm happy :-)


-----------------------

Peter Cole

-----Original Message-----
From: Jörg Harmuth [mailto:harmuth@harmuth-sc.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, 2 March 2005 6:38 PM
To: debian-testing@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: larry

Hi all,

this is an interesting mail. It remembers me that I needed about 6 installs to get a working potato. That was because I didn't read the manual that came with my CDs. And this was because I was a "great SuSE professional" at that time :) Really funny, seen from today.

For me, this raises the question how far to go towards a "Desktop System". If you are a - let's say - "normal Billy Boy" user, you most probably will fail to install Debian (but you probably will succeed in installing SuSE). Of course you are unfamiliar with Unix concepts in this case and thus cannot understand what's going on while you are installing Debian. So - like always - you will do everything wrong, that's possible and that's frustrating. Many people will give up at this point (of course they could read the manual, the How-To's and so on, but most will not do so), but - ok - some will survive.

For people insterested in technology and the underlying concepts - like me - this is a challenge and fun. But what about all the people (the majority, IMHO more than 80% of all users) who only want to *use* the system and don't want to deal with technical details ? In my eyes that's the reason why there is such a small number of people coming to some Unix flavour (besides games - my children would kill me, if I had no Win installed and they couldn't play their games ;) -, document formats (solved in most cases) and so on).

Don't take it as my opinion - it's only the mainstream opinion as far as I know people, including "professionals". Everyone knows that Debian is great for servers. Everyone knows, that Debian is very hard. Everyone knows, that Debian is nothing for daily use on the desktop. Nobody wants to have a system, that he/she can't configure.

You can't make all the people professionals, simply because they are not interested in technical stuff. So - IMHO - the only solution would be, to create something like SuSE. A nice GUI by default (hmm, one should be able to choose wether GUI or not :)), giving newcomers and not interested people the feeling to be the master of the system and making everything as simple as possible. That's Bill - right ? And it's work without end. But it's the only way I can see (please correct me), to have more people use Debian (or some other Unix flavour).

I think, this is quite a dilemma.

Have a nice time

Jörg

Thierry Chatelet schrieb:

> Mr Mike wrote:
>
>> On Monday 28 February 2005 01:57 pm, David Pastern wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> On Mon, 2005-02-28 at 22:54 +1100, Michael Stone wrote:
>>>   
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Feb 27, 2005 at 04:13:30PM +0100, David Schmitt wrote:
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>> Yes and exactly that is the point why debian-installer rules, and 
>>>>> the windows installer sucks.
>>>>>       
>>>>
>>>> Yes and no. Take the new partitioner, for example. Yes, it lets you 
>>>> do more than the old partitioner, but if you think it's intuitive 
>>>> you're nuts. And not only is it not intuitive, it's different than 
>>>> anything anyone's used to partition things in debian before. So 
>>>> while it's more friendly for new users, it's like a martian to an 
>>>> experienced user who's comfortable with fdisk.
>>>>
>>>> Mike Stone
>>>>     
>>>
>>> So new is bad?  Different is bad?  It's the same old rhetoric that 
>>> the Catholic Church has been spreading for the past thousand years.  
>>> If it conforms from the norm, it's bad.  It's wrong.  Baloney.
>>>
>>> As much as I liked the old installer, there needed to be 
>>> improvements to be made, there were too many areas where it was 
>>> weak.  You can argue to the cows come home, but the fact that Debian 
>>> senior developers decided that the installer was updated says a lot 
>>> I think.  And if you hear the number of people happy and impressed 
>>> with the new sarge installer, then all is good.  Why should 90% of 
>>> the users be unhappy to satisfy the 10% that don't want to change?
>>>
>>>   
>>
>>
>> Absolutely Dave...  if that small minority had it's way, linux would 
>> still be a programmers toy on and old PDP11 in the back room of some 
>> university IT department.  There would be a million software 
>> development tools available but not a single usefull application 
>> using any of them...  My hat is off to all those 'progressive' linux 
>> folks that worked so long and hard to bring linux to where it is 
>> today...
>>  
>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>> Proud Libranet GNU/Linux user
>>> Libranet The TOP Libranet distribution http://www.libranet.com/ 
>>> Download your free trial of Libranet 2.8.1 today!
>>>   
>>
>>
>>  
>>
> I am following this thread with interest. I am a newcomer to Linux 
> Debian word, and I wish to give you my experience while it is still 
> fresh in my memory. (that was early last December)
> How I came to look for Linux:
> Lack of security from Microsoft products
> Dephi 2005 was not any longer allowing building cross platform 
> applications, even there help was becoming Bill Gate's type: you don't 
> have to know how or why, use it the way we have decided was best for you.
>
> So I went to Linux home page, read a beat, and decided for Debian.
> I made some room on the hard drive, downloaded files so I thought I 
> would boot from floppies  (I did not have a CD burner at that time)  
> and tried .. and tried and failed. After some more reading I discover 
> that there was a bug somewhere, and you could not, using a DOS system, 
> start install of a BF24 kernel, which I needed to install usb plug to 
> connect to internet.
> So I learned how to make bin boot floppies. But this did not work 
> better. I still could not connect to the net.
> Then I decided to make a FAT32 partition on my hard drive, put a 
> complete debian disk 1 there and see...
> So I managed to get my first working debian machine... without 
> internet... and no way to get it to work. Finally, after a few 
> re-install, I must have selected something that made it connect to the 
> web. And I got my second Debian machine... And I liked it. But I had 
> to have it to work with a WIFI card, as I could not let those wires 
> run thru the leaving room and the stair case much longer. My wife has 
> supported my business on the computer (She hates Bill..) but those 
> wires were too much.
>
> So the solution was Ndiswrapper... which at that point you had to 
> compile with the kernel, I think..
> So I compiled a new kernel, it went well... except I lost even my usb 
> connection to internet. Fair enough, I do not even know how I got it 
> at first.
> Well as you may have understood, I am rather opiniatred, and a few 
> days latter it was working, and Ndiswrapper as well. But not to a 
> point I would get ride of XP.  Now I have a CD burner, but to burn a 
> CD.. was something else.
> By now we are about mid January..
>
> Then I did a xp install for a friend of mine, showed him my Debian box 
> and he asked me to put one on his machine. I said yes (must be a good 
> friend...) and to my surprise, with the new debootstrapp, it went like 
> a charm. So well that I decided to re-install my machine.
>
> Of course, it was a bit like microsoft products, lots of staff you 
> don't need, but it was doing so much more than my previous machine.
> So here we go again, new install of a 2.6.8 kernel. Then I compile a 
> 2.6.10 kernel, got ride of the unnecessary staff, I found it easier 
> than to look for staff you don't know about, and it was working so to 
> what I wanted that a got rid of XP. Now I have a pure Debian box.
>
> But I am not sure you can expect so much work from regular PC users... 
> Even my friends which had a completely installed box ( I tried to 
> convince more people..) asked me to remove it, as they were panicked 
> when they had to enter a few lines on a console, even when I was 
> telling them what to do over the phone.
>
> So, even with the good job done about the install process, to have a 
> Debian system, one still needs to have a system administrator...
>
> May all this help your thinking for the future of Debian.
> Thierry
>
>
>
>