Re: Morons and illiterates [was Re: Fax programs! help please.]
On Wed, 15 Jan 1997, Rick Macdonald wrote:
> And I certainly don't know how I can flush the toilet and it manages to
> go _uphill_ to get out of my neighborhood.
No, but it probably took you a while to get potty-trained. Same with
learning to drive a car -- anything worth doing will require effort. You
don't have to know its internals, but it will require effort of you to use
any given tool. That was my point. Even if the car has an automatic
transmission, power everything and cute little icons on all the controls --
nothing will replace practice, patience and persistance.
> Although two people say above that Linux won't work for people who can't
> build their own system, I'm sure lots of people want to prove you wrong.
I didn't say that. I encourage people to learn and use Linux. In fact, I am
building a distribution based on Debian for writers and artists without much
computer experience. But people who can't _administer_ a system will need
someone who can. Is Caldera or any other group working on a product that
will make system administration unnecessary? If so, I would like to know
about it. An idea here is remote dial-in.
> To call non-nerd computer users morons, illiterate or even casual is
> ludicrous.
This is becoming an issue of semantics. There is a difference between the
terms "illiterate" and "computer illiterate." Maybe it is ludicrous to call
a "non-nerd" computer user a "moron," but it is fact that many people, when
using the term "computer illiterate," really _mean_ "moron."
> Personally, I vote for a simple, fool-proof, don't-have-to-read more than
> a couple-of-pages base installation, hopefully including X (tough, I know)
> base installation. This wins over a large base of Linux users.
Definitely.
Michael Stutz | DESIGN SCIENCE LABS
http://dsl.org/m | Hypermedia, Internet,
Linux/GNU bumper stickers,indie rock,rants | Linux: http://dsl.org
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