Re: Emacs - was Re: Mail/news software
Pat Mahoney wrote:
> Linux[1] is much more difficult (to learn anyway) yet much more powerful than,
> say, windows. The Windows philosophy is: "don't think, everything should be
> easy." With linux, you must think. The windows philosophy seems to rub off
> onto the rest of one's life (or maybe it's the other way around). Some
> people don't like to think, and windows encourages this.
I´ve been having *strong* arguments with my sister about that issue. My
sister is using her computer only for her business studies, which
includes tasks like word processing, spread sheets, and browsing the web
for information. Whenever her Windows machine breaks, she calls me for
help. Often her Windows machine breaks, because she changed some
settings in the control panel, and forgot where it was.
So I offered her to install GNU/Linux on her machine and set it up for
every tasks she wants to do.
She wants a desktop? KDE. Word processing? Lyx. Web/E-Mail/News?
Netscape. If she runs into a problem, she can give me a call. If,
however, she makes some changes with root priviledges (say editing
/etc/inittab), she´s on her own.
Well, she periodically declines that offer, stating, that "If I´m going
to install Linux on my machine, I want to know how it works and be able
to fix things myself." Yet she will say, that she doesn´t have an
interest in system adminstration and programming or whatsoever. So, I
answer something like: "Well, you have a drivers license and a car.
Yet, when the engine breaks down, you won´t look under the hood
yourself, you take the car to a mechanic instead." She´ll answer: "But,
if I want to change the seat pads, I´ll do it myself. And I´ll go:
"Yeah, you can change the background color in KDE."
So, my question is: Why does GNU/Linux have to imply
"think"-philosophy? For my sister the "Don´t think, everything should
be easy"-philosophy would be much better. And it´s perfectly doable,
with software that is available today. She´s gonna call me anyhow, when
she has problems. With GNU/Linux it just wouldn´t happen that often
however.
MfG Viktor
--
Viktor Rosenfeld
E-Mail: mailto:rosenfel@informatik.hu-berlin.de
HertzSCHLAG: http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~rosenfel/hs/
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