Re: "Red Hat recommends Windows for consumers"
On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, ScruLoose wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 05:27:11PM -0700, Monique Y. Herman wrote:
> >
> > See my post in another thread. Different people have different visions
> > for the future of linux. Not all of us care whether or not it becomes a
> > desktop leader. Not all of us want it to be easy enough to use that our
> > moms are comfortable -- not if that means sacrificing security,
> > stability, or our beloved command line and text configuration files.
>
> That's a very good point.
> I'd like to add that Linux can already be easy enough to _use_ to make
> Mom comfortable (plunk your average end-user down with pre-installed
> KDE3, OO.o and Mozilla; I expect she'll be perfectly happy) , it's just
> not that easy to _administer_.
>
> I wonder if there's a future of full-time freelance sysadmins keeping
> whole neighborhoods worth of end-users' home systems up-to-date
> remotely. Like plumbers, but for your PC...
> (well, you can't un-clog a toilet over ssh, but you see what I mean)
>
> Seems to me that if an end-user (like Mom, for example) wants an easy,
> secure, stable experience with a Linux box, she needs someone (friend,
> family, paid help) to do the sysadmin maintenance stuff for her.
> Of course, if she wants an equally good experience with a Windows
> machine, she needs the same 'someone' to format it, install a working
> OS, and *then* do the sysadmin maintenance stuff.
True. But after having installed Windows once to a machine, do they
have really that much sys admin maintenance stuff to do as I have on
Linux? I'm running Debian on a powerpc, and after months of work on
it, there are still things here that are not working, or things that
have to be set up to work smoothly.
On the other hand: I'd guess it's a problem for people (including
myself) if they can't be sure the web cam, or whatever, that they
bought might not work on Linux. Which, AFAIKS, often wouldn't be the
mistake of the Linux developers. But such a situation could become a
problem.
>
> We're all here because we know that Windows achieves "easy" at the
> expense of being hopelessly insecure and often broken. Maybe it's time
> to start offering another choice to people who are fed up with Windows
> but not ready to install/configure/admin a *nix machine.
I don't know too much about Windoze anymore: I read about the security
problems that this OS, as it seems, still has. But is Windows still
that broken as it, as it seems, was about 3 or 4 years ago on W98, at
least on my machine: I was using W98 then, and *one* reason I later
moved to Linux, IIRC, was that I simply was fed up with the blue
screens on that system happening there about once a week or so.
OTOH: Yesterday I was told by Linux folks that the sound problems on
Linux that I have from time to time might need a simple restart of the
system. Which was a surprise for me as I thought this sort of "fix"
is something I had left behind after moving to Linux ...
I don't think I'd ever go back to Windows, given my interest in the
command line, the way Linux is working, etc.
But I can clearly understand users who are not at all interested
in Computer-ville. Users seeing a computer simply as a tool, like a
refrigerator, which has to work. Users not being interested at all in
spending weeks/months of time to simply get a computer running the
apps they want to run.
So, yes: It seems it makes some sense what the RedHat chief executive
said.
Best Regards,
Wolfgang
>
> Paying the occasional "sysadmin bill" might well come out to less than
> what these people spend on the software itself now.
>
> Cheers!
>
--
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