Re: [OT] Why does X need so much CPU power?

[csj <csj@zapo.net>]

At Thu, 04 Sep 2003 01:01:19 +0300,
Micha Feigin wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 2003-09-02 at 07:00, csj wrote:

> > Indesign, a program for Joe Public?!  Come on, how many Joe and
> > Jane Public's are there who would be interested in doing
> > high-quality layouts for outputs to color-separting film setters?
> > We don't need In-Design.  We need (gasp) M$ Publisher!
> 
> Thats quite true, most people have no use for 99% of what even
> the gimp can do, and those that need more don't have the rest
> of the options. A mac is probably a better solution for those,
> because if you do need photoshop you probably also need
> freehand/after effects/etc which don't exist at all under linux
> (and iirc not all of them also under M$ ) What Joe public needs
> is a striped down version of gimp thats easier to use with some
> nice scripts that create fancy web buttons, gif animations and
> such.

I don't know if a stripped down version of The Gimp exists.  But
I do know that there are already gimp scriptfu's for doing "fancy
web buttons" and the like.

> Linux need to change its public image and start coming
> pre-installed.  There is also the problem of too much
> options. Unlike M$ where people exactly what program does a
> given job, on linux there are 10, and when there are so many
> its actually sometimes harder finding the right one for you or
> even finding what programs there are to do a given job.  Too
> much choice can sometime be as much a liability as not enough
> (as much as I like the options).

I think you've stumbled on the fallacy that Linux is a system.
You probably need to qualify the first word of that paragraph to
"Linux distros".  Linux is just a kernel.  The rest of the OS are
parts cannibalized from projects that Linus has no control over,
indeed, might not even care for.  The problem for the non-geek
user is that most distros don't make a judgement call as to the
best of the best.  It's okay for me that I can use emacs to send
mail.  But maybe for the so-called "average user" ramming
Evolution down their throats isn't such a bad thing.