SlashNET Forum with Marcel Gagne

weebl writes "SlashNET is pleased to announce an upcoming forum with Marcel Gagne. He writes the 'Cooking with Linux' column every month for Linux Journal magazine. His first book was the acclaimed Linux System Administration: A User's Guide. Recently he wrote a book called Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!, which is intended for consumer desktop users who are curious about Linux and want to give it a test run. The forum will be held on Monday February 23, 2004 at 8PM US Eastern Standard Time (-0500). As usual, the forum will be held in #forum. You will be able to submit questions both before and during the forum which will be used to guide the discussion."

Comments

installation screen of torture?

[freerecords]

no... you obviously haven't had a go at installing any of the "user friendly" distros anytime in the last oooo ummm 4 years? Redhat/Fedora has a great installer which is so easy to use.. but by far the winner has to be Mandrake whose isntallation makes Windows look like Slackware 4.0.. Linux is ready for the desktop - the desktop just isn't ready for linux.

The Blue Screen of Death

[FreakOfTheWeek]

I honestly don't remember the last time that I or anyone I know had a blue screen of death with windows 2000 or windows XP. It's time to stop complaining about the stability of windows.

There are plenty of other things to focus on (for example: security, closed standards, cost, etc.)

I am not saying that the current windows operating systems are the pinnacle of stability, but for most purposes, they are definitely good enough.

Book is good...

[neiffer]

"Linux System Administration: A User's Guide" was one of my first Linux books. It was fairly informative and very easy to read. Now, mind you, I'm still addicted to Windows, but I thought that he had a very realistic slant on the strengths and weaknesses of various Linux options.

Have you tried Mandrake?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandrake is absolutely THE easiest to install, and works on almost all platforms (Laptop compatibility rocks!). Give it a roll!

Please!

[msimm]

Make him stop using the CORNY FRENCH shtick. It make interesting articles unbearable. French is a beautiful language, but Marcel's French waiter doesn't belong in my firewall configuration article.

What people should say to interested users...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of windows is that with linux, you actually can figure out what went wrong, when something goes wrong. You have extensive logs, all the configs are right there in front of you.

I hate windows now, after using linux. Windows is like the stereotypical woman. You never know what's really wrong with it, and you have to keep on trying different fiddling games. Then suddenly, it will start working fine again.

I do NOT want something that is as mystical and mysterious as windows when I need to get something done. Thank god I've got linux, which just works (And if it doesn't, I can figure out why it doesn't...)

All metaphors aside, I still think the registry and drivers system of windows (especially XP) is one of the most mysterious and confusing arrangements I've ever seen.

Mon ennemi

[g1zmo]

Is he going to keep up the annoying French persona, having his stuffed penguin fetch obscure bottles of wine for the readers? It's a failed bit, in my opinion.

Will the new book INCLUDE a distribution?

[VernonNemitz]

I see some commentary about the difficulty of installing Linux. If this book is for the average Windows user, then it needs to include some Linux distro that is practically guaranteed to install with no hassle (or at least no hassles not described in the book!).
If THAT can be accomplished, then Microsoft can start kissing itself goodbye.