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A Babe in Tuxland
Joe Barr writes "This is the kind of story that WagEd and MS would love to see in one of their astroturf campaigns. But this story is real grassroots, with a real Sysadmin writing it and a real granddaughter as the babe using Linux. A sweet tale, with tips on Linux for kids." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
I don't know what kind of P1 you have, but it's been my experience that modern linux distros (Mandrake, SuSE, RedHat) run like crap on anything less than a p2-333.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Yes, this is warm and cute and cuddly and completely precious. It's also complete and utter bullshit. Not that I'm saying it's not true - I certainly assume that it is true in regards to the facts of the situation. Howver, the conclusions it tries to draw are completely unrelated to the facts. It's a snow job.
The basic interface between MS and Linux is essentially identical. It's point and click. There's only so much variation you can have. And yes, a child can learn to point and click on Linux just as well as they can Windows.
But when people say Linux is difficult, they don't mean that it's difficult to figure out how to start a program, how to type text into a dodcument, or how to log on to the system. They mean that it's difficult to configure a printer, to setup the network, to install the driver for that new wireless card, etc.
I've been using Linux for over ten years, and it has made tremendous strides. An average user can sit down and install Mandrake or SuSe or Red Hat without difficulty. They can fire up Open Office and type out a letter or open Mozilla and browse the web. They can do all of these things without difficulty - IF everything works right. The problem is that things don't always work right, and when they don't work right, getting them fixed is usually much more difficult on Linux than it is on Windows. That's what people mean when they say Linux is difficult to use, and four year old girls, no matter how cute and cuddly, do nothing to address that.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
y daughter uses both linux and windows 2000. I catch her boting into linux on a regular basis to do her homework on OO.o or just plain websurfing or games like frozen bubble..
I asked her what the difference is to her...
she said, "nothing. they are both almost identical I like the KDE stuff better as it's prettier" when I told her that lots of people have trouble using linux her answer was, " that is stupid, there is almost nothing different..." my answer to her is "lots of times, adults are very stupid."
remember that next time you deal with someone in Marketing whining that the color of her desktop is not what she wants or the new version of a app has a different icon or slightly different menu.
lots of times, adults are very stupid.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As someone who's done his fair share of windows admin work (10 years, 3000+ users and PC's), I can tell you that the same is VERY true of Windows. With the exception of device support, which is unparalleled in Windows, there are just as many times when the shit hits the fan, and there's no quick solution in Windows, as there is in Linux.
The problem is that things don't always work right, and when they don't work right, getting them fixed is usually much more difficult on Linux than it is on Windows.
I don't know... when I'm diagnosing a friends problem because "things don't work right" in windows, maybe a quarter to a half of the time I end up with "time to reinstall"... The WORST I have in linux is "you compiled your kernel wrong".
I think I'd rather debug a freak linux problem than a freak windows problem any day.
That said, my problems with linux come from when you want to do something relatively simple (printer sharing comes to mind) and it becomes exceedingly difficult because there is no clear, concise documented method to get it done. (Note that I found a document that WASN'T the standard HOWTO that walked me through this recently, so I'm not saying that this particular problem is intractable)
Pax -- Ob