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GA-Source editorial on Linux
mediageek writes "Targeted at non Linux users, James Hills has written an
editorial which tries to explain open source, why there are different distros and general Linux pros & cons.
" This is a good one to pass on to your bosses/parents/friends - heck, all of the unwashed. *grin*
A recent Mindcraft study has shown that bicycles are faster than cars. The tests benchmarked the distance traveled by the vehicles over a period of five seconds. The bicycles traveled an average distance of 25.7 feet while the cars traveled an average distance of 0.0 feet. Critics of this survey have pointed out that the drivers of the cars did not have enough time to unlock the doors, get in, and turn the car on. Mindcraft has refuted this argument by pointing out that the drivers of the bicycles had no problems opening the doors and turning them on. Critics then responded by pointing out that bicycles don't have doors and don't need to be turned on. Mindcraft responded to this by saying "hey, what's that over there" and then running away.
The proper "gender-nonspecific" form for a singular person is he/him/his.
Not to be nitpicky, but the rules have changed. The spec now to switch alternately between he/him/his and she/her/hers, or better yet avoid these contructs as much as possible.
(At least when I went to college in the early 90s, using he/him/his exclusively would incure the wrath of those handing out the grades!)
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
"Information Technology" to me sounds like a meaningless buzzword..
Har. Wait until you get a job. Virtually every corporation has a "Information Technology" or a "Management Information Systems" or in sillier places, even a "Client-Server Integration" department. In short it's the folks who run the computers.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I dont remember who said it, but I just love this quote:
"The only truly intuitive user interface is the nipple. Everything else has to be learned."
In my opinion, no. Quite the opposite.
I think that people who have used both the Windows command line (i.e. MS-DOS) and a Unix shell will find the Unix shell easier to use, particularly if they use a featureful shell such as zsh. Shells like zsh can do a lot for you once you've learned how to use them. By contrast, MS-DOS is dumb and seems to go out of its way to be a hindrance.
Exactly. GUI advocates don't have anything against the Unix command line in particular, but command lines in general. Some GUI advocates single out Unix/Linux in particular because they see it, rightly or wrongly, as primarily a command line driven OS.
My opinion? Have a system with both a powerul GUI and a featureful shell interface, so you can use the right tool for the right job.
for the great unwashed that is. While I am able to get, let's say an ATAPI cdwriter working, it took me several hours of fiddling with kernel options and reading doco to do it. When I look at non-computer people using their PCs, I know they would have no hope.
This isn't totally Linux's fault. Hardware manufacturers work hard to make their devices easy to install. But some work could definitely be done in the kernel config/hardware config department. There are some things that I know should work that not even I can get working (for example, some devices I can't get working as a module but I can when built into the kernel). The whole module config area is too hard right now.
I'm tired of hearing people complain that Linux is too difficult to learn! I mean, COME ON! I'm just 15 years old and a few months ago I downloaded and installed Debian and got it running, got X working, Netscape, Quake, learned Emacs, and the basics of copying files, editing .conf files, etc. Then I was told Debian is ADVANCED! Sure I had to re-compile the Kernel a dozen times to get sound and stuff working, but I sure learned alot more than I would in Windows!
I can also remember reading another Linux article where the author said he started getting confused about having to create partitions and wondering, "Why do I have to do this?". These people with their pre-installed Windows don't realize if you ever get a new hard drive you (probably) have/want to partition it and then install Windows.
20 years ago the Xerox PARC created the whole concept of Graphical User Interface. They did this, not as some would have you think, to make computers easier to use. NO! Their purpose was to make computers easier to learn. It's all about learning curve, not long-term usability.
Of course Linux/UNIX (and suchlike) are hard to learn. They aren't designed to be easy to learn. They are, however, designed to be easy to use. Small single-function programs that can be combined to produce effects both gross and subtle offer a system with tremendous expressive power and expressive power is what defines "ease of use".
From my perspective, there really is no way to get around the learning curve. Computers are complex devices and, while you can spend most of your life avoiding the places where they are most complex, sometimes it becomes necessary to make acquaintance with the beast. The only solution that I see is to move most people to the so-called "information appliances" which trade capability for simplicity.
That, and you need to stop mucking about with the interface. It's best to only climb the learning curve once.
For the average user, a bicycle is perfect for small load, short haul tasks. But for users with more demanding needs, the multi-user, multi-tasking car may be a better bet. Bikes may be flashier and zippier in most single user tasks, but cannot easily scale beyond two wheels and one user.
The venerable cars and trucks of this world still dominate the heavier tasks. Cars aren't even available with less than a 2 user license and four active wheels. Trucks are even known to scale up to 18 wheels or even larger with the load shared evenly by all wheels. Hybrid vehicles called buses are known to handle up to 60 concurrent users with no effect on overall performance.
It still amuses car and truck drivers that the bicycle oriented press even thought the time of cars and trucks was over and bikes would soon be handling all aspects of transport, even at the enterprise level. 6 years after the introduction of Bike-NT (a motorcycle), cars, buses and trucks still do the vast majority of real transport.
After all, as we've learned time and again. Bike-NT and all bikes have a much higher risk of fatal crashes.
-M
This was exactly the sort of article I've been meaning to write for quite some time.
...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
As a user of a well know, linux-centric BBS ( FIX), I've become more and more aware of the benefits associated with running a Linux system.
I finally "bit the bullet" and installed RH5.2 - This was my first real experience of Linux other than a shell account (or 10!). I wouldn't say it was a disaster, but it wasn't a success. The installation required a phone call to a techie friend (about partitions) and my on-board sound wasn't supported, neither is the ancient SB16(clone). Oh, and even the cheapo S3DX wasn't quite setup properly.
But these weren't the problem. I instantly took to Window Maker over the other supplied Gooeys - but it wasn't configured, I needed to (and still do) configure the main menu, to display the programs that were installed upon installation. Very annoying, Win3.1 does it better! So, I switched to AfterStep, but find it a bit "fiddly" or "awkward". The documentation is not entirley comprehensive, or it's so poorly organised I can't find it. It's also aimed at experts, people who already understand most things - it's little use to me.
Anyway... after a while playing with GIMP, I realised there was nothing I really needed on my new Linux box. On my Win box, I have all the tools I need as a webdeveloper and IT Student (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Word, Apache, PHP etc) - basically, it does everything I ask of it, and it's pretty stable, despite what the general view of '95 is. Maybe this is because I use 95C (the final release), but it's fine for my needs.
I'm looking at the SUsE dist' as it looks more suited to me (and comes with KDE), but I'm considering waiting for the Corel release - it looks like it's going to be a whole lot more intuitive and generally "user-friendly" than anything currently on offer.
Bear in mind that I'm an IT student, so I'm fairly technically minded - with this in mind, how does the Linux community really hope to win over "John in Accounts" or "Sally in Admin"? If "Paul in IT" has problems...
I support a worthy cause, and Linux, OpenSource et al is just that... when are you gonna support me?
Mong.
* Paul Madley
*...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Remember: Nothing is Cool.