I did my very first ever Linux install (as complete Linux newbie and with very little general Unix experience) off a Slackware 3.0 CD. The only problem I had was that I didn't have room for all the stuff I wanted to install (only had a 120M disk). Other than that, I got the machine up and running without a hitch, and I haven't looked back since.
With some minor level of basic computer knowledge, any Linux install I've ever been through is easier and far less time consuming than an Win95 install. And, truth be told, I prefer the UI of the Slackware install scripts to the Red Hat ones.
Well, say you're writing a program with a web-based interface. A CD-player, say, so you can control the playing of audio CDs through the CD-ROM with your web browser. So you spend a lot of time messing with tables and colors and such to make it not only functional, but pretty. Then you decide that you want to add a pull-down list so you can select a song to play from those on the CD. And the pull-down widget is black text on a white background, with a black-on-grey pull-down widget button. And it clashes horrendously with the green-on-black and dark grey you've used for the rest of your interface. Short of writing a Java program so you can mess with the interface any way you want, what are you supposed to do?
You customize the widgets, of course. Except, as things stand, you can't...
This isn't at all a hypothetical situation. The machine with the CD player on it is in pieces at the moment, but if you want to look at it, there's a screenshot of my desktop with it running on fvwm.themes.org, under circuit-theme. Then just imagine how sucky it would look with a standardized widget sitting in the middle of that display...
I didn't read that comment as Microsoft-bashing. It seemed to me that the guy was saying that he didn't really see any downsides to free source, and if you wanted to hear about downsides, you should go talk to Microsoft... they'd point out plenty of FUD^H^H^Hdownsides for you.
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I did my very first ever Linux install (as complete Linux newbie and with very little general Unix experience) off a Slackware 3.0 CD. The only problem I had was that I didn't have room for all the stuff I wanted to install (only had a 120M disk). Other than that, I got the machine up and running without a hitch, and I haven't looked back since.
With some minor level of basic computer knowledge, any Linux install I've ever been through is easier and far less time consuming than an Win95 install. And, truth be told, I prefer the UI of the Slackware install scripts to the Red Hat ones.
They've probably just been using their own buggy software to keep track of their finances... :)
Well, say you're writing a program with a web-based interface. A CD-player, say, so you can control the playing of audio CDs through the CD-ROM with your web browser. So you spend a lot of time messing with tables and colors and such to make it not only functional, but pretty. Then you decide that you want to add a pull-down list so you can select a song to play from those on the CD. And the pull-down widget is black text on a white background, with a black-on-grey pull-down widget button. And it clashes horrendously with the green-on-black and dark grey you've used for the rest of your interface. Short of writing a Java program so you can mess with the interface any way you want, what are you supposed to do?
You customize the widgets, of course. Except, as things stand, you can't...
This isn't at all a hypothetical situation. The machine with the CD player on it is in pieces at the moment, but if you want to look at it, there's a screenshot of my desktop with it running on fvwm.themes.org, under circuit-theme. Then just imagine how sucky it would look with a standardized widget sitting in the middle of that display...
I didn't read that comment as Microsoft-bashing. It seemed to me that the guy was saying that he didn't really see any downsides to free source, and if you wanted to hear about downsides, you should go talk to Microsoft... they'd point out plenty of FUD^H^H^Hdownsides for you.
Try the mirrors. ftp.(country code).kernel.org. They work great.