They're cheap, light, and draw very little power. All good things, depending on what you are using it for.
We got my sister an MSI Wind for Christmas. It works great for what she uses it for - communication, school papers, web browsing, occasional movies or music, and that's about it. She can take it anywhere quite easily (it's small and light), it a while even with the included 3 cell battery, etc. And, frankly, while I don't particularly care, it is pretty nice looking ("cute" if you're female...). Probably most slashdot people that don't use Macs don't particularly care about how it looks, but a lot of people do... and when you can have something that looks cool (or cute) for pretty cheap (read: not spending $2500 for an Apple...), that's a big plus.
And smaller is all the rage right now. Unless you're watching a lot of movies or doing a lot of heavy application stuff, netbook sseem to be pretty useful, small, convenient, etc.
Agreed. Somehow, not-copyrighting your inventions before they are actually manufactured (IP?) will protect against those awful corporations that can do anything with their money. Because that way, you, without any money, can eventually manufacture it and finally copyright it, while the corporation that could manufacture it in 2 months and start selling it sits idly back, scared of taking your uncopyrighted non-intellectual-property un-manufactured invention from you...
[/sarcasm, if you couldn't tell]
The situation isn't good, but goodness, if there weren't ANY copyrights on non-implemented ideas, the idea of private "inventors" would be over; corporations could be in the business of stealing (only it wouldn't be stealing) ideas. We'd end up back in the hide-your-plans-under-your-pillow-for-secrecy days I guess... whenever those days were, that is.:)
Uh... Ubuntu, openSuSE, Fedora, etc., don't exactly run too well on 256mb RAM either. Yeah, Xubuntu is ok and there are distros like PuppyLinux, TinyME, gOS, etc., but XP will run on 256mb, too. It IS pretty user-friendly low-spec in comparison to most modern OS's. Try running OS X on 256mb ram?:)
Not to defend Vista, but let's be fair to XP/Vista at least. Last time I installed SLES 10.2, the recommended RAM was around 768MB ram.
But we're talking about switching from Windows to Linux on the same PC, I think. BUYING a Linux PC, I would hope that it has been set up to play DVDs, media, hardware works, video works, etc. If not, that OEM has some major issues. But "switching" to Linux is different, isn't it?
I generally agree that it's not hard and Linux is "easy," but there's a LOT of different kinds of people. Some of them don't know what a "file" is. And still use a computer.
If Linux were the the only OS in the mass market, people would be doing wonderfully, just like in the 80s when MS-DOS was king.
Oh? Then why did Windows (and Mac) even happen? I'm sure Bill Gates, with his immense college-dropout fortune and huge influence, illegally monopolized OEM's to ship Windows 2.0 and 3.1 instead of DOS. Yeah. Or maybe, just maybe, DOS wasn't enough, and Linux/UNIX didn't go fast enough for the average consumer on the user-friendly side of things.
I remember the 80s, but I was born in them. My parents remember the 80s; they used typewriters in them. Computers were expensive, remember? Typewriters were, too, but they were pretty easy to use.
It's not a strange phenomenon. People used typewriters for a long time after the computer; people used cassette tapes for a long time after CDs; people used VHS cassettes for a long time after DVDs; people are using DVDs for a long time after blu-ray.
So, either we admit Linux is not for everyone and Windows has its place and then carry on a good discussion about merits of each, ease of use, etc., or we are arrogant twerps that think everybody should be used to what we're used to...
Hmm, I want a media player.
So I start Synaptic, hit "search", type "media player", select one or more and then install it.
And then I put in a DVD, and get an error saying it can't read the disc.
Depending on the distro, it may or not tell you it's due to encryption and legal issues and libdvdcss is necessary. Depending on how you install libdvdcss, it may not work. Normal users are not interested in spending an hour or more trying to figure out how to play a DVD player. "Why doesn't it work, all I have to do is put it in the drive on my other computer and it asks me if I want to play it!"
Admittedly, it's a setup issue. Still, it's there.
Interesting point... basically, when you're using a GUI, you have a limited set of options (to "remember" or even to intuitively figure out which one you need to push). On the command line, there's a more or less unlimited set of options and no immediate helpful visual stimulus. Typing the first few letters that you seem to remember and pushing tab doesn't always work...
In different reply to someone else I mentioned I should not have used only lazy... lazy OR busy. My mistake.
it is hard to beat the OS X concept of a drag-and-drop application-bundle for ease of use.
Unless you are totally not used to that. I can say, with assurance, that no one in my family (having not really ever used a Mac) would find that intuitive. Why? Because they are all used to Windows and thus used to "installing." (which, by the way, seems to fit more with Linux than OS X in terms of familiarity to Windows).
I actually know nothing about Zune, hence ignoring the example I guess...:)
"Whatever their filebrowser is." That's another issue. In Ubuntu, I'm actually not sure what it is, and I've been using Ubuntu. Offhand, in the GUI, I'm not sure how to get to a file browser actually, ha, hum. I think there's a "Places" menu at the top in Gnome... ?
But yes, depending on how their Linux box is set up, it'd probably work. But now we're back to a distro-specific issue. Konqueror? Dolphin? Whatever Gnome's is (I think Epiphany, but I don't remember)? Whatever enlightenment's is? Now we need distro-specific tutorials for newbies, I guess. which is something I've been advocating on slashdot when the topic comes up, but haven't done anything about it yet, hehe.
Most people don't use OS X yet. OS X has... uh, pretty good documentation. OS X is owned by Apple, maintained by Apple, purchased from Apple, supported by Apple, etc. It's not "similar" to Linux in those ways. I'd venture to guess that OS X is a lot more organized than Linux is. It's not like you want to know how to configure network settings and find out you have to know if you're using KDE or Gnome, if you're using traditional if* or some sort of network manager... etc. Again, nicely, some distros are better than others in this area (Ubuntu, admittedly, was easier to set up the network for me than any other Linux distro and than some Windows versions. Even WEP worked with their gui network manager; opensuse 11.1/knetworkmanager and WEP didn't play nice).
Unfortunately, all these things are easy for me, but someone like my sister or parents that have a hard time getting their heads around how a filesystem even works as far as directory hierarchies and structures (i.e., they don't think of a folder as a hierarchy, but as an "icon"), learning something new is pretty difficult. Even if it's just a new GUI, it's difficult. Hand-holding is necessary, unless they have time to sit down and learn some new stuff... and have someone to teach them. Web tutorials are not always the easiest things to follow. Especially when they involve cryptic commands that you magically put into a "console" window. People's minds tend to switch off and they go into follow-instructions-and-don't-think mode. At least, in my experience.:)
Note: My sister WAS able to use Ubuntu and my parents are able to use openSuSE 11.1 (might switch it, I don't like KDE 4.2 so much); sister had to use XP though because of ipod.
Actually, I agree with you to some extent. I should have said from laziness *OR* from lack of time/interest. However, the people that know and admit they are ignorant are seldom the ones that are the problem, in my experience. It's the ones that are ignorant and seem to think they should be able to do it anyway, without any effort.
My parents are an easy example. They know they are "ignorant" about computers. If they have a question, they ask me... and they are also aware that Linux (which they're using now, due to viruses on Windows that they kept getting) is different, has quirks, and isn't perfect, but it is preventing them from having to completely wipe the computer annually (literally).
I'm a huge fan of making Linux way more user friendly than it is. I think this guy's Linux experiences are not quite proportionate to most people's Linux experiences, unless they tried to do it themselves.
Also, I might add that I think it's unfair to think we have to make Linux be able to be installed by someone who can't install Windows, either. If they don't know what to do when their computer "gets really slow" then in order to use Linux, someone else will have to set it up for them... just like someone else has to fix Windows for them.
And again, having other things to do/not wanting computer getting in the way, point taken, and you're right. I have argued that before, as well, but didn't think about it, my mistake. I should have used "non-busy clueless"... would have been more accurate, probably.
Right, and I suppose installing the equivalent of "Silverlight addons for Visual Studio" is a piece of cake in Linux? Comparing common software like Firefox to something like a Silverlight addon seems a bit far fetched.
I'm not talking about installing or updating common applications. That's easy. It's the uncommon ones that not everyone is going to use that I am talking about.
Also, keep in mind that we're dealing with people that aren't all the time sure "where their downloads went."
"I clicked the link on the browser and it downloaded but I don't know where it is."
"Oh, go to slash home slash your user name slash downloads !" (or wherever, I don't recall the default directory).
"slash home?" "What is my username?"
"It doesn't work, it says it can't find that folder. Why does it care if it's capitalized or not?"
Luckily, it's true that repositories seem to have most of what people want. But for that random thing that someone ends up wanting to download and can't because it's for Windows and they don't know how to find it for Linux... it's those stories people hear about and make perceptions/decisions on. Not "Oh, yeah, Linux is cool, I can run Firefox really easily.":)
I understand what he meant, but I used the DOS command line for quite a while and didn't find the linux command line "hard." Just had different commands, etc. It takes a little getting used to, but running simple commands isn't hard or unfamiliar. If he's talking about being able to really USE the command line, that's different, but that's not what he was talking about... I think he was just talking about running commands that are given to you as instructions... not being able to browse directory trees, know the default directory structure/hierarchy, etc...
Exactly, thank you for the post. My family members tend to fall in this category, too, even my siblings (I'm still pretty young, so my siblings are young and "tech savy," all of them know what partitions are, what Linux is, etc). My wife recently said something that I thought was rather insightful: "I don't like Linux. It doesn't do what I expect it to." I'm sure the rebuttal would be "Well thats' because she's so used to Windows!" Well, you're right, so how are we going to make Linux usable for that market share, which is about 85% or whatever it is?
Ubuntu does a pretty good job, and she uses it to play music and stuff. She would NOT have been able to install it and get it working. I didn't know about the DVD encryption stuff, and it took me a while to get that working. Even after installing libdvdcss it still didn't work. Even after installing VLC it didn't work. I finally installd MPlayer, on a whim, which apparently installed libdvdcss correctly or something, I don't know.. it started working. Point is, it took me about an hour to be able to play a DVD. It takes her about 30 seconds - she puts it in and Vista plays it.
The list could go on. Amarok/rhythmbox/banshee/etc aren't really as good as iTunes at music library stuff (though the Magnatune combination is pretty nice and we use that a lot). Flash, for whatever reason, is rather slow in Firefox on my laptop (it's a Dell E1505 by the way, with Ubuntu 8.10... previously had openSuSE 11.1, which I didn't like as much as 10.3 so figured I'd try Linux Mint, Mandriva, or Ubuntu...). It requires a password every time I connect to our home wireless network because the WEP key (it's just to keep neighbors off, I know WEP is crackable in less than 15 seconds...) is stored in the password manager which requires a password to access, etc (people complain about UAC, I don't think even it does that...).
Mark me troll or flamebait if you wish (before you do, I'd like to mention that I have an entire CD case dedicated to Linux installs that I try on various (new and old) computers I put [back] together, including TinyME, PuppyLinux (or MacPup), gOS, Xubuntu, Ubuntu, openSuSE 10.3/11.1, Mandriva One, Linux Mint...), but there's a lot that is NOT user friendly in Linux, and simply expecting them to spend extra time learning how to use it is a bi enough expectation - expecting them to learn something like a command line simply to use it not acceptable, IMO, and forcing them to spend a lot of time looking for free or open source alternatives to software and then trying to get them to work, etc... eh. Admittedly, it's easy to install stuff that's in the default repositories, but who wants to install 100 Star Gazing Exercises for XWindows?;) openOffice helps tremendously, but it still has a ways to go, IMO.
I would agree with that, then. Actually, I found the comment "...even for command-line veterans like myself" kinda funny, too. I don't consider *myself* a command-line veteran (I'm very comfortable with it, but "veteran," to me, implies about 10 years of using it... I've only used Linux for about 6 or 7 so I can't quite claim veteran status =P) but I found apt to be pretty easy.
But not everyone WANTS to learn how to use apt. Most people want to turn it on, click an icon, and have something install. Not have to add a repository, update the package listings, install it, etc.
Writing for a clueless user and telling them how to do that only works for non-lazy clueless users. Which are somewhat rare. Most clueless people are clueless from laziness.
Of course, "social awkward"-ness is usually defined by the majority of the particular society, correct? So, yeah, if they don't fit in with the, shall we say, public school society, they will be socially "awkward." So would someone, at most colleges, that doesn't drink, smoke, or party. Calling them "socially awkward" makes it sound like its a bad thing. I'm not sure that is what you meant or not, but I think most people look down on those that don't quite fit into society, even if that very "society" is the problem.
Actually, I have never liked Star Trek, really. Never watched it, except the old original movies. I think I saw three of them.. I really only liked Spock and Dr. Bones though.
I also wasn't a Star Wars fan, for the most part. I saw them once when I was pretty young, and once again in college, and I've seen Episodes 1 through 3 once each. LOTR is different;)
I know you were joking, but may as well: homeschooled != nerd, geek, or socially inept. It just means my parents thought I would be better educated at home than in the public school system or even in the private schools. I tend to agree, having seen the public schools in our area. I learned more and learned it faster, giving more time for non-school activities... music lessons, computers, sports, etc..
Slashdot Mirror
They're cheap, light, and draw very little power. All good things, depending on what you are using it for.
We got my sister an MSI Wind for Christmas. It works great for what she uses it for - communication, school papers, web browsing, occasional movies or music, and that's about it. She can take it anywhere quite easily (it's small and light), it a while even with the included 3 cell battery, etc. And, frankly, while I don't particularly care, it is pretty nice looking ("cute" if you're female...). Probably most slashdot people that don't use Macs don't particularly care about how it looks, but a lot of people do... and when you can have something that looks cool (or cute) for pretty cheap (read: not spending $2500 for an Apple ...), that's a big plus.
And smaller is all the rage right now. Unless you're watching a lot of movies or doing a lot of heavy application stuff, netbook sseem to be pretty useful, small, convenient, etc.
Agreed. Somehow, not-copyrighting your inventions before they are actually manufactured (IP?) will protect against those awful corporations that can do anything with their money. Because that way, you, without any money, can eventually manufacture it and finally copyright it, while the corporation that could manufacture it in 2 months and start selling it sits idly back, scared of taking your uncopyrighted non-intellectual-property un-manufactured invention from you...
[/sarcasm, if you couldn't tell]
The situation isn't good, but goodness, if there weren't ANY copyrights on non-implemented ideas, the idea of private "inventors" would be over; corporations could be in the business of stealing (only it wouldn't be stealing) ideas. We'd end up back in the hide-your-plans-under-your-pillow-for-secrecy days I guess... whenever those days were, that is. :)
Because we buy our syrup from you? :P ;)
Er, sorry for the double post, I thought I replied to the wrong post. It's still not showing up correctly as far as the nesting is concerned. Weird.
Uh... Ubuntu, openSuSE, Fedora, etc., don't exactly run too well on 256mb RAM either. Yeah, Xubuntu is ok and there are distros like PuppyLinux, TinyME, gOS, etc., but XP will run on 256mb, too. It IS pretty user-friendly low-spec in comparison to most modern OS's. Try running OS X on 256mb ram? :)
Not to defend Vista, but let's be fair to XP/Vista at least. Last time I installed SLES 10.2, the recommended RAM was around 768MB ram.
Doh. I knew that. Thanks :)
Linux pre-installed: probably would be ok.
But we're talking about switching from Windows to Linux on the same PC, I think. BUYING a Linux PC, I would hope that it has been set up to play DVDs, media, hardware works, video works, etc. If not, that OEM has some major issues. But "switching" to Linux is different, isn't it?
I generally agree that it's not hard and Linux is "easy," but there's a LOT of different kinds of people. Some of them don't know what a "file" is. And still use a computer.
If Linux were the the only OS in the mass market, people would be doing wonderfully, just like in the 80s when MS-DOS was king.
Oh? Then why did Windows (and Mac) even happen? I'm sure Bill Gates, with his immense college-dropout fortune and huge influence, illegally monopolized OEM's to ship Windows 2.0 and 3.1 instead of DOS. Yeah. Or maybe, just maybe, DOS wasn't enough, and Linux/UNIX didn't go fast enough for the average consumer on the user-friendly side of things.
I remember the 80s, but I was born in them. My parents remember the 80s; they used typewriters in them. Computers were expensive, remember? Typewriters were, too, but they were pretty easy to use.
It's not a strange phenomenon. People used typewriters for a long time after the computer; people used cassette tapes for a long time after CDs; people used VHS cassettes for a long time after DVDs; people are using DVDs for a long time after blu-ray.
So, either we admit Linux is not for everyone and Windows has its place and then carry on a good discussion about merits of each, ease of use, etc., or we are arrogant twerps that think everybody should be used to what we're used to...
Hmm, I want a media player.
So I start Synaptic, hit "search", type "media player", select one or more and then install it.
And then I put in a DVD, and get an error saying it can't read the disc.
Depending on the distro, it may or not tell you it's due to encryption and legal issues and libdvdcss is necessary. Depending on how you install libdvdcss, it may not work. Normal users are not interested in spending an hour or more trying to figure out how to play a DVD player. "Why doesn't it work, all I have to do is put it in the drive on my other computer and it asks me if I want to play it!"
Admittedly, it's a setup issue. Still, it's there.
Any time I'm on a Windows computer, it's not mine. . .
Well, I'm sure they would love having cygwin, whoever they are! ;)
Interesting point... basically, when you're using a GUI, you have a limited set of options (to "remember" or even to intuitively figure out which one you need to push). On the command line, there's a more or less unlimited set of options and no immediate helpful visual stimulus. Typing the first few letters that you seem to remember and pushing tab doesn't always work...
Any time I'm on a Windows computer, it's not mine
Well, I'm sure they would love having cygwin, whoever they are! ;)
If they say "LOLWUT" they have other problems that no GUI will help... ;)
In different reply to someone else I mentioned I should not have used only lazy... lazy OR busy. My mistake.
it is hard to beat the OS X concept of a drag-and-drop application-bundle for ease of use.
Unless you are totally not used to that. I can say, with assurance, that no one in my family (having not really ever used a Mac) would find that intuitive. Why? Because they are all used to Windows and thus used to "installing." (which, by the way, seems to fit more with Linux than OS X in terms of familiarity to Windows).
I actually know nothing about Zune, hence ignoring the example I guess... :)
"Whatever their filebrowser is." That's another issue. In Ubuntu, I'm actually not sure what it is, and I've been using Ubuntu. Offhand, in the GUI, I'm not sure how to get to a file browser actually, ha, hum. I think there's a "Places" menu at the top in Gnome... ?
But yes, depending on how their Linux box is set up, it'd probably work. But now we're back to a distro-specific issue. Konqueror? Dolphin? Whatever Gnome's is (I think Epiphany, but I don't remember)? Whatever enlightenment's is? Now we need distro-specific tutorials for newbies, I guess. which is something I've been advocating on slashdot when the topic comes up, but haven't done anything about it yet, hehe.
Most people don't use OS X yet. OS X has ... uh, pretty good documentation. OS X is owned by Apple, maintained by Apple, purchased from Apple, supported by Apple, etc. It's not "similar" to Linux in those ways. I'd venture to guess that OS X is a lot more organized than Linux is. It's not like you want to know how to configure network settings and find out you have to know if you're using KDE or Gnome, if you're using traditional if* or some sort of network manager... etc. Again, nicely, some distros are better than others in this area (Ubuntu, admittedly, was easier to set up the network for me than any other Linux distro and than some Windows versions. Even WEP worked with their gui network manager; opensuse 11.1/knetworkmanager and WEP didn't play nice).
Unfortunately, all these things are easy for me, but someone like my sister or parents that have a hard time getting their heads around how a filesystem even works as far as directory hierarchies and structures (i.e., they don't think of a folder as a hierarchy, but as an "icon"), learning something new is pretty difficult. Even if it's just a new GUI, it's difficult. Hand-holding is necessary, unless they have time to sit down and learn some new stuff... and have someone to teach them. Web tutorials are not always the easiest things to follow. Especially when they involve cryptic commands that you magically put into a "console" window. People's minds tend to switch off and they go into follow-instructions-and-don't-think mode. At least, in my experience. :)
Note: My sister WAS able to use Ubuntu and my parents are able to use openSuSE 11.1 (might switch it, I don't like KDE 4.2 so much); sister had to use XP though because of ipod.
Am enjoying discussion. :)
Actually, I agree with you to some extent. I should have said from laziness *OR* from lack of time/interest. However, the people that know and admit they are ignorant are seldom the ones that are the problem, in my experience. It's the ones that are ignorant and seem to think they should be able to do it anyway, without any effort.
My parents are an easy example. They know they are "ignorant" about computers. If they have a question, they ask me... and they are also aware that Linux (which they're using now, due to viruses on Windows that they kept getting) is different, has quirks, and isn't perfect, but it is preventing them from having to completely wipe the computer annually (literally).
I'm a huge fan of making Linux way more user friendly than it is. I think this guy's Linux experiences are not quite proportionate to most people's Linux experiences, unless they tried to do it themselves.
Also, I might add that I think it's unfair to think we have to make Linux be able to be installed by someone who can't install Windows, either. If they don't know what to do when their computer "gets really slow" then in order to use Linux, someone else will have to set it up for them... just like someone else has to fix Windows for them.
And again, having other things to do/not wanting computer getting in the way, point taken, and you're right. I have argued that before, as well, but didn't think about it, my mistake. I should have used "non-busy clueless" ... would have been more accurate, probably.
Right, and I suppose installing the equivalent of "Silverlight addons for Visual Studio" is a piece of cake in Linux? Comparing common software like Firefox to something like a Silverlight addon seems a bit far fetched.
I'm not talking about installing or updating common applications. That's easy. It's the uncommon ones that not everyone is going to use that I am talking about.
Also, keep in mind that we're dealing with people that aren't all the time sure "where their downloads went."
"I clicked the link on the browser and it downloaded but I don't know where it is."
"Oh, go to slash home slash your user name slash downloads !" (or wherever, I don't recall the default directory).
"slash home?" "What is my username?"
"It doesn't work, it says it can't find that folder. Why does it care if it's capitalized or not?"
Luckily, it's true that repositories seem to have most of what people want. But for that random thing that someone ends up wanting to download and can't because it's for Windows and they don't know how to find it for Linux... it's those stories people hear about and make perceptions/decisions on. Not "Oh, yeah, Linux is cool, I can run Firefox really easily." :)
It works on mine... cygwin! =P :)
I understand what he meant, but I used the DOS command line for quite a while and didn't find the linux command line "hard." Just had different commands, etc. It takes a little getting used to, but running simple commands isn't hard or unfamiliar. If he's talking about being able to really USE the command line, that's different, but that's not what he was talking about ... I think he was just talking about running commands that are given to you as instructions... not being able to browse directory trees, know the default directory structure/hierarchy, etc...
Exactly, thank you for the post. My family members tend to fall in this category, too, even my siblings (I'm still pretty young, so my siblings are young and "tech savy," all of them know what partitions are, what Linux is, etc). My wife recently said something that I thought was rather insightful: "I don't like Linux. It doesn't do what I expect it to." I'm sure the rebuttal would be "Well thats' because she's so used to Windows!" Well, you're right, so how are we going to make Linux usable for that market share, which is about 85% or whatever it is?
Ubuntu does a pretty good job, and she uses it to play music and stuff. She would NOT have been able to install it and get it working. I didn't know about the DVD encryption stuff, and it took me a while to get that working. Even after installing libdvdcss it still didn't work. Even after installing VLC it didn't work. I finally installd MPlayer, on a whim, which apparently installed libdvdcss correctly or something, I don't know.. it started working. Point is, it took me about an hour to be able to play a DVD. It takes her about 30 seconds - she puts it in and Vista plays it.
The list could go on. Amarok/rhythmbox/banshee/etc aren't really as good as iTunes at music library stuff (though the Magnatune combination is pretty nice and we use that a lot). Flash, for whatever reason, is rather slow in Firefox on my laptop (it's a Dell E1505 by the way, with Ubuntu 8.10 ... previously had openSuSE 11.1, which I didn't like as much as 10.3 so figured I'd try Linux Mint, Mandriva, or Ubuntu...). It requires a password every time I connect to our home wireless network because the WEP key (it's just to keep neighbors off, I know WEP is crackable in less than 15 seconds...) is stored in the password manager which requires a password to access, etc (people complain about UAC, I don't think even it does that...).
Mark me troll or flamebait if you wish (before you do, I'd like to mention that I have an entire CD case dedicated to Linux installs that I try on various (new and old) computers I put [back] together, including TinyME, PuppyLinux (or MacPup), gOS, Xubuntu, Ubuntu, openSuSE 10.3/11.1, Mandriva One, Linux Mint...), but there's a lot that is NOT user friendly in Linux, and simply expecting them to spend extra time learning how to use it is a bi enough expectation - expecting them to learn something like a command line simply to use it not acceptable, IMO, and forcing them to spend a lot of time looking for free or open source alternatives to software and then trying to get them to work, etc ... eh. Admittedly, it's easy to install stuff that's in the default repositories, but who wants to install 100 Star Gazing Exercises for XWindows? ;) openOffice helps tremendously, but it still has a ways to go, IMO.
I've never seen a negative error number. I wouldn't know how to troubleshoot that either, hehe.. :)
What if it's not in your current repositories?
I would agree with that, then. Actually, I found the comment "...even for command-line veterans like myself" kinda funny, too. I don't consider *myself* a command-line veteran (I'm very comfortable with it, but "veteran," to me, implies about 10 years of using it ... I've only used Linux for about 6 or 7 so I can't quite claim veteran status =P) but I found apt to be pretty easy.
But not everyone WANTS to learn how to use apt. Most people want to turn it on, click an icon, and have something install. Not have to add a repository, update the package listings, install it, etc.
Writing for a clueless user and telling them how to do that only works for non-lazy clueless users. Which are somewhat rare. Most clueless people are clueless from laziness.
Of course, "social awkward"-ness is usually defined by the majority of the particular society, correct? So, yeah, if they don't fit in with the, shall we say, public school society, they will be socially "awkward." So would someone, at most colleges, that doesn't drink, smoke, or party. Calling them "socially awkward" makes it sound like its a bad thing. I'm not sure that is what you meant or not, but I think most people look down on those that don't quite fit into society, even if that very "society" is the problem.
I'm also reading a textbook on spacetime physics, for fun... uh oh.
Meh, it's possible to be a nerd and not be a social freak. :)
Warning: totally off topic. :)
Actually, I have never liked Star Trek, really. Never watched it, except the old original movies. I think I saw three of them.. I really only liked Spock and Dr. Bones though.
I also wasn't a Star Wars fan, for the most part. I saw them once when I was pretty young, and once again in college, and I've seen Episodes 1 through 3 once each. LOTR is different ;)
I know you were joking, but may as well: homeschooled != nerd, geek, or socially inept. It just means my parents thought I would be better educated at home than in the public school system or even in the private schools. I tend to agree, having seen the public schools in our area. I learned more and learned it faster, giving more time for non-school activities... music lessons, computers, sports, etc..