[ltp] Why Linux is not for Everyone

[Michelle Klein-Hass]

On Tuesday 24 June 2003 08:54 am, Frank Roberts - SOTL wrote:
> http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3297

Lousy article...it's a good example of stuff that still needs to be fixed 
within Linux, not a list of disqualifiers to NOT use Linux.

We are getting close to Linux being in the realm of "set and forget" as it is 
with Windows and the classic MacOS. MacOS X is an example of where we should 
be going as a xNIX-like OS with a friendly user interface, but even it has 
its problems...it has dirty little secrets like needing to run Permissions 
Fix every so often to re-chown files so that they don't become unusable by 
the (non-root) normal user, and some other niggling problems.

We can throw up our hands and say "we can't make Linux any easier, sorry, it's 
not for the Great Unwashed" or we can press onward on the trajectory we are 
moving on and take the extra time to make Linux usable even for Granny.

Another dirty little secret that really isn't a secret: Windows has its 
problems for the average user too. Viruses, exploits, spyware, malware, a 
registry that can get corrupted at the drop of a hat which requires either a 
brute force "nuke and pave" and reinstall or guru-level registry 
hacking...it's still a jungle out there.

Linux has the potential of being a BETTER desktop OS than anything before it. 
The permissions model and doctrine of least privelege make spyware and 
malware harder to work. The file system is set up to where fragmentation is 
irrelevant, the "EXT3" hacks to the EXT2 filesystem fixes the problems Linux 
had with touchy filesystems. (actually Reiser, XFS and JFS are better 
solutions but EXT3 is what most distros default to) And almost every 
preference is stored in simple and easy to edit text files that although 
arcane are not machine code like Windows or XML like MacOS X. I think that 
"open up foo.rc in kate and put a pound sign in front of line 24" is easier 
to communicate to an end user than "open up regedit and find key FOO_BAR in 
USER_LOCAL_MACHINE and add the string "6A54E" to key X" any day of the week. 
And it is getting to the point where GUI management programs like Mandrake 
Control Center are getting better and more reliable when doing management 
tasks like that. The management tools given the user in MacOS X are still way 
better, but it's now a process of Evolution and not Revolution.

-.\\<-H-
-- 
Michelle Klein-Hass
Box 2273, Van Nuys, CA 91404-2273
Spam me and you pay! I'm in California! http://www.spamlaws.com/state/ca1.html
Brought to you by Linux, KDE and KMail...try it, you'll like it!