[ltp] Slackware on T42?

André Wyrwa linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Fri, 31 Dec 2004 20:15:02 +0100


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Hei,

> > Joshua, i'm loosing your point.
>=20
> Obviously.  You clearly didn't read my posts very carefully.  The
> others who have responded to me get what I'm saying.

Well then i clearly don't read my post very careful as well, 'cause i'm
missing now where i didn't respond to what you said.

> > software (Mozilla, GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice, ...) and i also think that i=
t
> > is good to have the diversity we have.
>=20
> For who?

For me for instance. And for many others as well. And yes, those
probably are all geeks. But why limit those who want to choose just
because you don't have the time. As morpheus pointed out you just don't
need to choose, nor does our lovely non-techie aunty (in fact she can
choose to go back to Windows).

> For the technical people, geeks and programmers?  Sure.  Lots of
> choice is great.  For the people that Linux desktop projects are so
> desparately trying to convert?  It's horrible.  I've heard plenty of
> stories about people converting their parents to use Linux instead of
> Windows, good and bad.  In the end, Linux is simply not ready for the
> desktop except for the techies and geeks.  The only way it is usable
> for the nontechie types is because they almost always have some geeky
> friend or relative willing to help them.

I'm not willing to fight these assumptions because (at least to a
relevant degree) i agree to them. But does it mean i'm not answering to
your statements just because i don't directly fight them or simply agree
to them?

I just see the cause for this to be a different one than you suggested.
I really don't see the relation between a non-techie not getting going
with SuSE and the number of text-editors that are (in theory) available
for him.

But yes the problem arises somewhat when this "in theory" becomes more
and more "in reality", as is the difference between the Linux world and
the Windows one - as i see it. In other words...yes, the feeling of
having too much choice is one cause of keeping people from Linux (i
admit i wasn't clear about this in the first mail), but they don't have
too much choice because of too many projects, but just because they are
more aware of their choices.

My other point was...choosing doesn't take you any time. It happens
quickly a million times a day. What takes time is to gather the
information that makes you feel like you can make a confident choice.
Now in Windows this information is gathered quickly, because people push
it to you and because of the other limitations i wrote about. In Linux
you have to dig for it yourself and you find quite a lot of diverse
information, not limiting itself. This is what takes time about having
choices in Linux (correct me if i'm wrong). Anyway, i don't see why you
would have to do this if you just stick with the distros defaults. The
unsatisfactory feeling that remains imho comes because ofcourse it takes
more effort to cut off your researches, than to believe that there isn't
anything relevant anymore to know about things. Which is the case
because the first means making a choice, the second means believing that
you don't have one. (The "you"s here don't mean you personally, but me
and everyone else as well.)

> > And you might also have the feeling that you can't manage to be
> > competent about Linux the same way as one can be competent about
> > Windows. There are no Linux system administrators in the sense of
> > Windows system administrators. Or actually there are, but in truth they
> > are SuSE administrators or RedHat admins or whatever.
>=20
> This paragraph clearly shows that you haven't read my posts.
>=20
> I am a Red Hat Certified Engineer.  I have been using Linux as a
> desktop OS for 10 years and have been professionally managing Linux
> systems for five years.  I have managed corporate environments with
> Red Hat, SuSE and Debian based systems in those five years.

This paragraph doesn't oppose anything i said. In fact the you there
wasn't meant that personal, too, but that doesn't matter so much,
because what i said wasn't meant to undermine your competence. It was
meant to say that even if you would be certified for SuSE, Gentoo,
Slackware, Mandrake, Debian and 3 more as well, you still wouldn't be a
Linux admin in the completeness that someone can call himself a Windows
admin (which is - in the end - a problem of too much choice). I might be
wrong with this, but this was my point and it didn't say anything about
your personal competence, which i was concious of as much as you stated
it before.

> My competence with Linux is FAR more than adequate.  Don't make
> assumptions because you didn't bother to read my posts.  I have stated
> my years of experience before.

Tell me where in my mail i underestimated your experience. Clearly i
can't see it.

> > PS: Personally i think that "having not enough time" is nothing but an
> > expression of choice.
>=20
> Partially, it is choice.  I choose to spend time with my family, who
> doesn't need a father/husband to sit in front of a computer all night.
>  I've already done the tweaking and tinkering until the wee hours of
> the morning.  I'm done with it.  I use Windows at home because I don't
> have to screw with driver issues, games that won't run, multimedia
> websites that won't load and so on.  My copies of Windows were cheap
> through a friend. All the software I use except for games is free (as
> in beer, some as in speech).

Just my point, you chose to spend your time elsewise.
But what i'm getting from your original statement is that someones
choice to write just another text editor for linux (he surely had his
reasons, too) is a bad one because you chose to spend your time with
your family.

> Don't make assumptions about my life, my choices or how I use a computer.=
 =20

Never did.

Andr=E9.


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