-----Original Message-----
From: Caitlyn Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, November 18, 1999 12:00 PM
Subject: [issues] Linux performance: getting the word out
>How do we get folks to use it at home? How do we get the word out
>and *show* people that we have something really special here in terms they
>can understand and accept?
I see comments like these and I worry. Note that there is no question of
whether folks at home should use it, this is simply a foregone conclusion.
I've watched Linux advocates argue that Linux should be pushed into every
conceivable niche of computing and that open source is the only way
to write software and open source is the only software people should
support.
Fanaticism, by my definition is when somebody holds views that do not
take reality into account and does not question those views. Positions like
the 3 i've listed above are, in my opinion, fanatical.
Getting back to the quoted passage, we see the view expressed that
people in general should install and use Linux at home. The premise for
this seems to be that Linux is faster, more stable, and costs less than
Windows. What this premise fails to take into account is that it is
almost completely unusable for the computer illiterate and semi-literate.
First, Linux is not particularly easy to install properly and configure
without
considerable skills, and not everyone has someone else to do this for them.
This has been getting easier I'm told, but it is not even close to what is
offered
on end-user operating systems. Further, the window managers in Linux, for
all their good points, are still quite crude and cryptic when compared to
the GUIs of end-user operating systems. The question is not whether
a linux system could be set up for someone so they could manage to use it,
the question is whether or not it really makes sense at this point.
The bottom line is that Linux is not now, and may never be, the kind of
OS that your average person would be comfortable with. Given this, it
is a mistake to try to push it into mainstream home use, it just does not
fit very well. You are simply re-arranging the types of problems the
user has ease of use vs. performance/stability. Issues of cost,
performance,
and stability are important and an effort needs to be made to solve them,
moving away from Windows is a good idea, but the answer is not Linux.
Linux is well suited to being a server operating system, it is also well
suited to being a workstation operating system for power users, it solves
more problems than it creates in these areas. For end users there are
other options such as BeOS that will solve their problems without creating
new ones.
Linux does not have to be all things to everyone to be a good thing, it
just has to be the right thing in the right place.
I realize i've taken a fairly modest comment and gone quite a bit beyond
its original scope, for this I apologize to the author. All I can say is
that
it provided me with an opportunity to bring an issue that is probably my
biggist criticism of the Linux community out in the open for discussion.
************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
