OSNews

Syntaxis, you must live on a different planet than I do. There's not a single program in an unadulterated Woody install that a typical corporate user would know how to use, or would wnat to use. Even if they did know how to use, say, vi, what good would that do them? Besides, XFree on Woody looks like crap. People who have to spend all day staring at their screen would rebel.

And, I've never seen an outfit that allowed the IT staff to decide what software users run. The CEO is a user. You wanna tell the CEO he/she can't use Office and Outlook? For that matter, does Lotus Notes run on Woody??

Geez, would you expect the CEO and the board to buy a second-rate air conditioning system just because it made life easier for the maintenance crew?

Meanwhile, it isn't sad that users judge sofware quality based on "eye candy". First of all, ease of use and clarity of display is not eye candy. Second, users tend to equate inattention to display quality with inattention to performance quality. They are not necessarily wrong.

Finally, I appreciate that a volunteer effort like Debian lacks the resources to create and support different installers for different platorms. Fair enough. And, yes. platform-specific installers might confuse people supporting multiple platforms. But, honestly, how many people really do?

As for me, I like the basic premise of Debian, and I very much wish I could use it, I'd also like to use the applications everyone else is using in the year 2003, and I'd like to use them on a desktop that doesn't remind me of 1995. Sadly, I can't seem to do that in Debian unless I venture out on a problemmatic path.