Linked by Adam S on Sun 6th Apr 2003 17:18 UTC
This is my reaction to Tsu Dho Nimh's "Migrating to Linux not easy for Windows users" featured on Linuxworld.com recently. It's not a response, I'm not challenging his opinions, which I feel are not only valid, but mostly right, it's just a reaction.
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Someone here already said it, but let's turn it a bit differently :
"Bullsh*t. Do you rewire your VCR everytime you want to record something off the TV and not just playback? Do you open your fridge's back port to change its temperature? Do you sacrifice a goat to change a channel on your TV?"
BullSh*t. Do you expect your car to feature drive Wizards ?
Do you let your camera make the framing of your next photo for you ?
A computer is a fairly complex system, that deserves a minimum of _intelligence_ to operate. Wizards never deal with complicated operations, only installation or configuration procedures, which avoid the user to deal with learning configuration parameters. At some point, when you want to use software, you have to know how to use it, what it is made of, and leave automated wizards behind.
That said, we mostly speak about migration these days, but not much about discovering the system. What about people who _learn_ computer use through Linux OS ? How do they react to it ? Is it a good system to learn computer use with ?
Darius : Can you say to a Windows system : "please install the latest Mozilla CVS" just like you described ?
apt-get can't do that, but on the feature side, it's at least as useable as an installshield package, except that almost all packages are located at the same place. And if you take a look at the existing GUI wrapping apt-get (synaptic, or the fancy red-carpet), they are quite user friendly to me.