OSNews

We've all allowed ourselves to be taken a little off track by a cheesy flamefest, It's time to get back to the interview.

Rickford Grant is the author of one of my favorite tech books (Linux For Non-Geeks). I've often referenced his book when trying to explain various tasks to newbies (I think it is sometimes hard to keep answers simple when many GNU/Linux users have such a massive depth of knowledge). That said I would like to throw out some of my own opinions on various subjects where I disagree with Mr. Grant.

The first one is on security. Mr. Grant says:

From a Linux (or even Mac) user's standpoint, it is also to everyone's benefit that Windows remain as the king of the desktop. By being the dominant force in the market, Windows stands as the ultimate target for those interested in causing digital mischief. Linux and Mac OS are virtually virus free primarily because the great behemoth, Windows, is there to take the incoming.

Part of the problem with that statement is that it ignores the fact that MS Windows has a less secure design, and that Linux and OS X will never be as susceptible to viriii and other maladies as MS Windows even if OS X and Linux were to each have 40% of the desktop market and MS only 20%. A good example of this is IIS and Apache. Apache on Linux and BSD is much more prevelant on the internet then IIS on MS Windows and yet the majority of serious trojans, virii, and worms will only affect IIS and not Apache.

On Mr. Grants comparison of Ubuntu and Fedora he said:

I know here is a lot of hoopla out there right now about Ubuntu, and I admit that it is quite attractive in name, looks and operation, but I don't see that it is any easier or friendlier than Fedora, which is, if your willing to do a slight bit of geeking around, pretty easy in its own right.

Now I know Mr. Grant did not dwell on this subject, but I wanted to point out a couple of things here.

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

This command has always worked correctly for me so far in Ubuntu (please go back to the various forums and read about all the upgrade nightmares people had when moving from Fedora Core 2 to 3 and again the same nightmare to Core 4). Plus the fact that it has a live distro version is also a nice touch that Fedora lacks. Oh, and did I mention about the availability of profesionally burned disks for free direct from Ubuntu!

I also wanted to comment on his GNOME vs. KDE statement. He said:

It depends on what time of day you ask me, as I like them both. I do like the emblems you can place on folders in GNOME, though, as they make things so much more meaningful, easy-to-deal-with, and... attractive. I can't help but feel, and I mean that in the sensory sense, that KDE took more styling and design cues from Windows, while GNOME took more from Mac OS 8 and 9, with both improving on the originals in the process. In that sense, I suppose which is better depends on from which OS world you arrived. I'd give the nod to KDE in terms of system control and to GNOME in terms of file handling and cosmetic customization.

Now I was primarily a KDE user for several years and created original artwork for them, etc.; but, I've changed my preference. As a power user that doesn't need a pretty desktop, I like Xfce, but for new users I currently recommend GNOME. KDE is pretty, but has to many bloated toolbars, and confusing configurations. Xfce lacks to many things a user is used to (desktop icons), and a sensible file browser (Thunar looks hopeful). GNOME's strict adherence to its Human Interface Guidelines has made it the most intuitive and the easiest to configure sensibly. This is why the last several installs I did for others involved the GNOME desktop, and also why my hobby distro that I'm building (just to know how to build a distro) is also based on GNOME (specifically GNOME 2.12).

Lot's of people are curious about Linux, but they're not necessarily motivated or secure enough to give it a try. If it is already sitting there on their hard disks, then there is little reason for such folks to not give it a go.

The problem with this statement is that we are still several years away from walking into Best Buy or Walmart and seeing Linux running on a computer. No one is going to buy a computer with Linux preinstalled unless they already use it. The best way to show off how good Linux is to nonusers right now is with tools like Live CDs (XandrOS and Fedora both lack this).

I still think Rickford Grant is a great author, LFNG is proof of that, but I am not likely to recommend his new book, Linux Made Easy, to users as I don't care for XandrOS and its overly customized KDE.