Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 13th Dec 2005 09:47 UTC
Talk, Rumors, X Versus Y Without tip-toeing around the matter, Linus Torvalds made his preference in the GNOME vs. KDE matter quite clear on the GNOME-usability list: "I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE. This 'users are idiots, and are confused by functionality' mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do. Please, just tell people to use KDE." Also, "Gnome seems to be developed by interface nazis, where consistently the excuse for not doing something is not 'it's too complicated to do', but 'it would confuse users'." Update: More of the discussion here.
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Who Cares?
by on Tue 13th Dec 2005 19:14 UTC

Member since:

You want to know why it is that most of us out here who are reading this on their Windows XP machines haven't switched to Linux yet? Linux is a confusing, tangled mess of techno bable and complexity that the average Jane/Joe doesn't want to think about. Here's a recent conversation I had with a neighbor:

"So Mrs. Jones, you've decided to take the plunge and switch to Linux and get Windows 98 off your machine, that's great! Let's see you will need to decide which "distro" (new word for the uninitiated) you would like from a list that's a mile long. Oh, I'm sorry, you're a little confused?" You go on and explain the whole "open source" thing to her as best you can, keeping the language as non-geek as possible (which is a feat all on it's own) and she finally says to you "just pick one for me." So, you do and then you ask her which window manager she wants and here you go again explaining the pros/cons of this wierd idea to her and she says, "Sounds like a mess to me....thanks for your time, goodbye" and hangs up the phone.

So if you ask me, Linus and the rest of you are polishing the brass on the Titanic by flaming one another over which window manager is better. You'd be better served by asking yourself "How do we make it so that the AVERAGE person on the street will come to appreciate Linux the same way they have come to embrace Windows?"

Back to work now geek!

RE: Who Cares?
by on Tue 13th Dec 2005 23:27 in reply to "Who Cares?"
Member since:

"So if you ask me, Linus and the rest of you are polishing the brass on the Titanic by flaming one another over which window manager is better. You'd be better served by asking yourself "How do we make it so that the AVERAGE person on the street will come to appreciate Linux the same way they have come to embrace Windows?" "

I f--king could care LESS if Joe Sixpack use or not linux. Linux is about freedom, not taking over the computer world.
Joe got his Apple Mac. I use my linux. Who cares ?
I f--k the guys who needs a linux that do all the things automatically for your little ass. You want a gay os, use OSX and don't come f--king with us.

Free software is also freedom of choice. Not crappy GUI that tries to think for you.
The reason the hurd is alive is about the freedom of the user, to give more freedom to users with a new architecture towards a more user land based system that don't need kernel mode for all things. Why we should, FFS, destroy the liberty the free software gives us, to make a Joe Sixpack standard GUI like MacOSX ? if you are not happy with linux, just use windows or mac osx. Or build your new unix system like apple did. You already got some choice, why bother with linux if you are not happy with it ?

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