"This document was created to show non-KDE people what they're missing - and if you haven't used KDE a lot, you're missing a lot of things and you may interested in reading this page to learn how many wonderful things you've been missing. I promise, this is a subjective analysis of why KDE rules. I was a GNOME user for a long time, one of those users who loved GNOME UI, and I didn't know how much things I was missing with KDE until I tried it."
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Member since:2005-07-06
For years reviewers of new Linux distros in various magazines always complained that Linux was hard to install. All this nagging finally seam to have worked. Linux is now as simple as it can be (even though this may be to hard for some), and now reviewers seldom have anything bad to say about the Linux OS install process.
The new favorite issue for reviewers to nag about now days seam to be software installation. As a Linux user I think it is extremely simple and much better than in windows, but evidently reviewers doesn't seam to agree.
These people probably have windows background, and as windows background is quite common among new users to Linux, the install process probably needs to be even simpler if we want to attract new users.
This is an area where KDE, Gnome, XFCE,... could help.
One solution would be to introduce some virtual Application folder. To install new software the user should just have to drag the new package into that folder. In case of dependency problems needed packages should be downloaded from the net if possible. To uninstall he should just have to drag the package he doesn't want into the trash.
I would also suggest hiding folders like /bin, /lib, /boot, /dev, /root, /usr, /etc, /sbin, /boot and just leave business related folders visible by default to non andmin users. That way, the user won't be confused by seeing his application packages displayed in his virtual Application folder as well as the real installed program files in their standard unix places.
Another solution would of course be to actually install the software in the Application folder, but that would probably not work very well for backward compatibility reasons.
It would also be extremely important that KDE, Gnome,.. cooperated on this so the install process looked the same regardless what desktop environment used as a newbie will probably not know what DE he is running.
Member since:
2005-12-09
Actually, you give a good example of this yourself, as you tell me that your aunt asked you to install KDE. If it had been easy enough she would have done it herself.
The problem for her would be installing Linux as a whole and not KDE. I agree that the Linux installation process would be complicated for many non geeks, but the same applies for Windows. Many people out there cannot install Windows on their own, so its not just a Linux problem.