[aclug-L] Re: Linux as an alternative to a Windows desktop

[Jeff Vian <jvian10@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jonathan Hall wrote:

>If all you're doing is email and web browsing, that's probably true.
>
>As soon as someone wants to install the latest screen saver, or chat
>program, or whatever the latest gadget is... Linux is worlds harder,
>sometimes impossible (without root access) for a new user than Windows is.
>
>  
>
And it should be.

With full access, such as on windows, you are open to many BAD things, 
such as viruses, the need for more space, etc.

With the Linux/UNIX paradigm only the one who NEEDS to have full access, 
has full access  as root.   AND hopefully, they will have enough common 
sense to not just willy nilly make changes without thought.

I realize that many applications may be hard to install as an individual 
user, but Star Office for example is VERY easy to install as a user.  It 
is intuitive to install and only requires a modicum of skill to set up 
an icon on the desktop to use it.
    If a workstation is used by one user, there is no effective 
difference whether the application is installed for a single user 
(installed by the user) or for access by all users (there are no other 
users on that workstation).

In a world where there are many users to use a single application it 
should be set up for global access, thus requiring an administrator to 
set it up. OTOH, for home use that is not likely the issue and the 
_fear_ of the unknown is more likely the problem.  Most of us like what 
we are comfortable with, and _fear_ what is new to varying degrees..

In the business workd, the install can mostly be done remotely and thus 
the user does not need to do anything except use the new application 
after it is *magically* installed for him/her.


Other applications are the same in my experience.

What some people complain about as "hard to install and use" is a result 
of the OPEN software approach to Linux and most of the applications 
thereon;  since there are MANY different distributions with several 
directory structures for the filesystems, including the binaries, AND 
many different X-windows environments using different windows managers, 
The upshot of this is that without a SINGLE STANDARDIZED OS and a SINGLE 
STANDARDIZED directory structure it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to have an 
installation routine that will work properly in every case.

We appear to have a choice:
1. Accept a single standard os and structure that pleases the ignorant 
masses who want their hands held to do everything and make no decisions 
themselves.
     A choice which will cripple many.

or

2  Maintain the freedom we have and attempt to educate the lusers to the 
better way.
    A choice which will for a time present a learning curve.  But as has 
already been stated;
    WHO among us has not encountered the learning curve and surmounted 
the obstacle to get where we are.

    In that vein, I also ask for thought.  
        Are we better to be handed the solution, or to find the solution 
for ourselves??
        Are we better to have no choice, or the freedom to choose??

>-- Jonathan
>
>  
>


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