Subject: Re: Ease Of Use and Hardware Support (WAS: Linux Laptops)
From: Harold Shanafield (hshanafield@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Mar 07 2002 - 22:14:59 MST
Is there another list I can join where I can get some
help with my legitimate questions, or all they all
full of proselytizers who feel it necessary to fill up
my in box with opinions. This is worse than
yahoo.games.
--- "Eric D." <liriodendron@mac.com> wrote:
> on 7/3/02 23:21, John Nelson at john@computation.com
> wrote:
>
> > Also, one should not confuse "ease of use" with
> "unfamilar way of doing
> > things". I find Linux with KDE very easy to use.
> I find the Linux
>
> <chuckle> People argued DOS was EASY to use when it
> was at its hey-day. The
> problem with a CLUI is, has always been, and always
> will be, that it's only
> accessible to those who learn the syntax. SYNTAX.
> SYNTAX. SYNTAX. Without
> having all that stuff memorised you're staring at a
> line that will accept
> text but won't provide any guidance.
>
> Unfamiliar would be a GUI which does things in a
> novel way (KDE... which
> reminds me, when I was talking about GNOME earlier,
> I meant KDE). Ease of
> use is having the UI GUIDE you through the process
> (sorry guys & gals but a
> man page simply doesn't count as a guide. If I have
> to read a Help file it
> means either I'm trying to do something wickedly
> complicated or the
> programmer didn't do their job on the interface).
>
> > shells easy to use because they are predictable
> and employ a terse
> > language. If you have a problem with Linux
> because "it isn't Windows"
> > then that's your problem. Linux is plenty easy to
> use, you just have to
> > learn how to use and maintain it, and the best way
> to do this is consult
> > the many (free) sources of online documentation.
>
> Doing genetic engineering is plenty easy to do
> provided you learnt your
> biology, chemistry, mathematics and quite a few
> other disciplines along the
> way.
>
> Documentation is the hall-mark of either a poorly
> written program, or an
> extremely complicated program. Changing a screen
> resolution is NOT a
> complicated process. Early versions of Microsoft's
> Windows products (and
> most 3rd party Windows apps of that era) had gobs of
> documentation but were
> tough to approach. More recent ones don't require
> the user to read a line of
> text but are much easier to approach.
>
> > As for Linux being a "hobbiest" operating system
> made for hobbiests,
> > there are many corporate and academic enterprises
> that will dissagree
> > with you because they use Linux (and Unix) to do
> serious work. They
> > don't use Windows because Windows can't be trusted
> to scale up to large
> > real-world problems (without spitting out a Blue
> Screen Of Death).
>
> Well, for the most part I have to agree with him. To
> run Linux on your own
> computer you have to be a hobbyist. To be the master
> of a Linux install in a
> corporate/academic environment you are also likely
> the kind of personality
> that "tinkers".
>
> Anyway, I doubt I'll ever be on-side with these
> arguments but I may someday
> be a primarily Linux user. My computer is a tool. If
> I have to spend a lot
> of time getting my tool to do what I want, when
> something else can do it
> faster, it's ineffective. Right now Linux is a
> really good tool for raw data
> manipulation but it falls down for simplicity when
> it comes to more complex
> tasks (copying/pasting/graphics (although, to be
> fair, that's cause Gimp is
> still very primitive beside a PhotoSlop +
> GraphicConverter combo)).
>
> L8r
>
=====
Harold Shanafield III
C: (512) 680-1137
H: (512) 918-1279
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Thu Mar 07 2002 - 22:29:35 MST