Questions for Leo Laporte

[Patrick]

Leo won't be able to do a live interview so we'll be doing a pre-recorded segment with him. Please submit your questions and we'll make sure to ask him.

[Patrick]

Since the interview will hopefully happen soon I'm bumping this up. Please post some questions for Leo.

[Judland]

I see that Leo is hosting the Canadian edition of "Call for Help" filmed in Toronto, Canada.

Was it just the job, or is there a more personal reason that helped bring him to the big "T.O."?

[aay]

Leo won't be able to do a live interview so we'll be doing a pre-recorded segment with him. Please submit your questions and we'll make sure to ask him.

Pat,

I'm a big fan of Leo and I appreciate his support for Linux and OSS. Having said that I do have a question for him.

Leo, please help me understand why you advocate the use of SUSE to people who are trying out Linux for the first time in light of the following three points:

1. Novel does not provide free installation isos. You have to do an ftp install which is probably not a good idea for beginners.

2. There are other distros that make package management and installation much easier than the way SUSE handles it. YAST is nice, but still suffers from rpm hell. What about advocating distros that make installing and upgrading packages much easier for beginners like distros that use apt or have apt available through synaptic.

3. If you look on the internet, you'll see that there is very little community enthusiasm for SUSE when compared to other distributions (like Ubuntu for example). Would not new users be better served by advocating a distro that has more community support? If they run into problems there are lots of places to find help with distros that have a large community following. I haven't found this to be the case with SUSE?

Has Leo tried distros like Ubuntu? Or even Mepis?

Thanks,

Adam

[bosshoff]

1. Novel does not provide free installation isos. You have to do an ftp install which is probably not a good idea for beginners.

Um, http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=2

[aay]

Um, http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=2

This is a good point, but I think I can still stand by the earlier assertion. The iso listed here is two releases behind the current release. Two releases are usually pretty significant for any linux distro.

SUSE/Novel is pretty clear that they themselves only provide ftp installs of current releases: http://www.novell.com/products/linuxpro ... downloads/

I know that you can find editions of SUSE 9.3 available online via bittorrent but this is really something quite different than if SUSE/Novel provides isos for their current releases on their website.

I'm really not trying to start a flame war against SUSE. SUSE is technically a fine distro and has many great points. I don't really have anything against it, but in light of the above mentioned issues I'm simply curious as to Leo's reasons for advocating SUSE as opposed to other distros.

[CptnObvious999]

ask him what he thinks linux needs in order to become the most used operating system and what are the next logical steps for developers.

[Patrick]

ask him what he thinks linux needs in order to become the most used operating system and what are the next logical steps for developers.

I don't know if he using linux at all. Leo seems to be mostly a Mac guy. I know he's mentioned knoppix in the past. I'll definitely ask him if he's tried linux lately and what he thinks.

[Judland]

I'm not sure that Leo knows a heck of a lot about Linux either.

Over the weekend I was watching some of the Canadian "Call for Help" and someone called in and asked which distribution of Linux they should try... being a MS-Windows only user, wanting to give Linux a try.

He suggested Knoppix (cause you don't have to install anything to try it), but finished off with suggesting SuSE because it was the distribution most like MS-Windows.

Huh? Doesn't SuSE just run a pretty standard version of Gnome?

Of all the distros. I've tried, I personally think Linspire is probably the most Windowy looking/feeling Linux distro.

Anyway, not to be-little Leo, I really don't think he's all that experienced with Linux desktops.

[Patrick]

Of all the distros. I've tried, I personally think Linspire is probably the most Windowy looking/feeling Linux distro.

Anyway, not to be-little Leo, I really don't think he's all that experienced with Linux desktops.

Agreed on both points. Even though he doesn't seem to be too knowledable about linux I like what Leo does. He has a geniune sense of enthusiasm for technology and spreading it to the masses. For the most part he's fairly technical even though he comes from a broadcasting background. I'm looking forward to being the little bird in his ear and getting the scoop on various things he's involved with. I'd like to get some details on the whole Comcast/TechTV 'merger'. He might not be able to talk about it. I will definitely bring it up though.

[Guest]

On the contrary, Leo does know alot about Linux and he does / has tried many flavors that are out there as well. When TechTV / ZDTV was on the air, Leo hosted two Tech shows, Call for help which was for your newbies and then there was The Screen Savers which was for the more advanced users. Granted there wasn't that many questions about linux as some had hoped, but when there were, Leo was right there to answer them. Also back then he would recommend the Mandrake linux and perhaps a couple others as well, so before you go knocking someone that you might not know a whole lot about, it might be best to do your research. As for him going up to Canada to do the Call For Help 2.0 show, which is what it's now called, they seeked him out. The way that they do that show is they tape several shows that will run for a couple of weeks, that way he only has to fly up there a couple times a month. Besides doing that show, he hosts a radio show that runs 3 hours both Saturday and Sunday, and is usually live, but he does tape them sometimes when he know that he won't be there to do it live, and he also does a podcast with pretty much the old crew from the screen savers as well, and that site is http://www.thisweekintech.com/
He also has published a few books as well and they cover some things of linux in them as well. Just thought I'd share this bit of information so you'd know more about Leo than what you might have known. I'm just a long time fan of ZDTV / TechTV and the tech shows that I have seen while they were on the air, and he's someone with an extreme wealth of information.

[Patrick]

so before you go knocking someone that you might not know a whole lot about, it might be best to do your research. As for him going up to Canada to do the Call For Help 2.0 show, which is what it's now called, they seeked him out. The way that they do that show is they tape several shows that will run for a couple of weeks, that way he only has to fly up there a couple times a month. Besides doing that show, he hosts a radio show that runs 3 hours both Saturday and Sunday, and is usually live, but he does tape them sometimes when he know that he won't be there to do it live, and he also does a podcast with pretty much the old crew from the screen savers as well, and that site is http://www.thisweekintech.com/
He also has published a few books as well and they cover some things of linux in them as well. Just thought I'd share this bit of information so you'd know more about Leo than what you might have known. I'm just a long time fan of ZDTV / TechTV and the tech shows that I have seen while they were on the air, and he's someone with an extreme wealth of information.

I'm a fan of Leo and I'm well aware of what he does and has done in the past. I used to watch the old TechTV before the Comcast abortion ruined it. I've mentioned it numerous times, I'm well aware how busy he is and respect what he does. I really appreciate the fact that he's taking time from his very hectic schedule to talk to me and will tell him that. Honestly, from what I've heard him say (on the tv shows and radio show) his linux experience is some what limited. I'm really looking foward to talking him. How about some questions you might have?

[Judland]

...so before you go knocking someone that you might not know a whole lot about, it might be best to do your research.

Whoa, whoa, whoa..... calm down there, buddy. To be clear, I commented that to me he didn't seem to have much Linux DESKTOP experience. There's a difference.

I personally think that an experienced Linux desktop user would make other recommendations than what I've heard Leo give to people, that's all. So chill out, man.

And unless you're Leo himself, then answering my question about taking the Canadian gig is presumptuous on your part. I'll wait to hear Leo's answer (if it's a question Pat asks), thank you very much.

[Patrick]

I'm bumping this up because I'll be talking to Leo on Monday. Any other questions you'd like me to ask him? Hopefully I'll have it edited for Wednesday's show.

[Patrick]

The interview with Leo went very well. Leo was very cool. I stayed up late last night to make sure it's edited and ready to go for Wednesday night. A little preview: Leo gives us the lowdown on the Comcast takeover of TechTV. FYI, he does not have kind words for Paul Allen. Please listen on Wednesday for more!