Judland wrote:Personally, I feel the best way to get a Windows user to try Linux is to take their PC, do the install and set-up of Linux yourself, then give them back a complete system... ready to go.
I've done this now with a hand-ful of people and it seems to be the best method of Linux adoption. They're still using their Linux system and are quite content.
Yeah that's correct, but we can't do that with 190 million people or however many Windows users there are out there.
Judland wrote:Got another co-working coming by the house some evening this week to do the same thing.
I do the install, do the upgrades and get all of the extra packages they'll need to do what they want to do. I hand them back a working system and they just use it. They don't care if they're using Kanotix, Slackware, Arch... whatever. They just know that they're using Linux and KDE (I set them up with KDE ever time).
If they want to install a new package, I'll talk them through it or log into their desktop remotely and show them.
Sounds like a good way to do it, I always set people up with either Mandriva, SUSE or Fedora, because if they run into an issue or something that I didn't think of I can eaisily guide them through a GUI to fix it over the phone.
Patrick wrote:I had another co-worker ask me this morning to help him setup a linux box. We're making progress people!
Nice man, what are ya gonna set him up with?
Chess wrote:I am very, very torn on this issue. Part of me feels that it's important to get users over to Linux no matter what, so the more gui's and the less command prompt the better. I keep tihnking about my wife, for example, who loves our Mac and has no understanding of terminals etc. But on the other hand, part of me feels that, well, Linux is *not* Windows and using the terminal is part of using Linux. Certainly, someone should not be just dropped into a terminal with no background and no context and no help, but I sort of feel that we not only need to show users what Linux can do but we need to teach them, at least just a little bit, that Linux does some things differently. And one of those differences is that it uses the command line. I think we might be doing them a disservice if we de-emphasize the command line.
It's a tough issue, though, for sure.
Well, if you really honestly believe that we should teach people to use some basic commands, we'll always loose to Apple, they have created an interface where not a single command is needed. Dude, people like our wives or girlfriends don't wanna learn to use a commandprompt, because they don't care about knowing about computers, girls these days only care about being on MySpace 24/7. If Apple can take Mach, FreeBSD and other stuff and create a system where not a single command is needed, why can't we? Why can't we as a community create a solid desktop operating system that normal people can install on their machine with the same ease that they can reinstall OS X on their Macs? If we follow this thinking of "Getting people over to Linux, and then teaching them because Linux is not Windows" people will just throw their machines out and buy a Mac, which is already happening with Windows. The Apple thing is sort of getting to be "in" these days, kinda like iPods are getting to be sort of a "status symbol" in high schools these days. Look, if we require the use of a command, anywhere in the process of using Linux, we have fundementally lost, even to Microsoft, because their OS doesn't need commands, and then it can be so crappy, unstable, insecure and what have you, but if people think it's the only thing that they can use, besides Apple maybe, then they're just gonna live with all the spyware just the same way they're gonna do with spam.
I know the Slackware guys don't want to see Linux being sort of like "a teenage girl's room where the wall are pink", but why do you think Apple is starting to gain a little bit on Microsoft? Because they have an OS that normal people can just use, they can go buy a Mac, and then they can edit video, and all that stuff with the touch of a button, and yet UNIX is still powering that computer in one way or another. Think about it, if you force the use of a single command anywhere in a user's process of using Linux, we will loose in the end. For example, if I someday need a car, I could of course learn to change oil on it myself, or some other stuff that may be simple besides actually driving the car, of course I would learn to drive it, which equals to learning a word processor, spreadsheet, web browser, email....., but I don't necessarily want to learn how to fix it when it has issues. A lot of people feels the same way with computers! Not everyone feels that the use of a computer is natural, a lot of people are scared of it in a way.
Gomer_X wrote:Or Yast?
Whether you like it or not, there was a period wher it was not open.
That's right, the SUSE guys saw YaST as their advantage over guys like Red Hat for example, and to some degree I could understand their point. But you know, samething is true for Linspire and their Click'n'Run thingy, the difference is that you didn't have to pay tp use YaST.
And now YaST has been free software for a while, Ximian did the same thing with their Ximian Connector plugin for Evolution. Let's not look to the past, because that's not what matters, what matters is the here and now.
Gomer_X wrote:I've never needed a graphical tool to configure X. What's to configure?
You just nailed it on the head, YOU have never needed a GUI for it, but people who're used to right clicking on their desktop --> Properties --> Display, to change their resolution, or adjust stuff when they got a new graphics card or simply a new monitor are gonna need a GUI for configuring X.
I don't come at this from any sort of elist point of view at all. I love the fact that there are so many different <i>types</i> of distros, from Slackware, to Ubuntu, to SUSE, to Linspire. I am all about getting people to try Linux, to give Linux a chance. That's why I started that podcast.
