Linux killer!

STYMA, ROBERT E (ROBERT) stymar at lucent.com
Mon Oct 31 16:21:29 UTC 2005


> 
> If they are not supposed to be watching the videos on the school 
> computers, then block them at the firewall as our business 
> does.  When 
> they cannot watch them on Windows it won't make any difference.
> 
I think the point is that if Linux is to make a bigger dent in the
Windows desktop, more things have to "just work".  In a similar experiment
to the one which started this thread, I slowly converted a non-technical
family with three computers from windows to Linux and recorded the
issues which came up. (http://www.swlink.net/~styma/LinuxForTheMasses.shtml)
The current distributions of Linux still need a technical person
to get things working.  The technical person would still have no clue
as to how to get these things working.  Many of them require a fair
amount of research on the web.  I understand the reasons mp3's and
wmv's don't play right out of the box, but to get "Joe Sixpack" using
Linux requires an update process simple enough for "Joe Sixpack" to
use to get this functionality working.

If making Linux really simple is not working out, another model might
be to have pay subscriptions to remote maintenance services.  The FC3
and FC4 boxes I maintain for my friends I can access remotely via
SSH and VNC.  On a Windows box, if tech support cannot talk you through
the problem, the user ends up taking the box in and paying big bucks.
ssh, /etc/hosts.allow, and iptables could provide a very effective support
mechanism.  On my friends boxes, I am the only one with the root password,
not that they would understand what root was anyway.

Just my 2 cents worth.  My point is that Linux needs to be simple in
addition to being better.

Bob Styma




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