Getting people into Linux

[Les Mikesell]

On Thu, 2007-01-04 at 14:31 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> >
> > That's what the 'enterprise' distributions like RHEL and Centos are
> > all about.  However, in my opinion the application versions get too
> > far behind for desktop use between releases. 
> 
> I don't quite agree.  Enterprise distros are perfect for situations such as 
> offices, where stability is all and needs are relatively basic.

That's OK for servers, but what enterprise do you know that needs
nothing
better than firefox 1.5.0.8, evolution 2.02, and OO 1.1.5 on desktops
(that's
just what happens to be in Centos 4.x).

> As you 
> remark, application versions are likely to be too far behind to be satisfying 
> to a home user, who will probably want multimedia, for instance, and probably 
> 3d graphics.

The problems here are GPL related and aren't going to be solved by any
number of revisions.  I gave up and bought a Mac so as to get the
stability of a unix base but one that does not come with restrictions
that prevent the vendor from shipping it with the components you
need to make it usable.  I don't expect a Linux system to do that
in my lifetime, since the concept of software patents has to go
away first, then someone has to catch up with free/legal versions
of everything previously covered and not possible to combine with
GPL'd components.

> My thinking was that, assuming that the version installed by 
> the release works reasonably well, it would be fairly up to date and could 
> therefore be left alone.

There is a lot of difference between OO 1.x and 2.x and that update
wouldn't be likely to render your system unusable even if it has a
bug.

> I'm not suggesting that it should not be possible 
> to update such applications, of course, just that any 'automatic' updates 
> could be limited to security fixes - 'could be', mind, not 'must be'.

Anything to fill the large gap between RHEL and fedora would help.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell at gmail.com