Question for our users

Paul Blondé jpb at entel.ca
Thu Jan 29 17:57:56 UTC 2009


> -----Original Message-----
> From: fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com 
> [mailto:fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Ralf Corsepius
> Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 2:07 AM
> To: Community assistance, encouragement,and advice for using Fedora.
> Subject: Re: Question for our users
> 
> Tim wrote:
> > On Tue, 2009-01-20 at 03:23 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> >> No, I was referring to deploying Fedora in "office-like situation",
> >> i.e. to be used by "non-technical" people, who are using 
> not much more
> >> than "text processor, spreadsheet, internet browser, 
> email, scanner,
> >> printer, fax".
> >>
> >> For them, an OS and the SW they are using are supposed to 
> "just work
> >> out of the box". They will throw away Fedora at the very moment,
> >> they'll be confronted with SELinux alerts or package-kits update
> >> alerts or when they experience the poor shape of certain key
> >> components in Fedora currently are in.
> > 
> > Funny how NONE of them do the same when it comes to Windows
> 
> Right, Windows has similar issues, ... nagging ordinary users with 
> popups they are not supposed/not knowledgeable to process is a very 
> questionable design.
> 
> It's appropriate for "single-user/single-seat" "personal" setups, but 
> not for "office"/"production" environment desktop and 
> networked/centrally adminstrated installations.
> 
> Ralf

All versions of Windows do it, Macs do it, every version of Linux including
even the extreme desktop non-techie user-centric Ubuntu does it.

You can limit it, but that's as far as you can go. There is no way to
guarantee that a user will never be faced with a message from the computer
that s/he will not be able to handle. This is where a bare minimum of user
education is required: teach them to communicate to you or your staff
immediately and clearly what has occurred so that you can get it resolved
with the minimum of effort and go back to playing with your toys as soon as
possible.

Paul




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