[NTLUG:Discuss] Open Source

[Chris Cox]

Fred wrote:
> I was trying to tell someone about "open source" computing 
> and they wanted to know why I didn't do something about
> those open sores.
> 
> Linux has a long way to go before the Great Unwashed can use 
> it unassisted. Not that it is a bad thing...

:)  The biggest problem is that people want something that
is so easy that they don't have to think.... AND it needs
to do whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it
and however they want to do it.

There are some very limited platforms that don't allow you
to install all variations of every software product (e.g.
a pure Gnome only or pure KDE only desktop for example) and
those can be used by the unwashed masses.  When things don't
work.. the answer is simple... it's not supported.

Of course, we know that the real answer is that most things
can be supported with some config tweaks here or there... but
that's where the unwashed get washed away.

My wife, in general, is a member of the "unwashed masses",
she's been a Linux user for years... however she doesn't
know that a command line is (though she's seen me use it
from time to time).  Obviously being married to a professional
Sys Admin is useful in her case for those occasional hiccups
where some tweaking is needed (but it's few and far between).

I'll admit, I do some significant setup work to give her
the "perfect" desktop environment and I do a lot of testing
before she gets it.  For example, I gave her a new laptop
for Christmas outfitted with openSUSE 10.3... pretty much
a home run.  Very few items needed to be tweaked, and many
of those were "nice to have" items and not really needed.
The only needed tweak was adding our new printer... which
I probably could have walked her through, but there was
a bug in the cups ppd file that causes problems with some
applications (in this case Google's Picasa).

So... it's a challenge, sure... that is, coming up with
a decent environment for the unwashed, but I think it's
doable.  Just might have to specify everything end-to-end..
that is... the peripherals, etc. that your custom
Linux will operate with.