[H-GEN] RH 6 CD's

Frank Brand fbrand at uq.net.au
Thu Jul 22 01:26:43 EDT 1999


(Note reply-to: being general at humbug.org.au vs Frank Brand <fbrand at uq.net.au>)

On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Steve Elliott wrote:
> (Note reply-to: being general at humbug.org.au vs Steve Elliott <steve at virtuozo.com.au>)

> 
> AAAArrrghhhhhh no - close to windoze gui ? Are you trying to steer me
> away from it ?
> 

Not in the least. There are a lot of distributions. You pays your money you
takes your choice. I just feel that for a user comfortable with win 95/98 the
KDE interface is easier to negotiate...eg for setting backgrounds. Mind you for
true UNIX usrs such X-Windows stuff, pictures,backgrounds etc are superfluous
and only the CLI should be allowed. Personally I quite like fvwm95 in Red Hat
and that looks heaps like win95 but the resources are not so easy to get to as
in KDE...eg adding an item to menus etc. If you want to look at user
friendliness issues just put yourself in the position of a new Linux user and
try to work out how to put an item on a menu in fvwm, then try and change a
backgound and if you really want to try something change the screensaver. All
things that people know how to do already in Win. Even when you work these
things out in X they are often non-trivial (well non-trivial for most users,
non-trivial is not an absolute term and means different things to houswives
with little technical training or 22 year old technocrats with a degree in
Computer Sciernce). 

I do not really care what distributions people use...use whatever turns you on
but it has always been my position that 95% (or more) of computer users have
expressed a desire for a GUI that is relatively simple to use and if Linux aims
to genuinely be a significant force in the OS space this has to be addressed.

Pandering really strongly to 5% of the market is exactly what Bill Gates wants
Linux to do, I am sure he would accept total domination of 95% of the world
rather that a competitive share of all of it.

--
Frank Brand
E-mail: fbrand at uq.net.au
Home Page: http://www.uq.net.au/~zzfbrand

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