Re: *** draft 4 - press release ***

Richard B. Johnson (root@chaos.analogic.com)
Tue, 19 Jan 1999 09:10:25 -0500 (EST)


On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, Rik van Riel wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Igor Kolomiets wrote:
>
> > >Linux Distributions
> > >
> > >http://www.caldera.com/
> > >http://www.debian.org/
> > >http://www.pht.com/
> > >http://www.redhat.com/
> > >http://www.suse.com/
> >
> > What about www.slackware.com ?
>
> www.stampede.org
> www.rock-projects.com
>

What Microsoft has is the ability for any 13 year-old to install
its product and be connected to the Internet in an hour or less.

Until one or all of the above mentioned distributors produces a
product that does this, I don't see Linux making much of an impact
regardless of its press releases.

Over the past two days, I have been trying to get Red Hat up. Just
because the machine was able to be booted after an hour does not
mean that it is useful. Only late last night was I able to get
X-Windows running. Then I find that no windows manager was installed.
A stippled screen with a tiny window of xterm was the result of 8 or
more hours of work. This isn't going to hack it in the 'real world`.

I had to copy some stuff of one of my other machines to make a useful
user interface. Then I ran `xlock -nolock -mode random` to watch the
pretty pictures.... well soon it was printing `command not found`.

One of the selections executes `fortune` as it plays. There was no
fortune on the machine. I had to copy this from another machine.

The list, I'm sure, can be expanded.

I wrote privately to one of the principals of one of the distributors
that in order to have a good shot in the market place they should
hand their CD to a 13 year old and stand back and take notes. Until
they have a product that will produce a useful machine, and be on
the Internet with a GUI in an hour, they only have a curiosity, not
a product.

This is not a kernel issue. However, every distributor reads this list.
The product that these distributors produce has a significant impact
upon Linux's acceptance world-wide. If I had not been a proponent
of Linux and had experience since version 0.99, I would have thought
that I wasted the 20 dollars I spent on the CD-ROM. However, as an
Engineer, I look at the result and say; "Hey this is pretty good!";
even though it's not.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
Penguin : Linux version 2.1.131 on an i686 machine (400.59 BogoMips).
Warning : It's hard to remain at the trailing edge of technology.
Wisdom : It's not a Y2K problem. It's a Y2Day problem.

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