>> 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.
It has this ability. Of course. Unfortunatelly just in you imagination,
not in real life.
"When people claim Linux is hard to use, what they're really saying is that
it's hard to install and get running, but Windows 98 is really no easier to
install than Linux on the first try. Set an experienced UNIX person who has
never used Windows down with a blank hard drive, a Windows 98 CD, and
Microsoft's original manuals, and you'll see just as much puzzlement as you
see on the face of a Windows-only computer user who is confronted with Linux
for the first time."
Jack Bryar, http://www.andoverNews.com/cgi-bin/news_column.pl?195
VERY TRUE. I'm have A LOT OF friends with 5-10 years of unix expirience and
[almost] without Windows expirience. Some of them tried to install Windows95
and/or Windows98. Typical result: [few] destroyed partition[s] with important
data and Windows95 is not running (without help from me or someone with deep
knowledge of Windows9x, of course).
> 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.
Hm. I'm had two friends (both 13 year-old -- d00levitin@sch57.msk.ru and
v00novodvorskij@sch57.msk.ru) back in summer 1997 who was able to setup
RedHat, Debian, SuSE, Slackware or other Linux distribution in less then
hour (Why "had" ? Just since they are not 13 year-old anymore :-)
So all you claim is just plain FUD: even very expirienced computer user
without Windows expirience could not setup Windows95 and/or Windows98 without
troubles while there are a lot of 13 year-old ones who could install Linux
just fine. Oh and I'm not said about my try to install Windows95 on IBM Aptiva
with IBM EtherJet, not ? Yeah, it was horrible adventure: I was unable to tune
IBM EtherJet on two computers out of ten and the only help from IBM's support
line was "this computer is not designed to be used with IBM EtherJet or any
network adapter, so leave us alone" (and the only help from Microsoft's support
line was "this is probably hardware problem, call IBM", of course :-) . Ok.
After TWO DAYS of experiments all was done -- I found problem (of course
problem was in PnP -- where else ? this two computers assigned IRQ 5 for
EtherJet while other assigned IRQ 10 or IRQ 11; and IBM EtherJet windows
driver does not work with IRQ 5 -- god knows why) and after disabling PnP
and reinstalling drivers was able to connect to the Internet. VERY FAR from
claimed one hour by any 13 year-old. BTW RedHat 4.2 was installed there in
two hours, not two days -- full with video and audio (only drivers for
EtherJet was downloaded from IBM site; and this was really joking way to put
drivers on web-site: there was .exe file with abitity to format floppy drive
and put .tgz with sources of driver on that drive)...
> 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.
Oh, yes. After installing Windows98 on IBM Aptiva (mentioned above) I found
that there are no video drivers and sound drivers. I was unable to find them
in IBM site but was able to extract them from Windows95 CD (there was
CD with specially tuned Windows95 with Aptiva) where drivers was just
put in Windows95 setup directory and included in setup process, but this
fact was not mentioned in documentation (of course :-) so I'm just took
.inf, .drv, .vxd and so on files and put them in appropriate directories
of setuped Windows98. You really expect that someone 13 year-old without
Windows expirience will be able to do this ?
> 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`.
Why it's Ok for Windows95 and Windows98 and not Ok for Linux ?
> 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`.
Try to install Windows98 without WordPad and type "write" in command line.
"Bad command or file name". Now copy WordPad from other computer and type
"write" in command line. No error message, no WordPad, nothing :-) At least
after copying of xlock you was able to use it :-)
> One of the selections executes `fortune` as it plays. There was no
> fortune on the machine. I had to copy this from another machine.
If you not installed something while installing system why you think that
it's will be installed ? Just "rpm -Uvh ..." will solve this problem BTW.
> The list, I'm sure, can be expanded.
I'm also could expand list of my (and my friends) troubles with Windows9x.
> 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.
Hm. So M$ staill has only coriosity, not a product ? This could be truth
of course but still some 90%+ of personal compures use this "curiosity" ...
> 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.
This all is mostly plain FUD. Of course installation of Linux is not perfect
and sometimes installation of Windows9x/NT is easier then installation of Linux
but to claim that this is always the case and (even bigger lie) that any
13 year-old is able to "install Windows9x and/or WindowsNT and be connected
to the Internet in an hour or less" is just plain lie. Even my friends with
few years Windows 3.x expirience was unable to setup "Windows Dial-Up
Networking" without my help... Idea that there are the only way to setup
TCP/IP settings is with usage of right mouse click was far above their
imagination...
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