Ben Lutgens <blutgens at sistina.com> wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 18, 2002 at 03:37:27PM -0600, James Spinti wrote: > >Having a bad user day, Ben :( Or just need to stir the pot a bit? > > Neither, i just think we shouldn't push people to try linux. Let them > discover it on thier own. Otherwise, inevitably they'll have a hard time > then they'll tell everyone they know that it sucks (which wouldn't be > totally unreasonable since it would be thier opinion) I don't think anyone is being forced to try it. People aren't going to go if they aren't interested, are they? Haven't you ever been happy when someone recommended a good food or drink? Ever look at something and think, "I've got to have that!" Why did you decide it's a good idea to learn how to talk? You never know when someone might see some obvious benefit to what you show them. Whether it's showing someone how to drive or how to do audio in Linux (okay, I don't know who in their right mind would, but there's no telling what could happen ;-) > Further, most people have no business using it. I'd never expect my mom to > use it, or my sister or brother for that matter. They aren't into this sort > of thing. If that's true, then why do they have business using Windows or any computer with any OS, for that matter? Take their cellphone away! Send them to Pennsylvania to live on an Amish farm -- or is the butter churn too complex? There are people who could not, even if they spent their entire lives, learn how to use Linux. However, a *ton* of the people out there could quickly learn to use StarOffice, drag-n-drop files onto XMMS to play them, and even kill netscape when it locks up (okay, they'd probably need a crib sheet for that, and sooner or later, someone will make a KDE or Gnome applet to do it for them). I will grant that there are problems when it comes to configuring and installing systems. There's research out there that says 90% of people leave things the way they are and woudln't twiddle the knob if their life depended on it. Even pros succumb to it once in a while. Do you delete the superfluous icons that land on your desktop after you install something in Windows? Hmm.. My flame quota has been exceeded for the month.. -- _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ ___ _ _ __ A waist is a terrible thing / \/ \(_)| ' // ._\ / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__ to mind. \_||_/|_||_|_\\___/ \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __) [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088 at tc.umn.edu ] -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20020218/f1b6b293/attachment.pgp