VDQ : FC1 > FC2 ??

Lew Bloch conrad at lewscanon.com
Sat Aug 21 15:41:53 UTC 2004


> Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:28:23 -0500
> From: Jeff Vian <jvian10 at charter.net>
>> But I don't want to *have* to tweak things before I can start using them
>> (and finding out what tweaks suit me); and I don't want to get blindsided
>> by security holes. Yum and cron are a great help, bless them!
> 
> That goes without saying, and is part of the usability criteria.

It actually merits saying.  So many answers on this list are of the
"Easy!  Just download the foobar.complex-build.tgz and rebuild from 
source, after you custom-compile the kernel!"
variety.  Sometimes you have to remind people that usability is an 
"out-of-the-box" assessment, yes, even for Linux.

Particularly egregious, though relatively uncommon in Linux, are 
packages with a third-party dependency that must be downloaded from an 
entirely separate, sometimes inaccessible source.

"Oh, yeah.  You need the Framistator from joe-blow.com to link in with 
this!"

In fact, I don't think it can be stated enough in the Linux community - 
things should work without tweaks, recompiles, source builds and the 
like, for almost all cases.  You shouldn't have to be a RHCE just to use 
the product.





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