Serious reservations about FC2 release on 5/18

[Gregory G Carter]

Linux is not ready for the poor souls who expect to throw a disk in and 
press the pretty setup button.

It isn't, and it will not be for a couple of YEARS yet.  I think your 
expectations are out of line, personally.

Linux is not for the IT guy who basically presses buttons, and if it 
doesn't work you call Microsoft.  (i.e. Microsoft Administrators)

At the moment Linux is for the guy who can make the modifications to the 
Python scripts to properly implement a dual boot MBR with a little C 
code to scan the partition types and resize/reconfig them on the fly.

Linux WILL eventually get that far, but not today, tomorrow next week 
next year.  We are still in the process of evicting "bill and the gang" 
from the server rooms. Once wereach critical mass, very soon I suspect, 
we will start worrying about the desktop.

Although we are not TOTALLY without compassion.  :-)  Try looking at the 
knoppix distro on CD if you absolutely want to just run Linux part of 
the time, without fiddling with your XP install.  No fuss and no 
muss....knoppix is the way to go for the IT Drones and casual users who 
just want a peak at Linux or see if it supports your hardware.

What is embarrassing to me, personally is that the US is over run with 
IT people who can't do jack if they cannot find the setup button.

The entire US IT department landscape is built by people  who really do 
not understand the technology they are using, and are simply drones that 
push pretty buttons.  If it doesn't have a GUI on it, they label it as 
"unusable" not "mature".

I would like to propose a different view...that the individuals who are 
making this determination are "unskilled" "overpaid" and should probably 
have their jobs "outsourced".

Is it any wonder most of the primary technical contributions to Linux 
distros that address the "desktop issues" do not come from the US 
anyway.  (GNOME, KDE...)

I find that sickening, disgusting and well...EXACTLY why most US IT 
departments can't do jack except complain about the whole desktop distro 
THANG.

All of the issues that Fedora has on the desktop will eventually be 
addressed so you IT "drones" can boot Linux into run level init 5 and 
blow 256MB of memory on a stupid GUI just to restart your DNS server 
instead of just typing ./named reload on the command line at init level 
3 without a gui.

If I was you I would go back to using Windows for awhile until we get 
there.  But complaining about trivial things when we are in the process 
of "penguinizing" the server rooms of the world is not something you are 
going to get a whole lot of sympathy for.

-gc




Robert P. J. Day wrote:

>On Mon, 17 May 2004, Sean Estabrooks wrote:
>
>  
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>>This hardly counts as a major flaw and IMHO Linux distros don't have to 
>>prove themselves to anyone anyway.
>>    
>>
>
>yes it is, and yes they do.  get a grip.  given the pitched battle between 
>microsoft and linux at the moment, how many potential converts (many of 
>whom will be running XP) do you think will be impressed with the attitude 
>of, "hey, this is linux, we don't give a crap about your windows stuff."
>
>oh, yeah, that'll win piles of new friends.
>
>rday
>
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>