On Fri, 2004-12-10 at 00:44, John wrote:
> You make it sound like the installer is no more important than, say,
> what color the installation CD is.
What a great analogy! Because 99.9% of Windows users _never_ see their
Windows installation CD! So yes, very true.
Because Windows users just "use Windows." They don't install it. They
don't config it. They just go. 95% of them get their hardware with
their system. And when they buy new hardware that doesn't work with
Windows, they assume they are out-of-date and just go buy a whole new
set of hardware, software, OS and applications.
> If we limit ourselves to Debian, the installer is a big factor that
> makes one distro different than another. (By "installer" I include
> WHAT gets installed, and HOW it gets installed)
Why limit yourself to Debian (if you have used others)? Debian can
be installed in a variety of supported ways. Fedora is the same.
> You may not realize this--your expertise may blind you to this
> fact--but when us mortals install distro A, and our wireless card
> works, and we install distro B, and our wireless card doesn't work,
> that's A BIG DEAL!
Exactly! Which brings us back to the fact that 99.9% of Windows users
_never_ see their Windows installation CD!
> And just as you say, one distro (esp limiting discussion to Debian)
> is much the same as another, so INSTALLER is a BIG DEAL!
If you are like 99.9% of Windows users and expect the Linux installer to
work as good as installing a Windows application.
Taking the terminology differences and the software-only hardware out of
the equation, just about every Linux distribution has a better installer
than the Windows _OS_ installer (not applications).
Unfortunately, there are the terminology differences. And there is the
issue of software-only hardware -- hardware that will not have a GPL
driver developed for it. These two issues are outside the hands of
Linux, just as if someone wasn't familiar with Windows, or if the
majority of PCs shipped with Windows incompatible hardware.
Which brings us back to the "get your Linux factory installed." And
that's were colleagues and InstallFests come in.
> Of course, to somebody more expert, fixing distro B simply
> means another five minutes work, etc. But sometimes experts forget
> that mortals use Linux too.
If Linux was that much trouble, I wouldn't use it. I'm not an expert.
But I know what to avoid. And one thing I want to avoid is Linux
incompatible hardware and not knowing the terminology. I don't expect a
Linux vendor or brand name to solve that for many any more than
Microsoft.
In fact, there are a lot of unqualified MCSEs out there to work on
Windows systems. They refuse to learn the technology.
Which brings me back to the installation. If you don't want to get into
the "guts," then "get your Linux factory installed." If you want to get
int the "guts," I don't care if its Linux or Windows, you're going to
have to know what you're doing with the installer. This was especially
true for NT-based Windows back in the days when "Chicago" (95, 98, ME)
was more popular.
> It's often worth looking back. Corel started with their graphics
> package, and it's the only thing they ever did right. Then they tried
> selling CDROM drives. Dropped out of that. Then they wrote SCSI
> driver software. Dropped out of that; sold it to Adaptec. They sold
> stock photographs. They bought the desktop publishing software--I
> forget the name. There's probably more, but I can't remember it all.
> The company has lost money like water through a sieve.
Yes, this is true.
> My point is simply this: why would I want to spend a lot of time
> and/or money investing in a product/vendor if I was relatively certain
> (based on past history) that the vendor is going to pull out before
> long.
Xandros is completely separately owned and operated. Last time I
checked they were completely funded by another investment group and set
of private holders.
Corel itself was a publicly traded company, but has been more recently
resold to an entirely different set of private holders now.
Corel has absolutely no control over Xandros, and has not for close to 2
(or 3?) years now (I need to check).
> I rest my case.
In fact, using the same logic, Xandros has now been out far longer than
its Corel lineage. And that history has been 100% _free_ of Corel
funding.
So by the same logic, what you're saying is that Corel WordPerfect's
success is based on the Novell, even though Novell sold WordPerfect and
has basically nothing to do with it since the mid-to-late '90s?
I'm kinda scratching my head on this one. Or are you just being
purposely argumentative in order to see how long I will stay
intellectual and keep posting to the list?
-- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org ------------------------------------------------------------------ Beware of advocates who justify their preference not in terms of what they like about their "choice," but what they did not like about another option. Such advocacy is more hurtful than helpful.----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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