[BadVista Advocate] Microsoft Says "Vista has less bugs than XP"

Jacob Maynard indymaynard at maynard.homelinux.com
Sun Apr 29 17:24:31 EDT 2007


The learning curve for a computer, sad to say, has been built by Windows.
We have to maintain the ease of Windows without the restrictiveness.
Therefore, new users with only Windows knowledge under their belt would
hate to have to edit a text file. It's more trouble than it's worth for
most people. Even though no OS can be completely intuitive, we must do the
best we can to find that distro that covers it enough.

I was thinking about it. We should get the opinions of people who have
never used Vista before and compare them to people who have never used
GNU/Linux before. Maybe the same people test each system? If we could get
just 3 or so to tell us their opinions after having used them, that would
be a good campaign kicker. Unless they liked Vista better, of course. But
it would be a neat experiment, anyway.

Jacob

>
> Actually I doubt editing xorg.conf would turn many people away, given that
> if
> you aren't into geek land fairly deep you wouldn't know about xorg.conf
> --or
> you editing experiment would be very short --unless you had enough console
> know how to at least get to MC or the equivalent, and then how to get back
> to
> xorg.conf to fix what you did wrong...
>
> But I take your point as you meant it, the geekness of using a computer
> should
> be minimal.
>
> On the other hand, if we want to drive a car it requires SOME learning...
> ditto computers.
>
> It is actually an impossibility to make a totally intuitive OS (at today's
> level of man machine interfaces).
>
> So yes simple is best for beginners, the availability of "as complex as
> you
> want", for not so beginners, is also very important.
>
> As to the current version problem, well it's true of everything (software,
> hardware, fast cars, medical procedures, etc.), stay away from bleeding
> edge
> stuff, most users can't handle cutting edge stuff. But marketing is the
> urge
> to push the latest and greatest...
>
> Why would you get yelled at for using Fedora, or any other distro? With
> the
> exception of Vista possibly.
>
> And even at that I'd love to have someone with real hands on, at work and
> at
> home, experience with Vista tell us about the experience.
>
> That's someone that is also aware of and uses GNU/Linux everyday. It would
> help in writing a FAQ.
>
> Don.
>  ***********************************
>  On Sunday 29 April 2007 01:33 pm, Jacob Maynard wrote:
> This is the kind of thing I am talking about. Editing xorg.conf alone will
> turn away a lot of people. We need to find something where no editing is
> required, it is just set up right. And remember that not everyone is
> interested it making their own software to fix different things. It needs
> to be all-inclusive. When someone wants to start programming their own
> software, then they should know that they have the choice.
>
> Remember that we are dealing with people who have dealt with Windows for
> the last 20 years. In Windows, you didn't edit some file to make your
> video card work to its fullest. We can't expect the people we are trying
> to sway to be okay with that option.
>
> That being said, I'm going to throw this one out there and wait to get
> yelled at by you all. I have run Fedora 5 and 6, and I think they are very
> user-friendly, though you can't edit your Apache conf file with the visual
> editor that they have. Otherwise, it has everything you need as a basic
> desktop. So, that's my thought.
>
> Oh, and we can't expect users to know about the most current version of
> KDE, either. These updates have to be able to be applied with only a click
> or two of the user.
>
> Jacob
>
> --
> GNU/Linux is the future.
> Join the FSF: http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=4458
> Get the Real Facts: http://BadVista.org
>
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