APPLEVISION Monitor, Anything !Windows = Cryptic ?

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Mon May 6 19:40:55 2002

MS likes to claim to be "user friendly" but they don't guarantee they're
frustration-free.

I've never had the frustration with Windows that I had with Linux during the
timespan when I was trying to get it to do what it claimed.

I gave up on the various versions of Linux and *nix that I had running, each
on their own box here at the house. For single tasks, e.g. terminal server,
Mail, News, it's fine and runs for ages without a problem. However, I'm not
so sure it's as trouble free when you want to use a single machine to do a
multitude of widely varying things.

It may do that, but at what cost. Windows isn't free, but neither are Maalox
and prune juice.

more below...

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Raymond Moyers" <rmoyers_at_nop.org>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: APPLEVISION Monitor, Anything !Windows = Cryptic ?


> On Monday 06 May 2002 16:37, you wrote:
>
> > What's a bash? ... and what's mc? Would the man on the street know that?
>
> Or whats a mouse for that matter, some have problems
> double vs single "click"
>
> More non-point filler.
>
> > That may be true, but if you are sitting at computer keyboard for the
first
> > time in your life, how do you know what to do?
>
> More of the same, the fellow at the touchscreen of a burger stand
> can have problems, cant they.
>
> Look at the keyboards at some places, and the hunt for the "no mayo"
> button.
>
> We dont come pottie trained either.
>
> Any system can be precooked for an idiot, and my aged mother
> runs linux.
>
> She would been just as lost no matter the OS without some help
> when she first sat down.
>
> Now her best stories are how all here penpals machines crash
> and trash themselves and email bugs and ...
>
> All of which her machine is immune.
>
> > Maybe someday someone will write a DOSEMU that works like DOS,
> > and a WINE that actually executes Windows App's.
>
> These already exist, they are not "free" but i dont see you requiring
> "free" as a crterion elsewhere.
>
What? Where's there a Windows emulator for Linux that runs MSOFFICE? Will,
it at least, run CorelDRAW? How about the Xilinx Foundation software, or
ALtera's Maxplus-II?
>
> do you demand that winblows run rt11 or MVS apps ?
>
NO, but if an OS is going to supplant Windows, it has to interchange data
conveniently with machines that run Windows. I never said it had to be free,
nor did I say the task was impossible. I'd welcome the day it happens. IN
the meantime, I don't want to learn to use obscure app's for an OS that makes
me work all the time, when I can use Windows will little or no effort. It's
not perfect, but it appears to be what people want. How else can one explain
the fact that most computer users, even Linux users, use it?
>
> With cygwin winblows can run some linux apps on the bare metal
> with about the same success and bother as dosemu and wine
> and this software comes free from the same community.
> If you want better, they also are not "free" , but you dont demand a
> double standard im sure.
>
> > That would go a long way to ending the MS monopoly on user-friendly,
> > and make it possible for 3rd-party application developers to get up
> > some applicatons that really work.
>
> This line could be based on false assertion.
>
Oh ... you mean the user friendly thing? Well I didn't say it wasn't
frustrating.
>
> our apps work fine thank you very much, are network transparent
> and for most all we have the source code, anything we dont like
> we can change, an utterly totaly superior enviroment to work in.
>
Why don't more people use it then? Is it because, unlike you, they're all
idiots? Are you so much smarter than they? I doubt it. They're just focused
on getting the job done, while you're focused on the OS.
>
> Or perhaps you mean that winblows apps do not "really work"
> and without the source, well, better hope that there are enough
> "customers" with your problem that they might bother with
> a fix.
>
> > > I credit these two things for its success, no longer
> > > did it have two most fierce deterrents to learning.
> >
> > I think the learning is, in itself, a deterrent.
>
> O My, i could make all manner of hay with that.
>
Why not try making sense instead?
>
> > I think what promotes the learning best is making the system
> > such that one can do something one wants to do right out of the box
> > and then letting people learn what they have to along the way.
>
> Most all the linux dist's ship with precooked office suites that
> run with a click, and several at that, so another non point.
>
> You seem a bright guy, but most of what you say seems to be
> what some clueless idiot told you 4th hand rather than any
> hands on, or so it seems to me.
>
Bright matters when you're 14. After that it's what you've accomplished that
makes you happy.
Received on Mon May 06 2002 - 19:40:55 BST