[ale] Best Desktop Env or Distro for Windows users?

[tfreeman at intel.digichem.net]

On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, Joseph A. Knapka wrote:
Head on down a bit 8-)
> Thompson Freeman wrote:
> > 
> > On 2002.08.21 10:43 Charles Marcus wrote:
> > > > From: Irv Mullins [mailto:irvm at ellijay.com]
> > > > Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 9:43 AM
> > > >
> > > > On Wednesday 21 August 2002 08:37 am, you wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Unless people are running Pentium 150s or something
> > > >> I'd recommend a real desktop ENVIRONMENT like GNOME
> > > >> or (my preference) KDE instead of just a window
> > > >> manager like IceWM. These are windows users who are
> > > >> going to want things like a control panel, a menu
> > > >> panel, icons on the desktop, things they are used to.
> > >
> > > > Agreed. Any of the 'lightweight' window managers are
> > > > going to be an immediate and final turnoff for people
> > > > who are used to Windows. They will refuse to use them,
> > > > your cause is lost.
> > >
> > > Uh.  If the Company President, or Office Manager, or whover is in
> > > charge of
> > > these decisions, mandates that this is the new corporate Desktop, the
> > > Users
> > > will have no say-so about it.  They *can't* refuse to use it - all
> > > they can
> > > do is complain amopngst themselves, and worst-case, quit and go work
> > > somewhere else.
> > >
> > > Managements *only* concern should be that they have the tools they
> > > need to
> > > do their job well.
> > >
> > > > You can use this as a selling point. Users will be
> > > > impressed with their ability to customize things.
> > > > The only other thing they will care about is that
> > > > Linux may crash less often than Windows.  Anything
> > > > else, no mater how real, will be unimportant.
> > >
> > > Who *cares* what the Users think, ultimately?
> > 
> > Anybody who wants the Users to accomplish something positive.
> 
> I guess that leaves Microshaft out. I mean, I think the
> success of Windows has demonstrated that users can get
> used to *anything*, up to and including regular bluescreens
> and rabid weasels gnawing on their ankles. Even if they're
> a "captive audience" in an initial switch to open-source,
> I would think the same principle would apply, and that
> eventually the less-aggressive open-source beasties - and
> lack of continual crashing - would capture their hearts
> and minds.
> 

Actually, I suspect that leaves MS _in_, because for all of the
things I _don't_ like about MS, I believe MS has tried to put the
features end users want - or at least think they want. How many current
users got their start under AppleDOS, CP/M, or MSDOS? Before Windows, 
stability wasn't considered all that important - three finger salute and 
go. When the basic multitaskers showed up for most people, Desqview, 
MacOS, the early Windows (among others), stability _still_ wasn't all that 
important, since people were discovering the power of having the machine 
multi-task for them. (And some of us learned on mainframes, at locations 
too cheap to purchase UPSs, and so regular crashes due to power surges 
were a way of life 8-(). In otherwords, almost a quarter of a century or 
better has passed during which many/most users got used to sloppy 
unprofessional ways of doing things. (IMAO, of course). With MS having a 
virtual desktop monopoly for the past almost 15 years, both in 
applications and OS, I fault their management for not focusing on known 
good engineering (stability, graceful degridation, security, etc) in favor 
of the eye candy and the golly gewhiz features that are more popular. In 
their defense, MS management grew up in the early erea of single task OSs, 
and could not apparently learn the lessons from the earliest days of 
computing from history.

Sorry to be rambling a bit here.

> Cheers,
> 
> -- Joe
>   "I'd rather chew my leg off than maintain Java code, which
>    sucks, 'cause I have a lot of Java code to maintain and
>    the leg surgery is starting to get expensive." - Me
> 

-- 
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Try Ingnorance
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