At Thu, 7 Oct 2010 11:54:20 -0700 CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org wrote:
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Bill Campbell centos@celestial.com wrote: :
I have gone from OpenDesktop on SCO in the early '90s to Linux from 1996 or so to OS X shortly after it came out. The vast majority of my development is on Linux servers, but OS X Just Works(tm), and I don't have to be constantly fiddling to get tools working.
The vast majority of desktop users simply want to do things without having to worry about it.
I've been using CentOS on my desktop continuously since January 2007 and on my laptops during the last 2-3 years, and they mostly "just work." The tinkering I have done with my system largely consists of stuff I do for fun or as an extension to my work (I've been developing software for UNIX and similar systems for over 23 years) and has little or nothing to do with "most" of what my experience of what the average user needs.
"Standard" installations come with an office suite, web and email facilities, some basic sound and video apps, graphics tools and accessories, not too unlike what comes with Windoow$ or O$-X/MAC$. A great many of those apps are cross-platform capable and many people use them on Win or Apple platforms as well (e.g., OO, Firefox, Thunderbird).
Having waited 8+ years to make the jump to a Linux that wasn't a royal battle to install and use, I have settled on CentOS mainly because I needed it for a job and it was trivially easy to work with even before I did any tinkering. From what I've seen, Ubuntu, Mint and a few other Linux distros are just as easy or maybe easier to use, but there's a myth that "Linux is difficult" and that stigma traumatizes anyone not willing to try anything new/different from the hyperinfiltration of M$ Window$ or the glamor of an Apple.
The main thing about Linux that is 'hard' is the fact that you have to use your brain and make choices: Which web browser? Which office suite? Which email client? Which desktop? Which Linux distro? For lots of people this is way too much work. I guess if these people looked at, say, cars or clothes the same way they looked at computers, they would ALL be driving boring black Chevys or would have a closet with 100 black suits, 100 black ties, 100 white shits, etc. (Well maybe 100 black T shirts and 100 pairs of jeans.)
Them's my $0.04 (inflation, ya know...).
Mark Richter Software Developer http://www.linkedin.com/in/markhullrichter Registered Linux User #472807
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