RE: tlug: X resolution / color depth

["Jonathan Byrne--3Web" <jq@example.com>]

-----Original Message-----

7ol : Scott Stone <sstone@example.com>
6f : tlug@example.com <tlug@example.com>
z : 1998N319z 12:06
< : RE: tlug: X resolution / color depth



>this isn't true at all.  My Riva128 was 100 times easier to set up under
>Linux than it was under Windows.  The thing is that usually your computer

Some things require a little more setup than others, that's true.  My Edge
3D, for example.  But heck, it doesn't even work under Linux.  Well, the
video part does, but forget everything else.  But I'm not really talking
about only video configuration, which actually isn't bad using either
xf86config or TurboLinux's Xxonfigurator (but they do still ask you a bunch
of questions that Windows doesn't).  What I'm really talking about is the
whole complexity issue.  Some things are always going to be unavoidable more
complicated because of the nature of UNIX.  After all,  PC UNIX is basically
a big iron OS that was ported down to work on desktop computers, bringing
with it the power but also the complexity that goes with that.  But it still
can and should be made easier than it is now.  There's no reason that Linux
or any other flavor of PC UNIX can't have most things controlled by
something as easy and simple to use as the Windows 95 control Panel or the
Mac control panel; it's just that no one has done it yet (TL is the closest,
though).  But it is where Linux needs to go if we ever want it to have mass
acceptance and use by people outside of the computer professional/expert
amateur category.  In terms of competing for *desktop* installed base (which
is where most of the market lies),  Linux isn't even a blip on the horizon
of Microsoft and Apple yet.

We need both ease of use and desktop apps, of which there are few.  We won't
get much more of the latter until we have a lot more of the former.
Developers for big desktop apps for Windows 95 and MacOS will look at the
installed base of Linux right now and conclude that it isn't even close to
being worth their time to make a Linux version, and they'll be right.   We
need more market share, and it takes ease of use to get it.   Most users of
MacOS and Windows 95 wouldn't care about the areas where Linux has technical
superiority to their current OS, since they'll look at the technical
inferiority in ease of use and say "nothing offsets this."  And for them,
that will be correct.   We still have a long way to go in the ease of use
department.   Microsoft and Apple are both building ease of use first.
They'll worry about technical superiority later or never.  From a marketing
standpoing, they're right.  From an engineering standpoint, they're wrong.
We've got the quality in Linux.   Now we need to dress it up as nicely as
they do.

Jonathan



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