RE: tlug: diald (was: mouse fixed; now what about email)

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

-----Original Message-----
差出人 : Manuel Chakravarty <chak@example.com>

>Windoze may be plug-and-play for your kids at home with one
>PPP dialup connection and your private printer, but for
>anything more than a toy network it seems to be a joke...
>and for anything more than a toy network you'll anyway need
>an expert at least for setting up and maintaining the
>network infrastructure -- that is were I agree with
>Karl-Max.


Like you don't need at least as much of an expert to do the same thing under
Linux or any other Unix?  You know perfectly well that you do, so that
argument is a complete non-starter.  My original argument was that using
Windows 95 or a Mac, a beginner with not much knowledge, but some
instructions from their ISP, can usually get online quickly and easily for a
basic dial-up connection.  Can they do this on a Linux machine?  The general
answer is "no" (this looks like it's a lot easier on TurboLinux, but I
haven't actually tried it, so I can't comment).  In many cases, they are
going to need to know modem init strings, know something about
authentication, at least be able to read a Unix shell script and find the
right places to type things in, even if they won't have to write a script
themselves.

My point was/is that you shouldn't have to know that stuff just to dial an
ISP in a basic situation.  If your system requires that you do, that's a
sign of an antiquated, neanderthal software design. Bill Gates and Steve
Jobs got rich by understanding this and making computers that were easy for
people who weren't computer professionals to use.  I think PHT is going to
make a lot of money in the Linux market that way, too.  I'm sure they're
doing well even now, and Red Hat is also doing quite well.  Guess who isn't
doing as well?  Slackware, the distribution that was once king.  Slackware
is currently on a road straight to insignificance as a Linux distribution,
and will soon arrive there if they don't adapt to changing times. Look
around Akihabara and try to find a Slackware CD; six months ago, they were
all over the place.  If a store sold Linux, it sold Slackware.  Now a lot of
places don't carry it.  What do they have?  TurboLinux.  MediaLab II.  PHT's
FreeBSD-J.  The writing is on the wall. Linux isn't just a hacker's OS
anymore.  Those days are over.

Karl-Max is a real expert on Linux and can configure everything manually,
and that's fine.  One of the great attractions of Linux for many people is
they can do it anyway they want to do it.  And people who don't want to
spend all of their time learning the innards of their computer but just want
to use it should have the freedom to do so.  They should have the software
tools that allow them to do so.  And people who can provide those tools are
going to make a ton of money doing it.

We don't tell them they should be able to repair the hardware on their
computer if something breaks.  They call a professional tech, and that's
fine.  We don't say people should be able to do heavy engine work or
suspension system repairs on their car as a condition of being allowed to
have a drivers license (I can, and I used to really enjoy that stuff, but I
would never make that a condition for anyone to drive).  Likewise, we
shouldn't be telling people they need expert/professional knowledge or they
just shouldn't have a computer.  If a computer requires that level of
knowledge just for day to day tasks like connecting to an ISP, the way the
computer works needs to be re-thought and improved.

Apple is right: think different.  I'm not a fan of the Mac as such, because
I don't much care for MacOS compared to others, but Apple did a lot of great
things.  They made it easy for a person to add components to their computer,
because you usually have to do almost nothing other than just plugging it
in.  Even for SCSI.  They made it so that with a little basic training, you
do a lot of things because all programs used a common look and feel.  The
learning curve shrunk by orders of magnitude.  This inspired Microsoft to
get on the stick and come up with a PnP system and a GUI, too.  Finally,
even the Unix camp started moving in that direction, although there is still
a great deal of catching up to be done.  But making computers easy to use is
just The Right Thing.  Not just for home users/SOHO users, but for big
businesses who need productivity.  When an employee (or IS staff member
called in to help) is spending her time doing stuff to her computer to make
it work right, she isn't doing her regular work, and the computer isn't
performing it's function as a tool for that work. Flogging the system just
to make it work is not the goal (unless you're a computer hobbyist who does
it for fun, which is one reason why we're running Linux), nor is becoming a
computer expert whether you want to or not.  The goal is getting your work
done using your tool, the computer, and it's word processing, spreadsheet,
and database access software.  That other stuff is just a series of
obstacles that get in the way of your doing your work.  Those obstacles
should be minimized.  That's what me and a lot of other people working in
the computer field try to do for our customers, and our customers appreciate
it.  It's what they want.

I also deplore the astonishingly low level of knowledge of some of the
people I get support calls from, and am amazed that they have never done
*anything* to educate themselves about their computer at all.  They should
at least do something.  But Karl-Max sets the bar of what people should know
far too high; not everyone is, wants to be, or should be, a hacker.  And if
our computer system requires you to have that much knowledge just to do
basic operations, the problem isn't you.  It's the system.  An ideal system
is one that let's you hack it as much as you want if you care to, but also
doesn't require you to hack it if you don't want to, at least for the basic
functions that you would need a computer to do every day.  Linux will,
IMO,come to fulfill that dual ideal better than anything else currently
available.  Right now, you can hack it all you want.  Not having to if you
don't want to is being worked on and is making great progress :-)

Jonathan Byrne <E-mail:jq@example.com>
Media and Content Section
3Web - Your Internet Solution! <URL:http://www.threeweb.ad.jp/index.en.html>


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