[KLUG Advocacy] A user leaves....

[Adam Williams]

>>>I do think it means that he was predisposed to going back to Windows if he
>>>was going to go anywhere. Many have a desire to return to their roots when
>>>something else doesn't work out.
>>Yes, back to the hole little mole..
> Now, now... be nice! :)
>To him, it's clearly a warm and fuzzy hole. 

A "hobbit hole"

>It feels like home, or the womb. 
>Please not that I have no real desire to go back to a 2741 Selectric
>terminal, or an 029 cardpunch....

Nor CP/M or Turbo DOS (even with its gang of 24 Z80 processors) which
were my first introduction to 'real' computers used to do useful stuff.

>>Sometimes I feel that way too, though.  I have been deep in trenches
>>with deployed Windows networks/workstations since 3.1....
>Yeah, I hear a lot of that. I've never been deeply oriented toward any
>particular platform, OS, window manager, look and feel, keyboard, type
>of mouse, etc. It's all sorta the same to me... I guess the newest one
>(to me, that week) takes some getting used to, and sometimes the learning
>curve is a little steep (like getting the hang of Cyrillic keyboards),
>but it all works out with a little persistance.
>I've always been more or less focused on the problem at hand, not the
>external apperence or behavior... unless THAT was the problem. The point
>is that I don't let these things inhibit me, or slow me down. Maybe I'm
>lucky in that regard, other people seem to have real problems with these
>things.

Maybe 'the point' is that you had a reason to be in front of a computer,
other than just being in front of one.  So some goal placed all that
other stuff in perspective;  does it help or hinder me accomplishing the
goal.  And most of it is nuetral.  Which raises a question of what kind
of computer the average idle home user needs?

>>I started using myself around 1998. Now is the first time, though, that
>>I am trying to use it as a desktop replacement.  In the past month I
>>have converted my work machine so that nearly all of my time and work is
>>on the Linux side.  Applications like evolution and nautilus really help
>>make that happen....
>Yeah, I understand that. I started using Linux as a desktop OS in 1997, and
>really never looked back or gave it a lot of thought. I have an NT box here,
>mostly to move stuff over to MS environments when customers request it, 
>which has not been very often, but it happens. Again, this is all personal
>experience. The author of that articlereported trouble with RH 5.2... now,

Yes, RH5.2 is pretty compared to 7.2/7.3 especially if you add something
like Ximian.

>I've been running (and hacking at) RH 5.2 since it came out. One box here
>is STILL RUNNING it, and has been up now for 299 days, 21 hours, and 45
>minutes... so much for problems with that distro! :)

And in RH5.2 days the ability to add something to a menu (ala XFCE) via
a dialog bog and not via a config file was innovation. :)

>>Now is certainly not the time to run back to M$, with the committments
>>they are trying to get with the subscription model...
>Right, and Wallet, AND PALLADIUM, along with similar ideas to take over
>the net, the Planet, the Milky Way, etc....

I think there is a large segment of the home market that is price
insensitive.  People purchase three display video cards to PLAY
GAMES!!!  Most windows users i know have machines quite a bit more
powerful than my LTSP server.  So I don't know how much cost really
effect the home user.  Of course there is another set of home users that
are VERY price sensitive.  These may be two very distinct groups with
almost no one hanging out in the middle.