[KLUG Advocacy] Use Linux where it fits formerly ... Lindows/"I Hate Linux" rant....

[Robert G. Brown]

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:43:18 -0400, Adam Williams <awilliam@whitemice.org> wrote:

>>>I think that this guys rant is not as much against Linux but against
>>>militant users that he has run across....
>>Wasn't my impression, but OK. It does seem that there were some personal 
>>characterization made about some Linux users, which seemed rather 
>>inappropriate to me.
These personal characterizations come from the article, as well as previous 
posts on this thread. I find both to be attempts to stereotype, without much
in the way of substantiation. For both reasons, it's not appropriate.

>>The sooner we realize this, and sooner we'll be alble to devlop a realistic 
>>picture of what is going on, and perhaps what is best for particular users 
>>and  situations.

>And the purpose of this list is, at least in part, for the hashing out of 
>that "realistic picture of what is going on".

Yes, that's true... and another is how we use our understanding in discussions
with others. One goal of that is to break through stereotypes, not promote 
them.

>>Just as it is not realistic to demand that Linux be used for everything, it is
>>also not realisitc to recognize that Linux is making real inroads, and 
>>continues to be more adaptable and usable today thatn it was a year ago, even
>>six months ago. No platform is perfoect or ideal, and each one seems to seek 
>>a somewhat different user base.
>
>Right, I think the argument here isn't even that Linux is better (or not) 
>than Windows, etc...  The claim was put forward that Linux is simply not 
>suited for use as a 'mere-users' desktop.  In fact I agree with the poster 
>that RH8, in general, is not.  But XD2 is a different animal,  and I have 
>multiple people who use it, and these aren't geeks.

This can be said of my recent installs, as well... none of the end-users are
technically literate, and most of them have been Windows users for some 
time. I've had Linux deployed to end-users since the Red Hat 5.2 days (mid
1999), on Intel and SPARC boxes, and they adapted rather easily. Mostly, 
they had no choice, so it was either use the system or update the resume 
and use that instead. Drastic? Not really, most technical people are faced
with the same choices. Of course, by 1999 KDE had reached a level of flexi-
bility and utility that exceeded a number of commercial UNIX GUI systems
(like CDE, widely deployed by SUN). People who had to use these systems
were actually pretty contented.

Users often get a bad rap; they're at least as diverse as the technical people
who support them, probably more so. Again, we tend to stereotype the user pop-
ulation as dumb, or lazy, or unwilling to change. In doing so, we are as guilty
as those users who characterize technical people with labels like "nerds" or
"geeks" or treat them like robots who don't care about their needs. This is,
im my experience, unrealistic. What I've found is that users know their jobs,
and expect technical people to know theirs. Yes, I know there are scatterings
of insensitive or incompetent people among the user base, but that can be 
said of any group; on the whole, I've found them to be the exceptions.

							Regards,
							---> RGB <---