[plug] Re: Windows - a rant

[James Devenish]

Hi,

In message <409C477E.2040604 at optusnet.com.au>
on Sat, May 08, 2004 at 10:35:42AM +0800, Kev wrote:
> As one who has only recently (weeks ago) moved over to Linux from OS/2
> (now also released as eCS) I see that there is no doubt at all that
> Linux is still not ready for the great unwashed.  Still far too
> shrouded in jargon and esoteric commands and file names etc.

As a person who is not from the Windows side of the fence, I would make
similarly disparaging remarks about Windows jargon, with the additional
remark that the language seems to me to be more like that of marketing
than of computing.

> If, as some rumours have suggested, IBM IS porting the "Work Place 
> Shell" (from OS/2) over to Linux, then you will see the greatest OS to 
> hit the planet in recorded history (so far).

Mac OS X users, like the latest version of their operating system, are
too graceful to dignify your comment with a response ;-P ;-) But
seriously, the jargon for Mac OS X is significantly similar to Linux and
UNIX, yet this comes from a company whose manuals include pictures of
iPods configuring rack-mount clusters. So, I don't think the jargon aims
to be 'shrouding' or 'esoteric', at least not compared to other
professional disciplines.

However, I do genuinely understand the point you're trying to make, and
the experiences whence your comments likely arise, in the context of
novice or home users -- people don't feel comfortable if things have to
be explained with jargon. The jargon still has to exist, but there are
ways of reducing users' exposure to it. So, this is more about "user
interface" than any intrinsic problem with Linux.

Again, to compare with Mac OS X: while there is an entire proprietary
operating system on top of the UNIX stuff, the underlying apparatus for
networking, network services and mounting filesystems (for example) is
presented in the same UNIX style as Linux. The difference is not he
nature of these services or their jargon, but the GUI interfaces given
to users. I am of the understanding that things like KDE, Gnome, RedHat
Linux GUI tools and Webmin basically provide users with a GUI
representation of the underlying UNIX apparatus, so perhaps they are
good for people migrating from Windows. (I can't vouch for them, though,
because I'm a CLI lover).