I speak from recent experience, and am running under Linux (PCLinuxOS/Minime2010, a top distro) as i type, and while you are responding to my comments regarding the alleged need for Linux security, i think your reply may attest to the problem i mentioned in post 62.
While you can run commands which one must learn, and i can tell Windows users to run dxdiag in the run command, can you search “system utilities” as you can do for Windows, and come up with multitudes of such? For me, doing so in Synaptic only results in smartmontools - viable, but doesn’t do all that a Windows equivalent will) among the many irrelevant results. And when i install it, it is not listed anywhere in the Start menu, as has been the case with other programs. Searching for sysprof in Synaptic results in nothing. Looking for “process manager” does not help either. Even Googling “freeware system utilities for linux” did not help much.
Thus the new user cannot just search for freeware, and install it, but must hope the repos of his distro will have what he is looking for, or learn how to get and install programs otherwise.
As for File managers, i have Dolphin, which i like once you configure it to always open in Details mode, and to show the location bar. But i have no need of multiple desktops, as Alt+Tab works well for me. And i do like KDE the best. But under Windows i also have at least 6 browsers, with Firefox also being the prime one, and also use OpenOffice and Thunderbird daily.
As for the Windows clipboard in the standard Windows install, first if we had to live with “standard” Windows installs cyberlife by MS would be rather gray, and government issue, and the clipboard is just one testimony to that. I use Ditto, which will hold virtually unlimited amount of clips with no time/date limit.
As for “maybe useful for Linux,” i was indeed speaking from ignorance, based upon what offerings i have seen in searching, and there is one issue. But as Linux grows, and more effort is put into cross platform compatibility, this can improve.
BTW, what is your opinion of Knoppix? I like the extensive Start menu and its overall speed and maturity, though it is not mean for installing.
Very useful for pulling out and showing users that this Linux thing isn't as scary as they've heard, is actually kind of glossy, and can actually be run without "compiling a kernel"...
[cough]
I've not had any experience with that particular distro. Currently, I'm mostly Fedora at home though I've used ubuntu/kubuntu (debian variants). One of the reasons I like Fedora is because there are several groups that do a really good job of making sure packages are available for just about any program out there. From a brief look at the PCLinuxOS it looks like one of the smaller distros. I might have to give it a run in VMWare to see how well it works.
One of the strong points of linux is also one of its weak points, in that anyone can make a distribution of their own. There are even programs out there that help you to make a custom package just for you. That's good for folk who really like rolloing their own , or who just want a specific subset of tools to perform a specific task. (Puppy linux rocks as a recovery tool) On the other hand, if you go with a distribution like Ubuntu/Kubuntu, Fedora, or a few others, you have a much bigger set of programs that have been specifically packaged for you. I'm not really sure what the most popular flavor of linux is these days though, as it changes from year to year and I don't really keep up with it. I just keep using what I like, and recommend it to others because I know I can walk them through any gotchas that crop up fairly easily.
While you can run commands which one must learn, and i can tell Windows users to run dxdiag in the run command,
Yeah, I have some specific programs that I occasionally ask people to run from a prompt as well, because it's a heck of a lot easier than telling them "click here, here here. there... ". However for the novice windows user (or even moderately advanced one for that matter), how likely are the going to know to run 'dxdiag'?
can you search “system utilities” as you can do for Windows, and come up with multitudes of such?
Well, if I click the "K" button (same as "start" in windows), then type "utility", it lists about 20 or so programs that perform various tasks from disk management, text-to-speech tools, encryption, file managers and various other stuff.
kinfocenter will show you tons of stuff about your system.
If you want something similar to the process manager you see in windows, (assuming you're running KDE),
select K
application
system
system monitor
At least that's what works for me. (Personally I prefer 'htop' for process management, because it allows me to bind a given program to individual processors, and to have total control over process niceness.
Thus the new user cannot just search for freeware, and install it, but must hope the repos of his distro will have what he is looking for, or learn how to get and install programs otherwise.
Amazingly similar to windows. You search google, and find programs. Personally I prefer to get stuff through repos, because they've hopefully had someone at least looking at the programs who is not the author. Lord knows, you can't trust everything on the internet you download.
BTW, what is your opinion of Knoppix? I like the extensive Start menu and its overall speed and maturity, though it is not mean for installing.
Knoppix is good. There is a lot of support out there for it. I've used it from time to tine, but have always returned to Fedora and other RPM based distros, mainly because I really don't feel like learning the ins and outs of another package format.