Posted on 05/26/2005 8:45:19 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Fine with me. Choose a friendly distro that ships with Apt and Synaptic. You still haven't made your case, especially since you indirectly admitted that you HAD NO IDEA THAT APT, SYNAPTIC AND YAST EVEN EXISTED. I find it hard to accept your critiques when you speak from ignorance. You sure haven't presented anything factual upon which to base your arguments.
I've used both Windows and Linux long-term, however, and can tell you that using Synaptic is far easier than finding, downloading, installing, restarting, (then, uninstalling "Shop At Home Select" when you find out you've just downloaded spyware!) etc. that is sometimes necessary with Windows. Just type in your root password and click on what you want. I can't imagine what you think is so hard about that. Are you really that challenged?
If you want to argue that RedHat 9 might be too difficult for Granny, I'd probably agree with you. Heck, that's why I use Mepis. The good part of Linux is you can try just about any OS you want and decide (Right now, I have 4 different OS's running on my computers here and the ones at work).
You got that right...can you say, "hidden agenda"?
Personally, I have nothing against any OS. I use Win2K, BeatrIX, Mepis and Vector Linux at work, Knoppix/Win XP dual boot on one of my home computers, Mepis/Win98 in Win4Lin on my laptop, and another home box uses Mepis exclusively. I think more is better, and if I could install a Mac OS on my box and triple boot, I would!
Every OS has its advantages and disadvantages. Windows is nice because of the wide range of apps available for it. Once you got it properly locked down, it's a nice system. And of course, Linux is rock solid...the computers at work often go for well over 50 days between reboots, and no spyware or viruses.
As for usability and user-friendliness, I couldn't give the nod to either. Configuring Linux after installation isn't any harder than setting up spyware/adware software and antivirus programs, or removing bad registry entries.
I just think anyone who comes down firmly on one side TO THE EXCLUSION of all others is probably operating with motives that we don't know about.
I'm just finishing the download of Fedora ISOs today. I'll hopefully have a better experience than I have with Manrake thus far. I also play with FreeBSD UNIX a little on the side. :-)
I don't want to buy a distro while I'm just learning the O/S. I'll try Fedora for now.
Wow. You are a dense one, but I guess a lot of good people tried to warn me of that. Is the ADHD acting up today?
I specifically said that if you choose a distro that has Apt and Synaptic out of the box, you need never touch a console to install software.
Let me know if you don't understand this. Maybe I can post an audio file of that sentence or something. Or draw you a diagram.
You can't be in IT with a comprehension level like this...
No you posted thre times till we get there... deal with it..
BTW what app sends granny into rpm hell?
Are you purposely this daft, for apt and gyum you dont need a console.. Every major distro comes with a little icon you click to bring up gyum (graphical YUM) or a graphical APT.. You have been told this before..
Blah blah blah. Now you're turning the subject to OEM's and what the "dominant" distribution is. Everytime you start to get your ass handed to you over knowledge of facts, you turn the argument to something else.
That's why you nitpick over stupid points such as "what started this issue" and that kind of petty crap, when in fact you've been the one changing the subject every 3 seconds. It diverts attention from the fact that you are pretty clueless about what you're trying to argue.
But, I can't blame you for using such tactics. That's all you've got now that you've demonstrated your lack of understanding.
I'm not discussing the likelihood of what distro Granny's computer shipped from the factory with, because lots of people her age probably don't see the need to even get a new computer. Lots of them are introduced to computing by a hand-me-down from another family member, and in the process getting an old, infected Windows installation that is all but unusable anyway. Either that, or someone KNOWLEDGEABLE reinstalls the OS, just like you could with Mepis or another distro of your choice.
Your silly argument about "dominant" distros and not having a choice is just another red herring thrown out there in a futile attempt to steer the discussion in a direction away from where you are losing.
I'm talking about what will work for her. Synaptic will do just that.
And, if you want to put an OS to "the granny test", let's let Granny go about locking down a brand new XP installation with a firewall, antivirus, and antispyware program, if she even knows what that stuff is. Let her connect to the Internet everyday, then check back in 6 months and see how she did.
Let me answer that...Windows XP has had to be reinstalled on my own mother's computer twice since she's had it because the old installs became unusable-completely clogged with garbage. The last time, she tried to reinstall on her own and messed up the partitions I'd set up for her on her HD.
So, as long as you're bringing up arbitrary tests of whether or not an OS is "easy", let's include that one.
And the answer you got dealt with what you were doing, not Grandma.
"Deal with it."
Good Lord you're immature.
Find me a major pc vendor that sells with RH9, pretty please? RH9 has been EOL for almost 2.5 years! Hell other than some old legacy sites I dont even think you can download it anymore (certainly not on redhats site).
He won't answer you. He doesn't know. He completely made up the whole scenario.
Must be nice to have your own personal, portable reality.
Well good luck, and feel free to PM me if you have any issues..
He obviously had no idea about that, either. He's just saying whatever will hopefully change the subject and praying that no one's watching.
He obviously had no idea about that, either. He's just saying whatever will hopefully change the subject and praying that no one's watching.
"OpenOffice.org is not only fully compatible with excel, but they go one step further and allow you to produce PDF documents from spreadsheets."
I find OpenOffice to be clunky and I can already make PDF documents from Excel.
Linux isn't ready to be my prime-time desktop computer. It won't run DirectX 9 applications.
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