Re: RH and GNOME
Petra, Kevin J Poorman on Fri, Jul 24, 1998 at 11:05:52PM -0500:
> > I have never heard of a Debian user "defecting" to RH. The reverse, is
> > commonplace.
>
> wow aren't we living a sheltered life. Debian _users_ defect to rh all the
> time,
Ok, then perhaps I am sheltered. My opinion is that if they want to
defect, let them, they are kruft.
> because the knowlage of alien is not comon place enouph.
If you can't figure out how to do it then use a distribution that
caters to you. It's not exactly hard to learn of alien doing a simple
web search or reading through package descriptions. Just how much of a
handhold would you suggest?
> dpkg should be made to call alien on a rh package automaticly ... ie:
> dpkg -i some_package.rpm would trigger alein, and then dpkg... so that
> it's automatic, and easy for newbies, and non-power users, to install
> rh packages.
This strikes me the same as aliasing -i to rm proper. I would want to
remove it instantly, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I suppose this
wouldn't be so bad though, write a little script. Perhaps though, a
generic "package handler" would be better than using this somewhat
kludgy fix.
> > New users are almost certain to use RH. This is not necessarily a bad
> > thing, but it does mean that RH has a higher growth rate. When Debian
> > growth rate goes *down* then there is a problem; I don't see this
> > happening, it's not even plateaued.
> >
> > RH is largely for new users and is the obvious choice -- I still
> > recommend it to new users. Debian is the obvious choice for the mature
> > user.
>
> Why? ... this is what I've been trying to tell you all. new users will
> most likely install red hat. WHY? ... WHY? ...
Visibility, primarily. Less complexity. Caters more to newbies. I
say, *good* -- *why overlap*, let them graduate to Debian. Why is this
perceived as a race, I don't understand.
> because we (debian) is not new user/user freindly ... we should fix
> this problem ...
I would like you to tell me why this is a problem, why it needs to be
fixed, why Debian developers should bother doing these sorts of things.
No one really wants or cares to do it anyways, that has the capability
to -- *they* don't need it. And IMO it encourages people not to learn.
Debian struggles with less resources anyways, why waste it. Just keep
it the clean, mature distribution, instead of populating our user space
with idiots, to be blunt. Have you taken a look at the RH lists?
There's a few old hands there, among hundreds of morons. I don't have
bias either (but granted I stopped following both debian-user and
redhat-list a few months ago), I just keep track for my own interests, I
don't want my self-maintained installation to become useless to me when
the whole Linux world has switched to this or that and I've been left in
the dust. What seems obvious to me as an outsider, though, is that
Debian is not for idiots, while it seems RHs very goal to get it in the
hands of as many idiots as possible. Perhaps a middle ground is in
order, but I think it would be *really* sad for Debian to change its
orientation just for more numbers. Really, who cares, the project is
self-maintaining as it is, it's really just for the people that maintain
it, who cares about everyone else. I don't know the history of Debian,
and I haven't read anything about it at all, but it seems to me that
it's the hacker distribution, put together by hackers, for hackers, in a
way to encourage proficient hacking. So really I don't see anything
contradictory with not caring about newbies.
> I wonder ... should I file a bug? maybe you will listen to me then
> instead of accuseing me of just trying to turn debian into another 95
> wantabe.
Sorry but I made no such accusation, and I really don't think that's
what any Linux distribution is anyways...you'd have to seriously screw
up your motives and compromise your integrity for that to be true.
Relax man, I know you care :) I think everyone here does, hence
conflict when "His care is misguided! Here's the right path! But no we
want to go in the direction you fool!" :) Democracy at its finest. This
is what attracts me to Debian.
> > It's a matter of efficiency. People that have no interest in computers
> > but just need certain apps for productivity should not have to worry a
> > whit about their OS. This is the place for Windows and while some
> > aspects could certainly be improved and refined, it does a damned good
> > job. Somebody who actually works with computers, operating systems,
> > networking, should obviously invest so as to acheive greater efficiency
> > later and be able to manipulate their computer on a lower level, have
> > greater modularity, flexibility, et cetera.
>
> why, why are you defineing linux as a second hand os, with things like
> kde, and gnome and staroffice, or aplixware anyone can be productive ...
> without having to use win95... why are you happy to let those who hate 95
> still have to use it because your not willing to spend a little time to
> help them get started in linux.
Second hand? I think you read that wrong, perhaps you could clarify
exactly what I said that degrades Linux? And BTW do people really hate
Win95 that use it and haven't been exposed to better?
> > I think that RH, GNOME, KDE, et all are attempts to make Linux viable
> > for people that don't want to learn about their computer, and while this
> > is a valid goal -- it's really not what Debian is about, from what I
> > gather from the people here. Debian has no need to rid themselves of
> > the assumption that the people using it care about their computer and
> > are here to learn and use for the long-term pay off.
>
> then debian should redefine what it is about... in a more clear manner.
Why do you set Debian's goals? And what is ambiguous that needs
redefinition or clarification?
> if debian is content to let users, sink, fine but state it on the web
> page, and make it known. it's like you know I'm right but are to
> ashamed to publish the fact that ... you don't care.
Exactly the opposite. It's encouraging people to not learn about their
computer that is "[letting them]...sink."
> why can't we make linux, just a little easier to use, for the new users.
I guess you could...what did you have in mind? Apt is underway, looks
great, there's lots of GUI tools to choose from for any CLI task, XDM
and you never have to even look at a shell prompt, right? My, would
that suck!
> > But then MS wouldn't be able to sell as much software -- the human
> > tendancy among many is to be lazy.
>
> well amoung this project, from what I've been told. yeah, humans are
> lazy... for the most part. and most ppl are selfish uncaring beasts with
> no right to claim the title human.
Well the implication there reveals much about you. Tsk, tsk.
> you aperantly jumped into the middle of this with no clear understandinf
> of what I'm talking about.
Well I did jump into the middle of it, and replied just to that message.
My apologies if I've misinterpreted you, but really I wasn't directing
the message at you in particular, just joining the debate and
contributing some input. If it appeared that I was attacking you
personally then perhaps I misspoke, or you misinterpreted? Does it
really matter?
> read the archives... I'm not for making debian another win95, but the
> reason most ppl chose rh is that it has great newbie suport.... why
> can't we... and when I say suport I mean that it's easy to install and
> use the basic utilities of linux after installing....
It isn't already? Each little bit of "easier" (divorce from UNIX
paradigm) involved a geometric increase in the effort involved to bring
it to that point. I think total immersion is the best way to go
personally, and you would just be wasting time by screwing around trying
to please everyone and make Joe Shitforbrains not have to think about
what he's doing. Is Debian next going to have pretty pictures of
multi-ethnic/gender families gathered around the computer screen, while
being told how great the OS is, during the install? Yes this happens
during Windows installation, believe it or not. I don't seriously mean
to say that you think this way, it's just that I don't see what's
especially hard about the installation process...it's actually quite
nice I would say...and now Apt...mmm.
Debian's "course" has inertia. Deviations require increasing amounts of
energy.
--
Scott
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