*BSD News Article 67264


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From: rhys@vortex.cc.missouri.edu (Justin "Rhys Thuryn" McNutt)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX)
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Date: 30 Apr 1996 21:42:19 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Columbia
Lines: 43
Message-ID: <4m61fr$12q6@news.missouri.edu>
References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <31784FD9.28AA98F6@lambert.org> <kevinbDqC0xC.99w@netcom.com> <4lkcv6$n4j@gorgias.uchicago.edu> <4lof2m$t48@digital.netvoyage.net>
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Joe Sloan (jjs@digital.netvoyage.net) wrote:
: In article <4lkcv6$n4j@gorgias.uchicago.edu>,
: steve farrell <spfarrel@gorgias.uchicago.edu> wrote:

: >i think it's crazy to expect unix to take over the desktop.  why in
: >god's name should professors of english, secretaries, doctors, CEO's,
: >etc etc learn unix?  

: You seem to be making a common, but erroneous  assumption -
: namely, that every one who uses Unix must learn Unix. 
: Does every one who watches television understand the internals? 

: Have you used a new SGI? That's definitely Unix, but they've
: done a great deal to shield the naive user from the underlying
: complexity.

: Any properly configured Linux machine can offer significant
: user friendliness as well. For instance, my wife has little use
: for computers, and knows nothing about Unix, but she can send
: and receive email with ease. When she logs in to my system,
: X11R6 is  started automatically, the netscape mail client is 
: launched, and her mail is retrived from a pop server. 
: She never has to go near a command line, and she even has her 
: choice of wallpaper.

: She could care less what OS is running, but the robust nature
: of Linux lets her do her thing without worrying whether the
: computer is going to crash.

Exactly.  How many people that use Windows really *understand* that if 
you delete an icon in the Main group window, you haven't really deleted 
anything.  I see people who panic all the time because they think they've 
deleted MS Word (or whatever), when all the did was nuke the icon.

Learning an OS is not a requirment for using it.

--------
If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.

Got a Linux problem?  Or can you help others solve them?  Visit the Linux 
Common Problems page at http://vortex.cc.missouri.edu/~rhys/linux.html

rhys@vortex.cc.missouri.edu