Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 17:07:02 -0500 (EST) From: Keith Leonard <keithl@wakko.gil.net> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.970119163151.12852A-100000@wakko.gil.net> In-Reply-To: <199701192045.NAA14114@phaeton.artisoft.com>
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Howdy, All references are about Windoze - One area that MS was very insightful (and Unix is not - at least for commercial market - average joe) is in giving the average user a usable interface at startup. The average little guy does not have a 17" supervga 2meg video ram ... yet X startx up (and all the config files) in this super lagre desktop mode. I like being able to set up anyway I want but the average user doesn't understand desktops (except the 640x480 he gets with windoze standard), Colors are blah but acceptable to the average user, Key bindings (??????), and the whatnot.... Freebsd should have installation options for a straight forward simple 'I got a 14" vga monitor with a keyboard and mouse' setup. Let the user choose X setup, developers setup, users setup without the 1x10^65 questions he has no idea or desire (at the moment) to know. They'll eventually want to know but if knowing Unix is a prerequisite (sp?) for even getting it up and running then many(vast majority) will fall by the wayside in utter frustration. This is were MS grabed the market (at least in promise) - the average user didn't care about the small stack space that would eventually limit him - all that mattered was put in a few disks, reboot and voila you are in a sort of usuable environment. The days of Unix being in the ivory tower SHOULD be over and the average joe (meaning the millions of PC users) need to be considered. Fulfil the promise and let the mechanics take care of its' self if thats what the user wants. The power of Unix will stil be there to be utilized if the person has the persistance to dig, but the useablility (is this a word?) is there if he doesn't. We wouldn't compromise the effort with this small concession only open the field to more users. There are a few Linux (sorry) installation distributions that are attempting to do just this because they know that the user wants an easy to use system that will do what he wants with minimum fuss. Plus they (the Linux organisation) are agressively persuing the commercial software companies for Linux Version and by god they are getting them. "money make the world go round" The more users, more money available, more commercial applications available. Assume the user (potential buyer) has a stock, out of the box, PC and enough brains to sign his name on the charge slip and plug in color coded cables, period! All the power of FreeBSD would still be there for the power users, but the average joe (who is not in college or working for a doctorate) would be able to experience what a real OS can do. Don't continue to make him build a 747 to learn to fly - give him a piper cub sitting on the runway with a teacher(simple book) in the seat, eventually he/she may want to learn about jets and the such, but let him experience the thrill of flight and crave more, then he will learn. Sorry for the ramblings, just tired Keith keithl@gil.net ------------------------------------------------------ Character is what you are in the dark - John Warfin ------------------------------------------------------
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