Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 13:51:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Marcel Mason {Personal} <marcel@nunanet.com>
To: Tim Gerchmez <fewtch@serv.net>
Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: How important is "the OS?"
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.94.980625132237.11168A-100000@natsiq.nunanet.com>
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980625033446.00809730@mx.serv.net>
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On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Tim Gerchmez wrote: > The > reason this is interesting to me might best be explained by a fictitious > modern discourse with an "average" computer user (such a person doesn't > really exist, but let's pretend they do for now): > > (1) Q: "Does your computer run Win95?" > (2) A: "Yes, it came with my computer." > (3) Q: "What *IS* Win95?" > (4) (puzzled look from the user, then a thoughtful look, then another > puzzled look). A: "It's what I get when I turn on my computer... you know, > the start button and stuff... it lets you run programs, I think..." > (confused look)... That is *really* scary, I went out and asked people whose systems I work on and your dead right ... that is the basic answer I got most of the time. > To me, this explains a lot about how people in 1998 view OS's, and the > reason why the *nix's are niche OS's on the desktop even though most of > them are entirely free, and Microsoft is king, even though you pay through > the nose for their OS's. While I agree completely with your intent the MS/OS itself is pretty cheap compared to the MS software you run on it. I spec'ed out a new "built for *nix machine" recently and when I told them I didn't want Win95 on it the first thing they did *after* asking me if it was really a MAC I wanted was knock $125 Cdn. off the price. The looks I got were just too good to ignore so I told them I wanted FreeBSD 2.2.6, Xwindows, and Enlightenment installed as well :-} > Somehow, Unix has to catch up with this paradigm if they want any > significant portion of the desktop, not just the server market. X-windows > is a *bare beginning*, but if you think our "average user" is going to want > to edit configuration files by hand to get the desktop look and act the way > they want, you'd have me rolling on the floor laughing. Your "average" user is going to by either a Win95 machine or a MAC, all software installed, Internet ready, take it out of the box, plug it in, hit the power button system regardless (IMHO) of what other options are available.... That is what the "average" user wants, that is what MS & MacIntosh provide ..... that's why they're rich, they saw the market & filled the void. > Those of us who find the OS itself of interest (everyone on this list) are > obviously still around, but I think we're a dying breed. Desktop computing > is changing rapidly, and Unix is lagging far behind. This is a bad thing. > Does anyone else agree with me? Almost ... At one point I was 50% of the people in a community of a little over 4,000 who did *anything* with any *nix. At this point, 5 years later, there are double that number .... it's a start > Like many others on this list, I enjoy OS's and computers > (hardware/software) FOR THEMSELVES more than for what you can do with them. > I like to edit configuration files (well... I can put up with it anyway, > and am not daunted by it). I enjoy building and repairing computers. I > like experimenting with installing and configuring OS's. These things are > more interesting to me than watching multimedia clips, playing video games > or doing word processing and data entry. One of the reasons when Windows first came out I said "It's a fad, it will die & I'm not gonna be stuck with a graphic interface that no one uses or delevops software for". I was obviously wrong .... there are not too many out there who want to play with any system configurations, and if they do it is assumed that "Power Tools" will do it for them .... ie, they (the user) has little control over any tweeking. > Folks... what do we do about kids entering computing in 1998, whose first > experiences involve Win95 and playing arcade games using DirectX? Who's > going to be around in 20-30 years that cares any more about Unix, other > than a few lost souls in their 60's who earn millions a year because they > can still administer a Unix system? Well .... I have my Unix dual boot machine at home, my Unix box at work, and a new Unix only machine on the way to my door, my kids (well one of them anyway) already uses FreeBSD at home and because of that he got a summer job at a local ISP (he's 15 btw). > I think I did a poor job getting across what I was trying to say in this > Email (and perhaps made no sense at all), but I hope it generates some > discussion, especially among people who use multiple OS's like myself and > follow the latest trends in computing. You did a great job, something I think that many have thought of but few have committed to e-paper..... Thanks Marcel To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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