Patrick has a valid and very important point - people use a computer (i.e.
the OS) to get their personal work done. composing letters, printing out
stuff, scanning pictures, running Quicken to file taxes, sending email,
surfing the internet.
Ask yourself - how easy is it to do each of these things on Linux or on
Windows?
for example, only recently was I able to use linux to connect to the
internet. I had to get plenty of help from this newsgroup (jimani in
particular) to do it - and that too after buying an external modem for $80,
searching on the internet for an isp who would let me connect using ppp for
$17 (really cheap - but AT&T Worldnet makes you use Win to connect for
$4.95!). 

On windows I would have had to simply insert the CD in the drive and type in
my phone area code in the dialog box. If I were not a programmer who is
biased towards linux, guess which way I would have gone?   

thanks,
Anil Philip
----------
Software Engineer, ODL, Sprint PCS, 6240 Sprint Parkway, O.P., KS 66211

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Hutchins [mailto:hutchins@opus1.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 10:02 PM
To: 'Patrick Thurmond'; kclug@kclug.org
Subject: RE: Linux vs. Windows and why win is winning!

Patrick, I think what you're looking at is called a "learning curve".  For
Macintosh, the curve is (or appears to be) very gentle - you can begin to do
useful work immediately, and you progress gently, only having to put in
serious work if you're trying to do something deep and obscure.

DOS/Windows appears to be a little steeper, like you have to know a bit more
before you get anywhere, but once you know a little bit, you can get around
a lot.

Picture for these two a logarithmic curve that starts out shallow and gets
steeper as you go right/up.

With Linux/Unix, you have a system where you need a book an inch thick to
get a file listing at a prompt, where it's months to a year before you are
even close to knowing your way around a system - but once you reach the
point where you can compile/install an application, write a shell script to
run it, and redirect the output to a useful pipe, you can do incredible
things.

For this, flip that curve over, with the incredibly steep part at the
beginning, shallowing out only after a lot of work.

And realize that you're asking for a Linux GUI to be like Windows - not
because Windows is especially intuitive, but because it's what people know.
Yes, a Win95 shell for XWindows might be easier for some people to make the
transition with, but would you really want it?  (Never mind the whopping
"look-and-feel" lawsuit...)

And think about where people who "learned Linux" by running a MSWin shell
would end up, what kind of knowledge they'd have of how to work with the
underlying system.  One of the first things I do to a new install is rip out
some of the crap like webconfig and linuxconf.  Yes they make it easy to
configure things, but they don't tell you how they're making the changes,
and they're not consistent/compatible with the standard *NIX configuration
conventions.  If a person uses linuxconf on a system, and then follows a
HOWTO that has him edit config files directly, he can end up with an
un-runable system and an impossible task to figure out where the problem is.
(DAMHIKT)

We do need logic, order, and consistency in the way a GUI responds, and we
do need some way of leading users along to the next thing they need to do
without having to spend a year in a classroom.

There's some leftover bad attitude though that needs to be cleared up, and
that's the difference between a user and a technician/builder/expert.  When
PC's first came out, you had to write your own programs in order to run
them.  As they progressed, it was mostly technical people who could figure
out how to use them, and they had to know a lot about configuration to do
anything.  This lead to people who confuse being able to use a PC (running
Windows or Linux) with being able to set up, configure, and troubleshoot the
same box.  Engineers are still the worst, especially EE's - "I can fix
anything electronic.  I deleted all those silly DLL files so my system will
run faster, and I want you to replace the modem you installed so it will
boot."

There's a solution in the wind though - OSX.  The Mac shell is running on
something very like BSD Unix, and it might well be that some time soon
there's  a platform independent version available.

Now THAT would be an easy way to get users to learn Linux.
(And us tech guys would keep our jobs.)

For now, I recommend O'Rilley's "Running Linux" as a good place to start.
And LOTS of HOWTO's.