[kwlug-disc] Android everywhere ...

[Paul Nijjar]

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 01:04:38PM -0400, Darryl O'Neill wrote:
>
> Setting up a PC takes a long time.  Coming to Linux from Windows, I  
> found that having over 10 distributions to choose from then having to  
> decide what flavour to choose when I picked Ubunutu a bit overwhelming.   

You know, I understand this sentiment well. I think that we should
have some sensible defaults. But I strongly resist the idea that we
should all be using the same desktop experience, or that the ability
to customize our software to suit our preferences and needs is a
drawback. 

Until the disappointing Lucid release, I think the conventional wisdom
was "Start with Ubuntu". Some people felt strongly against that, but as a
default choice it was okay. Richard's suggestion of "use the
distribution you can get support for" is another good choice. 

I think it is important that end-users (even new ones) have some sense
that there is a world of choice available. I do not think that we
should ask new users to make ANY of those choices at the beginning of
their journey. But they should not feel locked into just KDE or Gnome,
either. 

Choosing a new linux distro is a big choice, but it is not as big as
choosing a car or even as big as paying for Windows. That is because
there are lots of choices you can use for free or cheap (if your time
is worthless, I guess). 

> Given the choice between the latest windows and having to  
> spend a couple of days researching what Linux to choose from, I'd  
> probably just pick windows.

Windows 7 Home Premium? Professional? Ultimate? Enterprise? 
32 bit or 64 bit?

I'm being facetious, but I did go through similar handwringing trying
to decide which version of Windows Server we wanted. The problems
caused by choice are not limited to Linux distros.

- Paul (should I use the Linux kernel or the kFreeBSD one? Maybe Minix
  3?)

-- 
http://pnijjar.freeshell.org