On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 16:18 -0400, Arch Willingham wrote: > What’s all the hype around Ubuntu? A Linux alternative to the other OSs, where the user wants a turn-key solution. It, pretty much, does what they want without hard labour (plays MP3s, includes drivers that aren't free, etc.). The poor-man's Macintosh, perhaps? ;-) That Mac remark was all the more reinforced, for me, when I've had a brief dabble with it and found that it was hard to get under the bonnet and twiddle things. Firstly, it's different enough from Red Hat that I'm on unfamiliar ground. Secondly, I'd seen the Ubuntu forums to have far less nitty-gritty technical information. I'm reminded of the difference between Windows and Linux advice... Linux advice being to install the whatsit package, then configure it, with many users knowing how to do that once pointed in the right direction. Compared to Windows advice, which necessitated a recipe of step-by-step instructions, including where to find things in the menu, because the users doing these things didn't understand a thing about what they were doing, and often didn't want to. Yes, that's a generalisation, but it's been the chalk and cheese differences that I've usually witnessed on the two platforms. The "it's all done for you" premise attracts more users who'll dabble without learning, and resist learning as hard as they can. - How do I get to the shops? - It's down the road, 1km, on the left. - But how do I get to the shops??!! - You take your car keys out of your pocket, and put them in the door, turn the key... - To the left, or to the right? - Grrrrrmrmrr... Try walking! -- Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
