A couputer newbie would often
not be able to install windows. He/she would more often than not ask someone more experienced for help. I'm sure most of us have been asked for help sometimes when one of your friends/family needs to install windows
I remember the first time I installed a Linux distro. It was slackware 3.5. I was a little bit nervous, because of all the talk about how difficult it was. But because I Read The Fine Manual before installing, everything installed smoothly. With today's installers (such as the mighty mandrake-installer with it's DiskDrake) anybody who has at least some grasp of what a partition is, should be able to install Linux, if he/she just reads the instructions first.
My father uses windows 95 on his old p120. He knows how to dial up the internet, and start a web-browser. Also how to "turn the damn thing" off. That's about it. He knows how to do these things because I told him how, and not "because windows has a intinuitive user interface". (shutdown after clicking a button that says "start"... Hello? How intinuitive is that?) His kind of computer user is more common than us programmers often belive.
So, could even his kind of user use linux? Yes. Contrary to popular belief, a browser or word-processor is not more difficult to launch on KDE than windows. Their functionality is almost identical. In the case if my father, I could just sa easily have shown him how to do those things on Linux instead, and it would'nt have been anything more difficult. Maybe just not exactly alike. Not alike does however, (contrary to what windows-refugees will feel) not equal more difficult.
By logging in as a user and not root, this kind of users have somewhere near zero chance of screwing up their system - Unlike win9x, where the user may screw up whatever he has access to... -Which is everything.
What I'm trying to say is basically, that when you install your Linux from a CD, you will end up with a system that works. You don't need to edit any configuration files (about as dangerous as playing with regedit in windows... don't do it unless you know what you're doing), unless you want to, of course. You don't need ro recompile a kernel, unless ofcourse you want to. There are lots of advanced things you can do in linux, but that does not mean you
have to do it . If you have a working system, there's no need to mess around, just go by your bussiness browsing the web, using the word-processor, like you would if you were in windows.
That's all for today, thank you...
Edited by - mr BiCEPS on April 20, 2001 1:14:10 PM
