🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <jimenez.18-2308951013060001@cc345samac.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
Joel A. Jimenez <jimenez.18@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
>In article <kevinbDDr3My.H5D@netcom.com>, kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com (Kevin
>Brown) wrote:
>
>> >Linux is great: for an educational experience. It is not
>> >user-friendly. 
>> 
>> Linux is as user-friendly as the system administrator decides to make
>> it.  In my case, it's user-friendly enough that my fiancee uses it
>> without problems.  She has far more problems with DOS+Windows at work
>> than she does with Linux at home.
>
>Problems because of user friendliness?  Or problems because of the
>instability of DOS+Windows?

Both.  She finds, for instance, that she loses files under
DOS+Windows, but not under Linux.

>  What does she do at work?

She's a dietitian.  She uses DOS+Windows at work primarily to do word
processing (using MS-Word) and to gain terminal access to the
mainframe where all the hospital records are kept, and she *hates* the
Windows file manager.

>  User friendliness
>depends a lot upon what you're doing.  For instance, copy a file in unix
>and then do the same thing in Windows.  Which took less steps?  (of
>course, now do it on a mac, which took less steps?)

I wasn't kidding when I said that Linux is as user-friendly as the
system administrator (me, in this case) makes it.  She uses a
drag-and-drop file manager (a significantly hacked version of xfm 1.2)
to do file copying, moving, to launch applications, to print, etc.
Copying a file is, for her, as simple as clicking on the file icon and
dragging it to the directory she wants to copy it to.  Printing is as
simple as dragging the file to the printer icon.  Launching an
application is as simple as double-clicking on its icon (you can
associate files with applications, and it changes their icon and
everything).  Launching an application on a file or group of files is
as simple as dragging those files on top of the application's icon.
Renaming a file requires clicking on the name and editing the text in
the box that pops up.  Deleting them can be accomplished by dragging
them to the trashcan icon or, if you want it to be permanent, by
selecting the "File->Remove" menu item.  Opening a diskette is easy:
pop it in the drive and double-click on the floppy directory.  It
mounts the disk automatically.  When you're done with it, you just
close all the windows associated with the disk and it unmounts the
disk automatically.

I wanted to make it as easy to use as a Mac, and it's reasonably close
(the Mac is undoubtedly better in some respects).

>> It's pretty unlikely that Word and Excel will ever be ported to Linux.
>> Why would MS support a platform that is "competing" against their
>> beloved Windows 95?
>
>Oh, they might port it if there was enough demand... but if they did how
>much do you want to bet that the windows version would *conveniently*
>still run faster.

I have little doubt of that.  :-)


-- 
Kevin Brown                                     kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com
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