🚀 go-pugleaf

Sam Trenholme (set@oryx.llnl.gov) wrote:
: >Linux may be your dream machine but can you imagine someone 
: >new to computing trying to install and setup a unix PC ?  
: >Nightmare would be an understatement.  Windows NT may be slow 
: >and hungry but at least you can use standard apps on it.

: Linux is actually easier to install than OS/2, based on my roomate's
: experiencing installing both.

I've personally installed
	Windows 3.x on            5 systems
	Windows NT Workstation on 3 systems
	Windows NT Server      on 2 systems
	IBM OS/2               on 2 systems
	linux                  on 3 systems
Nothing spectacular, but enough to comment on their relative ease of 
installation and configuration.

Linux is not easier to install than any of the others, it can be the most 
difficult. Of course I only had 3 years of experience as a UNIX user. 
Maybe if I had been a system administrator it would be easy?

: It also is almost as easy to install as Windows '95. Installing Linux is 
: as easy as:

[lots of painful steps deleted]

Downloading, unzipping, creating floppies, this is easier? Maybe less
expensive if it isn't your phone bill. Get a CD-ROM drive if you can
afford it. Even then linux is not easier. At best it is equivalent,
assuming your hardware is supported and you have a distribution with
friendlier installation/configuration software (I wasn't impressed with 
Slackware).

: The experience of getting Bill-Gates BS off your hard disk is well worth 
: this process.

If you goal is non-MS software then linux is a good choice, but ease of 
use is not a powerful pro-linux argument.

Tony
-- 
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Tony Tribelli
adtribelli@acm.org