🚀 go-pugleaf

In <ericb.450.301CECDB@psu.edu> ericb@psu.edu (Eric Bennett) writes:

>In article <danpop.807144468@rscernix> Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes:
>
>>In <ericb.437.301BD9B0@psu.edu> ericb@psu.edu (Eric Bennett) writes:
>
>>>I would like to have the chance to use X sometime.  The two people I know who 
>>>run Linux have 4 and 8 megs of RAM respectivley, and both have 386s.  Not 
>>>good for running X :(
>
>>Pretty good for running X.  My notebook has 8 megs too and has been 
>>running X for the last two years without any problems.
>
>Certainly not the 4 meg machine.  The guy with 8 does have X installed, but he 
>can't run more than one or two X programs without bogging down with swapping.

If those two X programs are emacs and xv, I can believe this :-)
If they're xclock and xload, I don't :-)
>
>>>
>>Someone who can't be bothered to read a manual won't become self-sufficient
>>on any system, including a Mac (have you noticed that all Mac software
>>comes with manuals?).
>
>But I think you can get away with reading a lot less on the Mac.

Why?  Is Word for Mac more intuitively to use than Word for Windows?
How about Excel or Netscape?
>
>>The difference is that you can't fix a problem on your friend's Mac 
>>without being physically in front of its screen and keyboard.  A modem
>>connection doesn't help at all for this task.
>
>Well, I *could* get some help from a modem connection--Peter Lewis's FTPd 
>would let me poke around with his system configurations and launch or kill 
>processes, for example, but to actually _use_ the system I'd need Timbuktu, 
>which would probably be unpleasant over a 14.4 modem.

Provided that Peter Lewis's FTPd and Timbuktu are already installed on
his Mac, not very likely for Joe Mac User's Mac.
>
>Of course, there would be some problems that I can't solve over the modem by 
>myself on any OS, for example, a recent problem where the Mac
>wouldn't play audio CDs.  If it had been a Unix machine, how would I remotely 
>insert a CD into the drive to see if it's working?

Most of the time, the Unix sysadmins don't have to fix any problems with
the CD's, once they're installed.  They simply work.  And you can't 
install a CD drive remotely, I'll admit that :-)

>In any case, I haven't yet encountered a Mac problem I couldn't solve by 
>talking my dad through it on the phone, which is probably better than fixing 
>it myself because he'll be able to deal with the problem (or so I hope :) the 
>next time it surfaces.

Don't be so sure.  In my experience, Joe Mac User is very proud of his
computer illiteracy (isn't this the main selling point of the Mac's?)
and tries very hard to preserve his status quo.  This is aggravated by the
fact that one specific problem doesn't tend to repeat very often, so that
the user who doesn't understand what's happening can use his memory to
remember the meaningless (for him) sequence of actions that has to be
performed in order to fix it.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch 
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland