On Wed, 2004-01-07 at 10:41, Carl Parrish wrote:
> I just have to add my 2 cents here. About a week ago My mother received
> the Red Hat 9 disks I sent her. I then walked her though the install
> *over the phone*. It took about 20 mins. Her printer (which has to be as
> old as the hills) and her sound card all auto configured. She has had
> *no* problems with it. (she's got an issue with her modem but I figure
> that's the modems problem). My mother is NOT a very technical person.
> She's a school teacher, but now with OOo she's been able to interchange
> with word docs from school. *ZERO* problems. I really don't get why
> people keep saying Linux isn't ready for the desktop. BTW try fedora
> before you give up on Linux.  
----
I like fedora and have had few problems with it and love the newer
mozilla/evolution/gnome/openoffice etc.

Older hardware is going to be much easier to work with than newer
hardware since the plug & play detection, modules, etc. are likely to
recognize and fully mature so this doesn't necessarily apply.

Linux being ready for the desktop - maybe - problems exist - especially
because you shouldn't be running as root. Makes mounting floppies,
ejecting cd's, setting up and dialing a modem, etc. harder. If you took
the same aproach and ran as an unprivileged user in Windows or in
Macintosh OSX, you would suffer similarly but those systems don't
typically work that way.

You can't just buy any hardware and expect it to work without fuss on
Linux whereas most of the hardware will be supported by Windows XP.
Downloading / purchasing and then installing Linux software is much more
difficult for unskilled users on Linux. Linux becomes far more usable as
a desktop when your skill level goes up and as the subject says...YMMV

Craig