YMMV, but MY Linux desktop stinks

Normally I can keep from rebutting such things, but this one hit during
lunch so you must forgive.

Richard L. Proctor said:
> I consider it the same I do with a windows user, get out of windows 95
> or 98 or me and get into windows xp.....fast!!!

You do a disservice to them. Windows XP is horrible at infringing upon
both user rights and privacy. More so than any other version of Windows
by magnitudes. It borders on malicious to suggest to people to use
Windows XP. If you really feel they need a newer version of Windows, do
them a favor and tell them to use Windows 2000.

> A linux newbie doesn't want to compile new kernels, make symlinks, he
> just wants to install his hardware and be done. Oh...Like in windows.
> What's wrong with that? He's using an old distro of Redhat, and as
> explained before, Redhat bailed and gave it to Fedora.

Well you assume that users want a windows hardware install experience. I
don't know about everyone else, but I have one modem and one NIC in
GNU/Linux boxes today that I *never* was able to get to work under
windows. I have a printer, scanner and camera that all work flawlessly
under GNU/Linux that I could never get to work reliably under windows.
Therefore, if your premise is to sell me on "Installs just as painlessly
as windows", I'm gonna take off running. :)

> He's more than welcome to try Mandrake or SuSE or any other distro, but
> My personal experience brings me to SuSE and therefore that's what I
> recommend.

Unfortunately your personal experience has brought you to a camp that to
date has followed the enslave users rather than free them camp. Since I
like analogies let me give me one.

There are three choices to be had...

1. Spend your time in a maximum security prison with crappy food and 6x4
quarters, all your laundry is done for you. (Microsoft)
2. Spend your time in a minimum security prison with decent food and 20x20
quarters, all your laundry is done for you. (SuSE)
3. Spend your time any where you like with decent food and unlimited
quarters, some of your laundry is done for you. (Red Hat, Mandrake, etc)
4. Spend your time any where you like with decent food and unlimited
quarters, very little of your laundry is done for you. (Debian, Slack,
Gentoo and others percevied as geeky)

You come to the conclusion that #2 is better than #1 because you gain some
freedom, but worse than #3 because you don't get your laundry done.
Recommending people choose #2 because in your experience you don't like to
have to ever do any laundry, is kind of short sighted (imho).

> The other's debian, Gentoo, etc, requires command line experience.
> I don't like command lines, I like graphical interface, don't ever
> have to want to go back to DOS ever!

I don't think Debian requires a "commandline" interface or if it does, my
wife is some underground hacker w/ a secret identity. Cause she sure
couldnt tell you what a command line was, much less what it looks like and
she uses a Debian machine several hours a day.

Comparing a shell (bash, zsh, korn, etc) to DOS is like comparing a
formula one race car to toyota corolla. I "LIKE" the command line, but I
sure as hell don't want to go back to DOS ever again either.

-Derek