Proaganda reviewed

["Bud Beckman" <n7su@micron.net>]

Year after year we have seen, with increased frustration, Linux
distributions ignore the needs of a vast category of Linux users.
If you are using Linux at home, then have endured despair and die because
the
distribution abandons you at the end of an installation, unable to
access the Internet and thus receive help (that your computer is
supposed to run all night or that you are not supposed to have a check
book.)[vague] If you try to install Linux in a small organization then
have another episode of despair when the server applications shipped are
overkill for your needs. If you use Linux as a workstation then despair
and die because you will have to mount and unmount CDROMS ten times a
day; that SMB printing will be very slow because your distribution
assumes the NT
server will be configured to link to Unix clients instead of linking
to Windows clients.  And in case you have to administer the system
from minute one with zero Unix knowledge, you despair and die because you
read in the document files the ineffable "consult your system
administrator"
and are left with VI as the only editor available in critical situations,
then woe to you if disaster strikes before you have learned how to use
that editor.

   "Despair and die" can seem a bit violent but I love Shakespeare and
   this is in Richard III :-) [No student of The Bard, OK by me.]

Any user would be offended by these needs being ignored. As Linux
activists, we are angry because these needs are not met and slowing Linux
expansion. Unlike Unix, Linux is not restricted to a server role: cost
does not keep it out of the home desktop market like Unix has, nor out of
the hands of people who own a PC and have had to learn Linux on their
own. But sticking to a Unix tradition will not help because Unix never
had to adapt to those situations. This is the main failure in the present
distributions: to understand that Linux can go where Unix was unable to
go.

Independence is not another one of those distributions made by people
willing to learn how to surf on the Linux wave. It is made by volunteers.
It is a revolt of users who no longer accept solutions coming from on
high,
above a users head, and has little to relate to their needs. It
is a revolt by those who believe a Linux user is different from
the Unix user. A Linux user has different needs and we have to learn to
think
outside Unix's well trodden paths.

    I've tried not to damage it too much, Jean.

Bud