Re: SEUL: User Profiles (?)

["Jeffrey S. Dutky" <dutky@BellAtlantic.net>]

Greg Bell wrote:
> 
> Jeffrey S. Dutky wrote:
> 
> > I have trouble with 4) for two reasons: First, LINUX doesn't
> > have any NEED for a "cutting edge" computer. Second, this will
> > rule out the vast majority of users. While the PC market is
> > growing rapidly there are still a lot of 486 class machines
> > out there. This is true in the Mac world as well where many
> > users have old PPC601/Nubus based PowerMacs. In either case,
> > since LINUX will run quite nicely on either a 486 or a PPC601
> > we should target those machines as the base model. Anyone who
> > has a better machine will just get better performance.
> 
> Valid points your making here and I must admit I was aiming at
> a "<NEW>" computer user/owner.
> 

We can still aim at new users without assuming too much for our
minimum configuration. It is tempting, however, to assume that
we won't see too much older hardware since older hardware will
make the list of kernel configurations longer and harder to
autodetect. However, limited hardware support is what held back
OS/2 and still restrains Windows NT: We should not make the
same mistake when there are such good examples from which we
can learn.

> > If we are aiming at the end user I think we can assume that they
> > won't be wanting to program in C. Similarly, anyone who will be
> > writing C programs can probably handle a more complicated and
> > involved installation process.
> 
> Here I would have to diverge, one of the reasons that I first
> looked at linux was a little blurb I had seen about it being
> a development system for programmmers and as I was trying to
> learn/relearn/comprehend C programming at the time so I grabbed
> it and got hooked, all of this aside though, linux is being
> touted as the "FREE" system that includes C et al, which I
> think is the main drawing point for linux because who wants to
> pay upto $1000 just to see if they would like to program??
> 

I wasn't trying to suggest that we should not include an option
to install the C compiler or source code, only that the option
should be part of a custom installation that more experienced
or adventurous users would select. The first time user would
use a default installation that would give them enough to get
a feel for the system without intimidating them.

We should also make it possible to install more features later
without having to reinstall from scratch. Thre is no reason that
a new users should pay just because they want to graduate to
the next level.

- Jeff Dutky
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simple End User Linux Mailing list
To be removed from this mailing list send a message to majordomo@txcc.net
with the line
unsubscribe seul-project
in the body of the letter.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------