First, please excuse the typos. I learned to type as a cub reporter with two fingers and I've never been able to reprogramme to ten. Lack of time means I will not correct it all but just try to get a positive message across.
I'm a journalist, author and sucessful publisher. I've started several newcos from scratch in new media and satellite and cable TV and sold them for a few million dollars. Those companies have created jobs for a lot of people. I like to support the underdog and the freedom of an alternative. I like Opera and Firefox as browsers, for example. For the longest while I have watched and read Linux forums, and slowly and carefully I have managed with no formal computer skills to install both SUSE Linux and Red Hat Linux on PCs that I have built myself in my "spare" time.
But for those like me, who are not really computer systems literate it can be extraordinarily frustrating even given the need to make an allowance for having been "windows spoiled". The majority of us non-specialists, and I guess that excludes most people in this forum, just want something to be installable, useable and reasonably user friendly with a minimum of frustration.
To go for Linux you probably have to be interested in the following sorts of things: something that will avoid the semi-monopoly of Windows, something that looks aesthetically different, or is functionally different and more beautiful and fun to use, something which has a different philospohy and is better value for money.
If you see computing as a means to an end rather than an end in itself you are probably prepared to devote some time to learning a new system. However, from my own experiences with two flavours of Linux installations I have to say I did not find it easy, and I think the rest of the world whom Linux enthusiasts we are trying to persuade to adopt an alternative systems are not unlike me in their limitations.
But they may well turn to a Linux forum like this for advice and help. If the see ongoing bickering, insults, spleen and pure rudeness I personally believe this will put them off. How about more positive stuff?
For myself, I would love to persevere with Linux and succeed, but a series of problems have taken me a lot of time to resolve (I have resolved them except modem/internet issues. One category of problem that is difficult to handle is real world mass market systems that just do not cater for Linux in everyday transactions that you need. Buy a BT broadband ADSL connection, for exmaple, in the UK A few million people have) and you just will never get connected by the installation disc for BT broadband which tells you that unless you have a certain MAC or Windows system the solution is to buy a new computer. (They also tell you they can sell you a new one - thanks,so much, BT)So I can only connect via Windows XP.
Could all the fantastic amount of energy and dedication in the Linux world not solve this problem? If anyone could be tolerant and patient enough to devise, and post, a user friendly pice of software which replaces the BT installation disc, as a tested method of connecting a (BT broadband) ADSL subscriber on a Linux computer to the Internet, this is the sort of public relations tool provision that would go far to promote the alternative system. Even better would be a piece of alternative software for most major ISPs that do not issue a Linux disc.
And providing user friendly slutions to common Linux problems for "the rest" of us would be so much more positive and ambassadorial for the Linux system as a whole, than bickering and insults between Linux experts in IT.
Is anyone up for checking out the BT broadband software that BT distirbutes to ADSL broadband subscribers, and compiling an alternative piece of software that allows Linux users to install their paid-for BT Broadband ISP connection and connect using something other than MAC or Windows. I think the application would actually sell - either on the net or to BT.
This Linux Internet connection is a product with several iterations, probably be needed 1. in each Linux distribution 2. For other ISPs who have not make Linux subscriber cocnnection discs available.
If someone wants to co-operate I would be happy to try and commercialise it, and provide one missing link in the list of necessities for the mass market to painlessly go Linux.
Bill.. (Real Life "Dumb Idiot" Linux User)