On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 01:03:35PM -0600, Rodd Ahrenstorff wrote:
> On Monday 28 January 2002 1:22 pm, Jim Crumley wrote:
> 
> > I use Debian and haven't tried any thing else in a couple of
> > years and Debian is definitely not targeted to newbies, but I
> > still think that most of your points don't hold for Debian (and
> > probably not for Red Hat, Mandrake et al. either).
> 
> I must ask; why don't you at least try some of these other distros?  A couple 
> of years is a long time in "software land".  Get a feeling for what these 
> other developers are pushing on thier ftp sites and I will do the same since 
> I have not yet tried Debian.  Deal?  I have heard many on this list expound 
> on the "Debian" advantage.  I'll see if it holds true for this highly 
> inexperienced Linux user.

To echo Florin: because I really like Debian, in practice and
what it stands for.  Besides, I'm a hobbyist with too many
hobbies :).  've got a Sparc box that I haven't put Debian on
yet, as well as another Sparc box that hasn't been updated in
ages. I've got bug reports and patches that I'd like to write.
Plus I have all of the non-computer stuff that I should be doing.
Test installing other distros just isn't high on the priority
list at this point.  I'd rather spend my limited hacking time
writing minor patched and bug reports, playing with new software
packages on Debian, and writing long rambling messages to mailing
lists ;).

As for trying out Debian, be warned that the install is not the
simplest install out there. It takes some work and RTFMing and
I'm not sure that you will actually like it given some of the
things you like about Lycoris.

> > Anyway, I guess I just don't see why having several options for
> > crucial tasks would be a bad thing.  Heck, Windows 95 had
> > Wordpad, Textedit and DOS Edit all installed by default I think.
> 
> Jim, Windows 95 is nearly 7 years old!  I have had the occasion to talk (via 
> email/forums/lists) to many new Linux users.  Because there is a "gaping 
> hole" where documentation should exist, many newbies are confused about the 
> many hundreds of applications for Linux.  Take for example these names:  
> mutt,  mozilla, kooka, komba, samba, xine, vi, emacs, webmin, etc...  Put 
> those on a system menu and have a newbie try and figure out what the hell 
> they are...better get your lunch cause it'll take awhile.  Most people 
> utilize one application for every task at hand.  Including only the most 
> popular applications by default may solve some initial confusion.  Remember, 
> Lycoris does include more applications on the cd set, just not by default.

Well, the reason I mentioned Windows 95 is the last version of 
Windows that I owned (though I've played with others up to and
including XP) and I wasn't sure what was standard on other
versions.  Anyway, I think you hit on an important point: one of
the biggest problems with Linux is documentation.  As for
duplications, I think you'll find that a default Debian install
with a newby-ish profile will not have have all that much
duplication.  Though a true newby would probably want to buy a
book (or print out a bunch of the online documentation) to 
find out what everything that is installed did.

> 
> The Lycoris menu usually does not list the application name because so many 
> are simply not descriptive.  Kooka for example is a scanner application.  In 
> the menu its "use a scanner".  Xine is "DVD/DiVX Player"...simple.

The Lycoris menu system sounds interesting, but how does it deal
with having multiple applications in one category installed?  For
example, if you have vim, emacs, and text edit installed, if
textedit is called "Edit text file" in the menu, are vim and
emacs just listed by name?  Hmmm, your actually getting me
somewhat interested in playing with a new distro. 

-- 
Jim Crumley                  |Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List (TCLUG)
crumley at fields.space.umn.edu |Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota 
Ruthless Debian Zealot       |http://www.mn-linux.org/ 
Never laugh at live dragons  |Dmitry's free,Jon's next? http://faircopyright.org