On 12/12 02:02 , Rick Engebretson wrote: > This is an interesting thread to me. I think I understand some of it, and am > concerned and confused about the issue of too much complexity invading > linux. I've seen that happening for decades now. As Linux becomes more mature, much more complexity is invading it, and making it again more difficult to use and maintain. A decade or so ago, a friend of mine said Linux was easier to use and install on his laptop than Windows, because the driver support was better. Now, even I struggle with getting my KDE desktop configured in a halfway sane fashion because it's hard to figure out what to do to put an icon here or there, or remove the same. Settings don't always stay set (display gamma, I'm looking at you), configurations are hard to find (competing desktop environments and distro-specific config tools mean you can have multiple places you need to look to change the color of your widgets, etc). After 20 years of fiddling with this stuff, I know *why* it is, and I appreciate the decentralized anarchic nature of the development community. However, I can completely understand why a new person would throw up their hands in frustration at it. -- Carl Soderstrom Systems Administrator Real-Time Enterprises www.real-time.com