Re: [seul-edu] Linux in Elementry

[Samuel Hart <criswell@geekcomix.com>]

On Wednesday 22 August 2001 11:45am, zeruch [Joseph Estevao Arruda] wrote:
> > > A Question my wife brought up to me was. If all they have in the
> > > classroom is Linux will they be able to work on windows when they get
> > > out of school. Now my natural reaction was, "If they can use linux then
> > > windows should be simple" anyone else got this kind of response when
> > > they mentioned it?
> > I get this all the time.  It's not that hard to switch between linux and
> > windows (except that using windows gives me a headache).  It's my firm
> > belief that Joe-user doesn't learn how to use Windows or Linux, he
> > learns how to use applications.  Yet no one ever says "If we teach them
> > to use WordPerfect, will they be able to use Word when they get out of
> > school?"
> This really is not that simple. Yes, the argument that applications are
> more important than the underlying OS (from the users perspective) rings
> quite true - HOWEVER - in the case of MS and Mac, the consistent and
> 'seamless'* integration results in being that all the apps and the OS
> behave as one kind of fluid environment.  I am in the minority of folks
> who like obnoxious amounts of variety (most Joe-users could not or want
> to deal with E with GTK and KDE and Motif and other widgets all
> competing for play and looking fairly cluttered.

This is not necessarily the case.

It's been my experience (working with technologically illiterate persons, as 
many many Joe-users are) that once you give them a well setup system (and by 
this, I mean a techno-literate person has already set up all the basics for 
them, and has chosen some consistant interface for them) they have the exact 
same troubles using the system regardless of whether it is Linux or Windows 
(or MacOS, or whatever). And in some cases, with a little bit of forsight and 
care, you can actually use the massive configurability of Linux UIs to make 
something easier for Joe-end-user to use.

Case in point: My parents ;-)

My parents are in their 70s (actually, my father is now 80). They are not 
technologically inclined in the slightest. They were given an older machine 
(I think it was a PII 250Mhz) a couple of years ago which had Win95 on it 
with a good variety of applications.

This system utterly baffled them. They never used it, they never did anything 
with it.... They didn't even turn it on (my mother had this irrational fear 
of breaking it).

I took it from them for about a month, installed Linux with KDE (1.x) as 
their only desktop UI, gave them Netscape, KMail, etc., etc... Set it up to 
use their ISP... and gave it back to them.

After about an hour worth of explanation (which actually centered entirely 
around the fact they now needed to login ;-), they were off and running. They 
have been using this system for two years now, without problems. They still 
send and rec e-mail from it (something they could never do before). They 
browse the web, and use it to write simple documents (I haven't updated it, 
and all they have is the free version of WP8 still). There has only been a 
handful of times where I have had to walk them through fixing something (and 
these usually involved hardware problems such as not turning on the printer 
;-)

Another case in point: My wife ;-)

My wife is a school teacher. She is not technologically illiterate, but she 
is not a Guru either. She was raised on Win32 and MacOS machines.

She has now used Linux for five years (since that is the only OS on our 
desktop we've had in that time), and she has actually gotten to a point where 
Win32 and MacOS machines really /really/ frustrate her. She actually feels 
that configuring her KDE account on our desktop (and on the laptop) is worlds 
easier than having to deal with all the cruft Windows or MacOS throws at her 
(a particular frustration she has been having a lot lately with a WinME work 
computer has be the Active Desktop that wont deactivate, and which is 
infinitely more complicated to configure than the simple background setting 
in KDE).

So anyway... Sorry about the tirade, it's just been my experience that the 
problems end-users have with Linux UIs largely stem from someone not 
adequately preparing that UI for them.

-- 
Sam "Criswell" Hart <criswell@geekcomix.com> AIM, Yahoo!: <criswell4069>
Homepage: < http://www.geekcomix.com/snh/ >
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