Warp wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> You make a good case for Linux, there.
> 
>   At least for power users, who know what they are doing. I readily admit
> that Linux is, in some aspects, rather hard for beginners to approach.

Linux is Unix. The stated design goal of Unix was to be an OS for 
experts. The whole system is predicated around the assumption that the 
person at the keyboard is an expert.

Once you accept that it's supposed to be operated by an expert, most of 
the design seems logical and straight-forward. That's why there's not 
much feedback, why the OS does exactly what you tell it to without 
question (you're an expert, right?), why all the configuration is easily 
scriptable, and so forth.

I gather Unix (not necessarily Linux) is popular for servers, presumably 
for this exact reason. (It's also popular for embedded applications, but 
that presumably is due to its extreme portability and configurability 
more than anything else...)

Now, if you're *not* an expert... then an OS designed from the ground-up 
to support the kinds of things an expert wants is arguably not such a 
great idea. From what I've seen, Linux now has various pretty 
front-ends, but as soon as you need to configure something the front-end 
doesn't support, or you import a config file from somewhere else, or 
some other tool (such as a product install script) configures something 
that the front-end can't handle, you suddenly get unceromoniously dumped 
back into exprt-land.

Some day, I might run a Linux box again. But I don't think I'd set one 
up for my grandma.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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