--- "STYMA, ROBERT E (ROBERT)" <stymar(a)lucent.com>
wrote:
>
> If they are not supposed to be watching the videos
on the school
> computers, then block them at the firewall as our
business
> does. When
> they cannot watch them on Windows it won't make
any difference.
>
I think the point is that if Linux is to make a
bigger dent in the
Windows desktop, more things have to "just work".
In a similar experiment
to the one which started this thread, I slowly
converted a non-technical
family with three computers from windows to Linux
and recorded the
issues which came up.
(
http://www.swlink.net/~styma/LinuxForTheMasses.shtml)
The current distributions of Linux still need a
technical person
to get things working. The technical person would
still have no clue
as to how to get these things working. Many of them
require a fair
amount of research on the web. I understand the
reasons mp3's and
wmv's don't play right out of the box, but to get
"Joe Sixpack" using
Linux requires an update process simple enough for
"Joe Sixpack" to
use to get this functionality working.
If making Linux really simple is not working out,
another model might
be to have pay subscriptions to remote maintenance
services. The FC3
and FC4 boxes I maintain for my friends I can access
remotely via
SSH and VNC. On a Windows box, if tech support
cannot talk you through
the problem, the user ends up taking the box in and
paying big bucks.
ssh, /etc/hosts.allow, and iptables could provide a
very effective support
mechanism. On my friends boxes, I am the only one
with the root password,
not that they would understand what root was anyway.
Just my 2 cents worth. My point is that Linux needs
to be simple in
addition to being better.
Agreed, but like the quote from Euclid "There is no
royal path in Mathematics", I would also compare this
to linux
"There is no royal path to Linux". Make it Fedora,
Mandrake, Mepis, Debian, Knoppix, Kanotix, etc., There
is a learning curve and actually, the more you learn
the better and more technical you become. I have
switched some of my friends to Linux, but actually
they do not care how things work, they just want to
hear mp3's and watch videos. With Mplayer + mplayer
plugin, we have been very successful with the
exception of yahoo music. However, I tell my friends
and my students to just listen to streaming video from
shoutcast.com, and bypass yahoo music and yahoo music
videos.
Best Regards,
Antonio
Bob Styma
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