[Coco] Fedora 6 DVD ISO & Linux in General

[Joel Ewy]

Ries, Rich [S&FS] wrote:
>  
> Having grown up with RS-DOS, then OS-9, then MS-DOS, then Windows (3.1,
> 3.3, 95, 98, XP), and seeing all the troubles people have with Linux
> (here, and with Leo & FreeMind at SourceForge.net), I can not see why
> anyone would want to use Linux, short of sheer masochism! (Or maybe a
> psychpathic hatred of all things uSoft.) Maybe I'm spoiled, but with
> Windows I D/L the executable, and GO. It looks like if I want anything
> with Linux, I need to D/L it, then try to compile it, scream, cry, and
> give up. 
>
>   
Well, you have failed to define the "anything" that you want.  :)  All
the major distros have tens of thousands of pre-packaged programs that
you can install off CD or the Web with the click of a mouse.  Using
something like (just as an example, and not a dis on Fedora!) Synaptic
package manager almost couldn't be easier, and is certainly easier than
installing software in Windows.  Select the software you want, click
"Apply" wait a couple minutes while it downloads _and_ installs
automatically, and go find your program in the applications menu.

The only times you are likely to need to compile from source these days
is if you are a system admin and your job is to be paranoid about
security, you are trying to install cutting-edge or oddball software
that hasn't made it into your distro yet (and isn't it nice that you
_have_ free compilers with Linux -- most MS-Windows users don't even get
the option to try out software that somebody else hasn't already
pre-compiled for them), or if you are running a less common hardware
architecture, like the 68040 Macs I have Debian running on.

The pace of development is rapid.  A few years ago there may have been
common end-user apps that you still had to install from source.  I'm
building the patched version of the Dillo web browser (with frame and
tab support) on m68k as I write this, just because that's a version that
differs from the official release and hasn't made it into current Debian
(ok, so I haven't installed etch-m68k yet, so I'm not sure about that),
which has one of the longest release cycles of all the modern distros. 
But if you install a current distribution on a reasonably recent x86 PC,
you probably won't need to install a build environment unless you want
to develop software.

If what you're really complaining about is the fact that there's some
cool hardware or media content out there that is locked up behind
childish NDAs or DRMs -- well, that's a completely different issue and
has nothing whatsoever to do with the intrinsic ease of use of Linux. 
:)  There may be specific pieces of software that only run under
specific operating systems.  That's nothing new.  Adobe has chosen to
build Flash Player 9 for Linux x86, but I don't think they've released
10 (yet?).  My son has found that most games at pbskids.org will work,
but there are a few that require a more recent version of Flash than
what is currently available for Linux.  That's entirely on Adobe's head.

But if I want to download and install Inkscape in Ubuntu (and I'm sure
Fedora (and SUSE...) would be just as easy) I start up Synaptic, hit the
"Search" button, type in "Inkscape", select the package, and hit
"Apply".  Slick as snot.  :)

JCE
> My two (s)cents,
> --Rich
>
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