[Coco] Fedora 6 DVD ISO & Linux in General

[farna at att.net]

First of all, there's not really a "problem" with Linux. It's adaptable and easily modified to suit anyone's needs. There is, however, a "problem" with getting it in the mainstream and competing directly with Windows. That's the flexibility and number of distributions and combinations possible. Sounds like I'm contradicting myself, but I'm not. For the techie, the flexibility is a strength, but for the average user who doesn't care how the OS works as long as it's reliable, it's a weakness. It's hard to get local support unless someone in the area happens to support your particular distro, and then they have to figure out how it's been modified. 

Windows is a lot more appliance-like and user friendly, as long as you're willing to work ITS way. You can find support almost anywhere, and pick up software just about at the corner store. So some of Linux's strengths are also its greatest weakness as far as mainstream usability goes.

Several versions of Linux CAN be user friendly and almost appliance-like, but only if set up correctly and few mods made. That's today. A few years ago that couldn't be said. Software is a different story. There are a good many packages out there, but you have to search for them. You can't always find what you need/want right away. Sometimes it will need to be compiled, sometimes "tweaked" to work with a particular distro/hardware combination. Many times it's a beta version, and may not be supported. Those are facts too. 

It seems to be almost taboo to have commercial software that runs on Linux. Traditional Linux users will shun it like the plague and even use an inferior "free" package just out of principal. But there are a few. The general shunning by traditional Linux users, however, discourages commercial entry into the Linux market to a large degree. Techies don't mind "fiddling" with things to get software to work right, Joe Average (and some above averag users, like me) do. Things don't always work perfectly in Windows, but it's easier to get help, and the help is quicker because of fewer installation possibilities. 

I've been looking at moving to Linux, one of the "kinder, nicer" distros like SimplyMEPIs (the most likely), PCLinuxOS, Linspire, or KUbuntu. Those seem to have been designed with the plain old user in mind and install with the least amount of fuss, and are most ready to use right off the disc. I've researched DTP software because that's a major concern. I'm hoping PageMaker 6.0 will run okay under WINE, but looked at Scribus and Pagestream. Scribus just doesn't seem to be stable yet, though it is out of beta. Pagestream is a commercial product but relatively cheap at $150 or so. More importantly, its a stable product developed from Atari ST, Amiga, and Mac versions since 1986. It's worth the money to have a stable platform and not a free open-source product more subject to change. It's almost an apples-to-oranges comparison -- same type software, but one has been developed for 20 years, the other for only 5-6 years. I don't know which I'll use -- or when I'll switch. But whe
 n I do
 switch, I want to switch the entire computer -- no dual boot. I'll keep XP on an older laptop for "emergencies" like working with my older PageMaker files (will probably make them PDFs though). 

--
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Motors Cars" 
Magazine (AMC)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html
(free download available!)