[buug] Re: Jackpot!

[Rick Moen]

begin  Zeke Krahlin quotation:

> They don't *care about the inner workings of any PC, no matter what OS
> is being used. They just want to get the job done, and/or play games
> and browse the web. They are either running their own small business
> with the PC as somewhat useful...or run their computer for pure
> pleasure. Some are disabled, on very low income, and are politially
> astute enough to desire to boycott Micro$oft...but in need of some
> help in going over to Linux.

You have a point.  You make a decent case that there's a niche to fill,
here.  I have no doubt that some books do it passably well, but that I
just don't appreciate them on such terms.

The fly in the ointment is that you're still using x86 hardware and
doing it using a general-purpose operating system.  Both mean that
efforts to hide complexity are somewhat doomed.  Worse, the lower 
the price point, the worse the hardware complexity becomes.

Anyone trying to do simple, office/personal-productivity task-oriented
computing on x86 can only go so far in ignoring the machine's details --
because the hardware design is too unstandardised and sometimes
downright defective.  So, I tell people, low-cost x86 computing _or_
avoiding the need to become knowledgeable about hardware:  Pick one.
You cannot have them both, not for long, or with any satisfaction.
The smart move is to go for learning about hardware.

If people say they want both (ignorance and low cost), I wish them good
luck, but personall can't help them.  (I don't have the patience, and
don't want to deal with their attitude.  I'd tell them to buy PowerMacs,
except when they started whining about the price, I'd probably lose my
cool, so it's better to just say bon voyage.)

That brings us to the second point, about Linux being a general-purpose
computing environment:

Have you ever heard annoying, whiney people ask (rhetorically) why
computers should have to be so complex, when automobiles are simple
by comparison?  The implication is that we should somehow feel ashamed
to have thus failed the questioner in his reasonable requirement that 
everything he wants to use be made simple for him.

That (supposedly) rhetorical question has a straight-forward and obvious
answer -- which, of course, never occurs to such people:  Automobiles 
are machines designed for a very limited range of tasks, while 
computers are machines designed for an incredibly broad range of tasks.
Computers cannot be made simple and still have them be computers.  Those
of us who _like_ computers, specifically because of their incredible
adaptability, have learned to live with complexity and not whine about
it, because we know it's a necessary precondition for _functionality_.

The questioner's error is in assuming that he needs a computer, just
because he likes to browse the Web, process e-mail, play games, and
write, store, & file things.  He assumes this requires a computer
because that's all he knows about.

On the horizon will be new "computing appliances", at much lower
price points (maybe $200 or so) that have deliberately simplified
functionality and are difficult or essentially impossible to mess up.
Many of these will be based on embedded Linux.  Those are probably
what your customers need, not general-purpose computers at all.

Already, there are computing appliances for gamers:  Sony Playstation 2, 
Sega Dreamcast, Super Nintendo, etc.  These are real computers, and 
often very powerful ones, set up with dedicated, embedded software for 
gaming.  Frankly, if I played games, I'd want to do it on one of those,
not a PC.  The PC/MS-Windows  game market is an artifact of market
distortion.  A more rational market, not dominated by monopolies, would
make those rare, as people gravitated to better alternatives.

Anyhow, I have copies of Ball's _Using Linux_, first edition, and Welsh
et al.'s _Running Linux_, 3rd edition, sitting on my desk.  I was
_planning_ to write a comparision of the two for the list's benefit, but 
unfortunately have to head home and no longer have time.

-- 
Cheers,                                      Right to keep and bear
Rick Moen                                  Haiku shall not be abridged
rick (at) linuxmafia.com                      Or denied.  So there.