Re: New user ...opinion.

[Cory Watson <gphat cafes net>]

Out of curiosity, have any of you ever compared installing Gnome to
installing Windows for the first time?  The
fdisk/format/installation/driver retrieval/mutliple reboot/program
installation that you go through to get everything to your liking?  If I
sat my mother down at my computer with a RedHat CD, and the Gnome RPMs, and
a boot disk and a 98 CD, she wouldnt have a snowballs chance in hell of
getting either one running.  

The first time I tried to install Gnome I used RPMs, and that is what
completely turned me off to RPMs...  It simple didnt work.  No fault of the
programmers or RPM creators.  The nature of Linux simply makes it difficult
to take something like Gnome and make a pretty little installer that works
every time for every person.  If you are running a fairly stock system, or
one that is current and setup fairly correctly, Gnome tends to work.

In my experience under RH5.2, Imlib, GTK, and Esound seemed to cause alot
of troubles.  Lots of stale libraries and lots of running ldconfig. But,
even though it took me 4 days, (lots of which where into the wee hours of
the morning) getting Gnome running was one of the more enlightening Linux
achievments Ive made.  The actual procedure taught me lots of information
about Linux and its libraries.

Keep up the good work guys, when I get settle into my new house with a
dedicated Linux box, Ill gladly contribute where I can.  

One thought I've had is installing Gnome from sources on a fresh RH6.0
system, and documenting all the troubles I run into, with the solutions.
Which when I get the T1 and the RH6.0, Ill prolly do:)

At 06:01 PM 5/22/99 -0400, William R Pentney wrote:
>On Sun, 23 May 1999, A Palsson wrote:
>
>Very true. The one thing that GNOME needs more than anything right now, I
>think, is a program which will automate its installation - allow the user
>to select what portions of GNOME he/she wants, then download and install
>all the necessary packages for it (and all several billion libraries
>required) and fix up the .xinitrc file. This should be usable with most or
>all of the major distros. With this, GNOME would truly beat Windows in
>every area (except perhaps available software, and we're working on that).
>
>- Bill
>
>> Another *very new user* here. I agree, the Linux world is almost like a
>> religious thing. Not the first time for me, I was an active member of the
>> Team-OS/2 until IBM finally strangled off it's own child.
>> 
>> Just as a suggestion, since "ease-of-use" is a big factor in user
acceptance
>> of new environments and Linux/Gnome is anything but an easy thing to set up
>> and configure for the average "newbie", with all the compiles /
configures /
>> makes and "make installs" what about developing some easier method to
>> install the thing.
>> 
>> Something like a menu driven Install routine that installs the necessary
>> modules in the proper order, compiles, makes and configures. Without some
>> ease of use for the average new user, Windoze is bound to stay on top (who
>> would like to see that?)
>
>
>-- 
>        FAQ: Frequently-Asked Questions at http://www.gnome.org/gnomefaq
>         To unsubscribe: mail gnome-list-request@gnome.org with 
>                       "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
>
>