[PLUG] Ubuntu Dapper Drake Officially Delayed

[Michael M.]

On Mon, 2006-03-27 at 23:09 -0800, Jason R. Martin wrote:

> On Windows, just like *any* OS, you can put an executable file
> anywhere you damn well please.  It is not really any more difficult to
> remember /usr/bin than it is to remember C:\Program Files, and it sure
> is easier to type.  Creating a link from there to your start menu,
> application menu, root window menu, or Chili's menu is the job of the
> package installer, on Windows, OSX, any variant of Unix, *and* Linux.

Except when /usr/bin might be /usr/local/bin, or /bin, or /sbin,
or /usr/X11R6/bin, or /usr/local/sbin.  It's not usually *you* putting
the executable anywhere, it's usually your distro's package manager.
The app's website says to find the docs in /such/and/such, but it turns
out your distro in its infinite wisdom uses /so/and/so instead.  And the
particular example.conf the website says to refer to isn't where the
website says it will be, and may not be anywhere on your system because
the package maintainer decided to strip it out.  And you search Google
for how to alter a particular start-up routine, and only after you
follow the "Linux" instructions and they don't work do you discover that
they depend upon your distro using System V init vs. BSD-style init or
vise-versa.

Windows, OS X, FreeBSD are all *one* thing each; Linux is many things.
You install something on any of the former, and you know that the
install routine will work the same way it always does, and you'll find
all the elements in the same places you always do, which will be exactly
where the app's website will tell you where to find them.  You install
something on "Linux" and it's time to play a guessing game, at least
until you become familiar with your particular distro's routines and
learn how to adapt the generic "Linux" instructions to your own distro's
quirks.

This does make "Linux" more confusing and harder to grok.  The others
are operating systems; Linux literally is a kernel, and colloquially is
a term for a host of distinct operating systems, many of which function
in subtly and not-so-subtly distinct ways.  "Mac OS X Jaguar for
Dummies" will do me fine for learning OS 10.3 Panther.  Sure, some new
features won't be covered, but the guts will be the same.  AppleScript
is still AppleScript, it's not apt, yum, yast, emerge, pacman, or urpmi.
I go to buy "Linux for Dummies" and it turns out that it's really "Red
Hat for Dummies." What good does that do me if I'm not running RH or one
of its variants?  There is a whole set of issues Linux users face that
users of the others do not.

> I have at least as much difficulty finding the right program for the
> job in Windows.  At least when I find it in Linux, I usually don't
> have to pay several hundred dollars for it.

Yah, my Windows copy of OpenOffice.org was almost a pricey as Microsoft
Office.  And Firefox, boy the Mozilla people really rip you off on
Windows.  But, you know, you get a discount if you buy Firefox and
Thunderbird together.  :-)

Have you seen?:  http://www.theopencd.org/

Chances are, if you're paying hundreds of dollars for a Windows program,
then you're buying something that will run only on Windows and has no
Linux or OS X equivalents.

> And why, oh, why does Gmail, in all its wondrous elegance, not have
> configurable color themes?

See: http://persistent.info/archives/2004/10/05/gmail-skinning

-- 
Michael M. -- Portland, OR -- USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to
dream." -S. Jackson