[PLUG-TALK] World Domination 201

Larry Brigman larry.brigman at gmail.com
Sun Dec 31 06:03:23 UTC 2006


On 12/30/06, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb at cesmail.net> wrote:
> Speaking of IP, Open Source, etc., I'm curious what people think of this:
>
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html
>
I think its on the mark despite some of the things being dated.
(Google buys YouTube).

The thing I find difficult is getting all of the things working on the
laptop.  Having
it pre-installed would have overcome the problems I am having and would make
it (for most people using one) just another OS.

I got a laptop for my daughter for Christmas.  She is good with the
process of getting
Linux on the laptop but has an iPod and wants that to work.  Actually she wanted
a Mac but a Mac laptop was out of the question (read price) so this is
where we are.

First steps,  I had to figure out how to get Linux to find the hard
drive.  Forum searches
gave me an answer but it would have been better if I had not
had to do the search and it just worked.  Ubuntu was the closest of
the ones that
just work and it didn't.

I had to repartition the HD because of two things.  Running iTunes in
wine on Linux
and getting the wireless to work.
Wireless with the broadcom chip (1390) seems to work for some people with the
ndiswrapper but it is a cluge.  It looks like the iTunes will run under wine but
I have to things to get it to do everything that it would normally do
under windows.

This is not what a normal user on a PC would be doing and grandma or Aunt Mae
won't be using Linux anytime soon if these things don't get fixed.

The install process can be fixed.  Look at Freespire/Ubuntu and any of
the multitude of
other LiveCD/DVDs Linux systems out there.  Even FC6 can be automated so that
it doesn't have to ask all those questions.



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