Broken stuff, and the obscurity of complexity, made it hard for me, a reasonably computer-literate guy and former programmer to do stuff that should have been relatively easy. I knew what I wanted to do, it just took 3 weeks with a big Linux manual and a lot of time online digging through how-tos and FAQa to figure out how.

In fact, I finally fixed the Linux problems from my Mac OS X desktop: it was just so much easier to use the consistent interface and tools of the Mac to fix the Linux machines than it was from the Linux machines' own desktop. For one thing, the Mac terminal allows you to cut and paste text back and forth from a text editor, whereas GnoTerminal just lets you paste, a real drawback when you are trying to interactively change stuff in multiple config files.

I am determined to learn to use Linux as desktop OS - and things like Ximian Evolution and OpenOffice are steps in the right direction: but I can get a lot of things things done faster on a Mac - everything from a firewall configuration to a complex, graphics-rich presentation go faster on a machine with a consistent user interface that isn't constantly throwing up obscure errors, or which just doesn't work. Linux needs human interface guidelines IMHO: good ones that programmers follow, and refine...
Comments 3:07:59 PM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures