[ale] Best Desktop Env or Distro for Windows users?

[Charles Marcus]

> From: Fulton Green
> Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 9:38 AM
>
> Anyhow, realistically, you're gonna need either a
> KDE or GNOME environment to appeal to the average
> Jane or Joe. Both have capable file managers.

One comment I'd like to make here...

Although I understand the argument, it is not nearly as important to 'appeal
to the average user', as it is to convince management that this kind of
change will not only work, but will work better.  If you can convince
management that the users will adapt to a more austere computer environment,
and then impress upon them how much better it will be in the long run, in
terms of help-desk calls, hand-holding, etc as well as much less frequent
hardware upgrades, etc, if you move to a locked-down, minimalist
window-manager only environment (like IceWM or XFce, or any of the other
very capable WMs out there), and explain that although the Users will cry at
first about their losing all of the eye-candy, the end result will be more
productive workers, I think most management types will ultimately come
around.

In other words, convince management that the eye-candy is just that:
*eye-candy*.  Yes, some of it is fun, but does everyone *need* to be able to
play CDs on their computer while working, or *need* to be able to d/l and
install the latest virus-ridden screen saver, or the latest stock-market
ticker banner, or mousie-cursors?  In fact, doesn't this kind of activity
*cost* the company money in terms of lost production?

> For groupware, Evolution seems to be it.

Although its not Groupware, it does allow some primitive Activity sharing,
though it isn't perfect.  And I would agree that it is resonably stable, and
will provide some level of comfort to the user, as it is very Outlook-like.

> Office suites are a bit thornier. You want something
> that at least behaves like Office apps, and solutions
> abound in that arena. But you also need for your suite
> to generate M$ Office-formatted docs in addition to
> reading them. I think OpenOffice is able to do that,
> but StarOffice may have better features in that area.

Nope - StarOffice is virtually identical to OpenOffice.org.  The main
differences are, it has the Adabas Database pre-configured, it has WP
(WordPerfect) filters, some pretty Fonts, and SUN support.  Otherwise, it
*is* OpenOffice.org.

Charles


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