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

[Thompson Freeman]

On 2002.08.21 10:43 Charles Marcus wrote:
> > From: Irv Mullins [mailto:irvm at ellijay.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 9:43 AM
> >
> > On Wednesday 21 August 2002 08:37 am, you wrote:
> >
> >> Unless people are running Pentium 150s or something
> >> I'd recommend a real desktop ENVIRONMENT like GNOME
> >> or (my preference) KDE instead of just a window
> >> manager like IceWM. These are windows users who are
> >> going to want things like a control panel, a menu
> >> panel, icons on the desktop, things they are used to.
> 
> > Agreed. Any of the 'lightweight' window managers are
> > going to be an immediate and final turnoff for people
> > who are used to Windows. They will refuse to use them,
> > your cause is lost.
> 
> Uh.  If the Company President, or Office Manager, or whover is in
> charge of
> these decisions, mandates that this is the new corporate Desktop, the
> Users
> will have no say-so about it.  They *can't* refuse to use it - all
> they can
> do is complain amopngst themselves, and worst-case, quit and go work
> somewhere else.
> 
> Managements *only* concern should be that they have the tools they
> need to
> do their job well.
> 
> > You can use this as a selling point. Users will be
> > impressed with their ability to customize things.
> > The only other thing they will care about is that
> > Linux may crash less often than Windows.  Anything
> > else, no mater how real, will be unimportant.
> 
> Who *cares* what the Users think, ultimately?

Anybody who wants the Users to accomplish something positive. While
I will agree that the loss of eye candy and other sources of bloat
will improve the utilization of the hardware, it isn't going to help
sell the majority of people I know on the value of ditching a legacy
environment, MANAGEMENT included.

Unhappy users expect hand holding, will sabotage equipment, insult 
customers,
and generally cost way way more in the long run. OK. I'll admit this 
last
is an assertion that I can not document/prove. It does fit with my 
experience
tho.

> 
> No, I'm not really the cold-hearted bastard I may sound like, but
> really -
> is Management providing these people computers so they can play with
> them,
> or so they can do their work?  People used to get by with pen, paper
> and a
> typewriter, so do *not* tell me they* have* to have KDE eye-candy to
> be able
> to write a letter, send a fax, or create a Proposal, send email or
> browse
> the web.
> 
> Charles
> 
> 
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