[ale] weird mouse problem

[Jim Lynch]

On 09/09/2010 10:33 AM, Jerald Sheets wrote:
>
> On Sep 9, 2010, at 8:56 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>
>> I must strenuously disagree with the idea that Linux is not good for 
>> general users.
>>
>
> The thing, I think, on this topic that we (the geeks) continue to miss 
> is that to the average user, the computer is the applications.
>
> The *average* Joe-sixpack, Walmart shopper user will want to walk in 
> the back door of WalMart, walk up to the video game rack and purchase 
> the coed naked warcraft on ice video game, bring it home, insert disc, 
> install app, and then off to wintry nudie wonderland of gaming goodness.
>
> For Joe Sixpack, that does not happen on Linux, therefore it is not 
> superior (to an end-user) to other options out there.
> To be fair to the players in this argument, it doesn't happen in the 
> Mac world all that much either.  With the exception of a few 
> forward-looking companies like Blizzard, Mac gaming is just not there yet.
>
> You and I agree completely that Linux is a superior operating system 
> with many options for superior experiences.  Heck, Linus himself uses 
> a Macbook Pro running Linux.  The thing we as tech-nerds must 
> remember, though, is that WE ARE NOT THE MAJORITY and we never will be.
>
> If by "average user", however, ALL you mean is email, browsing, etc.   
> Then by that redefinition of what an average user is, I agree with you 
> completely.
>
> Thing is, just how many people will only do that?  Seriously... My mom 
> had a small Linux box I made for her and was peachy happy for over a 
> year (and I could SSH into the thing and fix stuff just by getting her 
> to click an icon that emailed me her IP, or in the event that email 
> wasn't working, she could click a different icon and have it display 
> to her so she could read it to me.  Worked GREAT.
>
> Eventually, though, $WORK wanted her to take a training class that 
> only worked on Windows.  Next, they sent home training cd's that only 
> ran under windows.  (or Mac, but they didn't know that).  Ultimately, 
> if mom was retired, we wouldn't have had that situation, but as long 
> as "Mom" has other influences like $WORK or $STORE offering all manner 
> of things that take tech-nerds like ourselves to be present to run (or 
> are not able to run at all), Linux is not the superior OS for the 
> situation at hand for $USER who is in that situation.
>
> Unfortunately for our community, I just described more than 50% of the 
> user base out there.
>
> I think Jim is right as it pertains to the true average user.  If by 
> average user you mean someone who just needs email and YouTube, then 
> you're right.
Not even that.  Ubuntu 10.04 doesn't display video out of the box 
without installing codecs that a novice user would have no idea about.  
No reasonable documentation either.  Also Adobe flash crashes with 
Firefox now.  I've had to resort to using opera to do anything with 
flash.  Only sometimes does you tube work with FF.  I haven't installed 
any other desktop distro so I don't know about them.  With 10.04 being a 
LTS I'd have thought it'd work better.  It's the worst version I've 
installed since before 6.04.


Jim.
>
> --j
>
>
>
>
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