Leaving?

[Paul]

Hi,

> > If they've installed say the ATI or nVidia drivers and are normal users
> > (read most people), it is quite likely that they won't even know what a
> > run level is let alone know how to use it.
> This is FUD. 

No it's not. Put yourself in the shoes of Joe Average

> If nvidia driver breaks, you have to press Enter 3 times
> when gdm can't start X and voila - it's autoconfiguring with the driver
> shipped by Fedora, goes graphical and asks you for resolutions and
> stuff. 

Doesn't. When you install the nVidia driver, it alters the xorg file
which FC doesn't fix when you go through the set up.

You also have the added "what the hell is all of this" factor - when
faced with choosing modes, colour depths and the such, quite a lot of
people will panic. 

Look, we (on this list) can get out of many a sticky situation just
because we've been using Linux for that long and have decided to get out
hands dirty and mucked around with the internals. Many won't. I know my
other half hasn't and she's been using Linux at home since RH 7.3. Stuff
"just works" and she's happy. She (and my kids) are not allowed on my
rawhide box because while I can always get it to work (give or take), it
can do weird things.

> I understand you want 3D, me too, but please you two, don't make
> people believe they have to type in some voodoo spells in the console to
> get X working, as they don't.

True, they have to understand though what is going on. Think about it.
You're used to the normal gdm login when you're met with some non-GUI
interface you've never seen before, being asked questions you possibly
don't understand (how many people know the max resolution and colour
depth of their monitor, especially as there are that many generics out
there?) and at the end, X may or may not start.

I'm not saying users are thick. They're not - they've had the brains and
sense to come and play on Linux, but expecting them to be able fix
things with a command line interface? My son has never seen a command
line interface (uses W2K at school, FC5 here), neither has my mother
(uses XP). I wouldn't expect either to be able to get an X server
running again.

TTFN

Paul
-- 
Wenn sie denken, dass die bildung teuer ist, versuchen sie ignoranz

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20060728/051fef3d/attachment-0002.bin