Arranging Deck Chairs

[Confuseling]

Originally Posted by BBQCH

Exactly!


(BTW I am going to persist with openSUSE, for all sorts of reasons, and have already got a few ideas on how to fix this particular irk.)

Well, good luck. If you post without searching, those answering you get annoyed. If you search without posting, you get annoyed. People here generally will try to help anyone that displays a little bit of good faith effort themselves - but you don't need to go overboard.

I don't think SUSE is the single friendliest linux forum, and it probably isn't the single most technically competent either...

In this, as in most things, the trick is getting the balance right!

> So, my experience was

since you have only been here a few days i can only guess that your
experience was either a background in Windows[tm] or Apple[tm]
software and so you thought whichever of those you were most
comfortable with was 'easy'..

whereas the 60+ year old Danish granny that _began_ her surfing with
Firefox on SuSE 9.x goes on vacation to Spain and is forced to use the
Internet Cafe's Window[tm] she complains how user UNfriendly and
difficult it is..

she is not a Linux die-hard, just another user but with a different
experience and view of the world from you...the sooner you cease
trying to pretend that _your_ experience should be the STANDARD for
all users, the sooner you can get on with and enjoy the freedom of
open source software..

hmmmm...now that i think about it more i can probably guess you are
one of those Software Evangelist getting a regular paycheck from that
campus in Redmond Washington....the more of you i see around here the
better it makes me feel....i know both Steve and Bill are pretty tight
with their pocket change, and only begrudgingly hire folks to spread
FUD and lies..

i wonder if we will ever see you again after this particular eight
hour shift is over...or, if as usual you just come back with a
different ID..

--
platinum

[wakou]

Just a small 2c worth, as a notorious moaner on these forums, and still sceptical openSuse user, (hence my silly avatar, must get round to changing that!) I have to report that my notoriously unsupported networking hardware worked without any real intervention on my part, IIRC, I enabled the firmware, filled in a box with the access password, and have never had to tinker with it at all. In fact, now I think of it, the whole process was SO seamless that I do not know to this day how it is handled under the bonnet.

[Confuseling]

Originally Posted by wakou

...(hence my silly avatar, must get round to changing that!)

Noooo!

I think it's funny (and to a fair extent true).

[BBQCH]

Interesting response platinum

Tell me, do people call you that because of your tinfoil hat?

[MattBClassic]

Originally Posted by BBQCH

Marketing OpenSUSE is an interesting problem. I installed it yesterday as a prior user of Linspire, and current (frustrated) XP user.

Imagine my excitement at using what I was first told was "the World's friendliest Desktop Linux" and then during installation "the World's friendliest computer system" or words to that effect.

Imagine, then, my disappointment at wiping XP from my hard drive, being guided through an exciting start up process, and realizing that when it's all done simply plugging in a network cable from a VDSL router doesn't allow me to connect to the Internet.

So once again it's the same Linux experience of trawling through forums to find people who have encountered the same problem (and unsuprisingly, there are lots of them) and then relying on the time and effort of friendly, expert Linux amateurs to beg assistance with my particular problem.

OpenSUSE will never, ever, be taken up widely when the ability to plug in a 'live' network cable and go online to browse or send mail requires searching for information, posting code, and other little fixes. This simply does not happen with any version of Windows since 95, nor any version of Mac OS.

Marketing doesn't make problems like that go away, unfortunately.

Hoping to win people on the basis that it's not Windows, or that it's free to download just isn't enough.

Anyone who reads this , please treat as an observation, not a complaint; afterall I downloaded OpenSUSE free, and it's not Windows ;-]

The problem is you are making conclusions from entirely differing base conditions. The Windows versions that you were using undoubtedly were pre-loaded and thus setup to work with the Hardware that came with the computer. Had you simply bought HW, and assembled your own computer than installed the Windows version, you may have found the same frustrations in trying to get everything to work. I understand that Win XP SP 3 is better at driver detection than earlier incarnations and is able to get the common ones loaded off the Net, however that does not happen if your means of getting on the net is not initially detected. Which would mean you would need a driver from the Manufacture to get things going. My last experience with Windows was 98SE so I am not totally familiar with XP though I have encountered it and 98 was anything but easy when it came to detecting and configuring HW.

As for Marketing would you have agreed with "the World's friendliest Desktop Linux" if your stuff had worked? For many it does. If it had for you, would you have complained to the Forum or simply never bothered to post anything? If everything "just works' for someone the chance of them, "trawling through forums to find people who have encountered the same problem (and unsuprisingly, there are lots of them) and then relying on the time and effort of friendly, expert Linux amateurs to beg assistance with my particular problem.", is not likely. BTW finding those with questions and problems on a Help Forum are not too unlikely do you think?

It is actually a problem keeping Forums going when Linux and openSUSE has gotten so easy that the majority of the time no one needs help.

[BBQCH]

Good point, but...

My experience of XP was based on loading it myself; just saying that I found it easier.

The last version of Linux I tried was Linspire, that was few years ago, and it was my experience that it was still easier than this, because I put a cable in the back and surfed the net shortly after loading it. So at present I rate it as "easier".

I wasn't here complaining. I made an observation regarding overselling user-friendliness to inexperienced users.

If I'd had a successful first experience out of the box, it is very likely that I would have posted to recommend it. I made that point earlier.

Funny that people still seem to get hot under the collar about this....

I didn't attempt to foist anything on anyone, just reported a negative first impression based on unrealistic expectations.

Chillax people.

I think this post is done.

BBQCH wrote:
> Interesting response platinum

thank you i try to remain interesting yet mysterious..

> Tell me, do people call you that because of your tinfoil hat?

i guess by that you are attempting to label me a baseless paranoid..

no, they call me platinum because i'm worth more than my weight in
gold, by a LONG shot..

in fact i've been through all of this before, as i dealt with
Washington State FUD Merchants daily back in the '90s when Bill &
Steve were running scared from IBM's OS/2....their success with
killing Warp was more a function of most of IBM's Brass' hate for the
little machine market siphoning off Big Iron's ad budgets to fund
super bowl extravaganza than either technical capability or
advertising/marketing of FUD..

sorry, but the FUD won't work this time...neither against openSUSE in
particular or open source in general..

hey, did you hear that the default browser on the Sony Vaio is
Chrome....hehe....Steve can cuss throw all the chairs he wants, he
ain't gonna bury Google or Linux..

lets see, five years: GOOG +317%, IBM +40%, MSFT -8.9%, NOVL -28.8%

yep, both M$ and Novell are loosers..


--
platinum
Give a hacker a fish and you feed him for a day.
Label him a FUD pusher and you mark him for a lifetime.

[consused]

Originally Posted by BBQCH

Good point, but...

I wasn't here complaining. I made an observation regarding overselling user-friendliness to inexperienced users.

And it was originally clearly stated. Some can't read or listen, because they are waiting to talk about their personal issue/beef/axe to grind.

Funny that people still seem to get hot under the collar about this....

Stay a while, you will come to know the usual suspects.

You actually achieved something by posting in Marketing. I haven't seen a troll-sniffer here before. It's amazing how they get wind of somebody mentioning "Windows does this a bit better", as if it couldn't happen .

[consused]

Originally Posted by platinum

in fact i've been through all of this before, as i dealt with
Washington State FUD Merchants daily back in the '90s when Bill &
Steve were running scared from IBM's OS/2....their success with
killing Warp...

That's when the metal fatigue started.