solaris

[Freminlins]

On 06/09/06, White Hat <pigskin_referee at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Immaterial. the singularly most important feature is
> suitability to task. If it is free and it does not
> work, what good is it?


It depends what you are using it for. You made a comment about "occaisonal
word processing" (pasted below). For such use OpenOffice is perfectly good
enough.


> Yes, the lack of documentation is a shame.


In Windows, yes. In FreeBSD I can't see a lack.


> The same lack of documentation
> plagues every facet of software today.


No it doesn't. FreeBSD is well documented.


However, you have made my point.


No I haven't. I have contradicted your point. You said " A very large
majority of users simply want to use their PCs for email, occasional word
processing and possible game playing." I am saying that using XP as you
suggested is not as easy as you suggest for a very large number of people.


If a user cannot
> decipher how to configure a simple thing like Outlook
> Express, and there are programs available that will do
> it for them, then how are they suppose to be capable
> of handling a CLI OS like FreeBSD? It boggles the mind
> -- at least mine. Worse, the configuration of OE is
> handled by a wizard. It is truly sad when a user
> cannot configure something when it is simplified down
> to that level.


It's not so much the wizards, but third party applications like virus
scanners which change those settings which is a part of the problem. But you
are not quite comparing apples with apples. Configuring Thunderbird on
FreeBSD is near enough identical to doing the same on Windows. I wouldn't
however expect a complete computer novice to be able to set up a FreeBSD box
without some help.


How? Drop in two CDs or download the programs, run
> them and case closed. Neither one requires any
> significant configuration. The defaults work just fine
> for most users. You could eliminate the Counter Spy
> since ZA has its own proprietary SpyWare program, but
> I just happen to prefer Counter Spy.


Your statement is simply wrong. AV and anti-spyware DO require
configuration. And they do require installing, and maybe downloading, and
being kept up to date. The defaults certainly don't work all the time in all
cases. Have a look here: "
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/06/faulty_ca_update/". I have heard of
broken installations for Norton numerous times. And trying to help these
customers is time-consuming for our techies.

Frem.