[aklug] Re: windoze 7 sucks

On Wed, 20 Oct 2010, Kevin Miller wrote:

> Um, no. What's configured from the command line is largely not userland
> programs. In general, there's nothing to configure with 95% of the
> stuff that the 'rest of the planet' uses. Install Firefox? It just runs
> afterward. Thunderbird (or your favorite email client)? Same thing.
> After they're installed you may have some basic set up to do, but that's
> probably in the GUI/program. OpenOffice.org? Same thing. Heck, most
> stuff the normal user wants is pre-installed on the major distros and
> you don't have to do much of anything afterwards.
>
> Where you hit the CLI is installing something like FTP, apache, openVPN,
> stuff like that. If you're at a sufficient competency level that you
> know you need that, you're probably competent enough to open a text
> editor and read a man page. And what we find is Linux rules in the
> server room. Clearly, sysadmins aren't put off by the CLI.
>
> There's very few programs that I've come across in normal user space
> that actually require CLI access. YMMV of course.
>
> It's actually kind of ironic, but Windows seems to be suffering from
> Linux Envy. For instance, it used to be that you could pretty much
> fully manage MS Exchange from the GUI. Exchange 2007 and on relies
> heavily on powershell. There's a lot you can't do from the GUI even if
> you wanted to. (Unfortuantely, powershell is a poor subsitute for bash.)
>
> Or take the MS Server 2008 Core release. You get on it and you're in a
> cmd shell box. No start button, no GUI admin programs, no nothing.
> Close the cmd box and you're sorta stuck. There is some three fingered
> way to get it back IIRC, but I've forgotten what it is. The CLI is it
> in Core. Of course, when you want to install a program it kicks off a
> graphical installer, but that's at the application level, not the OS.
>
> I like having a GUI option for configuring - sometimes it's just easier
> to fire it up, click a couple things and be done with it. But having a
> config file to tweak by hand when needed is a definite plus.
>
> I believe the reason that we lag on the desktop isn't because of the
> CLI, but mostly because of marketing. Few commercial apps are release
> for Linux because it's market share is so low. It's market share is low
> because of so few critical apps, and lackluster support by the big boys
> such as Dell, HP, etc. Kind of a chicken and egg scenerio...

Excellent post, Kevin, and much better said than I...

         --Arthur Corliss
           Live Free or Die
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Received on Wed Oct 20 09:12:34 2010