[Novalug] Why? And More4 to the Point, What Do I Do Next?

[Beartooth]

On Fri, 11 Apr 2008, William Bean wrote:

> [...] despite great eagerness to do so, I have yet to find a 
> USEFUL 'kitchen-sink' Linux desktop (i.e comparable to Windows 
> 2000).

 	OmigawddlemityDAMN. Something very strange is in the 
woodwork here. I have nothing remotely comparable to your 
experience -- and I've been well pleased with linux for ten 
years and counting.

 	The first real computer I ever handled was at work; it 
ran OS/2, and had true multi-tasking, with a decent GUI. I had to 
be told, for instance, that you can pick up a mouse when it gets 
to the limit of your reach or of the mouse pad.

 	I got the same old same old up to the eyeballs, and 
retired soonest, in the fall of 1998, only to discover that in 
order to buy a machine and walk out with it, I had to take W98 -- 
which I will go on cursing with my dying breath.

 	I bought RH 6.0, tried to learn it from a book, and never 
even managed an install; got help with 7.2, and again to upgrade 
to 8.0; and have taken it from there -- with lots of invaluable 
help from this list and from gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.general

 	From 7.2 till last week -- with a minor exception for a 
special purpose -- I have run linux *only*. It has gotten easier 
and more likeable with every new release, not only of the whole 
distributions, but of each app.

 	My initial problems were all of an ilk -- and yours 
sound, afaict, like the flip side of that ilk. It was a question 
of audience for those who gave answers.

 	I kept running into things I had to choose among, without 
having a clue what they were, for lack of usable defaults; and 
the copious explanations I got ran way over my head -- till the 
explainers got used to what I didn't know.

 	It sounds to me, as to others here, like you've been 
insisting on making choices which nowadays, blessed be the 
developers!, you can better leave to a time when you've been 
handling things a while. No doubt, too, the explanations -- 
written much more for the likes of me and less for the likes of 
you -- often seem trivial: so you skip over them, *without* 
noticing any unfamiliar details.

 	Relax, cool off, and wait for the full release of Fedora 
9. Meanwhile, go to http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/ 
and wait for a link to Fedora 9 to appear.

 	When it does, read everything before doing anything.

 	Yes, I know, that's against all your instincts; hell, 
it's against even mine, nowadays. But do it. It'll be more 
interesting (and better written!) than you expect, and you'll get 
some surprises.

 	THEN download a DVD, do the install *with* the defaults, 
as others here advise; play with it a while; and then run pirut 
to remove and replace what experience *of* *Fedora* tells you you 
want different.

-- 
Beartooth Gerontoflatulocrat, Cantankerous Codger,
Not Quite Clueless Power User: Fedora 8; CentOS 5;
Ubuntu 7; Puppee; EeeDora; etc. Remember, I know
little (precious little!) of where up is.