dbkblk wrote:rec > I see your point, but i do not agree 100%. They want to be totally free, OK. You and I don't care so much about that. However, if you want to use your hardware, you can just do "aptitude install linux-firmware" and it's OK.
Sure that it won't be out-of-the-box, but this is nearly the same ! Don't you think ?
NO!
You some what glossed over the fact that User W is handed a CD/DVD to put in and try, or downloads the ISO creates CD/DVD... reboots .
Network card doesn't work
Wireless doesn't work
touchpad acts weird
Pick one...
Test over... Disk is flung into the garbage.... Linux is now tar'd and feather'd with another round of "doesn't work!"
If they even bother to persist and try to come here they get an answer which involves more than a click or two of things.. DONE!
Intentionally adding these failures doesn't help. The masses do not care about the zealotry that goes with this, and quite frankly neither do I! Be thankful the companies provided the drivers at all!
I've bent over backwards to kill off proprietary software like a certain suite from a Washington state based company! I've moved to LibreOffice because another tyrant wants to turn another suite into the ProfitSuite..
I've thrown out and banned crackberries and idiotphones... in favor of Android based devices, even with the litigation... Java development is probably going to be the next causality, based on ASF leaving and the actions of the new tyrant. MySQL is on the UBER QUADRUPLE SECRET PROBATION status.
I am vehemently trying to get Linux on desktops and laptops agency wide.. Not just in the IT department, and the servers. 100% Linux. I want nothing to do with another OS, period. I won't even hire people who have developed on that platform in any way or form.
This doesn't help.... and the solution your offering may work, but it only works for the niche level. The majority of users who will try, and have it fail, it is not a solution. I face this battle daily on various fronts in developing software used mostly internally. I spend HOURS ON HOURS wasting time to explain even the most basic of GUI stuff to people over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I have to spell out time and again the most basic of computer steps. Open your SD card. DEAD SILENCE....Drag your photos to the upload control on the web page... CRICKETS..... "How do I open the SD card... its sealed." I jest not!
Myself and staff spends hours on hours recreating step by step with graphics instructions, with BIG HUGE CIRCLES AND ARROWS to show users how to do something as simple as "open you SD card." Every one here knows what to, any one with basic computer skills does, but those users who don't retain these skills use after use after use, do not. Its a sad fact I face, daily. I call it the big mac effect, as if the registers at a certain chain didn't have pictures of the food, no one would get any food. Which is why I won't go with people I know want to order "off the menu." Yeah sure they CAN and WILL if you ask to make it with no onions or pickles or what not.. BUT 30 years later after they figure out how to put in the register, then the grill will make it wrong, then..... NO THANKS..
dbkblk wrote:If [DebMint] want to be the same as before this move, they just have to pre-install this meta-package.
And thats what I am very strongly suggesting that they publicly post what they plan to do with this mess... Correct it or leave it as it is from the upstream.
I've heard all the debates/positions/arguments over how this kind of move helps Linux... NO it doesn't! It just solidifies the "geek/nerd" mentality and regular users run away, never to come back...