Super Cow Powers
Feb. 3rd, 2005 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nemorathwaldSo now I tried installing another flavor of Linux, called Debian. After the joys of Fedora's "Anaconda" installation program in which I could use a mouse, I'm disappointed by the apparent helplessness and dependency on the user which Debian seems to exhibit. The installation process never installed xstart or a graphical user interface. Yes, before you ask, I installed it two more times and it never offers the chance to do so. It leaves me with just a command line. What possible benefit is that to a person who doesn't know any commands? By Googling I found a couple of commands, such as apt-get, but the results of typing them just scroll text off the top of the screen, leaving me with only the last screenful of incomprehensible text involving "Super Cow Powers." I'm not making this up. I typed "Super Cow Powers" in the command line and of course the computer looked at me as if I had just proffered it a weasel. On a stick. The command line is kind of like if I demanded that all my LJ friends speak only Lojban when commenting.
I tried installing Fedora again, and once again it told me my 20GB Maxtor hard drive is almost 2MB short of disk space to successfully install. My Windows and Apple machines are sitting there looking at their new little sibling with a really smug expression right now. "We educate our user," they say to it. "We jump at the chance to tell him what options we make available to him, and have question mark symbols so he can educate himself in everything he needs to know to get the best experience."* Does the KDE GUI do this? Heck no. It didn't even have any means of dialing up to the internet without broadband. At the Penguicon wrap meeting in April when I said I used dialup they reacted with disbelief. I guess Linux truly looks down its nose at the user. As the suspender-wearing fat guy with a gray beard once said in the Dilbert cartoon, "here's a nickel, get yourself a real computer." What's really meant is, "here's a real computer, get it a real user."
* To which Linux retorts to Macintosh, "Hey, which one of us looks down our nose at floppy-disk users?"
I tried installing Fedora again, and once again it told me my 20GB Maxtor hard drive is almost 2MB short of disk space to successfully install. My Windows and Apple machines are sitting there looking at their new little sibling with a really smug expression right now. "We educate our user," they say to it. "We jump at the chance to tell him what options we make available to him, and have question mark symbols so he can educate himself in everything he needs to know to get the best experience."* Does the KDE GUI do this? Heck no. It didn't even have any means of dialing up to the internet without broadband. At the Penguicon wrap meeting in April when I said I used dialup they reacted with disbelief. I guess Linux truly looks down its nose at the user. As the suspender-wearing fat guy with a gray beard once said in the Dilbert cartoon, "here's a nickel, get yourself a real computer." What's really meant is, "here's a real computer, get it a real user."
* To which Linux retorts to Macintosh, "Hey, which one of us looks down our nose at floppy-disk users?"
