Most of us use Linux as a hobby? Linux will never appeal to the average kid?
I don't know what planet you're living on, but I suspect the last time you looked at Linux was about 5 years ago. In the GNU/Linux world there are so many choices, and these days the majority of them are very good quality.
My PC currently has 4 user accounts (myself, my wife and 2 friends who often visit). My desktop is 'cool' in that I have opted for funky icons, a futuristic background and a whacky colour scheme. It would probably appeal to most kids, although of course they could change it quite easily. My wife's desktop is 'simple' in that I have placed icons on it for all the things she regularly uses, removed extra clutter and made it as easy as possible for a non-technical user. I don't know what my friends' desktops look like as I haven't looked, but I would guess that one would have made his as similar to a Mac as possible, the other as similar to MS Windows as possible - that's their general preference. Note that this variety exists within _one_ installation on _one_ PC - the desktop can easily be made as appealing, trendy, fuddy-duddy, simple, professional, geeky or whacky as you want, and on a per user basis.
Although you could argue that having a PC at home is a hobby, the reason I installed Linux is that my previous MS-Windows XP installation was crashing all the time and didn't do everything I wanted. I would have had to spend a lot of money on extra software to get it to do most of it. With my chosen distribution of GNU/Linux (SuSE) I get virtually everything I need and want installed at zero cost and with virtually no effort beyond ticking a few boxes at installation time. Many other distributions give you the same - I have also used Fedora Core 2 and Mandrake 9.1 in the past, they are just as configurable.
I think the only area where Linux is currently less appealing than MS-Windows is in the area of games - but the gap is narrowing rapidly, and I reckon by the time my daughter is old enough to want to play games, there will be little to choose between the two on this criterion.
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Re:Linux Desktop
Posted by: DFJA on August 05, 2004 05:44 PMI don't know what planet you're living on, but I suspect the last time you looked at Linux was about 5 years ago. In the GNU/Linux world there are so many choices, and these days the majority of them are very good quality.
My PC currently has 4 user accounts (myself, my wife and 2 friends who often visit). My desktop is 'cool' in that I have opted for funky icons, a futuristic background and a whacky colour scheme. It would probably appeal to most kids, although of course they could change it quite easily. My wife's desktop is 'simple' in that I have placed icons on it for all the things she regularly uses, removed extra clutter and made it as easy as possible for a non-technical user. I don't know what my friends' desktops look like as I haven't looked, but I would guess that one would have made his as similar to a Mac as possible, the other as similar to MS Windows as possible - that's their general preference. Note that this variety exists within _one_ installation on _one_ PC - the desktop can easily be made as appealing, trendy, fuddy-duddy, simple, professional, geeky or whacky as you want, and on a per user basis.
Although you could argue that having a PC at home is a hobby, the reason I installed Linux is that my previous MS-Windows XP installation was crashing all the time and didn't do everything I wanted. I would have had to spend a lot of money on extra software to get it to do most of it. With my chosen distribution of GNU/Linux (SuSE) I get virtually everything I need and want installed at zero cost and with virtually no effort beyond ticking a few boxes at installation time. Many other distributions give you the same - I have also used Fedora Core 2 and Mandrake 9.1 in the past, they are just as configurable.
I think the only area where Linux is currently less appealing than MS-Windows is in the area of games - but the gap is narrowing rapidly, and I reckon by the time my daughter is old enough to want to play games, there will be little to choose between the two on this criterion.
#