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Originally Posted by Jerrek
Do you really want to explain to your grandmother how to mount disks
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Supermount, runs in the same way as the MS mounting system, takes away the need for explicit mounting. Installed by default in most of the more user-friendly distributions.
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Originally Posted by Jerrek
and to use pine
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Mozilla/Thunderbird, also commonly used mailers on windows systems. Evolution, Outlook look-alike with some improved features. Also installed as default on most user-friendly distributions.
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Originally Posted by Jerrek
and gnome/kde/whateverX you like to check her email?
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Gnome/KDE, desktop managers that provide a graphical interface, in much the same way as Windows Explorer provides a graphical interface on Windows desktops. Again, installed as a default
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Originally Posted by Jerrek
Windows and Macs are the easiest. THAT is why they come preinstalled because most people can't use Linux. And THAT is why Microsoft is dominating. They are taking away the stuff nerds like to see. Command lines, source code, and so on. You can't customize Windows as much as Linux because Windows is closed. Linux is geared towards nerds, and as long as that is the case, Microsoft will dominate because when they design their software they put a user's hat on, not a nerd's.
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I don't take issue with Windows/Macs being the easiest to operate, that is most certainly the case. Nowhere in this thread have I suggested that people should dump all other OS's and switch to Linux. I wouldn't reccommend that. What I take issue with is the way Microsoft conduct their business and that their use of closed standards (that's standards, not source, I take no exception to proprietary software) locks people in to their software and
does reduce freedom of choice. If you look more closely at the history of computing, you'll soon see a different picture of why Microsoft dominate.
And yes, currently, Linux is for nerds. It is inwieldy and complicated. But that is a picture that is very rapidly changing, very very rapidly thanks to the likes of Sun and Novell.