My statement about NT was intended to be viewed as "from the eyes of the average computer user", who doesn't consider Linux when he needs a workstation/server for his office. Not yet anyways.
And on the note of "this is a very serious board", you started the flames, not me. Someone posted a valid question and you took the opportunity to turn it into a cheap shot. People in glass houses don't throw stones.
We'll never agree guys, but the way I see it, the new kernel and the distributors are coming around to making things "user friendly", because the hardware market is up to this point solely driven by Microsoft and Intel. Now, with that said, the Linux community has two choices. Either play along and match the OS to the hardware, or gradually fade into nothingness, as people get tired of using 400mhz machines full of ISA cards.
I don't see the changes as a shot to stability and "tried and true" methods. I see it as a valid (and justified) attempt to play the game that has been dominated by others to this point.
The public discussion that I see is this...
The distributors are making a push to turn Linux into a household name, and a valid OS choice of the average user. At the same time, the long term champions of open source groan at the thought of the average user being able to use "their" OS.
From the current state of the marketplace, with Microsoft being torn down by the courts, this is the big chance for the distributors to get a foothold.
The day when Linux distributions install and configure themselves ala Windows isn't here yet, but it's coming. As long as everything is still "configurable", I have no problem with that. User friendliness and desktops aren't "evil" things in my book.
For instance, I play with websites all day at work, how in the hell am I supposed to see what those cool java scripts look like with Lynx? The computer world is being driven by what goes on here, online. And what's online now is mostly eye candy. An OS without a fully functional GUI will never be an option, for work or play, for the average user out there.
The distributors have made their intentions clear, and are gonna win out on this, no matter what anyone says or thinks.
Xayd
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