Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Thu, 9 Jan 2003 09:26:28 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Thu, 9 Jan 2003 09:26:28 -0500 Received: from borg.org ([208.218.135.231]:26352 "HELO borg.org") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Thu, 9 Jan 2003 09:26:26 -0500 Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 09:35:09 -0500 From: Kent Borg To: Val Henson Cc: Miles Bader , dpaun@rogers.com, rms@gnu.org, lm@bitmover.com, acahalan@cs.uml.edu, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: "Mother" == "computer-illiterate" Message-ID: <20030109093509.D17044@borg.org> References: <200301050802.h0582u4214558@saturn.cs.uml.edu> <20030106173705.GP1386@work.bitmover.com> <200301071118.41059.dpaun@rogers.com> <20030109072043.GE26010@boardwalk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i In-Reply-To: <20030109072043.GE26010@boardwalk>; from val@nmt.edu on Thu, Jan 09, 2003 at 12:20:43AM -0700 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 3845 Lines: 78 On Thu, Jan 09, 2003 at 12:20:43AM -0700, Val Henson wrote: > How come no one ever talks about a Linux distribution so easy that > your grandfather could install it? Or a kernel configuration tool so > simple that even Uncle Timmy can use it? I am new to this thread, but I do use the "my mom" example because my mother *is* the computer pioneer I know in that generation, but one who still finds them difficult. She has been using computers since she got a new Macintosh Plus and a 30 MB hard disk, and she has been using e-mail since before it was clear to everybody that @-signs would be a universal part of e-mail addresses. However, she is also still not a computer wiz and I think never will be--there seems to be a generational thing here, like learning a foreign language in adulthood, that keeps computers hard. When my mother was a little girl electricity was still new, and was useful for lighting. My most recent e-mail from her was saying the some Apple support person concluded her current problem is likely the Imac's hard drive and to bring it into the store where she got it. (Her other Imac works better, but it is only OS X and doesn't work with her scanner.) She keeps at it! My father only recently got interested in computers, uses the new Imac for video editing, but refers all support questions to my mother. He doesn't pretend to be self-sufficient on the topic. > Can we quit with the "clueless mother" examples already? My mother is far from clueless, but she is stubbornly resistant to becoming a power user who can reliably solve her own problems. (The fact that computers are still so damn buggy doesn't help either.) I am encouraging them to get a DSL connection with a static IP, at which point I will add a Linux computer to their collection--and I will administer it remotely from 1000 miles away. > My own mother has installed more distributions of Linux than I've > even logged into. I don't doubt that, but until computers get a lot easier to use and administer the graphic image of the Clueless Mother is useful to shock most geeks back to the reality that there *are* naive users. Many of us have mothers, and computer expert mothers are still rare. > I know quite a few mothers who have PhDs in CS, own several > CS-related patents, and/or made important fundamental discoveries in > CS. (You hang out in rarified circles, the number of women in CSci id dropping.) So don't imagine a general purpose "have given birth human"! Imagine a woman born in a modern western country, but 20 years before the invention of the transistor. These capable women mastered impressive things, but computers are so obtuse! And they are not the only ones having trouble. I am still having trouble getting my software Raid 1 to boot off of either drive if one goes south--without opening the box and pulling cables. And it seems like such a reasonable desire... -kb, the Kent who insists that computers are more difficult than they need be. P.S. Some of us are old enough to remember when mice and graphical interfaces were considered toys for beginners and not suitable to real users. But at least then there was controversy! Now, overlapping windows are the undoubted standard and no one even complains. These traditions are too complicated, limited, and narrow, but it is hard to think beyond them. But imagining a naive user (maybe even knowing one or two) is a useful way to ask basic questions. If this naive user isn't Your Mother, OK, but please don't forget that what is good for a naive user (e.g., the mouse) is good for others too. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/