Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 06:00:55 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 06:00:45 -0500 Received: from waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de ([129.217.4.42]:55977 "EHLO waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Tue, 15 Jan 2002 06:00:24 -0500 Message-Id: <200201151100.g0FB0Gok002873@tigger.cs.uni-dortmund.de> To: "Eric S. Raymond" , Linux Kernel List Subject: Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution) In-Reply-To: Message from "Eric S. Raymond" of "Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:54:12 EST." <20020114135412.D17522@thyrsus.com> Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 12:00:16 +0100 From: Horst von Brand Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org "Eric S. Raymond" said: > Charles Cazabon : > > Yes, and yes. Aunt Tillie is running Linux because someone installed a > > distribution for her. > You don't know that. Maybe she installed it herself. Linux-from-scratch or some such? In which case she'd better be able to configure a custom kernel without help... > > She is never going to need anything out of her kernel that her > > vendor-shipped update kernels do not provide. > *You can't know that.* Right. But 99.9% of Aunt Tillies won't need anything else. To have _everybody_ go through a lot of pain for the sake of 0.02% of Linux users is silly. Better let Nephew Mervin keep the junkheap, and give Tilly a new machine for her birthday. > And your belief that you *can* know it is a key part of the elitist > developer psychology and implicit assumptions that keeps Linux mostly > inaccessible to the Aunt Tillies of the world. Have you ever tried f.ex. Red Hat's installer and updater for the latest versions (Just because it is the one I know best; other distribuctions have similar facilities)? Have you tried a machine with Linux preinstalled? Have you ever battled with Windows "autoconfiguration"?! _It doesn't work_. At all. _Ever_. And that hasn't been an impediment to Aunt Tilly to get a WinPC... I just think that your idea is cool. You are just wasting effort on trying to solve a non-problem, when there are lots of problems that could use your talents. But again, it's your own time. -- Horst von Brand http://counter.li.org # 22616 - 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/