Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

Horst von Brand
2002-01-15T11:00:55Z

"Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com> said:
> Charles Cazabon <charlesc@discworld.dyndns.org>:
> > 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