Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Constructivne Comment request

[Benjamin Webb]

>> As techies, we sometimes forget that for the typical user, the PC isn't an
>> end in itself.  Mostly, all they want to do is read their email, surf the
>> web, get music and play games.
>
> i would say that gnu/linux is pretty good at those tasks.

I would disagree :D

Yes, GNU/Linux is good for the all the things a lot of people use
their system for - documents and things on the internet, there are two
big areas above that cause problems. Firstly, music - GNU/Linux is
fine for listening to most music. However, many people have music
collections containing DRM or want to have itunes to buy music with a
few clicks. As concerns DRM, we should certainly tell people to avoid
it anyway, but are there any good DRM-free music services, for popular
artists, in the UK, that work with GNU/Linux?

Secondly games. These are a very big problem. Any serious pc gamer
will not be able to switch fully to GNU/Linux. There are free software
games, and there is wine, but for most gamers these are no way near
ready.

So, here you have two big problems for "normal" users. However, these
issues do not affect a lot of people. There is still a large number of
people who just want to make documents, browse the web, listen to
their drm-free music collection and possibly have a game solitaire
occasionally (or maybe have just one "must have" game that does work
in wine) - for most of these people GNU/Linux is a viable alternative.

Hope that makes sense.