Linux is ready for the desktop!

[Oleg Goldshmidt]

> Well, if Fedora 15 wasn't that intertwined with NetworkManager which tried
> to do all of this automatically, maybe this is what I would have done.
> But the current situation is that ordinary non-root users are not expected
> to take network interfaces up and down. Or, if they are, I'm not sure how
> this is supposed to work. Maybe you can tell me.

You can configure any interface as user-controlled. In the
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and similar files the line
is "USERCTL=yes". If you start system-config-network and open the edit
GUI on an interface you'll see the corresponding checkbox. It is not
clear to me if this option is dependent on NM in any way - I suspect
it may be.

> All a newbie wants is somebody who'll
> tell him, step by step, what to do. And the sad fact is that for Windows
> he can get that help from many places - his ISP, the product's official site,
> and so on - but for Linux it's harder to get this advice.

In my mind "Linux is not ready for desktop" and "ISP Support are not
good at supporting newbies on Linux" are two different things though.
It does look to me like you are mostly making this second statement,
which I quite agree with. it is a fair statement that "readiness"
implies a suitable environment, and the Support environment in Israel
is not quite suitable for complete newbies on Linux.

As I mentioned, however, watching my parents and their friends (older
generation) on Windows I'd argue that Windows is "not ready" by
exactly the same token. It is just as darn difficult, and it does
require a savvy technical help on a regular basis.

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | oleg at goldshmidt.org