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Old 10th December 2013
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roddierod roddierod is offline
Real Name: Rod Person
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Join Date: Apr 2008
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I think a major issue when people bring up "modern desktop" is a generation disconnect and I think it can be seen in this thread.

I'm older so this has an older person bias. When I hear the word desktop that does not automatically translate to GUI tools in my mind. It translates more to what a home user would do on there PC. Since when I started using home computers everything was DOS or a proprietary DOS like operating system without a GUI maybe this is why the term does not invoke GUIs for changing hardware settings. To me there is nothing more frustrating then getting a call from the 65 year old neighbor lady asking me to get her printer to work, because I'm a computer programmer, and not being able to do anything but click the setup icon and next over and over and repeat again for an hour and continually getting the setup successful message and then the printer not found error.

Now we have generations that are coming along that have always been exposed to the Windows type GUI OS so this is what comes to mind when the word desktop is used. All the abstraction of what goes on behind the GUI to make thing work is nowhere in their mind. "I click this and it works." "I install this driver and it works."

Now, I think we are at the point in time where these generations are coming together and although they think they are discussing the same thing they really are not.

As someone that has used *BSD as an exclusive home desktop machine for 15 years now, I read these threads trying to see why people actually feel that the *BSD are not useable desktops or not easy to use as desktop machines. And to me it is seeming to come do to what generation they are from.

And just to touch on hardware drivers for a minute, I can not speak of hardware support in Linux since I have not used it since 1997, but as for Windows and OSX compared to the *BSD, I would make a case that the *BSD have better hardware support as you don't have to get brand new printers or video cards because the newest version of the OS does not support your hardware any more. Or at least as often. And in the case of the Microsoft they dictate to the hardware manufactures hence your win devices.

This is all just my opinion and they why I see it, but I think Lady Gaga is a talentless corporate creation and millions find it otherwise.
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