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On Tuesday 27 March 2007 08:09, Clare Shepherd wrote: > As a newbie, I heartily agree with Tom. I just want to do my stuff, > without hassle and in a free environment unhindered by Windoze strictures. > However, I do understand the strength of the opinions being expressed and > that you all have the future of Linux in mind. I just think this thread is > so negative and ultimately damaging to your chances of involving Mac & > Windoze users in Open Source software. I do understand that promoting the > proprietary is bad news for the free alternative, but this discussion > going nowhere, the two sides are too entrenched. Don't we have enough > opposing forces without friction within the faithful. Maybe off list would > be an option? or posssibly at an informal meeting. I hope I haven't > overstepped the mark, or offended anyone > BTW. if Ubuntu is frowned upon, what is suggested for newbies?. > Clare Just to add a quick comment. I agree with what Neil has already said in that open discussion often leads to some difference of opinion. That, as Neil mentioned, is healthy and should not be stopped. Yes, it can come across as negative to someone looking in from outside and that needs to be considered - remember that the list posts are all archived and easily found via a search engine. I would agree that discussion of a more "political" nature - the free vs non-free debate for example - tends to become heated and would perhaps be better off in a seperate list as I mentioned yesterday. That way the main list could remain useful to new users (I hate the term newbies personally) - imagine a new user joining the list yesterday to ask how to edit their xorg.conf or something and coming across the number of posts we were receiving yesterday! As Neil mentioned, Ubuntu isn't frowned on by many of the list users - I use the KDE version (Kubuntu) and the XFCE version (Xubuntu) as well as the Ubuntu Server version myself and would recommend those to anyone who asked for a usable distro. Of course, it may not suit everyone, but it is fairly easy to get the hang of and, despite being easy to use, it contains lots of functionality for those who are more experienced. Mark -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html