Consumer friendly, then...

Story: Linux-based HP Mini Mi ships with command line disabledTotal Replies: 11
Author Content
cr

Jan 11, 2009
4:09 PM EDT
...Because, without any commandline interface available, it sure ain't user-friendly. Maybe, once they're physically available, someone can see if there's a way to boot to level 3 rather than level 5. If not, its condition is terminal because its interface is anything but.

Is this 'product' intended to pseudo-demonstrate the lack of demand for Linux in the marketplace? Is this another instance of HP coming down with MS?
ColonelPanik

Jan 11, 2009
4:27 PM EDT
"...its condition is terminal..."

Yes!
Sander_Marechal

Jan 11, 2009
4:45 PM EDT
Don't worry guys. It's impossible to run Linux without the commandsline. H*ll, Linux *is* the commandline. X.org and the Desktop Environment are nothing but a shell over the commandline. You cannot *not* have a commandline. It's impossible!

Getting the commandline on such a machine will be as easy as putting the xterm binary on an USB stick and running it. From there on the rest is trivial.
rijelkentaurus

Jan 11, 2009
4:54 PM EDT
@Sander

True. But what gets me is not the idea that you can run Linux without ever hitting the CLI, but the very idea that you can run any OS without hitting the command line at times. It certainly isn't possible on Windows, and AFAICT it's not possible on OS X. Sometimes, love it or hate it, you need to get down and dirty with a CLI to get things done or problems solved.
azerthoth

Jan 11, 2009
5:12 PM EDT
rij, your forgetting the windows mentality. try to argue with it for 5 minutes, call your most knowledgable friend, have them argue with it for five minutes, then wipe and reinstall, spend the next 2 days patching and putting in your 'must haves', finding drivers, virii/malware tools (and inadvertantly installing your favorite virii/malware). Forget about it for 6 months or so, then rinse and repeat.

tahdah, typical windows user .... hmm come to think of it that 6 month reinstall the whole shebang sounds familiar, wonder if thats why mark chose 6 month release cycles, everyone was already trained to reinstall every 6 months.
tracyanne

Jan 11, 2009
5:14 PM EDT
For the stuff, a typical user of this HP Mini, will be doing the command line is superfluous. Most of the people I know who use Windows never use the command line on windows unless I or, if they phone tech support at their isp, some other tech type person walks them through some command line process. The same applies to everyone I've converted to Linux.

That's the point.

Why they actually removed it, rather than just hiding it, is, however, something I don't understand.
jdixon

Jan 11, 2009
5:32 PM EDT
> Why they actually removed it, rather than just hiding it, is, however, something I don't understand.

I doubt they did. They probably just removed the terminal programs. And even there, the program may still be available, but just not have a way to get to it. To them, that's all that's necessary. I doubt they even removed the Alt-Cntrl-F1 capability, though I could be wrong.
purplewizard

Jan 11, 2009
7:37 PM EDT
Except azerthoth most typical Windows users I know that are close to your description find their machine getting slower, slowly unusable and assume it is broken. So they suffer until say 18 months are passed then buy a whole new machine.

At which point I fall off my seat again staggered at how their "broken" machine is twice the speck of my linux machine that has just been updated every year for 3-4 years still better handles twice the number of applications there outgoing device ever did.

Which mas made me realise the correct approach to their unfortunate ignorance. It's to try and raise their expectations. Such as ask how long they expect a DVD player, car or other device should run reliably and trouble free for! They need to be disgruntled. Because happy (ignorance is bliss) people stay put.
tracyanne

Jan 11, 2009
11:03 PM EDT
There are no so blind as the typical Windows fanboi Developer. I've just had an "argument" with one of my compatriots who likes to believe that Windows security beats Linux/Unix security.
techiem2

Jan 12, 2009
12:04 AM EDT
Quoting:Windows security beats Linux/Unix security.


If by Windows Security he means unplugging the network cord and power cord.......
jdixon

Jan 12, 2009
12:17 AM EDT
> ...with one of my compatriots who likes to believe that Windows security beats Linux/Unix security.

Do what Helios did. Send him to astalavista.box.sk (the article where he did so is on his old blog, which doesn't seem to be there anymore). Then sit back and watch the fireworks. Then go to the same site on your Linux box (preferably with NoScript turned on) and see if he changes his mind.
Steven_Rosenber

Jan 12, 2009
8:19 PM EDT
Couldn't you just install xterm and be done with it?

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