[Tfug] Why not do usability research?

[Justin Zeigler]

Jim Secan wrote
| At the sake of starting a distro war, I'd suggest debian.  I would have
| suggested RH a week ago, but not now.  I'd like to see how debian works in
| this sort of test, and in particular how well it installs and sets up for
| this use.

I would tentatively say Mandrake and Debian, and like you, I would of
suggested RH a week ago. But I think that that choice should be left to
the person who will have to support the system.

| Would the plan be for state-of-the-art (or damnear) hardware?  A problem I
| always seem to face in putting Linux on new hardware is "well, the drivers
| aren't in the kernel, so you need to do A, B, C, D, ... ."  This is always
| at least two steps more than I have time/patience for, so I'd like to see
| how debian installs on a new box that is the "typical" box for a home user.
|  A Dell, for example.  Or even a box from a local supplier like SWS or
| Ultramedia.

Ideally, they would be Harry McGregor Signature Economy Series Systems.
Basically, we give Harry the funds we have for systems, and let him
assemble 6 systems (using his mighty powers of pricewatch searching,
googleing and general hardware geekiness). For the study to be fair, all
systems would have to be low end systems (Druron/Celeron 1GHz)

-- 
Justin Zeigler
Human, and all around person

Religion is like alcohol, in moderation it can make you feel tingly 
all over, but when you have to much, you start pissing people off.