Install Install part II

I'm typing this in OpenOffice.org Writer, running under fedora.

As a tool, Linux is OK. Some aspects of it do seem better designed than windows: security wise it's much easier to make safe from unwelcome browsing of personal files. It would have been very easy to install if all I'd wanted was just a single OS running on this machine, as it would have done the default partitioning and format and that's all.

For me, the thing that says Linux can never be a windows killer is the struggle with silly stuff. Drivers should require no more effort than unzipping and than running an .exe file. Mount and unmount? If a drive is connected to the computer it should work all the time. As for software dependencies, package all the darn .dll files, VB runtimes etc with the software or don't put out your shonky half-baked apps. And as for the names of those apps..... The mind boggles where they came from.

There's another OS I've had a quick look at. It's new, but appears to have actually been designed to make it useable and convenient (if not necessarily secure – hacking criminals are the bane of good software). It's called SYLLABLE, and is a development project available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/syllable. I have a version on CD that runs as a live CD (came on a Linux format DVD). I've only run it once briefly, but it's small, attractive to look at and FAST. Has the same font problem as Linux, but apart from that it *feels* much nicer - hard to explain why, but it just does.