does the desktop matter anymore? [LWN.net]

does the desktop matter anymore?

Posted Sep 27, 2005 12:27 UTC (Tue) by mrshiny (subscriber, #4266)
In reply to: does the desktop matter anymore? by pjs
Parent article: KDE 4 promises radical changes to the free desktop (NewsForge)

Your view of computer users is pretty harsh, but, even if all you say is true, having worked at a computer store in the past I can say that most people who care about data on their old computer find a way to get the data off (assuming the hard disk is ok). If they can't get it off they call their local whizz-kid. If he can't get the data they send the data to a repair shop. My store had a repair shop where we often transferred a user's data to a new computer. In fact this was sometimes negotiated right into the sale of the computer. Many people don't know how their hard disk works but they can usually tell where there photos are stored, if they have taken any number of photos worth transferring to a new computer.

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does the desktop matter anymore?

Posted Sep 28, 2005 7:15 UTC (Wed) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

The trouble with asking the "local whizz-kid" is even that screws up often enough, thanks to Windows :-(

I backed up my brother-in-law's pc before wiping his hard disk. At least, I thought I had. It backed up everything fine without errors, except (1) it ignored hidden folders, and (2) because I backed it up from the top of C:, it ignored "Documents and Settings", because it was a hidden folder!

I didn't find that out until too late :-(

Cheers,
Wol

does the desktop matter anymore?

Posted Sep 28, 2005 11:45 UTC (Wed) by carcassonne (guest, #31569) [Link]

"except (1) it ignored hidden folders, and (2) because I backed it up from the top of C:, it ignored "Documents and Settings", because it was a hidden folder!"

Did you do a complete system restore from the backup, including all system files needed to run the OS ? Why no only re-install the OS for its distribution media and then only restore the user data ?

C: has to be the stupidest invention in computer history. No way to simply backup all of a user's data files in one sweep.

On Linux, the user will not save his/her data in /usr/sbin/. It'll be in his/her home directory and that's it. Want to save some system settigns, then backup /etc and that's it. Re-install system from distribution media and re-install the user's data files and possibly tweak some config files, but that's could really be not necessary.

I'd like to see Microsoft confined in 10 years from now publishing exclusively OSes and softwares for game boxes while the home PC would be the serious matter. People would have to power up their game boxes to run MS Office, which is not that bad after all, metaphorically speaking ;-)