“So you’ve got this laptop, and you think “how cool would it be
to install Linux on it?” The answer is “very cool,” especially if
you like to advocate. Nothing like a a demonstration to convince
the masses.”
“Isn’t that a command line OS, like DOS?” And then you show them
Window Maker.”
“You can’t advocate if you don’t have a working system,
though. On a laptop, that’s often easier said than done. X can be
troublesome, then once you get X working, you have to deal with
sound. Yes, sound isn’t a necessity, like X, (and X isn’t
really either, but it helps. I’m typing this in WordPerfect, and I
could just as easily use vi or joe from a console) but it’s nice to
have. I use Xfce as my GUI on my laptop, and it has a cool set of
sounds by default. The person next to me on the train in the
morning isn’t necessarily happy with the sound scheme, but that’s
not my problem.”