> I agree that KDE is probably the best interface to
> start with for non unix type users, because if you
> know microsoft, you can reasonably get around in KDE

GNOME is only slightly differently organized.  (And it used to be more
visually pleasing...though I'll grant that it's not very reliable.)

My question is: How much do we *want* users who think of UNIX as an
MS-WINDOWS clone?  (Because, really, cloning the user-interface of
MS-WINDOWS seems to be the goal of KDE.  Providing the same features in a
different layout seems to be GNOME's purpose.  Neither shows radically
novel ideas anywhere that I saw.  Though it could be that they are drawing
on some common reference that MS also draws on...the average user is
probably no more aware of such a common herritage than am I.)


> just fine. I can't think of another one off hand
> that's as easy to use for the first timer.

My mother actually has a hard time with MS-WINDOWS; she could manage the
Amiga, though.  (^&  (To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what she finds
hard about MS-WINDOWS; most of the functionality that she actually used on
the Amiga is present under MS-WINDOWS.)


 [...]
> With the documentation from www.netbsd.org in hand,
> installing NetBSD (on i386 anyway) doesn't seem to be
> a very hard thing if you are already familiar with
> installing Linux or FreeBSD.

If you're willing to dedicate a machine unconditionally to NetBSD, you can
just about ``click through'' the NetBSD installation procedure.  (Except
that you can't use a mouse for it, and one or two menu options default to
``forget about it after all'' as I recall.)  Of course, getting it fully
configured takes a little more work...

(Of course, if you have hardware where it's a tight fit, you may want/need
to engage a few more neurons when installing NetBSD.  But that's another
story.  Presumably most new users have reasonably new hardware and won't
need to worry about tailoring partitions, etc.)


  ``I probably don't know what I'm talking about.'' --rauch@math.rice.edu