i think it was neither doug's nor my point. doug said he wants computer to be easy to use and refuses the 'all command line' principle and i said sometimes you don't have a choice because the industry does not allow you to have one. maybe my indian village was a bad example. in fact india has been pretty active at researching 'comunity' computers that work with flash cards to allow for personal secured use so that the machine could be shared. i am pretty sure the os is based on linux/x and, correct me if i am wrong, the machine itself is an open source project (although the open source machine may not be an indian project).
the problem is how to bring computing power to people who need it. crunching numbers is definitely not a rewarding activity and should be left to machines, gui or not.
jc helary