Only handle the simple cases. When they don't tell you exactly what they are going to do, well then they are useless because you can't trust them. Gonna touch the gpt ? Gonna create a hybrid mbr? Gonna force me to use CSM? Gonna *touch* any other partition than what I tell you??? hard pass.
I actually miss the older style gui installers where you picked all your options and which packages you wanted to install first, then let 'er rip. I guess asking too many questions up front was seen as intimidating to newbies.
Having tried archinstall and Manjaro Architect, I really prefer architect as it gives all the control and customizability of a bespoke installation, yet a 5 minute installer.
Don’t get me wrong, I like how simple archinstall is and it is a very good starting point.
Manual installation methods are still around for various distributions. If you want to use them, and for some weird hardware combinations it is probably necessary, they are still available. But it's generally nice to be able to click-click-click your way through a simple install on a straightforward system, too.
This is a pretty common pattern among installers. You give users two paths in the GUI: Quick and Advanced. Anyone who doesn't know what they're doing can pick Quick, and just answer minimal questions: Locale, Timezone, Username, Password, etc... More experienced users can pick from most common options experienced users might require, like selecting filesystems or partitions, or use sensible defaults if they don't know what a particular option does. Advanced users can do what they want on the CLI.
Yep, that's how I installed Fedora the last time I did it. Went throught the quick setup, switched to Advanced to see if the defaults were what I really wanted..(they were), and started the install. Easy-peasy.
Sadly, as soon as someone makes a decent installer, they feature creep it into uselessness. The anaconda installer for Red Hat is a prime example, compounded by the room full of monkeys trying to write Hamlet that wrote the GUI for writing kickstart configurations. anaconda supports writing multiple sequential '%post" or "%pre" scripts, but the GUI for writing
Holy crap, what a great article . . . and also a reminder of why a crap GUI isn't any more useful than a crap CLI, much less a good CLI.
Sadly, IMO, the CUPS user experience hasn't improved all that much in the intervening 15 years. Many distros provide their own tooling which is much better. But go to http://localhost:631/ [localhost] on most distros and you will find yourself just as lost as you would have been 15 years ago.
Now, for me, fighting with CUPS from time to time, and a half dozen other things like it, is
ANYTHING is seen as "intimidating to newbies". It isn't, and never was. But it was *seen* as intimidating *until they damn well were*. We literally bred and raised people dumber.
Remember that COBOL, BASIC, Pascal, (ba)sh/CLIs, Oak (Java), HTML, JavaScript, etc, were all created as easy-to-use interfaces for the laypeople at home. And they were.
It's just a matter of mindset. A scripting language almost completly consists of concepts that everybody uses in daily life all the time. Everybody gets "do that five ti
ANYTHING is seen as "intimidating to newbies".
It isn't, and never was. But it was *seen* as intimidating *until they damn well were*.
We literally bred and raised people dumber.
Remember that COBOL, BASIC, Pascal, (ba)sh/CLIs, Oak (Java), HTML, JavaScript, etc, were all created as easy-to-use interfaces for the laypeople at home. And they were.
It's just a matter of mindset. A scripting language almost completly consists of concepts that everybody uses in daily life all the time.
Everybody gets "do that five times", or "if this, then that" of "Start day will be July, 15. The house we do on that day is Jack's house. And that day we'll gonna paint the house." (Indirect variables/pointers).
A recipe is literally an imperative program with variables, functions, loops, branching, you name it. And gradma just runs it without ever even thinking if it could be too hard or "scary".
The whole "it's hard" thing is bullshit.
I'm tempted to agree with you, but then I remember that we can't even train users to not click links in emails.
I actually miss the older style gui installers where you picked all your options and which packages you wanted to install first, then let 'er rip. I guess asking too many questions up front was seen as intimidating to newbies.
Honestly it's 2021. We should know what a typical functional desktop OS includes without burdening a user. If the user wants to install or uninstall something after in the name of customisation then go ahead. If a power user wants to come up with their own idea, well most distros offer a starting point to allow just that.
The amount of beauty required launch 1 ship = 1 Millihelen
GUI installers (Score:-1)
Only handle the simple cases.
When they don't tell you exactly what they are going to do, well then they are useless because you can't trust them.
Gonna touch the gpt ? Gonna create a hybrid mbr? Gonna force me to use CSM? Gonna *touch* any other partition than what I tell you???
hard pass.
Re:GUI installers (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually miss the older style gui installers where you picked all your options and which packages you wanted to install first, then let 'er rip. I guess asking too many questions up front was seen as intimidating to newbies.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Manual installation methods are still around for various distributions. If you want to use them, and for some weird hardware combinations it is probably necessary, they are still available. But it's generally nice to be able to click-click-click your way through a simple install on a straightforward system, too.
Re: (Score:2)
This is a pretty common pattern among installers. You give users two paths in the GUI: Quick and Advanced. Anyone who doesn't know what they're doing can pick Quick, and just answer minimal questions: Locale, Timezone, Username, Password, etc... More experienced users can pick from most common options experienced users might require, like selecting filesystems or partitions, or use sensible defaults if they don't know what a particular option does. Advanced users can do what they want on the CLI.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, that's how I installed Fedora the last time I did it. Went throught the quick setup, switched to Advanced to see if the defaults were what I really wanted..(they were), and started the install. Easy-peasy.
Open Source Interfaces (Score:1)
Eric Raymond did an essay years ago about open source interfaces and why they're so bad
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writi... [catb.org]
Sadly, as soon as someone makes a decent installer, they feature creep it into uselessness. The anaconda installer for Red Hat is a prime example, compounded by the room full of monkeys trying to write Hamlet that wrote the GUI for writing kickstart configurations. anaconda supports writing multiple sequential '%post" or "%pre" scripts, but the GUI for writing
Re: (Score:2)
Holy crap, what a great article . . . and also a reminder of why a crap GUI isn't any more useful than a crap CLI, much less a good CLI.
Sadly, IMO, the CUPS user experience hasn't improved all that much in the intervening 15 years. Many distros provide their own tooling which is much better. But go to http://localhost:631/ [localhost] on most distros and you will find yourself just as lost as you would have been 15 years ago.
Now, for me, fighting with CUPS from time to time, and a half dozen other things like it, is
Re: GUI installers (Score:2)
ANYTHING is seen as "intimidating to newbies".
It isn't, and never was. But it was *seen* as intimidating *until they damn well were*.
We literally bred and raised people dumber.
Remember that COBOL, BASIC, Pascal, (ba)sh/CLIs, Oak (Java), HTML, JavaScript, etc, were all created as easy-to-use interfaces for the laypeople at home. And they were.
It's just a matter of mindset. A scripting language almost completly consists of concepts that everybody uses in daily life all the time.
Everybody gets "do that five ti
Re: (Score:2)
ANYTHING is seen as "intimidating to newbies". It isn't, and never was. But it was *seen* as intimidating *until they damn well were*. We literally bred and raised people dumber.
Remember that COBOL, BASIC, Pascal, (ba)sh/CLIs, Oak (Java), HTML, JavaScript, etc, were all created as easy-to-use interfaces for the laypeople at home. And they were.
It's just a matter of mindset. A scripting language almost completly consists of concepts that everybody uses in daily life all the time. Everybody gets "do that five times", or "if this, then that" of "Start day will be July, 15. The house we do on that day is Jack's house. And that day we'll gonna paint the house." (Indirect variables/pointers). A recipe is literally an imperative program with variables, functions, loops, branching, you name it. And gradma just runs it without ever even thinking if it could be too hard or "scary".
The whole "it's hard" thing is bullshit.
I'm tempted to agree with you, but then I remember that we can't even train users to not click links in emails.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually miss the older style gui installers where you picked all your options and which packages you wanted to install first, then let 'er rip. I guess asking too many questions up front was seen as intimidating to newbies.
Honestly it's 2021. We should know what a typical functional desktop OS includes without burdening a user. If the user wants to install or uninstall something after in the name of customisation then go ahead. If a power user wants to come up with their own idea, well most distros offer a starting point to allow just that.