openSUSE Survey Results Online 173
apokryphos writes "openSUSE have announced that the results from the openSUSE survey (PDF) are now online. The survey was live for almost 3 months and more than 27,000 users participated, making it one of the largest Linux distribution surveys ever."
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Luckily (Score:5, Funny)
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Tools used (Score:1, Troll)
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A perverse habit that I share. My guess is that only people familiar with desktop publishing would get what they're looking at, but it's worth pointing out that while PDFs can contain interesting information, the information is never as interesting (or incriminating) as what we'd typically get from folks who "publish" Word documents, employees of Microsoft included.
this survey was printed from Mozilla on an Apple box. I just wonder why Novell could not spend 0.
KDE vs Gnome (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, did anyone else think it was weird that among all the questions asked, they neglected to ask what geographic region respondents were from?
Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:5, Informative)
Gnome is the default selection for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, but only in that the radio button for Gnome is preselected, rather than that for KDE. KDE is still the default selection for openSUSE.
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Ubuntu's Gnome foot (Gnome logo pun intended) looks pretty good so far.
I was an avid KDE user, used it exclusively on Redhat, Mandriva then SuSE. When I switched to Ubuntu, I promptly added the Kubuntu metapackage to get my KDE back. But then, after playing with a 1001 configuration preferences in KDE I wanted to revert back some settings, it took me a very long time to find them.
Eventually I came to the seemingly p
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Name them. Go on, I dare you.
Refer to one of my earlier posts [slashdot.org] if you need some help.
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The main problem, to me, is that KDE doesn't differentiate between per-user and system-wide System Settings, but the labels imply that it does. "Personal" and "Look & Feel" are obviously per-user, and "Computer Administration"
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The option that always pisses me off is the one that allows you to change from 'single-click activate' to 'double-click activate'. I end up looking through all the various "Look & Feel" panels to no avail. (Yes, I know where the option is, but I have to hunt for it every time.)
It took me 10 seconds to find, even though I didn't know it was there. How? Open KControl. Type "double" in the search bar. Select the first suggestion.
Of course, this wouldn't work with the awful, awful configuration dialog that Kubuntu supplies. Deinstall it, it is not worth the bytes on your harddrive. I hear it is a clone from the Mac; if so I pity the Mac people for yet another reason.
The main problem, to me, is that KDE doesn't differentiate between per-user and system-wide System Settings, but the labels imply that it does. "Personal" and "Look & Feel" are obviously per-user, and "Computer Administration" implies to me that those are system-wide. In reality, it's a mish-mash of the two. This is an important distinction for me, as my wife and I both use the same computer with different profiles.
That's a good point. Is there a bug report on this on the bug tracker [kde.org]? Of course, you can infer it from the questio
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OS X's "System Preferences" dialogue has a search bar that works extremely well: it not only drops down a list of "hits", but highlights the applet(s) containing each term as one moves through them, and will take users to the correct page of the relevant applet when a term is selected. The Kubuntu configuration system you are describing is not therefore a clone of the Mac one, irrespective of what you may have heard.
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" I hear it is a clone from the Mac; if so I pity the Mac people for yet another reason."
OS X's "System Preferences" dialogue has a search bar that works extremely well: it not only drops down a list of "hits", but highlights the applet(s) containing each term as one moves through them, and will take users to the correct page of the relevant applet when a term is selected. The Kubuntu configuration system you are describing is not therefore a clone of the Mac one, irrespective of what you may have heard.
So it has a dropdown list --- Kubuntu's config doesn't. I suppose that makes the apple version tolerable. I hate the lowlighting stuff: if something is irrelevant, removing it altogether (like KConfig does) is infinitely clearer and better. I don't understand the bit about "taking users to the correct page"... how else could it work? Anyway, good thing that part of Mac, at least, isn't screwy, even if it still have a way to come to be on par :)
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Actually, it may be better not to remove entirely, since this will make the UI jump about. Generally, if possible, the UI's positioning should remain constant. The true answer would need research... but don't assume that you are right because you have an opinion. My opinion is that the way Spotlight works is better than others I have tried on KDE and GNOME, but that doesn't make it universally true.
Of course it's just my opinion :) Having tried both in KDE (Kubuntus vs KDEs) I find the one where the irrelevant ones are removed entirely better. Firstly, because the list doesn't "jump about"... it contracts, which is not (as) confusing. Perhaps a touch of animation might make it even better. Secondly, because when I'm searching, I'm usually eliminating most (4 of 5 at least) entries. Having all those deactivated items in the list doesn't help me. Maybe it works on the Mac because it is less powerful o
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Indeed.
"I hate the lowlighting stuff: if something is irrelevant, removing it altogether (like KConfig does) is infinitely clearer and better."
The problem with your preferred method is twofold:
1) People who leave a search term in place (or accidentally type some rubbish in that the system "thinks" is a search term) may be presented with an incomplete list of options, and not know why, or how to get the
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"I hate the lowlighting stuff: if something is irrelevant, removing it altogether (like KConfig does) is infinitely clearer and better."
The problem with your preferred method is twofold:
1) People who leave a search term in place (or accidentally type some rubbish in that the system "thinks" is a search term) may be presented with an incomplete list of options, and not know why, or how to get the full list back again.
Lowlighting doesn't help with this problem. In fact, it makes it worse... why are all those icons monochrome? They don't work, either. The correct solution to this problem is a clear marking (with text) that you are seeing a subset according to the search terms. Incidentially, removing the items altogether clears up space for this.
2) The whole desktop metaphor is based on spatial awareness, which is lost if items keep moving around, disappearing, etc. This is a major reason for so many users disliking the new UI in MS Office -- they'd learned _where_ things were on previous versions, and don't like the fact that they've not only moved, by keep doing so based on context.
Rubbish :p That argument is only relevant with something you do often. Configuring the system is hopefully not one of them, unless it is severely broken.
"Anyway, good thing that part of Mac, at least, isn't screwy, even if it still have a way to come to be on par :)"
While I agree that some things in KDE that are better than their OS X equivalents (and it has things that OS X doesn't have, although the reverse is also true) , UI elements that appear and disappear isn't one of them.
I'm not talking about
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This is a problem with a particular Linux program, not the Mac, which as I have explained previously, highlights the icons that fit the search criteria. Linux is awash with examples of dreadful UI design (although both the Mac and Windows have their fair share of them too), and this sounds like yet another.
"That argument is only relevant with something you do often. Configuring the system is hopefu
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"Lowlighting doesn't help with this problem. In fact, it makes it worse... why are all those icons monochrome?"
This is a problem with a particular Linux program, not the Mac, which as I have explained previously, highlights the icons that fit the search criteria. Linux is awash with examples of dreadful UI design (although both the Mac and Windows have their fair share of them too), and this sounds like yet another.
Highlighting doesn't work with a narrowing search as everything matches initially. So either the Mac doesn't do this in a narrowing search, or, more likely, it does indeed lowlight them. Hence, the problem remains. Thankfully, since it also provides a dropdown list with only the matching items, the problem is mitigated. The linux clone is, as I started out saying, horrible, and I suggest any Kubuntu user instantly removes it from the system. KConfig is far superior, and the default KDE config anyway.
"That argument is only relevant with something you do often. Configuring the system is hopefully not one of them, unless it is severely broken."
Unfortunately, it may well be one of the things that people who are new to KDE have to do, so bad design choices here can sour the initial experience.
Huh?
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I fail to see where this is different from a list, which would also initially contain everything in a narrowing search.
"So either the Mac doesn't do this in a narrowing search, or, more likely, it does indeed lowlight them. Hence, the problem remains."
The Mac "lowlights" the items that _don't_ fit the search criteria along with the surrounding page, so the ones that do fit stand out because they're not only much brighter and
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Apple's system "darkens" the entire page of icons, and highlights the ones that fit the search terms with a searchlight effect, i.e. they are "illuminated" by a bright circle. It is I think rather unlikely that anyone would assume the darkened icons are the valid ones rather than the bright ones.
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Obviously, Novell pushes Gnome because Novell does not have nearly the same level of control of KDE as they do of Gnome, where a number of Gnome poster boys are on payroll. Ahem, and it is no exaggeration that Microsoft is now paying part of those
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Not just Novell, seems SUN, IBM, Nokia, Canonical, Intel, Redhat, are all trying to tilt the field by giving money, or staff, or other resources to the GNOME project. Or possibly it is these companies actually like the GNOME project, and see it as adding value to their businesses.
I'd accept the commercial interest in
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Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:5, Interesting)
It always saddens me to see the Big Distros rallying around GNOME and pouring funds into it as I've always viewed Open Source as a meritocracy, whereas the decision to back GNOME development is quite clearly not based on its merits (or at least, not its technical ones), nor even, clearly, on what the end users want. It also strikes me as a terrible waste of resources: GNOME's shaky technical base and general bureaucratic attitude means that even though money is thrown at it, nothing ever seems to get done, with GNOME's busiest days barely matching [cia.vc] KDE's laziest, while the KDE team are completely shaking up the code and architecture of their massive [blogspot.com] code-base on a shoestring. A real shame, but - c'est la vie, I guess!
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To me, it's not that GNOME is "simpler", but that the apps I use most (Tbird & Firef
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I think the difference between KDE and Gnome can be explained sufficiently well by two screenshots, taken from random places on the web.
Copying a CD with KDE [plainblack.com]
Copying a CD with Gnome [launchpad.net]
I don't see much explanatory value in talk about "power users". That I am an expert on speech recognisers does not make me want to manipulate zillions of settings when I'm burning a CD. I have better things to do. KDE is not the desktop of choice for "power users", but for people with too much time on their hands.
Nice generalizations you have there. What do you do when you know your CD is scratched and won't copy using the default settings? What do you do when you have to leave in 5 minutes and need to quickly copy a CD directly from one drive to another (on-the-fly)? If your answer is 'I wouldn't know how to do these anyway', you can hardly call yourself a power user. And in either case, you can always ignore the extra settings.
Come to think of it, that's exactly the psychological profile of the average Slashdot reader!
Yes, because IT people are generally known to have lots of free time.
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You could just have the application find sane defaults for the system and just present all the options, which is what KDE does. That usually seems cluttered and unappealing to me, but it works.
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I've always found it easy to burn CDs. But then, I use the CLI, and discovered the magic formula back 5 years ago. So I ensconced it in a shell script and have used it ever since, only occasionally changing it to account for faster hardware.
Why is it so ridiculously difficult to install java support?
????
Installing the Sun Jave JRE is pathetically simple.
Why is wireless networking next to impossible?
Can't answer that one. (Only use wires.)
Re:KDE vs Gnome (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as an aside, you say that the "Big Distros" rally behind GNOME. That's just false. Until relatively recently, Red Hat was the only Big Distro to come with GNOME as default. They have to consider their interests in doing such: they have been using GNOME for a long time and probably care more about familiarity and consistency than about which environment is better.
You also mention the Ubuntu forums. Ubuntu uses GNOME as a default and is the most popular linux distribution out there. Couldn't that be evidence that people like GNOME? Or are the statistics only worthwhile when they support your desktop environment?
I started using GNOME way back when there was still a substantive debate regarding which was truly free software. Miguel de Icaza was, at least in my young eyes at the time, one of Free Software's champions. I remember Antitrust's scene where you can see GNOME on the computer. All of those associations, basic familiarity, and the fact that my concept of the desktop matured while using GNOME have caused me to stick with it.
I won't disparage KDE; I simply don't know enough to do so. I just don't see the value in arguing that GNOME shouldn't be supported.
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The free software community often talks about freedom of choice and how that is a good thing. While I basically agree, I think there are exceptions.
For example, in the case of MySQL vs. PostgreSQL or even vi vs. Emacs, choice is good. The user base in this case are developers, not end users.
However, on the desktop, GNOME vs. KDE is a bad thing, and rather than choice, it is causing fragmentation and confusion for the user base.
While the original argument for GNOME was a valid one (Q
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But in this case, I wish one or the other would die and we don't have that fragmentation.
Even if it is KDE that dies, against my preference, it would be better than the current situation.
One problem is that at the time this fragmentation happened, we (the open source community) were spinning it as a freedom of choice issue, and ignored the confusion and fragmentation that was in the process.
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As I said, it does not matter in some cases (e.g. vi/vim vs. Emacs).
But the desktop case is the most visible one, and the one that most directly affects end users.
Oh well
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After all the only truly consistent desktop environment is OSX - sans X apps. Windows is fragmented too, even before the advent of vista.
the first thing I do in setting up a new distro (Score:2)
That kind of irritation is like turning off Active Desktop on Windows and Clippy on MS Office used to be for me.
Minimalist made sense when the hot new machines were K6-350s. For most of us, that was quite a few years ago.
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Not true.
To verify, I just purged all Mono-related packages from my Debian system, and no "higher" dependencies were also removed.
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Because there are those (like MdI) who want GNOME to be written in Mono.
Re:KDE vs Gnome - a theory (Score:3, Insightful)
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It's bigger but it's not new (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:It's bigger but it's not new (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that's the correct conclusion to draw. The 64% merely shows that alot of Linux users prefer the commandline, because it is quite powerful and efficient. If anything, the fact that 36% of users are able to install software and administer their box without ever touching the commandline is evidence that you don't need to touch the commandline in a modern Linux distro. (Unless you think that 36% of openSUSE users never install software or make changes to their system?)
I agree that many Linux users are technophiles and love the commandline (I know I do), but in a modern Linux distro, there are graphical tools to do just about everything. So can we stop propagating the myth that only UNIX-gurus can run Linux?
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Note that it can be because the commandline is efficient or because the GUI tools provided by the distribution sucks: a long time ago, Mandrake's upgrade tool was quite good in the commandline version, but the corresponding GUI shell sucked big time, which made me loose quite some time because while the GUI was easy to find, its commandline counterpart was "hidden"..
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Well me personally I would take it from experience. It has come a long way but there are still a lot of things that require you to have some knowledge of the command line to get it working at all.
It is quite annoying and it will turn off the non-tech savvy user.
Saying there is graphical options to do things as well doesn't always mean it is easier. For example I have openSuse and I had to change network settings. Did I use the icon in the s
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Of course, that's just me (and many, many other people). This is especially true on a laptop when you have the choice of a touchpad (meh), clit mouse (meh), another mouse (kinda makes it a little less portable), or using its keyboard so conveniently placed for you. If you're a hunt'n'peck typist who types at 5 W
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> into a terminal than blindly click on pretty widgets until I find the
> configuration dialogue(s) for my particular problem.
I would agree with you except that 9 times out of 10 the instructions are far from carefully written.
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The survey data isn't really telling us anything we don't know already about linux users. Linux users are technophiles who still cannot accomplish everything without having to resort to a command line. This means that linux ain't ready for the Windoze using masses.
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I'd honestly like to know how you got from A to B on this one i.e. Just b/c the techie's
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Almost all of you
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It should make you feel special.
Or better, you should try not to think too much of the relation between yourself and some piece of non-scientific, badly laid out statistics.
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You've never tried editing Windows Registry? (Score:2)
There is indeed too much CLI stuff involved with Linux, but it's going away year by year.
Setting up your network used to be command line, now just about any modern distro will find the LAN and hook up to it automatically.
You used to need it to run multimedia, now run Automatix or an equivalent for another distro and it's running. Palm PDAs used to require a command line session, now, just open
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Not using the command line (Score:3, Interesting)
Either desktop linux tools have changed a lot in the past few years, or these people aren't digging that far into their systems.
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36% of the users survayed DO NOT use "non-graphical tools (e.g. YaST text mode, console) when installing or administering your Linux operating system"
Either desktop linux tools have changed a lot in the past few years, or these people aren't digging that far into their systems.
Actually YaST and the other GUI tools are pretty good. You *can* do pretty much everything you need to for normal (and quite often advanced) administration tasks if you want to.
I personally prefer the command line for a lot
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these people aren't digging that far into their systems.
Hmm, perhaps they are, oh I don't know, busy folks who have barely enough time to USE their machines towards the purpose for which they bought it :P?
[sarcasm]
You know what? I'm a physicist, and I am seriously offended at people who show no curiosity whatsoever about the quantum mechanical theory of the semiconductor (which after all, is the basis of the whole shebang) when they use their computers every day.
[/sarcasm] Oh wait, that's rather stupid isn't it?
I have just as much contempt for this flav
Re:Not using the command line (Score:5, Insightful)
You are wrong, or at least wired differently from me and other command-line people.
It's not about memorizing arcane commands. It's about being able and willing to research the tools while using them. "How can I use the find command to list all files larger than a gigabyte? *browses the man page* Oh, that's how. *back to work*" If you still know how two weeks later; fine. If not, you simply read the man page again.
And seriously, how is a GUI better? Take the MS Word preferences which I battled yesterday. A tiny window filled with twelve tabbed screens which jump around at random, each containing more than a dozen settings and frequently sub-dialogues. And no useful reference documentation which explains what these bloody settings actually do.
It's not fashion; many of us seriously believe the command-line way is superior for most tasks. I truly cannot see how not doing that way somehow offloads work from your brain to the computer. My experience is exactly the opposite -- pointless memorizing, futile searching and mindless repetive tasks is something I associate with non-commandlines (i.e. using Windows and GUI applications).
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You are wrong, or at least wired differently from me and other command-line people.
It's not about memorizing arcane commands. It's about being able and willing to research the tools while using them. "How can I use the find command to list all files larger than a gigabyte? *browses the man page* Oh, that's how. *back to work*" If you still know how two weeks later; fine. If not, you simply read the man page again.
I bet he's wired differently. As am I. As are the vast majority of people on this planet. We see computers above all else as tools to do things, not something to be investigated in and of themselves. Sure, plenty of people such as myself might be interested in how they work might even program them, but the primary reason to use a computer is
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I bet he's wired differently. As am I. As are the vast majority of people on this planet. We see computers above all else as tools to do things, not something to be investigated in and of themselves. Sure, plenty of people such as myself might be interested in how they work might even program them, but the primary reason to use a computer is to complete a task of some kind, even if that task is just playing a game and having fun. We don't want to research the tools while using them, we just want to use them.
So I guess knowledge just magically jumps into your head. Must be nice. I know whether it's a GUI tool or the command line I have to research how to configure and do things on my computers. I find a set of clear concise documented tools much easier to use than a maze of undocumented menus, windows and tabs.
No regular person wants to read a manual either. How would you feel if your power drill disassembled itself each month and you had to read a manual of randomly arrowed diagrams and Korean instructions, would you still appreciate "researching tools while using them"? Because that's what man pages are to the common computer user: an absolute mess of technical terms and presumed prior knowledge that can only be half understood unless you're willing to take your computer use up from casual user to demi-expert. Most users aren't willing to do that, and there's absolutely no reason they should.
When's the last time you used your drill for to track your expenses or edit a picture or do your taxes or research refrigerators? You know what? I think a computer just might be a just little more co
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So I guess knowledge just magically jumps into your head. Must be nice. I know whether it's a GUI tool or the command line I have to research how to configure and do things on my computers. I find a set of clear concise documented tools much easier to use than a maze of undocumented menus, windows and tabs.
It does jump into my head. Not using magic though, using the wonder of sight. Any menu and option/control is labelled so you can quite easily follow a logical path to find the option and what it does. A little more intuitive than a blinking command prompt, don't you think?
When's the last time you used your drill for to track your expenses or edit a picture or do your taxes or research refrigerators? You know what? I think a computer just might be a just little more complex than a drill. Kind of makes your comparison a little fallacious.
How does that make my argument fallacious? It just proves my point precisely. A more complex machine means even more confusing manuals, meaning all the more reason not be expected to memorise the means to correctly operate it without hav
Make that 428 *lines* (Score:2)
Stupid typo.
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It's fallacious because you're saying it should be as easy to operate a Computer as it is a drill. I've never seen a more than trivial app where the menus, windows and tabs intuitively led you to what you were looking for and the more complex the app the more confusing and arbitrary the menus, windows and tab are going to be. It's easier to find an arcane feature by typing in "/" in a man page than to search through menus to fine where it's hidden or looking through a 15 pound book and the man page is there whenever I need it.
That's not what I said at all. I used a metaphor for the experience of "researching a tool while using it" to highlight the fact that the casual user wants no such experience and simply wants to use a tool to get a job done. I'm curious though, why would a more complex app use arbitrary menus? That sounds more like FUD that sounds nice if you don't think about it but give it a second's thought and it doesn't stand up to reason at all.
You're arguing in circles. You say you shouldn't need manuals and you shouldn't need to memorize but somehow all knowledge of how to use and configure an app should just magically appear in your head. If you're saying someone who has never used a computer before is going to be able to sit down and "intuitively" figure out how to use a menu very well know what all the words in a menu mean I call bullshit. If Windows is so intuitive why are there shelves and shelves of Windows books in every technical book store. You find the GUI in Word easy because you've been using it for a long time. For someone who never used the app it's a maze of twisty passages. It's "intuitive" to you because you've had years of training to learn that "intuition". Vi is "intuitive" to me for the same reason. Neither is more "intuitive" to someone who has never used a computer before (well I'll give some on vi but it's a bad example). And I've encountered many more GUIs that were outright obtuse than I have man pages that were obtuse.
Knowing the fundamentals of computer use and terminology isn't the same
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So much so, it seems, that you explode even when there is no arrogance demonstrated.
"Either desktop linux tools have changed a lot in the past few years, or these people aren't digging that far into their systems." That's all he said. There was no value judgment. He didn't declare that these were clearly a lesser breed of human being beca
vi (Score:2)
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The analogy could only be better if it was about cars...
To make this useful (Score:2)
Conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
SuSE - just not up to par.. for me. (Score:2)
100% e-mail response? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems like some restaurant math to me.
Bribes (Score:2)
I want a Vista Survey that way (Score:5, Funny)
Steal it from computer or software shop 7%
Download from thepiratebay homepage 70%
"Free CD" from friends (hey, they said it's free) 10%
I actually bought it. 3%
Other (please specify) 10%
Ultra 40 M2 (Score:2)
Missing Option in survey: (Score:2)
Tear up and renounce Novell's deal with Microsoft
(Former SuSE user since version 6.0 came out)
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Linux has the best chance in the business sector. I'm hoping to make MidnightBSD useful to home users and academic enivronments. Of course, its easy for me to think about computer labs and universities since I'm still a student and administer a computer lab. A high up at novell probably thinks about business. I'm not a big ubuntu f
Gender (Score:2)
It's plausible. (Score:2)
The 2% confused the survey for an order form.
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Confused? (Score:2)
what this poll proves... (Score:2)
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Or at least women with no sense of humor. The point of that joke was obviously directed at the male users, not women. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been funny.
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Re:That was the most useless survey I've ever seen (Score:2, Insightful)