Clueless Users Are Bad For Debian 397
Helmholtz writes "I just got done reading a very interesting article about Debian and Clueless Users that appeared on the Debian Weekly News site. I think this article would be a very good thing for users of all distributions to read, as it touches upon what might become a very real problem. Now that the word "Linux" has been splashed around by such 'heavyweights' as CNN and NPR, everyone who want to be seen as a 'cool computer guy' is trying to get Linux up. This of course is done without any heed to the absolute requirement that some Documentation-reading. And then these same people get angry when they try to install Linux and it doesn't 'just run'. I'm not try to harass anyone new to Linux, but I really think that it isn't emphasized enough that Linux is great because it requires some learning to occur. This is a concept that the Debian article holds at its core, I believe. "
Not just a Linux problem - more global. (Score:1)
However the entire industry has changed. For 9 years I have done second-line support for a major NOS VAR in the UK. Over the past six months or so the quality of the calls being logged has dropped dramatically. For example, last month I wasted 2 days attempting to replicate a particular problem - the prime cause was that the 'idiot' logging the call could not even give me the messages scrolling up the server console, in the order they appeared; Consequentially I spent 2 days looking into what I suspected was an odd file-system corruption problem, when instead it was a incorrectly configured device driver. In the end the was only one customer that called regularly that had staff that I classed as competant.
There are now too many people working in the industry that quite frankly do not deserve their jobs - and some of these are working on contracts earning up to 1000UKP per day. I should know - I've had to support them.
Urgently looking for a position in the industry myself. Can anyone help??
UNIX can be unnecessicarily hard (Score:1)
May I say something heretical?
Not all of the learning required to use Linix, or any UNIX-like system, is time well-spent.
The Linux command line is hard to use, not just because it IS a command line, and not just because it is terse, expressive and powerful, but also because it is arcane and inconsistent.
Hmmm. (Score:1)
Dealing with these problems comes part and parcel with being a tech support guy. That's one reason I want to stop doing it. : )
The nice thing is that the essay author's attitudes and mine, where they are totally NOT congruent, are compatible, in that his feelings about how distributions should happen do not impede me from doing what _I_ want to do (which is to make a highly-polished, easy-to-use, extraordinarily powerful, scaleable by user ability level interface. Kinda like Stephenson's Hole Hawg with a nice velvet lined case and a safety interlock). There's PLENTY of room for both of us, and I think that that's a pretty darn good thing.
Dejanews is your friend! (Score:1)
It can never be said enough: Dejanews [dejanews.com] is your friend!
Idiot. (Score:1)
The second to last line of your rant contrasts so ironically with your sig.
"Has anyone actually got something like that in the works, or is the open source movement still too hung up on its status as a fringe element to try beating M$ at their own game?"
"Who is more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?" -- Obi-Wan Kenobi
I respectfully disagree (Score:4)
My biggest problem with the articles is it blurs all distinctions. It lumps new users who are trying to lear with new users who aren't. It lumps hackers together with sysadmins, users and power users. Because of this, its argument boils down to "Because there are new users who don't care enough to learn how to administer a system, we should ignore new users".
First off, I think that new users who want to learn should be encouraged, not frightened off. Secondly, I disagree that only hackers and sysadmins should be using Linux.
Linux is essentially Unix in structure. That means it offers good security to keep mere users from trashing the system. That means that it is far far superior to Windows or Macintosh solutions when it comes to giving users desktop machines to do their work without administration headaches. These users only need to know how to do their job on the machine, they have a sysadmin to make sure the security and configuration is handled.
He scoffs at GUI's, yet where I work, a GUI is critical. We do mostly CAD work, and I have yet to see a useful CAD system that doesn't use a GUI (The older AutoCAD for DOS doesn't count, they essentially made their own GUI). I am glad to see he is happy without a GUI, but he should realize that they are important to more than just the "we want an easy point and click interface" crowd.
I do, however share is viewpoint that distributions like RedHat are encouraging the same trend I have seen with Windows NT. They both let users who should barely be touching a computer think that they can be systems administrators, when they really have no idea of what is going on under the hood. At least with RedHat, the hood isn't welded shut.
Silly RedHat bashing shows an odd point of view (Score:1)
Debian is too bad for clueless users :-) (Score:1)
Seconded! IMHO, this is the biggest threat to the proliferation of free/open source software: the inability of some of the programmers to react positively to criticism. Unfortunately, they often prefer leaving/dropping a project to improving it when the user's criticism is too harsh, so I'm not convinced that clueless users are necessarily good for projects such as Debian (then again, in some cases it might be better if projects which fail to respond to user criticism vanished altogether!).
I am a Debian newbie. I do not agree (Score:2)
Hi,
Well, I must say I do not agree at all with this guy. Not because I am a newbie.
PART 1 : Introduction-whoami
I installed Debian 3 weeks ago. I had never installed Linux before, only NetBSD (and DOS,Win user for 10 years), and it was not a good experience. I encountered some problems during the installation process for CDs (the boot process was hanging after a few seconds) and asked for help in a mailing list. 3 persons answered me, very nicely, but I managed to install in a different way. No documentation, no FAQ could have told me to do what I did (it was too specific). I now run Debian on my computer. X works (my video card is an ATI 3D Rage Pro, which is a 'bad' card for Linux). I installed things with dselect, they work.
My opinion of Debian Slink. It is good, very good indeed. The community brought me some help. The docs (especially from Havoc Pennigton) are great.
My motivation were :
- using LyX (no equivalent)
- LEARNING Linux
- fun
Last thing : I boot with NTLDR has NT is still installed on my computer. I managed to do this, so I am not so stupid (maybe ?).
PART 2 : Who is this guy to say that ?
Look at mailing lists : Many people answer. I think they see this as a duty.
But this guy :
At the beginning of the text :
'I've been lurking on these lists for a while now'
and at the end of the text :
'I had written this document before subscribing to serveral Debian mailing lists.'
'in the week that I was subscribed to -user'
He is not so qualified to talk about this, and whatever he had seen in the list, his opinion was made before.
I'm sure he never needed to learn linux (or unix), and he never asked for help...
PART 3 : RTFM
Before installing Debian, I read a lot. I have read more now (Debian Tutorial 100p, Installing Debian 60p, Debian FAQ (?p), syatem admin. guide 100 p, users' guide 150p (not comletely finished), many howtos, shell and command user guide (not all, a few pages
I still have Network admin. guide to read (350 pages) and got many questions.
I don't think than reading about 500 pages is NOT MAKING AN EFFORT.
If many newbies have questions, it is often because they don't understand enough the problem to find out where is the answer, and where is their 'generic' question in a FAQ.
PART 4 : Conclusion
Thanks god, this guy is not helping. At work, some collegues ask me question about unix (we work sometimes with an alpha server for computations). I am helping them, with the few things I have learned. Even if the solution is simply a case sensitiveness issue (that was 2 days ago...)
That is all folks.
Typical "slacker" ranting (Score:1)
These people seldom write any software, although they compile a lot, tend to prefer Perl to C (because it is more *difficult*!) and think that anything that contributes to make Linux more popular and mainstream is evil, because it will rob them of their exclusionary little club with arcane rites of initiation.
Guess what: not everyone is interested in compiling and configuring ssh when all they want to use their Linux to write software (in c, Perl, Lisp whatever). People far more knowleadgeable than them are interested in developing advanced user interfaces but are *not* interested in configuring X manually every time they install Linux on a new box.
It's not because you think of the computer as just a tool. It's not because you are a dumb newbie. It's just 'cause you want to do something new and interesting and not some config file mangling that is old news.
Been there, done that, as they say.
Linux DOESN'T need those unwilling to learn (Score:1)
Hello!? It's a pretty simple relationship if you think about it: The simpler and easier an end-user interface must be, the more effort must be put into creating and maintaining that interface. Since computers themselves aren't exactly getting simpler as the years go by, this means that more and more time and effort must be spent by the programmer in an attempt to create interfaces that your average neanderthal, defrosted from a glacier, could walk up, scratch his brow, and figure out how to manage a file system.
So sure. Let's go ahead and make this operating system easier to handle by throwing clueless users at it. Part of the reason that Windows sucks is that its programmers are locked in a futile attempt to produce an OS and a user interface that people with no understanding of computers or interest in doing so can understand.
Linux is cool because it gives YOU control, because it lets you choose how things work, because it refuses to make the assumption that you're incapable of figuring out how to do something, given a bit of documentation.
If you don't want to learn how to use a tool, then don't expect it to do much for you. Linux returns usability and productivity in direct proportion to
how much time you spend building up your knowledge
of both how linux works, and *how to use the provided documentation*.
"The "Linux is for nerds and geeks and otherwise intelligent people" attitude irritates the heck out of me."
This isn't the attitude that I see; I see people willing to help those that will put out the effort to learn. Do *you* want to spend your life as unpaid tech support for someone who won't read manuals, who refuses to use online help, who will not read a man page? Fine, go ahead and do so. Just don't ask the rest of us to join your crusade, and don't come back crying when those you support come back with the same question next week, and seem ungrateful for the time you spent helping them.
Go read "The Marching Morons" and tell me if you really want a linux community modelled after that.
zeke
complexity is not the same as difficulty! (Score:1)
another reason windows installations are stereotyped as easy is that they are preinstalled. install it on a fresh box and you will run into more problems than you will ever encounter on a linux installation. that's why most of the big oems cds are actually a copy of an image rather than the installation itself. my experience with plug and play on all linux versions has been trouble free. on fresh installs of windows i usually end up in the irq-hell reboot cycle of death.
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
Pick one of the following: (Score:1)
Most people are clueless. Any successful world-domination plan has to include them.
What I see happening is a paradigm shifting to user-friendly applications that lose complexity and robustness in the same modification. A place where we remove some of the 'arcane' options of 'tar' so that the synopsis doesn't consume an entire page and scare off our lowly MacOS refugee.
That's a cop out. Is it impossible to design for both power and ease of use? It is possible to layer these things - the numerous "Control Panel" dotfile editors are a good example. You lose none of the power of a simple text file configuration system, but gain a nice point and click interface for the newbies. It's not necessary to gut functionality to make things easier to use.
A Question... (Score:1)
"Debian" isn't saying anything (Score:1)
The industry needs "them" (Score:1)
when the web took over the internet (from gopher). We'll see it again when real users interfaces take over the unix
kernal. Yes, there will be die-hards who deal with the system on a text level (just like there are those who think
the beast way to surf the web on a fast connection is with lynx.. go figure), but the majority will use a *real*
browser-- er, I mean interface. "
Hmmm. Well, I don't use Linux because I don't have a computer at home. At work, I'm forced to use M$ products(I do *NOT* have to like it). But I would like to add my $0.02 anyway.
Let's say I'm buying a car. And let's say I have two choices:#1 a brand-new shiny Jag or #2:an air-cooled VW('66 VW Squareback, like what I drive now).
Let's look at the Jag. It's rather like Windoze:shiny, powerful, easy to use and drive. It's also in the shop every other week. What can I do with the car? Add gas, change a tire(if I happen to have the correct wheel lock), maybe add oil. And this is on a good day. If I'm driving to the Grand Canyon from Texas and the car dies, (fatal exception OE in module 1283df148; Registers x, y, z)I have to call AAA to tow my car to an authorized repair shop. They then diagnose the problem and overcharge me($35.00 per Tech Support call) to do something that I probably could have done in the first place, had I not needed prohibitively expensive equipment(i.e. the tech support at Stream) to work on it.
Now, for the VW.
It's a bit more like Linux. Powerful, effective, infinantly customizable and upgradable. Yeah, so the body(GUI) isn't as pretty at first. So what? I can work on it in my spare time at home and make it pretty. Oh, you mean it doesn't make enough power? No big deal! I'll just get a bigger set of pistons(new kernal, new module, write a script, whatever...). And when I take that trip to the Grand Canyon from Texas and it breaks down, I can look at it and tell the generator belt is broken. I can then fix it with my spare(which I am *never* without)and be back on the road in no time, for no money.
In closing, it's not about or "private clubs". It's (IMHO) about the freedom to do what I want/need/like to do. This has very little to do with "elitists" . It has to do with pride in what is yours and in your ability.
Wasn't it Ben Franklin who said, "Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither."?
This guy should go back to his punch cards!!! (Score:1)
This guy appears to see Linux as his private castle, from which he can throw stones at those who have yet to find the hidden entrance. The beauty of Linux in tha past has been it's community. This guy has gone way beyond insisting that new members be Hazed into the community, to insulting those who may NEED an x86 version of Linux.
I have been programming computers for 20 years, and I understand how frustrating it is to help someone who wants to be spoonfed, but really, newbies are by definition, the people who need the linux community the most, and will help future newbies because of the help that they recieved.
Making a system overcomplicated reduces its usefulness. Insulting those who need to use it, and don't know how is arrogant. Debian users generally are in my opinion, and i hate to generalize but.. egotistical, arrogant, complexity freaks, who probably have no need to use linux anyway, except as their escape from the real world, where real problems get solved.
-ken
my apologies to the few Debian users who are "using the tool" and not "living the identity", there are some out there.
Not a Toaster? (Score:1)
I once said to my mother-in-law that half of all people in the world were of average or below average intelligence. She disagreed, which identified her place.
Of course, you have to be careful with this. You can really only say that half are at or below median intelligence. Using average assumes a well behaved distribution.
*YAWN* (Score:1)
The difference is that the _real_ gurus aren't threatened by the arrival of "new blood". If your greatest technical achievement is installing Debian, then there's a good chance that some of those new arrivals will one day equal your accomplishments and dilute their supposed value, but if what you've done is something truly difficult (e.g. writing a kernel or a compiler) then that ceases to be a worry. Heck, in many cases you'd appreciate the help, because while there are millions of perlmonkeys producing eye-candy there are still too few doing the hard things that really contribute to better, faster, more stable complete systems.
Sure, answering the same question a gazillion times is annoying, especially when (you think) it's a stupid question and (you think) the person should have been able to figure it out on their own. Even more annoying are the ignorant people who won't even recognize or admit their ignorance, or who expect programmers to be their slaves. Just remember, every time you encounter such a person, that there's probably someone else somewhere (perhaps the author of your favorite free software package, who has unfailingly responded to your last dozen "enhancement requests") who sees you the same way.
Easy to use? (Score:1)
need CLI and GUI (Score:1)
Additionally, AppleScript on the Macintosh and COM on Windows allow you to automate a lot of things inside of other applications, both in "do this one task lots of times" and "put an easy or automated front end on this complicated series of actions" forms. Find someone who uses AppleScript, FileMaker Pro, and QuarkXPress to do automated catalog layout to show you what I mean...
It seems like CORBA is going to provide this same sort of functionality in Linux applications. I look forward to it, especially if there's some integration with GUILE; after all, "Lisp is the only computer language that's beautiful." (Well, for me, there's also Smalltalk, but that's better for building full-fledged applications than for scripting...)
RTFM! (Score:1)
But seriously, sometimes I just don't know where to look. Man pages aren't exactly the panacea of understanding either. Even O'Reilly says that using man to learn (uni|linu)x is like trying to learn English by reading a dictionary.
My 2,
Jason
I have a suspicion we are of the same mind (Score:1)
Imagine: Department of Computer Usage. Licensing test -- open a (Microsoft) word processor, compose and send an e-mail (using Outlook). Find the DCU's homepage using Internet Explorer. Three misclicks and out you go... And then: "computer usage is a privilege, not a right!". Two speeding convictions on the Internet and your license is suspended!
Nah, I am sure you didn't mean all that.
Kaa
Addendum (Score:1)
Don't make the windows mistake. Don't try to be everything for everybody!
[1] (tm) Jerry Springer :-)
The industry needs "them" (Score:1)
I believe I've heard something like this before... oh yes, that would be Mac OS X! =)
Seriously, this is why Mac OS X is going to take off. You get all the benefits of UNIX, but with the ease-of-use of the Mac.
The elite will always whine about their "private club" being taken and used by the masses.. I mean, we saw that when the web took over the internet (from gopher). We'll see it again when real users interfaces take over the unix kernal. Yes, there will be die-hards who deal with the system on a text level (just like there are those who think the beast way to surf the web on a fast connection is with lynx.. go figure), but the majority will use a *real* browser-- er, I mean interface.
KDE/Gnome aren't a real interface becuase it forces you to use text at one point or another (that's like Netscape forcing someone to make a port connection manually).
Microsoft... interface?? Ha! You're funny.
That leaves Apple, the only company that copuld conceiveably use a UNIX kernal that can be *completely* controlled graphically. No CLI needed (unless you *want* to). Folks.. this is the future of UNIX. Deal with it.
Debian (dselect)is a pain not only for Clueless.. (Score:1)
Dselect did suck ***. And I prefer command line interface over gui styles anyday. Seems dselect tried to make it easier and did just the opposite.
My 2,
Jason
It's true. (Score:1)
I think that's an excellent idea, and one that has been discussed from time to time. I haven't seen much come of it, though, unfortunately.
But a distribution that had an easy install (like Redhat), with a nice, easy X setup as part of the initial install, and set up no services by default (other than perhaps telnet), could be very useful for people that want to try out Linux, but are intimitated by the idea of becoming their own sysadmin. The system could be set to run xdm, so they go right into their warm, fuzzy GUI (probably KDE, as it is pretty familiar looking to people used to Windows/OS/2/Macintosh).
Whatever happened to the SEUL (Simple End User Linux) project? Anyone know?
Clueless people may well be bad for Debian (Score:2)
Maintaining a package is not a trivial amount of work, what with library changes that require new versions of your packages to be uploaded, keeping up with the upstream source, fixing bugs in how your package is configured for Debian, tracking down bugs in upstream source, reading the -devel mailing list, etc.
We also know that people like to flame -- a lot -- over just about anything. So, if a clueless user starts to submit bogus bug reports, and then flames people about the supposed "high quality of Linux", a flame fest always starts. It might not last too long, but they add up.
If the number of clueless people increases by a factor of 10, the average Debian maintainer will get 10 times more clueless bug reports and have to read 10 times as much flamage to see if there really is a real problem, and *poof* you have burnout. Take a look at the number of "orphaned packages" for an idea of how big the problem already is. Think about how much work most maintainers are going to have to do to move their packages from the FSSTND to the FHS, or the the LSB when it is done.
Many Debian developers are very clear (and vocal) that the reason why the work with Debian is because they want a useful system. It makes no difference to them whether they have 2 non-developers using their package or 2 million. They are contributing to Debian in order to make their life easier.
One of the real strengths of OSS, which isn't mentioned in the CatB, is that you can always, say "If you don't like it, then fix it your self. Or pay someone to fix it. Don't bitch to me about it." Seriously. This changes the mindset of everyone using the software. If I want something better it is up to ME to make it better. I can't just whine about it because I didn't pay for the right to whine. It is a great motivator to get people to contribute.
If you don't want to learn enough to be helpful to the Debian maintainers, then you should do them all a favor and keep quiet, or switch to a commercial distribution where you pay for support.
Debian, like Linux and all other OSS, won't die because of the lack of users or profits or market share. They will only die when they run out of developers. Don't make developers lives hell.
Don't assume that computers mean the same for all (Score:2)
I believe that the author of the original article is worried that the process of "simplification" will take away the power and flexibility of Linux. This is something which is still important and as said in followups on the Debian mailing list a balance has to be sought between "ease of use/learning" and "power and flexibility". Perhaps this should be through different distributions aimed at different audiences.
If all you want to do is write a letter then yes - all you should need to know to write a letter is what a letter is. Given that it should be easy! Even then my idea of a document (a structured thing because I use LaTeX) may be different to someone elses (lots of different fonts - the "typewriter methodology" as I call it). People who drive cars have to know what a car is and a road and what way to go round roundabouts and when to indicate etc...
If you want to become a network administrator then you really must have some idea as to what a network is, and in order to be responsible you should understand things such as security. No pretty interface will solve this. If you think that "Internet" is another name for "Netscape" then when it comes to setting up a DNS server you're stuffed!
What I think can be done in Linux is that the user is given a decent set of defaults that gives a basicly secure system (say no inetd unless the user explicitely asks for it and is told what it does on the form with the button that says yes). A set of utilities can ask the user questions such as "what is your ISP's phone number?" and "do you need to allow people to run programs on your computer over the network?" and set up the system for them - whilst not getting rid of the ability of a knowledgable user to set things up by hand..
Debian does seem to already have a lot of this in place. The afore-mentioned scripts exist in the form of pppconfig, fetchmailconf. Projects such as LinuxConf and many other such utilities also look promising.
A problem I have seen watching new users is that they often approach Linux using their knowledge of Windows and expect the two to be the same. When I approach Windows with my knowledge of Linux I run into troubles. For example under Windows the PPP layer is seems to me to be intertwined ("integrated") with the web browser and the mail system with all of the effects that has. Under Linux these are all seperate functions. I prefer Linux's way and think that the Windows users should read the documentation in this case. A one stop setup tool that they can turn to can help though.
My conclusion: A good set of secure defaults and user friendly configuration tools that do not prevent power users from doing what they want. I believe that Linux is already a long way towards this.
- Richard.
For reference: I started out with Slackware in 1993, then moved to Debian soon after it appeared in my university. Slackware at that time was an education. I was already using HP-UX so was comfortable with UNIX in general.
Under Debian I use the package configuration scripts for basic setup but often tweak things and am glad that I can. I like Linux's flexibility and the ability to pick and choose modules that just work together. This is an advantage of not having things like PPP, web browsing and email intertwined. Linux does the job I want it to do very well.
I try to help out new users but do get frustrated when they repeatedly ask the same thing (not learning) and ask things that, when asked to just think about it, they can answer themselves in a few seconds. Sometimes the answer is right there on their screen! Some people are just lazy and will ask first.
*Grunt* (Score:1)
Don't assume that computers mean the same for all (Score:4)
Computers used to be and to most intelligent computer people (=nerds) still are a "thing in itself". You install a system for the pleasure of installing a system. You tweak the parameters because you can get it exactly right. You write a Perl script to automate some stuff because it's boring to do it by hand and it feels good to do a clever hack in Perl.
But the great majority of people aren't like that at all. For them the computer is a black box that performs certain functions. This is a perfectly viable worldview that has all rights to exist. Let's say I want to write a letter. A computer is a thing that I will use to do this. All I want is to write a letter, I don't care about configuration, amount of memory, space on my hard drive, etc. Why should I be computer-literate to write a letter?
The article author's answer is that everybody should be smart enough to understand computers and those who do not should die out, or at least be banished to using pens and paper. Why? I don't know... -- because they are not worthy?
Think about the car analogy. 60 years ago you had to be (or had to employ) a decent mechanic to own and operate a car. I bet there were people around who said that unless you can disassemble and reassemble an engine, you have no business driving a car. Fortunately, they turned out to be wrong. There are still people who disassemble engines for fun, and sometimes profit, but the normal user doesn't care about all the mechanics under the car's hood. I am sure that the same thing will happen to computers. People who want to write letters will be able to do so without knowing anything about RAM and interrupts. And people who enjoy messing around with computers will still write optimized device drivers. And again, as I said, this is a GOOD thing.
The article argues for Linux to remain the domain of hard-core hackers (=hobbyists). I think that this will be the death of Linux. Without mainstream acceptance it will go to the great write-only memory in the sky and will be remembered just as a curious hack at the dawn of computing.
Of course, nothing that I said should be constituted as doubt in the wisdom of the KB law:
"In any sufficiently large group most people will be idiots."
Kaa
Because people are sheep (Score:1)
community is that using it requires you to think.
And if you make someone think, it scares them.
This is why people get freaked out after listening
to Baz Luhrman's Everyone's Free song.
The fact that using Debian requires intellegence
is a step in the right direction, as it weeds out
the idiots, and perhaps brings up the average
IQ by a fraction of a decimal.
Some Linux v. Users thoughts (Score:1)
Some Linux v. Users thoughts (Score:1)
"So why not make a "slimmed-down" Linux for them."
I'm having a similar discussion on another front, though the issue is modular tools in general, not merely Linux.
First response is that Red Hat (and SuSE, IIRC) allow you to roll out different configurations of Linux, including some relatively basic workstation configs.
The kicker though (these aren't my words, I'm your view) is that people will frequently (often?) go for the gusto and install absolutely everything. Especially first timers. We've been told that more is more so often that "less is more" sounds false.
IMO, stripped Linux installs will be the only way to roll for a corporate desktop. The home user, however, will probably feel cheated if that's the way it's presented. However, existing products such as the Cobal Qube [cobaltmicro.com], Trinux [trinux.org], and the Netwinder [corelcomputer.com] are in fact tailored Linux distros, so you're predicting the past to a certain extent.
Things will work out eventually.
the linux frat. (Score:2)
I enchurage people that are interested to try linux, but at the same time WARN them about it's steep learning curve, and give them good places to find info. the fact that people want to learn is a good thing. clueless people shouldn't be labled and people assumed that they suck and can't learn and therfor can't break themselves from their clueless caste. i see linux as the best learning platform out there. the main problem is the scattering of info. it takes more time just finding info than it does to read and learn. this is why new users resort to prematurly posting to mailing list. i think the linux doc. project is a great source but it's still young.
slamming RH because it install easy is silly as well. having multiple distro's, each geared toward different groups is great. this is accomlishing what M$ has been trying to do for years,the same OS with different flavors.
anyway its good to see that the general consencous is that the article is silly
Debian, RedHat, and World Donination (Score:2)
I have installed various types of Windows on many different machines. I have also installed RedHat on many different machines. You don't need to be any more clueful to install RedHat than you do to install any Windows variation. Is this a bad thing? NO! I know a lot of people who badmouth RedHat for exactly this reason, I don't think such objections are warranted. There is absolutely no technical aspect of RedHat that makes it any worse than any other Linux distro. In fact, its co-existing libc5 and glibc compatabilities are a great technical strength.
Now, Debian could be just as easy for clueless people to install. The installation manual could be made a little bit more friendly, there could be an automatic X configurator. This would be a start.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Debian. But the idea that it is somehow better because it's harder to install is silly. Linux is not just for computer gurus, like us. I would like to see Linux in the hands of the common man (and woman). Attitudes like the typical "we don't have time for clueless morons like you" really undermines that.
umm... don't be so sure (Score:1)
Who is Debian's 'target' audience? (Score:1)
Users referred to Debian and Slackware (Score:1)
RTFE (Score:1)
UNIX...hard--but you don't need to know that much (Score:1)
How Rude! (Score:1)
Don't want to learn (Score:1)
1. Those that don't know because they're new (we all were new at that at one point or another).
2. Those that don't know and don't want to know.
3. Those that THINK they know and don't.
Of course none of this is helped by places like AOL that has it's own drivers so that you could install it on your toaster.
But I digress...
I'm new to Linux (Debian 2.0.3 kernel and RH5.2) and even tho the community has been quite nice in regards to answering questions (I read the **** out of the man pages, sometimes I just don't know where to look), I worry that the Linux backlash will catch up and people will no longer want to help people like myself.
Just remember that there ARE those out there with dumb-ass questions sometimes that really ARE trying to learn. After spending a few days with my box, Windows9x seems so damned backward and fruity that I can't imagine going back.
My 2,
Jason
Why bother learning??? (Score:1)
You still have to know how to drive a car (Score:1)
Let's try taking that analogy and turning it around:
A person who has never driven a car before goes to a car dealership. The car dealer sells them a car and tells them they should read the manual and take good care of it. The car "user" thinks "it can't be that hard" and promptly drives the car (if they can even figure out how to get it started) off the lot and into the path of an oncoming semi.
I'm not saying that every computer user should be an expert in the field, but they should at least know how to use the computer. I can't stand it when people ask me a question that could be easily answered just by looking it up in the manual or if they had taken a basic computer course.
I believe that computers will become common tools, like the car and pen and paper, but I also believe that they will require some training like a car and pen and paper.
-----------------------------------------------
Nathan Paul Simons | "For a good time, 'finger
http://www.nmt.edu/~npsimons | npsimons@rainbow.nmt.edu | less'"
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Function over form (Score:1)
Linux is already at a stage where once it's installed and configured it is as easy to use as Windows - and you get the bonus of stability too.
I'd say that Windows is actually harder to fix when something goes wrong.
My parents bought a new PC and tried to install Publisher, but it crashed "MSPUB has caused an error in MSPUB.EXE"
I eventually manually extracted all the
Hmmm...
Linux needs more clueless users (Score:1)
The "Linux is for nerds and geeks and otherwise intelligent people" attitude irritates the heck out of me.
Right now, it's true that you have to be intelligent to install Linux, but I for one hope that in a couple years anyone will be able to install it and run it.
Stop the elitist attitudes. That's what's going to kill Linux, more than anything else. Helping the clueless is by far the best way to go.
Irrational Anti-Newbie Bigotry (Score:1)
But there is (of course) going to be the requisite clique mentality. It no longer labels you as knowledgable to say you're running Linux and that pisses some people off.
My 2,
Jason
j@intap.net
user friendly != Leapfrog friendly. (Score:1)
First off, I didn't bash any clueless newbies. I bashed RedHat. And I bashed it hard.
Secondly, I tried to do things The Right Way with Redhat but couldn't because the stupid "user friendly" popup boxes and things got in my way and even actively prevented me from configuring my system by hand edits. And that pissed me off. A lot. So I went to Debian, becuase I would rather edit text files than wade through a dozen screens of fscking configurators. And I think that makes me a better Linux user, even if it makes me a poor Redhat user.
In conclusion, go read the post again, you feeble minded moron. Before you start bashing my intelligence, go find a nice bucket full of ice cold water and SOAK YOUR HEAD.
Leapfrog, the irked.
why not ignore "them"? (Score:1)
I'll admit, I'm new to Linux. But the only reason I want to use it is because I hate Windows very, very much. I'm not using it because I don't exactly have the free hd space right now.
But I'm not using AOL...
miyax
Computers != appliances (Score:1)
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
Not a Toaster? (Score:1)
Actually, there is a way to do it: after inserting the bread, just type format a: a couple of times, and then press the eject button. The bread should come out warm and crummy
That's BRILLIANT!!!
-Eric
Don't even get me started... (Score:1)
1) He spouts the fallacy that power and ease of use are mutually exclusive; a tradeoff must be reached. This is a myth put forth by programmers either too unskilled or too lazy to do it right in the first place. Examples of powerful GUI's? GIMP (which is finally getting the GUI design usable with the latest developer releases). Any CAD tool. *AMP on any platform (Mac, Win, X11, whatever). Any spreadsheet (which by its nature has at least a semi-graphical interface). Hell, even Grapple (a Mac port of grep, complete with GUI and all of the functionality of the original) is powerful and easy to use. He mentions "removing some of the more 'arcane' options of tar" as necessary to make it easier to use: not so.
2) He still firmly believes that the user must adapt to the machine, rather than the machine adapting to the user. Computing will never become truly ubiquitous until I can walk up to any computer and use it, right away, being confident that the skills I have already will give me at least a redumentary knowledge of how the computer functions. It's also my major gripe with the Palm Pilot (and one which isn't enough to keep me from wanting one very badly): Graffiti as opposeed to true handwriting recognition. A user should not have to learn a new way of writing to work on a palmtop. It may be implemented very nicely, but it's the epitome of bad interface.
The point is this: Simple things should be simple, complicated things possible. A CLI is not necessary for that, but since it gives so many hackers power-trips and it won't break a computer, it's not something that should disappear from the face of the planet. But the dependence on a CLI can and should stop. I know it'll take a long time, but it must happen eventually. Either that or the ultimate in intuitive interfaces (namely natural-language processing) needs to be developed, and I'd say we're still several decades away from having desktop machines that can handle that sort of thing.
Nah ... (Score:1)
If you want to be rational, that is.
Red Hat is designed to make it easy for the refugee, this is true. However, Red Hat is also cutting edge and they keep up with the times. You talk about how glorious Slackware is, but the truth is that this distro is dead, totally unsecure, unmaintained, and horribly out of date.
Yes, there is a point in doing something the hard way, but as I heard someone on usenet say:
bullshit (Score:1)
BTW - talking about an "average computer user" configuing a network on NT clearly shows how out of touch you are with what an average computer user is. Try using the clue stick on yourself.
It's a 2-way street (Score:1)
I also know the configuration of my PC, so that when I installed Linux, (and other programs) I can tell the installer any info it needs to know about my system (most PC users can't, thanks to Windows). Also, when I post to a newsgroup I don't do any of the following things:
1) Post five copies of a question/
2) Put the entire body of the message in the subject line.
3) Use terms such as "thingy" or others
4) Post "test" messages
There are millions of others also.
Debian was my first Linux Dist. (Score:1)
I downloaded the base system and began the installation. Taking the advice of the page with the links, I already had a great deal of information about my hardware written down. The install went fine.
After that, I messed around with the command line a little bit. Having alot of DOS command line experience helped. I tryed to install Netscape and dselect ended up installing X for me also, which I had intended to do at a later time but it was fine with me. I found out I had to download Netscape from Netscape's FTP, but that didn't bother me.
I began to read the user tutorial at Debian's website and then a number of HowTOs at linux.org. Of course, I did have a year of experience with DOS and a few years with Win 95, trying a Microsoft alternative was fun, and not that difficult. Lots of documentation was there, you just need the base skills, interest, and you have to be ready for lots of reading.
Since then I have had to re-install Linux a few times, and I have tryed one other distribution, Slackware. (Which, I thought, sucked compared to Debian.)
Bottom line? Anyone who wants to try Linux, and is willing to put in the effort, should have no trouble with Debian. I was surprised to hear (On Slashdot) that Debian was a "advanced" distribution. It makes me feel like RedHat must be aiming for Win95. However, if you want something that _always_ works the first time, Debian (and probaly Linux) is not for you.
Averages (Score:1)
is defined as sum(x)/n. The median is the value that half the people are dumber than, as rw2 explained above. Another kind of average is the 'mode' which is the value with the highest frequency.
Those are all the averages I know about. Are there others? Do all their names start with 'm'?
Molly
Computers != appliances, but eventually they will (Score:1)
I'm going to draw a parallel to an appliance whose characteristics computers may/should emulate in the future: the automobile.
A car is a very complex piece of machinery, yet arguably most car owners know very little about how to configure or service their cars. They only understand what is required to make the car do what they need it to do on an everyday basis. Turn the key, and the door unlocks. Turn the key, and the car starts. Put it in drive, press the gas pedal, it goes.
When the car starts behaving unexpectedly (makes a strange noise, or "crashes" (stops running)), the range of reactions mirrors the range of expertise:
The mechanic (hacker) reads the service bulletins he keeps in the trunk, uses his extensive knowledge of the way cars operate, gets his tools out and fixes the problem.
The hobbyist reads the owner's manual (which is probably a bad translation from japanese or german), and uses his limited expertise to try and debug the problem, and often can debug the problem (out of gas).
However, the vast majority of users won't read the manual, and won't learn about how a car works. Nor should they be required to do so. The owner of the car doesn't need to know why he's developed an oil leak. In fact, he buys the most reliable (albeit boring) japanese bubble car so he can avoid these situations altogether. When something goes wrong, he doesn't hesitate, and just calls AAA. Sure, maybe his problem could have been avoided by having more knowledge of the mechanics of a car, reading the manual, etc., but he bought the car he did specifically to avoid such hassles. He deserves no contempt for trying to avoid trouble, nor for not trying to fix it himself.
Computers follow a similar pattern, or at least they should:
The hacker buys a machine with many unsupported features, because he can support it himself. He uses many special tools that the ordinary user doesn't need, but gets increased performance and functionality. (apache, gcc, turbochargers, nitrous) When something goes wrong, he reads the proper documentation, which is probably arcane, or calls up his hacker/mechanic buddies and asks them for help. He is a technician, and fixes the problem himself. This follows the hacker value that intellect and problem solving are important things.
The hobbyist buys a slightly more reliable machine, but with enough special things to keep him occupied and challenged (ie setting up PPP, changing your own oil). However, once he reaches his particular threshold of patience, he ends up calling tech support/AAA and just gets done what needs to get done.
Everyone else, on the other hand, has a computer because he/she needs to accomplish a particular task (word proccessing, internet, games, commuting to work, doing errands). Unfortunately, the modern computer consumer can't buy the reliable japanese car of computers, at least not yet. Windoze is as close as you can get to "press the pedal and it goes", ie "point and click." Since windows is so buggy, however, it is not the cheap, reliable appliance that the modern car is. It happens to be the only thing available that comes close... though I suppose a Macintosh comes closer, especially with the iMac. Macs have yet to gain the dominance in this market, though that's mostly M$'s fault. MacOS, though, still has a long way to go before it gets truly appliance-like.
It's because of all this that I can see the wisdom of those who say "Internet appliances" will be the wave of the future. For those of us who need/want to do more advanced things (ie development) there will always be more versatile, powerful workstations. But smaller, single-purpose computing appliances (perhaps even based on a linux microkernel--this is why I am learning Linux...open, and non-bloatware) will take over from the M$/MacOS/Redhat's of the world, in the general market (the 'rest' of us).
If you all at Debian want to keep the newbies out of your faces, give them a bright shiny, and reliable toy/appliance to play with, and they'll go occupy themselves with something that is useful to them.
Idiots. (Score:3)
Lovely. With an attitude like that, open-source software will be pushing Microsoft off the desktop in no time. I'm sure most corporate MIS managers are just dying to sit down a teach themselves a new OS, especially something as cool as Linux.
Sorry, but IMHO, the great thing about Linux (and other free OSes, don't want to leave the BSD folks or anyone else out in the cold) is that they've kinda got a scalable geek factor. You can set up a linux box as a point-and-click machine for an average-joe desktop user, or you can have a full-blown geek box with your very own custom kernel. Still, the install is a bitch (relatively speaking, of course) and if joe user has a choice, he's still going to take Windows, because it's easier for him to play with and tweak (note: not more tweakable, just easier). You want to beat M$, you've gotta sell the idea to the non-geeks, and that means building a distribution that's made for them.
Has anyone actually got something like that in the works, or is the open source movement still too hung up on its status as a fringe element to try beating M$ at their own game?
Just a thought...
Linux "Hard to Use"? (Score:1)
We are turning a corner in the growth of Linux. If we want to break out of the "hackers only" market, then we must break out of the "hackers only" mindset. Just because some user wants their computer to work like a toaster, is that a Bad Thing? Remember, Linux is about choice. I like to build my hardware from scratch just because I want to know everything that's inside my box. I enjoy tinkering. The next person just wants to go down to CompUSA and buy a sealed box, stick her Linux boot floppy in and install the OS. Am I a "better engineer" than she is? Is it any different to want plig-n-play hardware than it is to want plug-n-play software?
We have spent a lot of time enjoying our nice little exclusive Linux Hackers club. We've put our blood, sweat and tears into building Linux into a viable alternative to the Evil Empire, and now that effort is coming to fruition. However, change brings... uh... a lot of changes.
Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it...
you're the unpleasant individual (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5)
OK, elitists, here's a simple challenge (Score:2)
Use Linux without ANY drivers.
That's right, ZERO drivers of any sort. Not even to interface with the keyboard.
After all, if you don't have an INTIMATE understanding of the hardware and I/O involved, you obviously aren't qualified to be using the system.
Remember: if you don't know how to write a video card driver, you aren't qualified to be using a monitor. If you can't write your own NIC software, you're obviously too stupid to be using a network.
Go on, do it.
Until you can do this, you aren't qualified to be an elitist. As long as you're using the work of others, you're getting off cheap. RTFM, I say! After all, the I/O specs are well-documented, so there really isn't any excuse NOT to write your own drivers, is there?
Sorry . . . I get worked up over this kind of elitism.
Ease of Use vs. Geek Pride (Score:3)
How many of you are competent to completely rebuild your CRT? Or LCD, as the case may be?
Relatively few, I'd wager. And yet, many many years ago, anyone that wanted to use a CRT on a regular basis had to know how to tune and tweak the damn thing with a screwdriver and a soldering iron.
Now nobody cares. If a CRT breaks, we throw it away.
The same WILL happen to computers. The idea that the OS *should* be intimidating is simply BIGOTRY. You're enamored of your own Geek Prowess, and don't want to see anything that might devalue that prowess.
But it WILL happen. The only question is whether or not it will happen to Open Source or Closed Source. You get to pick -- which will be easier to use? The main thing holding Linux back is usability -- it's the Number ONE complaint in every "mainstream" review I've ever read. Like it or not, "normal" people have to be able to use the OS. They won't care about the OS, they won't care that you can customize it, they won't care about shell scripting. They WILL care about whether or not they get their work done. That's it.
Look at it another way: it's now possible to own a car without knowing jack about the mechanics of it. Does that change the underlying mechanics of the car? No. Does that put mechanics out of work? No. It just makes the car accessible to more people, who don't give a damn about the car itself -- they only want to go from point A to point B.
Why is that such a bad thing?
Why should we be trying to STOP Linux from carrying non-knowledgeable people from Point A to Point B?
. . . geez, this is one of the reasons why Unix gets such a bad rap. When was the last time you heard someone saying NT "expertise" is cheaper than Unix expertise? Probably the last time you worked in an IT department . . .
Difficulty is NOT good, clueless users, etc. (Score:2)
However, there are a few statements that sum things up:
-- Everybody was clueless once. Anybody who thinks he was never clueless can think again. Some got unclueless, some did not (they're still clueless).
-- Some users need more handholding than others. Some users, even AFTER reading the HOW-TO's and the FMs (some of which really aren't very helpful), need some explanation and some step-by-stepping through the procedures.
-- The installation process for Debian is fairly user-friendly, which is good. It's been pointed out that it could be better. It's been pointed out that it is being made better. It's also been pointed out that "better" doesn't necessarily mean "GUI". Debian's current installation process is MENU-DRIVEN, but I wouldn't consider it a GUI.
-- The whole "clueless user" debate is (it still rolls on, in more distros than just Debian) really not about "difficulty." The idea behind the post, I think, was that we shouldn't compromise the utility and quality of software in order to satisfy the needs of the "typical clueless user." However, the other side of the coin is that perhaps we should include software which is just as usable and just as functional, but more user-friendly (at a cost, of course. In this case, probably a cost of the extent of configurability available by using "user-friendly tools").
-- We don't necessarily want Linux to go the way of GEOS, Windows, or some other "user-friendly" operating systems. They sacrificed power-for-the-user for friendly-to-the-user.
So maybe the debate is a good thing. Remember, this wasn't a "pronouncement from on high." The debate continues, in more forums than just Debian's, about whether "user-friendly" is a good thing or not.
computers *are* toasters (Score:2)
To say that cluebies should be kept away from computers puts a nail in the "open source can still make money from technical support" argument. Have it one way or another. Or do you believe that you can support Linux easily by telling inexperienced users to go to hell?
A car is a Tool. It gets you from point A to point B. Nowhere do we specify which points these are. A car can take you to the store or across the country. You can store stuff in your car. If you are camping, or on a road trip, or homeless, or lazy, you can sleep in your car. You can listen to music in your car. If you have a carphone, you can carry on conversations in your car.
It's ridiculous to say that if you are too clueless to re-pack your engine bearings, you shouldn't be supported. The world does not operated on a roll-your-own system. The joy of Linux, *BSD, and the like is that it gives you the freedom to do so, if you need to. Living your entire life on a roll-your-own basis is not the way for everyone. Accept this.
A delicious point of irony to the people who wrote the feature in question: Perhaps the newbie they refuse to help with difficult (yet documented) computer problems is the tax lawyer who will refuse to help them with difficult (yet documented) tax problems.
Heh. Sounds ridiculous on the other side of the fence, doesn't it? Sounds like a bit of geek rage rather than a logical assessment of the end user.
I've been working Unix tech support for close on two years now and believe it or not -- it's been a pleasure. Some end users are idiots, some are irate, but some are people who don't have the time to solve documented but pain-in-the-ass problems. I help them, and occasionally, they help me. Welcome to the world of social interaction. =)
sinator [mailto]
Filing tax returns happily
useless obscurity vs. true learning (Score:2)
I hate to rain on your Apple parade, but this comes at a cost. The whole reason that the Apple card bus works so well at identifying new hardware is that all hardware vendors are locked into Apple's centrally controlled identification scheme. If you don't get a unique ID from Apple, your hardware might end up conflicting in a horrible fashion with someone else's. Hence, if you make Mac hardware you MUST lock yourself into Apple's development program. The technology itself (for hardware "Plug and Play" that is - I really don't know enough about the rest of the bus comparison) is not superior, just controlled by a propriatary source. If that source doesn't want you in the Mac market, they just refuse to issue you an ID.
Frankly, I don't want to see that kind of scheme used for PC hardware. I'll deal with interrupt conflicts and the like to avoid centralized control by a single corporation.
OBlusers: I personally don't see any problem with providing GUI front ends to manage and maintain a *NIX system as long as the CLI for the same gives me the power to do what I need to do withut having my hands held. This seems like a simple thing and it is mostly followed already as most GUI's I've seen have merely been CLI front ends.
That being said, there will be those who simply don't have enough working synapses to ever grok a multiuser operating system, let along the skills needed to manage one. We should probably take a good look at Mac OS/X as it rolls out into the hands of the Mac community. Though I've met many Mac users who are very cluefull, the OS, being as clean and easy to use as it is, has attracted the lower end of the computer spectrum who otherwise couldn't use a computer. Watching them on Mac OS/X could give us real insight as to whether or not dumbing down *NIX can even work at all. I'm guessing we'll find a line where it simply cannot be made any easier and a fair number of people will still not be able to use it. There will be a point where trying to make Linux any easier will be like kicking a dead horse and devoting further effort towards "ease of use" becomes non-productive.
Clueless Users are Good for Debian (Score:2)
Good user interface is not that complex. It simply never leaves the user hanging, and it provides multiple levels of user access for multiple levels of expertise. Clueless users are the best thing that can happen to a solidly coded core package of software capabilities, because those users will force the designers to come face-to-face with all sorts of silly "insider group" assumptions that have little or nothing to do with the _real_ functionality of that software. Once programmers face up to the existence of pointless obscurities, they can place the solutions exactly where they belong -- in the software itself, where a computer can take care of them quickly and invisibly.
Clubhouses with secret passwords are great fun, but their also doggone silly. Software that could be made enormously more usable and available by a few simple user-oriented additions is even more silly, because it's more like encrusting a lovely diamond necklace with a finely sculpted layer of dried (or in some cases fresh) cow dung.
So I say bring on the clueless users... the ones who bang at the clubhouse door and things like "uh... _why_ exactly do I need to know that just to get it?" Then start building the ladders for these folks, so that they can see some of the amazingly good work stashed away up there.
And finaly: Free and open source types love to moan and groan about how The Establishment wants to keep software all to itself, and thus keep talented non-Establishment folks from doing the software development work they are able to do.
So... is it really any more ethical to create an Establishement of Cryptic Access that needlessly requires users to learn some suite of software idiosyncracies that should have been automated out of existence many years ago? Hmm?
--Dactyl
This does have some merit, but raises questions. (Score:3)
The Linux Kernel, the GNU tools, and the numerous other bits of software that make up our systems are _not_ created by some third party. They are created from within the community of people who use the software. They are not asked to give monetary compensation to the many hackers who have worked many hours to create the gifts they so flippantly wield.
A question: are these people simply taking advantage of Free Software without giving anything whatsoever back? Do they have every right to continue as they do, reaping the fruits of other's labour? Sadly, yes, they do.
One of the prime purposes of making one's code open and free is so that others can make use of it. Whether it is used for educational purposes, or as part of a new app, it is used. What happens when people who care not for these values cross over into the Free Software world? They care little about the code, but more about the image, and the fact that everything is gratis.
By not making everything as easy as possible, we place hurdles in front of the potential user. However, in leaping these hurdles, the user becomes technically stronger, more proficient, and most importantly, beter poised to contribute something back to the community.
In some way, this is analagous to the Morse Code requirement in the ham world. Does nontrivial ease of use screen out those without the drive and interest neccessary, or does it simply serve as a Great Wall for a bunch of techno-elitists?
Can refraining from making things 'too-easy' be seen as a way of ensuring the survival of the system, or should users have every right to the proverbial Free Lunch? These issues cause me a great deal of disquiet. How do we come to terms with this issue?
(this all reminds me so much of the explosion of aol onto usenet a few years ago)
Whacked with HOWTOS (Score:2)
But there are lots and lots of questions asked which could be answered simply by reading the HOWTOs, and those people deserve to have them pointed out.
As far as being a newbie once, yes, I was. And I learned perfectly well from the HOWTOs, and a whole lot of news posts that someone asked just in time for me to read the answer....
It's true. (Score:3)
Anyway, the industry can't move forward on its belly. It's our responsibility to exceed these people and do things right, as we've been doing for years--and, in a sadly high number of cases, to clean up their mistakes (but never to take the blame). Maybe someday there won't be such a drastic shortage of IT workers, and their asses will be tossed out the door. In the meantime, somebody has to bear the torch . . .
Patience.
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
BZZTT!! Sorry! Difficulty is NOT good! (Score:3)
This seems to be a trend, and I see this a lot in Debian and especially BSD users. The idea that something has to be difficult to be powerful. This is ridiculous and counter productive, and it just doesn't make sense. Simplicity, always. Always.
Take BSD's install and compare to Red Hat's. BSD's is far more complicated, it is counter intuitive and yet it is no more powerful than Red Hat's, which is so easy that anyone with some experience with PC's could do it with only a little RTFM. The reason BSD's install sucks is not because it is powerful, but because the people who designed it just aren't good at interface design.
Something can be simple and powerful. Deal with it. This is just something the BSD/Debian fud coalition is going to have to face.
The idea that Red Hat is somehow inferior because it doesn't make you compile and install bash before you can use it is just utterly ridiculous. This article was nothing more than "my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours" chest thumping nonsense. People like this have no point and need to be ignored. If the Debain maintainers do not want to add value (convenience is a value, yes) to linux then that's their business, but they'll just have less users because of it. Yes, even advanced users want convenience. Sorry.
UNIX like OS's are not gaining popularity because they are complex. Rather, they are gaining popularity because they are simple. Compare linux to the insane, incomprehensible complexity of Windows NT. If complexity was such a great thing in and of itself, this guy would be mucking about in the NT registry, not using Debian.
Leapfrog's Software Theory and clueless newbies (Score:3)
My theory is based on the idea that every feature X has a complexity Y related to it. The total complexity of a program is directly related to the summation of all Y across all X. We can consider this the baseline of complexity for the program involving all features X. It is possible (in fact, easy) to increase this complexity by the use of complicated nested menus, pop-up windows and dialog boxes when all that is really necessary is a simple checkbox. But the overall complexity of an application is directly related to the quantity of features (and therefore the power and functionality) in the application.
As for an "Advanced Features" option, involving such a menu selection only serves to obscure the fact that the features are there by making said features harder to access. The "Advanced Features" option then becomes in itself another unit of complexity, making the program even more obfuscated and confusing. In Word, if I want to change my paragraph spacing, I have to go wade through 5 levels of menus, dialog boxes, pop-up boxes and "folder tabs" just to find the selection. That's simpler than giving TeX a simple \spacing directive? Granted, I had to read many pages of LaTeX manual to find that, but it took me less time to learn LaTeX and write a 20 page paper in it than it would have taken me to write a 20 page paper in Word. Or even in WordPerfect. (yes, I realize there's a difference between word processing and document formatting. That's why I like LaTeX so much better. Let the computer worry about the details.)
As far as my "soft-core" background, I've never done any more publishing than a computer geek has to. I've written 20 page papers. I've constructed web pages for corporations. I've never written a book, never gotten published in a magazine, and I've never used Adobe Acrobat. I'm a programmer. I write programs. I design user interfaces. I deal with databases, mainframes, embedded processors, graphical user interfaces, 3D graphics, and I have extreme distaste for the Web in general. I've also written code in Perl, Fortran, COBOL, C, C++, Prolog, Korn Shell, Bourne Shell, C Shell, Lisp, Smalltalk, Java, Javascript, HTML, Visual Basic, Access, Python, Ada, Forth, applesoft basic, assembly (6502, 80x86, MIPS, SPARC, 6811, 680x0), and Pascal. I've written compilers using Lex and Yacc. I've replaced chips on motherboards, I've assembled computers from scratch, I've fabricated printed circuit boards. I know which end of the soldering iron to hold. (hold the plastic end, the metal end hurts.) I'm not sure exactly what, apart from having been forced to use operating systems and software tools that I personally feel are sub-optimal in order to fulfill my job requriements, classifies me as "soft-core". I could make the same arguments about, for example, using WordPerfect for X versus using LaTeX. (or playing Descent versus playing Doom) I was "born and raised" typing cryptic commands to a Unix command line. At first it was a pain, but as I learned, I found that there was real power in being able to type "find / -name *.jpg -print | grep foobar | perl -npe 's/\.jpg//g' " at the command line instead of (what I'd be required to do in a GUI) wandering through hundreds of little windows, selecting icons, and still manually banging in text into Notepad.
I've written in Visual C++, Visual Basic, Borland, Java, Access, and with each of these tools, one point stands out, over and over again. The fact that the developers have gone out of their way to make it easier to use gets in my way. I would like to think that I know what I'm doing. I've never used "alt-middle-button" when writing applications. I've used well-documented command-line options many times. I've never had call for an "advanced users" menu option, because you have to know your audience. Just as a real publisher would never want to use Word for all their DTP needs, a beginning user would balk at diving head first into LaTeX. But, once I learned how LaTeX works, and why it was designed that way, it could see it as an infinitely more powerful tool than Word.
As for your "typical Linux program", give me some specific examples of times when the manual page didn't tell you where the .fubarrc is located, or doesn't give information about what alt-middle-button does. (and EMACS doesn't count, becuase EMACS sucks anyway.) The only programs I've seen that were incompletely documented were either a) commercial, or b) still in development. It's a waste of time to write up every feature before the feature-set has been finalized. Every Debian package I've ever installed has a manual page, a readme, a texinfo page, and a web page to go with it. By "online help", I assume you mean "pushing F1 and up pops a window with a dancing paperclip in it." That sort of documentation is not only irritating, distracting, and gaudy but also a waste of processor, RAM, and disk. What is the point of having a dancing paperclip when a simple text file will convey the same information? (visions of "man MSWORD | grep 'line spacing' " pop into my head)
The most important part of being a programmer (and being a writer, an actor, a senator, &c) is knowing what your audience wants. If I were writing a word processor for my mom and dad, it would most certainly NOT look like LaTeX. If I were writing a database so my Dad could keep track of his wine cellar, Access might start to look like a reasonable choice. But if I were publishing a magazine, MS Word wouldn't cut it. If I were creating an on-line database holding millions of customers' information and processing orders on-the-fly, maybe Informix or Oracle would be a better product to start with. Complexity versus ease of use is the most important trade-off in designing software. The reason why there are hundreds of software packages that do basically the same thing lies in the distinction of audience. You can look at Paintbrush, PSP, CorelPhotoPaint, xfig, Microsoft Photo Editor, Harvard Graphics, the GIMP, Visio and Photoshop and say they serve roughly the same purpose. But look at the difference in target audience, and consequently the differences in price, output quality, and complexity. No one would ever tell you that the GIMP is easier to use than Paintbrush. Cripes, my 6 year old cousin could figure out how to use Paintbrush. But, look at the difference in what you can do with them. The GIMP even has its own scripting language so you can automate just about any task you want. That makes it harder to learn, but at the same time, infinitely more powerful.
Do I need to say it again to make it clearer?
Leapfrog, the indignant.
Hmmm. (Score:3)
However, this does not excuse trying to scare people off. Just because they don't know anything yet doesn't mean they're unwilling to learn.
The first time you logged into a Unix system, if I'd handed you a tape and said "here, recover the Samba configuration from the third dump session on here", would you have known what to do? I seriously doubt it.
Computers are always approaching ease of use. It's not a point, it's a process, but if you oppose it you are in an awfully Luddite-ish position.
Linux is proving the point that just because the interface *CAN* be improved to where anybody can use it, doesn't mean the guts under the hood have to be inaccessible.
It would be a very wonderful thing if we can continue to improve both. Don't try to put the "ubiquitous computing" genie back in it's bottle, it's gotten quite too large to fit in there. Instead, try helping the process.
If you insist on denying the need, rest assured that technology will march along without you.
A couple of points: (Score:3)
2) A good strategy would be like whut Bushnell said about video games: make them easy to learn (so the player is quickly 'engaged' in the game) and difficult to master (so it can be challenging to the advanced player). An ideal Linux would have something for everyone (Face it, that's what M$ tries to do) - for the neophyte, it would come from a store preloaded with the os, browser, office suite, Internet dialup, printer, ready to plug in, hook to the phone, turn on and hit the net running, or writing letters, creating databases, publishing web pages, etc, etc, as easy as sliding in an antorun CD. If enough boxes were sold like that the initial development cost could be brough way down.
Later on, as the user becomes more experienced, s/he could graduate all the way up to kernel hacking and development if they so desire.
It would also have to have some way of makeing system backup easily, snapshots - that way
a nervous user could make a backup of their entire system, then change various configs or install software and if they hose it, boot the recovery floppy and and do a restore to the last backup.
(That's what I do even with M$ products,
GHOST [binaryresearch.com] is great for that!)
BooBOo
This argument was settled over a decade ago. (Score:2)
The author appears to be clinging on to the
old idea that ease-of-use and raw power don't
mix. NEXTSTEP is as much counter-proof as
you need.
Function over form (Score:2)
When Linux+KDE or Gnome is a tick-the-box PREINSTALLED, PRECONFIGURED option from most major computer vendors then the newbies will find themselves able to get their work done without bothering Pablo.
But I think the newbies are telling Pablo something important about the OS he has given over a lot of expensive brainspace to learn about: the shell prompt is the wrong layer for people who don't want or need to hack but to get their work done.
useless obscurity vs. true learning (Score:2)
World Divisions (Score:2)
I first installed Linux becuase I'd enjoyed using Unix when I was at college - nice, stable environment, decent scripting, I liked XWindows etc...
However, when I installed it I realised that there was a whole side of it that I'd never really had to bother with before - installation and system administration, and frankly, I wasn't interested it it. - I don't want to *configure* a computer, I want to *use* it. Now I'm not saying that I'm adverse to a little bit of tweaking here and there, but I just found that with Linux it was complete pain in the butt. There is a whole lot of documentation that comes with it, but all the HOWTO's are very badly organised, and it can be quite time consuming trying to find the snippet of information that you want. Now, if I was a sys admin, obviously I'd be willing to spend the time looking for it, but all I wanted to do was try out Linux on my computer, to see if it was the kind of environment that I'd like to program in.
There's all kind of interesting things that I *want* to learn, but many of the arcane intracacies of Linux aren't among them.
cheers,
Tim
Falling for Windows propoganda. (Score:2)
I also think there is a tendency for people to attach themselves to a particular technological system and then view any changes as dangers. But the implication to this is that the system is perfect. There are no perfect systems, however. Linux is not a perfect system. It can be improved. And improving one area, like user friendliness, can be done without hurting another area, like configurability.
One of the things that I like about Linux is its flexability. If I want to make my machine run a Windows-like GUI, or an Amiga like GUI, or whatever, I can do it. I don't have to worry about someone else, who doesn't like GUIs, making that decision for me. And if someone else wants to add packages to make it more configurable, or more friendly, or more whatever, well, more power to them! I don't have to use it...
Which is the whole point, I thought. Not having to put up other people's ideas about what's best.
Leapfrog's Software Theory and clueless newbies (Score:3)
Leapfrog's Theory of Software Complexity:
In order to make a program easier to use (more user-friendly), you must make it less powerful for the advanced user. In order to make a program more powerful, it must become more complex, and therefore harder to use.
Case in point: Adobe Photoshop vs. MSPAINT.
Anyone who's ever used Adobe Photoshop (or, for that matter, the GIMP) knows that these are real power tools. They are incredibly useful and quite powerful, with a great many configurable options. But, I have known users who couldn't stand Photoshop because there were "too many buttons". These users turn to Paintbrush because it's easier to use. They don't care about powertools. Why use a screw gun when this rusty old philips head screwdriver works just fine? Sure, it's easier to use, but the results are vastly different.
The big three: Debian, Redhat, Slackware
Now, I don't intend to start any flamewars here, but The Way I See It (tm) is as follows. I've used this metaphor many times, and it always seems to fit.
Redhat: Redhat is a linux distribution designed for Windows users. It's been that way for some time, and the approach they're taking doesn't seem to be changing. They provide a whiz-bang easy installation, literally dozens of annoying pop-up programs with which to configure your system, and even the default window manager looks like windows 95. Redhat has done this because they want more people to be able to use it. I ran Redhat for about 2 weeks before I got just as sick of it as I did of windows because even though I know what files to edit, and where to edit them (on a normal system) Redhat would undo my changes every time I rebooted because I didn't use the "configurator" to do it. It took me 9 days to figure out how to change my hostname. The first 5 days were repeated attempts at editing /etc/hostname and the rc.d scripts over and over and being disgusted that every time I rebooted Redhat would just undo my configurations.
Slackware: Slackware is the exact opposite. It offers absolutely no configuration tools of its own. What you get is what you get, period. Slackware was my first Linux install. It was great fun. Every time I wanted something, I downloaded the source, compiled it, and installed it by hand. If there was a configuration problem, I was in there hacking kernel code, changing /etc files, moving symbolic links so my X server would go higher than 320x200. So I learned how to do it The Right Way(tm). And it was a valubale experience. This is why I think of Slackware as Linux for Dos users. Everything you want to do, you do by editing /etc files, installing it yourself, homebrewing directory structures (/opt? Sure! /foobar? No problem! /usr/local/foobar? Hey, you're the boss, buddy!) and most importantly, reading the gosh-danged manuals. My first month as a linux user involved 15% actually using the system and 85% playing RTFM(*). But looking back, I wouldn't want it any other way.
Debian: (Always save the best for last, I say...) In my opinion, Debian offers the best of what's around. You start out with a relatively simple base install (I remember using the magic 7 floppies) that's not quite as easy as RedHat, but in turn offers immense flexibility and configuration options. Then you reboot and are whisked away to the land of dselect, where literally thousands of packages lie before you, waiting for you to pick and choose what you want and don't want. Each one has a short description of what it does, and a great many have the informational notice "If you don't know what this is, you don't need it", so all but the most clueless of newbies can, and do, stumble through a Debian installation and still come out with a useful (if not optimal) system to fit their needs. Once the install is done, you're left with a machine that looks and behaves just like a "normal" unix box. If you want to change configurations, you can elect to use handy pop-up configurator boxes, but it certainly won't keep you from editing your configuration files. And the default window manager is chosen while you're installing the software. It's not magically pre-determined for you. And if you don't like the wm you chose, you can easily edit .xinitrc's to change it. Almost all the config files are well documented and in the places you'd expect them to be. For these reasons, as well as a "general look and feel" category, I've always considered Debian to be Linux for Linux (or Unix) users. People who want to get their hands dirty. Who want to edit config files, tweak settings, and recompile kernels, but not have to worry about downloading and compiling gcc and libc and m4 again. The debian package manager handles all that pesky downloading and installing for you, with over 2 thousand different packages to choose from. Oh yeah, the package manager is all written in Perl, too. I like Perl.
Conclusion: Clueless Newbies
The masses have spoken. Average Joe User wants a system that's easy to use, easy to learn, and supports all the hardware and software available now. As such, he has no need to use Debian. Or Slackware, or Redhat, for that matter. Let him suffer Windows, at least until the DOJ tears M$ a new corn-chute. For the person who wants to run a server, but doesnt know anything other than NT, point him towards RedHat. (at least its not quite as bad as windows). For someone who really wants to learn Linux, and learn it the hard way, off to Slackware with ye! And finally, for the real power user, the person who has been around the block a few times, knows what they want and how they want it, Debian is the only way to play.
At least, that's the way I see it.
Leapfrog, the mediocre.
(*)- I always saw this as Read The Fine Manual.
Why bother learning??? (Score:2)
Computers are not television, but then all that TV does is show images at you. The fact that computing is still in its infancy is never picked up by consumers... they always expect the technology to make up for their own deficiencies.
It's a Bitch Fest (Score:3)
"Everything that is powerful is complex. Things that aren't complex suck, and it really bothers me when new users complain about things that I consider mundane. Oh yeah, Red Hat sucks too because it's not complex and they use marketing phrases to describe their product."
His view is quite understandable. There is a wonderful feeling of power when you finally bring Linux up and running for the first time. I'll never forget the feeling I got when I got my modem working (period!) and to connect to my ISP (icing!)...it was fantastic.
My problem is that this a narrow-minded vision of what he wants one distribution to be. He wants people to go what he went through, and that's the only way to learn. He won't give out answers that could be figured out in under 30 minutes on their own by reading the manual.
That's fine for him, but all people don't learn the same way. Just because someone doesn't do exactly what he does, the way he does it, it's bad or not "pure". If someone could save me 28 minutes by giving me a 2 minute explanation BUT DOESN'T I'd be pretty pissed. Especially a co-worker! Plus, one of his requirements for learning *nix is to
Call me crazy, but I thought the whole philosophy behind Open Source was the dissemination of information, not withholding it. You can ignore who you want, but I've found some real time savers in e-mail list archives in responses to (what I now consider) easy questions. Plus, who has tons of extra time on their hands?
You learn by using, not necessarily by installing. BTW...if it takes 12 times to install something (I don't care what it is) there is a fundamental problem with either the user or the software. But because someone can't make it through an install, does that mean they're a moron and not "worthy" to use Linux? I think we'd loose some potentially great additions to the community by ignoring this.
Would you consider someone who never finished high school to be stupid? Albert Einstein never finished HS. It's all relative (pun intended).
On the point of Linux software being inherently complicated to use (i.e. no GUI and lots, and lots, of options) that is because these packages where initially created to fill the need of the person who created it. Because they knew exactly what they wanted done, there's really no need to create wondrous, majestic GUI's. It's not to scare off newbies or because wrapping a GUI around it would make it less powerful. The important thing is that it *does* exactly what they want it to do. Making a broad generalization that if (GUI) {software = "lousy"} is an irresponsible statement.
A word on tech support. Customers pay for that. If you're manning the lines, you know you get stupid calls quite often. But they have the right to ask. They spent money on it. They deserve it. Don't like it? Quit. End of discussion. (and yes, did that for 3 years).
Then at the end he throws in Red Hat just so he can gripe some more. Sheesh! How does this apply to Debian in any way, shape or form? It doesn't.
Bottom line, if he doesn't like the way the Debian maintainers are taking this distribution then he can make his own. That's what it's all about right? Flexibility, power, reliability and customization?
I started out pretty much the same (Score:2)
But I don't come to the same conclusion. My father, for example, really likes how fast Linux is and how he can choose how it should look by picking a different window manager. Yet he's having a hell of a time installing LinuxPPC with ApplixWare. Now, granted, it's probably best to wait for R5 or get R5beta at this point, and yeah, Apple loves to put crappy nonstandard hardware in their machines, but I'm a little pissed that I can't remember exactly what all I had to do to get stuff peachy on my PPC boxes. Of course I'm installing MkLinux on a PowerBook 5300ce shortly so it's sure to come rushing back, accompanied by waves of nausea. And it won't see my network!
Anyways, the point is that MkLinux and LinuxPPC installs suck rotting crotch. They're awful. The only people who end up running Linux on PPCs are either hardcore, or are willing to sweat blood while they become hardcore. I've met many, many system administrators -- competent ones -- who would just as soon run NT as go through that.
That's really *NOT* the way to get support for running such a system at work.
What is better is a gentle but firm reminder to people that ask really, really stupid questions to RTFM, and an intuitive way to present said FM. I hate dealing with users, and I like writing elegant code that does cool and/or magical things. But in order to get the users to %$@! off, I have to put stuff where they can understand it.
That's really a lot more enjoyable way to have things, set up so that ignorant people can educate themselves and lazy people can be gently scolded into helping themselves.
Neal Stephenson's essay had a section detailing the usage of the Hole Hawg drill. I refer you to said passage and then ask, "Do you want your grandmother trying to wield a Hole Hawg, or would it be better if there was a safe way to use that power?". Be has such a system, though it doesn't really work (yet). Linux ought to have one too, not just because more people will be able to use it, but because we can probably get it done.
And it will really piss off die-hard Windows users when everything becomes as easy to do on Linux as on Windows. At that point Linux will have become the Universal Operating System and everyone can go work on more interesting stuff.
How dumb (Score:2)
Your standpoint seems to involve gross overgeneralisation. To some degree, this is an issue of "more catholic than the pope". Some Debian users (in my perception percentage-wise a lot more than Debian developers) have an urgency to show how l33t they are.
Second, making things difficult doesn't make them better.
Making things too easy doesn't make things better. The tricky part is to make easy things easy, while keeping it possible to do hard things.
Personally, I'm not particularly interested in fine-tuning the webserver (which I only use for dwww [jimpick.com]) or mail transfer agent (which I only use to submit the occasional bug report) on my system. Luckily, with Debian I don't have to be. apacheconfig and eximconfig take care of them. But Debian doesn't restrict me from finetuning what I'm interested in. For example, kernel-package simply eases building of (packaged) kernels, but it doesn't interfere with the fine-grained configuration.
Still, Pablo has a point (though there's a lot of gray between his black and white extremes). I like it much better when phrased the way I saw in a sig though: I don't reply to messages below some arbitrary mark. There's nothing l33t in that. It's simply a matter of choosing how to spend one's limited time.
I like helping users, but there's a limit to the amount of effort I'll go to (because I can help more users by spending that effort on e.g. improving my packages or packaging new stuff). TANSTAAFL; I'll happily point users to reading material, but I expect them to do their own reading.
Irrational Anti-Newbie Bigotry (Score:2)
-Eric
Clueless users, clueless developers (Score:2)
Linux is a great operating system. So is FreeBSD. So is Solaris. MacOS and Windows 90's are great operating systems too. They're all tools for a specific job. It seems like they've divided themselves up, so UN*X is a geek/coding/server OS, MacOS is a graphics OS, and Windows is an end user OS. The only operating systems that seem to make an effort to make themselves a bit easier for the novice are the Wintel and Mac platforms. There's a reason for the popularity, and it's not all bundling.
A few weeks ago, LinuxWorld and Refund Day got Linux some mainstream press coverage and a boost in popularity. The user consensus seemed to be "at last we have a chance against the Evil Empire!" And we did.
However, problems like this will simply keep Linux from grabbing any market share. While many of us code for pleasure and function, most people, most of the time, simply don't want to think about HOW the computer works, they want to USE the computer. This, almost certainly, means GUIs and ease of use will triumph over text shells and more extensibility.
Guys - we've got a good thing here. It could serve as the right tool for a lot of tasks, depending on how people see it and can use it. Unless Joe Middle Manager can use Linux, it simply won't take off. And, now that we have some publicity, whose fault will it be?
Knowing UNIX does not mean you know how to design (Score:2)
In general, the whole Linux coding and packaging community is sadly lacking even the basics of usability testing, proper screen and application design. The tools are generally based on incompatible cultural background, exspect you to know different paradigms where you could reasonably exspect them to work alike and all this is even before we start talking about documentation.
"If it was hard for me to learn, it should be so for everybody else" is not a valid attitude. For Open Source Software it is a killing attitude.
Leapfrog's Software Theory and clueless newbies (Score:2)
Wrong, wrong, WRONG. What you say could only be true if it were a requirement that the user actually take advantage of every feature a program provides, which generally means the developer _forced_ them to do that by designing a crappy interface.
Your example of graphics/DTP programs with too many buttons, besides showing your soft-core background, is actually quite a good one. A _well designed program would present the first-time user with a stripped-down set of the functions needed to do simple work, with an obvious way to add functionality. For example, users looking for a function not on the default toolbar might start cruising the menus. If there's an "Advanced Features..." item, they're highly likely to select it, and in addition to providing the features themselves it could present them with a "Add these features to the toolbar" option. The important thing is that _the level of complexity should be customizable_.
As much as we like to bash MS, Word provides a good example of this. You don't _have_ to use templates and tables of contents and cross-references and multiple columns and such to type up a simple document; you just open a new document and start typing. But those features are there when you need them and are ready to use them, and with just a little bit of extra work you can even put the necessary controls either on the toolbar or a floating tool palette. Would that all programs would try so hard to serve _both_ the newbie and the more advanced user (though, as someone with a background in real publishind and not just web-crap, I can't resist the urge to point out that Word is not very advanced in some areas because it's a word processor and not a true publishing program).
The obvious contrast is a typical Linux program which requires the user to compile it, do half the installation by hand, and do any customization by hauling up a text editor to modify some
Hmmm. (Score:4)
I've spent time in tech support, and one of the things that really struck me about most of our callers was that they really didn't want to learn anything.
They'd call us to ask questions that were in the manual. They'd call us, wait 15 minutes on hold only to ask what was the address of our company web page (which was listed several places, including on the outside of the box and in the manual, then complain about the hold time). I swear to Buddha, I got someone on the phone once who didn't know what a modem was (I supported modems). AOL told her to call us so she did. I sent her back to them with a polite request for more information.
These are people who want a computer to be a toaster. Plug it in, and it works. When something doesn't work with their system, they flip out. (What do you mean, I can't change the interrupt on a PCI device through Windows? I have to go through the BIOS? I'm gonna sue!)
Well, ya know something? Computers aren't toasters. You're going to have to learn a little bit if you want to use them. If you don't want to learn anything, go back to your VCR and your cable TV and your daily funnies. And your preloaded Windows 9x.
Hmmm. (Score:2)
People expect a computer to be like an appliance (yes, like a toaster). They expect to not have to spend time learning how to use it. As much as I think Mac OS (but not Windows) is a fine desktop OS for most people, the relative ease with which computers can now be used causes many of our headaches. People expect to simply pick it up and use it, and when something goes wrong their first response is to call for help. I think most
In his "how to become a hacker" FAQ, ESR said that the most important thing (IIRC) is confidence in your abilitiy to learn and a willingness to work things out for yourself. How true.
Or to put it differently, as the saying goes, "Unix is very user friendly, it's just particular about with whom it makes friends."
People hear that Linux is a good OS, but they don't take the time to find out about it. Because they don't take the time to find out about it they don't learn that Linux is a flavor of unix, a heavy-duty enterprise-ready OS that is designed to be easy for a clueful person to administrate. I love Linux because it works flawlessly and allows me to learn to do something new every day if I so desire. The same traits that make it so rewarding for those who take the time to learn how to use it will stymie those who do not.
Fortunately all of my Linux users so far are quite clueful. I do hear from some, as our dial-up authentication scheme is pretty arcane. Most will first get help from the LUG or post to our local linux NG, but every now and then I get a call like this:
B: "IT Helldesk, this is Bob."
U: "Hi. I just installed Linux, and I'd like to set up PPP. Could you tell me where to find TFM?"
That's the way I like it.
What a thoroughly unpleasant individual (Score:3)
He obviously thinks that keeping Debian non-intuitive and non-user-friendly makes him a special person because he could figure it out.
Yet, we have to look at our goals as a community. Don't we want to replace Windows as the desktop OS of choice? Maybe. Remember that most windows users could fall into the category of clueless, not because they don't want to learn, but because they are using computers to do *other* tasks, and don't have the time. They want a *tool*, not a *toy*, and that's what differentiates the two types of users.
Putting some user-friendliness into Linux distributions isn't a bad thing, as long as we don't lose the ability to run a CLI, or however we want to customize it. I don't see the CLI ever being replaced, because who's going to take it away? Linus? Yeah, right!
In summary - putting user friendly tools on top of Linux is good. Those of us who don't want to use them just don't have to install them. Those who don't want to give technical advice to the newbies or the clueless don't have to. It's up to everyone.
Question: I was programming assembly language in high school (early 90's) but I only recently installed Linux. Am I a newbie? Am I clueless if I ask for help? I thought we were here to help each other - hacking isn't about keeping the secrets to yourself, is it?
I understand what your saying but.... (Score:2)
On the other hand, another popular OS can be installed by just about anyone capable of finding the on switch on their computers. If any Linux distribution is serious about competing as a mainstream OS, the interface must be simple enough for the average computer user. Linux users, for now, tend to be above average in computer knowledge.
As a personal example, I have been using FVWM2 on my Linux installation and my wife is constantly pointing out areas where my interface configuration is not clear. I kinda see it as a way to improve my programming skills.
Bottom line is, if you want Linux to be mainstream, then there has to be at least one distribution that is intuitive to the average computer user....and that will not be an easy task.
Tech support (Score:3)
Everyone who has a Clue about Linux, people like me who can pick up a CD of a distribution he's never seen in his life and install it with no documentation and blindfolded (ok, I'm exaggerating) should be spending their time doing some sort of pro gratis support. I do it on #linux from time to time. This way, as the number of clueful people increases, the number of people helping the clueless become clueful increases, and the system feeds itself.
This is a much better solution than the infuriating snobbery inherant in that article. Computer culture should be inclusive, not exclusive, and if being "geeky and withdrawn" is a qualifier to being a member of the computer culture, I certainly don't want a part of it. I don't see elitism as my reason for using an operating system.
We CAN accomodate both... (Score:3)
The same sort of thing applies to user configuration. Developers can have defaults that defer to newbies while continuing to provide the power when needed. An example: the Gnome-find program. This program helps newbies do searches without having to learn the syntax all at once and if they want more power once they are more comfortable they can always use the command line interface. Let the user use the system first then delve into it's innards if they want once they are comfortable.
We never need to dumb-down Linux we just need to provide layers, strata of access. Here's another example - when I first setup my computer I installed it with a swap partition but the swap was never enabled. This caused my computer to crash with out-of memory errors. It didn't do very much for my appreciation for Linux's stability. It sure would have been nice if there was a program that went through my system and checked for things like that (ala Wintune). Obviously this kind of thing wouldn't be terribly useful to an experienced user (and they don't have to use it!) but it would have saved me literally months of frustration.
Hmmm. (Score:2)
Then I guess pretty much all the computers made in the 80s were toasters then, becasue most of those you just plugged in, turned on, and they worked. Maybe you had to program them, but then again I've used the Apple
So what happened? Simply put, computers got more complex, so that even if the UI appears the same, the innards aren't always. As a result there's more work for the user to do, especially if the user has to configure the system manually as is the case with Linux, as for most distributions (I don't know about Red Hat) stuff like the sound isn't configured at install time. And when the user learns that he has to recompile the kernel to get sound, it's kind of understandable that they would prefer a system that comes already configured.
It's also true, though, that people should read the HOWTOs, as they contain just about everything there is to know about anything you would ever want to use your system for, broken up neatly by category. That's how I learned Linux.
Educate users, don't stupify Linux. (Score:2)
Yes, the article claims that GUIs are a waste of time, that RH is a toy Linux, yadda, yadda... But that's not the point, that's the opinion of the author.
The point, to me at least, is this: Hackers appreciate Debian for the control and raw power it gives them. (I've never used it, I'm more the Slacker type) It is 'expert-friendly', and the shortcuts required to make is 'user-frindly' would require compromises to be made, that would take the control away from the hacker.
There is some 'need' to bring in new users - it's a Good Thing to make Linux popular. But that's RH's job. They have the spotlight, and they're willing to give support to the newbies.
The newbies will need LOTS of support before they can even hope to run Debian, without getting their eyebrows singed.
The ultimate point: Newbie education is in Linux's best interest. This does not mean hand-holding the school-marm whose 'cup-holder' is broken though. Direct those to www.apple.com and be done with it. There's no cure for the stupid - the ignorant we can save.
The Linux community needs to consider the newbie's predicament. Linux is complex, even in it's most user friendly incarnation.
We need to rate the distributions. i.e. RH = Linux95, Debian = Linux Professional, Slackware = some assembly required, S.U.S.E = Sprachen sie Deutsch, Amigo??
We need to collate and make newbie accessible the wealth of Linux documentation that is out there. It would also be helpful if we got some good tech-writers to pore over it, and take it out of Hacker mode... A 'man' page, after all, is pretty hostile to a newbie.
Most importantly, we need to ask the potential Linux newbie "WHY?".. Most become interested because they hear the buzz. They hear it's better than Windows, so they want it. To them, better means easier - we live in a world made convenient. Linux is the greatest hobby a geek can have and/or it is the most powerful OS you will ever need.
We must make it clear that Linux is an end in itself - for those who don't know any better. Those who know better, need not be educated.
Elitism and Xenophobia (Score:2)
This is an elitist and xenophobic position that will only harm the linux movement. Unix gurus are afraid that their dominance in their own little world is threatened by masses of consumers wishing for something better than windows. What right do you have to tell them they can't run unix just because they aren't a computer science major? Another example. I run linux on my machine almost full time. My roommate is a complete computer-phobe who is the type of person that is constantly afraid they will somehow "break" the computer by pressing the wrong button. I gave him an account on my machine, set up GNOME and window maker, and told him: "Even if you tried to break the machine, you couldn't, because you need a password to." He now happily logs in a uses netscape to check email, play cds, etc. I'm waiting for the day he says how much he likes it better than windows.
Linux is tough, but does it have to be? Because of its nature, there will always be the Happy Hacker Valley Command Line for people like the author to play in. You don't want GNOME, fine. Don't install it. But for people who are looking for something better than windows, we have NO RIGHT to tell them "no." Give them KDE to give them a start. Tell them what it means to "mount" a drive. They want to install a theme? Explain tar xfvz. Explain symbolic links. Eventually, a newbie can learn to master unix commands that were once reserved for people like the author.
Or is that what he is afraid of?
Owen Williams
Some Linux v. Users thoughts (Score:2)
I would like to post a few thoughts on the hacker v. user mentality which is seeming to pervade the current long-time Linux community, and then a couple of ideas. Shoot them down as you will.
I am a recovering Microserf. I learned the MacOS, discovered there were ways of facing the world outside of Windows and, basking in the warmth of my newfound OS bilingualism, I had a friend mention the word "Linux". Naturally, I was interested.
When first I was given a copy of Redhat, it was while I was working at an ISP. As I was given it, I could have sworn there was a halo of light surrounding it, and while I couldn't swear to it, I think I heard a choir in the background. Naturally I was excited.
But then I put the disk in.
Four days later I was up and running. As most recovering Microserfs will do, my first command was "startx". The next day, after I got my Xserver to work, I did it again. And it looked like Windows 95. Cursing under my breath, I got Afterstep running. Nix another day.
Yes, this is a long post, but I'm getting to the point. I promise.
After a few weeks, and long hours of reading, I declared Linux unusable on my destop and deleted. Yet a few months ago, I needed to get a personal webserver up and running. After trying to get (laugh if you will) Microsoft products to work, and work reliably) I asked the same friend for advice. Mutely, he passed me SuSE 5.3. You know, the one that comes with 5 discs.
My eyes were opened. Flawless installation. Wonderful tools, and over 99% uptime. The choir returned, and my server is constantly wreathed in an ethereal glow. Linux is wonderful, life is good.
But, woe. My desktop still prominently says "Start" in the lower left-hand corner.
So what to do? I have a humble thought about it. Why not split Linux?
Calm down, let me explain. With Linux getting so popular, CNN, The Times, and Andy Ihnatko [1] all doing articles on it, Linux is expanding at a scientifically measured rate of "ungodly". So the usual end-user is of course intrigued. And let's face it, the average user uses their computer to write email, play solitaire, and look at smut online.
So why not make a "slimmed-down" Linux for them.
Give them a rock-solid OS. Give them lots and lots of eyecandy. But don't worry with ftpd, sendmail, or any other server setups.
In other words, wizards and themes. This will give the user time. Time to get used to Linux. Time to sit down, play solitare, get online, and say "Hey, this is great!"
And what do you know... while most users will never migrate from Linux Lite (for lack of a better name) some will learn. Some will grow out of it and order (or better yet download) the full blown distribution. Because I think everyone agrees, Linux is not for desktops, not yet. In a few years it will be, but in the meantime, Linux Lite will cover the average Joe Schmoe user. Then, as the tools are completed, and Linux has matured, we can slowly stop making the "Lite" versions, and use Linux to it's full, magnificent power.
The users will win, they're using Linux. And Linux will win, they're using Linux. And we can increase market share like you wouldn't believe.
And isn't that what it's all about? As Linus says, "Total World Domination!"
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[1] Bonus points if you know who he is!
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"