Salon on why "Linux Needs Help" 186
Matt Welsh sent us
a link to a Salon story on
Why
Linux Needs Help. It features a lot of truth, and
poses the simple question, can free software geeks write
software for dumb users? Has a spiffy penguin graphic and
a lot of good points (most of which aren't new to us,
but they are well written).
Nah, it's just culture shock (Score:1)
If you're a geek, you hang around with other geeks, and one will know the answer.
Me, I'm just a 55 year old Development Director who wanted cheap internet access and email. Getting this question answered is a tough one, because I have a different social group.
We just need a reference book filled with answers to these questions. Book=more than 1000 pages. Skip the silly chapters on C++ and Tcl, which are not needed. Just a thorough grounding in configuring X, especially how to add items to the menus in whatever it is that comes with RH5.2. And a rational explanation of email. Please, keep sendmail and qmail. Communigate Pro looks interesting.
Quick, what's the easy command line to recompile PHP with support for ODBC and Postgresql? A. rpm -bb mod_php3.spec See, I'm not so dumb.
I did write a donor management app in Paradox that ran 15,000 lines. I retired on it. I'm rewriting it as a web app. I may not hit 1000 lines of HTML.
My information needs for Linux are very different from yours. What makes it so hard is that I keep getting hammered for asking stupid questions.
Help With Documentation (Score:1)
Write documentation! You don't need to know how to code if you can write (you don't even need to be able to write perfectly). If there's a program you know how to use, but doesn't have good documentation, write some. If the program has some documentation, maybe it could use an update, or maybe it could use some more.
Every program needs at least reference documentation, something saying what the program does, and how to get it to do that. A more complex program could also use a Tutorial, a FAQ or an Installation Guide. Also useful is task oriented howto-like guides. If you have a new or interesting use for a program, document it, I'm sure others would be interested.
Man pages are great... (Score:1)
Difficulty == Opportunity (Score:1)
Take for example - the Linux system: Before distributions, it took an experienced and determined computer user to even get it to boot! (A business opportunity if ever there was one.) Take the installation of applications on a computer system - not easy for newbies but now is a no-brainer thanks to InstallShield. Take the problems with having to reinstall and reconfigure a Windows system - not easy for anyone but now is alot easier thanks to GHOST. Take the percieved lack of administrative coherancy in systems - opportunities for products such as CA-UniCenter and Novell Directory Services.
Difficulty equates to business opportunity. There is NO reason why a profit can't be made on making something easier to use. It is, after all, Microsoft's claim to fame.
With Linux, however, the promise of stability is as real as the firm foundation the Linux Kernel represents. The addition of ease of use items may well be left to third-party developers who have a free and open ended invitation to make a quick and solid buck.
User interfaces are important... (Score:1)
I'll say right off that I like the Mac interface and feel that it is about the easiest one there is to use. Macs are also VERY easy to support! You can reinstall the System folder while the machine is running by doing a simple copy! You can boot clean by holding down a simple key. The OS provides meaningful feedback to help diagnose and fix problems etc... etc... etc...
While the Mac is an excellent Multimedia machine, it's stability is still no great leap over what a Windows machine's is. Hence, Apple's adoption of a more stable OSX/BSD kernel while retaining the World Famous Mac interface.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is carrying so much baggage (read backwards compatability), proprietary interfaces (read exclusivity), and interdependencies (read House of Cards idea incorporated in DLL structure) that they have painted themselves into a corner. They have so tightly integrated the User Interface with the rest of thier OS structure that it is nearly inextricable. Microsoft has focused on ease-of-use to combat Apple - thier main strategy for the last five years, taking competitor's ideas and incorporating them into the OS - Browsers and Multimedia Extensions, and hiding the underlying functions from the world and presenting stylized API's - Win32, MAPI, TAPI.
All this time, Linux has been putting in the plumbing and laying a firm foundation. Now the framing is done, the electricity is in, the insulation is up, the sheetrock is delivered and the brickwork is just finished. It wont be long until this house is ready for the average user to live in. All the components are interchangeable and customizable by the homeowner too.
You wouldn't build a house and put pretty woodwork and all the amenities in it and then find out that your foundation was cracking would you? Apple found it's foundation aging so, they moved the house, added a new and improved foundation, and put the same house back onto the new foundation. Microsoft went in and gutted thier house, lifted it up - crumbling the weak former foundation, shoved a supposedly firmer foundation under it and set the house back down on the foundation only to find that it doesn't quite fit. (Reportedly breaks 70% of existing applications.) Also, Microsoft has prefurnished it with it's own implements and nailed them to the floor leaving little room for differentiation.
I really look forward to seeing and using MacOSX, laughing at Win2000, and enjoying my Linux system along with all the new software and opportunities included.
Things that aren't easy... (Score:1)
1. Lack of OEM Manufacturer Support. Many manufacturer's of hardware don't release enough information for the creation of OpenSource drivers. This is changing rapidly.
2. Many manufacturer's don't adhere to the letter of the specifications that ARE open or available. For example: The Plug-N-Play spec. Many times, information is incorrect or ommitted entirely from the on-board ROM. The manufacturer's rely on special OEM drivers to take up the slack. I expect this to become a major issue and be resolved in future generations of hardware.
3. The rest are items that are yet to be addressed and represent opportunities for enterprising businesses and OpenSource projects.
Things are getting better all the time!
PPP in GNOME was pretty easy. (Score:1)
System configuration was easy using linuxconf and the gnome configuration tool. E has a nice configuration tool too!
Works like a charm!
Eyeballs (Score:1)
I think I agree with you. Finally. If I read you correctly, it isn't so much that Linux *can't* be like a Mac, but that it *won't* be like a Mac. (Same with FreeBSD, which pretends to be different from Linux, but really isn't.)
Okay. I'll go there.
I pity the fool (Score:1)
Do you know what happens when a genetic pool collapses into a single point? In all cases, the ecology collapses, as well. Homogeneity is *bad*, pure and simple. If MS or Apple became the only producer of operating systems, the world of technology would shrivel up and die. The same is true of user interfaces, though not on such a dramatic level.
What you want is a world in which everything is the same, and predictable. What I want is a world in which everything is different, but logical. I bet my world is more interesting, and just as "easy-to-use."
Mac not that easy (Score:1)
I agree; you should be able to approach a new application and figure it out from the interface. A push-button should be the same in a word processor as it is in a RAD environment.
I haven't read "Tog on Software Design." Where do I find it? I mean, I can think of a couple of oddball reasons to have a 3D modeller talk to a word processor. (Self-documenting models come to mind with little imagination.) And manipulating a procedural texture should be similar whether I'm using a modeller or a vector-graphics program. But to insist on integration constrains what a computer can be, just as insisting that all cars have automatic transmissions constrains what a car can be.
Integration isn't the key to ease-of-use; intuition and human nature is. The world is not integrated. My home life is so completely different from my work life it's unbelievable. And at work I wear at least 3 different job descriptions, and each job is different.
I'm gonna take a wild leap and predict where the next leap in ease-of-use will be, and it has nothing to do with whether the menu is at the top of the screen or under the title bar.
It's in AI. Or at least, Adaptive Environments. (I just made that up.) The computer should be able to profile a user, make adjustments to the user's preferences (based on past experience and use), and adjust the environment to the user.
I just figured out what it is about Cassius's arguments that upset me; not only does he assume programmers are idiots, but he also assumes that we aren't even smart enough to copy the Mac, as is, and catch up to it in ease-of-use. We'd have to be damn stupid not to be able to do that.
I think we want something better. The Mac leaves a funny taste for most computer geeks. It's that funny taste that puts most of us off. I think we want something better. And we know we can do better. And its taking us a lot of time, but I think we are getting there.
It's not just Linux. It's everything. We're stagnating into arguing over whether a mouse should have one button or three. (Nobody wants two.) We've reached a point where *we don't know what to do next.* I don't think there's been a true innovation in 10 years. (Can you think of one?) It's just bigger, better, faster, better-looking.
I think that's the *really* frustrating part.
Re: (Score:1)
The Simplistic Myth (Score:1)
That's why some tasks, when atempted with Windows, become like a magic ritual, needing endless trying and lots of reboots before it works. And when it finally does, we don't know exactly why it did, nor can we do it again without going through all the mystic wizardry again.
...but they're not so easy to intsall... (Score:1)
install GNOME and KDE and had to give up in both
cases. I use Red Hat, so I try to get away with
installing just binary RPMs if I can, but the
GNOME RPM required me to install a dozen other
RPMs, which each needed various upgrades and
further RPM dependencies which I had trouble
locating and installing...
...so then I tried installing KDE. I plowed my way
through the CVS setup then ran CVS to install
KDE, again confronted with dozens of missing
dependencies and other things that needed to
be installed and upgraded and configured and
reconfigured and recompiled and installed and
setup and reinstall and download this patch and...
Oh my aching head!! I'm sticking with plain
ol' WindowMaker!!
"stupid-user" friendly (Score:1)
type cd \
It says invalid switch
You typed the forward slash; the backslash is above the enter key"
what?
I said you typed foward slash instead of backslash; the backslash key is just above the enter key.
oh
(long pause)
Now it says bad command or file name.
What did you type?
nothing...
Good article (Score:1)
BTW, how "mainstream" is Salon, anyway. Anyone know?
Unfortunately, there isn't a Mac for experts... (Score:1)
Yep, that's right. And also, native security and networking features could also use some work. The macs around here are loaded down with so much third-party software to support Kerberos and AFS and provide some basic OS filesystem permissions (like making the HD pretty much read-only) that it's a wonder we can still log in, it's about as bad as NT.
I admit that some of these problems are specific to this particular Mac set up as a server. However, we have a fairly competent IT staff that tries to use anything as a network client, and get it to work. It should be noted that they have to work much less to set up UNIX, and have to buy much less third-party stuff for it. (they still buy some of it, they just don't *need* it all) Students try to surf the net and write papers on these things, so I think this is a fair comparison for user-friendliness.
The first time I found this particular new blue Mac server, I said "Cool. It's got a built-in ZIP and DVD drive." I can get a floppy drive anywhere, but this stuff is neat. Then I tried to log in. It had crashed. I rebooted it, and then logged in. I said "look, they have ports of cool UNIX apps." I tried to run GSView. The machine locked up. (no, force-quit didn't work)...
You get the idea. The only use I've found for that Mac is downloading to a ZIP disk (the ZIP disk part, not the downloading, because of the security, the Desktop is inaccessible from a File/Save dialog, so I have to click-and-drag files from Netscape to the ZIP disk. Easy, you say? What if I wanted to change the name...) and trying to repair messed-up Mac files on DOS disks.
I tried to load a file associated with Photoshop 4. It couldn't find the (apparently completely different) version of Photoshop 4 installed on this computer. I dragged the icon to Photoshop 4. It claimed not to recognize the file format. I clicked on another file. It loaded up in GraphicsConverter, which wasn't even listed with the other applications! GraphicsConverter could open and save all of these (apparently
User friendly. Bah, humbug. Shoot me now. The Mac has a level of user-friendliness I never want to emulate (ooh, look, help baloons! these things are completely useless, because they don't tell me that this file with the PC-text icon is associated to Photoshop 4, even though it will only be opened by GraphicsConverter, if you can find it...). If Linux had friendliness like this, newbies would fear the GUI, not the CLI.
Sure there is : Unix (Score:1)
A different UNIX, I can deal with. Windows NT 4 or MacOS 8 is more annoying, arguably because I don't use it as much. (even though I have used them both extensively, and I appreciate that NT tends crash less than other versions of Windows and that MacOS 8.x generally runs better than earlier versions of MacOS (although I liked the interface better in 7.5, and hate how so many useless extensions are so often preloaded on newer Macs))
However, some of the problems I run into on these platforms could surely be encountered by novices, even doing simple things. Should novices be forced to become experts when things go wrong, or is that when they have to find an expert to help them?
I don't know why the files I was working with on the Mac were so mangled. All I know is that my girlfriend sent them to me after giving a few (PC-formatted) disks to a clueless teacher (apparently a Mac user) so she could get some images. I know that the second disk she had was corrupt, but the other two should have been fine. The files were
I'm not about to blame all of this on the MacOS, but consider this. Any novice (and even my girlfriend, who is by no means a novice) would never know what these files were. I found out for sure that they were
Under DOS, these files would have had extensions, but MacOS mangled those. I also don't know why the long names weren't intact, but the other Mac didn't read them properly. Although the icons didn't work, the associations weren't there. Under UNIX, I can autodetect filetypes, but this didn't work until I resaved them, so perhaps the extra data in the files interfered with this.
I'm sure that horror stories exist for all OSes, but I have yet to find a platform with more irrational behavior, providing less information, when things go wrong. It's fine to say that a platform is user-friendly when everything works, but in my experience they don't work far too often for this sort of design to be a feature.
Computer/car analogy isn't that good (Score:1)
On the other hand, a computer isn't a single purpose machine. You have to have some idea what you're doing. There are countless things you can do with it. It's not like an N64/PlayStation (another machine with a singular purpose - game playing). With them, you plug in power, video, audio, controllers, drop in a game, and go. Not so easy with a full-fledged computer. And along with having a lot you can do, there are a lot of things that you should do (system upkeep, for one - I know, most Windows (l)users don't do much of that).
It's just not the same thing. That's a tired analogy. Let it rest in peace now, people.
Pro Linux? (Score:1)
And man pages are just fine most of the time too (some of them are pretty bad, but let us hold off on the glittering generalities, 'k?). They assume the same working understanding of Linux as the HOWTOs do. I don't see that as unreasonable.
Yes, you're right. UNIX/Linux _is_ a different mindset. But for those who don't care about changing their mindset, well, Linux just probably isn't for them. They're happy with Windows/MacOS? Ok. Whatever.
A "Windows user's guide to Linux" would be long and tedious. It's just not an easy switch. Most of those who are what I would consider clueless wouldn't be very interested in Linux if they knew what it involved. I don't care what anyone else says - Linux isn't right for everyone. User-friendly is one thing (I think Linux is doing fine moving that way) but cluebie-friendly is going too far in the wrong direction.
"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day - teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." Too many clueless users want a handout - they want to be told how to do EVERYthing. They need to learn to take a little initiative. If we have to spoon-feed them everything, then what's the use in switching them away from Windows? They're just as bad off if they can't do anything on their own, IMO.
Linux is not THAT easy. (Score:1)
Point and CLIck... remember? (Score:1)
Linux is a morass of arcane text commands, bewildering options and incomprehensible Unix concepts
Linux is not Command Line dependant. In *very* easy instructions that comes with Redhat I removed any command line boot up on my computer at home. Once KDE was installed (is 'rpm -ivh kde*' that hard? If it is the package manager in the control panel is easier!) I only had trouble setting up the menus to handle everything I wanted to do. But that wasn't harder than learning Win95.
the Achilles heel of their open-source software development model -- the need to get cool people to take on uncool tasks. [i.e. make it simple for non geeks]
There is Stampede lite [stampede.org], Simple End User Linux [seul.org], Corel, and other potentialy good distributions working on just those problems. There is a lot of work being done in this area already.
Installing Linux as many have pointed out can be easier than Windows, and when something goes wrong, it is even easier to fix.
I didn't accept this trash before, and I don't see a reason to accept it now. This is where I draw the FUD line, when they project an image of Linux that is not true. It isn't a cryptic mess of command lines (unless you like it that way.) Non-Geeks won't be abandoned by the community, just by Ivan.
Remember when the community won an award for its support? As far as I know the Linux-Help IRC channel is still an invaluable help line. Maybe we've gotten lax with IBM and other companies promising support? No, it may sound like it until we remeber back that its just a rehashing of fud with the same old answers we've maybe forgotten because we haven't been challenged by them in a long time.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^
I Don't get it (Score:1)
You do make a good point of what user friendlyness is, my point was not that it is user friendly, but that it wasn't the kludge of command line cryptics that Salon makes it out to be.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^~
Needed: Cliff notes version of the HOWTO's (Score:1)
People would rather dwell on the PPP-HOWTO instead of the ISP-HOOKUP-HOWTO or Sprynet's Linux PPP docs or the LDP or the fact that you can just buy a manual and get the Linux CD gratis.
No, takes more than man-hours (Score:1)
This is the most intriguing aspect of the 'user centric' Apple philosophy.
A computer has never been just ONE tool. It is many tools, a chameleon that can change it's skin at will. Those that need to get stuff done need to have the interface suited to their needs regardless.
That's regardless of whether or not the interface is a pipe or WP5 or Nextstep.
This 'its one tool' crap simply needs to go.
A secretary that is going to be spending the next 5-40 years using a word processor can stand to waste a little time learning it.
I friggin hate that condescending tone (Score:1)
That 'prime example' of HOWTO's, PPP has had GUI configurators available for it for at least 2 YEARS (before either KDE or GNOME) as well as better documentation available (for as long).
Glad some /.ers don't make cars... (Score:1)
Pro Linux and to the point! (Score:1)
The tool has a purpose. It's design serves that purpose.
Being designed to stay up and running just has the side effect of being sometimes more efficient for those with the ability to fix their own Windows problems.
...but they're not so easy to intsall... (Score:1)
No, takes more than man-hours (Score:1)
THAT attitude is what gets things done and why when WP5 ruled the roost you could expect a secretary to manage 50 WPM. What you 'its gotta be easy whiners' forget is that many things simply aren't easy. Life isn't like that. Some work and learning is going to be needed. Learning a specialized interface is only a small addition to that.
The tool is meant to get work done, not make the lazy feel good about themselves.
I've been thinking about this one. (Score:1)
The same goes for the monitor. A user should at least know what resolution they want to run. Beyond that, they can select the most conservative generic monitor types.
Vidcards and any PCI card are already handled. Those are PnP by design (like the Mac).
Grafting sometimes-working PnP features onto a facility that was never designed for it can quite often be self defeating. It certainly drove me away (from Windows).
Levels of hacking (Score:1)
This can apply to documentation as much as it can to code.
Besides, what really matters is if it works. Once it achieves that, whether or not it was done by someone(S) that have any clue about technical minutia is irrelevant.
Apache+Lynx perhaps? (Score:1)
Right on, Right ON! (Score:1)
...but they're not so easy to intsall... (Score:1)
It's not rocket science (GNOME,KDE or E installs).
No, takes more than man-hours (Score:1)
Rhetoric not a point (Score:1)
orthogonal applications, with two different interfaces. "
It's attitudes like that that have made application integration the #1 deficiency in almost all existing shrink wrapped and business applications.
"Dumb users" _accomodate_ user interfaces to their lifestyle. Programmers , tend to _assimilate_ interfaces to their lifestyle.
This means that "dumb users" require lots & lots of training in order to use something. This also means that a typical large company with 30+ in-house applications requires the user to memorize 30+ applications plus the multitude of "processes" that take place within those applications (I.e. how to place an order, edit a customer profile, etc.)
This is plainly inefficient. Actually, no, more than that: it's dumb. The concept of the independent "application" is a technological constraint, and from a usability perspective is STUPID.
Read "Tog on Software Design", and you'll get an idea of WHY you'd want a word processer to talk to a 3D modeller. And it *CAN* be done, it just hasn't been done on a wide scale yet - Oliver Sims' book "Business Objects" explains one way of creating a UI integration utopia...
In the end, Tony - as much as Cassius is being pessimistic about Linux's chances of UI integration - he *IS* right - the Mac is the best platform at this today, though it is a long way from what "could be".
And I'm a bit more optimistic: I think Linux "could" have this next-generation kind of integration - the only problem is, I don't think the hackers at large will agree to develop for the underlying framework. Such a framework would go beyond what KDE & GNOME seem to be targeting, so it won't be the "in-thing" to do....
not fud (Score:1)
You simply don't get it. THAT IS command line dependency.
User friendliness means that it doesn't try to have the user conform its reality to the machine, as this is something non-programmers have difficulty doing.
User friendliness goes beyond Windows. It even could go beyong the Mac.
It's about using a metaphor to help the user relate what's going on in the computer to what he/she understands in real life. And if that doesn't work, providing an easy-to-access and understand help system to walk things through.
Linux doesn't have any of that KDE and Gnome right now are simple little environments that doing what Windows & Mac did 8 years ago. All other "really user friendly interfaces" are VAPOR for now.
well (Score:1)
In reality, "bright ideas" account for piddley - most bright ideas rarely become full fledged "products". Innovations based on "new knowledge" are usually most successful, are as you say, rare.
But there are other forms of respectable innovation: those based on demographics, shifting opinions or incongruities between "what is", and "what should be". The iMac is an example of that.
Now, back to the topic at hand: First, check amazon for "Tog on Software Design". It describes a user interface codenamed Starfire that Tog & other digerati were commissioned to create (as a demo) while working at Sun Microsystems. The concepts in that UI were formed by the leading thinkers in this area: Tog, Jakob Nielsen, and Donald Norman [Mr. "Design of Everyday Things"].
Hence, Starfire has a lot of credibility behind it. Of course, it's way ahead of its time. The scenarios described in that book describe levels of integration "akin" to attaching a word processor to a 3D modeller
in the book, one of the characters integrates a 3D CAD model onto a spreadsheet with her search on the Internet for determining temperature-ranges for a piece of manufacturing material... oh, and she was blind
As for your AI analogy: you may be more right than you imagine. There are some *key* economists that I know of that view "expert systems" [which could be seen as low-rung AI systems] as the next big thing - few people know about it, few people care about it, but if done properly, they will make a HUGE difference for businesses that can encode "expert procedures" in a computer.
Do what I do -- use DejaNews first, then ask. :-) (Score:1)
I know I'm sometimes guilty of becoming annoyed with the types of common beginner questions which flood comp.os.linux.* at times (like "will my Winmodem work with Linux?" [answer: no, not at this time], or "How do I start X at a higher bit depth?" [answer: "startx -- -bpp xx" where xx is the desired bit depth]), and one of the reasons for that annoyance is because I know that tools like DejaNews exist, and that I actually *used* such tools myself when I was starting to use Linux more seriously. DejaNews is a living meta-FAQ in many ways, and if more beginners were made aware of it up front, I think we'd see a lot less repetition and "noise questions" (VFAQs) flooding the forums on Usenet.
There are times when I'll even use DejaNews myself to answer someone else's question, and then let them know how I found the information.
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, Mac, NT, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Interface wars (Score:1)
Most of what you say is false.
The Lisa interface - the direct parent of the Macintosh interface - wasn't actually all that much like Smalltalk's interface.
Go read Inventing the Lisa Interface [sun.com] for more on how the Lisa (and therefore the Macintosh) came about. Read the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines and Tog on Interface to learn more about why the Mac interface is the way it is.
This is not to say the Macintosh interface has no deficiencies; some of them -- though less than you imply -- are due to the original Mac's anemic hardware specs when compared to the Lisa's. But as someone who's used MacOS, NEXTSTEP, various X-based systems, BeOS, the Lisa, and Windows rather extensively it's obvious that it's the best personal computer interface yet.
(Also, just so you know, you can get a multi-button mouse for the Macintosh. I know people who swear by their 4-button mice. You can also get a command line environment for the Macintosh with pipes and redirection; it's just not part of what's shipped to end users because end users generally don't wnat or need that functionality.)
Rhetoric not a point (Score:1)
Wrong. They're two different, orthogonal applications, which will have all of their most basic interface elements in common. The point isn't to build a single binary, the point is that applications from different developers (who may not even know about the other app) work well together.
For instance, say the preferences dialog in the word processor and the preferences dialog in the 3D modeler both have a text field you can type something into, a couple of radio buttons, and a couple of checkboxes. The look and behavior of these controls need to be identical between the majority of available applications before you can even begin to talk about whether your operating system is easy to use.
Now compare a drawing program and a modeling package. These have more in common. If a single click selects a shape in the drawing program, a single click should select a model. If dragging an object's handle in the modeling application resizes it there's no way in hell that doing so should move the selection in the drawing app.
"Ease of use" does not simply mean "easy for newbies to learn." It means that a system can be learned easily, and that knowledge about how one application behaves transfers to every other application. This leads to increased efficiency for even extremely expert users because such knowledge transfer reduces the cognitive load involved in using a system.
You're not talking about "ease of use", you're talking about "ease of customization." Look at how customizable the average system running X-Windows is -- ooh, you can change your window borders!!! Yeah, you've really "changed your GUI" there... Now look at a Macintosh running Kaleidoscope or an Appearance Manager theme. Notice how all of the buttons and all of the scrollbars look the same, from application to application? I think that's what most people really want, not just some decoration around the edges.
KDE or GNOME may allow for true wide-scale cross-application consistency eventually, but only if the rest of the X-Windows software base is buried, and only if just one of them "wins."
RedHat already has this (Score:1)
Still nitpickin' (Score:1)
Alright, I'll stop.
^D
Still nitpickin' (Score:1)
^D
Penguin graphics... (Score:1)
Just nitpickin', you know...
^D
that makes no sense (Score:1)
I can't understand your line of thought
Help System in *the text editor* (Score:1)
So why is this? He's got the documentation, he's already been typing stuff, so what's the big deal about using a text editor?
I think the next important area for documentation is going to be setting up text editors to document what you're trying to configure. If there was documentation which specified the format of the configuration file, and you could lock the text editor into a mode where it formatted stuff to work for a given sort of config file, and it would put the documentation with the stuff you're actually editing, it would basically be a GUI configuration device. And it wouldn't messy with your plain text configuration files, and the configuration clue would seep into the clueless user.
Rhetoric not a point (Score:1)
Otherwise, you have presented dogma and rhetoric, with no point. As I've stated elsewhere, your only supporting evidence for ease-of-use (the Mac) is a counter-example; the Mac was designed by programmers, *not* by ease-of-use experts.
Ditto with the NeXT.
Now, ease-of-use was a design goal. But it is also a design goal for KDE and Gnome. KDE is already easy to use; Gnome is approaching that ease-of-use.
Installation is still a problem, but that is separate from, though not independent of, ease-of-use issues.
The biggest problem with your argument is your use of absolutes. To claim that something will *never* happen just indicates you operate on dogma and faith. It's hard to take you seriously.
If you claimed that it will be difficult for Linux to match the Mac's ease-of-use, and is not likely to happen, I might agree. To say it will never catch up is a statement of ignorance and lack of imagination.
My point still stands.
Interface wars (Score:1)
There are many things you cannot do with a gui that you can do with a CLI. Pipes+filters are just one example-- and even the best scripting language (Perl to some, Python to others, Applescript to some others) cannot match the simplicity of a plethora of useful commands strung together hastily on a command line. Get a list of running processes, and pull out only those that are over a day old and not run by the system. I can do it in three seconds on a CLI; how long would it take to accomplish that in a GUI?
And I wasn't talking about closing windows; I was talking about the system hiding the windows when you switch tasks. Although the system thinks I can only operate on one task at a time, usually I'm working on one task using many tools. I don't like my work in one tool to hide just because I switched tools. If I wanted my app to hide, I'd do it myself.
And as far as "properly-programmed" apps-- a good system (including the GUI) will allow me to work around constraints in the application, whether it is lack of foresight on the part of the programmer, or I'm just wanting to be perverse and do something the programmer hadn't considered.
Now, you argue that apps must be well-designed to avoid the Mac limitations on one hand, and then using poorly-designed interfaces of applications as an argument against multiple buttons on a mouse. Most applications make good use of the multiple mouse buttons. xfig and many other applications using the Athena widget set were designed over 10 years ago; we've come a long way since then.
The biggest problem the "ease-of-use" of the Mac is also its biggest strength-- it shoe-horns everyone into the exact same method of doing things, no matter the skills of the user or the complexity of the application. What you consider ease-of-use, I consider a straight-jacket.
The funny thing is, I learned to program on an old Apple ][, back before they added anything to the ][. When the Mac came out, I was overjoyed, and wanted one so badly. I had to settle for a ][gs. (What I really wanted was a Lisa. Damn Jobs forever for killing that project.) I love the Mac interface.
But every time I sit down to use a Mac, I realize how constraining the stupid things really are. I'm more sophisticated, and able to do things in a non-linear way; I *do* multitask. Many people do. I can only perform one action at a time, but many things happen at once.
As a side-note: you're right about Copeland. The Mac was designed when pre-emptive multitasking was still a technical novelty, so the fact that MacOS-8 still doesn't have pre-emptive multitasking (and mentioning the Copeland disaster) was just a strawman, though unintentionally.
And I don't consider this a flamewar-- it's a brisk conversation. You make logical arguments, with supporting evidence; therefore, it is not a flame, or even flamebait.
I'm overwhelmed by logic (Score:1)
There have been so many, "Linux will never do foo," statements that Linux has already overcome. Keep the faith in whatever way you wish; but faith has never stopped progress before, and I doubt it will now.
The Mac interface has barely changed in 10 years. This is a good thing, in some ways, and a testament to the greatness of the original design; but it is not the ease-of-use utopia.
Perhaps Linux will never match the MacOS in ease-of-use-- but then again, perhaps it will.
Interface wars (Score:1)
People who talk about the Linux interfaces always bring up this argument: "Programmers cannot design interfaces. It takes lots of research to make a good interface-- research done by interface professionals." Then they always mention how grand the Mac interface is.
I hate to >*pop* your little bubble, but the Mac interface was designed by programmers. Almost all of the research done in human/computer interfaces for the Mac has contributed little tiny modifications; the original interface was written by programmers who saw a similar interface at PARC; and that interface too was designed by programmers.
There are some interesting assumptions implicit in these arguments:
1) Programmers are idiots who know only how to code
2) Users are idiots who don't know the first thing about actually using a computer and figuring out logical interfaces on their own
3) Programmers, removed of corporate direction, don't know what to do
4) Money, and only money, can solve all problems
Almost all arguments against Linux ease-of-use rely on at least 2 of the above preconceptions. And I don't believe any of them.
And as far as the Mac being a paragon of usability, lets look at some really foobar features:
The program's controls are at the top of the screen, as far away from the actual application as possible. Also, windows keep disappearing. I'm never allowed to launch more than one instance of an application, so if the application isn't programmed to allow more than one open window, I'm screwed. To switch to an application that is not active, and is hidden, I have to go to the multi-finder. There's only one mouse button-- you have to use the keyboard if you want to emulate more than on button. And this sucks if you are missing an arm. (This is more than a nitpick-- I've worked in a university environment where I've had to help disabled people like that.)
This addresses just the basic ease-of-use GUI choices-- it doesn't even touch on the more complicated technical issues (such as the lack of pipes, redirection, and CLI).
Plus, have you ever wondered why it took so long to change anything but the most cosmetic aspects of MacOS? It's because the core OS was poorly designed. Copeland failed because it was hair^2 to add basic pre-emptive multitasking.
Oh, I know why some of the design decisions went the way they did. The original Mac screen was low-resolution, so there was limited screen real-estate. Instead of putting the application controls with the application, they saved a few vertical pixels by putting the controls at the top of the screen. Since there wasn't enough RAM for virtual desktops, they made it so only one application displayed at a time. And the mouse had only one button because.... well, I'm not sure why. A friend of mine swears you only need one, and the other buttons are on the keyboard ("Where they belong!"), but I *like* having 3 buttons. It's easier to use, for me.
And that is the rub-- just because you find the Mac easy to use does not mean *everyone* thinks it's easy to use. For me, there are many annoyances.
But then, some people like Anne Gedes ("So cute!"). Ya can't account for taste.
Rhetoric not a point (Score:1)
Although we have one common goal (ease-of-use), there may be more than one path.
Linux is integrated into the hardware; otherwise, it wouldn't run. There are even setup programs that autodetect almost all hardware, and install the appropriate drivers.
(The Mac behaves this way exactly; there are many hardware types, and the OS installation routine detects hardware and installs it. The fabled "Mac Plug-and-play" is fabled. The Mac can also have conflicts, just as the PC does.)
Why do I need my Word Processor integrated with my 3D modeller? They are two different, orthogonal applications, with two different interfaces. And why does my spreadsheet have to be integrated into the GUI? Shouldn't I be able to choose the GUI that works for me, and use whatever spreadsheet I like best? To me, ease-of-use is defined by my ability to customize my environment to fit me, not to change my desires and preferences to fit my environment.
As far as the ease-of-use of KDE, I have set KDE up at home for my S.O. She is a Mac-head. However, she had no problem at all adapting to KDE. Same for my Mom. Both have said that KDE was easier to use than the Mac interface. And if you want KDE to behave as a Mac, use only KDE apps, and put it in Mac mode. you get the funky little menu bar across the top and everything. In every respect, the interface behaves just like the Mac interface. If you use KDE, and only KDE apps, then you have your GUI and GUI integration.
The apps are a different beast. They are not currently as full-featured as the Mac apps. But they are evolving at a tremendous rate. KOffice is already a very easy-to-use and powerful office suite. When complete (and stable), it will give any Mac or MS-Windows suite a run for the money.
Me, I prefer Gnome. It's not quite a mature, but it is a lot more powerful, without sacrificing the ease-of-use. If you install the Gnome desktop, and use only Gnome apps, you get a common application interface. So there is your integration. Linux can be exactly as integrated as you want; so you can have ease-of-use without sacrificing power.
Someday soon, you will be able to install Linux on a any computer, and install any desktop you want. Everything will be fully integrated, if that is what you wish. There are already 2 major desktops, with a third coming soon (GnuStep), with their own applications. You will be able to install SuSE or RedHat or any other distribution, specify the desktop you prefer, and have a fully-functional computer where you never have to see a command line. If that's what makes you happy.
And if you want to stick with your Mac, be my guest. No skin off my nose.
No, takes more than man-hours (Score:1)
There's already a computer designed for novices (Score:1)
Lisa (Score:1)
And if you want to get rid of that Lisa, just let me know. I've been wanting one since they came out. And the disk drive was a great idea-- two independent heads, one for each side; but just like the rest of the machine, it was unfinished.
And these religious/GUI wars are really silly. Yeah, I know, I have been participating in them too. But the Mac is not a paragon of usability, as much as it was pioneering.
And I will stand by my critisisms. I read at the time the reasoning for many of the design decisions, and the reason the bar was at the top was to save pixels. It was retconned into being "consistent" in later years,
And though there is a common multi-button mouse API, it is not extensively used. You are right-- the mouse-button argument is a nitpick, but an important one: it is just as critical as most arguments levelled by Mac folks against other UIs. It always comes down to one argument: "It's not like the UI I'm used to."
Anyway, this isn't a "Mac SUX, LINUX RULEZ," thread. The Mac doesn't suck, and Linux doesn't rule. It's a, "Linux *can* grow to be as easy-to-use as the Mac," thread.
And I'm serious about that Lisa.
Flow / Doc Utils (Score:1)
There is no substitute for a really good technical writer, but I wonder if some better tools for actually documenting an app as you are putting it together might be in order (the way Flow allowed you to). At least when you are done you can hand off a well ordered, concise document with everything that needs to be said (at least in point form) to a writer for smoothing...
Maybe Linux has apps like this already - tell me what is available. It should integrate easily into a progammers development environment and form some kind of tree structure for organizing topics. Should also link to your favourite text editor so you don't end up coding in one and writing in another.
I doubt that the Flow source would be useful to anybody but I'd be more than happy to give it to whomever wanted it (I'd have to re-compile a kernel with FFS support in it
If not, however, I'd be more than happy to organize something in this area.
Needed: Cliff notes version of the HOWTO's (Score:1)
"expert friendly". Maybe what we need is alternative
docs for people just learning Linux, like a Cliff
Notes version of the HOWTO's.
Is anyone else interested in helping out? Obviously
this would be too much for one person to undertake,
but a small group could really make a difference.
With all my friends now starting to use Linux, I
wish I could just give the the URL for such a resource.
About time... (Score:1)
Still nitpickin' (Score:1)
Info... (Score:1)
gui != linux (Score:1)
The more real-world useful things I can do with Linux, the better Linux is. When we make Linux easier to use, we enourage more hardware and software support for Linux.
- Sam
Interface wars (Score:1)
>tools. I don't like my work in one tool to hide
>just because I switched tools. If I wanted my app
>to hide, I'd do it myself.
Educate yourself.
This is a preference on the Mac. Those who prefer less clutter turn it on, others keep it off. Check out the General Controls control panel if you're not sure of where to find it.
Second: the 'one button mouse' thing is a copout. Admittedly Apple does not ship multi-button mice, but there is a publically accessable API that Apple developed to allow for multi-button mice in most operations. You can use a one-button mouse if you like, or even 2/3/4 button mice if you prefer. Compare this to 'other' operating systems which force a certain model on you.
I personally like those mice by Kensington. Good quality stuff. I believe Logitech makes multi-button Mac mice as well.
Third: The Mac menu bar was not only put on top of the screen to shave off vertical pixels, but also to provide one consistant place for commonly used commands. There's no 'hunting' for a menu bar (which slows you down), your hand basically just shoots up to the top and you're automatically pointing at a menu. All you need to do is scan left or right and you've got your item. Anything else would be a waste of space, extraneous (why do you really need menus for inactive windows?), and ugly.
Fourth: You wanted the Lisa? It was too slow, too bloated, and failed miserably in the marketplace. Jobs didn't kill the Lisa, the Lisa killed the Lisa. The Mac came around, cost a third of what the Lisa cost, ran faster, and got just as much done. Plus, the disk drives didn't suck. The Lisa belongs in computing history (I know, I actually own one - albeit not working any longer)
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
Good article (Score:1)
one simple question for the author of this article potentially ruins all his reasoning:
do you prefer dumb friends or clever friends?
Good article but misses major point (Score:1)
This article has a lot of good, valid points, but I feel that a lot of ease of use issues are completely overblown by journalists because they're missing the most important point: perspective.
It seems that whenever someone writes about ease of use in Linux the "evil command line" issue keeps popping up. This is a perspective issue, not an ease of use issue. Both Windows and Linux have GUI and command line interfaces. It's just that Linux's CLI is good and Windows' isn't. I know a lot of people who've come from Windows to Linux, who after getting used to it actually prefer using a command line for many jobs.
CLI-o-phobia is a mindset of someone familiar with only GUI tools, but the door swings both ways. My first serious exposure to a GUI environment was Windows 95, before that I had only ever used DOS or other types of CLI interfaces. When I first started using Windows, I would've told anyone who said it was easier than using DOS that they were on crack because I was not used to a GUI environment. Don't get me wrong, GUI's are great, but they're not "magic pixie dust" that automagically makes a program easier to use.
I agree with this article in that a lot needs done to address ease of use in Linux, but the continual references in such articles to the "arcane commands and intimidating CLI" are just as damaging as lack of documentation. Recalling my experience with learning to use Windows, I do not think Linux is harder, it's different, and whether someone is going from DOS to Windows, or Windows to Linux, or Linux to Mac, there's going to be stumbling blocks along the way.
The Underlying Cultural Trend... (Score:1)
I think the key thing this article captures is the state of the underlying modern culture that requires stupid user help. The stupid user. phenomena isn't limited to Linux or even computers. It is a common and generally accepted state in the modern world. We wear ignorance with pride.
What are the most popular series of instructional books today? That's right, X for Dummies and The Complere Idiots Guide to X. Teach Yourself X in Y comes in third. Finally, there is a For the Clueless series concentrating on social science and literature. Only one of these four lines has what I'd call an optimistic or inspired title, Teach Yourself. The other revel in not knowing something to the point of needing hand-holding all the time.
Now I realize that almost all of us need special help for some topics, but this is different. This phenomena of Dummies and Idiots is for people who don't want to try, but to be spoon feed. I would argue the open source/free software world is made up of the opposite: Teach Yourself people (or to use the series I'd like to see I Can Learn people). Linux, Hurd, FreeBSD, Emacs (no idiot would use emacs, despite the fact that I've claimed only idiots do use it), gcc, and the rest aren't written by or for people who lack drive and confidence. They shouldn't be.
This isn't the same as saying Windows or Mac people aren't welcome (I mean there is Mac for Dummies, so Mac can't equal dummy). Lots of users in the world aren't stupid users. They have taken the time to learn and master their systems. They aren't afraid to learn.
As arrogent as it sounds I want the Linux world to stay that way. I think OSS has always been for success oriented people. By that I don't mean rich, but people who set themselves challenges and goals and pursue them. If there is one thing the two polar opposites of the OSS/FSF community have in common it is success orientation. RMS and ERS both have a view of software and the world and set up to create it. Linus had a goal and learned what it took and did it. It is an insult to everyone who has learned and struggled to build the wonderful tools and toys we have to spend our energy making them stupid friendly. On the other hand it is a complement to make them friendly to non-computer people willing to use their minds.
It might be elitist, but at least its honest: Let Microsoft have the stupid users, they deserve each other. Let us go win over the smart ones.
Herb Nowell
Who refuses to own a dummies book on moral grounds.
If You Want To Help With Documentation... (Score:1)
Pro Linux? (Score:1)
The start of the article isn't too nice. The author claims that he is speaking as "a stupid user." Let me say that Linux isn't FOR stupid users. If you're a stupid user, install Windows. Point and click your way to happiness.
But if you're a stupid user who just wants to get on the Net and surf for Spice Girls pics, and the words "command-line interface" send spikes of terror through your bone marrow, then Linux is gruesome. It is not designed for you.
Correct. It's not designed for stupid users.....BUT, the author continues:
Linux, in other words, needs help.
Yeah, Linux can be improved. It would be ignorant to say that it DOESN'T need improving. But gearing an operating system toward idiots is not the way to plan for the future. Improve power, performance, and usage. Powerful operating systems don't belong in the hands of clueless users.
The Linux HowTo archive is a terrific resource.......But it doesn't do a darned thing for the stupid user.
How can extensive documentation not do anything for users? This article is clueless on so many points, and it seems to contradict itself on almost all of them.
I can go on, but I think I made my point. Bah.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Glad some /.ers don't make cars... (Score:1)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Unfortunately, there isn't a Mac for experts... (Score:1)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Pro Linux? (Score:1)
By the way, I am FAR from elite in the world of Linux. But I know enough to maintain my systems, and maintain them well. And the documentation, whether it have been online, or installed in the HOWTO pages, helped. Tremendously. Elite has nothing to do with it.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Leonard needs to visit ora.com (Score:1)
-Shelley
-S. Louie
Sure there is : Unix (Score:1)
If you are a novice, doing simple things, use a Mac.
If you are an expert, doing complicated things, use Unix.
This simple notion has escaped most users here.
Rhetoric not a point (Score:1)
You proved my point exactly - your example of ease-of-use is KDE, which is "layered on as an afterthought" just as I explained.
You haven't understood a thing I've said. Ease of use requires integration. Integration includes hardware, software, and apps. ALL apps. Linux does not have this. NeXT did, and the Mac does (as does the Palm Pilot). What can't you understand?
No, takes more than man-hours (Score:1)
This is the attitude that has consigned unix to the server shelf for 20 years.
Thanks god the inventors of the phone had more foresight.
Rhetoric not a point (Score:1)
Nonetheless, I don't expect Mac-like levels of integration and ease-of-use.
I prefer power and flexibility. There is a pure trade-off.
Linux/FreeBSD has power and flexibility, and that is how most users like it. Mac has inflexbility but ease of use. That is how Mac users like it.
Trying to make Linux into a Mac is like trying to make a screwdriver into a hammer. Let the screw drive screw, let the hammer bang. Screwdriver users and hammer users everywhere will be happier when their products excel in their given areas of strength, which for linux is serving.
The Mac doesn't make a good server, so conversely I think Apple is silly to pursue this server thrust with OSX. Macs will never make it on server racks.
Here Here (Score:1)
Currently the KDE/GNOME split is nearly 50/50.
Nothing could be more damaging to creating a pervasive UI for linux.
Until people simply let the debates rest and choose one, they can forget their UI dreams.
NeXT not a couter-example (Score:1)
The same cannot be said for linux. It must be layered on as an afterthought. This type of design only works well for Elightenment themes. For true ease of use, you need to have a plan before any hardware or software hits the shelves.
My point still stands.
No, takes more than man-hours (Score:1)
There's already a computer designed for novices (Score:1)
There does not exist an alternate reality where linux is easier to use than the Mac. The entire philosophy of the Mac is that hardware, OS, interface, and apps act in a way that is easy to use, even if that sacrifices other qualities.
Trying to match this level of user-friendliness on linux is a waste of time because it will never happen. Sorry for the downer.
No, takes more than man-hours (Score:1)
It takes hardware interfaces that are not designed for tinkering, but designed to auto-detect.
It takes getting EVERY app to use one UI, and support it pervasively.
Sorry, that just doesn't happen in a distributed open-source model.
Open source software is not driven by the market, it is driven by what the programmers want to program. Looking at linux, *BSD, etc., this historically has not covered any of the issues that Apple takes care of for users. You need a dictator.
Nonethless, it will never happen. (Score:1)
Rant Time (Score:1)
To understand what "ease of use" means for true consumer appliances, look at the VCR. Most people still can't manage the programming of even the most simplest units. How on earth do you expect them to understand a computer that may require them to edit files in
when looking at the future of computing devices for consumers, you should consider the Mac to be too complicated. The model you are aiming for is the Palm Pilot. This is the type of computer that will bring computing to the masses. Its cheap, its effective, and it accomplishes only a few tasks but does them well. If you really want to, you can expand it to do other things, but most people don't want to.
Listening to this thread has really been humorous for me. Most contributors seem to believe that redhat linux with gnome is going to pass the "mom test". Only if your mother is esther dyson.
Most contributors here are very computer literate. Some are capable of writing complex apps. These are not the people you go to in order to understand ease of use. Power users assume too much of novices. Most people out there in the world can't even wrap their heads around the notion of logging in.
I wish Corel luck, and I hope they get some Windows users - these people are already used to dealing with complicated systems that break, so they will certainly enjoy a complicated system that is much much harder to break. Mac users will never be linux converts, unless they were already versed in unix.
Going after consumers is far too lofty. Palm Computing has the best shot of anyone right now of building a computer that a billion people can use.
I am so sick of this! (Score:1)
Why in the hell doesn't Microsoft just put a fricking CD-ROM driver in their OS that works? I have a standard ATAPI CD-ROM and their ATAPI-CD.sys device driver doesn't know about it. I fixed the problem and copied a driver from another machine and installed.
Linux never every gave me a bit of trouble during an install, and that's going back all the way to the 0.97pl4 days in Jun3 1993. Linux is EZ!
Salon's OSS/Linux Coverage (Score:1)
--JT
Pro Linux? (Score:1)
And no, quantity != quality. I know this probably counts for nothing, but I'm a tech writer, and it just doesn't work that way.
- deb
Pro Linux? (Score:1)
How can extensive documentation not do anything for users? This article is clueless on so many points, and it seems to contradict itself on almost all of them.
Quality, not quantity, is key. It isn't easy to write good technical documentation. The Linux Howtos are written with the assumption that the readers already know quite a bit about Linux. The vast majority of Linux docs are written with the assumption that the readers already know quite a bit about Linux/Unix.
Blathering on and on and on and on for pages and chapters isn't doing anyone any good if the docs suck, or if the docs make assumptions about the readers that aren't true. Quality, not quantity. For example, even if there were 40,000 pages of docs available that covered every minor detail about running Linux, it wouldn't do an English-speaking person much good if they were written in Swahili. Linux docs suffer from a general lack of user-analysis and profiling.
Gah...don't even get me started about man pages. Jesus those things suck.
I can go on, but I think I made my point. Bah.
Being elitist isn't going to help the situation. Just because someone doesn't have any Linux/Unix experience doesn't mean they're idiots. Making the leap from the Windows world to the Linux/Unix world is not an easy thing to do. It's a whole different mind set, using different models and different approaches. There is little (if any) documentation written to aid people in making that transition.
Someone should write a "Windows-users' Guide to Linux". There should be an ongoing documentation effort that produces docs to help people make that leap. There are people out there who have never seen a CLI. Through no fault of their own, I'll add. Just because they haven't ever used a CLI doesn't mean they're stupid, it just means that they have a bit more of a leap to make between worlds.
The first step is to stop being so elitist.
- dria
Linux is only hard because... (Score:1)
I think Linux usablitiy will come when a "stupid user" can easily order a computer from a major distributer who can pre-install Linux, set up gnome and/or kde, have ppp set up, etc. Progress is being made toward this.
Windoze is no more user friendly than Linux really. People just think it is because they don't see the whole story.
But that is just me.
...but they're not so easy to intsall... (Score:1)
wrong Analogy (Score:1)
In short, the people havnt changed, the product has. Thus, in the future, there will STILL be a lot of so-called "stupid users", but they will have products that are designed well so that they cant really mess it up unless they do something really bad - like spilling coffee on their monitor - something which could be compared to a car crash.
The state of the market right now is far from it. People still havnt started demanding stability from the software, like they did from their cars. The difference is - if they lose control of their cars, they might lose their life - but if they lose control of their computer, they simply lose some documents and their 'spice girl pics'.
-Laxative
Bullshit (Score:1)
Now that a lot of people have heard of Linux, and they've all heard how "snazzy" it is, the trend they are pushing at is to make Linux "easy to use". The mainstream is gently chiding the Linux user-base and developer-base for not providing a "user friendly" product. This is absolute crap.
I ask - what is the big deal with user friendlyness? Linux is (for most purposes) UNIX. UNIX is a developer's system. It is not a happy system where you can "get on the web easily and surf for spice girl pics," as Salon puts it. But should it be like that?
The power of a Linux system in the Command Line. No decent Linux user runs X without running an x-term (rxvt, kvt, etc..).
A lot of you say though - that the both can co-exist. There can be the command line for the geeks and a nice pretty gui for the newbies. Sure, I can accept that - but look at what the attempts have produced so far: GNOME - a graphical user interface system that is in reality very little more than a pretty pixel pusher. Same for KDE. Is there anything you can do in GNOME that you cant do on the command line faster and with more power? (except for picture-viewers/editors, but that is a special case). It's redundant effort.
I can immediately spot command line application for most GNOME apps.
text editor? vi/emacs
irc client? what else - BitchX
web browser? lynx counts, unless you want pics
file browser? um.. bash, csh, mc
calculator? bc
ide? emacs, and there are tons of text ones
Almost all GNOME/KDE apps are just pretty covers on top of the real power of the console utils.
I'm not saying that nodoby needs a graphics interface. For some applications, GUI are essential - you just cant conceptualize them on a command line - eg. Office suite with WYSIWYG, Graphic modelers, etc.
If people really want to develop easy to use applications. That's fine. If they feel the need to really create a seamless easy-to-use intuitive graphical interface for the layman - it's cool with me. But dont do it because you feel a need to "justify" Linux or GNU to the majority. Linux has nothing to prove - and you can see this even in Linus's personality.
If it keeps going like this, it will come to even more "chidings" and requests.
'Its a shame that rm -r / just deletes the whole hard drive without telling you.. would it be possible to maybe print out "YOU ARE ABOUT TO DELETE ALL THE FILES AND DIRECTORIES ON YOUR ROOT DIRECTORY, AND ALL OTHER DIRECTORES WHICH BELONG IN THIS DIRECTORY. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? YES/NO?" '
-Laxative
Bullshit (Score:1)
Bowms
Assumptions about success... (Score:1)
I agree and disagree with this comment. I agree that the measure of success of an OS doesn't need to mean distribution to the masses. On the other hand, I disagree in that I think that Linux has already succeeded.
Look, it's a complete, robust, stable operating system that meets the needs of millions of users. If that ain't success, then I'm a crack-addled chimp. :-) The fact that it now has support from some of the industry's biggest players is icing on the cake; as long as Linux meets enough people's needs that they will take time to maintain and update it, it will stay a success.
linux, docs, and the future (Score:1)
This IMHO, is one of the best points in this comment, that argues both for, and against, many of the points made.
dria makes some very good points about what good documentation requires, however many ideas are drawn from the way things work in a proprietary software shop. However, what works there, may or may not work (or even be desireable) in an open source environment. Thus the interesting question, is what development model/methodology will work best for documentation. Does writing tech docs require co-ordination? One thing the whole "bazaar" model of development does relatively well, is feedback, and incremental improvement. Can useful docs be made by starting with something, and a whole butch of Natural-Language programmers (maybe a hacker-friendly term for doc writers?) hacking them into line?
Maybe the help system should actively solicit user feedback on what worked and didn't. Get "end-users" when the docs are wrong, to fix them. This sort of dynamic involvement of the user has always been our greatest strength, programming-wise, and it's often been done with little, or no, centralized co-ordination. Can we leverage it into documentation?
-FyndoGlad some /.ers don't make cars... (Score:1)
BTW, does anybody else remember Linus saying about 2 years(?) ago the guy who created MIME should be shot?
(Anyone interested in buying one of those old missile silos to start a hacker utopia community, drop me a line so we can talk.)
Penguin graphic (Score:1)
But the article makes an excellent point - the same point made by ZDNN in their otherwise favorable and objective rebuttal to the recent NT vs Linux test - that the documentation for Linux is 'expert friendly'.
A nice, searchable, online knowledgebase a'la M$ would be a boon for new converts and cutting edge hackers alike.
Not a glamorous undertaking by any stretch. Perhaps the new Academia-centric Linux 'regulatory committee' would care to tackle this one?
Linux CAN do it all, if you try (Score:2)
The last couple of posts prompted me to write, mostly because I believe they show a fundamental lack of understanding about end-user types.
Folks, the vast majority of people who own computers today got them in the past four or five years, and primarily to Web surf and do e-mail. The computer is becoming an appliance, a means to an end and not the end itself. It's unreasonable to assume that people will take the time to become "good" users. Do the majority of the people on Slashdot take the time to become auto mechanics or nutritionists? Same goes for end-users and computing.
There is nothing to stop Linux from becoming a "hacker" OS AND a consumer OS. Today it's doing really well in server, workstation and "enthusiast" markets. But that doesn't mean it's impossible or undesireable to make it easy for your mom to use. Add a solid, hands-off installer (or get more OEMs to install it), make the GUI even more intuitive, and do up the Help documentation that people are used to. That's easy. The hard part -- creating a solid, fast, lean and mean OS -- is already done!
And wouldn't it be nice to have a cross-platform OS that could be used in everything from handhelds to mega-servers? Imagine if all these devices spoke the same language.....!! That, IMHO, is the true promise of Linux.
This article's right on -- if you want world domination, you're gonna have to do stuff you might not want to do. Nobody said it would be fun all the time.
Interface wars (Score:2)
>interface was designed by programmers.
Yes, it was. After a couple of years of study be psychologists, interface experts, and such. The final interface, perhaps. But they stood on the shoulders of giants, or experts in this case.
>Almost all of the research done in human/computer
>interfaces for the Mac has contributed little tiny
>modifications; the original interface was written
>by programmers who saw a similar interface at
>PARC; and that interface too was designed by
>programmers.
You're right about the PARC interface being designed by programmers, but have you ever seen that interface? It and the Mac interface have very little in common (the WIMP concept, and that's about it).
The program's controls are at the top of the screen, as far away from the actual application as possible.
Wrong. See, here's the thing: I take it you can read English. How is English read? Top to bottom, left to right. Notice: the menubar (the most-often used set of controls) is at the top left. It's a psychological thing, you see. This is also why the trash can is at the bottom right (the last thing you read on the page, therefore the lowest-priority, therefore a good place to put the control representing the most destructive actions you can do).
Please don't get into other languages here; this is not meant as an insult to those languages which are read in different directions.
Also, windows keep disappearing.
It's called closing the window. Or, when you're switching apps, it's called hiding extraneous palettes that you're not going to need when you're working in one application. And make no mistake: even if a computer can multitask a human can only work in one app at a time. I offer the following challenge to prove my point: start up any two X applications (any other platform will do, but I'm guessing you'll be using X). Make one of those applications active. Now, work in the other application without leaving the first. If the window of the first application loses focus, you are considered to have left it.
I'm never allowed to launch more than one instance of an application, so if the application isn't programmed to allow more than one open window, I'm screwed.
That's the fault of a poorly-programmed application, not the OS. By the way, while we're on the subject, please open up two distinct instances of Netscape (in other words, no just opening a second Netscape window; open another xterm and start Netscape from there without quitting the first one). Bet you can't do it without one instance or the other complaining.
There's only one mouse button-- you have to use the keyboard if you want to emulate more than on button.
Nobody needs more than one. It can come in handy, but it encourages convoluted, confusing, horrible interfaces like XFig's.
And this sucks if you are missing an arm. (This is more than a nitpick-- I've worked in a university environment where I've had to help disabled people like that.)
News flash: lots of things suck if you are missing an arm. Ever tried typing with one arm? I'm doing it right now, actually. It sucks. Keyboards were designed for both arms; its width becomes a hindrance to someone typing with one hand. Yes, there are keyboards designed to be used with one hand; some of them are even pretty nifty. There are also pointing devices designed to be used with no hands.
This addresses just the basic ease-of-use GUI choices-- it doesn't even touch on the more complicated technical issues (such as the lack of pipes, redirection, and CLI).
Pipes: a nice convenience, but nothing which can't be worked around with exceedingly simple scripts and a properly-done application.
Redirection: same thing. It merely requires a properly-done app... OH, THE HORROR! The programmer might have to do some extra work!
CLI: Unnecessary. Let's not even go there; I can do everything with a GUI that you can with a command-line; the reverse isn't true. The best would be natural-language processing (which is more akin to a CLI than a GUI, admittedly) but we're decades away from that at least. As evidence I present Forum2000. Assuming it's not a hoax, it's a massive cluster of Alphas totalling, I believe, 32 terabits of RAM. It's the only thing out there even capable of natural-language processing, it still makes some mistakes, and it can't even do it in realtime. In other words, we're a long way off from that.
Plus, have you ever wondered why it took so long to change anything but the most cosmetic aspects of MacOS? It's because the core OS was poorly designed. Copeland failed because it was hard to add basic pre-emptive multitasking.
That had nothing to do with it; Copland was a total rewrite of the OS, which would in fact have required something not unlike the OSX Blue Box to run current MacOS programs. Copland failed for other reasons.
I might also add that back when MacOS was created, few people, including most current Slashdot readers, had even heard of preeemptive multitasking. The guts of an OS don't matter anyway, if it works correctly (which is why Windows still sucks even though it has partial memory protection and pseudo-preemptive multitasking; it still doesn't work, where MacOS at least does a better job of it than the stuff Redmond puts out).
I think I've risked starting enough flamewars for today (without intending to start any, I might add; if any of this is flamebait is is not intended to be so).
Quit being selfish! (Score:2)
I don't see how improving the GUI-useability of Linux systems precludes you from doing what you have always done, yet you damn ordinary users to a world of Microsoft products anyway.
Consider this, a well thoughtout method of interapplication communication can improve execution and programmer efficiency of even command line apps. It reduces the programmer overhead of having to write code to parse STDIN into a useable format and the execution overhead of doing the parsing.
Market economics and forces (Score:2)
Some of the posts in this thread already seem to be missing the point. Salon was not talking about the relative ease or difficulty of use and install of Linux, though that is surely an issue. They were targetting it's help system, or lack thereof.
In the normal capitalist market, as studied and practiced in the US, a simple way to get unenjoyed activities done is to compensate; to pay for it. In this case, who will pay for it? I would imagine an enterprising company like Corel, Caldera, or Red Hat, would or should soon step up to the bat, or the three of them together, and tackle a uniform and consistent complete help system. Who would pay for it? Anyone and everyone who wants to use Linux for its price, stability, and performance, but who don't already dabble, tinker, code, or play with it.
Or this is the chance for that small group of hacker/coder friends out there, reading Slashdot, reading this article, reading this post, to get together, write a powerful and useful help system, and then start giving out the documentation for recognition, or selling it to corporations and comapnies for 'official' support and such. Or even to just sell it to RedHat, Caldera, or Corel...
Would this idea violate the sensibilities of the Open Source crowd? I'm saying sell the service of documenting and collecting references and information, while maintaining all the info on their site in an HTML searchable format, but providing a more robust and integrated solution for sale...
AS
linux, docs, and the future (Score:3)
I am a technical writer. I work documenting products with GUIs and also CLI products. Here's some stuff I've learned in my two years (yeah, I'm a newbie still) of tech-writer experience:
a) Tech writers do actually have to be technically competent. Those who are technically incompetent might be able to write, but they can't write good docs.
b) Technical documentation cannot be treated as an afterthought. The documentation team should be incorporated into the development process as early as possible...ideally, as soon as the project team is put together. OSS projects can't really do this, of course, because there is no formal process in place...there is no real "team" that is put together for a project...projects just sort of grow and morph and change and develop as time goes on. Or at least that's the impression I get...if I'm wrong, please correct me. I'm sure there are some examples of OSS projects that do have a more formal development process.
c) Technical documentation is a cooperative effort that involves writers, developers, and users. The developers have to provide the basic information and they have to review the documentation for technical accuracy. Writers have to work with the developers on this, as well as diving in and learning everything they possibly can about the product. Users have to provide feedback not just about the product itself, but about the documentation as well. Writers have to use this feedback to improve the documentation and to make suggestions to developers about how usability of a product can be improved. It's all one big symbiotic process that helps create really good and usable products through an evolutionary development process. It takes time and it takes a lot of work and coordination.
d) Technical documentation has to be written for a specific user audience. You can't write good documentation if you don't know who you're writing it for. This means that writers have to develop user profiles, and then write for people who fit these profiles. If you just start writing, you're going to end up with documentation which is way too technical in some areas (you write for experts), way too newbie in other areas (you write for new users), and a mishmash of in-between stuff. This makes for documentation that doesn't suit anyone's needs. This also means that you might have to write more than one set of docs for a particular product: one set for experts, one set for rank newbies, one set for people who are interested in working on development, etc. Defining your users and creating profiles of these users is a key aspect of writing docs (and in developing apps).
er...
Etcetera. I could go on for days about this stuff. My point is this: the OSS movement is sorely lacking in the documentation department. The vast majority of docs that exist are written by the people who developed the applications, which means that most of it is far too technical for the average user. Most of the docs are also written about the particular product rather than about how to use the product. It's extremely important that documentation is task-based and user-based rather than technology based. Writing docs like that isn't nearly as easy as some might think, because as soon as you know how to use a product, you tend to start skipping the details when you write it up.
Oop...I got rambling again. Sorry.
We need docs. We need good docs written by people who know how to write docs. I volunteered to help the documentation effort for one product but I never got any feedback from the coordinator. I'd like to help. I am not a coder, but I do have skills which I think would be useful in context of the larger OSS movement. The problems are: writing doesn't have the same prestige value as hacking code; writing tech docs is not an activity that can be done in communicative isolation (which means we can't just sit in our basements crankin' this stuff out like code hackers do); developers (in general) don't want to be bothered with docs or with helping writers with docs...etc.
Ach. I could go on and on. And on
We need good docs. If there are any other tech writers out there who are interested in chatting about this stuff, email me. I could start a linux-writers listserv and we could start hashing out some ideas.
- dria