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Making Linux Beautiful
intensity writes, "Wired has an interesting read on efforts to 'make Linux pretty.' I originally got into Linux because it gave me total control over what I could do with my desktop through the X Windowing system. That was in 1995, when setting up X was a chore in itself. Is it time to set down a standard GUI for Linux systems? " It's mostly yet another story about Eazel's Nautilis project (AKA the GNOME 2.0 Desktop)
no way should there be a standard , that is what makes linux beautiful as it is.
..........sig...........
I say more power to em. Make it beautiful.
Another clueless media evaluation of Linux.
No graphical filemanager??? I have one on my RH 6 box using Gnome/E as window manager.
Are the guys in media all paid by the FUD department as M$?
the article says about KDE and Gnome:
neither has a graphical file manager. Instead of clicking on icons or menus to open and save documents, users must type file names into a command-line interface.
But what about the KFM, KDE does doesn't it?
I didn't just dream about those pretty icons and stuff...
-- You ain't seen me, right?
Is Linux following the evil path of Windows???
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This is where I should write something
intelligent or funny but since I'm
Why not make a standard GUI, but still keep it simple to replace the gui to the user's liking?
Bruce Tognazzini, founder of Apple's famous Human Interface Group and a frequent interface critic, stressed the need for a standard Linux interface and a comprehensive set of interface guidelines to ensure consistency across the system.
Ugh, no. No standards on GUI, please. The great thing about using Linux is that there isn't just one way to do something. If we start forcing GUI standards on people, we'll get bloated window managers that don't serve the needs of particular people. It's very very difficult to make one interface that suits everyone without making it be this huge Swiss Army knife of a program (see emacs, although please, no flames).
The X standard is enough. I think Eazel's efforts are great, but I like the variety that the current crop of window managers provides and if you 'standardize' an interface or the commands it can use, inevitably, something will be included that you don't need and something else will be left out that you do.
Why is /. One hour ahead of US EST Time? I thought they were in michigan which is like 1hr behind my timezone which should make the posts appear at 9am, not 11am?
Err ... yeah ...
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
1984 - Steve Jobs: "Let's make Apple look pretty."
1990 - Steve Balmer: "Let's make Windows look pretty."
-- ken williams
I think a standard *for* a GUI would be nice, from the programming perspective anyway. Something like one single API that anyone could use, but then different desktop environments could handle it in whatever way they like. One thing I don't like about some of the "standard" toolkits right now is the obvious gtk+ works best with Gnome, and qt works best with KDE.
I like both desktop environments, personally, but I don't like the separation like that. Is there anything we could do like that, other than have window manager/desktop environment/tk wars?
Really, there are a lot of steps in certain routine configurations and obscure syntaxes that I, as a sys admin, would prefer not to have to edit by hand if I didn't have to. For example, I probably add/remove ten DNS records in a given week -- I'd rather have a GUI to do it. I doubt, however, that my boss would want to pay me to develop one and I'll be damned if I'm working on my off hours.
The mistake that most of the command line crowd (myself included) make is viewing the GUI v. command line debate as being an either/or situation. Well, just because that's how MS does it, it doesn't mean that we have to make the same blinding errors.
In any event, any Linux GUI will always beat the hell out on the NT version for one simple reason: setenv DISPLAY tux:0 -- while the rest of my officemates are driving upwards an hour to get to their clients to reset some little thing or the other, I can do anything remotely that I can do in person.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Jakob Nielsen is on the money - I think we've reached the point of diminishing returns with the current "desktop" model of UI. Win2K has it refined about as far it will go, and Aqua is really the same old, same old, just amplified and candy coated. We need someone to invent a new style of interface - one that will take advantage of emerging technologies like speech recognition, 3d acceleration, desktop video, etc. I'm not sure what that would *look* like, but it would be a good direction to take.
The XFree86 Font Deuglification Mini HOWTO
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I saw an ploughman once who was expending a huge amount of energy making his old horse go faster. He kicked it, and shouted and screamed, and whispered in its ear, and tickled its tail, and spurred it and whipped it and waved a carrot in front of it. But, the horse was dead, so it made no difference.
We can keep on showing each other screenshots of 'the next amazing Linux desktop' and we can revel in the fact that someone somewhere has finally cracked transparent anti-aliased PDF support and found a way to have radial scroll bars and a three dimensional colour picker widget.
But none of it will make any difference, because X-windows is already dead. It died a while back when someone thought "gee, I know, let's make a desktop whose strengths come not from the elegance of the theoretical design of the comittee that programmed it, but from its usefulness to the world at large, and the average human being in particular."
So, from where I'm standing, MacOS X, if it ever gets released for Intel, has got it in the bag.
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Hey, Foul is Beautiful, man.
If there were a graphical interface to do, say 70% of configuring something, that allowed access to the command line for more complex configurations, that would be great. Give me a GUI that will allow me to do most of the things I want to do with an OS, but don't FORCE me to use the GUI. If I prefer to do something on the command line, have the GUI interface inherit the changes I made on the command line, and vice versa. Let the interface live on its merits and provide options. Choosing one is different from having one choice.
Let there be a standard, fixed easy etc desktop. Then my mom can run linux and show her friends how to do stuff.
I can still run what ever I want. Nothing to stop me or you.
Noel
RootPrompt.org -- Nothing but Unix
kayaking
Linux's beauty lies in its terminal. Simple, uncluttered, functional, and powerful. That's what Linux is all about. Nice to have GUIs, but again, variety is what makes Linux a beautiful tool set. Linux is about choice!
It's gonna have to happen eventually. The present situation of competition between the various GUIs is great and necessary until one of them is truly usable (fast, stable, lotsa apps & importantly -- supportable by IT depts). However, while the underlying technologies will continue to be disparate, the GUI must gain at least a baseline standard look & feel.
The reason is simple. Companies and organisations have limited training budgets and trying to support/train for, multiple GUIs for jane/joe staffer is simply not feasable or sustainable as a model.
Long term this is a non-issue as voice command and other hopefully more natural methods of Human/Computer interaction develop. For now though, if Linux wants to make it onto the corp. DT bigtime, it'll need a common look and feel.
That said, I don't think that this is somthing to be decided upon by committee -- rather it should (& will) happen organically, a "decision" will be made, but by the "invisible hand" of competition.
Slap me 'cos I'm wrong....
-wibble-
It's obvious that Leander Kahney has never used a Linux desktop before. SuSe, RedHat, Slackware, Mandrake - all make KDE available. If KDE is there, KFM is there. Even if you use FVWM, you can still use xfm which has a graphical file manager with pretty icons and such. I can't believe wired posts garbage like this. Standards are for marketing people who don't know how to use a product. It's time I go back to using my xterm where I have to "type file names into a command-line interface." =)
As most other posters (so far) seem to be saying "These people are cluseless about unix."
Okay, there were no graphcisla file mamagers in 1982, but come on people this is 2000. Sun has had graphcics filemanager since they were trying to get everyone to sue their own propritary window system over X. They have had one for X for years. That is over course one example.
I happen to like unix, with the many different approaches that work togather. If they were working on a standard way to make all file managers interoperate (so I can drag a file from KFM to the irix dumpster for example) more power to them. But to say that I should use their file manager over the 100+ out there? Forget it, I'll use a different one just to be contary.
I don't think these people understand that unix still has a following amoung people who don't care if anyone else can use it or not, only that they can get their work done with speed.
To put it anouther way, my prefered default shell is csh Not tcsh, sh, ksh, zsh, bash, or any of a number of less well known choices that all get the job done. Yeah you can make arguements against csh, but I'm used to those idiocryncies and there is no clear advantage of switching. (of course when I'm root I use sh) Likewise I use tcl not perl or python (either of which is better suited) to write my simple scripts. (again, scripts for starting up the system are sh - though now perl is a part of most base systems)
I by no means have the answer to this, but at the very least I'd like to pose some questions to the crowd: Is our goal as linux users and open source advocates really to take Linux et. al "all the way to consumers"?
My feelings are that we use and love Linux for various reasons - the community, the flexibility, the attitude, the speed, etc. Linux is a more powerful and more stable operating system than Windoze. X helps us visualize that operating system and GNOME/KDE help us build on that visualization.
But frankly, most "mass-market" people don't know, care, or want to know how to use *nix. It's complicated, and that's why, as hackers, enjoy it. The problem arises in that there is an inherent loss of control/power (i.e. Windows/Mac) when a system is "dumbed down" beyond the window manager.
So what do we want? We want acceptance of Linux as an alternative to the norm. We want wider application support. We want games. But I don't necessarily feel that taking Linux "mass-market" is the only way to get those. (And I do agree with the only ways Linux could get really "mass-market" are a) make it really dumbed down or b) make everyone in the world suddenly get a lot more tech saavy - unlikely).
I'd be curious to hear what you all think about this....
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
I'm not trying to stop any progress or anything but sometime I feel Linux is way too easy to setup and run compaired to the amount of knowledge it takes to maintain it.
First time I installed Linux took me about 3 days to install the kernal, etc and get X up and running (This is around the time, if I remember correctly, when the kernal was just before 1.0). Recently I did RedHat 6.2, it took me 3hours, and that included a problem with my mouse which took 1 hour to resolve.
Now, to get my new sound card running I had to look up the how-to, realize that my card wasn't supported, find out the how-to was out of date and that it support was just recently available (linux.aureal.com), find the drivers, compile, debug abit and then I got sound.
What I'm trying to say is that X/Gnome/KDE is already nice enough. If its anymore easier (a user never has to know what "ls" does) he might not be suited to maintain a system, even if its just for simple home use. Linux, the core, isn't ready for those users, Windows isn't even ready for that either.
I think that X is good enough as it is. How is it worse than Windows?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Although Linux already has a pair of evolving GUIs -- KDE and Gnome -- neither has a graphical file manager. Instead of clicking on icons or menus to open and save documents, users must type file names into a command-line interface. Taco, any article that starts off this inaccurate isn't worth linking to...
I don't like the way copying and pasting is handled in X Windows. There is currently no way to replace a selection with the clipboard like I can do in MacOS or Windows. Whenever you select text, that replaces the global clipboard. :( Is there a way to fix X Windows so I can use a Mac/Windows style of copy and paste instead of the middle mouse button?
That said, it seems like this article speaks more toward a standard GFI (Graphical File Interface) or file browser, than a GUI. Sure, having all the programs have the same graphical theme is nice, but I don't think that makes the computer easier to use. Most newbies I know get tripped up when they have to deal with file management.
What linux, and all OS's, needs is a groovy way to store, organize, and retrive files. All this nested directory stuff is fine for us people who can "visualize" the tree, but to most people this makes no sense. I have never been inside an office that had file cabinets nested inside file cabinets ad naseum.
We need a way to organize or abstract files such that they are easy to find and make sense to human sensabilities.
That damn time machine set me back 15 years!
I don't run GNOME on my system because I like the feeling of "raw Linux" and because I don't like how GNOME looks/works/acts/etc. That's entirely up to me and isn't the reason I hate it.
What I hate is all the unnatural dependencies on GNOME on RedHat systems. For instance, last night I upgraded my RH5.2 system to RH6.1. I have a lot of complaints about how this worked (like, why can't I cancel or at least unmount my drive? and why can't password-less users login or at least have root change their passwords), but the relevant complaint is the GNOME deps.
After the install I found that a lot of GNOME stuff had slipped through (another complaint: when I DON'T want to auto-install deps, let me UN-install upward deps). I spent a few minutes rpm -e'ing these, but when I tried to remove gnome-libs it told me that wmconfig needed it. OK, so get rid of wmconfig. Can't, fvwm needs it. WTF? That's just not possible. fvwm is ~8 years old, GNOME is
Actually, the real blame for this goes to RedHat (for stupid dependency defs) and the RPM format (for not allowing "wishlist" vs "gotta-have" deps). So once I get a tape drive I'm going to back my system up and install Debian. I hope it's a little saner and less "user-friendly".
To bring this post marginally on-topic: I don't mind if some (even most) people prefer "pretty", "standardized" Linux as long as two conditions are met:
1) I can still get to the "raw" level that I like.
2) Apps are not written to depend on a "standard" and break when it isn't true. There's a lot of tools on freshmeat that I'd like to use, but they all start with "g" or "K"--so I can't use them.
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Here is the result of your Slashdot Purity Test.
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
The biggest advancement Linux/UNIX GUIs need is Antialiased fonts. Apple did it, now its our turn. X has a lot of great features, a lot of nice and easy windows/desktop managers, but text sure does look like shit unless you have a 100+dpi moniter. Even then it isn't very impressive. My girlfriend always asks "why do the letters look like that when they are small?" and I respond, "Because that is the only thing Windows has better than Linux."
alright, if there is no standard, linux will never become as popular as it should. Something that looks better will come out, and linux will stay behind in the industry.
I actually think that open-sourcers enjoy the fact that there is no standard, but for the wrong reasons. They don't want "freedom of choice" or "free speech" software, look at the distro's of linux for instance: having multiple versions of linux means that software developers aren't forced to open source their software, but if they want it to run on "linux", the source usually has to be compiled on each system to run correctly on all systems. So here is my point: every slashdotter that has the "free beer" beliefs, will fight to the end to have no standard, its almost like a type of implied communism.
I dont see why nobody sees this..I think its due to the sheep theory.........
-----------not flaimbait..or a troll..just my opinion
Ya know, what if someone makes an Object Oriented Open Source Operating System?
The reason that the gui's on linux look don't look as professional as those created by the likes of Apple and of course MS is because those companies employ a large number of graphics artists and the sort who are good at making things look good. Then they put these things in front of people and ask them what they think. This has not been done in the gui's available for linux. While they may be technically sound, after all there is no lack of good programmers working on them, they are not as good looking because these programmers are good at writing code and not designing GUIs. I think there should be some sort of a public feedback system designed to help those working on these projects to make the GUIs look better. Of course people wouldn't always agree, but overall I think it would help. Getting some graphics artists involved in these projects would be of great help too.
Things have definitely improved from a few years ago but we can still do better.
There are two kinds of standards: official and consensual (or de facto). To create an official standard GUI for Linux would be near-impossible, because nobody has the authority to dictate what standards must be followed. If Linus doesn't like something, it may not make it into the official kernel, but nobody can be stopped from producing their own GUI.
To create a de facto standard GUI, all you need to do is create a GUI that everyone wants to use. So, standardizing the Linux GUI in this way is easy: just create a GUI that is all things to all people, and *poof* it becomes the de facto standard.
If you think that it's not possible to create a perfect GUI that is all things to all people, then you must abandon all hope of creating a standardized interface. Fortunately, the whole notion is silly anyway; there is absolutely no reason that a myriad of interfaces cannot exist. Just because many exist does not mean that a business cannot internally standardize on one, or that every Linux user must know how to use every single one!
Check it
- Linux shouldn't necessarily compete with Windows. And:
- A standard interface doesn't mean you won't be able to switch to a non-standard interface.
It's kind of like the RedHat distribution. A lot of people mistakenly think RedHat = Linux. While the notion is wrong, if people make their products work with RedHat, there's a good chance you can make it work on any Linux system, and still have all the configurability and customization you'd like.What I think is that there should be a standard FRAMEWORK. Something where you can write a program to be compatible with the "desktop environment", and not necessarily Gnome or KDE or something else. I would have it be like OpenGL - vendors (in this case GNU or Troll Tech) could add extentions, which might eventually be rolled into the specification for the "desktop environment" if they are widely accepted.
The only problem, as with many open software projects (and can be a drawback) is who ultimately decides what features are required to be compliant with "desktop environment 1.0"
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
The file manager's layout that's used in the Nautilus (Window explorer-like) is a bad choice. The most intuitive (even for beginners) is a two-pane "orthodox file manager" layout (like Norton Commander and Midnight Commander). I work as a computer training instructor and I know how hard it is for beginners to copy a file from one directory to another. We don't have to emulate Microsoft in this. Explorer generally sucks.
Id really love to see - and i think that linux needs this a bit - is some cross toolkit theming standard. Also, I'd like the toolkits to use similar rendering engines for pixmaps, gradients and stuff. that way you would be able to maintain a theme across multiple toolkits, managed in one place. It'd really make things better :) I mean, the different toolkits have their merrits, but I do think that the user should be able to make them look however they wana. And if thats the case, the user doesnt wana have to do the same thing 10 times. Also, more work could be concentrated on rendering engines if all toolkits used a standard one - to improve rendering times and stuff. I think thats the way that its guna have to go, eventually at least.
If uniformity is what you want, you'll be far happier with a G4 running OSX - the standardization runs straight down to hardware (plug and play) - you'll be very happy.
Anyway, I saw this in the Wired article:
Nautilus' file system includes a point-and-click file manager that will offer advanced features like the ability to tell the difference between sound files and pictures, and display them accordingly.
Does this scare anyone else? Since most unix files are not strongly 'extensioned', i.e. sound files aren't always .wav or .au (nor should they be), I'm just hoping these ex-Apple guys aren't trying to impose the creator type mess from the Mac onto Linux/Unix.
I recently got a macintosh after using linux and windows for years on end, and although it's very pretty and has great content apps, this creator types business has already screwed with me to no end. For the unfamilar: each file has about 8 bytes of information tagged at the top determining the "creation application" and the "type" of file within that application. Like, sound files aren't sound files, they are Sound Designer II files. Really horrible (and confusing) system, if you ask me. Many applications come with a utility to drag files onto to make the files "owned" by that application.
Even though Windows' extension type database isn't *that much* better, it's still loads less confusing. Creator Types wouldn't be as bad if they more or less normalized to MIME types and didn't have all that proprietary app information encoded into it...
Frankly I just don't understand why there has to be a common GUI for Linux--or any other OS for that matter. The interface layer of an "OS" is very distinct from the layers that do the work of an operating system. Given that, why is it bad to have a whole mess of interfaces floating around? Wired and other articles make it seem like the various GUIs compete with one another and sabotage Linux. Not true at all. The different GUIs make Linux more attractive in my book. I have a good OS, and I'm not stuck with an interface I don't like. In so far as the non technical user getting confused, I just don't see it. The various Linux packagers--Corel, Red Hat Suse, and the others--can and do invest time and money to create simpler and more streamlined interfaces. What this means to the consumer is that he or she has a bunch of good choices. Or will when they're finished developing the interfaces. Granted everything is based on X and that has its problems, but that doesn't have to be. Someone could easily come along and write new completely new display environment that would bolt right onto the underlying OS like X currently does. So, the Linux community isn't even really stuck with X. That kind of versatility makes Linux an even more attractive solution for anyone looking for an OS to drive their hardware product.
Thank you.
There are two trends fighting here : those who think nothing has to be elected as a standard interface , those who think it has to.
It's quite simple, though : if the goal is to make Linux only accessible to the happy few who know how to use a computer, and how this computer works internaly, choice is a good thing, no wonder about that.
But if the target audience is (as it tends to be these days) the non-computers-professionnal, the lawyer, the doctor, the student, with their precise needs, a common interface is a must !
I used to work in a netcafé during my holidays. The OS used there was Win9x. One day, a member of the staff decided to move the icon for IE some pixels at the right. A lots of customers complained because it was "impossible to surf the net anymore !".
Most non-computer-litterate users are lost when you slighlty move an icon, what happens if there's a different desktop on every computer ?
Then again, that only applies for those who want Linux to become a popular, widespread OS for the average Joe.
Stéphane
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
Linux is ready. Bring on the applications, such
as MS Office for Linux.
I would also point out that most of the people saying 'Linux needs a standardized desktop' are from companies hoping to be the ones to control that desktop; and don't make the mistake of thinking that because the standard desktop is GPL'ed, one company can't control it. All it takes is one company's version of GNOME or KDE to get substantial market share, and they can do whatever they want with it and the market will follow. The community can make whatever changes and additions they want, but if nobody uses them, what good will they be?
Having said that, I think that five years from now, the people that this mythical 'easy to use standard desktop' that everybody is trying to remake Linux for are going to be using something fitting the model of 'internet appliance'. It'll be a black box with defined functions, one way to accomplish those functions, and a user interface simple enough to use while driving (not that that will be recommended practice ;).
The way to get your grandmother into computing is not to try to shoehorn the computer into a model it doesn't fit. It's to build a new kind of computer that fits that model from the beginning.
I know a lot of people... non-geek people... who have mastered their environment. The sad thing is, they've become experts in manipulating the AOL mail system, or some other slave-to-the-mouse torture device, and their skills don't transfer anywhere.
Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, I don't think most people are really all that dumb. Most of them truly do need something less intimidating than a command line until they get some confidence. But locking them into some *standardized* environment where what they learn is grossly abstracted from the reality of what they're doing is just bad.
There is no reason at all to hide the filesystem hierarchy. Heck, when I started using Unix, I didn't know you could go up from your home directory, so how confused could I get?
And if a lay user has to say, "I'm sorry, I don't know Gnome, I only know WindowMaker," how is that different from, "Sorry, I don't know Windows, I only know Mac"? At least the OS is capable of switching window managers to whatever the user knows.
Yeah, yeah, X needs to be more friendly. No doubt. Contributions to that end are welcome, at least if they're GPLed. But I really don't think the totalitarian culture from Apple has much of a place in the Free Software world. It's not just information that wants to be free.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
I mailed the author of that article and informed him/her that he/she was basically totally misinformed about the above-mentioned file manager issue. Unless you dont think GNOME and KDE have fully operational FMs, and I persoanally think they are pretty well done FMs, you cant say they have none. I'm guessing the author has never touched a linux box and was just being a typical journalist.
"There is no spoon"-Neo, The Matrix
"SPOOOOOOOOON!"-The Tick, The Tick
A crucial element of having a GUI is that there is a common look and feel among the applications. In Linux, there's 4+ widget sets, a couple desktop environments, and countless window managers - and each distro comes set up differently. At the very least, a widget set should be made standard, and a default windowmanager/desktop environment should be chosen.
This lack of consistent interface is one of the major things that the X environment ugly as hell, along with things like having no anti-aliasing, that should be replaced in the next release.
-lx
Once agian linux chases the tail-lights, trying to figure out how to get to the desktop model Microsoft introduced in 1995.
One of the major factors that keeps Linux off the desktops of non-geek home and office users is the lack of interface standards. Without standards, users are constantly having to retrain themselves on how to deal with the interface. This is not a productive action. It slows their productivity and increases the frustration factor. Computers users should not be forced to start out at square one everytime they encounter a new program. There should be elements that they are already familar.
As for visual esthetics, The desktops currently available for Linux through its various distros are just plain "butt ugly". Enlightenment, however, is the most visually appealing removing the "butt", leaving it just plain ugly. To the average user, the lame Windows 95 interface and interoperation between applications is a far better user interface than what is available for Linux -- even the Win 95 knock-off desktops.
If Linux desktop designers want a clue on how to design the desktop for the non-geek world, take a gander at the human interface standards at Apple. While not perfect, Apple has developed UI design to an art. Common application actions are standardized. Learn one application, you already have developed a skill set that will carry through to the next application presented. In addition, if you look at the screenshots of MacOS X DP3 that have been posted online (and mentioned on Slashdot), one can see that an attractive interface can be placed on a UNIX variant. In fact, if Apple has its act together with MacOS X, Linux is pretty much sunk as the UNIX variant for the common man/woman because of the 20 years of UI design under Apple's belt. Plus, as everyone knows, BSD > Linux. :P
-- SJ
Just for the records I would like to say that there are a couple of mistakes (lack of information ?) in the article, the first and weirdest one being that there are no graphical file managers for Linux. At the moment I am typing I am using Kruiser (and I have been using it for a couple of months now) which looks a lot like the Explorer of NT4 (only that it is better).
So don't tell me that there aren't any file managers
On the other hand (and here I speak for myself) I wouldn't even consider not having the CLI since sometimes it is more useful that any graphical tool (mainly because I can type faster than I can move the mouse - and I am really good at that too).
So, in my opinion, and I won't be the first to say this, a system that can be acccessed only via GUI is deemed to be a Windows. No matter of what is under the hood. And I'll give you an example. Say you have a huge list of files that you want to rename (e.g. from Prefix-*******.something to ******.something). I'd like to see the average user doing this by hand (especially if you have 1000 files or more). Of course, any Unix/Linux user could tell me to use awk (at least I would) and do the job in a few seconds. Where is the use of the GUI here ?
The second part (and I like to dream, only that this article was too much) is about a system that plays the secretary. Come on, guys, I've been working with computers since '90 and I can tell you that there is no machine stupider that this one. And believe me, as long as we don't find something really revolutionary (i.e. understand the human brain and imitate it in AI) it won't be possible to have this sort of GUI. I mean, look at the search engines. I happens so often to return weird results even when your query is quite well constructed. And of course, what you need is there, in the result, only that it is in the 2nd or even 3rd page. So, no matter how much I would like an intelligent interface, I think that allowing the computer to filter the information and hide some of it is very risky. It is very likely that an important message will be purged without giving you the chance to do anything about it. And this is only an example
Don't take my considerations as pesimistic - I simply don't think we can do this yet.
And, of course : the most important part of all. No, there shouldn't be only one interface. We are saying that in the bussiness a monopoly is harmful and leads to stagnation. Well, don't you think this is true in almost every situation ? Including GUIs ?
Or the author of the article is under the influence of the Apple strategy : we are the owners, we produce a unitary product, we offer only one choice. Period. Oh, I forgot : you are not allowed to modify anything.
How does this fit in the GPL/GNU/Linux/... scheme ?
Nor will he ever. Linux is never going to capture the desktop market - even current efforts are well behind what Microsoft and Apple have been supporting for nearly a decade. Linux is not Joe Sixpack's OS, and I fear linux users are going to shipwreck the OS learning this lesson the hard way.
I'd agree that having one GUI standard for everything is bad. But your point about Emacs was odd - sure it's a large program that can perform many tasks, but they are all performed through one very simple interface.
In fact I'd say that they way Emacs works really drives the point about standard GUI's home - for what Emacs does (work with text in the most contextually approriate way possible) it provides one of the more optimal interfaces to do whatever you want very quickly using only the keyboard. The interface Emacs presents is not what you would want for all programs, but in its own area it works quite well.
I'd say we are starting to head toward more specialized task-oriented GUIs. A GUI I want for programming might be a lot different than one I'd use for graphics work or playing games.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
the only reason i use X is so i can copy and paste stuff around and talk to my windows friends with gaim and licq (ok i have a spammmable hotmail account too) linux was not designed to be a pretty desktop OS all u people that _need_ a GUI should be happy with what you have (if u use window maker of course) maybe if someone wants a pretty desktop *nix they should talk to apple and port OSX over to x86...
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CYA
Kenny Sabarese
Left Ear Music
greasy311@bigfoot.com
CYA
Kenny Sabarese
Left Ear Music
kfs@leftearmusic.com
irc.openprojects.net #windowma
If MacOS X succeeds it will be precisely BECAUSE it is so similar to Unix. Even Apple knows this--that's why they based it on BSD. So why not beat the rush and use Unix now?
As for the rest of your argument I agree: except for the part about X being dead. X is more alive than ever. Think about it. What are the two biggest fields of CS of the 90's (and beyond)? Networking and GUIs. What is X? A networked GUI (framework). Yeah, that's totally obsolete...
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Here is the result of your Slashdot Purity Test.
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Varsion 5.0 will be a free download for personal use.
Comes out in March
www.be.com
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Err... yeah. Microsoft introduced the desktop model in 1995. That's why the users of other platforms (e.g. Mac, Amiga, OS/2, et al.) were all so frustrated: the computers they had been using for years, didn't exist yet. Uh huh.
Many of the responses to this article tend to go like this:
"Who needs a fancy schmancy interface? Raw Xwindows is great!"
"We don't want to make Linux easier to use!"
Look, Linux started out as a private hack that went public and has grown into a very stable operating system kernel. But the long line of open source development and bleeding edge kernels is not the means, not an end. The goal is not for Linux to be the OS of the 3/_33t who like recompiling kernels and hacking X windows config files. If you want to be able to graduate and not have to use Windows on the job, then Linux has to progress beyond the embryonic stage.
Quite frankly, we need the expertise of people like those at Eazel. I recently tried out OS X for the Mac (which runs on a Mach kernel), and it's far from perfect but it's so far above and beyond anything for X, including MacOS-like themes, that you can't make valid comparisons.
You know, I think Apple has hit the nail directly on the head with their PDF engine for MacOSX. Vector based interfaces will be the future. Even if that vector art is rendered all purty-like to the point that it looks like raster art, I still believe that a vector based interface will prevail.
Why? I have a 19" Monitor at home that I use on my production machine at 1600x1200x32Bit. One of my roommates on the other hand, has a 14" monitor that he runs at 800x600x16bit. Look at Flash on the web. If I look at a properly done flash site, I can view it at full resolution, stretched to fill my screen, while he can do the same, and they look pretty much identical -- with the same piece of flash 'code'. I don't get pixel-chunky curves when the plugin 'stretches' the flash to full screen for me, and he doesn't lose too much quality when he views it at 1/4 my size, thanks to anti-aliasing.
As monitors get bigger and bigger, faster and faster, and we still need to (at least somewhat) support legacy displays, Vector based interfaces will play a large part in how we view our 'desktop'.
The fatal flaw in your argument is that X, in itself, is the user interface. Of course you are quite wrong.
/fundamental/ to the current implementation of X, and no window manager that you chose to run on it will overcome those, no matter how flash the "skins" are.
/real/ user interface.
This is the standard X apologist's canard, and it's nonsense. The problems with the X based GUI are
Where's the cut and paste? Where's the colorspace management? Where's the font handling? Where's the vectorized graphics engine? Where's the unified print/display model? This stuff isn't mysterious; it's been available for years.
X does one thing well: open terminals on remote machines. That the GNOME/KDE folks have built something that implements about 10% of a modern GUI is commendable. Themable window managers, however, are not a replacement for usable ones.
You can stop dreaming, it'll never happen.
You're right about Mac OS X for Intel, though, which is a shame; the current DP runs like a champ and shows what a modern Unix can do when connected to a
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Although Linux already has a pair of evolving GUIs -- KDE and Gnome -- neither has a graphical file manager. Instead of clicking on icons or menus to open and save documents, users must type file names into a command-line interface.
Not to mention: "We've never used either desktop, and if we have, then we didn't really know what we were doing! We're just talking out of our collective asses ... in an attempt to make this seem like bigger, more important news."
WHY?! Because they BOTH have graphical file managers and they BOTH offer cute little icons to click on, AND shortcuts, and much more...
However, there is some good stuff missing. First of all, it's not easy to do half of the stuff when it comes to icons and junk. In KDE, it's very difficult to chose an icon unless it's in one of the specified directories, and it also only supports XPM; GNOME supports a little more than that. So, yes, there is still work to be done.
............ no.
Sheesh! What do those guys want. Right now I'm running GNOME and Sawmill. Its straighforward, free, good looking (I use the MinEGTK theme and the microGUI theme and it looks, feels and is better than Windows or the Mac). Sawmill is fast, programmable, extensible etc. Lets just keep going the way were going. Seems like the Johnny-come-lately people from Apple are trying to make our system into theirs. BTW: Screw the file manager. Most people dont use it that much anyway in UNIX. I will say that Gnome/KDE need standardization in dialog boxes and all the usual areas of interaction.) Lets not re-invent the Mac. Lets make it better. PS: I was *not* impressed with what I saw on the Snapshot page. It looked overdone and confusing. Jim Burnes jburnes @ net.savvis (reverse the last two)
A universal interface standard cannot be imposed on Linux users, because we have Freedom to choose the interface we prefer. As long as the source is out there, people will develop their own interfaces.
A standard MUST be implemented for linux to succeed as a desktop OS.
For example...it really SUCKS that I can drag/drop songs to xmms from GMC, but not from KFM. I can drag a picture URL from netscape to EE, but not from netscape to GQView. I can launch things from DFM by dragging to the dock in windowmaker...but not from KFM or GMC. The list goes on and on and on and on.....
Choice is good! NOBODY is arguing that! I prefer KFM or DFM over GMC. But gnome apps want gnome DD calls, where KDE apps want KDE calls. NOTHING FUCKING WORKS TOGETHER!
y'all need to decide on a standard way of doing things, and let that standard GROW. YES, you can STILL have different WM's with different look/feel, but the UNDERLYING OBJECT MODEL MUST BE STANDARDIZED!
Take a look at OS/2's WPS and how easy it is for a developer to inherit and extend an existing object class, for example.
that guy Nielsen has point... is like we're trying to PORT everything to Linux which is not bad at all, but, some things could be started from scratch, why the the mac approach? when clearly there could be a better approach, a linux approach... spinning a around a new a axis? is the job too overwhelming? is that the real solution to the incompatibility of GUI's and make-em perty excuses? its all to atract new users anyway!
Istigkeit -"is-ness" being and becoming & i'dfiying it with the mathematical abstraction of the idea
You have probably received 400 emails about this already, but just in case - here goes. Both Gnome and KDE already have graphical file managers, contrary to the article which said neither has a graphical file manager. Here is a screenshot of the Gnome file manager and here is one of KDE's.
Please issue a retraction so people are not misled. It is very important to the Linux community that people in the more general computing public become aware that Linux is becoming easier to use. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
So, do it for yourself, then, instead of for your boss. It might make your life easier, and you'll probably learn something.
I wrote a GUI DNS thingy a while back in Perl/Tk. It was fun, and I learned a bit about GUI development under Perl.
Advanced Perl Programming has a chapter on Perl/Tk, and now there's even a whole O'Reilly book on Perl/Tk, I think.
New XFMail home page
I like my gnome/windowmaker desktop just fine. One of the things that I feel make windoze so unstable is all that crap that's been added to the "active" desktop. It's useless. I hope there aren't any plans to do any crazy stuff like that to gnome in the future, or to kde for that matter...
What about FVWM95... although I loath it... that is something that we could build upon to make linux as 'non threatening' as possible. With more development of some of the stuff that's missing out of windows (easy device configuration, good file manager, etc) that could probably solve this thing. Plus it's really easy to get rid of if you don't want it. :-)
It would appear that the 'authoritive' author of the article knows diddly about Linux, has never used it and is just making conjectures from technical discussions that clearly went over her (?) head. That someone would claim KDE and GNOME don't have filemanagers is like claiming pigs fly (which I've ONLY seen after a full night of partying). I think the claim is potentially damaging - a graphical filemanager is central to any graphical user interface. Complaints (tactful and professional) should be made so that an errata can be posted. If you respond to the article, please be nice - it doesn't appear to be an attempt to fud, just a misunderstanding...
I've been working on a Windows based application, and I was determined to make it as visually uncomplicated as possible, while following the general Windows/MDI scheme. While I think I succeeded reasonably well, I think I failed in an important respect: the interface is not very attractive.
Many people might not think it matters, so long as it is functional, but I think it does matter. The boss has always been able to have nice offices and furniture, and a generally pleasant environment, whereas the drones have had to make do with ugly but functional gunmetal gray desks and gray fabric cubicles. With software, there's no reason for this dichotomy. Everyone should be able to enjoy an aesthetically pleasing software environment.
Windows does present a bind; part of doing a good job on an application is that you don't really want to stand out in a garish way from the organization. A fairy tale castle may look beautiful on the Rhein but would be silly in Manhattan. Practically anything looks silly when plopped in the middle of Stalinist era apartment blocks. This may be as great a reason to detest Windows as any: it's unncessary aesthetic mediocrity. Microsoft has an incredible tin ear when it comes to visual appeal (have you ever looked through the PowerPoint themes?).
Visual appeal is not the only, or even the most important element in GUI aesthetics, but it is relevant. I tried the Aqua theme on my Windows box, and it made work just a little bit nicer. Unfortunately, the skins program had compatibility problems so I had to delete it. This kind of themeability should be a standard part of every GUI.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
One wonders how WIRED can have any credibility at all after making such blatant mistakes avoidable through the most cursory research. (I say mistakes because it's common to many their articles, not just this. <sigh>)
There should NOT be a 'standard' GUI for linux. The beauty of linux in that there is a choice. M$ Windows is a 'standard'.
Blegh. Teach people something. You only talk babytalk to an infant for so long before you expect it to pick up real language.
--mandi
If Linux ever wishes to challenge "dominant species" of the field it needs simple GUI for end users. This doesnt have to mean that all you powerusers have to give off your hot rod custom enviroments. ,)). I would like to see end users think this way too. Why. When operating systems equip us with more processing power we can do more with our old machines.
The key isnt in beauty, its the end users. If we wish to make them see how exellent Linux is we need to bring it to them. But then again do ou wish to give away your treasure.
Main reason I use Linux is that it is convenient and efficient (and it has gimp
Then again Opensource is more easy to upkeep, maintain and to adapt.
As mentioned many times before, Easy-To-Use-Interface doesnt have to take away your customizability, it needs to hide it. Enduser/Poweruser modes for ex.
Parents Against Kuro5hin
Filler.
Come on, we need actual news.
I tend to disagree with what everyone seems to be saying here. Just hold your horses, and breathe through your nose for a minute while I share my humble opinion...
I think there should be a standardizing of UI's for Linux. Everytime I bring this up everybody bitches and moans about how if we standardize the Linux UI it'll get "...as fuck ugly as Windows..." Let's get one thing straight - I DONT WANT TO STANDARDIZE THE GUI - Just parts of the UI. If we standardize the GUI, we'll lose our artistic expression. Personally I think the KDE kids are doing a nice job, but it's sooo damn ugy. That's why I use E(yecandy)nlightenment.
The reasoning for standardizing the UI is to remedy all the blasted different ways programs behave. For example, in some programs, to quit the hotkey is 'CRTL-Q', while in others its 'ALT-Q', or ':q!', or even 'CRTL-X CRTL-C'. And to save it's the same problem - 'CRTL-S', 'ALT-S', ':w' or that awful 'CRTL-X CRTL-S'.
Why can't we just set aside our differences and play nice?
Perhaps the buzzword "standard" is the problem here. Call it a "basic Linux GUI" or a "starter GUI" or some such. Pilots start out in easy-to-fly training planes and later advance. Why can't there be the Linux equivalent of an aircraft designed to be forgiving and easy to use?
Some people will never get beyond that stage (just as many pilots never go beyond single-engine VFR), but those who want to advance have plenty of alternatives available.
To continue the aviation analogy, note that different aircraft have different purposes, levels of complexity, and performance characteristics, but they all react basically the same way to the same control inputs - and you don't hear Mach III fighter pilots complaining about Cessna building 120 mph "family" airplanes instead of forcing everyone to fly an F-14.
- Robin
I've used linux for quite a while, and I've never used a file manager. I've tried gentoo (I think that's what it's called) and the new KDE file manager, and of course gmc. They're all VERY nice programs. But what I've found is that I've worked on my box for so long, I know exactly where something is when I'm looking for it, and a GUI actually SLOWS ME DOWN when I have to click "up the tree", ok, now into the "/home" directory, ok, now choose the "uruk" user directory, yeah, ok, choose foo.txt, etc. etc. etc.
:) Of course why not just have a popup window that asks you what directory you want to be in before the window comes up? That way you can type, right? But then you have to fool around with the right window having focus, and those window manager features where popup windows get focus automatically drive me bat shit, so that's kind of out. :)
My file manager is called "bash". It provides extremely powerful features such as "cd", "ls", "cp", "rm", "find", etc. If you know how to use them and you're a touch typist, you'll smoke whatever a GUI file manager can offer.
And besides, how do you do something like this in a GUI file manager?
find . -name "*.txt" -exec grep "foobar" {} \;
I have yet to find a file manager that will let me do that, but maybe there's one out there.
The only way that I could think of that a GUI file manager would become what I would prefer to use is if it was able to pop up a window corresponding to whichever directory I wanted to be in at a certain time. While that's usually $HOME, it changes a lot, so really the file manager would have to be psychic. The GNOME folks have done some really amazing things with software, but I have yet to see psychic software.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
The "rise of Windows" hasn't increased computer literacy... it has only lowered the standard.
I'm glad someone's thinking this way. It's what I've said all along. We, as a community, need to evaluate our goals and not just assume that what we want to do is capture the desktop market.
My motives for using Linux are purely selfish. It meets *my* needs better than any other OS so I use it. Frankly I don't care if my mother can use it or not. I would like to see it gain enough support so that a good selection of apps were available for it so that I'd have even less excuse to boot Windows on my machine. But that's it. I don't see that I really have anything to gain from Linux actually achieving 'world domination', and maybe would stand to lose something. What I want to see is Linux continue to have the characteristics that attracted me to it in the first place: stability and configurability. (And it's just plain fun!)
[somebody please moderate this up so that everybody will see it.]
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
Apologies for this completely redundant post!
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> "out of the box" standard that is intended
> to make Linux more useful to newbies
Don't we have that already? I think when I went into gnome for the first time I saw minimize,maximize and close buttons in the top right (same symbols, colors etc.)
But then I started messing.
I suppose there's more to it than that, but the file manager in gmome (gmc) looks fairly similar to win98 (back, forward and up buttons etc.)
The file open/dialogs could be improved a bit but they're certainly not reliant on the keyboard at all.
.. now to think if i can come up with something original to post.
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"If I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists" -
This may be true for you, but I will offer you $10 dollars is you can explain the contents of this email to my mum!
http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm
I know I'm skating dangerously close to trolling here, but:
It strikes me that Eazel is beating GNOME at their own game -- getting tremendous press coverage to hype software they haven't written yet and somehow always giving journalists the impression that no GUI is currently useful, or even exists, for Unix.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Both KDE and Gnome have graphical file managers. Both are highly functional and the release of KDE 2 is coming soon, which will raise the bar for Gnome.
The author has clearly not done any research and thereby labels himself a bullshit-artist.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
I'm sorry, but this anarchy-for-anarchy's sake stuff gets to me when you talk about Linux' UI (or lack thereof). I really do not intend that comment as a flame... ;-)
;-)
As a former Unix/C programmer who has backslidden into Management, I have listened to a LOT of folks who might like to use Linux, but just find the UI baffling. Believe it or not, these same folks can actually use MS windoze. Germaine to the article at hand, though, my users RARELY ever open up the old Windows NT Explorer (formerly File Manager).
ANYWAY, a set of UI guidelines (and that's all they're REALLY proposing, by the way) are long overdue. This, to me, is the ONE THING that now differentiates the Mac (and my old NeXT that I still miss, may she Rest In Peace) from PC's. Sit at a PC or Linux box and try to find something on the various menus. You just have to keep looking until you find it, look in Help, or (like my users) pull out your '45 and shoot the computer out of frustration.
On the other hand, things on a Mac or my dead NeXT are pretty much in the same place from program to program. This is really due to a document more or less called the User Interface Guidelines, IMHO.
Of course, QuickTime doesn't count.
Please Let's DO encourage this! I think they CAN be made generic enough to please most folks.
Point is that Microsoft's (bussiness) succes relies in marketing. I heard that when Win95 came out, elder people who'm do not own a PC at all, bought a Win95 package! Can say anything negative about this, but this is the power of marketing
This marketing power is enforced by a stable, consequent face. You need a face, users will ask for Windows in the retail shop. "Windows" sounds nicer than X, or KDE, or Gnome, which are words, pronounced in English or any Germanic language, with hard sounds, the word "Windows" is pronounced using more commonly accepted soft-sounds.
So who cares? Well, me mommy really isn't going to buy anything which is ackward to pronounce, or anything sounding very complex. Marketing is psychology, you need a face, you need a sound, you need as much cognition as possible, and it needs to be a consequent manner.
If Linux is ever to be a succesful operating system in the manner of many users, it really needs stuff like this (a face, a sound (remember the start-up tune of win95?), a nice name for the WM (I think enlightment is quite good) and a reference (i.e. killer-apps)). If Linux is ever to be a succesful operating system in the manner of software availability, it needs many users.
One thing I don't understand:
Linux community exists of programmers, advocates, graphical artists, volunteers for promotional actions etc. It is possible to organize open-source projects, even the documentational side-projects are organized, how difficult is it to organize a group dealing with image? Even RedHat is not doing very well in this field.
Just some thoughts...
Bizar technology?
Why not somthing innovative? How about a system where file location is the important part. Each file be it source, binary or simply a document has properties that say where it belongs. A broker would perform the function of sending the file to the correct directory.
If the file is inadvertantly put in the incorrect location, broker engine "cleaners" come along and give notice that file "foo" seems to be in the incorrect location and an idiot proof tool to automatically move it to the correct location so that it can be read by the appropriate application.
This really isn't too far from how things work now. Apache only serves up file from a predefined location. Linux has a default directory structure. MS Office defaults documents to "My Documents". Take it a step further.
In addition to properties like file name, size, date created, date modified would be the default path. The broker program automatically ensures files are put in the correct place and runs scans to ensure there aren't any incorrectly placed files.
Each application developer could fit their program in a structure like this:
For the program: [Root]../[application name]/[app files]/[app source] or [app binary]
For the user's created or downloaded files: [Root]../[application name]/[app user files]/[user1] and [user2] .....
There would be many inherent benefits to a system like this. Looking at a tree directory at all would be pointless since all the broker would have to know is who the current user is and where his/her files are stored by default. The entire environment would be cleaner because all files are in the correct place by default. It has advantages over the current file extension registry process because there are only so many three letter combos to use for file extensions and applications tend to "stomp" each other by using the same extension, changing extensions, or overwriting extension registrys.
The association process would be in the hands of the user. Having a broker organize the applications by name there is less of a chance of inadvertant overwriting because there are already worldwide trademark laws. I could go on but you get the idea.
From a user perspective life would be simplified. If you download a particualr graphic format it would automatically be placed in the correct directory to be "seen" by the correct graphics program. Life on the desktop would be simplified to starting applications and browsing the web.
For cases where two applications need to "see" the same file we could set different applications to perform different operations on a file. Each file would have a "edit" directory property or a "browse" directory property. The person then could configure the file broker to send files to the directory for each associated application(s) in the case where the person wants to edit a browsed file (or turn on the option for editing browsed files).
don't be dumb, there is no one living in that timezone...
Yes there is. Canada's maritime provinces are 1 hour ahead of the Eastern time zone and Newfoundland is one and a half hours ahead. They're the ones who first see the sun in North America.
This link is the screenshot.
Here
But there are others, if you feel like browsing.
May well be right. Of the many critisisms laid at the door of WINNT, the fact that the server & workstation models share the same architecture and codebase is one of the more cutting.
For e.g.
It's probably (I'm being diplomatic, just making a point OK?) not appropriate for a Server OS to have a GUI running in Kernel mode - able to take down the whole OS. By contrast, for a workstation OS where resilience is less of an issue and up front performance more so, it is probably appropriate. Therefore, the two OS should be more fundamentally different.
Linux makes a great server but is the architecture really right for the DT? Surely there is too much baggage for what should be fundamentally simpler than a server OS.
Stay with me here: Commercial app makers know that you can't please everyone all the time, and that people like to be able to fall back on things they've already learned -- Ctrl-S is save, right?
It is therefore in the interest of these commercial app makers to go with a the same system everyone else is. If a particular GUI has a larger marketshare and more consumer-ready apps already existing, that's where your company should go, right? Folks, we've learned this lesson before -- or have we already forgotten the one big lesson MS had to teach us last decade?
There will be a standard. Hell, MS could probably set those standards tomorrow by introducing parts of Office for Linux and saying "this is how it is". It's all about the apps. The question really facing we in the OSS community is whether we want to remain involved in guiding Linux, or if we want to give it over to the same type of people who've stalled the current level of innovation for the sake of a few (billion) dollars?
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Linux shouldn't necessarily compete with Windows.
A lot of people, including me, will agree with you on this. I think Linux (and friends) got where they are today due to their disregard of Windows. The idea has not been to create a competitor for Windows. It was to create a stable, flexible, open, modular operating environment. The fact that Windows happens to be none of these things is what makes Linux a threat to Microsoft.
However, now that many people have become used to using Linux, they get disgusted when they are required to use Windows. I work on Windows NT boxes all day long and think how much productivity is wasted fixing things that never would have broken in the first place if we were using Linux or BSD. What bothers me most is that I have to click 20 different things to do something in Windows that could be done in Linux by typing a short, if perhaps cryptic, command.
That said, I'll really be happy to see better GUI utilities for Linux. Gnome's file manager (yes there is one, despite what the article claims) just doesn't cut it for me. I hate to say it but I'd rather use NT Explorer (not to be confused with Internet Explorer) than gfm. Fortunately I find it pretty easy to use the shell instead and type "cp file1 file2" to copy files, "mv file1 file2" to move files, and "rm file" to remove a file. So I rarely use a file manager anyway. There are times however when I prefer to see a visual representation of the file system...especially in cases where the filesystem is complex, or just plain messy. I understand why Nautilus seems to be Eazel's primary focus at this point.
BTW, in case anyone hasn't mentioned this, non-Linux/*nix users can get a look at many of the currently available configurations/themes for Linux at http://e.themes.org. I'm really just pointing this out because I object to the idea that people's Linux desktops are all ugly. True, the default Redhat 6.x desktops are as bland as Win2k's default, but there is a lot of flexibility already in how you can make it look. As a default setting, bland is better anyway.
numb
Also, the next line "Industry watchers consider this a gaping hole in the heart of any easy-to-use operating system" makes no sense in the new article. BAH! I still don't trust WIRED.
Quite possibly a broken one. Doesn't matter whether it's a CLI or a GUI. If you have to relearn every interface you touch, you certainly are not going to be very productive.
It would be nice if there was a "style book" for KDE and GNOME interface design for those out there who are designing UI's with user experience and productivity in mind. It's definetely not a requirement to follow the style book, but like good grammar it makes things easy on the person sitting/standing on the other end. Good UI design is not soley about "making things pretty". It can work in the opposite direction so far as making things easier and productive. Good UI design is simple, direct, ergonomic, and follows the Bauhaus design philosphy: "function before form". Remember: Good design should be Bauhaus or it's Baroque.
Win98's integration can _not_ be turned off.
Let GNOME and KDE offer integration. You want GNOME to start fetchmail for you? Make that an option.
An option. A choice. The real difference between open-source and closed-source.
Examples:
So person A wants integration for some things because then they wont have to worry about them. Person B doesn't want integration because they are only own a palrty 266MHz K6-2 with 12mb of ram.
Why can't one desktop appeal to both?
And to get back onto the big subject: why would we need a _new_ desktop to do this?
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
If there were a consistent or "standard" desktop and file manager in Linux, would it make some things that are sort of obscure right now, such as "How do I make a screen capture of my KDE desktop?" more consistent and/or easier to figure out? I spent about an hour the other day trying to figure THAT one out. Before giving up in vain. And then finding out by accident two days later that you need additional software installed to do that. (is that correct? I sure hope not. Why wouldn't you include a screenshot utility in a GUI?)
I have been trying to move completely to Linux for about three months now (and have been studying it before installing for the last year), so please excuse my ignorance if this is not correct.
Anyways, I am far too determined and stubborn to give up on Linux just because of these minor shortcomings. I am convinced there is a lot of potential to it, but as a long-time computer user (1979, Apple II) and someone with way too much time on his hands, I am 100% positive that until something is done to standardize the desktop, graphic file manager, and programming API's, Linux definitely won't gain widespread (i.e 5-10% of all desktop machines) acceptance, much less "total world domination."
P.S. Thanks Slashdot! Happy belated 10,000th story!
Free music from Jack Merlot.
It's too late to do that. You can't get rid of ":w" from vi (I won't stand for it!) nor can you enforce ":w" on other programs.
Likewise, unless you're Microsoft, you can't force anyone to use a particular widget set, UI, anything.
As a user, you *may* choose to restrict yourself to (say) Gnome compliant apps, or KDE compliant apps, or whatever. Then you'll have the consistency you so crave. But you're denying yourself some programs which you might find useful.
--
This whole article just reeks of "give me choice!!!" Oh please. I think it's time we wake up and face the facts: too much choice is a bad thing.
Consumers don't like having to make choices between 5 products that are nearly the same; how do you pick your paper towels, for example? I just get the cheapest one, since they all do the same thing: clean up spilled Surge.
Computers just make the issue worse, since people have very little understanding of what is happening inside. It's easy to understand paper towels; but is it easy to understand web browsers and file managers and desktops?
Additionally, consider how the Web market has fractured with the advent of many different browsers. You have to make your page compliant with NS, IE, Opera, and Lynx (and soon Mozilla.) Why? Because there is choice, and too much of it.
True, standards exist to ensure that products work alike in some ways. But if you are going to dictate the standard, why bother having different products at all? That just amounts to having several people reimplement the same functionality over and over.
The solution is to standardize, but the Unix crowd will never listen to that. They're used to being fractured, and are now deluded into believing it's a healthy, productive thing. Try telling any software engineer it's healthy and productive for him to reimplement other people's code rather than reusing it. It just isn't so.
Unless you haven't noticed, some people control the kernel, some control the graphics libs, some the GUIs, but no one controls all of them. There is no governing unit to set the standards you describe, and by the way, people have been trying this since with NeWS on Sun in 1990.
That brings up a question.
Nautilis(sp?) is making this big hype about ease of use etc... are they going to have quick command line acess built in/integrated or are we going to have to rely on current *terms?
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
What??? My friends told me Free Beer was one of the best things about Linux!
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Also, I have always wondered why the hell GNOME icons get rendered so poorly. Look at what happens when you specify an icon with an alpha channel in Windowmaker - it gets antialiased against the colors on the button, like it should. GNOME just draws it right over the button texture with no antialiasing. This looks awful. Is this an imlib issue?
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
I just want more buttons on my mouse :-)
;-)
- -------
That's the best UI improvement I can think of. One for open/save/compile/run/email etc.
Seriously though. Sure, have a default one. Make sure it can and will be customized like hell by the user.
Make the wm learn - MS Offices idea of hiding rarely used menu items was a (lightly misguided) in the right direction.
I want the wm to notice that I usually minimize XMMS within a few seconds of starting it playing. When it notices this it will ask me "In future, do you want the Play button to automagically minimize too"
NB: I meant "proper" data-mining. I don't mean the XMMS developers explicitly put this in. I want it to genuinely apply statistics to my habits. Notice the way after you save a file you quite often do a compile/execute. If it notices that this usually happened to files being saved in a directory called ~/c_progs (like I have).
I don't think it would be _too_ hard to implement. I have thought about this kinda thing in depth - well, knee deep anyway, not neck deep
There's no end to what it could learn. File dialogs could notice that certain directories are visited a lot and make them quicker to reach. It could not what kinda file extensions are associated with particulars dirs. If implemented properly it really could learn/customize stuff that the developers never expected!
Just maintain a big database of every "common" action the user takes. Events that happen within say five seconds of each will be stored in a list. Every so often (middle of some night) pump it into a program that looks for non-randomness. Companies like IBM are into this kinda stuff, AFAIR. Insurance companies would love it.
It's more a mathemical/statistical problem than a programming/coding one.
Blah Blah Blah. I must stop ranting (and going off topic)
-----------------------------------------
"If I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists" -
WTF!!
Howcome the GNU/Linux interfaces are only valid once people from some-big-name-company join in and help!
Come on now! We don't need people from Apple to blow dust on GNOME to make it easy to use! They have been developing GNOME for a while now and it keeps getting easier to use. They have an interface team constantly trying to offer suggestions to make the system more usable, and their suggestions are smart from what I know.
The same problem exists with Corel. Yesterday I read a brief review of Corel Linux. They said something like "Corel made Linux more like Windows and easier to use." BS! KDE has had a great interface from the start with the option to place the menu on top and their smart window manager.
How come the Free Software community can do nothing right until some-big-name-company comes in and takes all the credit.
The Free Software community has made some of the greatest software in the world. How come the Press fails to recognize this?
This link should point to www.x.org!
Linux is only going to suffer if we continue to bicker about which desktop we "bless" as the standard face for Linux to try to achieve some apparent stability. The notion is that if we standardize on one desktop, then it's much easier for applications to be written since they don't have to work with countless different desktops. Natural selection in this situation quickly leads to one desktop dominating and all new programs written to only support it. Sound familiar?
If we had a desktop API, and the desktop managers were written to it, then the applications could be written to it as well and not care what desktop manager was being used. I could run whatever I wanted, and not worry about being compatible with the most popular desktop manager. Linux distros could be made with a GUI that worked exactly like Windows for beginners, but all their stuff would be usable with the other desktop managers they switched to as they became more advanced.
Now imagine what could be done. For example, Apple could create a Mac desktop for Linux that was not just a window manager in drag, but really looked and felt and worked like a Mac desktop, but was totally compatible with any other Linux app that interacted with the desktop (Mac app compatibility would be a separate isssue). I think they could sell something like that. I doubt they would ever do it, but maybe the guys at Easel could.
I will also say now that I am a relatively new Linux user, but have had casual experience over years with several flavors of unix. I have also used DOS, Macs, Windows and OS/2. If anyone is getting ideas that Gnome or KDE is the best there is - then you need to get out more. Oh sure, they may spank the Windows GUI in most areas, but they are almost just as shallow. I think there are far too many efforts to put makeup on Linux and not enough on making it truly sexy.
Ryan Gray
explain to me, someone new to thought of switching shells, why sh is best for root? what are the security concerns? - because I would like to play it safe.
The web is the ultimate example. It offers a few basic paradigms (clicking on links, typing in forms, etc.) but like a widget set, the actual design is up to the creators. Would the web be easier to use if all web pages followed a consistant layout - with no weight given to the page's actual use or content? For example, Slashdot has a decent UI for its function, and Amazon also has a good UI for its function, but can you think of a single layout that would accomplish both functions consistantly across both sites? I think enforcing such a layout would be harmful to both sites, and ultimately counterproductive.
The most important thing is for applications to accomplish their function. A GUI's purpose is to aid the user in accomplishing that goal. A single program should be expected to be consistant for its purpose - thus improving ease-of-use - but to needlessly assign a generic GUI to all programs for the sake of ease-of-use over function will improve neither.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
X _IS_ the common interface for GUIs. Drag and Drop (which I personally think is silly) should be a X extension. There are several proposals for this. Accelerators (app specific key bindings) are just that, app specific. The mappings should not be globalized as you suggest. Themes are toolkit specific now, and should probably remain that way. I would prefer not to have some standardized notion of a theme. Theming, windows, menus, blah blah blah, are a very closed minded way to approach GUIs anyway. There are better ways for some applications.
Anyway X is a pretty good standard as is, with maybe a drag and drop extension.
In the free software world, change is more incremental. 1994 versions of Linux can run the latest software. Utilities in the operating system allow access to the latest file formats. And above all, if your mum did need a new version of Linux, perhaps to use that new printer she just bought, she could get it for free.
One OS is a ticking timebomb for the end user. The other will remain viable for years.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
No, you don't have to do either of those things, what browser are you using to look at slashdot?
Probably Netscape...
Netscape is only released in one way.
That one binary runs on GNOME, KDE, Window Maker, and all others. They just chose to write to the standard X APIs.
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
What we are talking about here is more fundamental. Continuing your airplane analogy imagine the shit we would be in if manufacturers decided to call their parts different names. Say one decides that the new name for the flaps is 'rudder' and vice versa. The confusion would be disastrous.
The same problem hits linux GUIs. In windows most applications have an exit option. In linux it may be quit or exit depending on who wrote the software. It may or may not have a shortcut key and the shortcut if it's there it will be different on each package. It's not good to force everyone to use the same level of software but the common interface would do a world of good.
The article features that old anti-UNIX argument again: that it's design hasn't changed for so many years (and therefor is outdated - that's what these people usually want to suggest).
The Windows design is still changing - in a desperate attempt to bring the virtues that UNIX has featured for a long time to Windows.
The MacOS design is currently being completely revised to be based on - UNIX!!!!
IMHO, the reason why UNIX isn't changing much anymore is that it does all the things it's supposed to do very well.
Just like sharks - biologists say they've hardly evolved for millions of years now - because they fill their biological niche perfectly, there's nothing to be improved anymore!
What was that clever sig again?
"Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it - poorly!"
(or something along these lines
"We won't use guns, we won't use bombs, we'll use the one thing we've got more of and that's our minds" - Pulp
OK, here's a concept...
;)
;)
*nix's gui is already based on a series of levels.
(For example, there's the kernel at the lowest end, then the console (text mode) above that, then X Windows to provide GUI facilities, then the WM to provide applaunching and window control facilities, etc...)
Why not expand on that? Have a series of UI levels such that a beginner can have all the glitz and candy-coated lead-me-by-the-hand features, but an advanced user can strip all that crap away and just run what they need to.
For example, starting the abstraction at the X Windows layer, top-down since it's easier to type it that way
- X Windows (XFree or some other)
- Font Smoothing (We NEED antialiasing - but let it be disable-able for speed if necessary)
- User-Selectable GUI set (KDE, Gnome, None, etc...)
- User-Selectable WM (possibly specified by the GUI set in the case of KDE/Gnome, but user-overridable)
- Apps (Again, may or may not require specific GUI sets or WMs)
Most of this is possible now, but the projects are in their infancy. The major addition is font antialiasing - which would go a LONG way towards making X a bit nicer to look at.
Allowing the user to select whether or not to use a GUI set, such as Gnome, KDE, or whatnot will allow the user to get rid of glitzy features they don't want/need while allowing the beginner to have the crutch they need in order to feel comfortable.
Allowing the GUI set to specify higher-level GUI elements (such as WMs and apps) lets these projects define their "standard" interface without infringing on the freedoms already present for advanced users.
An effort should still be made to keep most apps from relying on a specific GUI set or WM - for example, Gimp should still be able to rely on GTK, but shouldn't require that the user be running Gnome and Enlightenment (that would suck for people on low-end systems).
One last thing - NEVER remove the ability to get to a command line. Properly used, the cl is a faster, more powerful way of getting many things done. It may not be as intuitive as "drag n drop" for file management, but it's a LOT easier to type 'pine' 'emacs' or 'vi' than it is to move my hands from the keyboard to the mouse, navigate through 5 levels of nested menus, click, then move my hands back to the keyboard.
OK, this is getting a bit long, I'll shut up now
OK, this is not a troll, just my opinion, BUT... So far, it seems like there is a lot of unwarranted hype about Eazel. Yes, they have ex-HIG members, but I have to say I'm not impresssed with the design that's in the screenshots so far. Granted, they have only begun recently, and given the pace of Linux development, and the talent involved, it may turn out to be something really cool. I hope so. For now, I think that Konqueror is looking a bit more promising. The screenshots at mosfet.org are very impressive - he's got one where he's viewing all sorts of things at once (a .dvi doc, a PostScript doc, a gopher listing, and a FTP site). I don't use the GNOME or KDE panels - I like my Blackbox root menu just fine, thank you - but sometimes I want a nice graphical file manager, and so far I like the way Konqueror is coming along. It is nice to have the competition from Nautilus; I think the reason that both projects are moving along so well is the competition.
As for a standard... I hate it when things are forced on me. The great thing about Linux is choice - your choice of window manager, desktop environment (if you want one), or just a console. Don't force GNOME, or KDE, or anything else on me - I'm perfectly capable of choosing. The need is not for a "standard", but for more innovative interfaces. When you standardize, innovation is stifled. I've yet to see much REAL innovation in desktops lately, in ANY operating system. How about a new desktop paradigm, people? I was hoping OSX might provide this, but I think not. Anyway, just my $0.02; you may feel differently.
I've tried just about every window manager I can lay my hands on and get to run on my machine. I keep going back to KDE, however.... It just seems to be the most stable one and generally the easiest one to operate overall. It comes right out of the install in a ready-to-use configuration with PPP dialup internet connection capabilities accessible from a pushbutton menu and the Netscape web browser. For the average Joe, this is what he wants. If the Gnome folks ever get a complete, ready-to-roll install package that not only installs itself, but installs a lot of popularready-to-use stuff like a point-n-click PPP diaup client connectoid configurator, and get rid of all the excessivly obnoxious, hallucinogenics-inspired graphics / theme crap as the default desktop look, they'd be much more competitive. The default desktop install should be a simple, plain vanilla single color background with all that wild looking crap left for the user to select after installation is done. Oh, and it'd be nice if they could keep it from crashing more frequently than MS Windows :-(. My CTL-ALT-BACKSPACE keys are getting worn out. Maybe that's why I keep going back to KDE. Grrrr.
Just please don't MAC-ize Linux. Any time anyone starts holding the MAC UI up as something to emulate, I get these horrible visions of owning a car whit the hood welded shut.
The reason for Linux's appeal to me is that it is open. Maybe I will never even LOOK at the Linux source code, but there is something about the idea that I COULD if I wanted to...
The Digital Sorceress
The root of the problem is that most "human interface gurus" design for the novice user. The trouble is that no one is a novice user for very long.
I agree and have said before that we need to create modes of use not just modes of installation for different levels of users. Doing this should allow a fairly simple transition from a "newbie" to a "general user" (not the same thing) then to a person who feels comfortable administrating their own system.
If we want Linux to be in the Joe Sixpack market we need to provide a bridge from the newbie to the administrator.
(BTW I know there are some of you that say that Joe Sixpack should not be running Linux. I disagree! Linux should be run by everybody that can run it simply because it's incredibly more stable than other OS! That "sixpackability" is exactly why a variable level of operability is needed.)
The Tick - "Spoon!"
"Bah!" - Dogbert
Isn't *STEP supposed to be a standard framework of some kind?
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
It seems the the user hostile contingent of Linux advocates is alive and well. It is the attitude of "I don't want standards" that is going to handicap Linux for the forseeable future and give other development models a competitive opening.
There *is* going to be a user friendly unix implementation. It's called Mac OS X. And nobody in the non-tech world is going to care about the comparative kernel merits of BSD v. Linux (I'm a network administrator and frankly I don't care that much either). Darwin's openness will ensure that technical people can scratch those pesky software itches while the extra control that Apple gets by mandating Aqua will allow all those secretaries and grandmothers to get a secure, stable, easy to use and maintain OS.
Listen... those footsteps you hear behind you are Apple sneaking up on Linux.
DB
It's not a matter of how to make a universal GUI/API, it's just a matter of enforcing it. Windows has a standard API built in, and it'll be pretty damn hard to get people to user your own. In Linux you have Motif, Forms, GTK, QT, etc. etc. And all of those are suposed to be a "universal GUI," but not every program uses just one of those. People will not spring for a standard GUI interface unless it can be {skinned, colorized, easy to program, and backward headerfiles (motif.h would be full of macros to stdgui.h, like certain ncurses headers)} If all this happened, then I could see a universal API coming into shape. Until then, put up w/ what you got.
:wq! DOH!
Roy Miller
--Roy
First, I find it easier to use ls than a graphical file manager, but if your not in the mood to type a lot of repetitive "ls -l" 's...go with SystemG. It's a good graphical file manager with an Explorer like interface. Second, the newsletter I'm webmastering has an article on Linux Desktop customization, and Mac and Win also. Check it out, it's called coredump .
Damnit! What part of "kill -9" do you not understand?
Apple has done some great things; but I've never liked their
attitude towards the user, which seems to be "my way or the
highway". I remember my disgust at trying to type on an
original Mac with its cursor-lacking keyboard. Then there's
the single-button mouse... If someone's going to lecture Linux
developers about user-interfaces, I'd prefer that someone be
one of the people who developed OS/2's WPS for IBM. That
was an extremely consistent interface, with drag-and-drop
enabled for everything. For instance, you could set an icon
for a file simply by dragging another desktop icon into the
dialog box, or change a folder's background color by
dragging a color onto it.
Anyway, I think the KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, and
WindowMaker (and BlackBox and XFCE) developers
have been doing a great job on their own, and they
give us lots of choices. (And I'm writing this from KFM,
which is becoming one of the best browsers around.)
>They just chose to write to the standard X APIs
No, they didn't! We're not talking about window managers here, or desktop environments (although that is affected -- I'll get to that), we're talking API's. And Netscape certainly does write to an API -- it's called Motif. And all of Motif is statically linked into Netscape.
Like he (the guy you're responding to) said, "you either have to include the whole GUI in your app - making it bloated and crash-prone"... and what are the most common complaints about Netscape? You got it! (1)Buggy, (2)Crashes all the time.
And even after you get past that, your assertion that "That one binary runs on GNOME, KDE, Window Maker, and all others" is technically correct. But have you tried using drag-and drop with GNOME? Ok. Howabout WMaker? Now let's see you try it in KDE...
Netscape works under all of them, true. But it doesn't exactly work properly in all of them...
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think you just crossed it.
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
The fears of standardizing a Linux interface look seem to be mostly reactionary, knee-jerk emotions. The point of standardizing an interface feel isn't to lock those who know how to customize and hack X-Windows into one design; it's to provide everyone else with something stable, useful, and somewhat user-friendly. If you have the knowledge to customize, configure, and contort your particular X-Windows interface, a standardized design scheme isn't going to apply to you. There's absolutely no reason a standardization has to pre-empt the ability to completely redo your X-Windows setup. It just provides a useful, fully featured starting point for everyone. Once your feet are in the blocks, you can choose to run as far as you want with your X config.
Funny, somewhere in this article it referred to the necessity of editing text files as a "gaping hole" in a GUI-driven OS.
Ignore that KFM has been around for years. Ignore that the devel CVS has had mimetype detection and embedding based on it for over a half a year. Only our not-even-alpha stuff exists! This is sickening. I am beginning to really hate these people.
I think that you completely misunderstand what it means to be an administrator.
An administrator's job is never done. There's the 'sheet metal work' of physically maintaining plant, there's keeping up with the hundreds of new security threats from malicious code to securing physical plant, there's account management and if you get very, very good at all of the above you get to do your real job of finding out what your users want and modifying your systems to achieve it better/faster with a positive effect on the organization's bottom line.
The last job is the most important and the least done because idiot programmers (most of whom cannot even spell buffoon) steal away our time, forcing us to deal with cryptic user interfaces to do the monkey work. If it's a simple and standard task I don't want to have to devote a lot of brain power to it and a GUI helps there. If I'm doing something complex or unique I want the freedom to go behind the GUI to a CLI (which is where Apple, until Mac OS X, fell down on the job).
I want to have the time to rally the users and get buy in for an enterprise directory. I want to set up a deployment of X.509 certificates and maybe even Kerberos security. I want to be able to do these things and many more and I need every scrap of time I can wring out from the day to day routine. A well designed UI helps. User hostile UI is just offensive.
DB
First of all, no self respecting unix user throws a bunch of random files (especially with no filename similarity) in a random directory. That is a pretty windows'ish way to do things. My file system is very hierarchical and orderly. So your question is biased.
/long/path/to/newdir
/long/path/to/newdir
/l[tab]/p[tab]/to/n[tab]
But here's an answer anyway.
First off, you should know, you don't have to do mv 15 times. You can:
mv file1 file2 file3 file4
As long as the last argment is a directory, it knows to move all of the files to it. So that cuts the work to 1/15 of what you suggest.
Secondly, depending on the contents of the directory, use tab completion (since we stated earlier we are using bash). That allows you to type as little as the first letter of the file, then hit tab, and it completes the filename (and adds a space at the end) for you. Obviously, if they all begin with the same few letters, you will have to type those letters, plus one that is unique to the file (but since you said there was no name similarity, you can get away with just the first letter or so).
So, if the files you want to move are:
abracadabra_MagicSpell.txt
Big_bad_wolf.JPG
catInTheHat.pdf
etc...
So what you actually type becomes:
mv[space]a[tab]B[tab]c[tab](etc...)
Tab completion also goes for the path to the directory. (Again, how much you type is dependent on the directories parallel to the directory being tab completed).
So it could then be:
mv[space]a[tab]B[tab]c[tab](etc...)
And that to me is much less work. Plus, I never even have to move my hands away from the keyboard to use the mouse.
But I wouldn't have gotten in to this situation in the first place.
Now for a counter point:
Try this in windows:
for i in *; do sed '/ba*r/ d' $i > $i.revised ; done
This is a really simple example, but would be pretty hard to do in windows. For every file in the current directory, it removes any lines that contain the character 'b', followed by any number of the character 'a' (including zero), followed by the character 'r', and names the new file with the name of the old file plus '.revised'. (Change the regexp to suit your needs, of course).
You could use something similar to remove all of the lines that contain some pattern you don't like from a bunch of e-mails. Or something similar to strip comments out of source, or uninteresting lines out of a log file, or whatever. In windows, you'd have to:
Start up some word processor (probably Word),
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
Finaly word starts,
open every file,
manualy do your editing (unless Word now supports regexp's. Wouldn't that be nice?),
manualy 'Save As' every file to the new file name.
But then again, that is probably a biased challange. As a windows user you may never need to do anything like that at all.
Conclusion:
You're GUI may do what you need it to do, but I find it horribly lacking when I need to get real work done.
This is why you will never eliminate the command line. Ever.
(Sorry for the long post.)
This sig is false.
Actually, I think the "plane analogy" is faulty. Having seen pictures of the F-16 controls, and flown in a Cessna, I have to say they don't really look alike. Even the "stick" is different on an F-16. Also, many other fighters have a fairly large number of controls "on" the stick, which the Cessna doesn't have either.
And when you start talking helicopters, of course, things get even worse.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
That is what the andvantage of Linux (which is about competition not prepubescent territorial wars) is about.
I'm getting tired of this doubletalk:
People scream about lack of innovation. Then they scream about standards.
WTF!
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Let's drop the one ond only button you will ever need crap. It's the major reason people are scared shitless. How about teaching them first? No one has ever tried that yet.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Does anybody know whether Eazel are/will be working with the Mozilla team on this.
I just said I _personally_ thought it silly. I have my own little GUI piper (that's its name, piper) that gives piping to GUIs based on good old stdin and stdout. It is a bit rough so I have not posted it on freshmeat, but it has already proven that drag and drop is NOT an acceptable GUI analog to shell pipes.
The only issue with 'piper' is that most GUIs are not oriented for stdin-stdout chaining like shell programs often are.
Drag and drop is not only restricted to one to one non-streaming drops, but imposes a clumsy windowing/desktop-metaphor-specific mechanism.
http://www.interface-design.net/OOUID.htm
A whitepaper on the subject is available here
Here's an exerpt:
This section identifies design principles and describes techniques that support these principles. The principles and techniques are interrelated; therefore, the purpose for one technique may be similar to that of others. The definitions of user interface elements in the Common User Access are based on these principles and techniques.
It is important to understand these principles because the major portion of design is up to you. You must decide how to use and extend the components so they best support application-specific functions and provide the most usable interface. If you do not base an application on the design principles, you will find it difficult to produce a highly usable, consistent application; you may even find it difficult to use the interface components.
In general, there are two types of information presented to users: objects and actions.
Object is a general term for anything that users can manipulate as a single unit. Most objects are composed of sub-objects. For example, in a word processing application, the sub-objects of the document (the object) may be paragraphs, sentences, phrases, words, and letters.
Action is a general term for ways that users can modify, manipulate, or create objects. Actions modify the properties of an object or manipulate the object in some way. Properties are unique characteristics of an object; properties describe the object. In a word processing application, for example, the text in a document may have a type style property. Because the type style is a property, users can change it, for example, with a Set font action. Save and Print are examples of actions that manipulate an entire object.
Note that KDE and Gnome still lack quite a bit in this model. For example, KFM (KDE's file manager) has somewhat of a concept of object properties...you can have a different background or "index file" for every directory in your file system. However, what about things like "I want this folder to default to a tree view, but this one to an icon view?" It's simply not there. Gnome is similarly lacking.
KDE and Gnome both support 'themes' This is ok, but not much better than windoze. Each *OBJECT* should be able to have its own settings. (which might just *happen* to be the system default.)
I have my own standard interface coming. It's called the hot grits interface. To open a window you click on the hot grits. To close a window you drag the hot grits to the pants icon.
And when you reboot (which happens all the time) it shovels a big load of hot grits down your pants!
I'm selling it to micro$oft for 2.4 million dollars and they are going to write a port of Office for Linux and it will use my hot grits interface.
thank you
OK this is slightly (hey, this isnt slightly:-) off topic, but I cant resist:
:-)
I have always been baffled by people saying "We need a point and click filemanager, because its easier to learn". Btw.: people in general do not want to learn, or better yet: they dont want to learn things thei`re not interested in, and there`s lots of people out there who are not interested in Computers. And thats ok, too. Even though I rarely meet them
Or there are those saying: I want a cli because it is more eficient and it lets me use my beloved unix-tools.
What I`ve been longing for is a filemanager that tries to combine the best of both worlds: I actually like guis, because working with a mouse often is a good way to quickly get your work done. I also like it when they are pretty. Yes, that counts a lot.
I like some features found in most modern filemanagers:
Tree view is good for quickly finding and selecting a place in the entire filesystem hierarchy, at least when its well done. I consider the tree view found in windows NT explorer badly done, and I also consider KDE`s tree view very similar to that of NT: you never see the tree in one glance. Don`t know about gnome.
I like the icon view of most filemanagers, because its convenient for quickly determining file types and scanning over the files in a dir. And it sort of looks good. Its also good for launching the right application for the file type.
I also find the file info view of, say, mc (not gmc)very convenient for file and directory information. Most filemanagers are either heading that way or they are more or less already there.
If a graphical filemanagers had these feature well implemented it would pretty much be a good but standard filemanager.
Now to what they are missing imho: Command line mc is the only one having a cli attached to the interface. But its a one-line mini-cli! And I have to type CTRL-o to see the output of my commands.
Why doesnt anyone except me want a proper terminal emulation attached to a regular file manager? One that changes its working dir according to the dirctory selected in, say, the tree view, scrollable history, good for running real cli applications and all the beloved tools? And when I cd in the terminal emulation, the graphical file view shows me the proper dir? And maybe I could even select files on the command line and the info view shows me their type size etc.?
It could even finally be a graphical file manager that you could actually control from the keyboard. Without hitting TAB a thousand times, or menus popping up if I type the shortcut for "rm"! That`d be great.
That`d be one cool filemanager, even if it doesn`t open kspread within the filemanager window, which is nice, but doesn`t improve my work too much. And maybe with tabs for different shells like that one terminal emulator I`ve seen for gnome.
Ach, too bad I`m such a beginner at coding. Just dreaming.
They are not "some big company". They have worked on successful projects before--projects famous b'c they advanced useability.
Mr. GNome, the prime inventer of GMC, doesn't like GMC himself or think it should continue--that's why GMC is at an evolutionary end, and why Eazel is slated to replace it in future Gnome distributions.
Maybe you should take up your rant with him.
You say one of the best interfaces you've seen is special purpose. The desktop is general purpose. I assert that the best interfacing is inherently special purpose. I dont have time to go deep into it, but others have already elaborated on flavors of this. Voice input, tablets, electronic paper, etc are a first step in one direction. Due to Moore's law (which gives us increasing proliferation of silicon itself) interfacing will proliferate...driven by money. The better interface for this or that task will save time and money for the purchaser, so that product will have an economicly driven advantage. Standards and generalizations will just fall to the wayside.
This is already well underway. I drive my car with a steering wheel and retina, not a mouse and CRT. My microwave has a popcorn button. My guitar preamp has dials and pedals. My watch has no buttons at all. They all are computers. They all are more effective to use than a windowing system.
An, er, interesting solution is Calmira. It's a Win95 lookalike shell for Windows 3.1x. And it runs under Wine.
So you can use it for the Explorer-a-like file manager, under Linux. Twisted, but it did work last time I tried.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
In the second paragraph they removed the insane bit about lack of file managers, and replaced it with this: 'Although Linux already has a pair of evolving GUIs -- KDE and Gnome -- neither is anywhere near as easy to set up and use as the Mac OS or Linux.' Huh? KDE and Gnome are harder to set up and use than Linux? Because of the command line? Methinks they meant windows.
It's that the GUI, any GUI, has to have a standard metaphor that works across all programs. We have long since diverged from a standard metaphor from the first days of the Mac desktop. The metaphor was supposed to be pieces of paper that you push around on a desk... and which also have buttons and knobs and levers and sliders on them?? Is it any wonder your mother is confused? The mouse, which is supposed to be a metaphor for your hand, alternately becomes a metaphor for a pencil (word processor) a finger (the frame of the "window" - another blown metaphor), a volume control knob (don't even get me started on the windows 2000 cd player), and half a dozen other things.
GUI designers no longer understand the simple concept: one metaphor = no confusion. Human beings are designed to recognize patterns, but there's no single pattern in the modern GUI. If you make your GUI desktop a million different metaphors, it doesn't matter how pretty it is or how much command-line complexity it hides - if the human being who's never seen it before can't quickly extract the pattern, the metaphor, from it - you blew it. Compared to a "Windowing" GUI, the command line is easy to understand because it's like speaking orders to a butler. Do this, do that. It's a single, unified metaphor. It's hard to remember what all the commands are, though, and for some tasks it takes longer, which is why we need a GUI in the first place - but no one fails to understand within the first few seconds what the PURPOSE of a command line is.
Look at your desktop - your real, physical desktop. Are there any icons on it? Is there a menu at the top of that fax you're holding? OK, there may well be a volume control knob on your desktop (presumably attached to some sort of sound system), but there sure as hell ain't no button to make that pile of papers disappear.
KDE and Gnome are doing a fine job of emulating, and in many ways improving on the current fundamentally-flawed GUI framework as manifested by Micros~1 and Apple (the most grievous exception being performance). They can still make more of a dent in the Linux learning curve, though, if they do two things:
* BTW, this does not contradict what I was saying earlier about the problems with the metaphor of the mouse. If the mouse has to become a million different things - and, unless we scrap the whole GUI framework and start from scratch, it does - then it had damn well better let the user know what the metaphor is at this moment.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
A lot of people have responded here with what they think a newbie does, or what somebody who is used to Windows or the Mac OS would do if they were forced to switch to Linux.
The problem with this is that these are all opinions, opinions that may or may not match what actually happens with non-technical newbie Linux users.
So, why doesn't somebody do some usability testing? Get 10 non-technical Windows users and 10 non-technical Mac users, sit them down in front of a Linux box, some with GNOME, some with KDE, and have them do some tasks (write a letter using a word processor, send an e-mail to this address, etc.). If you wanted to add some control to it, have some technically inclined Windows and Mac users who have never used Linux try to do the same tasks.
For this experiment, forget the installation and configuration aspect of using a computer, because most non-technical users have somebody do that anyway.
Have them record what they liked/didn't like/were frustrated by in using their GUIs. Observe them while they're working. Interview the users. Get a feel for what the troubles your non-technical newbies would have if they had to switch to Linux.
You'd learn a lot more about real-world problems in adopting Linux than the speculation that usually goes along with these kinds of projects. There would a lot of tangential, but interesting, things you'd learn about the current state of Linux desktops as well.
<I>manualy do your editing (unless Word now supports regexp's. Wouldn't that be nice?)</I><P>
I suppose you could create a Word macro to do it so you open the file, invoke the macro and close the file under a new name (or maybe the macro can do it for you too), but of course your macro will come bundled with a macro virus
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
The OPENSTEP API also addresses problems still facing GNOME and KDE, such as cut & paste, and the hideous font support inherited from X, among other things. While X's selection-based clipboard system is great for text, it makes no attempt to handle any other content, like images, sound, or formatted text. I don't know how GNOME/KDE apps handle this, but many aps have a private 'clipboard' which only functions within that program, preventing, say, cutting an image from the GIMP and pasting it into a WordPerfect document. The pasteboard in OPENSTEP, IIRC, provides a MIME-type-based board which all other OPENSTEP apps can access.
Also, the Display PostScript (DPS) system which OPENSTEP is built on makes sophisticated graphics output simple to implement, and also provides consistency between what comes out of the printer and what shows up on the screen (WYSIWYG ;-). On most Unices, a completely different font set is available for X programs than there is for the PostScript engine (be it GhostScript, DPS, or a printer), so it is difficult to get real WYSIWYG apps under normal X. Also, antialiasing could concievably be built into the DPS engine, and with all the OPENSTEP apps using DPS, you could get a very nice display.
When GNUstep shapes up to be a full OPENSTEP implementation, it will provide an elegant basis for both application users and developers. With Linux being the buzzword it is now, developers will probably move to the OPENSTEP API when they find they can produce the same program for both MacOS X, which is shaping up to be a big consumer OS, and Linux, which wants to be the same.
-Joe
Why the hell wouldn't any sane person prefer ease-of-use over choice? I suppose the average Slashdotter will never understand this, but computers are tools. What do we do with tools? Mainly, we use them. Thus, the most important attribute of a tool is its utility, not its appearance. Beyond a certain point, putting time into customizing your GUI is like going out into the garage and making your toolbox look 'unique' with spray-paint and decals, instead of using the tools inside to fix your car. My Craftsman toolbox looks just like thousands of other Craftsman toolboxes owned by thousands of other people. And you know what? I don't mind a bit. It's what I can do with the tools inside that counts to me.
Something I wanted to ask people for a while is about system requirements on a full linux install.
I know that you can run Linux on a 386 with 2 megs of memory, or something among the lines. But that would be a bare-bones system. On the other hand you have W2K, which requires a Pentium IV with a GB of memory.
My question is, what is a sensible processor/memory requirement for a fully-configured, maximum-featured Linux system with the most advanced desktop environment around?
Yes, I know that asking for a minimum requirement for a maximum amount of features is some sort of oxymoron, but I'm assumming the desktop evironment with the most features will become the defacto standard.
But I would still want an option to "do it my way" , and if it could let me do it my way, and still work the way you describe, that would be even better.
2
...etc.
u ctivity\excel
I have only "dabbled" in Linux, so I can't speak much for it, but what I do under Windows is the following:
I have seperate partitions - one for system files (like the OS), one for applications, and one for data.
I put all OS related stuff on the OS partition - I don't even particularly care about organization here - if it a system program or extension, I let the install program (or myself), stick it where it seems appropriate (most installers on Windows default to "C:\Program Files").
If it is an application (say, Office, or Visual Studio) it goes on the applications partition. The root level of this partition holds each directory for each application. So you have:
D:\MSOffice\
D:\MSVisualStudio
D:\Games\Quake
D:\Games\TombRaider
D:\foo\
Any data that is created by program, in which the user can define where they want it to go (ie, games generally store everything in the directory the game was installed to, also, some apps store log files and such in the directory the app was installed in), is put on the data partition. This is sectioned out by what is what:
E:\development\c
E:\productivity\word
E:\prod
E:\multimedia\graphic s\images\jpg
...etc.
You can see how it goes.
The cool thing about this kind of structure, is that it is easy to back up. Say I don't care about my graphics data (I can always get more), but I want to back up all my productivity stuff - I just tell the backup software to back up all of E:\productivity\*.*, and recurse all direcories below it, and it is done. I don't have to specify each data directory.
Plus, since applications and data are seperated, one can blow away the application partition, and reinstall stuff, without worrying about the data that goes with the applications. There have been many times when Windows would get flaky (which is only one of the many reasons I am getting out of Dodge and moving to the land of the penguin) that I would just blow away the OS and App partitions, and reinstall stuff, and things would be fine - and my data would all still be there, like it was.
Now, if you could have the system automatically build this structure for you, that would be even better. But doing it manually works for me.
When I get really settled into Linux, I will probably do something similar, and set up seperate file systems for each type of files, permissions set for each type of user, if I can...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Although Linux already has a pair of evolving GUIs -- KDE and Gnome -- neither is anywhere near as easy to set up and use as the Mac OS or Windows. Indeed, users must occasionally resort to typing commands into a command-line interface.
When I read shit like that, I just stop reading the article.
A pair of GUI's? So you are saying I have to use KDE or Gnome in order to be using a GUI? If you only consider clones of the MicroSoft Windows interface to be a "GUI" then you are right. I guess my blackbox or window maker aren't GUI's then.
Resort to typing in commands at a command line? WTF?? What the hell is the keyboard for? I suppose you typed your article in MicroSoft Word with the mouse?
My rage is reaching the critical point with this mainstream "is it like windows?" shit. CmdrTaco, if this is an interesting read, then I'm glad my day isn't filled with as much boredom as yours.
Lars -
Like MySQL? I've got so many mp3's I had to start a database for them, and run queries on the database to generate a quick playlist.
Just a thought.
This sig is false.
I like the raw/cooked metaphor you use...it is (to an anthropologist anyway) useful in describing the approach that many people take to technology in general. Just as Levi-Strauss taught us that myths are best understood in the context of other myths, I think that the same is true of approaches to software development. Claude Levi-Strauss was, of course, famously concerned with how mythic building blocks relate to one another--the "structure" of culture, as opposed to the details of cultural experience or myth. He drew attention away from the details of each myth, and asked people to focus on how myths worked together. It's an interesting approach that is evident in your comment and many others.
What makes this discussion so animated is the focus on the structural relationships between open source building blocks *and* detailed experience together: Can Linux keep the kernal/distro/gui/wm/fm/apps independent from one another *and* develop and provide a compelling experience for users? The arguments often shift back and forth between topical areas: how should open source agreements be structured/how should actual software components be related/what should govern the end user experience?
It's all important: how the mythic universe of opens source software is structured, which types of business and code relationships and values are promoted, and how end users of all types experience the product in their daily life.
Which brings me to your comment and the article. Dependencies like those you descirbe are at the heart of our business/software/usability universe. Is "g" or "K" hot or cold/up or down/good or bad? Who knows? The (still open) question about eazel is whether it will solidify standards that prevent or inhibit people like yourself from doing valuable work. Let's hope not.
Why is everyone obssessed with what windows users and newbies want? I'd personally rather have software that I want. Trying to work out what other people would like and them give them it is what prroduced windows (and quite a few totalitarian regimes). Working out what you NEED for yourself is what seems to have produced linux. Why is it assumed that you either have every application free to use it's own little idiosyncracies for accelerators and behaviour, OR you have a cast iron mandate on what everyhting uses. If we had a hierarchical system for this, we could say: BaseApp { Uses windows-like settings for newbies } Word Processor extends BaseApp { Adds a few accelerators for spellchecking, defines a dictionary setting, but still inherits the rest of tis settings from BaseApp } And so on down to individual applications that might want to leave things alone, or add in a load of stuff - say Emacs could replace everything. So you would have a branch devoted to each different application type and subtype, e.g. word processors. Then you could alter the behaviour of everything on your system that claimed to be derived from a word processor, in one fell swoop. E.G. setting "Dictionary = English (UK)" in the word processor ancestor class will set all word processors to use it. Common features like the dreaded Close/Quit/Exit/Bye-bye issue (which by the way is worse in windows - I'm sick of Closing when I should Exit and vice versa) could be resolved with interfaces (spot the java fanatic). So if in the settings tree an application said "Implements Closable" then you could just edit the definition of "Closable" to make it have the menu name and accelerator you wanted. So by defining a set of interface items and an outline tree of application types, we could get the standardisation AND the customisation, and throw in a nice organised system as well ;) Why do people assume that linux needs so much guiding? Basically, things like the KDE/Gnome thing WILL be resolved by survival of the most useful. In the absence of much advertising, coercion etc. it's hard for the best software (or at least some reasonably good stuff) not to win. I'm not going to go out and write articles and start flame wars about this tree idea - if anyone thinks it is half decent, then they can have a go with it, and if it has huge clear benefits, maybe it will take off... although I doubt it ;)
this is just not true. im not an engineer, not completely stupid, but not a cs guy. as far as i know, slightly moving an icon wont bother most people. there certainly doesnt need to be a standard wm. clicking is clicking. anybody who can do it in windows can do it in linux. also neither gnome or kde offer anything that should make people think standard. kde is incredibly ugly and really sucks. do we really need bars and buttons anyway? whats so hard about just clicking anywhere and having the menu come up right there?! i have to say a nice simple e theme makes the desktop look very nice and doesnt (always) muck up everything
I think people misunderstand what a 'standard desktop/GUI' means.
It doesn't mean 'you can't customize anything', or at least it shouldn't. It means that programmers can assume things when they write graphical apps. And thats a good thing. The perfect standard GUI would let you customize all the aspects of the look of it, and some of the aspects of the way it functions, if they aren't fundamental.
If I hear one more person say 'No, we shouldn't have a standard GUI because we should all be able to pick our own' I'm gonna puke. Linux will NEVER be all it can be until everyone can settle on a few basic ideas about what Linux should/can do right out of the box.
Because right now, installing Linux is like writing your own novel. You may learn a lot about writing, but sometimes you just wanna READ and be entertained, you know?
I don't think Linux needs any standard GUI .. but what Linux needs is a standard protocol of interoperability between many guis -- such as kde's desktop and gnome's desktop. I believe there was some sort of agreed upon standard for drag and drop a while back in 1997 or 1998.
have you read http://oreally.net/? It allows those all across the world to speak out against how they've been wronged so that they may generate discussion that would better help them prove their case!
The same problem hits linux GUIs. In windows most applications have an exit option. In linux it may be quit or exit depending on who wrote the software. It may or may not have a shortcut key and the shortcut if it's there it will be different on each package. It's not good to force everyone to use the same level of software but the common interface would do a world of good.
The nice thing about the open source model is that you can change (quite easily if you've taken a couple of CS courses) whatever you want.
For example, I was playing around with gqmpeg last night, seeing if I wanted to switch from xmms. I found that it didn't have xmms-like keybindings, though. If it was a closed source app, I'd be up shit creek without a paddle (or I'd be *forced* to learn the new keybindings). However, I just downloaded the source, found where the keybindings lived with grep and changed them.
So if it bothers you that the way of leaving programs is called quit instead of exit, you can change it. You can even submit your work to the author as a patch if you feel like it.
Anyway, at least with gnome, there is some standardization. I don't know who decided it, but most gnome apps exit if you hit C-q. Also, you can set this standardization up with your windowmanager if it's any good.
In spite of reason.
It is in the interest of your personal safety that you read this. My name is Amadou. I was shot to death by N.Y. police officers for fitting the 'description' of a rapist. That is to say I was a person with dark skin. I was shot because my skin color mistakenly identified me as someone who might possess a gun and attempt to shoot police officers. I had no gun. I had no gun and now I am dead because I was unfortunate enough to have dark skin color matching that of a rapist. The New York police officers believed I would shoot them because of my skin color. The belief of danger means the four police officers were legally entitled to shoot me 46 times. I am dead. I had no gun. I was not a rapist. The police officers who shot me are found NOT GUILTY of any of the charges brought against them arising out of my murder. I was unfortunate enough to have dark skin and to find myself in front of a firing squad of white police officers who mistook me for a rapist with a gun about to shoot them. I still have dark skin but now I am dead. The officers walk free. They can shoot you next. They need only believe you to be a threat. I hope that you do not have dark skin.
Now who are these people, did they find them in a dumpster outside of Transmeta?
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Oh wow, that's awesome! I used Calmira under Win 3.1 for a long time, and I really liked it. (when I had to use Windows, that is :) I've tried to run it under wine before, but it's never worked until now!
Here's a screenshot for you, with all my old icons, running "Slide Show" (my screensaver at the time) in the background, and showing the nasty Wine errors in an xterm...
I must admit, the icons on the desktop and management that Calmira provided at the time were sweet. It clashes with my windowmanager, though.
(I'd have to not bind the mouse buttons, at least, to use Calmira's menus, unless anyone knows a way around this?)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Shoot first, ask questions later.
My name is Amadou. You have probably heard my story by now. I was shot to death by N.Y. police officers for fitting the 'description' of a rapist. That is to say I was a person with dark skin. I was shot because my skin color mistakenly identified me as someone who might possess a gun and attempt to shoot police officers. I had no gun. I had no gun and now I am dead because I was unfortunate enough to have dark skin color matching that of a rapist. The New York police officers believed I would shoot them because of my skin color. The belief of danger means the four police officers were legally entitled to shoot me 46 times. I am dead. I had no gun. I was not a rapist. The police officers who shot me are found NOT GUILTY of any of the charges brought against them arising out of my murder. I was unfortunate enough to have dark skin and to find myself in front of a firing squad of white police officers who mistook me for a rapist with a gun about to shoot them. I still have dark skin but now I am dead. The officers walk free. They can shoot you next. They need only believe you to be a threat. I hope that you do not have dark skin. Mistakes are made. People are killed. In New York shots are fired first, questions are asked later.
.
Although Linux already has a pair of evolving GUIs -- KDE and Gnome -- neither is anywhere near as easy to set up and use as the Mac OS or Windows. Indeed, users must occasionally resort to typing commands into a command-line interface.
No mention of "neither [KDE or GNOME] has a graphical file manager." They must have changed it. However, it's still wrong, both KDE and GNOME can come preconfigured with no setup required. If anyone wants to configure them, it's no harder than to configure Windows.
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
You can't polish the turd.
Where Real Men use vi to manually edit all the text files.
Where Modern Administrators point'n'drool their way through menus, searching for the configuration.
These are the commonly-perceived stereotypes, and, too often, represent peoples' attitudes, whether pro or con.
Unfortunately, by focusing on this particular dichotomy, people miss the mark, in that neither approach is particularly manageable. Moreover, by thinking they are the only alternatives, people miss the directions for true improvement.
- There's a place for having a centralized "registry" of access methods to access configuration information.
- Automation means You don't have to touch it again.
The correct fork to take is not to have 'friendlier versions of Linuxconf;' it is to have more tools like cfengine that represent more permanent solutions to configuration problems.It may be true that:
That doesn't mean that there wouldn't be value to building up a hierarchical "tree" that knows how to look up configuration information. The data can sit where it is now; the "tree" is useful for providng the administrator with a comprehensive way of getting at it.
Configuration work that the system does for you is the true labour savings; if the system cleans up after itself, and I don't have to do it, that is an automated system.
I'm glad to drop in an extra cfengine rule into /etc/cfengine and have the system do more work for me.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Programmers demand consistency in the tools that they use. There are holy wars about open standards, and indeed, standardization is the hallmark of the Java movement and forms a key part of the Linux movement.
Why is it so unreasonable to think that what benefits the programmer benefits the user? Programmers reject adding special keywords to Java to make it easier to deal with COM objects, and to support some additional languages, or modifying a C++ implementation to support __int64 or __int32, etc, ala Microsoft. If consistency is so important to them, then why cannot they at least respect the user enough to settle on a set of keystrokes for common things... File operations, window moving, minimizing, maximizing, etc, printing, selecting and deselecting are all well defined interfaces and should be standard. I can't stand to use Linux's GUI because it is such a horrible mess. I detest Be's goofy switcharoo on ALT-CTRL and the lack of accelerators on menus.
User interface and consistency of applications designed for idiots is something Microsoft has done reasonably well. The best thing a Linux GUI developer could possibly do would be to write applications based on ideally the Windows 9x design guide, but at least the CUA STANDARD.
This is my sig.
I think this (someone always inventing the wheel in their own way) is a side-effect of open source and I don't really see it going away, ever. I mean, if you're looking at the code and you understand what you see, you could have done it yourself given the time most likely. When you want to go about and do it you usually don't just think about extending the standard, you think about how the standard could have been done better, and you probably hit on an idea or two you really want in there, but those are major changes, so why not just make your own? This happens a LOT, mostly because the programmers who help in open source projects are, well, progammers. They're not users that suggest feature upgrades, they write them, and they usually figure a way to improve/change the underlying structure of the program so they start over, not out of competition (you're not getting paid, what would you be competing for? Fame at best) but simply because you CAN!
I don't think theres anything particularly wrong with this, but I don't see any great point in making Linux easy enough for Grandma... I think the greatest possible evolution for Linux would be to evolve into a high-class OS. This is going to be hard without a high price, but make it seem like the OS used by big-wigs and hard-hitters in the computing industry. Clean lines and powerful simplicity... but this might require changing the publics attitude towards computer geeks since they're usually not viewed as the type to sit around a fire and swirl cognac while smoking a fine cigar...
Esperandi
Its interesting how many people complain how a standard GUI would lead to lack of flexibility. In Linux's current state, this is true, but doesn't have to be. The reason that writing a standard GUI Linux style wouldn't work has to do with the fact that Linux GUIs are terribly non-modular. They define everything from a drag and drop protocol to widget sets, to window handling, to system level APIs and other unrelated services. There are a set of standard things that NEVER change no matter what app or GUI one uses. Things like a drag and drop protocol should be standard on the system. I seriously doubt that the drag and drop protocol defined by GNOME is terribly different from the one defined by KDE. A lot of the services that KDE and GNOME provide should really be at a lower level in the system than the window manager. KDE and GNOME bill themselves as "desktop environments" because they provide many services to an application. These services are all essentially the same between GNOME and KDE. Its that part of the desktop that should be standardized. All the stuff above that should be in a window mangager which can be configurable. Programmatically it would look like this... You call the GUI functions defined by the API, but how they are implemented would be handled by the window manager. You might ask for a color picker widget, but depending on what window manager you had it would look and act different, long as it had a standard interface.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I have suggested that MacOS X and Linux/GNOME provide the best of both worlds -- professionalism and freedom. So we should try to merge them.
Well my point was not just in terms of code merging. It was more of an
abstract, philosophical and psychological sense. I realize that GNOME
is a 2nd generation display and MacOS X is a much more advanced 3rd
generation, so it would be very different to truly merge their code.
But thanks to the magic of abstraction and not ever giving up, I submit
two possible technical approaches, followed by a third general
philosophical approach. We still have years to go before we have the
One True OS, if that's ever possible before we get to Star Trek times. Having to touch or look at a computer just to have full control over it is so 20th century!
1.
MacOS X can be a superset of GNOME. In fact, it can be a superset of
all of Linux. The microkernel Linux server can be made to work atop
the Mach microkernel. Apple's Mach 3.0 and iokits are not slow,
because they learned from all the work Apple did on MkLinux. MkLinux's
partial microkernel architecture can be corrected. Then we can have
bare concurrent compatibility, with optional platform tunings to each
Linux-native layer such as X11. Or, if you just want GNOME and its
applications, you can port GTK to MacOS X's Quartz (display PDF) layer.
2.
Or, on the other hand, MacOS X's ideas can be a subset of Linux's -- a free implementation, obviously.
Linux already has Objective C and GNUstep. I've read reports that for
the purposes that some companies have, they use GNUStep as a complete
production environment, which I'm pretty sure includes Display
Postscript (a small step behind the Display PDF in MacOS X's Quartz
layer). URL's are VERY welcome in helping me learn about GNUStep! MacOS X's API, environment, and interface technologies and
philosophies can be mimicked on Linux/GNOME.
In either case of MacOS X or Linux/GNOME, they can take each others'
philosophies home. Apple can open up more standards and their
implementations (ideally open source the human interface stuff), and
Linux/GNOME can become genuinely, objectively, and consistantly easy to
use. C'mon, GNOME can make it so that all applications use
"openapple-S" to save! Fer cryin' out loud!
At least MacOS X and Linux/GNOME now truly acknowledge each other at
this point in the timeline of computing evolution. MacOS X has the
extremely proven and advanced technological guts and simplicity of a smooth, professional, partially free unix, and Linux/GNOME has the freer controlled chaos of a great
anarchistic community, with increasing production quality in mind.
RFC: correct me if I'm wrong, and educate me anyhow. URL's please!
command lines rule! Microsoft Windows systems still have a command line and that's the fastest way to do file operations (for any os that has command lines). By the time you drag a file to a garbage can you could have erased everything on the computer with a command line execution. Unix has command lines, so does windows and BeOS. Apple I don't think has command lines which is why you can't be super hyper blazing elite fast in apple. hehehehe Having a command line is like having a throne to sit on. I'd rather be super hyper blazine elite fast with a command line than being forced to hold a mouse button down and dragging a pixmap to another pixmap, that's like playing those games when you are little, you know putting the star shape in the star shape and not the box shape. The star shape can't fit in the box shape! but look it fits in the star shape! That's how apple is without a command line. hehehehehe
I think there are macx themes available, they just can't say "apple" or have an "apple" logo on them. The the interface is the same. Want transparency? then take some seran wrap and hold it over your face and look at the monitor, there's the transparent menu! 3d user interfaces are the future!
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The shareholder is always right.
True.
False. On the home page of XFree86, it says:
Note, for example, that the list of systems on which XFree86 has been tested in the XFree86 3.3.6 README includes "Linux (Intel x86, DEC Alpha/AXP and m68k)" (emphasis mine).
I've been using (dabbling?) around with Linux for quite awhile, and I feel inclined to comment on its shortcomings. I run X, a gnome-session, netscape and xemacs. (ICEWM as a base for the system...). Loading WordPerfect and/or GIMP during the affair brings the (233mx) 64mb system to a near standstill; the disk cache noisily operates during all these concurrent processes. This is an operating system proclaiming efficiency on older machines, something I sure fail to notice on my fairly decent machine. (ie the Quake1 keyboard lock??) People fancy about a more integrated GUI -- albeit MacOS X, overlaying the system. I personally don't think it's going to happen with the "GNU." Commercialization: Not a problem with BSD (MacOS X being a prime example here), as Linux and its license policy work a little differently. Unix is academic; people aren't leaving behind decade old protocols, programming technique, etc; as it would destroy the programming standards in place for all the developers out there [likely expierenced programmers] involved in the projects. I love my GUI setup, although small things are a pain in the butt. Linux will be a lot more "beautiful" when my system has 128 megabytes of ram. And as technology catches up, Linux will seem a lot more viable to the average home user. Ease of configuration is the big focus now it seems.... orel Linux is the first sign....And eagerly waiting their Office Suite, despite its fallback on wine....
What?!? You mean I still have to TYPE something if i want to use this "linux" thing? F*ck that, I will stick to Windows!!!
Seriously, how the fsck will the herds of computer illiterate (i.e. "Mainstream") people that we are trying so hard to make linux accomidate benifit the linux community??? Sure, everyone who has stock in RH or pick-your-linux-company will benifit, but what about the OS itself? If precious resources move from better kernels/ip stacks/drivers development to "make X pretty and easy to use for computer illiterates" then kiss your (and my) beloved OS goodbye, cause soon it will be no different than Windows - easy to use, and damn inefficient.
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who understand unary, and those who don't.
As a relative new comer to Linux from a Window background, I found that I didn't miss the File Manager (Windows Explorer) feature AT ALL.
With a few key strokes (TAB is really handy!) I am there. No need to sort by this and sort by that, scroll up and down, blahblahblah.
Anti-Cookies != Anonymous Coward
of the Unices' GUI is also a very glaring weakness. X is a great system when you want to allow people terminal access to a machine with some pictures. X isn't the best program in the world for personal systems though. For starters it can be a big security risk even if you know how to configure it. Second of all it has no intrinsic configuration or control and lacks "user friendly" features. If you look at Explorer for Windows it is a WM, DE and windoing system all rolled into one. This many people would argue is a bad thing but for users who don't enjoy 3 hours of configuration and bad suncing problems it is handy. I think X could be supplimented by a non-networked GUI that had window managers and desktop environments installed as modules on top of the base GUI. A modular system would allow for customization but being a single program it would't have undue complexity that people have to deal with. It's difficult explain to someone the concept of an X server and X client. X also suffers from obfuscation, people can use it for years without knowing all the configuration utilities for it. All aspects of the program should be configurable from a SINGLE utility, not 400.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I've been described as being, "paler than a sheet"
Linux is wonderfully because you can do some many different things with it, however if Linux is ever to really make an expression to the desktop/home users who don't know jack when it comes to tech stuff. It needs to have some better GUI support. This could be done through several distros of desktops as long as their out there and the apps can run all. In short a standard is needed.
I ran this one through Babelfish to convert it to English. Here's what I got:
"Hey slashdotters, why don't you get so riled up about Gnome vs KDE anymore? C'mon! That was fun! Ok, how about this: KDE sux, Gnome rulez! Heh heh, I see your blood pressure going up! Let's get those flames going! Nothing like an old fashioned desktop war to liven things up around here."
However, babelfish may be wrong, I don't know.
They believed that you were a threat because you DIDN'T show them your hands, you instead REACHED INTO YOUR POCKETS!!
THAT'S why you got shot.
Not everything is racial.
So reaching into one's pockets is now punishable by death? And what exactly was this poor bastard going to pull out of his pocket to possibly justify what happened? A tatical nuclear weapon? Hell the cops unloaded enough ammo to justify it being a small war. Have you ever fired a gun? It's an awful lucky shot that kills instantly. For example the 4 officers fired 41 times! Sure they killed the guy, maybe they would have killed him with the first shot. Unlikely, but anything's possible. Anything that is but surviving getting struck 19 times at close range by small arms fire. And that one lying bastard with his testimony about holding the victim and saying don't die. I mean what kinda a stupid fuck grabs someone riddled like swiss cheese and doesn't expect him to be dead? "I stroked his face and said please don't die" (sure you did) On cross examination I'd have asked "he still had a face?" Sometimes it pays to have your fate decided by 12 people too stupid to get off of jury duty. At the very least what the police did was very excessive. Had the suspect gotten off a round even then firing so many shots is excessive. Them pigs were a buncha pussy faggots. Worried about taking a slug. "Oh a bullet, I might scar!" The likelyhood of one armed suspect taking down one of a group of 4 armed officers is pretty slim to say the least. I mean those four figured that they all had to empty their clips to take down an unarmed man. Why those cops don't even deserve to be called PIGS. Pride Intregrity and Guts. They displayed none of this. They are, and were cowards. Poor Amadlou or whatever his name was, there he was in the minds of them stupid cops, armed with a TEK-9 and full body armor. We'd better pour enough lead to sink a ship into this one. Justice is not only blind, it's deaf dumb and stupid too. Wasting unarmed civilians isn't in the job description. Oh and who saw Rudy in the news conference after the verdict? He looked awful happy that his gestapo death squad got off clean didn't he?
It's easier to ask it's 3 less letters and one space less. Oh and as to why not because some of us don't like either KDE or Gnome. Like me.
Part Linux's appeal for me as it is with many in the linux comminty is that you are not tied to some neolithic idea of what is good.
My screen can look and act entirely different from anyone else's even if I'm using the same OS. Brilliant. I doubt a new addition to inode tables gets anyone excited nor do modifications hardware access protocols ( unless there are security issues ) but pretty much everyone gets a stiffy when there's a new cool interface "feature" available, eg transparent term windows, skins, etc.
No one really wants to be a drone. So no Linux does not need a standard interface. If someone wants all the Linux boxen in an office to look the same they can set them up that way but that doesn't mean every linux box on the planet should look and act the same.
I think the problem is not the interface but having a consistent interface layer protocol which all WM's can plug into ( or environments like KDE and GNOME ) that will keep things consistent between them. Example, have a protocol just like HTML that is an evolving standard that all WM's meet. Then any program, ie wordperfect or applix etc. just ties into the protocol layer and the way it is rendered is determined by the WM.
This i think would eliminate any major difference between the WM that may concern people without removing the individualist nature of them, allowing for creative expression and a desktop that can be tailored to each individual.
One of the big retail predictions for the future is that items, especially clothes will be on the fly designed to suit the person purchasing. Instead of mass manufacture of the same 33 - 34 jeans or what have you they can be custom for the individual. At some point assembly lines will be so integrated with the ordering system that this can happen. SO why would Linux want to move in the opposite direction?
Answer: it shouldn't
Ok, I'll make this short and simple. GUI's give stupid people power that they have not earnt and have no knowledge of. I can't recall the amount of times I've been in #linux and had some newbie ask me a stupid question and when I tell him to enter a command into the console, they reply with "Whats a console?". Yes, there is many, many people using Linux who not only have never used the console, they don't even know that it ever existed! These people are using an extremely complicated and powerfull operating system, yet they probably don't even know how to use DOS. To me, this is the same as giving someone a big, red button that can unleash all of the USA's nuclear arsenal on the world with a single button push. People continue to push Linux as the next desktop OS, yet this may not be so wise. Maybe a new kernel should be produced primarily for desktop users, something that your slightly moronic user could use, without being given too much control over the system they know very little about...
The primary technical contributors at Eazel are 1980s Apple folk heroes who went on to General Magic in the 1990s. There they created a twisted arcane run-time system on top of which they implemented the worlds most annoying and toy-like UI. Chances are slim their work on Linux will be interesting.
It's only occassionaly that I realise how lucky I am. I'm thankful that I live in a country where putting a hand or hands in your pockets isn't conidered threatening behaviour. Even the racial thing didn't sound quite so sickening.
I'm worried that people don't seem to have any interest in actually admitting that you can have a standard set of behaviours for interfaces, which can then be made modifiable, making it EASIER to get customisation. GTK for example means that applications can all work the same way as each other on a single system, but differently to the way they work on any other system... is this not the way forward? It makes most of the arguments so far a bit pointless if you think about it ;P
Umm...think about the logic for a second:
Policemen stop a person who fits the profile of as rapist (and btw, I'm white, and I'VE been stopped once because *I* fit the profile of someone who committed a crime (In otherwords, that person looked like me). I cooperated with the officers and they let me go about 5 minutes later after assuring themselves that I wasn't the guy they were looking for). The guy doesn't seem to be acting straight forward with them. It's pretty clear from the language and actions of the cops that they are worried that he might be armed.
2) Said person REACHES INTO HIS POCKET. THOUSANDS of cops have been shot by a criminal who suddenly drew a gun on them and fired. It's a *REAL* STUPID move to make when it's obvious that cops think you might be an armed criminal..because you are just justifying their fears!! Even an IDIOT should know that you should immediately take steps to assure the cops that you are not armed in this kind of situation. Part of those steps are keeping your hands AWAT from your body.
3) You pull out something that is black and is the same size as a gun. Complete stupidity. At this point, what do you think that the cops are going to assume, given that they are SCARED TO DEATH of being shot?
This guy may have been going to college in a few weeks, but he obviously lacked street smarts and common sense. He didn't deserve to die because he didn't have street smarts, but that lead to his death. It was a tragety, but it would have NEVER HAPPENED if he had put his HANDS UP and kept them there until police no longer thought he was armed.
No, cops aren't going to shoot you for just casually putting your hands in your pockets while walking on the street. But the situation is completely different when they think you are a potential suspect, and that you are armed and will shoot to kill them when they try to apprehend you.
One bullet in the wrong place will INSTANTLY end your life. You don't know of all the complications that can arise from being shot..the bullet hitting all kinds of major organs. Cops have a right to LIVE, just like everyone else does.
All 41 shots were made in *5* seconds. It wasn't like they had any time to think about the number of bullets that they shot while they were shooting. And once they realized that he HADN'T shot the guy that had stumbled, and that what he had in his hand was NOT a gun, then of COURSE they didn't want him to die.
Exactly.
/.ers confuse UI with GUI. Whenever there is an article like this, we get "Enlightenment is pretty", "I don't want Linux to be pretty", "Don't dumb down Linux".. All these are besides the point.
I think the majority of
UI = User Interface
GUI = Graphical User Interface
Not that GUI is merely a subset of UI. A CLI is a UI, it is a way that the **user** **interfaces** with the computer. What Linux needs is an effective method of user interaction in the GUI that is standard and interoperable with other programs!
Most Unix CLIs have very good standards for UI, eg. piping and >> etc. all tend to work nicely with other programs. --help gives you instructions 90% of the time, and the man command is even more consistent. So think about that sort of interoperability and now think of Linux GUIs. Drag and drop? Hardly. Copy and paste? Yeah right. Common menu commands throughout different programs? Nope. Proper WYSIWYG printing? Ha!
These are the sorts of standards that need to be adopted in Linux, for it to be an effective *interface* for the *user*. Talk of themes etc, for the most part evade the issue at hand, which is below the surface of how it actaully looks. Representing the computer environment graphically is a natural way for people to operate (yes, we have eyes and use them a lot), yet without standards in menuing, drag and drop etc, its incredibly inefficient and frustrating in Linux.
To bring this all back, it is a priority that Linux UI problems be sorted out, most probably by some sort of standards. The look of our titlebars is the least of our worries if we can't get things done.
Before you go and rip big menus, consider that one of the things a big menu does is provide immediate, discoverable access into what a program does.
A lot of responses to questions about an application are "Read the f____ manual". Why should anyone have to read a manual? Computers are interactive - a good application should train users on how to use it.
A good computer is one that requires no education or training to begin using it.
A GUI is not about making it graphic or pretty because it will somehow make things easier. A GUI does not assert that clicking a bunch of things with a mouse is even more efficient than simply typing ls |grep something. A GUI does asserts that the biggest productivity problem is figuring out what an application can do! BeOS to some extent and Linux, most definately, miss this point entirely.
On the flipside, we have the Evil Empire. While MS has been uneven in their pursuit of GUI, they've at least been willing to take some pretty big risks with their applications in the pursuit of discoverability. Nobody asked for the stupid dancing paperclip, and, in Office 97, it's more annoying than useful, but the idea of an intelligent application, of an application interacted with as if it is a person, is an idea whose time has come. I hope they stick with it, so in the very least we can learn from their mistakes. The vision is good, even if the implementation is not.
This is my sig.