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Making Linux Look Harder Than It Is
drkich writes: "According to an article on The Register (by our very own roblimo).
Many 'gurus' teaching new users about Linux make it look harder than it needs to be, and apparently fail to explain that yes, you can make PowerPoint-style presentations in Linux, you can view Web Pages that use Flash animation and other "glitz" features, and that you can manage all your files though simple "point, click, drag and drop" visual interfaces. Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
I'd say yes. When I first started out, there was a lot of hand waving and "this is too complicated for you." Then I looked at it linuxdoc.org and said, "this is easy."
It'd be a risk, though...because I don't know if the average person is ready for Linux.
But people are going to be scared until they see Linux boxes for sale at CompUSA and Sears.
It might not be too smart as much as too arrogant...
Much respect, drkich.
Mike Hoye
I just installed red hat 7.2 and i'm having difficulty learning linux. I have read lots of stuff but maybe I'm not reading the right things. My samba says "unknown error... hmm..." when i try to access my windows machines, and I have no idea how to install programs.... I think the HOWTO's that i read are too complicated. They always mention things that I have no idea how to do. I barely know DOS so I don't know many commands for the shell. LINUX is difficult.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx
My theory is that a lot of the people teaching Linux classes learned the OS before it had a good GUI. Now they think they need to pass all their knowledge on to the students, regardless of how much the students will use it.
Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?
I hardly think it's because they know too much. It's more that they want to show themselves as sauve and intelligent infront of those they're instructing. I think you'll find all the people who deserve the right to brag are generally much more humble because they honestly have nothing to prove.
The biggest obstable to widespread Linux adoption is not its actual difficulty to use, but perception that it's for geeks only. An idiot proof installer would be good, but evangelests and PR that speaks to average users is perhaps the single most important thing standing in the way of more pervasive acceptance.
I understand how the general attitude that "you've got to know how to use a computer to use a computer" gets bred. I used to work 1-800-support. But that won't cut it on the public image tip.
GNU/Linux needs salespeople. Jeez, I can't believe I just wrote that, but it's true. The barriers are 90% cultural at this point....
Howard Dean for president
I dont think that is actually us being too smart or arrogant, I think that it's some of the people that try to learn thinking that they are too smart, and not actually wanting to RTFM, and try to learn, they want to learn from osmosis, and magically be able to do anything in linux because its the "cool" thing to do.
Don't forget that for people who don't understand how computing tools work, Unix kinda doesn't make much sense regardless of how it's taught. Pipes and filters really only make sense when you're filtering down large lists of information... and this kind of information pretty much only happens in system administrative contexts.
As I just installed mandrake 8.1 for him last night, and began explaining the basic commands such as 'ls, cd, mv, rm, mkdir...etc' to which he said, "yeah, but can't I just click around and do the same stuff', to which I could only reply: "ummm, yes, I guess so, if you wanna do it that way".
--
Society has traditionally always tried to find scapegoats for its problems. Well, here I am.
Its not the we know too much. We just want other to feel the same joy and sense of control we feel by using the command line.
I'd rather be able to type the command to get the information I need rather than clicking through endless dialog boxes and menus to get at the same information.
His eyes get generally glazed over when I do something like:
$> rpm -e `rpm -qa | grep -i ^xf`
...which actually came up today in reinstalling X. And I've done quite a few nastier things.
I think that it would do Linux users--especially Linux evangelists--well to learn our own GUI tools so that when our non-geek friends ask us for help we can give them something that's meaningful to them.
In the basic O'Rielly book on Linux, it makes a point that most textbooks on Linux go into detail about such topics as how to use the ed command and other things that most people never use.
There are some conceptual points about Linux that even a newbie needs to know...such as permission and the file tree, but there is a lot of stuff that you really can just open it up and click around on stuff.
I think the problem is that a lot of Unix work in general has been going on in academia, and so that a lot of books are written with a lot of traditional complicated busywork in them. Students now are learning about the vi editor for the same reason that students for a long time had to learn Latin, because it is a tradition.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I would say that the main reason new linux users have problems learning the system is that it requires the use of cryptic, command-line commands and extensive knowledge of technical concepts and protocols. Lets face it.. linux is a hacker OS that normal lusers will never be able to learn. Most computer users just want an operating system that works, and that is why they use Microsoft Windows XP Professional.
I think part of the problem is that gurus tend not to use the 'easy-to-use' features. I'm not a guru (only been using Linux for ~8 months), but when I finally convinced my band teacher to install Linux (Mandrake, specifically) and he wanted to know how he could best use his old Office databases, my best answer was 'use Wine'. I've never had to do any database stuff before, but I know if I had to, I'd probably rig up a Perl interface and use TAB-delimited text files.
I can only agree with it.
Part of the problem is that most "guru's" know how to use a commandline, but not how to use a GUI.
When I install software, I use the commandline, not Kpackage, Gnorpm or Rpmdrake.
So when someone asks me how to use such a program, he mostly knows more about it then I do, I just know more about the underlying architecture.
Though I do think the users are coming along.
Recently I heard about people who were using Linux, because they liked Tux, and were collecting pictures of him. Sure.
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
it is that they are fucking dorks!
Biggest problem with Linux usability is a lack of applications to use with it.
WAAAAIT! Hold off on that flame-thrower!
I'm talking serious productivity applications.
There is no Linux equivalent to MSWord. Yes, yes, yes: I *know* there is StarOffice and others. But they aren't MSWord.
There is no Linux equivalent to AccPac. Yes, yes, yes: I *know* there are other accounting packages. But AccPac is the defacto standard.
There is no Linux equivalent to Photoshop. Yes, yes, yes: I *know* there's Gimp. But it's not Photoshop.
WAIT! Hold off on that flame-thrower!
I know it's unreasonable to expect Linux apps to be identical in functionality -- and misfunctionality! -- and appearance to the big-time, deeply-entrenched "standards."
But that's not the point. The point is: the problem with Linux usability is that its lacks applications that are direct clones of the standards.
That's unreasonable, illogical, stupid, and every other abusive word you can toss at the idea...
...but it's the truth. The PHBs see it that way, and countless users who've spent years learning the ins and outs of the standard apps see it that way.
It takes years of invested time and experience to become at all proficient at any comprehensive productivity application. No one wants to throw that investment away, just to move to Linux.
And that is, I think, at the very core of it all, a usability problem. If it isn't exactly like the original, it is less usable for many folk.
And now you can flame. Ouch.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
You know, there was a kid who sat at my lunchtable and babbled incessantly about Linux and his "Linux box". I think he sat home all day and hacked it, which, in laymans terms, means he tried to break into his own system and failed. Sounds poor, if you ask me.
No, but really. Anyone who's tried to teach me the larger part of linux commands has taught me in "code form". In other words, they've tried to teach me how to do everything through the console, and what's worse, they try to add their own, new "terms" for them. A "Flood Ping" is suddenly a "Hurricane River Overflowing of Packets", and you casually ask them what EITHER of them are, and the kid tells you that he's talking about sending large amounts of binary data through his umbilical cord into an unsuspecting system. Right.
I think that schools should consider hiring IT professionals who can teach as well as do IT. It might open up a whole new market of jobs. Open Source software would be a great class, if anyone ever got around to TEACHING it.
this was supposed to be under: Its funny, laugh!
anway, I really think that the last part about the people being 'too smart' and all that is really a hoot. I mean, I am not acually questioning the raw intelligence or logic or anyone out there, but that qualification has got to be so far away from anything accurate in trying to explain a communication and teaching problem... hehehe, this just floors me.
Hey, maybe next someone will explain microsoft's crappy products as a result of the genious minds behind it.
I've also recently noticed it when reading LUG mailing lists and articles on the internet: Some linux non-guru describes how configuring xy is not so hard after all... and then starts off with a long list of bash commands.
And I always think "who the hell told him to do it that way? It can be done so much easier using the tools his distribution offers. And he's not the kind of user who wants to do it "the hard way", otherwise he'd be using debian or slackware (as I do, btw)."
This even starts scaring me, as I want linux to succeed, however this kind of "propaganda" rather scares people off.
"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
Newbie - "How do I use my dial up modem in linux, using redhat 7.2?"
... you know, if you used Debian, this wouldn't be a problem...."
....
Expert - "First of all, you need to make sure ppp is compiled into your kernel, then recompile, RTFM."
Newbie - "Is there an easier way?"
Expert - "Yes, but first, lets's get you all the kernel patches, since you're using 2.4.9, which has some known VM problems under high loads, then, we'll need to gut your X server, then, you might as well recompile/build KDE, since the one in Red Hat sucks, which comes with GNOME, but I think it sucks, so I'll make sure that you think it sucks too
Newbie - "What's a Debian?"
... and so on and so forth
The main reason Windows seems so "usable" is because people already spent years learning it. And, pictures and graphics engage people (just like television), whether they actually help or not. Of course, people coming from Windows expect the same interface on Linux, just like UNIX users have tools like Cygwin on Windows. But there is little that's intrinsically intuitive about the way Windows handles files, applications, and all that.
I think there's a lot of truth to this, but not just with linux. It seems to be a phenomenon at all increasing levels of sophistication, in many different fields.
In my own example, I taught an advanced database course at Stanford, and how no trouble connecting with upper division CS majors and industry professionals in the course. Two quarters later, I taught "CS01i: Introduction to the Internet." I found myself at a loss sometimes trying to relate to the uninitiated Internet user. I had become detached.
It seems that the same thing is true of linux. We get ingrained in an OS/culture that requires a certain level of sophistication to succeed. Then (for better or for worse) we often become trapped in that paradigm.
I've found that with Linux education (and CS01i), that an old maxim holds true: "If I can tell my mom how to do it, and she can then successfully explain it to my dad, my job is done."
It may sound like an elementary test of fitness, but it works as a good filter for teaching the uninitiated.
(please note, this only works if your mom isn't a kernel contributor...):)
Most linux users 'teach' people by yelling RTFM at them. Newbies need someone to show them some basics and they can usually figure the rest by themselves.
Michael Loves Me!
Any one of us (that being kernel hackers, current competent Linux users, sysadmins, etc.) knows that the HOWTOs in the LDP are beautifully straightforward and easy enough for most John. L. User types to understand. Heck, even my little brother (13) has managed to get his Linux system up and running in less than 2 hours. Up and running and configured, w/o my help. It really isn't that difficult to use, I've been doing it since I was 9 (9 years now). What's really needed is some good marketing for these documentation projects, they're friendly, they're easy, and they aren't arrogant snots like some of our fellow "gurus." Even with my major communication issues, I've managed to explain Linux to Normal People (tm), and the people submitting to the LDP are the real user gurus. See if Google will advertise the sites, suggest links, etc.
I started geeting into this stuff about 2 years ago, and I'm naturally a technical guy. The documentation currently has a terrible 80/20 problem: 80% of it is...
Most often, documentation is an afterthought to a coding project. This is not a good way to get novice users to get to use the software, because those writing the docs are too intimately involved with the project and usually burnt out to the max.
Howard Dean for president
I'm somewhat ashamed to say that it's often easy to forget that everyone hasn't been using Linux, vi, and command-line tools as I have. I do a lot of work with public school teachers and other "non-computer-literate" people, and while I do try to remember what it was like to start out, sometimes I forget that what I think is obvious, other people have just never had the chance to learn. In fact, I'm often shocked by the fact that many people have "grown up" with Windows or Mac and don't even know that a command prompt exists.
:-)
Still, while some people aren't good at explaining things in terms that a newbie can understand, others are. It's the same way with teachers of anything, though, so let's not lump this in with Linux/Unix/BSD* etc. I had many math teachers who made things sound so horribly complicated and uninteresting I just couldn't get it. Then I had one teach me enough Algebra/Trig to get an A in Calculus and 1st year Physics in about 3 hours. I remember thinking, "That's it? Why the hell didn't they say so???"
Partly, too, there is a prestige aspect to this. Sadly, some people's teaching style is all about showing off how wonderfully smart they are and showing how woefully stupid the student is. No, this isn't everyone, but I do seem to encounter a lot of people who feel that if you can't use vi, then you are just hopelessly dumb.
Maybe the gurus need to think more about what the goal is. Is the goal to make it so that other "ordinary" people can use Linux, or so that we can all be some kind of honored clique who, together, are just so much cooler than everyone else? Once the goal is declared, act accordingly: simple as that.
Maybe it is, but if you're going to use linux you at least need to know how to USE the system without your GUI. Usually when things don't go as expected (happens a lot with linux even now) you need to be able to know how to fix it. Besides, who runs linux for their primary desktop when they're a total newbie anyway?
IMHO Linux isn't supposed to a desktop OS. But, if you know how to use the system *shrug* i guess X is ok.
It seems to me that most people don't want to spend their time reading or trying to fix problems, they are impacient. that is the problem. not that linux is hard.
Just my 2 cents
Nuller
How about the simple joy I feel when I click a couple of simple buttons to do something it took you two weeks of learning arcane grammars to accomplish?
It would go along way towards helping newbies if all man pages were re-written in plain english with clear examples of common real world uses.
XML-DEV was hacked and the client database was deleted. That is fantastic news. Some generous and helpful hacker has shown the importance of his right to exploit... er, point out possible exploits. Plus, this will show everyone to be 'more careful'. Go get em kid! You are a hero to the community
I, like a lot of others, learned how to use linux from the many many howto's and guides on the internet. I didn't have anyone to teach me, because no one i knew ran Linux. The only real help i got when starting was from a kind soul on IRC, who spent a few hours with me, to teach me the basics, and what packages to download for slackware 3.5.
But i find the bigest problem I have with trying to teach someone else how to use it, is the nice graphical user interfaces. A lot of people think of this as a great teaching tool, to make linux "look" like windows translates into the user being able to "use" linux but not "work" with linux. For example, my ex-girlfriend runs Mandrake 8.0 , and has been since early summer, but ask her something about linux and you can literally see the question marks floating above her head, she has no clue about it, she doesn't even know how to install an RPM (not that it's a bad thing).
I believe the only way that someone can really learn how to use linux, is to do it themselves, and only seek help if they are really stuck, that way, what they learn will stick with them, like anything else. My ex-girlfriend can call me up and say "hey, i want to install napster, how do i do it?" i could easily tell her to go to the gnapster website, download the file, open up the terminal, type "rpm -Uvh filename.rpm" but she will only remember that for 33 seconds it takes for her to type it, after that, it's gone, and she'll be calling me up again in a few more days asking how to install another program.
Note: If you go out with a girl, do not introduce her to Linux, because when you break up, she will still be calling you for months and months.
tourettes
I tell newbies that when they move their mouse around, the arrow is moving because pixels are turned off and on individually, and they don't believe it. Are we going to let them live in a dream world forever? Someone needs to teach them about OR, AND, and NOT gates now!
As a *nix person who has had to pick up Winders skills, I will be the first to admit that all the Windows training I have taken has had the tone "This isn't really that hard."
/mnt/disk
In contrast, I went to a LUG meeting where a workshop was held for Newbies and I distinctly remember someone saying "Look, mounting a share with NFS is hard." You would never hear this at a Windows workshop.
Take my example:
C:\net use p: \\foo\bar
versus:
hookado@monkeyfudge ~$ mount -t nfs gorilla:/export
Why is one "easier" than the other? Is it just cultural?
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Most computer-savvy people I know display a horrific lack of the most basic social skills. More comfortable interacting with the machine than the person they are helping, they do things in the most efficient way for themselves, rather than teaching the user the simplest way to do things or explaining as they go on.
I know that I was just like that until I taught CS 101 for two years in graduate school. That changed my entire outlook and made me a much more patient, helpful individual. I would strongly encourage that every computer geek take the time to teach others in a professional capacity, as this would give our profession a better name and gain us more respect from our users.
~wally
Sure you can do all of these things (flash etc) under linux but is sure isnt as simple...Compare the flash plugin installation process of ie with any linux browser...
Windows hits the os for the masses target reasonably well, Linux hits the os for tech's reasonably well
It is moving towards being more friendly but at the moment it is just not intutative enough...When I first started using windows (95 after finally discarding my Amiga) I could install apps so much easier than I could when I started using Mandrake 7....
I hope linux carries on its path and I hope that it will become easier to use but its been my experience that is simply not there yet...
That way the people what want their mail attachments to automatically open and run will stay in Windows. *nix, and has always been IQ safe guarded and should remain so.
I have been using Linux routinely since like 1995 and so of course I've learned the hard way to do everything. Today, when I'm dealing with friends and colleagues who have a problem with Linux I start spouting off command lines and obscure file paths. The fact of the matter is that I have no idea how to do a lot of these things the easy way. When I tell them I can sense their dread.
As an excercise in trying to be more helpful I've been trying to learn the easy way to do things. I did an out-of-the-box install of Redhat 7.2, and I'm trying very hard not to touch the command line. As it turns out I can do an amazing amount of stuff without touching a command line. The stuff I do have to do is usually obscure power user stuff that normal humans don't have to mess with.
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When I first started using linux, the biggest road block was the file system. It is a lot different that the DOS system most winlosers are used to. And the whole /mnt/ thing threw me off. Its pretty easy once you use it for a week.
He looked at me like I was from mars.
Then he said, "Don't you have explorer like in windows?"
I was stunned. Of course I did. I was running KDE for Crissakes. I never use it, so it just didn't occur to me. Then I showed him again, using konqueror for ftp, and file management. (He was impressed that you could use the same program to get files from other computers, and file management.) He did have to do command line cd recording, since I didn't have a gui, but he was ok with moving files to the right directory, and hitting up-arrow, enter.
When he was done, using almost all GUI tools, he came in and said something about Linux not being as tough as everyone said. If he hadn't hit me over the head with the obvious, though, he would have given up in frustration at the command line.
From the article:
.ppt documents to send to his boss, the clients, and to intoxicate us. PowerPoint-style just doesn't cut it.
:)
and apparently fail to explain that yes, you can make PowerPoint-style presentations in Linux,
The keyword here is "style". PowerPoint-style. My boss wants to create
you can view Web Pages that use Flash animation and other "glitz" features,
Ha! You're joking, right? All those sites "enhanced" for "best experience" with IE... maybe if you have Mozilla, Konqueror, Galleon, Opera and Netscape 6.2 and you them one-by-one, on each website!
and that you can manage all your files though simple "point, click, drag and drop" visual interfaces.
Well, no details about this in the article. Personally, I dislike the "graphical, point, click, drag and drop" interfaces - call me old-fashioned... I would use mc, but nothing more.
So... I use linux both at work and at home for 99% of the time; but it's not ready for my mom (or the other way around... hmmm...
One on side, you've got people telling newbie's that vi is the only word processor you'll ever need, and on the other, you have people insisting that linux lacks an install shield because they're too ignorant to click on the rpm icon in konqueror/nautilus and have it work properly.
No matter what the truth is, people will always think that Linux is hard to use because it's not Windows. Today, a guy at work told me that Linux will never catch on because there is a lack of virus software for it. I had to explain it to him, he still didn't believe me!
Most casual users don't want all of this complexity - heck, to most the idea that they need to login to their home system seems absurd.
Linux was written by geeks, for geeks, and it shows. Most Linux users (myself included) would not give up the security and reliability of Linux for the sake of using something simpler.
And from a user design standpoint, the system fails - unlike windows, 3 different Linux boxes can have 3 different interfaces - each of which confusing to the new user.
Linux will be ready for the clueless masses when:
- Users can use the machine without logging in. (perhaps under some restrictive user account...)
- Users never have to manually configure hardware - the kernel detects the hardware and compiles and loads the requisite modules automatically
- There is one standard GUI interface across all distrubutions; even though GNOME and KDE are remarkably similar in function, the different appearance of windows will confuse the average user.
- The user can install or upgrade any system with a single click of the mouse.
Granted, this is an OS that not many geeks would like. However, there is a tradeoff involved - one can run a good, but obscure OS, or use a popular, but buggy and restrictive OS. If Linux is changed to suit the average desktop user, most technically astute users wouldn't use it; the old adage holds - make something that even an idiot can use, and only an idiot will use it.The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I'm not a Linux user, but from what i've read, the appeal Linux has is a powerful command line. I've also read numerous complaints about the GUIs. When doing typical multiple window tasks, say web browsing, IRC, downloading mp3s, and writing a report in a word processor at the same time, is Linux still more stable and faster than Windows?
While linux can be difficult, if you know how to get support it can be a lot easier. Heck if you want some help on this one, e-mail me, I've beat my head against SAMBA a few times. But look at newsgroups, IRC, and websites and you can find gobs of useful info.
Remember Linux was designed for geeks by geeks and slowly it's working its way back to being usable by normal people. There's still the occasional chink in the armor though.
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While I do think that people tend to overcomplicate things when teaching about Linux (I had one guy include piping var/log stuff into a transparent command prompt as part of a "how do I set up BlackBox properly" question someone posed), I think it's probably safe to say that most Linux gurus are a little bit more keen on system setup than someone you would consider a Windows guru (not at all intended to be a flame, I've seen people do some pretty complicated things with Windows). The questions that a Linux guru faces are bound to be more complicated anyway; most questions that people in Windows have is "why does this crash," or "where can I find this," whereas most Linux-related questions are akin to "does my DSL modem work," or "what /etc file do I edit to get my smtp server working properly?"
Is that beyond academia and geeks hidden in dark rooms nobody knows Linux exists. Its not apps or anything beyond that....M$ spends billions on advertising that it exists as an option for your everday flying-happy-ray-o-light type person....Linux spends nothing. Poll 100 average Americans (ok maybe a bad example), I bet on average maybe 5% have even heard of linux...
only infrmatn esentil to understandn mst b tranmitd
It's not necessarily that you *can't* surf the web, make PowerPoint presentations, etc... obviously, you can. It's just that in many cases it seems pretty darned hard to get a system to a configuration where you can. Pre-installing stuff would probably help, because if a PowerPoint clone isn't installed, how is the average uninformed user going to figure out how to make a pretty presentation?
On a Windows box, if PowerPoint wasn't already preinstalled, then most people at least know that they need to get PowerPoint somehow... MS has at least done their job in getting mindshare. Love it or hate it, everybody's heard of Office.
But will they know what to use on Linux? Will they know what to download, whether they need KDE or GNOME or whatnot? And where to find it if they do? How to build an app from source, or how to use a package management system to install it? Probably not, and there is a lot to learn there...
On Linux, the software is there for the most part, and some of it finally doesn't suck (not just a Linux issue; most software sucks, although at least on Windows it's a form of suck people are familiar with). It's just a question of familiarity with it, I guess. Things in the Un*x world are sufficiently different from the norm that people just aren't comfortable with it yet. The only way to fix this is lots of exposure, which is tricky to get sometimes.
But to get back on topic, knowing a lot of geeks, my guess isn't that they're too smart to teach "normal" people but just tend to focus on what they deal with, which is the technical details which tend to intimidate everyone else. Geeks are tinkerers, "normal" people like to get things working and leave it that way. So when systems running Linux that have all this stuff, and work fine without any tinkering, become widely available the problem might go away somewhat.
Hi... I'm Larry... the shivering chipmunk... brrrrr!... I'm cold... I need a sweater...
Most of the people who know Linux well assume that everyone else can learn Linux just as easily as them. I think that's about all that needs to be said because that is all I have ever seen.
These are some of the major points I've seen guru's forget about "average" computer users.
1. Average computer users are afraid they will break their computer. Example: Many think if they mess up setting up a drive in the BIOS, the drive will physically break.
2. Average computers users need to get their information visualy. Just look at all the Visual MS products. People don't know where to look for information so they need all the info laid out in front of them. They need menus and GUI's that can show them all the options they have to use. They don't have the time or ability to hunt out where the information is they need.
3. Average computer users have a very short time span for learning something on a computer. A computer is just another utiliy they need to use. They don't learn how it works for the same reason they don't learn how their TV, VCR, microwave, refrigerator, cellphone, etc works, they don't have the time. They expect someone else to do all the detailed work for them.
4. It takes logic to understand a computer, and most people just can't grasp the concept of logical thinking. "The computer shouldn't do that when I click there!" "Why?" "Because.. that's a stupid thing to do!"
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
...but it was about making my *ahem* look harder than it actually is, but I digress.
The reason Linux looks hard to use is due to the fact that it is simply different from Windows. Ask a Windows user to use a Mac and he'll quickly become frustrated at the subtle differences in the way the UI functions.
If Linux is ever to be seen as easy-to-use by the Windows-using masses, it needs to have a braindead-easy installer, a UI that works exactly like Window's, and plug-and-play hardware configuration. Sure most of these things can be found and added, but is there a single distribution that defaults to these settings? If there was, it would be suitable.
give me a friggen break. this guy is a troll
I guess all the time I've been spending playing Civ III accounts for the last 1%. I remember when all I did on my computer was write and print letters, oh wait, that was a typewriter.
"Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?
The truly smart can explain the very complicated in simple terms.
I see a lot of people intentionally going over the user's head and the vibe I get from the people who do that is "See how leet I am?" Those people need to grow up. Of course, when you get free support you often get what you pay for. If you get that attitude from someone paid to provide end user support, you should ask to speak to their manager immediately and complain.
Some of us can't help but go over the user's heads. I'll do it if I start focussing on the issue at hand but I've learned to pick up on that blank look and pause at that point and say "Ah, you don't care about that!"
Part of the problem too is that some of us are just unfamiliar with the tools. I haven't used StarOffice in ages and get better results with LaTeX. I'm a programmer so I never need to do Powerpoint presentations. I _like_ mucking around behind the scenes to see how things work, and I've become used to working behind the scenes as well.
The best way to approach someone you want to help is to view it as a learning experience for you both. You have to learn to put your personal preferences aside and look at what is best for the user you're working with. You can actually expand your horizons that way.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Now if only Roblimo could try to make the point without overgeneralizing. I know quite a few old time Unix/Linux users who happen to agree with Roblimo. But his writing sure doesn't seem to leave that option open. Lots of flame wars in our community get started in this fashion; too bad Roblimo hasn't learned how to avoid the problem.
Your point is well taken. But have you used StarOffice or the GIMP? These applications are about as close to a feature-for-feature clone of the original as they can legally be. As an experienced user of Office 95, I felt right at home in StarOffice 5.1 the first time I tried it. I can't wait to try v6. It took me a bit to learn to use the GIMP, but again the fit is very good. I didn't feel like I was in a foreign country.
I would go beyond your statement and say that what Linux really needs to be accepted is not clones, but *the real thing*. Which is unlikely to happen any time soon.
But you said we don't have any functional clones of the leading productivity apps. In the cases discussed above, I say we do.
It is too hard. Okay, maybe not too hard, but definitely a bit harder than Windows or Mac. After the wu-ftpd warning I decided to update all my RedHat 6.2 servers to the latest version. What do you know, the RPM doesn't work. Why? Because it wants RPM version 4. So I go to install RPM 4, it wants glibc. Surprise surprise, glibc wants RPM 4. And when I got my RedHat user friend of many years, he managed to get glibc installed using force or nodeps, but RPM version 4 and wu-ftpd also wanted xinetd, and for some reason we couldn't get it installed. So we had to resort to getting the latest 7.2 CDs and taking the server down for a while for an upgrade. Windows on the other hand, will tell you when updates are there. It installs them automagically and one reboot is all that's needed. I hear people claim that Windows Update can make it unbootable, I've never seen it happen.
Now, installing something like flash under Mozilla/Linux. I managed to install it fairly easily. But at our crowded computer lab at school, where the only box left was a linux one (we usually use mac), a student couldn't quite figure it out. He downloaded the file, and that was the end of his knowledge. He doesn't know how to use tar. And I'm sure he didn't know what root was or where mozilla was installed. I even had to start X for him. In Windows/IE it's auto install. You click "Yes" on a prompt and it's installed.
When I was first running Debian I wanted to get my sound card running to play some music. I went into modconf and I just couldn't get it installed, even though a pnpdump seemed to find it. So a friend suggested ALSA, which I tried to install. What do ya know, I need to do a kernel upgrade. It still doesn't work. In Windows its found, you put in the driver CD or floppy, don't have to worry about mounting, and a reboot. Maybe it's just my crappy hardware, or I'm just stupid, but with 6 billion people on this planet, I'm sure more than one person has the same problem as I do. The worst part is I got smart people with their degrees to try and help me out, who have been using linux for years. Like the sysadmin for our school district, someone else who just got their CS degree and is a debian package maintainer, someone who is in college learning the kernel. They couldn't get it installed as fast I could, someone who has taken zero (0) college courses in Windows.
I know many people who are very smart, yet I cringe when I hear them try to explain things to non-experts in the field. It is not that they aren't trying, just that they lack the ability to put themselves in the shoes of someone who doesn't have their level of knowledge.
The real problem is the users themselves who are migrating from another operating system (typically an MS OS, although I'm sure this would apply to any other). While taking a Human Computer Interaction course not very long ago (early this year), the project we chose was to create a simple interface for the Linux lab, for new users.
Now, most users are familiar with buttons, right? Everyone who has used a modern GUI has seen and used and is familiar with buttons. So, we made a little app in QT 2.x that would have a screen with a few rows of labelled buttons. There would be categories (office apps, math and science apps, development apps, etc.), and the user could select a category and click the button of the app they wanted. You don't really get any easier than this.
The results were disturbing. Our team (made of mostly windows users) had little problem, since they had seen it in development. But almost no one else could use it! We tested on a decent number of people in the NT lab (since this was our target audience), gave them a few simple tasks (like "start a word processor"), and only a very small percentage could complete these tasks. They just couldn't handle something different.
This is the problem I see with making it "OK to be ignorant (about computers)". People can't really use a computer at all, they can only repeat a set of rote tasks to do what they want.
Using a computer isn't difficult. Understanding what is happening isn't difficult. Which OS you use, whether you have a GUI or a command line, is irrelevant. Most of the problem people have with "Linux is Difficult" stems from the fact that they only know a series of rote tasks on one platform, and these rote tasks don't work on Linux. (Even if they do, there is mental confusion simply because it isn't the platform they're used to... we tried this with GNOME and KDE as well, which are quite similar to what people here do, which is use the Start menu.) I have set up a Linux computer for my mom and sister, both of whom had no previous computer experience, and they had absolutely zero trouble using it. My dad, however, who had a deal of Windows experience, just couldn't handle it. (In fact, I had my sister edit a LaTeX document one time, just for kicks, and she picked up on the formatting codes without any explanation. She didn't get them all right, but she came very close.)
People don't like to change. They don't like to learn and adapt. But they should, even though they will make a fuss. We know they should. We are experienced, and we do know better than they. This is not an elitist attitude: we want them to learn too. (An elitist attitude would be that they are inferior and cannot, or should not, learn.) Making it OK to be ignorant is merely harmful for them and ourselves, as well.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Newbies ask too broad of questions while learning GNU Linux. The most correct answer for most of the questions I am asked is either "sort of" or "yes, and no".
For instance the other night my rommmate sat down at my box and started poking around, as he does sometimes. He said "so to browse the web, I just open Konqueror, right?". I said "well... uhm.. kinda.". I opened Netscape 4, whatever Mozilla nightly build is installed, lynx and Konqueror and said "These are the *ways* to browse the web on *this* box".
My point? My point is that most aspects of GNU Linux is not complicated, but answering most newbie questions in complete correctness is that complicated.
The Reg®?
Making Linux look harder than it is
Thursday December 06, 04:34 AM EST
[ GNU/Linux ]
- By Robin "Roblimo" Miller -
C'mon, guys, ya gotta get out more.
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
It's not that the teachers know too much, it's that those teaching for the most part are not very good teachers. It is not easy to teach, and indeed it is very difficult to teach well.
;)
Teaching effectively means being not only very knowledgable in the subject being taught, but also being very aware of the student and his or her own level of knowledge and ability, and be able to be patient, willing to repeat, and friendly.
For most typically antisocial linux nerds, this can be a tall order
Do you really expect someone to be a good teacher just because they posess knowledge? There is a vast canyon between knowing the material and being to instill that knowledge into others. I'm in school now, so I see plenty of horrible teachers. Most of them know the material. However, the bad ones are disorganized and/or skip things because "I thought you knew that" or "it was in the book".
Interestingly enough the best teachers I've had have not meen the most intelligent, or the most knowledgable. Teaching is a quality on its own: Good coders are not good teachers. Good teachers are good teachers.
If this is so, then the secret to Microsoft's success with usable operating systems must be that Microsoft people aren't very smart or knowledgable. That implies that Apple people must be totally ignorant morons. A description of Amiga poeple would be unprintable on this public forum.
Amen brother. This is so true. I installed Linux on my iMac a couple of years ago and it really woulda ruled if I knew what I was doing. I ended up abandoning it because it was just too tuff.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
KISS rules; thanks Roblimo!
People like Ximian and Mandrake are doing a DAMN GOOD JOB of fixing it. I don't run GNOME/Sawfish, I like WindowMaker (it appeals to my minimalist nature), but having forced myself to make the switch from Win2k to Linux (Mandrake 8.0) about five months ago, I have to say it isn't as hard as people make it out to be.
Most of what I've learned, I've done on my own, Google is my friend, but I have to say that I was amazed when I drug an MP3 out of Nautilus and dropped it onto xmms and it fired right up! Today, reading the States proposal against Microsoft, I clicked on the link, without realizing that it's a PDF, and WHAMMO! Galeon fired Acrobat Reader right up in the same damn window, just like I was using IE on Windows!
That seemless interoperability is right there, and it's just not publicized enough. So much of what users like my wife need is already there, someone just needs to show them. Granted, I've spent way too much time fscking around with rpm and change file permissions quickly on share through my trust Eterm, but with a little more work, I probably wouldn't have to. Hell, Red-Carpet does a great job of sliding in updates to my system, and I don't have to do anything except click "OK" when it's done.
People do make it out to be harder than it really is.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
Let's try to see this from Joe Blow user's perspective. He already thinks that his computer is hard to use, so if he hears that Linux is harder to use than Windows he will view learning Linux as an insurmountable task and will surely be disinclined to pursue such an endeavour.
I have introduced many of these users to Linux by telling them after that they weren't using Windows. They almost never notice. Unless I'm running Black Box which gets them all excited and they want to know how to make their desktop look like that.
The reality is that Joe Blow user just wants to use his computer. He doesn't care about Operating Systems. He doesn't even know what it is. He is usually lucky to know what a file is. (Hands up, everyone who knows a Windows user that can't do anything unless you make them a desktop shortcut.)
These same people have no problem using Linux once they learn how to log on. I had one of these users tell me that he thought my computer worked exactly how people expect their computer to work. It just works.
It is easy for some of us to get carried away about the finer points of Linux, like file permissions, or powerful command line utilities, but that just confuses them. Just boot it up, log them on and leave them alone. They will figure it out.
Anyone can use KDE and Gnome, especially if it's not their computer. As a trainer, I would estimate the transfer time to semi-proficency as 3-5 hours.
However, I would not want to have to teach them what to do if something goes wrong on the System level. That is what makes Linux complicated. In many ways, it's what makes Windows complicated as well.
When Windows is messed up beyond all repair, however, they call Dell or Gateway technical support and are told it's too bad they didn't make backups and the system is reinstalled. (Alternatively, they pay 50 bucks for someone to retreive their information for them.) Often, it's quicker to reinstall Windows 9x than to diagnose the real problem and fix it.
The other problem is installing and upgrading software. Someone like Cheapbytes could go far in making CDs with CD install scripts (and RPMs/DEBs) with the latest software that can upgrade a stock system. Perhaps there is some money to be made for a service that sends out a CD a quarter with new applications that are easily installed. Rpmfind and even apt-get are daunting. I haven't seen a web interface that has been successful. (Mandrake's is a miserable failure)
In the end, a well-setup Mandrake system is not much more difficult to use on a daily basis than a well-setup Windows machine. However, this does not say that Linux is ready for the average user.
Horsecrap!
No, the original poster basically is stating that
the teachers aren't very smart or have decided that "it was hard for me, it must be hard for
you."
The former is poor instructional discipline,
the latter is called hazing.
Remember that just because one is instinctively
smart at a discipline does not imply they can
teach it. Ty Cobb, one of the best baseball
players ever, was a terrible coach. (There is
a closeted truth to the notion that "those who
cannot DO, teach - they are discrete disciplines.")
Excellent teachers interested in their students'
achieving excellence know their subject matter,
sure, but they know their audience. They know
what their audience expects. They design
instruction around that audience and ensure that
the particular set of students have the range of
skills and expecations correllate to their
instruction.
It sounds to me like there is either a genuine
opportunity to uncover or create courses focused
on keeping the command line, the plumbing, and
the knobs, dials and switches firmly in the
background while teaching, or someone's doing a
bad job of hiring education.
Whether that natural focus would presume Windows
knowledge or a ground-up teaching of what it is
to use a desktop metaphor spun specifically to
the Linux tools at hand is a side note.
I am a Linux newb and every time I go to #linux on Dalnet or similar IRC hangouts, I am confronted with "You aren't good enough to use Linux" elitists. They do nothing but hinder the spread of free OS's and apps.
My blog can kick your blog's ass
If Im teaching some one how to use a *nix, im not going to show them how to use linuxconf, or /stand/sysinstall to do things. Im going to assume they need to do real work, and may some time have to use the machine with out /usr mounted. If they just want to word proccess, or surf the web, I'd say use OSX.
Why would my mom run FreeBSD, or Linux? Because they are free is not a good answer. An hour of my time is worth the price of any consumer OS, not to mention the agrivation of trying to explain to my dad how to fsck the disk manualy, because the dog kicked the power cable out.
Example: "How do I use a USB hard drive under Linux?" Answer: "modprobe usb-mass storage, and use the mount command (man mount)"
And no one sees why there is a problem with such a statement.
I find that with some linux users (not as much with FreeBSD users, they're real men) that they started using it in the first place to take advantage of others (packeting, hacking, and whatnot).
I find this falls under "Teach a man to fish" saying. Nobody wants to loose the one skill which puts them a cut above the rest.
I honestly think the article should be called, "Do script kiddies make teaching linux harder than it really is", because I know true linux users wouldn't have this problem, and if they did it would only be because they dont have the correct skills needed to properly teach.
Thats just my opinion of course, I could be wrong.
"How do I use my dial up modem in linux, using redhat 7.2?"
Please tell me where you have heard a newbie ask that question. I would seriously like to see/hear it.
Many variations are heard throughout the lands, but not that question. I hear "How do I connect to the Internet?" and "How do I use my modem under Linux?". The confusion comes when all the gurus ask all the right questions in slightly different words. This is what HOWTOs are for and also why I have stopped interactively helping newbies. I give them about 5 URLs on the subject and tell them to ask me after they read the web pages if they still don't get it.
I have seen this in all forms of engineering and education, this idea that people have to specialize and put many years before they could possibly contribute, the old master and apprentice work idea. My education is in Mechanical Engineering, which was a great education but about the worst degree to get a job with in the mid 80's so I moved to software, first mechanical simulations but eventually into signal processing, compared to EE's and CS majors I pick this stuff up easier than many of the others, and even spent a good portion of my time fixing other "real programmers" code. I got bored with software and moved to systems engineering and then hardware and now ASIC design, haven't been in a classroom in years just pick things up as I go. I am always suprised that what looked so complex at the start is really quite simple after a couple of weeks. I decided a while back that this is true, as nobody is really two times smarter than everyone else and at least one person has to understand the whole problem, so no solution can be more than lets say two weeks study. Maybe I pick things up easier than others but often the real ideas are hidden behind lots of proofs that don't matter to understanding the solution. My best example is a newish field of signal processing/mathamatics called wavelet, there are dozens of math books on the topic, I can't understand a single one of them, even after a few pages my eyes gloss over and I give up. But the concept of wavelets and how they are used and why they work is extremely simple and was explained to me in 5 minutes, and I can explain to others in 5 minutes. Now I can't derive the math behind the theory but I don't need to. But none of the avaiable books takes the time to explain the usage they only derive the theory, which needs to be done once, but once done the application is easy, but none of the books discussed the usage only the theory. It all seems to come down to the "cover your ass" idea, PhD's want to prove how smart they are rather than share knowledge, Guru's are often the same way. Experience is important and especially with computers there are often more work arrounds that real code, to get things working. Remeber that there are only 31 keywords in 'C' code, and Linux is build from 'C' so how hard can it possibly be.
My first time installing Debian 2.2_rev4
I have been a Linux user for a number of
years now, I started with Slackware 3.2.
I remember how difficult Slackware was to
install, but eventually I got it working.
After using Slackware exclusively for a
few years I took the plunge and decided
to install other distros. I tried Redhat
6.2, and Mandrake (cant remember the
version number, it was whatever was
available around the time of redhat 6.2).
I *tried* to get debian, but failed
miserably. For the past couple of years
now I have been a diehard Redhat user on
my desktop machine, but still use slack
on all of my server machines.
A few days ago I decided I would try
debian. I have recently gotten fed up
with Redhat's distribution, having to
pare down all the fluff. So I go to
debian's site, I read about the psudo
image kit... sounds cool, good concept
in theory. I download the psudo image
kit, and connect to an ftp to start the
process... it was a little bumpy getting
to understand this thing at first, but
hey, this is the 'real' linux distro right?
I let my computer chug away at downloading
for a couple of hours, come back to see it
has only downloaded a small portion of the
stuff it was supposed to, it had a bunch
of errors. I try the psudo image kit with
another ftp, and it goes. Eventually it
finishes, now on to rsync. That was easy
enough. I would definately not recomend
trying to download debian's cdimage if
you are a newbie.
Ok, so now I have the ISO, great. Time
to install. Boot off of the CD, start
the install process. Wooh, wait a minute
this looks a little like slackware... I
have the hang of this. Ok I chose the
simple method instead of the expert method.
Partitioning went good.... and so did
the package install (I admit I was doing
other things at the time so I did not
pay close attention to it). I had to
answer a few simple questions, but that
was about it.
Ok, now it is trying to set up X. Trying
to detect my video card. It goes for a
long time trying to load a driver (the
screen flickers many many times (trying to
start X I assume)) and had me press enter
a ton of times. It always comes up with
an error. Eventually this stupidity stops
and the install finishes.
I reboot, and I start to config X by hand,
Wait a minute, that is 3.3.6, this isn't
4.x. What the heck, 4.1 has been out for
a good long time, why have they not included
it? Isn't this the most recent distribution
released about a month ago? Ok ok, enough
complaining about X, lets just download
the sources and install by hand... I've done
that before.
Crap, make fails when trying to make Xfree86.
Well thats not debian's fault. I really dont
feel like mucking with imake and such. Oh
well, lets get something else working. Wait a
minute, this is kernel 2.2 what the heck, hasn't
2.4 been out for a LONG time? Isn't it stable?
It sure as hell was on my redhat system, my
computer had been running a 2.4 kernel for weeks
with no reboot (had to reboot for new hardware).
Ok, now, something else, the module for my NIC was
not loaded upon installation. How crappy. The
drivers for my nic card (an Etherexpress 10/100)
are not obsecure... fuck. More work I have to
do to get this thing running. Oh well. Fuck
debian. Fuck debian in the ass. I am going
back to Redhat so that I dont have to deal with
all of this crap. Its not that I don't know
how to do this stuff, I can do it, I have done
much of this in the past, but geez... give me
a break, I dont have hours to spend fixing all
this crap, then upgrading everything to a relatively
normal level.... get rid of the 2 year old kernel,
get rid of the ancient release of X and replace
it with the much better new one.
Ok, flame me if you want, but come on. Who
in the 'real' world wants to muck with this
kind of stuff all of the time? I sure as
heck don't. I used to like to do this stuff
when I had lots of time (high school, and summers
in college), but now I have other more important
stuff to do.
Make it easier, make it up to date, there does
not need to be a gui install or anything. The
autodetection of my NIC is of little consequence,
just for the love of god have the software a
but more up to date
--AC
"Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
Uh... Sorry, but could this be that they are too fucking stupid to understand how to use a computer efficiently?
I dont mean to be harsh, but what you know well is well expressed. If there is an easy way to do something, how is it smart to explain it as if it is rocket science?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=24415&cid=2649 680
When I first started out, I was provided an account and one command:
man man
The rest I was supposed to figure out on my own. Of course I failed. But, to this date thats how I introduce new users. I guess it might be a little daunting... but it hooked me.
I work at a Technical College. We have a small number of *nix courses here. They used to be taught using UnixWare, but they are switching to Linux.
The biggest similarity I have seen in *nix textbooks is that they are still teaching almost exclusively command line interface, old school obscure *nix commands and editors. Without fail, the first thing they teach beyond logging in is the vi editor. Now *there's* a way to scare off a newbie! After vi, for those brave souls who still remain, they teach emacs.
While those things are good to know, they are hardly the only offerings these days. KDE and Gnome are both loaded with GUI alternatives, and most command line tasks can be performed in the GUI. Why not look at teaching some of these alternatives first, so as not to scare off people with the obscure stuff? Once they are comfortable with that and some basic machine management, you can show them how they can improve their performance by using appropriate command line alternatives. At least mix it up a bit, show students both methods.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
. Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
If you are unable to communicate basic concepts of computer use to another person, this is not a qualification for being "smart". Nor does it prove that you know too much; it barely proves that you know anything.
Communication is a fundamental skill. Which is more marketable: the ability to implement a container object using polymorphism, or the ability to clearly explain a container object that uses polymorphism during a job interview?
You can be intelligent and have good communication skills. In my opinion intelligence without communication skills is not very valuable. Whatever you do, don't for a minute make the mistake of thinking that because you understand how to use a computer better than someone that you are smarter than that person. At that point the world has just named you Nick Burns and effing moved on. If you are trying to teach a skill to someone smarter than you, and you fail, whose fault is it?
If someone has a lot of Linux knowledge but can't communicate it, I don't think an abundance of intelligence is the hangup. I think a lack of basic social skills is more likely. The Renaissance Man is an outdated concept, but it is partially applicable here. The idea is that being well rounded - the Arts, Literature, Science, and physical fitness - all of these things make for an effective human being.
Any assertion that you can be too smart to talk to someone effectively can only be made by someone who has totally lost touch with society. Let me give you some advice: Microsoft hasn't.
Actually, Linux is not at all easy, it's documentation is atrocious when available, and most importantly, from the point of view of 99% of all people who use computers casually or in the office, it sucks compared to the competition. I realize this is slashdot, but you silly people need to realize once and for all that there is no, no, no compelling reason for anyone to install Linux unless they are an interested geek.
Yes, it really is that simple. Yes, that is why Linux will always be a niche OS.
Linux is crap anyway.
Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
I disagree. See there are three types of people that use computers. Those that thoroughly understand them. Those that use them for a little while and then "get it". And those that need to be taught.
I think the secret for a piece of software's popularity is to capture the second group. If linux was really as easy as it needs to be, it wouldn't need to be taught. Just like most people don't need someone to teach them how to use windows and most of its apps. It's the second group that make most users and eventually they drag along the third group.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
If you want point-and-click use Windows or MacOS. The have perfected it.
I think that everyone should try being a tech support monkey for an ISP sometime. MOST people have a hard time using windows. In 95% of my calls when I ask them to right click on something, or to double click on something, I have to explain myself. Or with some people, asking them what is on the desktop, they are like a keyboard and a mouse. The average individual as I have found out have a hard time using windows, much less trying to learn something completely new to them. I may only be 18, but I've been using linux since I was 12. Come on, if I could figure this out when I was 11 it cant be that hard. After doing tech support, you realize that people couldnt do this.
games.
forget about wine. it's like having a free downgrade of your system - god am i going to get flamed for this - and provides sub-win2k/xp performance, if you can get them running in the first place. and don't talk to me about dual booting...
don't get me wrong though, i would dearly love to(and have, on several occaisions) switch my home machine to linux. the only operating system i have ever paid cash money for is linux(both redhat and mandrake) and i don't regret it a second.
but like many users, i mainly use my pc for entertainment(games, mp3, etc) and communication(email, web browsing), with 1 frantic day a month of spreadsheets at bill time.
and two out of three is not enough.
btw, when my mother asked me if she could try out winxp, i let her use redhat 7 with kde. she liked and said it was much easier than win95...go figure
/dev/null windoze now!
I agree with everything except that the different appearance of windows throws people off to a point at which they are unable to or don't care to use it.
We'll take one small application as an example, but the idea applies to almost all GUI differences. Winamp supports skins, along with many other applications. The skins move buttons around, reword things, and even hide a few things sometimes. Yet I have not seen anyone sit down at a computer and attempt to use Winamp and not understand how to use it just because it looked drastically different.
Believe it or not, I convinced my mother that Linux running FVWM was Windows (yes, it took a lot of work). I convinced her that XMMS was Winamp, and I even convinced her that Mozilla was Netscape 4. She didn't have a clue until netscape crashed and the window just disappeared (rather than saying "this program has caused an illegal opperation" (or whatever the phrasing is on a windows box).
My point? Simply that similar applications have similar functionality; no matter how different they look. Sure, people are thrown off a bit when I open the Gimp instead of Photoshop but After about a minute or two of looking at the interface they feel quite comfortable.
The problem is hardly that the people who teach linux are too smart. unix is like chess... any idiot can learn it they just have to be able to do repetetive tasks. The problem is that unix geeks are elitist. shell, shell, shell. Most home users don't even know that a shell exists in MS OSes.
Linux geeks are probably even more elitist because of their view on opensource applications and how much better they are, etc, etc. Linux, for all practical purposes is great, but you don't teach sendmail to someone who only wants to check their email.
-- -- A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child
I've seen people ask how to fix that. I'm sure there's an answer, too. But the fact is that it's fucking RIDICULOUS to have fonts that look like that in the year 2001.
If you give them some complicated instructions for fixing it, 95% of new users will just say "screw that" and either: 1) abandon Linux, thinking it sucks, or 2) keep using Linux with crummy fonts, and think it sucks, or 3) keep using Linux and waste a bunch of time fiddling until the fonts are right.
All three of these situations are horrible, yet it doesn't seem to bother any of the developers that RedHat still ships this way.
This type of situation is common and it infuriates me that not only are you assumed to be stupid if you can't make it work, but everyone is amazed that you'd complain about it in the first place, because fixing it is supposed some sign of your computing prowess.
All right, I just started using Linux last month, so I ought to be able to comment on this.
First thing I did was visit my University's CS Club, where they were offering to give a full version on CD (Which happened to be convienient at the time). They ask me what version I want. I only know of Red Hat and Mandrake (from friends). He says that I should get Mandrake, while I nod my head, not really caring at that point.
So I start the installation process, and begin to enter information. I choose advanced installation (naive me), and was amazed at all the options that I could choose to install of the CD. A reasonable selection, so I picked anything that looked interesting.
About an hour later after all the files had finally copied onto the hardrive (and the partitioning, etc.), I booted up. Created my account, and was immediately greeted with a happy first-time wizard. Except the text-boxes wouldn't work. Needless to say, after a few minutes of frustrations, I just skipped it. I have no idea how to get it back, but it would sure be useful, as I still haven't got my Internet working under Linux. Plus, the fact that there are so many control pannels (3 or so, I think), I never know where to find anything. In fact, once I have KDE running, I can barely tell the difference from Windows, and besides the fixed memory leak, I can hardly tell the difference.
So what's the benefit of switching right now? The only positives to using Linux are: it's not Microsoft, and the lack of a memory leak. Quite frankly, rebooting my computer every two days is worth the price for being able to use all my old stuff.
Personaly, I believe the best interface would be one that is so intuitive it would require no training at all, you would just 'know' what to do. And frankly, I think we said goodbye to such an interface when MAC OS X came along.
That said aside, I happen to use Linux a lot as a UNIX substitute, the terminals I work with get garbled all the time, and have broken mice. I think Linux is a wonderful replacement for UNIX!
I don't think it's a bad thing - people should be forced to learn the difficult inner-workings of the system. By making them understand what they're doing, you prevent having a thousand idiots running around using Linux...which saves time in the long run, because then we "experts" won't have to be constantly advising the newbies. They'd be able to figure stuff out for themselves.
I'm not going to get into the Windows analogy here...but it seems to me that teaching people just how to do something, like we do with Windows, leads to stupid users after a while. Do you really want that in the Linux world?
There are at least 2 problems with calling these instructors 'smart.'
First, it is stupid to think that a user wants to understand the inner workings of the system. The user wants to unlock functionality. They want a simple, easy way to accomplish a task. They want to have to learn as little as possible in order to accomplish that end.
The second is related, and that is in implying that those who are users and see computers as tools used to accomplish a goal rather than an object of study in and of themselves are not smart. Frankly, this is the sort of sub-cultural elitism that stops most "geeks" from actually having meaningfull career advancement. Until you can think of mere users as equals you'll always be working for someone else.
most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
Yeah, that's it.
Reminds me of those "tricky" job interview questions where you lie your ass off to make your weaknesses sound like or be derived from your sources of strength
Interviewer: What's your biggest weakness?
Me: I'm just too damned focused in everything I do!
I use Linux, so I don't understand why it's so hard for most Linux users to grasp the fact that the reason Linux is unpopular is that it lacks apps and that the user experience is wildly inconsistent and unruly.
Stop looking for answers that make you feel good about yourself, and start looking for solutions that will cure the real problem
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
People who post here are very smart. In many ways they sort of look at the computer as something that an average person shouldn't really touch unless they know what they are doing, and if they don't know how to administer their own box then that is their problem.
And for people who devote alot of their time to making the stuff work, I don't find this unreasonable. I mean, after all there is real effort and dedication involved is it too much to ask to read a man page?
What MS gets and the Linux commnity doesn't is that most people just want the damn thing (the computer) to do something useful. They want to turn it on and have it work. They don't give a crap about the technical merits of the OS or the effort behind it and for the mass market that is how it should be.
They don't want to mess with config files.
They don't want to care about what hardware is in their box.
They do want to be able to plug stuff in (USB) and have it just work.
They don't want to compile a program to install it.
They dont want to untar things
They don't want to deal with RPM (they want something called setup.exe).
they want easy access to the internet.
they want a browser that works.
and above all they certainly do not want to have to recompile a kernel to upgrade their OS.
MS has money and time to spend on these and other usability issues. Linux does not. Linux is not easy to use unless you are steeped in Unix. There is no way around it.
I think Linux should stop wasting cycles on a mass market that will never happen.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
THat I feel needs to be fixed,
is that sometimes GUI tools don't do what they are supposed to, or don't give errors.
I was trying to get samba working in redhat 7.2, and the frontend I used was the only I could find, I forget the name, and It said "click here to do such and such" and you would click, and nothing.
Nothing would happpen, no errors, no nothing.
I've came along a few mystery programs in the start menu, that you click, and nothing comes up WTF! atlease give me an error and say you can't find the damned program.
Let's see, take a story written by VA's Roblimo, post it on VA's Newsforge, get it covered across the pond on The Register, and then mention it back on VA's /.
No, linux users don't make things difficult.
Wake up.
Let's face it. Most people pushing and using Linux aren't brainiacs so they resort to the old addage of "If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle em with bullshit". Quite a few purposely make it look involved and twisted to either protect their own job security or in hopes that they come off as brainiacs. It's not the user that's the problem, the majority of them can pick up Linux quickly if their allowed to view the 'inner secrets' that the useless keep from them. It's certainly not Linux. It's the persons that run Linux systems, and those that are out to pump their own ego's that say they know Linux that are the problem. Look at the how-to's sometime. You see a lot of 'Insert in the relevant part of file '. OK, what they leave out are crucial things to completing the task... which part of the file is relevant, where is the file to begin with, what possible alternate configurations might be used. Sure the person could walk directories and dig for the file, the person could insert where they 'think' it should go, and the person could just 'try different configurations'. All of which is nothing more than having to poke at the system to get the designated task done which isn't all that bad, BUT it eats up extra time which most people that are trying to do real work beyond trying to impress their loser cookie-cutter fellow nerds don't have.
It's either all made purposely obtuse and shadowy, OR the persons writes them from the standpoint of someone that is intimate with the task and expects the reader to be intimate with the task which obsfucates the instructions (which implies incompetance at writing docs or howto's).
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Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
While programs such as gnorpm, kpackage, and the Ximian setup tools are available, these tools are mostly either not easy enough to use, not widespread enough, or not stable enough for most users.
Secondly, the menu layout in both KDE and Gnome is incredibly confusing. Gnome puts the main menu on the screen in two different places by default! KDE has at least two address books. And how is anybody supposed to remember that Konqueror is a web browser or that GIMP is an image manipulation program? The naming of Linux programs is very hard to understand, and while these names might work in the Windows world as "brand names", new users facing hundreds of unfamiliar programs deserve something more helpful. Also, there isn't a standard menu system for GNOME and KDE (even regular GNOME and Ximian GNOME use two different menu systems!), so users installing programs may find that it never shows up in their menu at all!
I hope the GNOME and KDE usability projects result in some feedback for those two desktops, because, up until now, these projects seem to have been focused on building a development environment first and a usable desktop second. These priorities really need to be changed.
One thing that astonished me recently was when I installed a game, and realized that all I had to do was put the CD in, select an item from my 'K' menu, and it worked. That's the sort of usability Linux needs.
However there was a difficulty. To install the game, I still had to become root, futz with XFree86 to get the graphical install program to work, and to top it off it didn't even use my normal KDE widgets.
There's a lot of good stuff that Linux does, but even more that it doesn't, and to be viable for all those common folks who jobs don't involve writing perl all day, it has to.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Linux GUI interfaces are not useful to novices unless they are ubiquitous. For instance, the article describes modem config available in Mandrake 8.0, or Star Office. Unless these GUIs are installed, available, and identical on (practically) every system, like the MSWin Dialup Networking GUI or MS Word are, they aren't a very compelling alternative to Windows GUIs. I say this as a hacker with no love for MS, who has been using UNIX for 20+ years.
Secondly, what in the world is keeping them from creating a universal clipboard buffer with cut'n'paste functions? I mean, I'm sure that there are messy hacks out there somewhere to give KDE that functionality, but, quite frankly, I shouldn't have to do that with my desktop. Why not? Because Windows (and all Windows applications) support a global clipboard buffer. Which is no trivial feature when you are playing around with PHP and HTML code.
Until KDE can become more stable than Windows and eliminate some of its really stupid idiosynchrosies, I think I'll stick with Windows when I want to get all my work done.
Is your company running tools written by ma
1) FWIW, I personally agree with those that feel Linux is difficult for the inexperienced user. There are many things that can't be done by happily pointing and clicking which is how the average consumer copes with computer issues.
2) Why do we want Linux mainstreamed. There appears to be a trade off between ease of use and power in OS design. Power users really can't be power users while running MacOS 9.x (no flamebait intended). Win 9x/ME leaves you reasonably lame. Win NT/2k gives you some tools and power (if you are Admin). Linux let's it all hang out (for Root anyway). The more power you have, the more damage you can do to your system if you don't know what the hell you are doing. A very reasonable, natural progression.
Therefore, I don't think any incarnation of Linux that the Slashdot community will embrace and use will be truly friendly to the mainstream.
Up until this point I've admin'ed servers and I am completely at a loss how to explain things to newbies. For example, one user asked how to access a floppy and I said "type 'mount /mnt/floppy.'" The response was a blank stare. Then I said "start a shell." No stare this time. They said "What's a shell?" After showing them how to start a shell, and type the command, etc., their eyes had glazed over and there was no way they could remember how to do it. For me, it was second nature.
My problem is that I don't know too much. Rather, I only know how to do things via the command line. I'm sure that KDE on RedHat 7.1 has some file-manager-like tool for accessing the floppy but I was at a loss to find it. Kfm wasn't it. Konqueror wasn't it.
At this point I realize I need to learn how to do things through a GUI. The problem is we have a variety of versions of RedHat, some running KDE and some running GNOME. Rather than devote a huge amount of time learning all the GUIs I think standardizing and simplfying is the way to go.
I have no point here besides the fact that I hate GUIs and may have the wrong job. I especially hate sysadmin GUIs. For example I have used the guis under Redhat, SuSE, Solaris, HP-UX, Digital Unix, and IRIX to add a user. They are all different and lame. I long for the days when adding a user with vipw, mkdir, and cp was the only way to go.
Amen to that.
I recently started using the GIMP and came across an article entitled "Grokking the GIMP" (http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/)
This has to be one of the best pieces of documentation I have ever seen - period.
The trick here is that a knowledgable user wrote the documentation. (Not the programmer.)
Sad to say, but most of us programming types simply suck when it comes to documentation. To remedy this we need to encourage other people with the necessary presentation skills to write the documentation as they use the products.
This should produce a much better product in the long run.
Websites are some of the main culprits of Linux over-complication imho. A recent example to me of this was the other day when I downloaded the new Nvidia Linux drivers (which are great btw).
.rpms (1 for gtk, 1 for kernal). I then glanced at the installation instructions and saw about a page of instructions all command line based.
I went to the Driver download page and proceeded to download the 2 needed
Having command line instructions in such a case is good (i.e. if vid driver don't work so can't use graphical rpm tools), but the fact that the the 20 or so advanced command line operations were listed as the only way to install the drivers annoyed me.
I then therefor went and double clicked on the 2 rpms and everything appears to of installed correctly.
I have used Linux, on and off, for the last 3-4 years. I've adminstered my own box, so I know a little. Now, I'm not a computer professional, and I know that there is a ton of stuff I don't know about Linux. For the record, I work in academia (I'm a faculty member of a very geek-dense university), and I've decided that for the kind of stuff I do, Linux is sometimes useful, sometimes not. One major, consistent, problem that I have had running Linux is that frequently, one must ask colleagues about how certain things work, how things are configured, etc. Most Linux "gurus" are, IMHO, arrogant about their knowledge, and not willing to explain, in reasonably simple terms, how something works. Look... because of my career path, I'm not inherently turned off by technical explanations, but when I ask a simple, straightforward question, and the answer is complicated and chock-full of jargon, it's a turn-off. I have even heard, on at least three separate occasions (involving three separate gurus) a "guru" tell someone who is trying to do something in Linux "Well, if you think it's too complicated, just use Windows." This attitude is, in my experience, much more the norm than the exception.
Now, of course, I know that there will be a bunch of people who don't agree that this is a common attitude, but I would wager that most of those people are people who are very well-versed, and heavily invested, in Linux. Of course you don't run into this attitude on a daily basis, simply because you're not having to ask experts questions which they feel are "beneath them".
Bottom line: Linux is, for even a technical person, way the hell harder to run "out of the box". It has some serious advantages, no question. But if you're a professional of some sort or another who needs computing, but doesn't really need to be able to hack the pull-down menus of your browser, M$ products are very attractive. And, in my experience, the situation is aggravated by the attitude of those with the knowledge.
Look, if I talked to my calculus students the way I've been talked to by Linux guys, I'd lose half my class. If all my colleagues did, the department would lose funding. Anyone trying to promote Linux in any way must consider these issues.
Come on, give it up, that's
The truth is that UNIX users are users, too. Just like the Windows users we all flame and bitch about, UNIX users are still using their old tools because they resist change. Once they've learned a set of tools and procedures, they don't want to learn the new generation every year when the old way still works. No one does. All the same, new tools DO come out from time to time, and the time saved by learning them is frequently made up by the time you save using them.
It's so true. People who know Linux scare others away! Linux is just so easy, I don't know why they do this.
.so files not being resolved.
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi, etc.
For example, it only takes 2 steps under Linux to install the latest NVidia graphics drivers compared with Windows 3 steps!
Windows:
1. Download the installer for 1 of 2 potential OSes (9x or 2K/XP).
2. Run the installer.
3. Reboot.
Linux:
1. Make sure I have the right glibc (what's that asks a non-programmer? Oh, well, the c runtime library changed significantly between blah blah...)
1a. Figure out which of 15 distro-specific rpms is the right one for my installation. (or maybe it's easier to assume configure, gcc, and make are reasonable tools for the average user...)
1b. Download 2 rpm files and rpm -ivh them both from the command line. Maybe gnorpm can be used to get rid of the command line?
1c. Wrangle with XFConfig86 in emacs (or some more gui-oriented text editor).
1d. Oops, I have the wrong version of XFree86. Need to upgrade to 4.x to use the latest NVidia drivers. Download about 12 different files (some labeled "optional" without explanation). Run the install script from the command line. Only 1 warning... better than expected!
1e. Make it so that I boot in console mode. Otherwise, if X doesn't start, I have to figure out what linux boot arg does this. Must be some checkbox somewhere for this...
1f. Reboot, as recommended by XF86 installation notes.
1g. Run "startx"
1h. No gui. A long list of errors about
1i. Maybe the libraries haven't been installed. Honestly, I forgot how this problem gets solved.
1j. "startx"... Yes, an "NVidia" spash screen! It will be soon!
1k. Back to console window. An error about there being no default font.
1l. Research linux fonts and how they work. Only takes an hour maybe. Well, my XFConfig86 file is set up to use xfs, and a simple "ps -A" from the command line (oh wait, there's certainly a gui tool that will spit out the same info!) shows that xfs is running.
1m. Various linux newsgroup searches reveal that others have encountered similar problems. Try various incorrect solutions until it turns out that the latest X doesn't work with my distro's version of xfs, and that xfs is really unnecessary now because type 1 fonts are now supported natively, blah blah... Rather than use xfs, we just enter the directory names of fonts into the XFConfig86 file. Easy! Everyone knows that it's
1n. "startx"
2. Set it up again so Linux boots into X.
I can always do things in Linux in just 2 steps! Windows is so clunky!
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
The Linux-HOWTO's and groups.google.com will tell anyone anything they need to know. It just takes a little time.
As for teaching, I think that it shows not only what the 'instructors' need to do, but what the developers need to do. No matter what emotions tell you, easy is better. You should ALWAYS strive for ease of use coupled with as much power as possible. There are many who can not give any valid logical reasons as to why Linux could be provided with a 'kids gloves' interface for the masses. Basically, these poor souls are just pathetic egotistical loosers to be pittied and destroyed. However, the reality of the situation is that if a consistent and intuitive interface (not just graphical, and not just user) is followed and maintained it makes it easier for everyone at all levels to enjoy the power and freedom Linux brings. 'Tude will not do anything positive. 'Tude will not help advance Linux. After all, many will parrot off the list of what makes Open Source so grand, popularity being the common denominator amongst most of them, yet ironically attack any attempt to help popularize Linux. There is no rule in the Universe that states that you cannot make something accessable unless you sacrifice its power. It is only because of laziness that we find that today.
No, it's just that Linux sucks. Instead of you myriad of monkeys working on porting package xyz to 600 different variants of Linux, why don't you standardize and use your time to make something better. Linux is dead. Long live Linux.
OS X is what you've been trying to make, but you guys just don't get it, do you?
USB (and PCI) plug-and-play *does* work. "setup.exe" is no easier or harder than double-clicking on an RPM (and quite a bit harder than apt-get) but anyhow, must of the software I've gotten for Linux on a CD comes with a "setup.sh" anyhow. I don't know whether you've tried Galeon lately, but it kicks the ass of every other browser I've ever used around the block. Everyone I've shown it to (plenty of non-Linux folks in that group) thinks so too. Kernel recompiles most certainly aren't necessary -- install the newer Debian kernel package and everything else is done for you automatically; I'm sure the other distributions have something like it.
Linux is ready for the mass market -- only thing is, the mass market isn't ready for Linux.
I'm afraid I have to disagree. I held off for 5 years on learning vi/vim, because it scared the shit out of me, but I bit the bullet recently and bought Steve Oualline's excellent Vi IMproved - Vim book on the subject.
The first seven chapters alone have speeded up my coding already - that's less than 20% of the way through!
Yes, it takes a huge leap to learn it but, unlike latin, I have yet to find a *nix machine that doesn't speak it's language :)
One day I aim to do all my coding in Vim. that may sound weird, but the time savings I will be able to make will be huge.
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
IMHO, Mac OS X is the Holy Grail of operating systems. I ran LinuxPPC on my computer for years, though when OS X came out, I switched to it as soon as I could. I love it: I install and keep current Apache, PHP, MySQL, etc. and automate as much as I can with shell scripts and cron. I'd rather use OS X's terminal than the Finder to move files around and get things done. OS X has respect among the open source community, nearly every major project will compile quickly out-of-the-box (so to speak).
So far, not too different from Linux, right?
Now what if I want to read or produce a Word or Excel file? I don't have to import it into AbiWord or a Linux spreadsheet, I can use the real deal to work with the files. I have access to nearly every major application on the market, and receive full support for all of them. The Mac shareware community is very active (and a Mac-specific open source community is on the rise), producing surprisingly high-quality applications that look beautiful and are easy to use and functional.
My mom uses OS X, she loves it. I'm not even sure if she knows the command line exists, but that doesn't matter to her. The OS is completely usable without it. Apple did an amazing job at assuring that if a user doesn't want to see the command line, they don't have to, while still keeping it readily available to an expert user.
If someone asks me how to start working on Mac OS X with a USB hard drive, digital camera, printer, CD burner, modem, or anything else, all I have to say is, "Plug it in and use the tools that come with the OS."
OS X has all the power, stability, and flexibility of Linux (it is based on BSD, after all), while combining that with Apple's legendary user interface design and wide availability of brand-name applications. Sure, it's not free, but it's worth it.
I see two reasons that Linux gurus don't point to the GUI tools: most of us haven't needed a tool for the given task since before the GUI tools were written. Once you configure something on your system, it tends to stay configured. If you ask someone for help getting your sound card working, and their sound card has worked since before there were tools, they probably won't know about the tools.
.environment, and you won't have that problem any more). But the stuff a guru can tell you will only make sense once you've run into a problem and have the shared context of wanting the system to do something better.
Also, many Linux gurus have entirely abandoned Windows. They don't know that a Linux feature is like a Windows feature that the user understands, because that feature wasn't in the last version of Windows they used much. Furthermore, they probably ignored the Windows-like features, because they were unintuitive and unfamiliar. I, for instance, don't expect a directory window to switch directories if it has icons in it, because 3.1 and Mac popped up new windows for different directories; the other model I expect is a shell, where programs I run from a directory generally stay in that window. A setup where I don't get a new window for a new directory, but I do get a new window if I run a program, is quite unexpected to me, and I'd be unlikely to tell a user to use a setup I had a hard time remembering how to use...
The essential correct idea of the article is this: the people who know how to explain Linux to new people are the people who learned it themselves recently. They have a similar background and expectations, they find similar interfaces sensible, and they've needed tools since the latest tools because available.
If and when the recent converts are unable to do something, an old guru may be helpful. A guru may also have good advice for customizing a system once the user has some experience (e.g., "Put 'update -Pd co -P' in ~/.cvsrc, 'alias cvs=cvs -q' in your
As a former EE grad slave/lecturer and CS instructor I can vouch for this first-hand. When I was a student, I always learned faster from instructors that gave examples/metaphors/explanations that I could tie into the foundation I already had. The difficult part about applying this to a classroom (or, in the case of the article, private tutoring) is finding that elusive common ground with your student(s).
It may sound relatively simple, but it really isn't--especially with Linux. When I started learning Linux, I was already an expert on Mac/Windows machines, and had been programming both for a while. I imagine that most people who are trying to teach someone else Linux also have a somewhat similar background, and try to explain things the way they learned it. Even worse, you try to explain the things _you_ do while using Linux instead of teaching the newbie in terms (s)he can understand, using tools that (s)he will probably use. I don't use any Finder/Explorer/gmc tools to navigate through my files, but I'll bet that newbies would sure like to see one. I use Vim for pretty much everything, but I'll bet that newbies would like to see some graphical editor instead.
The point about "knowing too much" could be valid, but there's also a darker side to it. If I'm talking about how to do something in Linux with a Linux-savvy friend, I may as well be speaking Greek as far as newbies (or even experienced Mac/Windows users) are concerned. And if a newbie is looking over my shoulder while I'm using Linux for everyday stuff, it's still mostly Greek. (Except for when I'm using ViM, or course...) The dark side of this is that if I _don't_ use l33t-5p34k around certain members of the Linux community, I have no credibility. (You may dismiss this point until you get in front of a class with a group of 2-4 h4x0r friends in it and see how disruptive they can be.)
And unfortunately for the masses, Linux is not at the point where newbies can easily get going. (I say this is unfortunate for the masses, not for Linux, for until the Linux community delivers a "ready-for-newbies" desktop solution, those users will continue to choose OSes that will bilk their companies and them out of hundreds or thousands of dollars today, and leave them with questionable tomorrows.)
I'm convinced that the Linux community will get software to a point where newbies can install, use, upgrade, and enjoy the GNU/Linux combination as much as they enjoy any other OS they may sit in front of. As long as standards remain free and open, I'm sure of it.
Hey, wait a minute...
Turambar
------------------------------
Common sense is not so common.
--Voltaire
The page seems to be gone, or at least the content removed.
"Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux think they are too smart and think they know too much?
There's really not a whole lot wrong with either Linux or the BSDs. The way I see it, its pretty much all about documentation and standardization, at least as far as the learning curve goes.
... " is "My name is ...". They did not bother about details that Llamar is the infinity form, or that the verb is reflective. They just told me that "Mi nombre es" sounded dumb, and that I should memorize "Me llamo" if I didn't want to fail the class. :) Later on, of course, as one starts wondering about the various patterns in the stuff they taught, the finer points of the subjunctive, the reflexive, and other niceities of language were all carefully elucidated.
/usr/bin, what standard mount-point names are, etc.,) it would be much easier, I would think, for the major publishers to come out with volumes that will allow the common peon such as yours truly to learn the O.S.
I cut my teeth on DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1. Not nearly as far back as some of you guys' experience goes, but hey, I was nine when DOS was at 5.0. Despite what one might say about DOS, it was usable for a single-user system, and learnable.
Between the DOS manual, various Byte/PC Computing/PC World articles, and an endless series of books from the likes of Norton and SAM publishing, it was pretty easy to get a very hang of DOS. I managed to teach myself everything from the 'cd' command, to tweaking out every last drop of conventional memory using whack-ass stuff like Qemm to load command.com into theoretically non-existent bits of memory (all while making sure not to step on the EMS paging frame...).
Because there was only one standard installation method for DOS, it always sat in the c:\dos directory, and the path variable always pointed to c:\dos at least, books were able to supply concrete commands, ranging from a basic to an advanced level, that taught you how to do stuff. They knew that they could produce reliable screenshots, depicting FDISK in this screen or that, showing the creation of this expanded partition, or the deletion of that logical volume, word for word.
This is important. Rote memorization alone is useless. BUT: from memorization, comes recognition of patterns in what one has memorized, and from that, deeper understanding. It's the way I learned English as a non-native speaker, and its the way I learned how to talk to my computer.
When one first starts out learning an OS, it is much like a language, and one does not understand why one is doing something. In Spanish class, they taught you that "Me llamo
Back to Linux/BSD:
When I tried installing SuSE 6.4 and OpenBSD 2.7 a while back, I found that I wasn't getting all the help I wanted. During the install, my monitor, which was not plug and pray, was not detected. Even using a proprietary SuSE X configuration tool, I was not able to figure out how to easily tell the installer that indeed, my monitor will not do 120 hz at 800x600. Their manual didn't have anything, the xf86cfg man page didn't have anything, and I didn't have a net connection, or a copy of Lynx installed at that point.
I had run out of ideas, and my O'Reilly books didn't really give me any hints. O'Reilly's "Running Linux" and "Essential System Administration" showed me all a newbie could want to know about locking down my system and the evils of SUID, but not enough about how to configure X and the intricacies of Gnome, or the various package-installation and maintenance systems.
Books are needed out there that teach basic tasks. It's my opinion that entire volumes could be filled writing a comprehensive, easy-to-understand guide to installing the O.S. and the most commonly used packages. I will grant that Linux is a moving target, and that the hand-holding cannot possibly be as tight as targeting a specific release like MS's 'DOS 5.0', but it should still be possible to give good baselines as to "what to do when startx barfs on me with this error message," etc.
Equally, OpenBSD, of course, came with "man" and "apropos," both of which coughed up documentation that can only be described as 'reticent.' The mailing lists are intimidating, because everyone there apparently wrote pieces of the kernel, and I was a clueless newbie trying to adjust the volume of my soundcard, and the only books out there were "Configuring Firewalls using OpenBSD", and books on FreeBSD.
If either unix variant could become more standardized (i.e. in where certain files go, what files belong in etc., what files belong in
... to some people, anyway.
But not to me.
I may occasionally derive some personal satisfaction from doing things the hard way. Making my own puff pastry for example. Or brewing my own beer. But at the age of 35 I've long since abandoned the idea that it's worthwhile or even *moral* to ask other people to jump through the same hoops that I do. To the vast majority of people, computers are tools, not a hobby. Do you see anyone drilling holes with a handheld auger nowadays? When you're 20 years old and full of youth and energy and ideas and silliness, teaching your mom how to dial from a command line may seem like a good idea. But I assure you, you'll eventually get over that.
Joseph N. Hall
One problem with that approach.
Users. Don't. Read. Documentation.
Go around your office, and ask your non-technical (marketing, accounting, etc.) Windows users questions like:
I'll be amazed if more than 5% of your user community answers "yes" to any of those questions.
IMHO, the problem with 'gurus' teaching 'users' has nothing to do with their relative intelligence. Rather, it's an issue of the semantics of teaching, or more specifically, teaching the use of computers. To a 'guru', teaching the use of computers means getting their student to the point where they can figure out what's going on when confronted with a new program, task, or problem on their own, by connecting it to what they already know. This is called understanding, but that's not what 'users' are used to in the context of computers. What's worse, it is continually suggested to them that it's not what they want.
To quote from the linked article:
This is the basic problem. Telling someone "To A, push B" is not teaching, it's more like programming the student. The student will not understand what they are doing. They'll end up with an unconnected heap of little task descriptions in their head; actually, a lot of people end up with a heap of Post-its glued to their screens and keyboards. They are unprepared to cope with B not causing A (at best they'll reboot, typically they'll call tech support), and if they're given new software where B happens to look a lot more like C and is 5 inches off to the left, they'll need retraining.
That sort of thing doesn't happen with, say, cars. But contrary to popular opinion, that's not because cars are easy, it's because Driving School actually teaches you something, while 'Computer User School' does not.
One can only speculate as to the reasons behind that; after all, driving schools surely wouldn't complain if their students had to return at regular intervals to be told that "in this new and improved model, the windshield wiper switch is now located on the second stick right of the wheel". But in the computer user world, this is exactly how it works. The end result is the perpetual myth that computers are complicated and hard to use, plus excellent job opportunities for 'teachers'.
Feh, that came out rather rambling... Thanks for reading it anyway. ;)
The instructors don't come off as "smart" at all. Look at a similar example. When you take driver's ed, do you want an instructor to teach you how to drive; or an instructor that teaches you how to build a car, the theory of the internal combustion engine, and Newtonian Mechanics to describe the motion of the car, then (and only then) teaches you how to drive.
I think the bigger question is, should linux be for users? Yes it is completely possible to set up a really user friendly interface and have all kinds of fluff on it, but is that the direction that you really want to push linux. Just because microsoft is the devils work doesn't mean we have to try and substitute linux for it. THere is a huge effort underway to put linux into the "idiot user" world, but personally I think it is foolish. In my opinion linux is perfect for servers and it is a waste of time trying to make it a client box. In order to make it into a more user friendly environment a lot of core changes would have to be made which would defunct linux as a server. For instance, in order for there ever to be super easy and powerful installers and managers, there goes security. If linux ever has a chance in the client world then a very different distribution needs to be designed that removes concepts such as "root privledges" and so on. But if we continue to combine linux as a single distribution that can be used for both clients and servers then we will ruin the purity that is linux.
In any skill, there are stages of mastery, from novice to expert.
Novices know nothing.
Apprentices know some things by rote.
Competent people have mastered all the rules...
... and so on, until you hit experts, who no longer follow any easily described rules at all - they understand everything as it is, with no simplification.
In general, the best people to teach novices are the competent, whose knowledge is still at the "rule" stage, but whose abilities are broad ranging and well learnt. The worst people to teach novices are experts, who understand so much that they no longer think in the same way as the novice.
Hence the derision experts often express for teachers ("those who can't, teach"). The good teacher knows something the expert doesn't - what to leave out, how to convey broad principles memorably, what explanations to leave until later. Cranky experts knock Dummies books, which for all their cutesiness and condescension are models of clear technical writing.
The first wave of Linux documentation was written by experts for experts. I have no doubt that the simpler stuff will come along (there's a Linux for Dummies, perhaps it's coming already).
The point: don't assume that you can teach well because you are a subject expert. Conversely, don't think that you have nothing to teach because you're not.
The fact that I can never get my basic audio and video cards recognized on the spot is an indication that more work needs to be done. I have a P-II IBM PC that I always have to manually intervene to make sure things work right every time I try out one of the distro's on it. With windows it will most like work out of the box or you will find the drivers with little work, but with Linux a lot is involved. Then there is the latest and greatest hardware that are not supported by Linux unless you are one of those who know where to find the source that you can tweak and compile for your kernel level.
I love using linux at home and playing with the latest kerenls but I still have not tried to convince any of my friends to switch to linux for those reasons and others.
/-\ |-|
The problem is that Linux, when you look at all the distributions, the CLI and GUI interfaces, along with the various things you can do, and the number of companies involved.... it's a bit much to swallow when you compare it to an O/S from a single company like Windows and Microsoft.
In the Windows word, you have a GUI interface, and primarily 2 variants of an O/S but primarily 1 for the masses. When it comes to Linux, you have soo much more to contend with. You have options, you have flavors, you have choices for all people, but also those choices make it difficult for newbies to grasp especially if the world they are coming from is Windows or even Mac.
In order for newbies to get a good understanding of linux is in the method of explanation.
Another things to consider is that long-time linux users are CLI users. If they could they would use a command-line to deal with nearly everything. Some of the newer users, especially if they are coming from a Windows/Mac background are 'expecting' to see something remotely like the world they came from. So in the example in the article about the long-time linux user showing someone to config their modem by CLI is understandable, you go with what works. And if the user doesn't understand then you have to contend with the idea that you will be dealing with a word of users that Windows admins deal with... those who know how to use a computer, and those who know how to play solitaire.
Other problems I see for newbies getting into Linux is the various applications their are from the distributions, and the changes in versions of distributions. From personal experience, I was originally comfortable configuring my network interface using Linuxconf. Then an installl I used didn't have linuxconf so I had to use another program. This other program was a bit buggy. So with changes, in software, and the main nuances with Linux, yeah it is going to be a bit difficult for new ppl to get onboard and use the O/S. It's even difficult for experiences Windows ppl to get on board, so imagine the 'solitaire' users.
And if you say go read the man pages, or linuxdocs.... the solitaire users will respond with 'what?'.
I find the main obstacle with Linux documentation to be that in the real world we have all of the Linux variants, varying hardware support, varying system configurations etc. On the other hand, in even a good book, when explaining how to do any task, it always explains it in a step by step fashion, from start to finish. Great, except at step 4 I get an error. So I read the chapter from the start. I repeat everything. I get the same error. As somebody who is not a Linux admin (though a comfortable Linux user - it is my job) I have no idea what to do next. Now I know that this is an inherent problem with having many distributions etc, but take my specific case:
I bought a Red Hat 7 book. I downloaded Red Hat 7.1 Is it really that unreasonable to expect the various config tools to be called the same name? This is a minor update, and yet many sections of the book failed at easy-to-follow section 1 - where the command name is wrong.
Another example: I installed this on a computer with 128MB ram. I knew this for 2 reasons, firstly that I could see the stick in there myself, and secondly, Windows had happily used 128MB. When I installed Linux, it used 64MB. My only option of course was to go to the book. After much scouring I found an obscure (I guess not obscure for those in the know) option to tell the kernel to use a certain amount of ram. So I did this, and guess what? Kernel panic.
Eventually I found the problem, after brainstorming with my friends; the onboard graphics card that was sharing main memory was confusing the hell out of Linux. Now to start with, this should not happen. Hell, maybe people don't care enough to fix this. But even if this is not the case, why could I not find this in any book I looked at? And before anybody tells me I'm wrong because it says it in their book, I looked in 2 distinct Red Hat 7 books - 2 books on configuring a desktop system should be overkill. It's all very well explaining everything in a step by step fashion, but after I went through this experience, I paid more attenton to the books, and noticed they virtually *never* explained reasons why things might fail.
In my experience, with the documentation available, if you ever have a problem that takes you offthe beaten track then you will not find your way back on without expert assistance.
BTW, the only time I had a similar problem under Windows was when installing hardware that conflicted. This had nothing to do with Windows, and was fixed by exchanging the hardware.
Bit of a rant, but my experiences left me a little frustrated with the installation (the graphics thing was only one of many examples)
since when is being too smart a problem?
Today's example, figure out which network card is which so I can give them their correct IP address/settings. In a perfect world, the IP config utility would help me identify my cards. Instead, it expects me to do that given chipset and device driver name info and to know to look in the boot log files for the identification strings from the cards. Novice ready? No. Guru expected? Yes.
I believe Linux is a superior technical offering. However, it seems to be done by gurus for gurus and forgets the rest of the world. Faced with that, novices who try it will quickly go back to Windows. Pity.
Welcome to the net of 1000 lies. Upgrades are scheduled soon that should bring us to the 10,000 lies mark.
It's not that they're too smart, it's they're fucking elitist and have a subconscious superiority complex. God I hate those people.
- http://pakman.sytes.net/
that people are stupid, make linux stupid and you will win. Acording to suse, "NOW EVERY BODY CAN COMPREHEND LINUX" Well good luck to you if the very first linux distro was from a geeks collection of cdrs and it was kernel 0.01!
Here's the problem in a nutshell, right there. "clueless masses"... they're only "clueless" because they don't understand the computer as well as you do, though they probably severely outclass you on other knowledge (history, or art, or automobile mechanics, or any one or more of a million other things). Does your lack of knowledge about 16th century French Realist poetry make you "clueless" as well?
This elitist attitude shows up again and again with advanced computer users and programmers--usually from people who should know better, like some of the wizard programmers I know who will try to plug an ISA card in a PCI slot: they may do fantastic software, but they're "idiots" when it comes to hardware. Are these guys "clueless"?
I'm sorry, but this attitude really needs to be adjusted. It's the difference between:
Scenario A:
Scenario B:
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Someone mod this up. This is the most insightful thing I've read here today.
Let`s be honest about this. An awful lot of the experienced users jump at the chance to reply with "RTFM" or something similar when a new user asks a question that may sound silly to some. They struggled to learn the OS and they aren`t about to let someone take the easy route to solving whatever problem they may have. This attitude isn`t only a problem with Linux but also with the Unix scene in general.
Linux claims to be the OS of and for the people, but simply sneers at those who find it too difficult and fall by the wayside. Microsoft have written the book on how to produce a successful OS, it`s not black magic, just an acceptance that the customer is king.
I have been developing on Unix for 3 years now, and Linux is my tool since 1996. But I don't feel comfortable with Linux, and this is why:
I would like to be able to swap the graphics card, boot the computer and have Linux working, no questions asked, not even a "New Hardware found, please reboot". The same goes for soundcard, motherboard, mouse, videograbber (and for a network card, I at least hope to have it recognized and drivers loaded).
I would like the user interface well integrated with the OS, and to be able to copy/paste objects and sets of different types.
Finally, I would like it to boot in less than 20 seconds on a Duron 700 MHz.
Additionally, I would like this OS NOT to be associated with a crowd of rabid zealots that will eat you alive if you point out any flaws or bugs of this OS.
So, while I do use Linux everyday at work, because it's the best choice for what I do, I would never use it at home, or anyplace, for fun and relaxation or any sort of creative work (except C or Perl programming or shell scripting. I didn't mean that kind of creative work.).
If you read my post carefully, and see that there are many others that share my view, you will understand why Linux is not making big strides in user's homes. You will see why the Linux market is now already saturated.
Sigged!
So what you're saying is that Linux needs to become Mac OS X in terms in the UI. It meets all the criteria in your bullet list.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
That is because in Windows I almost never need to look in a manual
I'm going to answer before I read through all the posts.
Yes, but it's not just Linux, it's pretty much *NIX users and experts in general that make it over complex.
I'm a Mac/Windows guy that tried to make the change to Linux, and all I got when I asked questions were "RTFM newbie" or overly complex answers to simple questions (answers that I had to dig for myself).
An example of this was today. I have a OS X/Darwin server at work and a SCO Unix "guru" there, I asked him a question that should be simple for a UNIX guy with 10 years experaince, but I didn't remeber cause I am sick with a cold. He lectures me for 10 minutes about how I'm using the wrong syntax and "using non-UNIX terms". I asked him because I was..
1. Looking for guidance
2. He's a co-worker - team building
I got bullshit. I turned around and found the answer on the web...but it's an attitude like that which really annoys the piss out of me and drives me towards something with a friendlier user base. This person is usually great to work with, but if it turns into a UNIX related issue, it's time to be an ass.
And it's not just him, in the 2.75 years I've been working with Linux, I've had nothing but troubles with questions about how to do something. I got 500+ emails because I said on Slashdot I liked Caldara's distro better than RedHat 6.x. Wow, that makes me want to be part of the Linux Movement.
When I wanted help on Netatalk, I got flamed. It's been alot of fun, but I agree, alot of *NIX people are asses, showing off thier brain to make them feel good.
It's no way to build a community.
First off, I want to explain to you that I don't I program, instead I teach your average everyday (mostly) adult about computers. My classes range from absolute introductory to using PowerPoint to Introductory Linux to certain certfications that I won't mention here. There's such an incredible shortage of capable, personable instructors for technical subjects that my bosses fight over me and my average hourly salary rivals those of professional programmers. And while I do consider myself a geek, I don't possess a masters in CS just a BA and a few certifications. (If you don't believe me, then check the salary surveys for trainers.)
When I first went into the classroom and began teaching, I went in and prepared a lecture for the class. Boy, did I get an earful. Adults don't want to be lectured to and they sure as hell want to know *why* they have to learn to do X or whatever (and not just because you have to). In all of my classes, I make sure that the students are able to do some in class exercises where they can ask why are we doing this and that they feel free to ask any questions --no matter if it is my Intro class or my Linux classes.
Anyway, the point that I wanted to drive home to you all is that I think the next stage of the Linux revolution (as it may be) lies with the instructors. The early adapters have already adapted and besides the persistent PC tech who is telling his boss that he should try Linux, the future is with us instructors who fight (and yes, I have had to specifically search for a program which would allow me to *gasp* install linux on a few machines) to teach the subject. Not to mention that there isn't too much in the way of available Linux course curriculums to base my classes on.
So, here's my admonition to all of you: If you know it, teach it (even if it a little itty bitty bit). And when you teach it, be enthusiastic and remember that not every one of your students will have the same passion and drive and reasons for being in your classroom as you do.
This is another view of the world.
I'm not so sure. I know a lot of non-technical people who are perfectly adept at switching between the interfaces of the Mac and Windows. Even that funny one-button mouse doesn't throw them.
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
I hope they're not talking about Debian or anything!
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
I think the biggest problem getting new people into linux is trying to get them interested. For the most part people like simple to use computers. Most developers I know use tools like GCC but prefer the feel of windows just to get work done.
Another problem with linux [et al.] is that there is hardly any collective effort on one solid project. For example, you can use KDE or Gnome, Mozilla or Netscape, Vi or Gedit, etc...
While diversity is great in commerce, it sucks in freelance kits. There is no real incentive to be competetive when your programs are free.
The best thing the Linux community IMHO can do is build one big standard implementation of the kernel and support apps that use only one gui, one office suite, one compiler suite, one etc...
That way future development can concentrate on one mainstream instead of the many many many forked distributions.
As support evidence look at Windows. Windows 98 was based on 95, w2k was based on NT4/98, etc... For example, notepad from w2k looks [but has more functionality] the same as notepad from windows 3.1! They realized "if it ain't broke don't fix it". So while the underlying software is getting better in windows the look/feel/orientation is not changing too much [except for windows XP which is kinda silly looking].
-- Peace!
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
until much AFTER unix. As first hand experience, I was given the C bible and an ipc sun when i was 11. That is what a computer meant to me. I didn't know exactly what the internet was; i didn't know what gui meant. A computer to me was NOT for entertainment, it seemed, but for honest to god work. eventually i realized it could be used for entertainment, and since sun does not generally suffice for such use due to the lack of applications, i was not very entertained.
eventually i went to linux. i did everything in linux. windows was FOREIGN to me, and i was afraid that when i took my first programming class i would not be able to use vc++ because it was so much different than emacs / gdb!! know ofcourse i can use vc++ if i need to, but frankly, i feel VERY uncomfortable using windows, and any unix environment, even twm as opposed to my current enlightenment look (which looks better than windows anyway) is FAR more preferable to windows.
My point IS (it took a while to get here), that differences are hard to change to and from. i think that ppl should stop worrying too much about relearning others from windows to linux. if they want to, they'll learn. they should concentrate on getting the new generation to get a feel of unix, and see its power, elagence, and TRUE ease of use. yuo ppl say that 'yuo can't click, drag and drop'? why should that matter. only a windows user is used to draggedy droppedy BULLSHIT! a person who has never seen a computer before (especially someone elderly) has a much easier time getting used to text based interface rather than using a coordination-required mouse.
my grandma wanted to go to the library to learn how to use the computer to search for books. she went over to the windows machines, and i showed her what she needed to do to search. she had a bunch of trouble clicking the mouse and remembering where to click. on the other hand, after i realized that this wouldnt work, i showed her the old text-based computers. she caught on INSTANTLY, and had absolutely NO trouble.
command based OS's as opposed to graphical ones are much more logically intuitive. moreover, yuo KNOW what yuo are doing instead of just clicking what billy-goat-gates tells you.
QED
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Say you do an install from a friendly distribution of Linux. A month later, you discover that there's a newer version of one of the apps on the internet. So you download it, and try to install. You discover it requires about 3 other programs to be updated before it'll install. So you go to the websites for those, and discover that they too depend on updated versions of other files. Then, you also risk breaking everything else that still depends on the old versions. Ok, you can simlink your various versions, but really, who wants to do that?
With Windows, everything is standard enough that you just download an update package, install it, and maybe reboot, that's it. You don't have to seek out and/or compile the latest dll from vendor x, and everything that it depends on...
As much as I like Linux, it just doesn't offer the ease and flexibility of Windows. That's just the way it is. Maybe if the developers spent more time addressing this fundamental flaw, Linux would make inroads quicker (should it wish to do so).
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
I think the point people miss is that if you want to do only that kind of stuff, you might as well be using Windows or another GUI-based OS. One reason I use Linux is because I can do things much faster with a keyboard and a bash prompt than with a mouse. Sure I use things like graphical web browsers and such, but when I don't need them, I don't have to use them. The power of unix lies in chaining small programs together. If you don't want to to do that, why use it?
Note that I'm not trying to say who should and should not use Linux, just that you won't see the true power of it if are stuck in a GUI and can't use a shell if your life depended on it.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Although I agree with your point in general - it'll be ready for the clueless when logging in doesn't happen - I've found that it's not true in all cases. In any sort of networked Windows situation, Windows prompts for a user and password. At my school, our teachers are equipped with laptops. From what I've seen, they have little problem figuring out how to log in. Maybe the trick is to say "you need to log onto the network" instead of "you need to log onto the computer". Or maybe it should be related to e-mail - yeah, you're probably the only one who would want to use your e-mail account, but you never know. Anyhow, most students recognize that they have to type in a password if they reboot a library computer. They've just become use to it. Maybe that's another key. I don't know.
[plug for my distro]
Mandrake has gotten the auto-install hardware/auto-update down pretty well. Although I haven't changed out a huge number of components through my use of Mandrake, I sometimes switch between a PS/2 and a USB mouse. Mandrake has no problem detecting and installing drivers for it. It works.
Package management is also halfway decent. I say halfway and mean it. Getting the packages is hard as hell (for me at least) - lots of times the sources won't add properly. Security updates are a breeze, but the Cooker (development version) won't always connect. I mirrored it (1.8 GB isn't too bad) and keep it updated with cron, but that's a bit over the average user's head (and HD space/modem time). Once I get the packages, the old package hell can happen - right now, I updated CUPS but unfortunatly it's now having problems because something else isn't installed. My slackware-using friend just laughs at me. Very hard.
Packaging isn't ready for prime time but the hardware detection certainly is. I actually found installing Mandrake was easier than Windows - but keeping Windows up to date far outdoes Mandrake.
Personally, I dont think the problem is that these people know too much, I think the problem is that they know too little. I cant speak for the rest of the world, but that is the general case with people teaching Linux in Norway (without pointing at everyone though).
They're simply people that thinks they know it all, yet, have generally only touched a single distribution, dont know C (No, I do not say that is a requirement, but it helps a long way), and generally views Linux as something it isnt.
My favourite example of this is IT Akademiet, which seems to have no quality control of their teachers other than the fact that they must know how to turn on the machine. (Yes, a flame and my *personal* opinion, and if you happend to teach there, you dont have to like my opinion)
2.3 Layer Creation, Deletion, Duplication, and Organization
2.3.1 Creating New Layers
2.3.2 Raising Layers
I see it.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I think it's very discouraging to most users how lame linux is out of the box. The install of most dists sucks, and after the install, not enough is set up. Most of the functionality of linux is seemingly hidden functionality--you need to know things to use it. I know lots and lots of people that install linux and even use it for a month and then end up hating it because they never got it into even a semi-respectable condition.
/etc/skel, X configs (including Xresources and WM themes/styles)), /etc/issue, etc etc etc etc. These files have been following me a while and have evolved much; I use them to make any linux rule very fast.
Whenever I install a new box, the first thing I do is recompile a new kernel (a nice side effect of this that isn't all the usual reasons you hear is that boot time is cut by more than half (since all the crap is out)), and then install a bunch of my own 'packages', which are xdm-config files, bash configs,
But the newbie doesn't have things looking really nice.
As a side note more to the actual topic, I don't think linux is hard at all. I think it's easy; people simply must get used to a slightly altered ideaology. If people used linux for a long time/were brought up with it, they'd feel natural with it too.
Much work needs to be done to make the 'hidden' functionality more accessible to the unlearned.
that will be the best thing for linux.
That depends upon what you are teaching.
I've taught unix classes for a few years now. If you are teaching from the standpoint that the student isn't going to administrate the machine, then yes, teaching point-and-clic stuff and powerpoint stuff is fine. But if you're teaching someone how to be an actual linux *user*, then you want the course to contain as little point and click as possible. Point and click comes once you get used to how text works. If you teach future admins point and click with no text, then you're wasting your time.
I've been using Linux for maybe seven years now. I remember not even having X for the longest time. I edited all my text files and knew what every app and config file on my system did.
Within the past year or so, I've started discovering GUI config tools and such. I'm learning that Linux has gotten a lot easier to use in recent years.
When newbies ask me how to do stuff, I pretty much refuse to show them. I just explain that I can do it, but the way I know is pretty complex compared to the GUI tools that are floating around these days. I just poke around their desktop looking for a tool that looks like it does the right thing, then say, "that's probably what you want to look at."
I also try to keep a few recent newbie books around for lending purposes.
If you know the intracacies, it's hard to skim over them when you're teaching (at least, it has been for me).
"Whatever can go wrong, will." --Finagle's Law
I get the feeling that a lot of my fellow Linux geeks assume that because Windows users feel more at home in a GUI and are scared of a shell (duh, they've been using a GUI, and not a shell), that they are somehow not intelligent enough, or somehow incapable of reading documentation... of any sort.
On the other hand, I get the feeling that most Windows users believe that us Linux geeks have purposely encrypted current linux documentation in our own esoterica so that we can feel special when nobody else understands; We also explain things extra difficultly so we can feel better about ourselves, like we all have some sort of inferiority complex.
Of course neither is correct. Here are some of the underlying reasons I believe this situation has come about:
Until VERY recently Linux has been pretty much a system administrator's thing, or a serious code hacker's thing. Because nobody outside of the circle probably ever even heard of Linux, why the hell would the documentation have been written for those outside of the circle? It was generally (and correctly) assumed that anyone else reading the documentation was either a sys-admin, hacker, or similar type, who knew Linux/Unix and simply wanted some configuration details or command line arguments. There's no reason our HOWTOs and man pages should have been written any differently, at the time they were written.
Now suddenly Linux got some time under the spotlight and a lot of people are trying Linux for various purposes, Server, Desktop, or for the reason maybe a good portion of us started playing with Linux, just to tinker around. They "grew up" in GUI land for the most part, don't know jack about using a command line, and are now confronted with something that's somewhere between both. They are obviously interested or they wouldn't have bothered, but they are completely frustrated because all of the documentation is really just there for configuration details or usage details. Maybe we don't see it that way, but they probably do. It seems like a lot of energy is being spent in finger pointing when it could be spent writing migration-documentation (I don't know if I just made that up or not). If I did, what I mean is that for the transition from Windows to Linux to be easy we need documentation that not only explains how to do things, why you are doing each step, and what exactly it's going to do, but also what the equivelant would have been in Windows.
Just my $0.02
P.S. Yes this nick is completely unoriginal, but you jerks already stole all of the good nicks! =)
I'm working at a company that uses JCL and COBOL, some of it written before I was born. Believe me, past expenditures still carry weight. Oh, how I wish they didn't...
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
the author poses an interesting question. The question in my mind is.. should new users be taught to interact witht he system as an expert user would or using advances in interface technology, teach users only what they need to know to survive in a linux environment.
some would argue that it is better to make sure users understand the underlyuing technology they are dealing with.. and the ability to understand the function at the lower levels.. at least as low as the filesystem for configuration.
does teching them the "right" way noe prevent them from coming back eveyr 10 minutes to troubleshoot things that come up.
should new users or those not wanting to delve too deeply int he system, be guided via graphical systems and interface designed to make performing these operations simpler. will that be all the user ever needs..
very possibly.
I believe the answer to this is depending on the circumstences. I think tht trying to fice a windows user back to a command line is a sure fire way to confuse the poor sod. But i dont think that it is an excuse. those same graphical interface may disappear in the future or take different shape and having to rely that those willalways be there is also a sure sign of failure..
I think learning the graphical interface configuration tools is fine.. justr as once the user is somewhat comnfortable working with the system, they should learn to do things the "right" way..
no sense in scaring them when they are still at that stage where thier level of udnerstanding of the technology may not allow them to completely grasp more advanced concepts.
you must start somewhere..
if you feel differently.. just keep in mind that trigonometry or calculus wasnt your first math class.. after years of arithmatic and algebra, you were at the point where calculus should make sense.
LW-
Linux window managers are terrible and no user should need to suffer through them. The best Linux interface is Putty.
We have this new programmer at work and she's trying to learn Linux (our defacto development standard). Rather than implement all of the convenience features (like making sure gnorpm runs as root when you double click an RPM) is a whole hell of a lot more complicated than opening a terminal and typing in su; rpm -i.
(I will say that Mandrake does an excellent job of doing this for you. RedHat could take a lesson from them)
Right now I'm at the point where I'm finally understanding all the little quirks of all of these interacting gnome/kde/X micro applications. But a lot of the time I use the console myself.
Assumes you know things without telling you it assumes you know them
While I haven't used Linux for a while, I do remember when I first started using it a few years ago. And I definitely say that this was the biggest problem I had, that documentation assumed that you knew something which you most likely wouldn't know if you were reading that particular piece of documentation...
(And asking questions in IRC channels (like #linuxhelp) about unclear documentation would get the answer 'RTFM!')
/Mikael Jacobson
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
I remember a problem I had in Debian with xterm. I wasing in the IRC #debian channel. In the channel news item which talked about a problem in xterm, and to apply the "usual fix". I didn't know what the "usual fix" was. But I was in luck the person who wrote the news was in the channel, so I could ask him. Well getting him to tell me took about 30 minutes. He keep complaining about users not figureing things out themselves and how I should RTFM. Well he then said something about a bug report about this problem. Looking through the Debian website,I found the bug report which showed the fix. He could have typed one line to show me this fixed but no I had to go through 30 minutes of interrogation. Also he could have put a link in the new item to this bug report. But I guess he wouldn't get a chance to show what an asshole he was then.
Still, while some people aren't good at explaining things in terms that a newbie can understand, others are.
In my experience, the ability to teach a subject well is *extremely* rare to find in people. It requires a solid understanding of a subject, an ability to communicate things at the audience's level, the desire and patience to interface with people and transfer knowledge, and finally a clear picture of the quality of the FM before telling newbies to RT.
How many people have you met that have two or three of those abilities, much less all of them? Someone like that, perhaps, can teach you calculus in half a day, but finding that person (qualified in that subject) could take you months, years, ? Hell, it's hard finding people who can write quality documentation.
I think the only reason Microsoft doesn't have this problem (if in fact it doesn't) is their strict user interface design guidelines and testing along these lines. I think Linux/gnome/kde could greatly benefit from such guidelines, even if they were made optional (i.e., you don't have to use the GNU software coding standard guidelines to license something under the GPL), if it could make the products easier to use. Until then, people will either get confused using Linux or will stumble across the rare person who can explain things to them in a way that makes it all clear.
i have many good friends who know i use linux. they jave often come to me asking "Can you teach me Linux?".
And i always tell them "Here are my Mandrake CD's... have fun".
My personal belife that you cant teach someone how to use and OS. You can only teach them the specifics of the OS. So the best way to learn is to play. Thats how you learned Windows... why can't you do the same with Linux. Well their excuse is Linux is hard. But they are wrong linux is easy... Once you stop thinking in a Windows mindset.
For example a person who uses Windows would say. "Why cant I just open up the hard drive and see my files, like in explorer?"
The anwser is you can, just type "ls". Some people try to tell me "Why is that so hard?" And i tell them. its not, its alot easier then double-clicking on "My Computer", then C: or whatever.
So anyway.. my point is to learn Linux, all you have to do is stop thinking in a windows mindset. Anyone who expects Linux to be like Windows or visa-versa, i think they is missing the point.
"Flee at once, all is discovered."
Having grown up with BASIC on a Z80 machine, then with DOS on a 286, I had relatively little Windows usage before moving on to Linux. I cannot see why drag and drop and other GUI candies are intrinsically easier than command line. I'm not saying they are worse, either - it's just a different world.
If people are honestly willing to convert from Windows to Linux, they should accept the fact that the systems are different. And the fact that if they want more power, they need to learn how to harness it. If they just want a Windows clone on X, I don't see why they should change in the first place.
Of course, there is the all-important point about a migration path. The problem is that if people get a perfect Windows clone, they may not have an incentive to learn alternative interfaces. I admit I started my Linux experience with Gnome, but it had a sufficient number of quirks that led me to try out alternatives.
In any case, the reality is that Linux is still being written by geeks, for geeks. No matter how laymen complain about it, we will make it what we want. It's useless to turn it into another Windows because there already is one.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The Name of the Disease is "smarty-pants-itis".
/. account was stolen but three times nobody at /. sysop email gives a rat's ass so to hell with logins)
The name of the cure is "install Linux for your Mom, and get her on the air, reliably and simply".
The "basics" for people like your mom and mine being ==> email and netscape, the rest is bollocks.
That's my task for Christmas: install Linux, so my Mom (past 70) does not have to deal with Windoze virii. She just wants email and a bit of web surfing, okay?
This market (moms and such) is a stepping stone to Linux World Domination (tm). It's true.
(signed) euroderph (whose
I think the bigger question is, should linux be for users? Yes it is completely possible to set up a really user friendly interface and have all kinds of fluff on it, but is that the direction that you really want to push linux. Just because microsoft is the devils work doesn't mean we have to try and substitute linux for it. THere is a huge effort underway to put linux into the "idiot user" world, but personally I think it is foolish. In my opinion linux is perfect for servers and it is a waste of time trying to make it a client box. In order to make it into a more user friendly environment a lot of core changes would have to be made which would defunct linux as a server. For instance, in order for there ever to be super easy and powerful installers and managers, there goes security. If linux ever has a chance in the client world then a very different distribution needs to be designed that removes concepts such as "root privledges" and so on. But if we continue to combine linux as a single distribution that can be used for both clients and servers then we will ruin the purity that is linux.
I found about 5, (including Yahoo's 'official' client) and tried them all. None of them has all the features of the Windows client. Some were ok, some were downright sucky. Ironically, if the five guys that wrote those apps would have worked together, they might have created something the Windows people would have envied. Instead, we've got 5 incomplete clients, none of which works as good as the closed source Yahoo-brand one.
No one can force developers to work on specific things, of course, but everyone would benefit if people would think twice before embarking on authoring yet another text editor/audio player/messenging client/etc when what really is needed is one KILLER app in each category.
If you think you want to write an HTML editor, maybe pick a nice existing one and contribute to that instead. (Please note I'm not disparaging the work of the Y! client authors, I just think developers in general need better judgement.
"Look, I can copy this web link from one window and paste it into my browser. Oh, wait, that didn't work."
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2B1ASK1
OpenBSD has a brilliant installer. For one thing you only need to download 50M to get all of the functionality you need (leaving out X). Starting from scratch, I can complete an install in half an hour including all the servers I want (eg DHCP, DNS, HTTP). I've been using Linux for years, but when I want to setup a Unix box quickly I'll choose OpenBSD every time because it's so quick and easy to install. However, I work on Solaris all day so compared to that anything's quick and easy.
harshbutfair: you know it makes sense
www.harshbutfair.org
However its the programmers doing the testing, so the situation is pretty bleak unless you help with useability and arent an expert.
Ive been trying ot help.
An idea i had was to allow us to give feedback on important new features almost in talkback fashion, it was shot down because its said that a group of 5 people is all thats needed to properly do useability testing.
Problem is if all 5 are programmers, you have a serious problem.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
It's not just Linux
Groups Google thread regarding HTML usage
and I finally decided it was easier to just dl the popular browsers and test my stuff thru them rather than deal with....... well, HTML is an interpreted language, not an institution as my last response (maybe yet to be posted +1 correction) states.
Though I did make this comment on slashdot a few days ago.
My roomate (not a computer user) started playing around with gnome the other day, and before you know it was using mozilla, star office and a slew of games without the slightest bit of coaxing or help from me.
In my opinion the main problem with linux being accepted is the average persons fear of change/the unknown.
Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
Nope. The biggest problem with Linux usability is that it's nearly non-existant. When it does exist, it's just a poor clone of Windows usability principles.
And to those who claim "Linux is easy to use, it just sucks to install!", I have a wake-up call: part of usability IS making it easy to install!
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
I just spent part of my day trying to get RH7.1 on a Compaq DL580. The install went fine but of course trying to get any the network part done was awful. an ifconfig -a would show the two nic cards with the ip and mac addresses but they still didn't work. A look at the dmesg showed some funky errors that I had never seen before so I decided to see if I could get a better driver. So I get on another computer go to the site, download the nic.src.rpm, follow all of the steps to the letter but the driver wouldn't compile. When Linux works with your hardware it works well, when it doesn't you can plan on spending half or your day trying to make it work. Oh, try to get the newest openssh loaded on a RH7.1 box because it has vulnerabilites and what do I get, failed dependencies, with glibc. Hmmm try to upgrade glibc and it tells me that glibc some version conflicts with my version which is the exact same one... I don't remember having this many problems installing sofware in windows. Double click on setup if I recall. And please don't tell me about up2date which I have to register with rh_something or other. Linux easy? I think not..
everyone knows netscrape 4.x that still comes with most distributions sucks. if your box isn't fast, use konqueror or galeon or opera. if you have a new machine, try mozilla. I *love* galeon (with junkbuster).. it's fast on my 233, I can customize search bars which I often use, and fonts scale beautifully. I agree that fonts are still a big problem in linux (especially in X), but even using abiword, things are getting better. Slight modification to some configs and you can even use windows TTFs.
I must be missing something. I installed RH 7.2, I think Mozilla has the same shitty X fonts that Netscape had. Maybe they are a tiny bit better, but this was really my major gripe upon installation. It's downright ugly. I love GNOME using the anti-aliased fonts, but like many other things for X, this isn't universal.
I fired up AbiWord and guess what.. ugly fonts there too. I'm sure there is a way to set up a TrueType font server under X, and get all your programs to use nice fonts, but I'm sure it involves a bunch of steps that I just don't have time to do.
The M$ FUD machine has convined people they can't do anything for themselves. People are capable of and enjoy far more difficult persuits. Who out there is afraid of setting the gaps on their spark plugs and changing their oil? How about cooking? My mom knows how to prepare food as well as any trained chef. If people had the M$ no can do attitude about other things, they would be taking the public bus to McDonald's everyday. People underate their ability to get things done on a computer and M$ has been encouraging it for years. The touchier and more prone to failure their stuff is, the less likely anyone is to experiment. Then they wisper that M$ is a easy as it gets and act mysterious with their closed source, cost lots of money to learn junk.
Then there is the device driver issue. Why should a USB hrd drive be difficult to use? It could ship with little disk that does the whole kernel recompile if needed. But then big bad Bill would withhold vital API info and the M$ stamp of approval. The same tricks have been used to encourage non uniform interfaces to devices, depite the obvious saving of co-operation and standardization. How many different kinds of NE200 network cards are there, with all their goofey brand names? Thousands? Yet all can be run with a single linux driver. HA! The end result is stuff that does not work anywhere. Got an XP driver for that old winmodem? Good luck! Good luck getting information from the vendor if you feel like making a driver yoursel. Yet you can get a driver for a modem with brains that's Hayes compatible. Anyone doing PC set up and upkeep knows that the prommised simplicity of M$ junk is a lie. When you get down to it, the M$ world is much quirker and more difficult to penetrate.
People have been taught to believe that the CLI is "backward" and impossible. If that were really true, no one would use the tools we enjoy. Face it, our tools were made by very energetic people who would do just about anything to avoid work. Just about anything can be accomplished and automated by memorizing a few dozzen less words than a cat can remember. I don't consider myself so bright for being able to memorize them. I consider myself bright for understanding why I should. Small up front efforts taken save great effort later. I'm teaching my wife a few basic commands, one word at a time. She seemed to have gotten it last night. Instead of searching through a tree with a mouse she told me, "what, you just type the word? That's easy." Exactly.
With a little help from device manufacturers who want to sell more of their stuff, the world will get much easier very fast.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Hah, smart my ass, most linux users just know enough to get by and fool others into thinking that its way harder then it is in order to keep their self image up. Most real linux users who know a whole lot, don't make it sound hard, its only the bastards who don't know jack.
its broken broken fucking broken.
FUCKING BROKEN.
www.bullseyeart.com for example.
whoever wrote this article is obviously
1. a slashdot fuckhead inner circle fat bastard who gets his dribble-drool
'opinion' blasted front center on 'the org'.
2. full of shit.
Might be, might not. Perhaps someone is just looking to see what kind of response they would get.
Maybe for some, reading Slashdot then running Linux takes a long time.
Could also be that they got an account early on, forgot about Slash (what a sin!) then decided to post.
Either way I found it interesting that most of the answers were sane.
Blogging because I can...
I see that a general assumption is that because Linux Geek X knows a whole bunch about Linux, that this somehow makes him a good teacher, or obligates him to teach. Just because a Linux Guru gives you what looks like the run-about to a simple question, doesn't automatically mean he's trying to be a mega-a'hole, or even that he's just trying to look super-smart and belittle you. It might simply mean that he is just not a good teacher, or is not eloquent enough to come off as such.
Take calculus as an example: There are many people who know calculus, they are not all just calculus teachers, and I'm sure if one went out there and selected Engineer X to explain some calculus to them, they wouldn't have a goddamn clue unless they already knew it.
It's of course a completely different issue when you are talking about people who are supposedly tech-support personel and give you that sort of crap, or even from people in a forum/chat channel supposedly dedicated to helping users. However if you are talking about educating people in general, I'd put money on the fact that there is just as large a percentage of professors that instead of explaining things (say relativity) in "college student" terms, they regurgitate Einstein's papers verbatim and expect everyone to understand.
You can argue that for any subject, there are a ton of people who can't give you a straight answer to a simple question, or think they have something better to do at the moment. There are plenty of a'holes out there, just because some of them use Linux, doesn't mean we're all a'holes. That's just like saying, "All of the -insert minority here- people I've ever met have been a'holes, they must all be a'holes!"
I sort of lost where I was going with this, but hopefully you see that "Linux users are arrogant" is completely unsubstantiated.
I've been using Linux for five years now, and I'm very comfortable with it. I love the OS, I love the software, and (for the most part) I love the community. Okay, so I can't play Black and White (well, maybe not yet), and I can't use Bryce, and so forth. This is the price I pay for getting the features I really want and getting the power I want.
I'll probably get flamed for going against the grain of Linux World Domination(tm) but honestly, I don't think it'll happen in the sense most people want and expect. Indeed, I don't want it to. Because for Linux to dominate, it'd have to end up like Windows. It'd have to be pointy-clicky to no end, and eventually bugs would creep in in the name of usability. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as Windows - but it wouldn't be the Linux I love.
Us Linux users, we want our l33t cake but we want to pig out on it too. We want all the apps, but we don't want to deal with the average user, which is what drives the development of many of those apps. We want to be elite, yet we want people to be like us to an extent, and enjoy the benefits we do. I really don't think that can happen.
Linux has great potential to win out in a lot of arenas - server side, graphics, clustering, and so forth. Those are its strong points, and those are very likely to be where Linux will dominate. But is my grandfather (despite being really good with computers) going to deal with logins, kernel patches, tar'ing, and rc files? I highly doubt it.
There are exceptions to the rule, and I've encountered more than one story of "my wife-who-can't-even-program-the-VCR told me, 'never go back to that Microsoft crap'." But it's not common, and it may never be.
Linux should stop trying to play copycat with Windows. It can be its own animal, successful in its own ways, as is the Mac. MacOS X isn't Windows XP, but its users love it. Pardon me for stealing the phrase, Apple, but people... It's a good idea to "think different." Let's keep Linux different and good at what it does, and stop catering to a market that may not (and if you agree with my sentiments above, should not) come to light.
I want Linux because it's Linux. I don't want Linux because it's Windows, and I don't want it to be.
[commence flaming]
Mozilla's a nice operating system, but it needs a better browser.
i don't want the sort of office folk i work with to use linux as a desktop cuz then they'd all be bugging me to help them put kitty cats on their desktops. i'm a bastard, so what.
Most of us realised the sad fact that the world doesn't know or want to learn Linux. In fact probably most people don't know what Linux is!
The majority of computer users don't know what OS is installed on their computers, and they know how to use it only for the most obvious tasks as in: open document, type data, save, print, download email and open webpage.
The average user thinks "script like" they think that pressing the print button on the task pane in word is a totally different action than going to file->print. They make no effort trying to understand the system, try to solve their problems or find new features even ones that can save them valuble time.
Most people think Windows is much to complicated!
Linux can fit these people perfectly!!
The advantages of Linux over windows "friendly" features is considerable:
It does what you want it to do, no special helpers and autofixers that make the computer unpredictable.
Administration based control make control over a remote computer a snap by an friend/expert.
Text configuration files simple the task of changing system properties.
If Linux is so great why isn't the world using it?
The answer is simple - we need to make "cooporation" versions of the linus shell. Not everyone needs a web server or builds special macros. Most users will probably compromise system security if they turn these features on. We should make differend shells for different people.
I can think of a few distinguishing users:
- The end user: the user described above who needs: an appliance that runs an office like application, a web browser, profession specific applications (accounting, photo editing) and the cooporate applications(most of them are transforming to web based). They do not need: installing applications, changing configurations or any other non "everyday tasks"
- The small network admin: he may be one of the small office employees that is a bit more technology oriented or an outside support staff(probably the boss's 15 year old wizkid) he needs to have the ability to control all the workstations remotly and easly dowload readymade packages from the web and distabute them effortly. Any one could be able to operate the most common tasks only by reading a simple manual. I he can't solve a problem by himself then he could ask for some support from the net(Does anybody smell a nice source of profit for the Linux community?). This support may not be only text based but also remote administration.
- The large network admin/developer: He will have a full Linux machine. Hey, you are probably the dude so you should trust at least yourself.
Of course you can configre it with Mandrake or Redhat but the main idea is that you can and "Lumberjack Joe" hasn't even seen a pinguin, he want's an "out of the box" solution, and a cheap one. Joe and no other real company installs the latest 3D graphics card or uses the legacy ISA card that we do, and if they have one, then long live the Samba!
(Score:5, Whoring)
Speaking as someone who's had a lot of experience with computers (windows and mac), multiple programming and scripting languages (Java, C++, actionscript, and a tad of perl), but still had so much trouble with Linux that I quit using it I'd like to list a few problems that I had
If you call me stupid, so be it, but I'll bet others have encountered these barriers to entry;
The biggest was the lack of any ready metaphore. Windows has the 'windows metaphore'. Despite about a week of study, I'm still missing out on a few key concepts such as how to install programs on Linux or how to compile a kernel.
The second was the trouble I had configuring my devices. Albeit, there turned out to be a problem with my hardware, but under windows I would have know this.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I know by experience that I am one of the last class. It's my job to be. I wrote the Gedit help file a while back just because it's what I can do. When one of the techs at my company says a customer can't get on the internet I tell them step-by-step what to do rather than present large overviews of the process. This is a skill that we all should try to learn.
...like communication, being sensitive to the needs of others, etc. Doesn't that sound like the classic geek personality? Geeks are geeks because they're better able to relate to machines and things than people. It's not their technical knowledge that makes them geeks. It's their lack of social skills!
Add more KDE-GNOME compatibility, and it WILL be easy to use.
"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog!" - a dog
If I want a point-and-click environment, Windows is where I want to be. If I want a command-line, stellar networking, and total control I go linux/freebsd.
I rarely use KDE and never Gnome because they are not yet as useful of GUIs as Windows or MacOS are. However I rarely open a DOS window on Windows when I can just telnet/ssh to the linux box and do 40 times more there.
Use the right tool for the job. Why must the idea be forced that there can only be one operating system. It's like telling a carpenter he's only allowed to have one tool in his toolbox.
Let us not forget that Linux's place (or Unix for that matter), at least in it's use in corporate environments is in the server room. Many everyday Linux users at home admin servers at work, and are we not by "dumbing down" aspects of the installation, setting us up for the same things I often hear people complain about "MCSE admins."
The general consensus is that your average *ix admin is a little more "clued" about the inner workings of the operating system, and protocols on which it uses, when compared to your average NT admin. I've seen some mysterious things in my time: "MCSE admins" who can install Exchange fine, but don't understand the actual SMTP on which is uses. etc, etc.
Let's face it, forthemostpart GUIs make our lives easier, but are we losing part of the experience from not having them? How can we make the GUIs in Linux simple and useful, but at the same time educational and powerful. If we can have it both ways, then we have something.
I've heard this sort of nonsense before - that Linux people are "too intelligent" and "know too much" to teach others. I can't articulate how much this makes we want to wretch.
/usr, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, or some other location. What the HELL does anyone using the system care about WHERE something was compiled? Have you even looked at what's happening in MacOS and Windows? MacOS X comes with directories named useful things like "Movies" and "Pictures."
The problem isn't that Linux people are too intelligent -- the problem is that, by and large, they're too stupid. Yes, that's right, two stoopid.
Linux fanatics often think that using a computer is an end in itself, and completely fail to understand that its merely a tool for some other purpose. They tend to scoff at other professions. Accountants? "Bean counters." Managers? "pointy haired numbskulls." Marines? "jar heads."
Humilty is anathema to the culture. Adapt to us, say the Linux zealots, and damn the consequences.
What sort of debates permeate the community? Whether or not things compiled locally should go in
Real font management? Courier is all we need, and besides, if you can't manage xrdb you're a wimp anyway. Color synchronization? Red and magenta are close enough. Consistent GUI? Ask ten people how to quit an application in Linux and see what sorts of answers you get.
Making everything a file is another real cool idea. Printers are files, processes are files, memory is a file, blah, blah, blah. Except guess what? Some things aren't files. Some things talk back. But why bother listening?
Everything is just a stream of bytes, right? Yeah, and a cathedral is just a pile of bricks, and a cow is just a sheet of leather.Nevermind going to all the work to build useful data type and abstractions, JUST STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW, AND MAKE YOUR USERS CONFORM. Above all, don't admit that you're not the person with ALL the useful knowledge in the world. Your mastery of regualr expressions gives you special insight into finance, marketing, art, and politics.
Here's another great idea: distinguish between different kinds of whitespace in configuration files. Fuck, if the user can't see the difference between a TAB and a SPACE, they shouldn't be editing the file. And if they just used {vi, vim, emacs, sed, ed} like God intended, the dumbass wouldn't have had the problem in the first place. Ain't that right?
Yeah, you Linux guys sure are smart. If I ever need any of my text files sorted by the first vowel following the third consonant, I'll be sure to hire one of you.
Granted, this is an OS that not many geeks would like. However, there is a tradeoff involved - one can run a good, but obscure OS, or use a popular, but buggy and restrictive OS.
I am so sick and tired of these kneejerk assumptions about Linux and average users.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that that an Everyday Linux for Average Joe would automatically wipe out a Linux geek's Superduper Power Linux setup.
What could Everyday Linux do to you? Would it nullify the GPL? Somehow kill off vi or emacs, or destroy OSS developer communities? If you think so, how? I can't even imagine why folks are so worried.
In case you had forgotten: LINUX IS OPEN SOURCE. Also, lots of related software is open source too. Nobody can take your carefully crafted Power User setup. Nobody.
Or put another way: Existence of Simplified Linux =! No More Linux for Power Users.
Additionally, it would be in Everyday Co.'s best interest to keep Everyday usable by Power Users and average users alike, without alienating either group. If the OSS community gets drowned somehow, the company would lose their developer base, right?
So please stop with the "simple & stupid will absolutely destroy powerful & smart" Linux arguments already. If you want to put it that way, you are simply wrong.
Deep in the ocean are treasures beyond compare; but if you seek safety, it is on the shore.
#debian is sort of notorious for this kind of crap. The kids in #slackware are generally much friendlier. ;)
My girlfriend and I both use Red Hat 7.2 on my laptop. This is because it's easier to get all the networking set up (802.11b, DSL using PPPoE, IrDA) under Linux than under Windows, since the drivers are terribly buggy under the latter. She understands that sometimes web pages won't behave perfectly because the average HTML writer does not understand that people use platforms aside from Microsoft Windows, but since this is ostensibly my "work" machine, she's okay with that. Moreover, everything "just works" and when it doesn't I can log in remotely to fix it.
Contrast this to when I was just getting started... I expected people to know things or at least care why the computer acted the way it did.
Boy, was that a crock of shit!
I have nontechnical users merrily sending mail from Mutt and Pine on OpenBSD now because I simply give them a set of directions, say "It's not perfect, but it's a compromise, and in 3 years we've never been hacked; please play along nicely". Since my users all accomplish what they want to, they are happy, and since they're happy, I have more time to twiddle RAIDframe, play with Coda and Heartbeat, and generally nerd out.
The more experience I get, the less experience I expect my users to have, and the happier they are overall. Next week the marketing guy will be switching over to using RSA keys for SSH access from his cellular modem. I'm not kidding.
It doesn't have to be intimidating or nerdy to do the job right!
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
Linux, which is based on Unix, may well be hard. Big deal, get a nice GUI. For god's sake, take a page out of Apple's book! They took a powerful and very technical Unix system and slapped a pretty GUI with plenty of distracting visual gimmicks onto it, and for the most part its users absolutely love it.
Linux needs to have a super-easy install process that defaults to an over-glamorous GUI (which can be turned off easily using a command line program, if you like).
The average user really doesn't care about the underlying system, and if you want them to use the OS, make it so they never have to worry about it, but in such a way that you still can in some other way.
That will be how Linux will succeed, if it does.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
It is easy to go to the library and check out "Red Hat Linux For Dummies," and that gives easy to follow, step-by-step instructions on how to install linux, and it usually has the red hat cd's in the back.
With Windows, what's the worst you can do to your computer (the software side ;-)? It's tough to do anything to it that can't be fixed with a simple format of the hard drive. I'll admit, the first time you do this is a little nerve wracking, but after that, it's not a problem.
We should encourage people to mess with their computers, isn't that how we all learn the best as a species? And everyone loves to press buttons. Meanwhile, Microsoft, with their bad and expensive licensing, security problems, nazi policies and monopoly-like stranglehold, can shove the glass shards from it's shattered windows up it's ass.
My experience has been that experts rarely make good teachers. For example, professors that are really intimate with a particular subject are not very good at coming down to the level of a student who is learning it for the first time.
There are exceptions of course but I believe this happens all the time.
First, calling you "stupid" wouldn't help as the vast majority of computer users in fact are. ;)
I am not sure what you mean by "metaphore", I'd think the whole window thing still applies? After all you don't say "Open a Linux" in Linux, you still call it a window.
Compiling kernels - not something users ever need to do, period. Most of these users are with a major distribution, whose only reason to exist is to make life easier for the user, they release kernel updates in packages and the user doesn't have to worry about configuring anything. Same goes for installing software - "rpm -ivh blahblah.rmp" should be easy enough for anyone to handle. If you want the more esoteric stuff, that isn't distributed as packages - well then you'll have to put in some effort, but the vast majority of people won't (won't need to, that is)
Out of curiousity - what distribution were you using? I think this is precisely the point of the article - many people don't realize just how many advances have been made (and constantly continue to be made) in these areas.
sic transit gloria mundi
As someone who teaches IT (in training centres, not in schools) part-time, I can state that doing this well is one of the remaining ways to still earn seriously big dollars as a techo. Very few people seem to have woken up to it, but consider the cost you pay to attend these training courses, subtract the cost of the training room, lunches etc. and the depreciation on training gear, and there's still a lot of money left for the trainer.
If/when I get to the point where my family's needs for the forseeable future are covered and I can "retire", I'll go teach IT in schools, for free if that's the way it has to be. Unfortunately, teacher's salaries are pretty sad, which is why it generally falls to e.g. a maths teacher to teach IT - there's nowhere near enough money to justify someone giving up a career in IT to move in to teaching.
Sad, but true
And do a few other clicks, that would take 20 mintues to learn, really make that big of a difference?
Did anyone see that SNL skit "Nick Burns, The Company's I.T. Guy"? I'm working on linux from scratch now, and I can tell you, the mailing list is currently choc full of "Nick Burns"'s. If you haven't seen the skit, by "Nick Burn"'s I mean that there are a lot of people who, while being *somewhat* helpful, appear to be contributing to the list in order to get revenge on all the people who made them feel stupid for not knowing some important, but not well known, aspect of linux by doing the same to others. In fact, the world of computers has a lot of these people, who have fallen under the illusion that they are of a class of "knows" in a world of "know nots" when actually, they specialize in a field that exists to give the "know nots" the same ability as the "knows".
For example In the 1700's, you had to be like Gauss to visualize a surface like
z = sqrt(sin(x^3/e*pi))*cos(y^(4/5)-y^2+pi/2)/x^95,
but these days, all you have to do is type that into Mathematica (tm) or whatever math program floats your boat. You don't have to be Gauss. But a lot of people think they are, just because they know about Mathematica, and you don't.
I imagine the originator of this post has run into more than his/her fair share of people like Nick Burns...because this kind of "instructor" - I have more choice terms like ***** and ******* but - is not relegated to the Linux community.
The users shouldn't have to learn how to be system administrators. Perhaps one day a company will come along and offer to remotely administer your home machine for a reasonable price. Just think - you only use the machine, you DON'T have to worry about upgrades, and if you want something installed, you just ask for it to be done. The best part is that you will interact with a real human being, not some graphical interface.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
The easiest to install and the easiest to use operating system is a Unix distribution. MacOSX. If Apple can do it, surely Linux geeks can create something as easy to use.
Hackers gain status by what they give to the community -- as I am not the first to point out, the hacker culture is what anthropologists call a gift culture. We strive to work hard for the community, we create,and we respect this goal in others.
When some newbie shows up and complains about how what we've done doesn't suit him, and doesn't even bother to educate himself about what we've not only worked hard to produce but actually think is cool, it's downright insulting; in fact, it's arrogant.
Yet people accuse us of being arrogant, and behave as if the years of work and thought we put into developing this thing have only one purpose: making life easier for some trolling l'user who doesn't even bother looking at the docs, or god forbid, the source!
GNU/Linux is not a windows replacement, people. It's a beautiful example what can happen when people work together for the community, instead of just for themselves.
To paraphrase JFK, "Ask not what Linux can do for you -- ask what you can do for Linux." Unless you have that attitude, you're nothing but a l'user. We don't ask that you be a coder or a genius, just that you not be lazy and be willing to learn. Not much.
When I'm a newbie, which happens anytime I want to learn something new, I try to be humble, I listen, and above all I RTFM & STFW as much as I possibly can. I also use the source, Luke. I recognize that not all newbies are at a stage where they can do that, but my point is that I put a lot of effort into understanding something before I expect it to fall into my lap.
Respect is earned, not given. End rant.I would agree. I started out in windows not knowing jack about much of anything. The linux man pages and other documentation seemed very complicated. Somewhere between my 9th install of Mandrake or Red Hat, and my install of Slackware, though, I started to understand. I was enlightened, I guess ;-)
'If a piece of physics cannot be explained to a barmaid, then it is not a good piece of physics.' - Ernest Rutherford
I've found in practically all situations (Marine Corps, student teaching physics labs, library work) the good purveyors of knowledge are able to keep things simple yet understandable. For example, if one is trying to show a person how to fire an AR-15, there really isn't any need to show how much you know by taking the bolt apart to show them the function of the firing pin retaining pin.
Right now I'm having a fun time with Redhat Linux 6.1 installation on 200MB root/50MB swap partitions (the other 250 MB is for Win3.1). I've got it loaded and working but there isn't much there. Now I'm trying to figure out how to load stuff to the root that I can use (the only editor I have right now is vi). I haven't yet found the right book for my needs even though I've checked out four huge monsters.
-J
http://carpediem.da.ru
I teach computer science at a local college. I teach MCSE cert courses and I teach Linux courses. The corporation I own helps businesses and individuals migrate (usually for a fee) to open source solutions from MS. The single biggest complaint I hear from businesses that are considering migration is dissatisfaction with the zillions of MCSE dipshits that can spout the official MS line about this or that "feature" of Windows, but have no ability beyond being able to regurgitate the MS line. All they want is somebody to fix the problem; they don't want to hear a 20-minute explanation of how pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete is a security feature. So there are two types of MS guru's: the one's that can only spout the MS line, and the one's that can fix the problem. Linux has the same sort of division. The true open source prophet and the false prophet. Most of the false Linux guru's that I have run across hide behind a very thin veil of ignorance and just a little bit of jargon knowledge. On the other hand, most of the true Linux guru's I've run across are people who are enthusiastic about the OS (and often about open source in general). The true guru's come in all shapes and sizes and in all levels of ability, but have a common trait; they are all interested in how somebody got such and such to work and I have yet to talk to one of the true sort that was not willing to offer a suggestion or point out a potential source of information. I sent an offer to Red Hat to do as much FREE consulting and training as I am humanly able to do for the schools they want to donate software to. I have course material and curriculum that works and I am offering it for free to any school that wants to implement an open source enterprise solution and does not have the resources to pay for these materials. I bet there will be many others who are willing to help out if some of the poorer school districts want to challenge the boys and girls from Redmond. Some of the Linux beginners get frustrated because they cannot just call someone and quack about how they are not able to get their CD to mount and get an instant solution; they are required to learn a little. But even the new user's who are not willing or able to learn the intricacies of the OS can get help (if they are willing to suspend hostility and expend a small amount of effort) from the open source community IF THEY KNOW WHERE TO GO FOR HELP. How should they find out where to go for help? Try asking... Something in the form of, "hey, I'm new at this. Can you help me?" Trouble is, they are not used to that sort of thing because it is a concept foreign to most MS users.
Ya know, you could just make PowerPoint presentations from Linux using... PowerPoint (Works under Wine).
From personal experience, every time I advocated more GUI based interfaces to various functions, I always got back "why do this when you can just type xyz -a -b -c -d --e --f +g!!" or some other equally obscure command line that people need to memorize.
When I said on slashsdot that Linux needs a gui-based installer like Installshield, I was attacked by legions of proponents of the command line rpm mgr. When I said that Linux with all its CLI commands is too hard to use for novices, I was told that novices shouldn't know all this stuff, and I should set up everything for them and restrict their power.
Which is fine and dandy if everyone wants to hire their own personal administrator, but... some people don't have someone else to set up their computer for them. They need to be able to do everything.. easily. Until the legions of the CLI-rats understand this, Linux will never make it to the desktop.
I'm sure most linux-hardcore out there cringe at the thought, but some kind of standardization would really do the linux world good. I know I have spent too much time fiddling with the details of several particular distributions.
Case in point: Printing. RedHat handles this differently than Debian, and StarOffice will do even weirder things if you let it. I think even the most hardened linux fans would be hard-pressed to say that getting your typical desktop printer working is easy. Sure, support has become a lot better, and there are a lot more drivers out there than ever before, but its still frustrating.
Personally, I'm certainly a linux novice/intermediate. But to me, its seems that I've run into so many time-consuming problems with linux that its almost become not worth my time. Let's face it: the average intelligent user still doesn't want to waste their time compiling programs because their particular distribution puts certain libraries in odd places, or has a broken compiler.
I tried to upgrade Mozilla about a month ago using an RPM on my Redhat 7.2 system, and it simply didn't work. Instead, Mozilla won't run at all. I'm sure its not that complex of a problem, but I spent several hours with no success. Maybe that's just indicitive of my incompetence, but you have to admit there are still lots of inconsistancies.
No standardized audio / midi api's
No standardized desktop api's
No standardized print interface
No standardized system/hardware management
No standardized installers / install locations
Don't get me wrong; its getting better. And there are systems that do the above things that are becoming quite popular. But if I'm a developer, I should be able to know for sure the bare minimum that the client should have on his/her machine, and where certain files are.
For everyone who likes their flexibility: keep it. But for the rest of us, who really don't care where a library or program is, as long as it works, please give us something. I think this is the biggest problem in learning linux (especially administration of system). I should be able to sit down at a standard machine of any distribution and not have to make any adjustments in what I'm use to.
But I understand that this (different Linux distributions / non-standardization) is an evolutive process. I just hope we get there soon.
I've been into computers since before MSDOS. I skipped 3.1/95 and jumped straight into NT which served me well enough as a platform for experimenting with C++. Eventually viruses and DLL-hell really began to bother me. My first experience with a free OS was my OpenBSD firewall system. Then I set up a FreeBSD desktop (no X), and then a Redhat box with X.
By this point I figured I had mastered enough to convert my primary desktop system into a Debian box.
I have a couple of geeky friends, much younger than me, who had been Debian as their primary systems for several years. I figured they could help me over a few hurdles.
First advice: run Debian stable. What about my Matrox G450 dual head? Second advice: for dual-head you need to run Debian testing. Fanfsckingtastic. Nothing like diving in at the deep end. It's easy, he promised me.
To make a long story short, I would have needed a Chinese alphabet to enumerate all the adventures that took place during step #1. Fonts didn't work, dual head didn't work (properly), the window manager didn't work (the first several times),
Then when I converted my NTS box to Debian (this time with Debian stable), we must have been at step 1zz by the time we had software RAID working on my Adaptec 3985 SCSI controller. At two different points in the process we "rectified" patches we downloaded by randomly commenting out blocks of code which were causing errors.
Both sides of the argument are wrong. Linux is easy to install if you get a good impedance match between the exact hardware you have in your box and the exact distribution you choose.
My best install ever was an OpenBSD box. I built if for a friend on a generic Celeron. Once through the install process it worked perfectly. Fifteen minutes from disklable to rock solid. The he "upgraded" the memory with a bad memory stick and fried every partition.
What people constantly overlook is that there is no "defining experience" with something like Linux. The phrase "for the user" ought to banned from our vocabulary. There is no "the user". There are millions of variations on a few common themes.
One machine I built with a DLink 530TX network adaptor. The next machine I built with a 530TX+ network adaptor. Surprise, surprise. The 530TX is a Via Rhine card, the 530TX+ is a Realtec card. After I noticed that detail, I was able to get in working again.
Then I built another machine, this time again with a DLink 530TX+ network card. On that machine every TCP connection experienced spiralling death syndrome: 100KB/s would soon become 5 bytes/s (on a local 100mb segment). Guess what? The two 530TX+ cards were different revisions (A versus C). One revision worked normally, the other didn't.
There is no such thing as universal hardware and no such thing as a universal "user".
A better analogy would be shock absorbers. You need to get the tension and damping correct on both ends of the bike. It depends on the terrain, the weight of the rider, and how much gas you have in the tank. Soft will soak up an uneven road surface, but it will also cause the bike to "lift" aggressively coming out of a hard turn (your stomach lifts at twice the speed, and your lunch twice as fast as that).
A bad bike is one where the wrong settings kill you. A good bike is one where the wrong settings scare you. An average bike is where you really can't tell, most of the time, whether the settings are good or bad. Windows aims for the average experience. Linux is poised on the knife edge between being bad and good. Sometimes it kills you, sometimes it saves your life. I've been on both sides of that experience and I really can't say what it is that Linux "needs".
I played with Red hat 6.0 and later with 6.1. The only useful thing (for me, at least) that I could get to work was Perl and some programming tools And some graphics stuff, but I'm not sure if I'd call that useful, given the quality of the tools and the situation I was in. I think I'm just spoiled by Photoshop et al. I'm not scared off by command prompts, but if I managed to install the programs I was trying for, I didn't notice. There were some features that 6.0 required a kernel update for (don't remember what features) and I couldn't figure out how to do it.
I use the command prompt when I'm telneting into my server etc. but don't do anything too complex. It like Linux a lot better when someone else is responsible for maintaining it.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
... I call it "CmdrTaco Syndrome." Guys: don't let your pride get in the way when you try to teach people things, Linux included. Perhaps you've seen Nick Burns, The Company Computer Guy on SNL. There are many people like him in my introductory computer engineering class, so at least I know that the field/industry doesn't necessarily breed this demented attitude; rude asses like these are born.
Microsoft products tend to include a fair bit of online documentation - heck, they even used to ship printed manuals! The thing with documentation is that you need skill and motivation to write it in a way a "lay" end user will appreciate. The result of this is that people don't tend to write it for free.
Therefore: To the people who pick up Linux for free and stumble, may I suggest spending $30 on a book? Yeah, the whole thing's no longer free now.. but it's closer to it than $200 for Windows, and will probably save you from beating your head against a manpage or two.
I recently configured Linux on a Sony cute Picturebook. One of the questions the owner asked me was if there was any easy way to allow the user access his Windows shares through the GUI. I just flat out said "I'm not familar with doing that. Can't help you." and left it at that.
I had heard that Corel made a tool that could do this, but zero experience with it. Or if it was even available anymore.
He writes me the next day and apparantly he had read a few pages on smbmount and just put the entries into fstab and all was well.
Duh. They wouldn't need to map shares at random. Just his personal files once. It just never dawned on me. *smack forehead*
This is a useful comment from a relative Linux outsider that you (the Linux community) should find useful in trying to get traction for your OS. You may use the information, given in good faith, or you may react with religious indignation. The choice is yours.
I am an IT professional having worked with many complex technologies, and have finally gotten around to using Linux over the past two years. I have attained sufficient skill to be paid to correctly implement it for customers who need it, so as to the following, I know whereof I speak.
The biggest problem facing Linux is the Linux subculture. Learning to use Linux is like trying to learn to play poker or an online FPS for the first time. All the experts desperately want you to get in on it, for the sole apparent purpose of completely humiliating you. (I'm speaking generally here) I've seen basic technological points deliberately obfuscated for the sheer glory of "making the newbie pay his dues". I hate to break it to you, but learning to cut and paste in vi is simply not in the same category as troubleshooting OSPF or trying to reverse engineer a custom built database system with a packet sniffer.
Not everyone will go the effort I have been forced to make to claw my way up the linux geek totem pole. If you want to advocate your OS, drop the hazing and clannishness.
I agree with the tone of the article -- this basically disqualifies me as someone to help newbies. I recently went to a LUG meeting, where some relatively new Linux users demonstrated all the GUI tools you can use on Linux. I didn't even know what "Evolution" was until I went to the meeting.
I suppose the best advice for the newbie is to find some kind of user group and meet people with common interests and/or struggles with their systems (usually the slightly-less-newbie types as proposed by the article).
years years ago, i was using windows and yes i heard about many wonderful things about linux. so i tried installing linux in my computer. of course, i was a clueless user at that time without anyone to guide me. but i proceeded with it (i think it was still windows 95 and NT 4 at that time.) so it ended up into frustration, i was able to install it but i couldn't get things to work. and now i am using microsoft windows 2000, by bad experience with linux (redhat actually,) prevent me from supporting it even though i know it was good. maybe good for those nerds.
.net platform. we are developing software that will integrate many applications into one portal. and we plan to do it in around 6 months time.
at least now i am enjoying those active directory thing and the
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
Guys, it's not because people know too much. Knowing things is fine. But there's alot of arrogant people in the world, that either can't talk down to a newbie's level, or can't do it without being conceited. Add that to the people that know but just aren't articulate enough to explain, and finally add that to the flat stupidity of many other people, and you have a wonderful misery.
Well sure he may be a troll, but at any rate, the information given will not go to waste. I actually am a Linux newbie, and these are all a bunch of helpful tips. Thanks to everyone useful in this thread.
disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with this project, other than the occasional bug report...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
It's all Microsoft's fault. Well, not really, maybe, but it is related to the decline of DOS.
I started Linux in 1998, after becoming disillusioned with Win95 because MS had hidden DOS and seemed to be headed toward dumping it -- or, at least, pretending it wasn't there. But I had started computers with the C-64 followed by DOS.
And that makes all the difference in the world, for a new user. I had no idea what an ls was, or how to see the inside of a file, but I did know what a command-line looked like -- and that using it would get me much closer to using the 'real' computer inside than a GUI could ever do.
And just that put me a few thousand light-years ahead of the newbies of today.
Some of them may have seen a command interface, but they sure as hell don't know what it's for -- don't know that it can be a normal way of dealing with a computer. Even those who have been trained at universities in computers aren't as accustomed to text commands as was anyone who began with 64K and a black screen with a prompt.
I don't have an answer for this, because it seems to me that a) as long as we have the text console, here's going to be an increasing distance between the user who starts with Win and the user who starts with *nix, and b) we simply can't give up the text-console -- no matter how many users we lose because of that. It's just too valuable.
But we are going to lose them. Teachers of Linux are doomed to be farther and farther away from their pupils simply because those pupils have no idea at all what any of us are typing away at. For them, the computer is a window.
If they see a command interface, they assume the computer's broken.
The starting-point has changed, probably forever. So the end-point has to be different.
FWIW, I don't find most Linux gurus too complicated or arrogant at all -- for me. But my starting point, like theirs, was a place and time that the begininng Win user now considers the Stone Age.
MacA second complaint that you could lodge against the available documentation is that a lot of widely available docs simply have not kept up with the progress of more intuitive, simpler, GUI based config tools. Part of the problem is that these tools have exploded in recent years- things are simply developing too fast to keep up with everything. Every time Red Hat comes out with a new release, they usually include some new configuration bells and whistles. But while these may be documented in spotty places on the system or from a distro's website, the docs that most folks look to (HOWTO's and the like) often don't catch up on these things. I look at documentation for how to install or configure something, only to find later or while I'm working that part or most of the config is already done, or that there is a simpler tool for doing the work that I find documented in some obscure spot. I think when the pace of development for new config tools slows a bit, the docs will catch up and it will be easier to teach everyone easier ways of doing things. In the meantime, when someone asks, I teach them the hard way- because that was the only way that was documented when I learned.
You'll see me breaking it down for the newbies on a daily basis. I've thrown in hundreds of posts and fit perfectly into Roblimo's sub-geek category. I'm the guy who knows some command line and some gui tools. I never claim to be a genius but do solid research before giving answers, and most of the time they're right and I get props.
Linux doesn't have to be hard folks, it's just that some people, in order to maintain their 'leet linux egos, make it that way.
3) keep using Linux and waste a bunch of time fiddling until the fonts are right.
How do you do this? I'd love to fix this problem and I don't know how...
...the problem I ran into when I took a linux course for beginners recently. The community college I attend tought a Linux class for beginners this past semester and I decdied to take it to pad my schedule a bit. The Instructor for the class, if you can call him that, had 2 weeks of Linux exp before begining to teach the class. (Not to mention that he was also taking a Linux course at our local 4 year college at the same time.)
Due to his inexperience with Linux and unfamiliarity with how to teach beginners the majority of the class ended the semester with a very poor image of Linux. If the instructor had known the material and focused on the basics, like how to use the command line, how to mount cdroms and floppys, etc (remember this is a beginner's class) then it would have gone much better. Instead he spent most of the semester thourghly confusing the class and asking me how to do things. (I am sure I did his homework for his Linux class at the 4 year uni on at least one occasion when I showed him how to set up Samba.)
With him making such a simple subject so difficult I doubt anyone in the class but the 2 Linux nuts already in there, myseld and one other brave sole, will ever touch the operating system again. Instead they will go with some easy to use system like Win200 and we have lost another opertunity to convert someone to the joy of using linux.
SpiritCat
My introduction to linux was as an english major coming into a software dev company as a tech writer. The instructor spent two weeks teaching us stuff straight from the command line and had the course not come with a pretty good text; that would have been the end of my experience.
I went to a dual boot and installed linux as part of the class and went through the book. As a result I have always had a linux box since and what started has a hobby has become what I do for a living. If my only experience had been from the class I might have been done before I started.
If hear another fucking "helper" recommending a newbie start with debian....
They simply get pissed off and go away with the impression that linux is just dos warmed up. Start them with a distro like Mandrake, that will get them browsing and emailing in no time, then they can learn the rest at their own pace.
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
I like fish. I don't like fishing. It doesn't matter, I get my fish at a store, and it tastes lovely. Linux users may fancy the real satisfaction of eating a fish just caught an hour ago, roast over a campfire, in sight of the canoes, and that's great for them. Most people, including me, would probably rather nip over to the store down the road and come back with some fish ten minutes later. To suggest that this is of lesser value is silly.
And, to overliteralize metaphor number 2:
Cars have dreadful interfaces, granted. The pedals on a standard transmission car are positioned in a very inefficient way - test after test has shown that making brakes and gas work by separate feet would speed reaction times significantly. If we had it to do over again, we would certainly arrange things differently, and doubtless save thousands of lives, but we don't have it to do over again - any major change to the interface would kill immense numbers of people before it saved anyone at all.
Since computer interfaces are usually not quite so critical, they can be rearranged at will, and frequently do get improved. To say that people will need 'retraining' is really overdoing it.
For (counter)example, thousands of Mac users (those nontechnical people
Hey Linux geeks, listen up!
Don't flatter yourselves. Anybody who purposely goes out of their way to find a more difficult way to do a task because they mistakenly think it's more "advanced" is obviously insecure.
Got that? It's insecurity, not intelligence, that's causing the problem. Get over yourselves and realize this one little thing:
Once you get that through your heads, you'll be a lot better off. Throw away that "RTFM" T-shirt and learn a little humility.
I entirely agree. I am fairly new to the Linux scene and I've found the biggest barrier to learning anything is the documentation. Especially man pages. Is there something wrong with the idea of giving a few examples of usage?
When confused about a manpage I usually end up searching the web. Places like Linuxnewbie.org are a good start, the how-tos are often very helpful. But this kind of information should be included with the system, IMHO.
Random is the New Order.
Linux is complicated, and so is windows. Intelligent, experienced users have windows and linux breaking all the time in thousands of ways.
Less technical users (i.e. normal people) have no hope of dealing with problems: unless things are exactly as they expect and work perfectly, they are completely lost. (This is not a criticism, but rather follows inevitably from the first paragraph.) With windows, they are endlessly frustrated, but they have memorized a few dozen "tricks" that work. With linux, a different set of "tricks" are required and they are completely lost when one of their tricks fails. Linux ends up looking harder simply because it is different.
Had they been raised on linux, then windows would seem impossibly complex.
"Backward compatability" (i.e. desktop behaving like windows) is essential for linux to make headway on the desktop. Perhaps this is a bitter pill. Sorry, that's life.
> and that you can manage all your files though
> simple "point, click, drag and drop" visual interfaces. [link to gnome]
Unfortunately, you can't.
I hoped for Nautilus, but unfortunately, it has many bugs in very basic functions, like being unable to manage several thousands of files at once, not moving files when being told so, dialogs disappearing in the background, leaving temp/cache files everywhere and so on. But of course, it has themability. Looks like the Mozilla-illness.
I still find myself using the commandline for basic file management, not because I like it or it's more powerful, but it's the only workable method.
On the pro side, Microsoft can't beat the GNOME panel or configurable gtk+/WMs.
Remember when it was cool to run Linux? Remember when Linux was a challenge, and überleet? Well, those days are long gone. Someone got the idea that Linux should be suitable for Joe Homeuser Newbie. Now linux has tried to become a desktop competitor in all its GUIness glory.
Well I think the guru's are right. Linux shouldn't become braindead just because the masses are (Let alone teaching it). I'm sorry, but when someone asks me how to FTP a file, I can't lower myself to explain "You know when you run _____ and you see those two windows and you click and drag... blah". I just tell people, "you're too dumb to learn UNIX"; which is true for the most part.
The question I ask it this: Why does linux have to become suitable for the dumbest of people?
The problem is just the same in Windows: if you're using the internet without keeping up with security updates and security policies, you may be remotely compromised and your computer may be trashed or may be used to attack others. Wanna guess what percentage of Outlook and IE users are still vulnerable to the half dozen exploits found in Microsoft's HTML components this year?
The solution is just the same as in Windows, too: run up2date, MandrakeUpdate, Windows Update, apt, or whatever such tool your vendor provides.
I can teach you how to boil water (an easy task) in one of two ways -- we put some water in a pan on a stove burner; we turn on the stove; when the water bubbles, we're done -- or we can use a microwave.
I can teach you how to make eggs benedict (a medium difficulty task) in one of to ways -- we toast some english muffins; we fry some canadian bacon; we poach some eggs; we make some hollandaise saude (But wait...I have to teach you how to make english muffins and how to poach eggs and how to make hollandaise sauce.) -- or we can buy some english muffins and fry some canadian bacon and use a little metal tool to make poaching eggs easier and we still have to make the hollandiase sauce.
I personally choose to make my own english muffins and to poach my eggs by slipping them in to a pot of boiling water. Why? Because I like the process of cooking. I know the easier ways of doing it, but I don't like them, and I don't begrude the extra time that I spend in order to have total control over the process.
If I am going to teach someone how to cook, I'm going to teach them the way that I like while perhaps mentioning the "easier" ways.
People are going to teach things the way that they do them.
There's a reason for that - if you're not trying to use Windows in one of the one or two ways that it wants to let you, you can't get it to work at all. You are interpreting lack of choice to mean ease of use. In reality, getting Windows to do something that the Windows authors never thought of or didn't expect users to do (and thus never documented) is about as tough as getting Linux to do something undocumented.
...except of course for the bazillion people who have tried to do the same thing in Linux and are happy to share tips, detailed info, and code with you to help you get things done. All for free.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The potential students are at fault too. Many people wanting to know Linux think that the pimply kid, picking his nose, drinking coke by the six packs and blabbering in bash script would be the best teacher.
Wrong.
The kid is just that - a pimply fool who picks his nose... etc.
I've taught Linux to some people, and it's much tougher than learning this yourself. It also takes much more discipline and logic than an average immature boy hiding behind a seemingly glorious name like sys admin.
But it's surprising that I get passed over by people wanting to learn Linux in favor of some dumbshit who doesn't understand the concept of hygiene (because I'm clean cut). I laugh though when we find that he doesn't understand the basic concepts of Unix and/or networking, that, in essence, his whole life is like a cheap hack, held together by poorly written shell script.
So, don't knock on teachers only. The students often just ask for it.
Using Linux for most tasks is easy now.
/etc directory: the simple stuff is GUIfied now, but the extent of that depends on your distribution, and doing anything complicated requires reading man pages and figuring out config file formats.
Installing most distributions (I consider Debian an exception) is easy now.
Administering a Linux box is still not easy.
As an example, to get the pictures off my digital camera:
The Red Hat upgrade (somewhere around 7.0, I think) installed my USB drivers automatically.
Easy to install, check.
When I have new pictures, "mv camera/* pictures/new" (in my home directory) transfers them to my hard drive.
Easy to use, check.
Setting the "camera" directory up required editing two of my automount config files and making a symlink to the mount point.
Easy to administer? No.
Well, okay, this was easy to do, but way too difficult for someone uninterested in computers to learn to do. Similarly with most tasks that require you to touch the
Ironically, this makes Linux a great choice for office environments where users aren't expected to administer their own systems in the first place, but other considerations (say a little prayer for OpenOffice and KOffice tonight) are the limiting factor there.
Linux is not hard. It just has many options. Some Windows immigrants may complain it has "too many options". It's a paradigm that needs to be redefined given that the typical Windows desktop user is not familiar with "options". For example Windows OS's do not ship with a variety of Web Browsers to use...only Internet Explorer. Out of the box you do it Bills way or your left to figure it out for yourself.
...whatever. But by far the biggest origin of Option Anxiety is from what I call the "Big Three".....Email, Web Browseing, and Word Processing. Pine, Emacs, Mutt, Kmail, StarOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, Emacs, Mozilla, Lynx, Netscape, Konqueror, etc, etc .... a Windows user can easily be tormented by which or what to use.
Option Anxiety is the result of having at least a half dozen different ways to accomplish a single simple task! Take the Linux ditros themselves for example. Each one has a different way of installing the OS. Each one generally has its own preferred way of managing software, either apt-get, rpms, tarballs
I actually had a client say to me, "I just want my email, search the net, and type business letters that my clients can read on thier computers. I don't wnat to know about all that stuff."
From the article:
"People using their computers don't need to know much beyond "Push button A and action B results." They don't need to get confused with a lot of complex commands while they're just starting to figure out the way to do things in Linux that they already knew how to do in Windows. That basic level of knowledge is enough for a start - and for a good while afterwards."
I totally agree with that! What I think is more important is that Linux and Linux distros keep getting more and more "approachable" by novices while still allowing seasoned Linux users the freedom and ability to do what it already allows them to do.
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
Unless it's an old SuSE, or he needs Samba 2.2.2, he doesn't recompile the program.
Done it myself, all I did was edit smb.conf, edit the rc.config file (SuSE specific), and run "rcsmb start".
You seriously think that the interface to this relational database file system would be simpler than a hierachical (sp?) filesystem?
And then to find them again you'd use the very same "Hit Control-F and look for it" dialog with a few extras.
-- You ain't seen me, right?
My experience has not been good. I'm probably an intermediate user, and have been using Linux on and off for about 5 years, and have done a couple of clean installations of RedHat and Slackware, including X and KDE. Right now, I'm doing my first useful application with MySQL and Apache/Tomcat, and the configuration was a major hassle. Here are some problems that I run into:
1. Documentation that assumes too much. This has been mentioned above, but I'd like to stress this as a number one problem. After all, what good is a free operating system if you can't use it in a meaningful way without buying 2 or 3 books. Some of the HOWTOs will walk you through setting something up in one particular way, and don't give much guidance on general principles. I guess that's the definition of a howto, but that's really a poor substitute.
Installation program: What packages would you like to install?
New User: Huh? I DON'T KNOW!
2. Too many configuration files. When I first started using linux, one word came to mind: Chaos. Configuration files are all over the place and they all have their own particular formats and quirks. And 99% of the time, the defaults don't work for anyone but the developers. This is getting better though. Some of the more professionally developed applications are better at this. MySQL really shines in this area. It was a breeze to install and the things that it asked for were clear. It is a very peaceful, well-behaved piece of software. But I really wish software developers would include configuration wizards. Lengthy editing of text files just for basic functionality is unacceptable. This is such a problem that I'm considering helping open source projects by specializing in documentation and ease of use. Configuring the kernel has gotten easier in recent years. Modern configuration tools step you through the process and help is readily available if you don't know what something means. Even better, it tells you what you probably need. This is a step in the right direction.
3. Dealing with dependencies. Linux gets a lot of praise for quick bug fixes, which can be a good thing, but its a double-edged sword. You have to juggle kernel versions, glibc versions, and GNU tools. If Linux is trying to reach a mainstream audience, do you expect the average user to have to recompile their kernel and rpm half a dozen other dependencies just to install the new web browser? Windows software developers have a much easier time - you know that an app that will run on one Windows 95 machine will run on just about any Windows 95 machine. Occassionally you run into things like needing X version or a above of DirectX or something, but that's a minor upgrade. Linux applications don't often check for their needed libraries.
>> I should add a big "USER FRIENDLY DOCUMENTATION" to my previous post
> One problem with that approach.
> Users. Don't. Read. Documentation.
Newsflash: Users. Do. Read. Documentation.
You will be amazed, most non-technical users (and, are u ready? even technical users) do read documentation when they don't understand something just from using it.
>Go around your office, and ask your non-technical (marketing, accounting, etc.) Windows users questions like:
>Did you get a manual with your computer? Did you use it?
>How did you learn how to use Windows?
>Did you get a manual with Windows?
>Have you read any manuals for Internet Explorer?
If you get an organized computer you'll get all the documentation you'll need.
The people who don't read windows & IE documentation, don't need it because <flamebait> windows is easy and intuitive to learn and use, at least relatively to linux </flamebait>.
Ok, here's the problem with trying to help people with linux, this is how 90% of my conversations with linux newbies go...
/etc/myfile.conf'
newbie: hey, how do I do X?
me: Did you read the documentation that comes with it, like README ?
newbie: yes, but I still can't figure it out
me: what did it say to do first?
newbie: type 'cp myfile.conf
me: well, did you do that?
newbie: no, should I?
me: well... the instructions say to don't they?
and so the conversation continues. This is either laziness or stupidity, which one depends on the person. Either way, the person is not going to learn anything by you telling them the steps to do.... teach them to read and understand the documentation, not the step by step of doing 1 specific task that they don't understand what those steps are or how they affect anything, anyway. Just handing something over on a silver platter doesn't help people to learn to "use" it... if they are somewhat paying attention it may help them to do the same task again, like a trained chimp, but for most (not all), it is not going to help in the long run, in truly learning to use their computer, to know how it works so that they can figure things out for themselves. Some of you apparently see this as making things more difficult than they need to be, but I think they need to be like this for users to learn, otherwise we'll have the same problem with linux as we all bitch about with windows... it's so simple to do things that no one knows wtf they are doing or how to use their computer, and as your average windows userhas shown us, they do not wish to learn and are not going to learn if they do not absolutely have to to get the job done. As one of the best teachers I have ever had said, "I am a Learning Facilitator, not a teacher. I do not teach people how to do specific tasks, I help them learn to teach themselves." Those of us making it "too difficult" by saying RTFM, etc, are not making it difficult at all, they just have to read a step by step README, what's the difference, speaking of difficulty, in typing "./Configure" after seeing me type it in and irc chan and when they read it in the README? As far as difficulty goes, there's no difference, it's still "read line then copy letter for letter what line of instruction says", but by doing it from the README, they have done it themselves and often are more likely to remember it, plus the readme will commonly give some other, very important information, that I am not going to give the user. By making them read that, we are showing them how to teach themselves so that they may do it on their own next time instead of waiting for someone else to come along and do it for them.
--
I feel your pain on the gaming thing. Once 98's gone and done, I'm going to have to decide what to do next with my system, move all the way over to Linux or keep that other partition around.
:-)
While the gaming style is different, I think that moving all your gaming over to a console may be the best option. Granted, you don't get such gems as Civ III, but you do get a solid library of titles. This is what I'll probably do come 2003.
The other option to consider is the Mandrake gaming pack, which can run the Sims. As far as I know, it's based off Transgaming's product, which makes it able to run a fair number of games already.
Either way, you're sacrificing some amount of gaming by not going with Windows, but it's got a few more options than just going with Mac. The amount you'll save on software could go towards your console too
Anyhow, if you've got the hard drive space to spare and know someone with a copy of partition magic (or are willing to buy your own) installing Mandrake now would be a great move. You'll get to play around with the whole linux thing and see if it really does fit you before you decide to make a jump to it. You can ease yourself in to it and really enjoy the system rather than make some frantic decision later on only to have a ton of problems. If it frustrates you too much, then you can go to Mac and still get a great system.
Anyways, best of luck!
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
...linux as a workstation, a guide for beginners
Windoze not found: (C)heer, (P)arty or (D)ance
Many 'gurus' teaching new users about Linux make it look harder than it needs to be
You might want to check out this case from a social psychology point of view. People who are not real experts but perceives themselves to be experts might want to emphasize their expertise by showing the new user how smart they are in comparison.
It should be noted that real experts shouldn't (at least in theory) have this inferiority complex, which makes the interaction for them with newbies much more straightforward and purposeful.
Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
Or is it they don't know that much but think and want others to think they do?
What do you do when the GUI fails? One of the reasons I really began to love Linux as I began to really understand it, is that when the GUI fails there was always more than one way to skin a wombat. Command line has less over head, seems to be more direct, and never leaves me with fewer options than I am truly capable of applying to the problem. When I show someone something in Linux, yes I mention the GUI but I teach them the command line base application. When it comes down to it, if you understand how the main program program works, rather than the gui interface, you have obtained more knowledge about the subject. This knowledge in time has a way of helping you out of other sticky situations. I don't think it is really a matter of arrogance, or over intelligence as much as a matter of giving the newbie the best chance at growing. If you become multi-dimensional in solving your problem, something that a good understanding of command line gives you, when the GUI fails (as it does so often in Windows ie needing manual reinstalls of IE, DUN, Viruses you have to remove from DOS) you will be prepared to think outside the options presented in the GUI. That is not really a detriment to me, and don't get me wrong, some GUI applications make things SO much easier, but when it comes down to it you need to be able to hash that config file for yourself.
When they really want something to work and they can't figure out how to make it happen, they read the documentation.
It's usually not much more helpful on the windows side of things, but then it's less necessary there as well.
I'll bet almost everyone who has a cable modem or DSL has looked at their manual. And I'm sure that Office users who want to do a mail merge look it up in the online help, or maybe just ask a knowledgeable co-worker ("guru").
But none of that is really the point- if someone is willing to try linux, then you're not doing them any favors telling them to rtfm if the fm is impossible to decipher/out of date/etc. A user who has made the commitment to *try* linux at all is probably willing to read a few manuals, and whether this becomes a habit is probably directly proportional to the degree of success she has on her first few tries getting help this way.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
It might be because that most gurus (and me) have learned linux using commands and tricky shortcuts resulting in running either a screen-like window manager, just text mode or ie. blackbox. This is of course how gurus seem to like it, and also a nice and fast way to run linux in. But if you require that a newbie is to use these ways that in his eyes look primitive and a lot of difficult stuff, he might just give up immediatly. So start teaching them kde or something as easy as that. Learn them kwrite not vi, kvirc not epic4 or bitchx etc etc...
Not everyone can be an arrogant bastard. I'm surprised I haven't heard this from an OpenBSD user...
This is a aggressive operating system. You probably won't like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the interest or sophistication to be able to appreciate an OS of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory - maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it's made in a little development house, or one that implies that their unstable ugly weak OS will give you more sex appeal. Perhaps you think multi-million dollar ad campaigns make an OS work better. Perhaps you're mouthing your words as you read this.
-- Adapted from Arrogant Bastard Ale.
- passion
Down, slashbots, down! Just stop and think before you flame, OK? I didn't say that all of Linux UI was from the 60s. I'm well aware of the GUIs available, the user-friendly installers, and so on. What I said was that expecting average people to use that sort of UI (at all) is silly.
This isn't just about command prompts vs. GUIs; I'm well aware of the advantages of each. This is about the fact that the command names are needlessly cryptic, and there's no real tie-in between the command prompt UI and the GUI to get the combined power of both.
This is about the fact that the major Linux GUIs, while pretty good, are still several years of UI development behind recent MS Windows or MacOS offerings.
This is about the fact that I've never yet seen a Linux system get up and running without several manual edits to configuration files first, whereas in other modern OSes the same would be accomplished via a hard-to-get-wrong UI with constant help available.
Just compare the average Linux HOWTO with the average MacOS or MS Windows help page, and spot the difference.
As the original poster said, Linux is a mostly system written by geeks, for geeks. A geek has no problem with any of the above. When this sort of thing was all there was, back in the 60s, everyone using computers was an expert anyway, so it didn't matter.
But today, if you're hoping to appeal to a wider user base, you have to accept that not everyone will be an expert. They want the power you've got, but a much more usable interface on the front of it. Most of all, they don't want to ever have to go down into the depths of their system when they first set it up, to get everything configured properly. It's all very well pointing out that Linux has decent GUIs and user-friendly installers these days, but if the user must still go play with the low-level stuff -- even a little bit -- it's all irrelevant. At that point, as I said, you are expecting your typical users to use stuff from the 60s, and that's absurd.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
This is half right. :)
Users won't read documentation if they can intuit what they want to do from the program's user interface. If they can't, most of them first turn to the online help. Today in most cases the online help is the main documentation--an increasing number of programs don't have printed manuals at all, or if they do, the manuals are structured as reference material for advanced users.
So I'd say the original point still stands. Users don't necessarily read manuals, but a lot of users do know "click here for help." Online documentation needs to be quickly, easily navigable, and both indexed and searchable unless it's of a very trivial length. And ideally it should be context-sensitive (i.e., when you press the help button, it takes you to a help screen related to the action you were trying to perform if it can).
In my experience, most Unix programs are abysmal in this respect. Their help documents are all too often clearly afterthoughts, and even relatively good ones rarely have context sensitivity or useful navigation (usually it's limited to a table of contents and links reading "previous," "next" and "up" on each page).
What can't I do with windows 2000?
I have been working with Linux since 1995, and a few months back was send by my employer to become RHCE certified.
The class was boring (not surprising after having worked with Linux for that long, how much was it going to teach me?).
But I would certainly not call the teacher to smart. Rather the contrary, he did not seem to know much more about the subject then what his documentation said.
He probably figured I was a smart-ass as I interupted him so now and then and corrected him, and tried having some kind of technical conversation with him during the breaks (the class took way to long for the material covered).
But then I had 2 colleagues go through the same class and with the same teacher, and they had the same experience.
I ended up being the only student in the class to pass the exam (100+96+90 score or something)
This affects not just teaching people about Linux, but the way programs are developed for it. Linux will only become truly easy to use when the developers (of both software and docs) put the users' needs above their own. I don't see that happening any time soon.
I think undocumented hardware could be part of the problem here, I don't know, but that's my guess. Braindead manufacturers don't release sufficiently detailed specs to Linux developers, in the deluded belief that it's needed to prevent competitors stealing their good ideas. (huh, like anyone would want to replicate the crappy PC Chips motherboard graphics chipset I had - especially after it became obselete! - what's the point of secrecy then?).
Female Prison Rape in NY
Point and click is wonderful and happy. Every now and then you absolutely have to edit a config file. vi is about the most user-malevolent program I have ever seen. Yes, it's incredibly powerful, and I intend to use it someday. That day is not the day I first install Linux. On my first install (Red Hat 5.0, without external guidance) I was thankfully able to mount my windows partitions so that I could copy over my bashrc to edit it in Windows. Due to disk space concerns I had to abandon that installation, since it was a family computer. Now I have my own, and I'm running Debian. I installed sudo. It demands that you edit the sudoers file with its own version of vi. It took me about ten minutes just to add one line. Afterwards I browsed the package lists and found nano, a pico clone. I love it. I can actually get done what I need done. Yes, it's a very simplistic text editor. That's the point. I think I've passed the beginning phases of understanding Linux, and I have recompiled my kernel. I think that installers should either have different options based on familiarity, or a default (that can be modified) that assumes you're a moron and lets you migrate to being a poweruser.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
I suppose I should have said 'more consistently applicable graphical user interface' instead of 'better metaphore'. I realize that there's power in using a command line interface. I think that Macromedia's approach to programming actionscript code with visual assistance would be nice to ease the way into linux by newbies. For all I know, there could be a "point and click to insert code" method of using the linux command line with a chance to edit the text afterwards, but there weren't any with the distro as far as I could find and that should have been put in before the 'mouse spedometer'. And like I said somewhere else, trying to install an RPM was a lot more frustrating than using the install sheild. I'm willing to learn the hard stuff, but I'd prefer to be eased into it. There may be easy fixes out there. I'm sure the mix of hardware probelms that I had didn't help (A friend of mine, and brilliant CS major couldn't figure out the problem but Linux wouldn't load on one of my boxes when Windows loaded fine- that was my first attempt in college). I'm also a little biased considering I have a lot more experience with Windows than Linux and I'd probably be a lot more comfortable with Linux if I'd been using it for my courses, papers, etc. for the past few years.
Gotta find a users group one of these days, I suppose.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I would say that one of the best ways to learn and understand Linux is to have a look at Linuxfromscratch
You get an excellent understanding and appreciation of what goes into a Linux system by installing ALL packages yourself. This is not for the faint of heart Linux user. It instructs you step by step on how to build your own custom Linux system.
Firstly a quick explanation of who I am: I'm 17/f windows user with a linux-mad bf. I'd never even heard of linux or any other operating systems other than doze and macs before. As windows users go, I consider myself fairly competent, but of course not an expert. I know how to use software packages, I'm developing a strong hatred of MS products and I spend my life on irc. So basically I come from the standard home computer user environment.
:)
Now as one who is just a normal computer user, I can say truthfully that I do not use help files at all- they have never sorted out the problem since they don't suggest anything that I haven't tried before. As far as manuals and documentation are concerned, I have consulted them occasionally if I specifically can't find a feature I want, but again as far as trouble shooting is concerned, they have never worked. Anything to do with hardware installation is a bit of an "ah scary get bf to do it" area. I did proudly install my modem though
So getting to the point, if we are trying to get users to move to linux, the very first thing is let them hear about it! Nobody has heard of it! I'm not just being extreme, but I hadn't heard of it, nobody at school has heard of it, my parents certainly have not heard of it, and in an A level IT text book (I don't do IT but I was curious so I looked) it gets one mention under the operating systems bit, whereas MS OSs gets several pages. Is it any wonder very few non-geeks uses it?
The stigma is not about linux being for geeks only. People love their computers, love having fancy desktops and something slightly different (such as using winamp rather than the windows media player). People start on MSN messenger then go to ICQ because it's different. So they are just waiting for a different operating system too, just they have not heard of it. Perhaps if it was offered pre-installed on computers like windows is then people might well opt for it.
There is however a huge fear about going non-MS. There is a huge fear about the installation, and whether anyone will be able to help them if things go wrong. Perhaps this is why I myself have not progressed to linux. My reasons would not be that I need it for coding, it's just that it's different, I like the idea of it being non-MS, and it just looks so cool! So perhaps I am your typical example of one who is considering linux but not actually making the step.
So my reasons for windows over linux? It's simply that I'm afraid of the transition, and of messing up my computer. The reasion I'm afraid is because I no nobody in real life (my bf is miles away) who can help me and actually come round and sort out my problems. So the problem isn't really the documentation as such- windows users never use it, it's the fact that should something go wrong there is nobody to help, only the internet, which whilst is very helpful, if you're not sure what the problem is at all, its virtually impossible to find help.
The Mac's had serious virus issues ten years ago -- before Windows went through it's current spate of issues. It was so bad at our university Mac network that we'd watch it go down in minutes.
It was extremely malicious code and took a few years to resolve most of the issues. The Mac did move beyond that level of insecurity.
The point of script kiddies targetting windows is a good one -- after all they are like 95% of developers out there producing code for the platform that is used by 90+% of users.
Why bother with marginal platforms when you want wide impact?
If you truly believe that Mac users will never write viruses and you won't have any script kiddies then you are indeed naive. Then again if you consider the Mac platform to be a leading contender in the field (other than one or two specific vertical markets where it rules) you are naieve.
The problem is that a) most default X server configurations are broken (set to 75dpi, where most modern displays have > 100dpi) b) most distributions have no reliably working font management (I think "most distributions" can be replaced by "every distro except debian*"). I agree that this is a major problem, but it's not the fault of any linux software developer. The broken X server configurations are the distributor's problem, as is the second issue. Defoma is free, after all, and building a pretty frontend wouldn't be that hard. * apt-get defoma on woody. integrating truetype in defoma still is a pain in the behind, but once they're in you can even *gasp* print them. Which leads us to another major problem. The printing functions of most toolkits or applications are broken, and setting up a printer is an exhausting task. The sick and twisted concept of patching printer drivers into gs is an example.
I've been using Linux for almost nine years and I see far too much how newbies these days are far too proud of showing off their command lines and how they brag about using Slackware because you damn near have to load all your own modules by hand (that's why they invented auto-detection). Look, I used Slackware once when it was the only real Linux distribution, but now it's hardly supported and their line of reasoning is just silly. I use the command line all the time for my own work, but I show StarOffice, Opera, and GUI features first when I want to evangelize. The UNIX command line has been around for thirty years. The only exciting thing Linux adds is bash and no newbie needs that to do their office work. Everything this guy says makes sense.
I have seen the epidemic of linux gurus explaining things to newbies cryptically. Those are usually the types of gurus who feel a need to show off how smart they are. I agree with you that KDE (or Gnome) is a good way to teach newbies linux, but they should also be making their own effort to learn the more powerful tools and shortcuts if they want to get the most use out of it. Of course, if they don't need the full power of linux, they shouldn't *have* to learn it in such depth.
I'm giving myself a (Score: -1, Rambling) rating here by removing my +1 bonus. :)
-Legion
What I don't get is that Be figured out how to integrate this into a "legacy" hierarchial file system back in 1995 with folders where you'd save search criteria with the folder and they'd update themselves constantly with little to no overhead. For example, I could attach the search criteria "any file whose MIME type is 'text/html'" and the folder would always contain a list of every HTML file on my hard disk. And the kicker was that there was essentially no speed penalty. It was truly just an awsome setup, and a functionality I haven't seen on any other OS. I can't imagine that this would be terribly difficult to implement in Linux, and the adition of a feature like this would definitely be at least close to a "killer feature" compared to Windows. Granted, a better solution ultimately would probably be to design a new OS around data bags like what the Newton did, but the BFS solution seems like it makes sense in the near term...
Vi may or may not be powerful.
I wouldn't know. I refuse to use it. It's not at all a good interface, as far as I can tell, because it says NOTHING about how to use it. Help? There's no help command. There's no indication of how to get to help. There's no indication of how to EXIT.
Before I get flamed for not RTFM or anything like that.... a basic usability concern is that if, by some strange chance, a user accidentally fires up something they didn't mean to/want to, they should at least be able to cleanly leave it. I always end up killing or suspend/killing vi when it gets called.
People tell me that vi is incredibly powerful for programming. That's funny. I code in pico and Matlab's program editor. All I really want out of a file editor is find/replace and line numbering, or at least cursor finding. Both of these do that, quite well. I'm perfectly happy to use them.
People who think things that are hard to use are innately powerful are stupid. You can have a simple, powerful program. Vi is not. Therefore, I will not use vi.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
installation of applications. Some applications such as Star Office have their own installation programs, and rpm is easy to use, but there is inconsistency in installation that is generally not present with Windows.
Also, and perhaps most importantly, when Windows applications are installed, an icon is generally created on the desktop so users know where to go to start the application. Generally, icons and shortcuts have to be added by users in Linux.
As far as installation of the OS, I find Linux to be _far_ easier to install than Windows
Check out Reiser'S whitepaper.
"If you look 'round the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." -- Quiz Show
That's why I had to explain to my aunt that to stop the computer you had to press the Start button?
With Mozilla and StarOffice, Linux now has a world-class browser and office suite. KDE as a GUI is good enough to compete with Windows. With distributions like Mandrake, installing and configuring hardware is easy and painless. There are programs to enable you to play and rip MP3's, burn CD's, chat, ICQ clones, games ,etc... Everything is in place EXCEPT for an easy and hassle-proof software install system.
.configure, make and make install, as well as changing my PATH to point to /usr/local/bin BEFORE /usr/bin (so as to run 6.0 before 5.8) and create an icon on my KDE QuickLauch.
Let me use an example. I recently downloaded Vim 6.0, and proceeded to install it on both my Windows and Linux boxes. On Windows, all I had to do was double click on the EXE file and the program, including the shortcuts, was installed and ready to go in no time. On Linux, I had to download a source tarball, dump it into a directory, run
Vim works just fine on my Linux box, and I found the install the be relatively straightforward. However, I'm confortable in a command-line environment, most newbies are not.
RPM is a bold attempt at making the install process, but it is fraught with problems and dependencies. For example, just for fun (don't flame me, I don't use RPM's), I tried to install the latest version of Mozilla (Moz 8.0 was the package in my distribution) with the RPM file from the site. I ran rpm -U and it complained about having to upgrade each COMPONENT of mozilla (mail, chat, etc) before upgrading the whole thing. I tried uninstalling it. It told me I had to uninstall all related packages first, including GNOME. Since I use KDE, I decided to do it. Only THEN was I able to install the 0.9.5 RPM. Now, needless to say, I simply grab the tarball for the latest distribution on dump it into a directory.
Somebody needs to come up with an accepted, standardized protocol to install new programs or upgrade existing ones onto an existing distribution that doesn't involve compiling from source or using RPM files. Mind you, the option to compile from source should remain for the advanced users.
This space left intentionally blank.
How is anybody supposed to remember that Outlook is a mail client, Excel a spreadsheet and Access a database?
Well, Excel has been around for well over a decade. The others are popularized by various forms of marketing.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I brought my computer home (from school over the break) and all it has on it is linux. Now my sister and father fear linux becuase you have to type a password to log on. They do not understand things like user accounts and don't want to learn (they already know windoze and want to stay with it.)
Then they blame me as being patronzing, when I try to dumb it down to the windoze level.
Can't a geek win?
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Pick a new window manager?
Well, at least with ACPI, you'll soon be able to use the power button.
Sigh.
X is not the OS. Applications can crash under any OS.
Any OS that must be taught, or requires paper documentation for routine use, is surely a waste of most folks time. When you rent a car of a brand you've never driven before, do you expect to need coaching first, or to read the manual as you drive? If it isn't obvious how to use it when you look at it, the OS is not taking proper advantage of the resources with which it has been endowed (screen, fonts, graphics, sound, etc.). The less familiar the task, the more the user needs coaching to get through it. Any OS that leaves important generic capabilities like installation to a command line is going to end up in the same heap with homemade stock cars and experimental aircraft: fun recreation for a few, but not very useful.
I knew it.
Linux users (gurus?) are not smarting from years of being pushed into lockers, picked last for dodgeball, made fun of by pop culture, or being forced out to the fringe by Microsoft.
They're not poor teachers, they're not lacking in social grace, they don't feel like they have years of untapped worth to prove to the average Joe who didn't grow up in front of a monitor.
They're just too smart.
Give me a fuckin' break.
(everybody buy macs!)
dust
duh.
but if the documentation doesnt exist, is wrong,
doesnt work, needs 50 MB of jade/latex/sgml tools to
'compile' into readable form, etc etc etc, then
that first guy will never get to it, and his
network of oral correspondents will not get
it from him.
Granted he brings up some good points. Ubergeeks could be Linux's worst enemy in terms of popularizing the OS. Perhaps it may be time well spent if linux geeks took a little time out from their lives to mess with dysfunctional GUIs and cover old ground to be more helpful and newbie friendly. But he misses the central flaw with Linux for the general populace.
Linux is not idiot friendly and is unsuitable as a desktop for the masses. The test for when Linux will be ready is simple. Can you hand over a linux desktop to your windoze-using mother without needing to conduct a seminar for every pedestrian task or "rebuild" the machine every time she has a problem that is beyond the scope of what a commercial distribution provides?
Whining that geeks are not trained technical support personnel is stupid. Its like criticizing politicians because there is poverty. Sure, they can pass laws which conceivably could make a few less people's lives easier. But politicians are not the root of the problem, nor can they legislate a solution to the problem.
"Oh the users need to read the doc", "oh the doc sucks"; the posters miss the point! If Linux was ready for general users, there would be NO COMPELLING NEED for them to read documentation! If the general consumer needs to read, digest, and then configure their OS, then it means Linux is not ready for the consumer or business markets!
From my POV, the solution needs to come from the distributors of Linux. Its their "job", besides bundling software, to make that distribution work seamlessly for users. They make money by getting users to buy their bundle over Micro$oft. Its in their interest to lobby developers to make changes in their packages to support users. Its in their interest to invest resources to implement improvements to usability.
So far, I think they've failed. Everytime I've done a RH install (and its only a handful), I've never failed to come across a problem getting it to work properly. (Last go around, it was getting framebuffer X to work.) And my computer professional friends have had similar flawed experiences whether its Suse, Mandrake, or Debian.
I want to replace my desktop with Linux and I had to waste months getting ALSA to work with a 2.4 kernel. Sound is an important feature for me, and free-OSS in Slackware did not cut it. Compile is not a word a user should ever need to be exposed to. Why the hell should I be tricking Macromedia to download the flash module so I can kludge it into Mozilla? (This is just a tiny sample of my experiences with Linux) Is this what a user is going to choose for an OS??? Hey guys, newsflash, the user doesn't need to do jack when buying a machine with a Micro$oft OS installed.
Its the distributors that need the lecture. Its the community's non-realization of the problem and the distributors lack of vision that keeps Linux from taking the desktop. It kills me to think I should dedicate the next two years of my life to put out Yet Another Linux Distribution because the people who do this for a living cannot even figure out they need invest effort to make Linux a competitive option for the desktop.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
However, the biggest problem, is getting things to print. I truly dread printing in unix. It is unnecessarily complicated. Granted, my experience with it is network printing where a printer has to be specified (I suppose you could set it up to default to one...but that of course requires manipulating some config file somewhere). Until printing is as easy as windows (literally, just click the icon and whatever is on your application prints perfectly)...
-
Users. Don't. Read. Documentation.
Exactly. And there's very little need for documentation in most well-designed software systems. A program that is designed to present how it works in a clear and accessible fashion makes a manual largely unnecessary. Where there is a remaining need for software documentation is in geek-oriented systems like programming languages. For end-user-targeted software, documentation is just a CYA that companies still produce for legacy reasons.
"Hey, my web site works perfectly! It's probably your own fault. You did read the help page, right?"
Tim
The problem with the whole argument is the idea that people should conform to computers. The focus of interface development should be on understanding the needs and desires of users, and adapting to their way of communicating.
In case you haven't noticed, no one on Star Trek has any trouble interacting with the "computer." Sure, it's fiction, but it's also a reasonable goal. Not everyone on the show is capable of fixing it of course, but even kids know how to say "Make me some breakfast" to the replicator. The computer should be smart enough to offer options "would you like eggs again today, or maybe some nice hot pancakes?"
People are most effective when communicating with speech, since it is our oldest and most developed form of language. The technology exists NOW to do speech recognition, but I see very few efforts on actually turning this into something useful. Coders need to interact with linguists perhaps, and focus on english (as an example) as the programming language of humans. Getting a computer to understand "Bring up that cover letter I was working on the other day" is much more interesting (albeit difficult) than teaching a given person to click on this or type in that.
Experts will always need powerful tools to do the heavy lifting, but users just want "Coffee, one sugar" and don't give a crap how the replicator works. I expect that 95% of the linux gurus have never rebuilt the engine in their car, and many probably can't even change their oil. Knowing the intricate details of any one system forgoes knowledge of others. The less you have to know about how to drive a car to make use of it, the more time you have to learn and do whatever else you want. This also has the advantage of making your technology (car, linux, whatever) more popular than any other.
If we want people to use linux, we have to make it easier to use than anything else. Not because users are idiots, but becuase they have more important things to do than learn the correct spark plug gap, or the syntax for the patch command. It is the responsibility of technologists to bring technology to the people, not the other way around.
As a final side note, take a look at the reasons you want people to learn linux? Is it merely anti-microsoft evangelism? Do you want to make a new friend you have something in common with? Do you really give a damn what the user's objectives are anyway? An introspective look would do a lot for many snobby gurus.
this sig has been rated E for Everyone.
I'm going to reveal myself as one of the crusty curmudgeons this article is talking about. What user interface could possibly be simpler than the one for grep or for tar, for example? Of course you don't know what all those fiddly little gibberinsh switches mean right away, but all of the documentation is right there in "man grep" or "man tar." User interface? There is only the command line, standard in, and standard out.
A lot of this BS about unusability is because people are assuming GUIs are intuitive. I don't see that at all. How the hell would I know that "Exit" is under "File" and that it means to end the program unless I was already immersed in the model? I wouldn't! And who the hell would think that they shut down their OS by clicking "Start" first?
People are afraid of the command line because it IS NOT WHAT THEY ARE CONDITIONED TO USE.
None of this invalidates the article's point, however, which is that the best way to introduce a Windows user to Linux is NOT to sit them down and have them type in a terrifying "find -exec perl -e blah blah \; | less" command line, even if that really is the fastest solution.
The biggest hurdle isn't even that it is different; it is getting people to understand that it CAN be different, and that different can be better.
FWIW, I don't care if a single Windows user comes to Linux (well, I do care, but not that much). Linux meets all my needs and I can interoperate where I need to.
Third party software is too hard to install on Linux.
It needs to be:
1) download setup.exe (or equivilant)
2) launch
3) click Next 2-5 times to install
And remember:
- One setup package needs to work on 2 years worth of Linux, regardless what what version or company made your distribution.
- third party software means "3rd party", not something included on the RedHat CD. Nothing which is fully centralized will scale.
Today, even if I wanted to support this for my 3rd party software product, I can't. the tools and standards are not available.
Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?
... ;)
That is not the term at all... The term is arrogant.
I don't get it people. Why is being a Newbie a bad thing at all!!! Hell! If i'd wanted to market a good and free OS properly, i would want a lot of Newbies! And i wouldn't make them feel like incompetants each time they ask a question. Even if the question seems stupid. ( Remember there are no stupid questions, just inquisitive
The problem with Linux teachers... THERE ARE NO LINUX TEACHERS!!! All i've seen up to date are smart geeks holding all the info for themselves, while laughing at the ignorance of others.
The problem here is selfishness and arrogance. Grow up!
If i could kick all your pretty asses, i would!
It would make the most beautiful domino effect ever!
... and the point whizzed right over your head...
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Microsoft has been a success with vendors because of all the merchandising that goes with it (classes, courses, etc.) one of the reasons why Apple has been a failure with vendors is that because the Macintosh is easier to use, there is less support to sell.
no wonder that Linux is going the same way. it's much easier to make Linux look more difficult, in particular since KDE and Gnome suck so badly.
-- Rolf Lindgren, cand.psychol
the left foot is for the clutch, not the brake ;)
This is so stupid and I see it constnatly. Sure, that series of commands (some 30 letters) is not intrinsically difficult to remember in itself, if you can remember word-punctuation-word-punctuation-word
This is the crux of the matter.. software installation CAN be made easier, but geeky losers don't want it to be. That's why people always run away from one-click stuff and scurry back to hide under their make;configure rock.
Stupid.
I'll simply be puzzled if a significant number of people answer "Yes" to the second one.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
> "Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
Lord knows Windoze doesn't have this problem!
For normal, day to day operation (including installing "common" software) modern, "newbie oriented" Linux distros (such as Mandrake, SuSE and to a lesser extent RedHat) are completely "point and click", "drag and drop", "slap and tickle" or whatever GUI goodness you want. In fact you don't ever have to even see the CLI if you don't want to.
There are several good, graphical RPM managers included with these systems, that will keep track of what you have installed, what you have on your CDs and what you can download (in Ximian's case) all without a single text command.
Hardware is of course a different issue. Windows is obviously better supported by hardware manufactureres, but Linux will have no problem within the window of "modern enough, but not made yesterday." On reasonably modern systems, the only piece of hardware that I cannot use is my Philips Accoustic Edge, for obvious reasons. But if a piece of hardware is supported, most modern distros will detect it and install support for without you even having to think about it. Once again, I am not talking about any fancy stuff here, but that's what end users need anyway. (interestingly, Mandrake found and installed drivers and software for my Pinnacle Studio PCTV, something I've given up on getting to work in Windows with the manufacturer's software and only recently got working with third-party drivers - just goes to show that hardware compatibility is rarely the fault of the OS itself)
Anyway, to sum up:
Many advances have been made since RH 6 (and many of them by others).
The "average" user doesn't need the CLI 99.9% of the time.
With a proper manager, RPM is just as easy to use as install shield, and a lot more powerful (that's only rpms of course, software installation in general is a mess only a geek could love, and we do - but I realize that's far from everyone)
I (and many others) use the CLI because we find it to be more efficient and (dare I say it?) powerful - but only because we want to, no one's forcing us.
sic transit gloria mundi
I agree. The goal isn't to dumb down Linux to the Windows level of standards. The goal is to condition those users to appreciate and like Linux the way it is.
It's not a question of knowing too much about the subject material, it's a question of knowing too little about imparting that material to others.
And I want to why?
It's sad that that's the best you can do.
Just use galeon (http://galeon.sourceforge.net/)
Using Mandrake 8.1, most pages look fine, if not, just click the zoom icon.
That's quite possible. I didn't install *Nix on a desktop of mine until a year or so after I started reading /., AND I got an account, forgot about /., and returned many moons later. I fit both of those descriptions.
And, as you point out, this conversation has been mostly beneficial. Just as there are white-hat hackers that cause a positive end result, there are positive trolls that cause good conversation and get some helpful sentiments out there. There's a quote I've heard a few times, that a good troll is indistiguishable from a good post.
> what you did was a bit unnecessary. Since you're running
> RH 6.2, you need to grab the packages that are built for
> 6.2, wu-ftpd-2.6.1-0.6x.21.i386.
in other words, "blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah". Exactly where did you learn the fact that If "you're running RH 6.2, you need to grab the packages that are built for 6.2" ??!?! Does this rule extend to version 7.2? To version 5.2? How do you know that it does? Where did you learn it? My mom doesn't know it. It is not instinctive.
"Oh of course RPM didn't exist before redhat version blah... therefore it's a moot point". Notice how a significant part of the facts needed to understand how to use stuff, is history: this came before that, that's why it's the way it is, then this other guy, really arrogant, he did something else that way... so if you start using Linux in 2001 you will be at a disadvantage cuz of all the things you didn't live through.
These are the details that make the difference. These are the facts that new users don't know, or aren't sure of.
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
> ...hardware gets adopted by Linux distros pretty well. ...
... I said to myself, if it works this badly in the dealer's lot, what happens when I get it out onto the highway? Far cheaper was to pay $30 and get a Caldera distro that just worked. Cheaper in terms of my time.
>...a better and better job recognizing and installing hardware
>without me having to go in and recompile or anything.
I once tried to install a Debian distro. Ethernet wasn't working, dunno why. After messing with that, and other hassles, for a day and a half, I was confronted with downloading source for a replacement driver, building it up, redoing the kernel,
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
>Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
Naw, the problem is they don't understand the needs of most users and how to convey the information. When you were in drivers ed, how long did the teacher spend on internal combustion mechanics or how the electrics of the car worked. NADA, ZIP, ZERO time beacuse it's not nessasary for 99.9% of the people in that class to know. The teacher figures that any one who wants to know about internal combustion will seek out more indepth classes.
Same for Linux. If Linux is ever going to be more than a bussiness backend server or hobbiest OS it's going to have to be able to be taught to people who don't really care that much about the underlying structure of Linux.
I have no
know too much??!! BHHAHAHAHHAAH. Now that is some serious delusion right there. *nix weenies are somehow endowed with this theory that because they know all of the *nix Flavours of the Week (linux included) they can pass for elites and echelons of their industry. Linux in of itself is agreeably easy to set up and maintain. It's usability is stifled because of a particular developer mentality that GUI's are for morons and console screens are only for "special elite people who are oh so intelligent and we should feed their egos and kneel before them" that is almost entirely isolated to *nix and many of it's followers. it's almost like a southern baptist congregation, only change "piety" to "technical prowess" (or what people purport to be technical prowess) good day. :)
Once my Mum knows the difference between:
- I saved this in Word as c:\mydocu~1\fred.doc
- I saved this in c:\mydocu~1\
- I saved this from the Internet as c:\mydocu~1\net.html
- I saved this in WordPad as c:\mydocu~1\text.doc
- I saved this in PaintShopPro as c:\mydocu~1\psp.jpg
... and realises that there *is* no difference - they're all in the same place, and in a format she can open using Word...
Then, I'll be able to help Windows users.
If I get her onto KDE/GNU/Linux, I'll be able to support her much better, if only because I can dial-in to her PC and fix it!
Until users really understand what they're using, they're impossible to support. The amount of times people have told me they're using "Office 98", or "Windows 97"...
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Using Linux was never very difficult for me. The difficulty I had when I first began was in getting various pieces of hardware I had to work.
I got my system from Dell, and it came stock with a WinModem. After that I had troubles getting my system going on my @Home service. I needed to recompile my kernel for USB support for my printer. I must say that after (eventually) succeeding in all of these tasks I know a lot more about Linux.I still don't have sound card support (Turtle Beach Santa Cruz) but I can live w/o it.
Yeah, I have heard that too. It is very true. One other thing that is kind of goofy is when people feed the trolls and it ends up being a real discussion.
Trolls good or bad are a necessary evil.
Blogging because I can...
> having the software I am running and rely on constantly
> changing does not help me get my job done
me too. Takes me a long time to get a setup that's not broken. Then I don't mess with it.
Currently typing this on a 1998 machine with a 1999 OS version. With vid monitors from 1991 and a tape drive from 1992.
The browser iS recent: iCab cuz Netscape and Mozilla are both broken. iCab 2.6 cuz 2.5.3 had a bug. I'm sticking with 2.6.
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
What TheRev said -- why would you want to do that?
(I know why you might want to play with different window managers, but why would your pointy-haired boss, or the secretary in Marketing, give a rat's ass what window manager they used, so long as they could make PowerPoint slides, read Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets?)
Ask them - is a computer a magical box that can do everything you want it to? Or is a computer "that thing I use to make presentations, memos, and email."
I'm so sick of this sort of backwards thinking. Because users don't understand their windows file system, it cost billion of dollars a year answering tech support calls for lost icons.
Users are not too stupid to understand the basics of the bash command line AND use drag and drop. But they are too stupid to learn JUST drag and drop and effectively use their computers...regardless of the OS.
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
That is because you allow JavaScript from random web pages to be executed on your computer. I hope you don't use windows... and are instead logged into a unix-style os as an unprivileged user...
Disclaimer: I use Windows primarily and not Linux.
/y iisadmin'" than it is to say "go to the control panel, go to the services, select the iisadmin service, click the stop button, click yes". Unfortunately the latter is probably going to make more sense when a user does it (and so they might actually remember it) compared to the string of crap I asked them to type in the first case.
I think another problem is that even though newbies can learn to use a GUI faster than they can learn a command line, a lot of people don't get help "in person". ie. they get guidance over the phone or by reading HOWTOs, or via the net, etc. In that situation, description of what to do from a command line in easier than describing what to do with a GUI to achieve the same task.
If I'm helping someone in person and their using a GUI tool, even if I'm not familiar with the particular program I can usually figure it out enough to help them. But if I'm talking over the phone, it's easier just to say "type 'net stop
Linux doesn't have to be any harder then Windows. As a matter of fact, most of these things are ALREADY available -- Redhat has them, and others do too (I'm sure). For instance, just set the user'ss password to "". Change the login prompt (Who are you:). They type in their name -- it's that simple. Redhat comes with kudzu, which autoconfigured all the hardware in all five of the computers I've set it up on (nothing bleeding edge, but everything was configured automatically except CD burner). Appearence of windows is consistent if you always use KDE (or Gnome). And up2date allows easy updating of the entire system (just click next, next, all packages, finish).
This versatility is why I use Linux. It can be setup with all the geekiness I want (no GUI, weird aliases, etc.), or my mom can use it just as easily (she types in "mary" at the login: prompt, and KDE comes up for her with icons for all her programs). Try doing THAT with windows.
There is no Linux equivalent to MSWord. Yes, yes, yes: I *know* there is StarOffice and others. But they aren't MSWord.
Please provide supporting arguments. I write professionally and recieve and submit documents from and to editors who use MS Word and Excel fileformat.s I also read a lot of highly formatted (ltables, inline images with captions, etc) documents from MS own site when I do NT work. I read them under So and since moving to the 6.0 beta the only error I've encountered when reading a very complex document - such as MS Case Study documents from their partner site - has been a hard Rock cafe logo that moved down 2CM because the page border was different.
There is no Linux equivalent to AccPac.
Er, the Linux euivalent of AccPac is AccPac, and its been out for half a year already
There is no Linux equivalent to Photoshop. Yes, yes, yes: I *know* there's Gimp. But it's not Photoshop.
Agreed one hundred percent. I barely consider Gimp useable, and I *know* how to use it - I just find its interface a fucking pain.
vi - keeping Linux elite! yay. kill the newbies.
"Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much"
yea and I'm just too atractive thats why the ladies stay away
- They will have to provide GUI tools that come with the distribution by default, and do not require separate installation, or kernel-recompiling.
- Distributions for 'general users' need to be available -- with sensible configurations for general users. Like the article says, give 'em their documents, their spreadsheets, their web browser, and their email reader. It appears that progress has been made in this category, at least since the last time I tried Linux a couple of years ago.
- They will have to provide actual user documentation. Not developer or administrator-level documentation, but user documentation. This documentation needs to come from the vendor, because it has to be very specific to their distribution. (This is where 'Linux for Dummies' falls short right now, because when things get specific, the 'Dummies' book has to refer the user to the current Linux distribution documentation, which is not written for general users.)
- Competent training will have to be provided in more places, by more people, for more people.
It's unfortunate that documentation and training seem to be so undervalued in the Linux community. I think a general culture of 'newbie contempt' is the root of that particular evil.I learned a couple of good things a while back:
With the latest versions of Mandrake, you can use a tool called drakfont that will import your windows truetype fonts. It's a nice GUI application and you just press a button. May I suggest that if you want to do everything the very easiest way, that you choose a distribution that is renowned for making things much easier.
People often become upset because you start blaming them for not fixing something when they have gone to the trouble of finding workarounds (or sometimes outright solutions) and written them down the best they can. Then you say you say you can't be bothered to read the workaround? Are the guides not clear but you can still understand the process? Please give back and rewrite the guide in a clearer simpler form.
It's one thing to say my distribution ships with fonts that make Netscape suck. But maybe there's a reason for that - making them not suck in all circumstances might not currently be possible out of the box...
That explains all those "Windows for spackers" books that sell so well.
You gotta be kiding... All the users in the world will go for Scenario A...
What would you rather have? someone telling you off right away or someone who speaks for an hour about things you have no clue whatsoever about?
My solution was to stick in a £10 AGP card - I had one lying around, but it'd hardly break the bank to buy a new one, and you'd probably get better performance anyway (I'm using mine as an Internet gateway, so I'm not too concerned about graphics performance anyhow)
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who had this problem - it seems so obvious now doesn't it? Wouldn't it have been nicer if it had been mentioned in any of the installation guides?
In short, yes, in all of your examples they are "clueless." I lack more than my fair share of 16th century French Realist poety and am, therefore, clueless in that area. I am also fairly clueless in many other areas and not so clueless in others.
However, I know I am clueless in these regards and would not even attempt to, and i'm not sure this comparison is equivalent, teach anyone about 16th century French Realist poetry or think I know what or how it should look or sound.
Scenario C:
programmer- "If you saved it, it can't be gone, and you don't have enough access to save it anywhere outside of your home directory, so just look for it in your home directory and subdirectories and you'll find it"
If they don't know what a directory is that is easily explained.
Also, the elitist attitude you refer to among the advanced computer users is evidenced in the other groups you mention as well (the advanced historians, mechanics, poetry afficionados(sp?), etc.). If I were to do something like try to talk to a historian about the Opium Wars with as much knowledge about that as the average computer user tries to talk to an advanced user about computers with, the historian would react just the same way as the advanced computer user reacts to the average one. Said historian would respond with the equivalent of "RTFM" unless some intent to learn more about the subject at hand was evidenced.
"I swear I won't break you if you let me take you where the willows never weep" -- Switchblade Symphony
I think that was my original point exactly - if you want to do only the things that Windows lets you do, then it works just fine. From the secretarial perspective you are using, it's more like a PlayStation than a Computer - just a tool to use to meet narrowly-defined ends, not really a general-purpose computer at all.
As far as what I would want to do differently, I'm actually thinking of the times when I'm forced to mess around in VB on Windows. It is entirely painful every time until I work my way of thinking around to doing it the "Windows way", and then after that it is only somewhat painful to deal with.
And even apart from coding, it's not a foregone conclusion that my boss or his secretary are really getting their work done more efficiently under the Windows way. Maybe they would work better with a different window manager, or some other simple tweak like that. But the Windows attitude is that the boys in Redmond have picked the best way for you to work, and you'd better like it.
I'm sure that Microsoft does a lot of UI research, and through that investment they are slowly coming to find out some of the UI improvements...that Apple figured out a while back :) But they still retain the basic one-user-model-fits-all approach, which is why people are now complaining about Windows XP looking too childish. In an effort to suit the stupidest users, they've alienated the more knowledgeable user base. And they're going to keep alternating back and forth until they figure out that real people do work in different ways, and Bill doesn't always Know Best. Except that conclusion isn't in the marketing plan, unfortunately.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Don't forget that you can prove anything logically, provided that you start from the right givens.
If you don't pretend to be anyone, are you?
Given the fact that the 2.4 kernel is a little flakey with AGP and USB, and XFree86 4 has very poor reliability, I think that distributions need an easy way to update drivers. All this really requires is to put the XFree driver modules and stock kernel modules in individual packages. I think most distros configure themselves well, it's just that most newbies I talk to say linux has poor reliability because X locks up on them all the time...
Typical Windows users want as much GUI as possible, as little command line as possible.
Then there's the whole guru impatient&arrogance issue...
Magius_AR
"You've clearly never used Photoshop."
Actually, it's the GIMP I haven't used much. But for my image editing needs, the two are approximately equal. My reply was aimed primarily at StarOffice.
So my reasons for windows over linux? It's simply that I'm afraid of the transition, and of messing up my computer.
Well, if you're that interested, but not quite ready to commit totally, you could get another computer so you can run both systems side by side. Assuming that's not an option (for reasons of cost, desk space, or just not being geeky enough), you could do what a friend of mine does: get another hard drive. Don't even think about messing with partitions, just install on a second drive and keep the two systems completely separate.
Put both drives in your case, but only connect one at a time. When you want to switch between systems, shut the machine down, pull the ribbon cable off the one drive, and plug it into the other. This is basically an extension of the advice above -- you're completely safe from "seeing the power of the -R flag in action when you least expect it". How could you possibly mess up your Windows stuff through any mistake you make in the Linux environment? The drive is not even physically connected to the computer at the time!
I don't know how your case is designed, but my friend's boxes have reversible drive bays, so for maximum convenience he can put the drives in backward with the cable connectors facing the front. Then he can switch the cables by just pulling off the front plastic bezels and reaching in -- no need to fully open the case.
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}