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Windows XP Edges Out KDE in Usability Test
AstroDrabb writes "Linux, once viewed as an operating system that only computer geeks could appreciate, is today a much more user-friendly software that companies, public administrations and consumers can master almost as easily as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP."
does it have a Start button?
And KDE will win.
KDE is a very simple interface. To tell you the truth I had a harder time going from windows 200 to xp then going from gnome to kde. I know thats like compairing apples to oranges but i like oranges better anyway.
Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
I really don't see KDE or any other linux desktop software beating Windows or MacOS in usabilities tests anytime soon. KDE and GNOME keep playing catchup to windows instead of leading the way. Sure there are some unique features, but the bulk of linux desktop development is recreating features that windows and macos have had for years. The KDE team does unquestionably good work, but they are going to need to keep stepping it up if they expect anyone to find their software more useable than the already existing mainstream products.
For those of us that work with Linux and UNIX on a daily basis, especially in the work place, and have been at it for years, it's even easier than Windows. (That's not sarcasm, BTW).
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Maybe now, hardware/software vendors and consumers can decide whether Microsoft Windows XP is worth enought to justify its price.
My blog
Really, it would probably be a way more relevant test to see the same test subjects take each OS out of the box, install from scratch, install a few apps, configure their gui, etc. All this shows is that yes, after someone has tweaked the living hell out of a Linux box, it can look and behave almost as well as a Windows XP box. Whoop-de-doo!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
The KDE project is famous for its funded and organised trolling of weblogs and message board associated with Linux and Free software/open source. Outrageous newbie impressing claims are made for the software and huge quanities of FUD are spread to destroy competitors. If this sounds familiar, then you are correct, most of these tactics were lifted straight from Microsoft's arsenal of dirty tricks. The Windows look and feel is not the only thing the KDE project has copied! In this short article I will address some of the lies and FUD spread by the KDE trolling teams. It is my hope that this, in some small way, will redress the balance and re-introduce two things almost eradicated by the KDE project: Honesty and facts.
Myth #1 - KDE is more integrated than GNOME
The oft-heard cry of the noisiest KDE advocates. No explanation is given, the reader is expected to simply grok the wholesomeness of KDE and the lack of this mystical quality in GNOME. It is nonsense of course. Neither desktop is particularly "integrated" compared to Windows XP, and certainly not compared any version of the Apple Mac. Whatever "integrated" actually means.
Myth #2 - KDE is easier to use
Again, such nebulous arguments are never explained, and the reader is expected to simply understand the truth of the zealots statement. Both KDE and GNOME have user-interface irritations (all systems do), but "ease of use" is not a simple thing to measure. KDE has never been subjected to detailed user testing, unlike GNOME, and the claims of user-friendliness are from crazed supporters and not average users. Furthermore, the KDE faithful rarely look beyond simple-minded copying of Windows, and forget that administering a desktop system is just as important as having widgets in the correct place on the toolbar. For example: What about application installation and removal? GNOME has the excellent RedCarpet by Ximian, which makes the installation, removal and updating of applications trivial. KDE users are expected to fend for themselves with brutal command line driven systems. GNOME also has the excellent Ximian setup tools to handle various tricky cross-platform and potentially risky system configuration operations. KDE offers none of this, only a few small half-assed Linux-only tools, which make no attempt at check-pointing to return to known working configurations.
Myth #3 - KDE is more popular
In what sense? Arguably more people use KDE, but it is a close run thing. Most KDE zealots use the results of online polls as proof of their superior userbase - which is, quite frankly, complete and utter nonsense. Online polls are the joke of the century; it doesn't even require a motivated script kiddie to render then worthless. A single post alerting the faithful on a zealot-ridden site can skew the result so much it makes American presidential elections look fair and well organised. Popularity is also difficult to measure when *both* GNOME and KDE are frequently installed on the same system. The systems can co-exist and even run at the same time, except for certain applications such as panels. Many KDE users actually run GNOME applications for their superior features and stability, not realising that by doing so they are barely running KDE at all.
One of the few solid measures of popularity is commercial use of a desktop, and here, GNOME is far ahead with both Hewlett Packard and Sun committing to using GNOME as the desktop for their Unix systems. This also ties in with the previously mentioned ease of use. Sun's major contribution to the GNOME project is in the areas of user/developer documentation, testing, accessiblity and user-testing. Three of the less glamourous parts of desktop development. The arrival of the GNOME 2.x series will see these contributions reach fruitition and allow GNOME to make a quantum leap ahead of KDE in most of the basic computer/user issues.
Myth #4 - Konqueror is
I think that at the rate this is going Linux should be ready for the desktop in a year or so....although then Linux is gonna need a company with enough guts to go out, risk their necks, and start an marketing campaign against the evil empire of M$ plus a good reason to switch.
"60 users aged 25 to 55 with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP"
So, people with really old computers, or pathetic liars? They haven't ever seen Windows XP in Wal Mart, or ANYWHERE?
How long did they have to search for these people?
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
as easy as XP... does that say much?
:P
XP home or XP pro?
And rather short on details (such as what is the nature of the assigned tasks used in the test? Copying a file? Formatting a drive? Partitioning a drive?) Also, they had 60 users "aged 25 to 55 with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP" work on KDS, and "20 users with the same qualifications who performed the exact same tasks on Windows XP."
Eh? Why not have them all do it on each? Or even out the groups a bit more?
Anyway, a short, vaguely interesting pro-Linux article. So I'll just be happy, but this could have been much cooler with bigger samples, better planning, and more detailed reporting of the results.
everything in moderation
For the unheard of low price of $0.00, you can install KDE and get rid of those annoying popups.
How about functional? KDE doesn't seem to suffer from the annoying popup problem.
I just fixed this problem on my neighbors computer, and he then asked me, "How do I secure Outlook?". I replied, "Uninstall it."
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
"One group consisted of 60 users aged 25 to 55 with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP"
Great, they haven't used the WinXP interface before, but really, isn't the only difference between Win XP and Win2000/ME/98 (from the users perspective) the stupid blue widgets? So, these people in the study basically have an edge since they indeed have MORE experience with WinXP, albeit indirectly? Of course these people have used other Windows OSes before.
But GNU/Linux/KDE.
I'd be more interested in seeing a study in which half the group tried it on GNU/Linux,KDE first then on Windows, and the other half, vice versa. I've never heard from someone who has never used either operating system having new experiences with both of them.
I wonder, did they consider experience with Windows 9x as _no_ experience with Windows XP?
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Is this after one configures WinXP to be less annoying? Cause while I use it myself, in the postinstall configuration, it has it's annoying quirks. I never have cared for menus the map themselves to what I do. It makes me think things are uninstalling themselves off my computer.
-EndBabble
i think the study is still valid, but i wonder how much of the percieved ease of use is due to familiar graphics. Since people have been trained to recognize specific graphics, the familiarity of an icon plays a significant role in over all ease of use. One example from first hand experience is website design. When designers try out fancy text or graphics, it ends up negatively impacting usability. When the layout follows the user's expectations, the usability tends to go up. A subtle thing like the color and shape of icon has specific trained behavior. The article doesn't mention if that was taken into consideration.
I've opened the article in a new tab and will be reading it in a few hours -- when I get to my nightly news, so maybe this is mentioned there, but:
So they're testing WinXP and KDE on a number of people to see which is easier to use. What is the testers' past experience? If you're dealing with people who work in an office environment, then they're used to the Windows interface already, which means XP has a major edge from the start.
The article indicates that less users using linux are happy with design of the software as opposed to the design in Windows XP.
Linux takes some getting used to, and until then, the design is not the same, nor will be. But in many place it's arguably much better and easier with a bit of time to get used to it!
Take blender for example, horridly confusing UI, absolutely great once you get used to it. Lots of OSS apps are this way, not to the same extent... but still.
I wonder what a follow up study would look like.
I touch computers in naughty places
KDE is waaaay better as a ui than xp.
...and I'm a windows junkie
some of the enviro configuration stuff is a bitch to figure out, but the rest is really easy.
...the ease of use is only for USE. Not for support. There are a bajillion different variants of "desktop Linux" system, and each has to be supported differently. (Compare and contrast with Windows, where its much-berated centralization actually makes it easier to support. You see users helping OTHER USERS with Windows-- e.g. "Yeah, you just have to click on X, then click Y and you're done". You'd never see that with Linux.
What's more, to most of the people I've talked to about Linux, ease of use is not even a factor so long as commercial games won't run on Linux. (No, I'm not talking about WineX or VMWare. I'm talking about native support.) Most users are unwilling to talk about how easy Linux-based systems can be to use if they can't use them to game. You may poo-poo something that seems so frivolous, but it's a HUGE factor to many (most?) Windows users, particularly those under 30.
I love Linux. But frankly, this sort of story just seems like the Linux community patting itself on the back. Here's a challenge: Go to a college computer lab (make sure you fit in, i.e. don't do this if you're 45 and have a long gray beard) and ask random students if they've heard of Linux. (It may help to wear a Debian pin, or a Tux pin, or both, or the like). Then ask if they've considered switching to it. Be sure to tell them that some distributions of Linux can be quite easy to use. It won't matter... You may be surprised by what they tell you. And I guarantee games will be on the menu (in the majority of cases, anyhow).
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
How does one go about find 60 people with computer skills who have never used Windows XP or Linux. I would think that previous experience in any version of Windows or *nix like system would kinda skew the results?
Maybe they found a reclusive colony of Amiga users somewhere in the southern Pacific?
Can anyone fill me in?
I think the one thing the article overlooked was the API set of which KDE is based on.
KDE is a clean, multi-platform API built from the ground up, not only for ease of use but easy development of applications to run on top of it as well as easy to maintain. Microsoft should learn something from that.
Regarding the ease of use, ultimately, it will depend on the end users background. If a person has never touched a computer, will KDE be easier? if a person has used a Windows PC all their lives, would they find KDE easier?
What ever the situation, the one thing that can be assured is the fact that the KDE community won't settle for second or third place, they are aiming to be the best.
This type of "technical" motivation is going to benefit the end user in the long run.
"The difference between pornography and erotica is the lighting" - Woody Allen
It's a lot easier to fork out $40 for a good Linux distro wth KDE in it that spending $200 on an XP system.
For most people, that's all they need. Should have something to steal music and upload pictures. but, that's about it. The other stuff is admin stuff.
This is my sig.
Linux users, for example, needed 44.5 minutes to perform a set of tasks, compared with 41.2 minutes required by the XP users.
Not bad for a zero cost WM+OS compared to another that costs one eye and part of the other.
One group consisted of 60 users aged 25 to 55 with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP
No exp with winXP, but with older Winblows versions? If KDE had the same marketshare as Winblows i bet that users would be totally used to it and equally fast.
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
One group consisted of 60 users aged 25 to 55 with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP.
They're either talking about old DOS users, or Mac users, and go on to say that "83% of the Linux users said they liked the design of the desktop and the programs, compared with 100% of the Windows XP users."
I've never met a Mac user who would even come close to complimenting the Windows XP interface, let alone a whole gaggle of them. This reeks of bias.
Well both KDE and Windows XP were designed to make the UI easy to use for users of previous versions of windows. Windows XP UI is the same has windows95 with a gaudy facade that they restrict to three colors (blue, silver, olive). KDE's UI is designed to make it easy for people migrating from windows, but also allows for a high degree of customization.
I have OSX, WinXP, Gnome, and Fluxbox installed on computers at home, KDE is my PERSONAL favorite. I'm not saying it is the BEST. Every environment has its own advantages and disadvantages.
I'm not saying KDE is more or less usable than Windows XP, but you've got to admit that if KDE won the headline would be "KDE Stomps Windows XP in Usability Test".
Interesting how far things have come. :) ..Been futzing around with some of the old and crufty InSight stuff I worked on back in '97.. Now that i'm fairly well versed in Xlib, i've managed to get some of the old stuff off the ground again. I'm calling it "asdf" for now.
:)
(a)(s)imple(d)esktop(f)ront-end.
ASDF v0.01a
Keep an eye out on Freshmeat for a slightly better version in a few days. It's not exactly a KDE killer (it's just a pretty program launcher), but it's fun to poke around with nontheless.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
I am a KDE 3.2-CVS user. I think my desktop is far morRe:start leading..e usable then my wife's win98. Ok, I'm a software developer.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I really don't see KDE or any other linux desktop software beating Windows or MacOS in usabilities tests anytime soon. KDE and GNOME keep playing catchup to windows instead of leading the way.
Then you obviously don't know the trick to winning this kind of game. The trick is to stop implementing new features at the exact moment that the "leader" commits to becoming an unusably bloated, worthless feature ladden pile of... Oh my gosh! Stop! Stop!
-- MarkusQ
They put a few people flying around the room and some lovely green hills and blue sky into it. So anyone who has used Winblows of any form will be familiar with it.
Maybe all these users were Mac users or something... or *BSD users maybe.
I bet XP^H^H^H PC-Magazine wishes *THEY* came out with this report.
---gralem
It has a Fisher Price GUI that holds your hand when you do anything complex.
:)
Ultimately make computers easier to use and you will get more idiots using them. What we really need is a computer operation license like a driving license
Microsoft!
You know damn well it's true. Do you really think that if Windows ever gets "defeated", that Bill is just gonna go home and sulk? No, he will fork Linux, and he will still make billions.
Resistance is futile. Get used to it.
One group consisted of 60 users aged 25 to 55 with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP
That either means they did the tests with a bunch of Mac Users or Windows 98 users. I wonder what exactly "computer experience" is defined as in this study.
The other group consisted of 20 users with the same qualifications who performed the exact same tasks on Windows XP.
Why use only 20 people with XP? I think that would hike the %error way up. Oh well.
hmm winXP breask the install record ..for takign 5 hour sor more to instal on anything portable such as a laptop
Don't Tread on OpenSource
I think it's mostly a matter of choosing the right icons. Relatively few people know what the default Mozilla icon is supposed to mean, but when it's replaced with a globe and labled "Web Browser" or something like that, people can instantly recognize it as such.
Once in a program, people just can't really tell the difference between IE and Netscape. Or Outlook and Mozilla Mail. Remember, I'm talking about normal people here. I know IE and Mozilla are apples and oranges to many of us here on Slashdot, but to norms they're practically the same thing.
My example was just with internet browser. I believe the same holds true for mail programs, office applications, instant messengers, etc. This is all assuming, of course, that an internet connection, mail, etc. are being set up for the user. Most buy their computer with an internet / mail connection already configured, or they use an ISP that bundles software that sets up their mail / net connectino for them. Setup for the end-user is a whole other beast.
This could be big news in the (small) business world. In this wintry economy, cutting out Microsoft's OS from the IT budget could be tempting.
Though I'm sure the retraining costs might prevent this, but in the long run it would be worth it.
All this shows is that yes, after someone has tweaked the living hell out of a Linux box, it can look and behave almost as well as a Windows XP box. Whoop-de-doo!
It's good to confirm that the potential is there.
Now it just has to be made a heck of a lot easier.
The coolest voice ever.
The subjects already had WINDOWS experience.
DUH! What else would they have tried if they had used an OS before but had NOT used Linux??
DOS??
The subjects ALL had used WINDOWS before but none had used Linux before. This test was skewed, as most of them are.
Let's do it again with people that have never used a computer at all in their lives, like little old ladies for instance. It's amazing how easy Linux is for someone to learn if it's the very first time they have ever touched a computer. But those that have used one before *WILL* have trouble, aka a learning curve, if they've had their minds polluted by M$ in the past..
Let's do it again and be FAIR about it, eh??
Warning :) The anti GNOME Troll task force will show up and turn all creditable correct pro KDE facts into shit. That's how it usually ends. GNOME face it you are YEARS behind KDE. Maybe your icons look better but the technical aspecs, integration, consistency, cleaness, usability, functionality, easy to use - KDE does beat the hell out of Windows.
But when it comes to the design of the desktop interface and programs, Windows XP still has a strong edge: 83% of the Linux users said they liked the design of the desktop and the programs, compared with 100% of the Windows XP users.
This is an interesting metric. I'm curious to know whether they tried a few different themes and window decorations with Linux/KDE, and in general how they arrived at this number. I will agree that XP seems more polished than KDE in many respects, but my personal experience has been that there are some aspects of KDE that initially take a little getting used to, but become indispensable once you are comfortable with them. Multiple virtual desktops, for instance - I feel so limited under Windows for not having this simple feature.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
If you work in most computer-related fields, idiots are paying your way. Now that everyone who is at all technically inclined owns at least one computer, the only market left is the non-inclined.
It's no accident that Windows XP holds your hand and tries to make computing as simple as possible.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
....you can get XP-Pro OEM for as little as $38.
The title on slashdot is misleading--the study compares Suse 8.2 Pro (with KDE as the desktop environment) with Windows XP. It then says it kept track of how long it took users to complete certain tasks, such as word processing, sending email, copying CDs (don't let the RIAA find out about this study), and managing files, to name a few. These things can be done by KApplications alone, but you would have to know what SuSE makes as the default email client (Mozilla, KMail, Evolution), word processor (OO Writer, KWrite), and cd writer (K3B, X-CD-Roast, cdrecord (ok, not for people new to Linux)). This title could be better titled as "Windows XP Edges Out SuSE in Usability Test".
Unfortunately, I won't know what applications users were expected to use or did use for a couple days.
But don't kid yourself and think this means anything in the Big Battle: Linux vs. Windows for the mainstream desktop. For Linux to succeed there, it had to get over three hurdles: 1) ease of install, 2) overall usability, 3) compatibility with existing Windows tasks. (1) and (2) are essentially complete, but (3) will never happen.
Try to convert a mainstream Windows user to Linux, and you'll get a long stream of questions like, "Does it run AOL?" "Can I run program ZZZ on it?" "It uses Outlook for e-mail, so I don't have to move any addresses and stuff over, right?" Until someone, somehow, finds a solution to these problems, you just won't get mainstream desktop Windows users to convert to Linux (or anything else).
I'm not surprised that XP won out in all categories
The article states that their subjects were people, "with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP",
Now, unless they got a bunch of Mac people, I'm guessing (from the way that line is worded,) they got people who had "computer experience" from Windows 95/98.
Migrating from 98 to XP would be a bit easier than 98 to KDE. Microsoft has gone out of their way to provide a continually improving, yet consistent, interface for their target audience.
I just happen to not consider myself part of that target audience. I use Ratpoison myself, but KDE is a very good windowing system. Were I to sit here and list out all of the 'Microsoft ui vs. other windowing systems' I would not only be mostly preaching to the choir, but also mostly off-topic, but I just wanted to point out that KDE is designed by people who want usability with some gloss, but not necessarilly at the cost of having the ui try and 'do everything' for the user.
Unfortunatly the 'do everything' is exactly what Microsoft intends for the Windows ui. Prefect for my mother maybe, and obviously for their testers, but not for me
I think you are trolling, but in the off chance you mean what you say...
...
"The best part is that the Zealots won't use the MS distribution, and they will be stuck with their distributions that STILL won't get apps written for by the REAL software makers."
Umm...why? If they wrote the software and compiled in on an X86 platform they would just distribute an RPM.
Apache, MySQL those aren't examples of REAL software? Linux is not the problem if you are don't like the gui, KDE, Gnome, Ice etc are.
Software and Hardware has glitches primarily because there is little documentation for linux from many manufacturers.
I hope Microsoft does release their own distro, it is just that in order for that to happen, they will have to be split into two (or more?) companies
Apparently Microsoft will innovate some more with Virtual Desktops in Longhorn.
--Joey
Considering Microsoft fortune of, according to this website (http://www.microsoft.com/usability/lab.htm) :
Most of our research is conducted in Usability Labs based in Redmond, WA. On average, approximately 750 participants per month evaluate our software. A database of 35,000 people in the Seattle area helps us find the right person to match the profile required for each given study.
MS has invested millions of dollars (and hours) on usability testing on its software. To consider that KDE is rated almost equally should be humbling to its UI designers and programmers. Way to go.... can't wait for KDE 4!
From the artcle:
So I guess this means hard-core Mac users should switch to KDE, rather than Windows?
I guess they mean these people have used previous incarnations of Windows - but then, that's not really a fair comparison, is it?
I am sleepy (it's 10:20pm here) and working in the other window (doing some paperwork), so I can't go to bed yet. :(
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
If they accounted for previous windows experience and all the media foofaraw over windows, I wonder if the numbers would be just about the same?
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell
How do I make a window always-on-top in any version of Windows? No way that I know of unless the application supports it.
How do I get virtual desktops in Windows? Litestep, the best way I know of, involves replacing explore.exe, the brunt of Windows's interface.
How do I locally display just a single application (such as a systray program) without viewing the entire screen of the remote system? VNC/TerminalServer doesn't come close.
How do I update every single installed program from a single command entry without rebooting in Windows? (OK, maybe that's not relating to the GUI argument.)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
All the ones I know of at work are pre-configured by the IT department.
All the ones not owned by average people at home are pre-configured.
Really, go to Dell or HP and try to get them to ship you a box with a blank hard drive.
Windows is always considered so much easier because all the hardware that was shipped with the box had Windows drivers for it.
This study just shows that the vast majority of "problems" in Linux are installation issues.
Which means Linux is ready for the workplace.
I dont know if anything can beat a mac.
Too bad there so expensive.
www.abcusenet.com
Your home for newsgroups on the web.
KI Kdon't Kknow Khow Kyou Kcould Kpossibly Ksay Kthat!
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I live in the real world. The real world runs on Windows. In my private life, the world runs on Linux and MacOS (currently)... with an unavoidable smidgeon of Windows because it's necessary in the real world. (One of these days I'm going to get off my butt and learn to use WINE or VMWare or something...)
I knew that "something Linux" would become equal with Windows eventually but I didn't expect the time to arrive so soon. Bravo but "beating Windows" isn't the point exactly is it? It's fun but not the purpose of Linux, KDE or OSS.
The next "what if" is "what happens when Linux rules the desktop?" I tend to see a touch of chaos in the future. Very unpredictable. The next "what if" is about innovation. If Linux becomes king of the hill, where will innovation lead? Where will it come from? I don't want to open the debate about whether or not Microsoft "innovated" anything but when Linux finally captures the hill, where will it come from?
I know of a very prominant financial institution known for its stodginess...still running WinNT 4.0 on many of their machines who is starting to run Linux on their machines as well. Linux is an eventuality.
This is definitely a milestone. This is a "sit up and take notice" moment. But once Linux leads, Microsoft will have no choice but to make "compatible" software... and this time they won't dare to make their stuff lock out the competition or they will be ignored... in the future...
Great, from now on KDE will be referred to as DE.
read my blog
musings on politics and technol
XP looks terrible. I can only look, for the price has stopped me cold.
I'm using KDE now, on Debian 2.2, and enjoy it's good looks and
configurability. That said, KDE on Mandrake has better fonts, as good as XP, I suppose, since Mandrake has a little utility to steal the windows fonts from
your windows partition. Once you run that, you have as good a font setup as your
Windows partition has. I've tried it on Windows 98, but I don't know if
it works on XP.
Quick and glitch free hardware and software installation.
How about MS doing that for their own OS before they try doing it for Linux?
STILL won't get apps written for by the REAL software makers
I take it IBM, Oracle, BMC, Rational, Novell, SAP, Borland, BEA, Novell, Veritas, and PeopleSoft aren't real software companies in your books. You obviously don't work in IT so why am I even bothering.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
I's funny how the linux community tends to embrace hundreds of standards... yet no one is seemingly able to get the GUI geeks to come together to for some sort of Linux UI standards consortium.
Linux will never be as usable (GUI wise) as MacOS or Windows until a standard GUI path is chosen and development proceeds with tight integration to the core OS.
Right now everyone seems to be caught up in this "my software works better then yours" BS.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
So most games won't run on Linux.
This just makes Linux that much more attractive to the corporate market. And the corporate market spends more on software than the home market does (not counting games).
The summary says SuSE was used with KDE, which is how it comes out of the box. I don't see any indiction that they 'tweaked the hell out of it'. I will have to wait until the translation comes out to see what level of tweaking was involved. If anyone cares to read the German and comment on this issue, I would be greatful.
Think global, act loco
"I dont know if anything can beat a mac.
Too bad there so expensive."
Wow, wonderful troll.
What, do you make your own 1337 b0xx3n or something else where you can't afford a slight premium for buying from a company?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
"(probably the best one available for windows)"
You should try VirtuaWin. It's very reliable, the interface (ways of switching desktops, etc.) are very configurable, and it's open-source/free.
The only problem is that some of the optional plug-ins haven't been updated in a while.
I was recently at a clients place doing some integration and afterwards it was time to give me a CD of our combined efforts. Now this client is a pure Linux place, they have not been close to a M$ OS in years (willingly). So what happens? Well we sit there for 5 minutes and set up KBurn (or whatever it was called), press the button to burn and then afterwards we laugh about how it took five minutes to set up, but only 5 msec to crash.
And then we FTP:ed the data to a Windoze box...
Seriously, I like linux as well, it has a bunch of cool features, but I will never use any distro until:
- It will give me a compile time below "too-bloody-long".
- A usable debugger. (They all f**king suck.)
- Usable basic "need-to-have" software like a CD/DVD burner that just works!
- It will give me a user friendly install system.
- Usable Office package. (Whatever the Excel clone shite is called in Open/Star office, it is not worth the money, even if it's 0.)
- A good development evironment. (JEdit is good. But not good enough.)
(And yes, I'm a c++ "hacker"... And yes, I prefer VC6 over anything else I've seen. I would love to use VS.NET except that everything I do have to be portable so I use VS6 and CMake for the Linux builds.)
The second paragraph says that a full english report will be available in a few days. This is just a write-up.
I'll take the redundant risk and say it anyway! Good going and I can't wait to see your future work!
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Common sense GUI. See article above. Users like KDE almost as much as Windows and these users had most likely previously used Windows and not KDE (although they hadn't used Win XP before)
Universal Hardware Support. This is done by the people that make hardware. They always start by supporting Windows since most people have that so it makes the most sense.
Quick and glitch free hardware and software installation. Mostly works in Windows. Mostly works in Linux. In my experience Windows machines are easier to get going the first time but are more apt to have a problem appear down the road. I found Linux hardware and software more difficult to get running the first time but once configured they stay working consistently.
DirectX. I'm not a gamer so I can't compare LibSDL (or any similar project) to DirectX.
I think the killer product wouldn't be MS-Linux but rather Windows for Linux. Implement a Windows GUI that runs on top of Linux. But who needs that with KDE being as good as it is?
Coding Blog
It would seem that the most useful operating system is the one that YOU are used to. Having worked with Mac OS and Windows for years, while using Linux, ooops, I mean GNU/Linux at home since Red Hat 4. It really doesn't matter as long as you know what you want to do, and how to do it. What is really the big problem is when something is avalible on one OS and not the other. I have my doubts, about the way this (survey?) was done.
But when it comes to the design of the desktop interface and programs, Windows XP still has a
strong edge: 83% of the Linux users said they liked the design of the desktop and the
programs, compared with 100% of the Windows XP users.
83% to 100% is a strong edge?
I am AMAZED that every single person involved in the study like the Windows XP desktop.
Were they all cartoon characters, and the XP desktop made them feel at home?
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Windows, KDE, GNOME, Apple...all of them are basically brain-dead easy to use. What's left to work on is minor annoyances and glitches, not major design changes.
Rather than wasting time trying to beat MS at the dead-end game of "come up with the next useless 'feature' (e.g., Microsoft Bog) that nobody likes, wants, or uses".
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
>Get Rid Of The Retarded K In Front Of Everything And KDE will win.
I find it humerous you say that, considering the retarded Win in front of everything in Windows. Back before Windows was prevasive, it made sense, but now it's retarded. Having things begin with a K to how clarify it makes since as KDE being the "new kid on the block".
It said that the users didn't have "Windows XP" experience, but that's not the same as saying that they didn't have any Windows experience. If the user has Windows 9X, NT, or 2000 experience then it says more AGAINST Microsoft that they made XP so different that existing Windows users had to re-learn it. Now if the users had NO Windows 9X, NT, 2000, or XP experience then I'd say it was more of a fair comparison.
The other questionable method is to have 20 Windows' users and 60 Linux users. Why not do 40 Windows' users and 40 Linux users? That way each person's vote would count as an equal percentage. The way it was done 1 Windows' user is 20% of the test group and 1 Linux user is 16% of the test group. I don't know if that's an advantage for Windows or Linux, but it's definitely inconsistent.
Then, we got Bill Gates and asked him to copy a file using Windows XP.
The 100 people looked at a blank black screen and commented that they have no idea what to do and that Linux can only be appreciated by geeks.
Bill Gates said that Windows XP is great and that he will undoubtedly continue using it instead of switching to Linux.
In other words, 0% of the people who tested Linux liked it. 100% of the people who tested Windows liked it.
This is an exaggeration, of course, but when you put 65 people on Linux and 20 people on Windows, that is automatically unfair.
A more fair experiment would have been to get 100 people. 50 would start on Linux; 50 would start on Windows. After some elapsed time, each group would switch. This evens things out quite a bit.
But then again... What do you expect from a bunch of Germans? I mean, this is where Jagermeister comes from, people!
Thanks, I'll give it a shot. This demo has expired. It says it's a 30-day trial, but it hasn't stopped working yet so I kept using it. :)
if(!cool) exit(-1);
"The only 'intuitive' interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned." -- Bruce Ediger
Whoop-de-doo (sic) indeed.
Without reading the study (mainly because the English version isn't available yet), I would find this a bit suspect. This article leaves out some important information. First, it mentions people with prior computer experience, but no Linux or Windows XP experience. If that means they have Windows 98 experience then the results will be skewed favoring XP. If they have Unix experience then thats going to favor something more consistent with what people who design for Linux (ie KDE designers) would think of. If it's Mac then it's probably going to favor one or the other. Skewed results any way you look. Was it a double blind study I wonder? I doubt it. I can picture some researcher with an agenda saying, 'you 20 go try crappy XP while you 20 go try way cool Linux'. Or vice versa. Secondly, it's been a while since I took statistics, but doesn't a popuation of 40 seem awfully small to be meaningful? Microsoft probably has more than that to test one feature of one menu when doing focus testing. On the face of it this study looks pretty ad hoc. Maybe SlashDot should have waited until the English version of the study was published instead of being in such a rush to show yet another reason to use Linux. Sometimes it seems like a bit of straw-grasping around here.
It seems that the people who designed this study were trying to replicate the experience of the user who just opened their new computer box and is setting it up. So, these people have a slightly easier time with XP. Great. This has always been Windows' strength--booting a computer for a single standalone user.
It's a tribute to Suse that they came this close.
But computers are used for a lot more than this and the differences between the OS's become more robust as the user matures as a user.
Granted, many users never "mature" in the way that I mean here. That is, they never use their computers for anything other than as an Internet terminal, for Quicken, for TurboTax once every April 14th and for the Christmas card letter. Microsoft will have these users in their pocket for the forseeable future. They won that battle. Let them have the spoils.
But there are other users groups that need different things from their machine. In the corporate environment, user enjoyment is less of a concern, availability and TCO emerge as the most prominent issues. Windows will be in real trouble in this environment in the next five years. I work in an organization 100% committed to Windows with about 500 workstations and 20 servers.
Keeping it all up is killing us. The IT Department never has time to get anything done other than pushing patches and reinstalling dead workstations. The results are speaking for themselves. The Germans are the bleeding edge of a larger corporate reaction to the mess that is corporate Windows network administration.
My O'Reilly calendar has a nice line that illustrates my point this month: "Linux? You could have a less powerful system, but it would cost more."
Money talks, advertising walks. Sit back and watch it happen.
The best way to do is to be.
I'm sorry but this means nothing for the usability of Linux. Both interfaces are still too complicated and too ugly.
Mac OS X is merely hideous. When compared to the geeky user-hostility of Linux and the creepy candy-coated totalitarianism of XP, it shines.
No I really don't know of any better alternatives. Unfortunately computers are still too hard to use, too complicated, and they have too many "unexpected states" where the user is confused and doesn't know what just happened.
Linux really needs to stop trying to play catch-up to XP and get some real novel usability and simplification.
GoScreen is the answer to Windows. I didn't like MS' virtual desktop manager and others out there. This one I love because it is so small. It's not free though, but it is worth paying. Ir works from Windows 95 to the newest OS.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Out of 60 Linux testers, 83% liked the design. Out of 20 XP testers, 100% liked the design.
Therefore, over twice as many testers prefered KDE to XP (50 vs 20)...
I'm not trying to rain on KDE's parade; they've made outstanding progress in the last few years. However, being almost as good as Windows isn't really something to brag about, is it? Why not shoot for the stars, and try to match Apple's usability? This is open source! The "unreachable" is within our grasp!
Interestingly, when you think of any sexual contact, you think of men putting their heads in other men's laps, like when you father used to make you slurp his tube.
I'll play out one of your many painful childhood memories:
ASS FACE: Yes father?
ASS FACE'S FATHER: Get over here bitch!
ASS FACE: Time for me to catch the one eyed fish with my mouth?
ASS FACE'S FATHER: Shut the fuck up and suck my dick, whore.
ASS FACE: Yes, sir.
I could easily walk through my office and round up about 300 of them. Lots (~50%) of our user base could not tell you what version of Windows they are using when asked, and we are talking about people who probably click the "Start" button about 25 times a day. Joe six-pack simply does not pay--even a fraction--as much attention to details as a Slashdotter does; that is why this article is big news to me. Coupling this news with a Citrix client and [high hopes for] Novell's foray into linux desktop clients gives me the ammo needed to push Linux desktop use in my corporation.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
In certain business environments, Linux can be far easier to support. Many business users need a small suite of office and productivity apps, and not much more. A great setup is to put diskless workstations on each desktop, then run a few Linux terminal servers, locked down, in your datacom closet. Once the initial setup is done, maintenance is a breeze. Backups can be made from a central location. The user environment is portable to any workstation in the office. The admin can all be done in one place.
Obviously this is not a solution for every environment, but where is fits, it fits really well.
than does GNU/Linux/KDE.
Does the usability rating include the usability of having to backup your data, reinstall, restore data every few months? I think not
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
a co-worker of mine said: "oh my god people can use kde" I'd like to respond here, No they don't, they just pretend to.. just like XP
After doing some research:
Basically, the only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
Bruce Ediger (bediger@teal.csn.org), 1995/04/20
in comp.sys.next.advocacy, comp.os.linux.misc, comp.os.linux.advocacy, comp.sys.mac.advocacy
But:
There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It's all learned.
Bruce Ediger (eballen1@qwest.net), 2001-08-12
in comp.editors
Give me some examples please?
Win...dows, one.
Win...
Hm, Win...
Nope, Windows is the only thing I can think of with 'Win' in front of it.
Word used to be known as WinWord a long time ago, is that what you were talking about? It hasn't been like that for forever, but it must have confused you.
Everything you say about games is correct, and none of it matters. Windows will always be the best gaming platform. There is nothing the Linux community can possibly to do change that fact. The power of numbers is just too much to overcome.
If someone values gaming too much to switch to linux, it's really not my problem.
From your tone it almost sounds as if you think Linux has to win over gamers in order to survive. Nothing could be further from the truth. Linux does not need a large userbase in order to thrive. All it needs is a small group of dedicated developers and the assurance that it will not be outlawed. Anything more than that is nice but not necessary.
Linux is not useful for gaming. Linux is not meant for gaming. I don't use Linux for gaming. Gaming is not the only thing in the world that computers are used for.
The mindset that a computer platform has to win market share or die is an artifact of the commercial software paradigm that has no relevance to open source software like Linux. With Linux, the users are the developers, and while new users are certainly welcome, there will always be certain markets like the gaming market where Linux serves no purpose and plays no role.
....I'd like to offer an informed and intelligent opinion.
Usability of Windows vs. anything always seems to be judged by people who are regular Windows users and are curious to try something new and who then criticise the alternative for not being sufficiently intuitive, by which they mean 'I know how to do this in Windows and in KDE/Gnome/OSX/whatever it's different and that's bad because I fear change.'.
Linux offers a much better interface than Windows. I run a shell, I type commands, they do stuff. I don't need to download and install Cygwin to make the machine useful.
All that desktop window dressing is just a means of displaying multiple terminals. Everybody knows that.
Now wash your hands.
The act of comforting or being comforted by a loved one is not sexual. If you think it is, you have some serious issues.
I was just about to sport wood until I remembered our office is still on Win2k for at least the next year or two... :(
WinAmp, Windows Media Player, WinZip, WinACE. Just off the top of my head...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Then again, I think we tend to underestimate the flexibility users have. I mean, the same users were able to learn key-combinations when they used Wordperfect 10 years ago, and some were damn fast using them. Good introductions and documentation on how to get stuff done, thats what counts. Once users know how to get mundane stuff done, they couldn't care less if they're looking at tux or clippy...
This sig is intentionally left blank
KDE is very well done overall, although there are a lot of seemingly "duplicate" type items in the menu trees (please keep in mind that this is from a novice linux user, and please be merciful accordingly :-) ). What I find difficult is deciphering which menu programs are "real and meaningful" to me:
Help Menus: When I tried SUSE 8.2 there was the KDE help center, and the SUSE help center. Try to search for help on something and I sometimes get referred to manual pages or other web sites for help (KDE help was worse about this). ??? very confusing for me and hard to get information. Often seems to take more time than I am willing to spend to get the info.
Control center vs. YAST. some overlapping items in each, and some confusing items in each. I found myself struggling to bounce between the two to try to understand why there were 2 interfaces to "control" things and which was the real method to do what I wanted. Not all tabs/menus had help buttons to guide me in my choices, and some that did were mercilessly technical (for a PHB like me).
Menu structure: Good, but its confusing to see multiple word processors, multiple terminals, multiple spreadsheet program, etc etc... good for choice but a little distracting.
There are a few more items I noticed but I can't remember specifics right now.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
... go ahead and benchmark the industry-standard desktop operating system and its pathetic user interface, and leave the superior one alone!
In all honesty, Windows' user interface tries to do way too much for too little. It clutters up the interface with too many options and ways to do some of the same things, and makes what I'd like to call the "user interface map" too difficult to remember. It leads me to understand that:
Too clumsy by design, in my opinion. It's a shame that KDE is trying to mimick a fundamentally flawed design rather than attempt at a superior one.
I think KDE is great and would give it to most users getting into Linux or an account. But I hope that distro keep putting in the more nerd orientated interfaces. While everyone is seeking the golden apple of general user acceptence, Linux's bread and better are the geeks who use and develope it. I think Linux would be diminished if it gets to the point where you have to jump through hoops to use anything but KDE.
Yeah, KDE is pretty usable. But it's lacking real smarts. I consider usability to mean "the interface is efficient, and acts as I expect it to". Here are a few (what I consider fairly obvious) features that would really improve KDE for me.
1. Drag-and-drop menus. In Windows, the Start menu is really just a directory structure, and a special case of the Explorer view. You can drag and drop new items into the Start menu / Taskbar and they appear there instantly. You can "Explore" the Start menu and arrange / delete / add items as you please. Compare and contrast with the latest version of KDE that I've tried, where you essentially need a "menu edit" application to set up new shortcuts. Painfully old-fashioned.
2. Faster file access and directory listing in Konquerer. Comparison:
Windows - to view C:\mp3 takes 3 seconds.
Mandrake - to view \mnt\Windows\mp3 takes 9 seconds.
What's more, in KDE the files display one-by-one as they are "found". My "Jazz" folder might appear first, but by the time I go to click on it, more folders have appeared and it has moved. Ugly.
3. Please, give us the option of a double-click interface.
-"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
Ah, 'comforting". That's what the kids are calling it these days. In my days we used to call it 'ass-ramming'. What ever floats your boat, hippy.
Windows Media Player is the only one of those that's made by Microsoft...
don't get me wrong. i've been using linux for a year as my main desktop, and whenever i touch a windows box i get lost due to the lack of my favorite applications (tcpdump!)
but kde/linux still has a LOT to do to even come to match with windows. like being able to run more than 3 applications (what is it with even the simplest apps taking 10 megs of memory? including "tray" icons), printing (admitedly not kde specific, but i STILL can't print anything on linux), and god-awful latency on anything less recent than a p4 3ghz (right now im using a pII 333 with 320 megs of ram, takes 5 seconds to switch tabs in firebird. and that's WITH a preempt kernel)
All I have ever seen of KDE is that it just panders after M$'s every move. Mod me down, or just call me a troll. But I think Linux doesent need to pander after anyone. -Let M$- keep the clients.... Linux can take every server out there. Trying to uproot M$ as a client box is a feudal effort, since its so entrenched with the users (the VAST majority of them)... So, why not just beat M$'s tail right out of servers (already happening on a certain scale), and leave the normal users to the dogs (a.k.a. M$).
Atrox
-If you build it, it can fall...
Well a few people have made the point "stop making the linux-has-this-feature so-drop-windows-now argument". And i agree. We shouldnt be spouting off "linux can do this" "and "linux can do that". What are we corporate PR people?
Heres my reason as to why you should switch to linux: "Its open. It doesnt deceive me. It doesnt install software without me knowing. It doesnt hide things from me. It doesnt try to control all the content i look at. It isnt controlled by one person or company whos only goal is to sell more units and not make better software. I dont have to worry about my computer secretly sending my info to HQ. Yes that sounds like a consipracy theory but hey its true. I honestly dont know what windows is doing. Ever. Period. So i cant say it is sending my info. But you cant prove it isnt either. Cause no one can look at its insides and tell us. The future is coming and happening. Who do you want controlling every piece of information you and everyone else in the world deals with and absorbs. Microsoft? a HUGE reason to use linux is simple. Its open. There I said it. The reason isnt it has this widget and that feature. Its that it is open. It was made with the rights of the users in mind. Your not signing your soul and rights away with a single yes click to an EULA that says your fucked hard core if you do anything that you would expect as the owner of something. Linux has no strings. No big contracts or legal agreemants that you have to agree to before using. The GPL is a contract, but one that guarantees a users freedom to use and modify software, not restrict it. It is controlled by the users. Use linux because you want freedom. Now if you dont want freedom and you like your rights to be crapped on, go right ahead and keep on using Microsoft. It doesnt hurt me. Its only hurting you."
75% of all statistics are made up!
Let me guess, It hurts you to think. I've got to work on better trolls. Only the retards reply to the ones I post now.
I'll have to try that, too. I found JS Pager and it works 90% just the way I'd want in XP. Not as nice as enlightenment...but it's very useful.
Wow, choices in windows freeware. Hard to believe.
Redundancy is good; triple redundancy is twice as good! - Me.
I used Windows and felt stupid... installed Linux now everyone calls me genius, guru...
Now, which OS is friendlier to its users?
(granted, if you're into masochism then, yes, Windows provides more delicious suffering)
I didn't spot any mention of those on my quick scan through, but it does say the test subjects make daily use of a computer (although my German isn't very good).
The test Design was appropriate to win a results as possible as in line with standard usage by the direct use of the Desktop systems. In the Usability research worked satisfactorily and successful give up-based use tests formed thereby the core of the test Design. It makes an observing and an analyzing possible of use strategies and?problemen in dependence to different user types.
3.1 Methodology
The test consisted for each test person of three blocks:
- Vorbefragung to experience background and demographic data.
- use test with office-typical tasks.
- Nachbefragung to favour, problems, change of the estimate, among other things with reference to ability to learn and authority feeling.
Altogether with 80 persons, of it 60 under Linux, 20 under Windows XP. usual was tested and sufficiently for a Usability test is usually a number from 10 to 20 test persons. The number of test persons, unusually high for a Usability test, was selected, so that between the different user types use samples can be discovered.The tests found from 26.6.? 16.7.2003 in Berlin instead of. They were accomplished to 60% in the Teststudio of the relevantive AG and to 40% in particularly areas of the center of science for social research Berlin (WZB), prepared for it. The tests were accomplished as moderated single interviews.
Moderator/eine host introduced to the test and sat during the test beside the test person. The moderator gave assistance only, as far as it was necessary for the continuation of the task or if an understanding problem arose concerning a setting of tasks. Altogether four different moderators were used. The moderator wrote in each case a bilateral test log, which documented operating and understanding problems, procedure, error and completeness lacking during processing of the tasks of test during the tests.
The introduction consisted of the description of the situation, which the test should reflect. For instance the following wording was used: you forwards, in their enterprise introduced new computers with a new operating system. It is their first day at this system?
A one-sided overview (Handout) was given to the test persons over specific characteristics of the system. It essentially contained:
- user name and password
- indication of path for the personal listing
- that under?K? and/or?Start? left down programs and attitudes to be found can.
- reference to CD R/W drive assembly
- names of most in the test used programs?
relevantive AG 2003 version 1.01 page 7 of 90 this overview should give a minimum introduction to the system, which would fail with a migration probably clearly more extensively. Setting of tasks were presented on a Notebook standing beside it. After each task the test person at the Notebook had to answer, how easily you fell the task, as well as (optionally) which you please or displeased and/or prepared problems. This second computer did not have influence on the test results after our realization. The inputs took place in a frame Browser, which did not make an operating system visible. All test persons could differentiate between the?Fragebogen? computer and the test computer clearly. The inputs were written directly into a data base, likewise the times, starting from which a task was presented and when it was settled.The tests were transferred over VNC (Virtual network Computing) to another computer and noted there with clay/tone (ScreenCam). Thus all tests could be reconstructed and evaluated additionally.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
"Get Rid Of The Retarded K In Front Of Everything And KDE will win." ... provided the test avoids the subject of sound.
I think that KDE should take the stupid 'K' off of the fronts of all of their app names as soon as Microsoft takes the stupid '.NET' off of the ends of all of theirs.
GNOME2/KDE3 makes for a very usable desktop, I'd say it's along the caliber of WinXP/Mac OS. Linux starts to fall down when you try to install 3rd party applications (what if you can't get RPMs? what if you're running an older GLIBC?) or hardware.
I started using and programming computers in the 60's and have made my living at it. If I can't get Linux installed with all the effort I continue to put into it, I don't think Bill has as much to fear from it as he pretends to.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Winfax, win-spy, win monitor, win messenger, winmx, winrar, wingate, winproxy, win2pdf, wincam, windvd.
As a long term user of Linux, and OpenBSD I find that Windows is less effort to use as long as I'm not trying to do much at once. It's only when I started doing complicated things, or lots of things at once that I find Windows harder. You get this brick wall effect.
I find that simple things like running multiple programs at once annoying on windows.
But if I just want to write an email, send an instant message, browse a web site, play some music, and transfer some files that Windows is easier. It's also prettier, and faster to do initially.
But I find that I'm not like that when I'm actually "getting stuff done". I have 10 virtual desktops (9 at home currently, as I've been trying out GNOME 2.2) and I use the window manager ion, and it's not uncommon to have 20+ xterms open at once, and I use mpg123 or ogg123 to play music, and I make use of the shell to choose artist or song title or group or such. And then to wake myself up after a nap I'll prefix 'sleep 1800;' in front and it's just so much less effort. I ssh to one machine that I always read my personal email from wherever I am, which means I have an archived collection of all my email, with all the joys of mutt and vi. I use screen to run long-running programs that I may want to reattach from elsewhere. And with zsh I get wonderful completion, that can even complete remote file names.
Also I find the brightness of Windows makes me feel uncomfortable after prolonged use, even at a refresh of 85 hertz white still flickers away.
And I use diskless NFS booting Linux at work, and diskless NFS booting OpenBSD at home. I can't stand noisy computers, and even a quiet hard-disk is too noisy. (I tried, and the performance boost wasn't good enough, and invariably I'd set it to shut down regularly, which meant that I had to wait whilst it spun up) I still don't know how to make Windows XP boot over network. I'd love to know, for those occassions that I want to use Windows.. but if it means using a hard-disk, I know I just won't be bothered.
You take a person who never used a computer and teach them. Guess what, they'll pick up DOS, Linux, Windows, BeOS, any GUI, any console, pretty much just as easily.
People can understand, but geeks have an ability to understand right away. They then assume that everyone one else is a flipping idiot for not understanding. Some people just need to be taught.
Imagine something that doesn't come naturally easy for you, say cooking. Now imagine not being taught but just kind of trying different things. Not so easy is it? Remember you don't have a natural ability to cook so you're not going to pick it up easily.
Now think about how you might fare if you took courses and practiced a couple of times a week. You wouldn't be great but you'd get by. Of Course you'd still get stuck sometimes. That's what it's like for Joe and Jane computer user I think. We assume they should just know, and they just need some courses to get by.
They still annoy the piss out of me with their annoying questions.
-- taking over the world, we are.
Installing Software.
Win - double click icon
*nix - type in a bunch of memorized commands
The key phrase is here:
with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP
In other words, unless they were running these tests for months, this was a "learnability" test, which measured how productive you will be with your computer for the first few days you use it. Unless you're only planning to use the computer for a few days (and other than offices who hire a lot of temps I don't think this is a very common situation) this probably isn't the best measurement to optimize for.
It's the easiest measurement for computer magazines to make, though, so it's probably the closest thing to actual "usability testing" we'll ever see, and it's better than nothing. I just worry that it will lead to companies improving learnability at the expense of useability. It reminds me of the way commercial Linux distributions at one time seemed to be competing to have the easiest damn installation in the world at the expense of post-installation config tools, because all the "reviews" of different Linux distributions stopped shortly after the installation was over.
A scientific comparison of Apples and Oranges
This was just a stupid study. Think about who they used as test subjects for this study. "One group consisted of 60 users aged 25 to 55 with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP." How is it that these people have computer skills but have neither used Linux nor Windows XP? Were they all Mac users? I doubt it. I'm guessing it's because they have used some OTHER Microsoft OS. So, how can you not consider these test subjects to be tainted. Windows XP is different than the other Microsoft OS's, but not that different. If you become familier with any MS operating system you are likely to feel more at home with another MS OS versus KDE or Gnome. I've had the unfortunate "opportunity" to use Windows XP and it is a ergonomic nightmare. So much window garbage and no substance. The only decent part of the entire OS is NTFS.
That's like saying the sun edges out a cup of coffee for maximum temperature.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Is there really a Linux package that matches WinXP where interface, ease-of-use (and not just to techies), depth of driver compatibility of Windows XP? And I'm talking out-of-the-box....... I'm still wary of delving into Linux myself, as I grew out of my fondness of command-line OSes after MS-DOS 6.1. If so, can you please be specific about what would be a good set of features to start off with?
Again, this isn't a troll, just an honest question. I'm interested in desktop Linux, but I want to minimize my time hacking or cobbling stuff together to get it into a working state.
That said, KDE still has a too-high "clunky" factor. It still is too unresponsive and lacks a certain "smoothness" and uniformity. It's good enough for daily desktop use for me, but on my laptop where I want low hassle and high productivity, I'll be using OS X.
I eagerly await every new release of KDE. A lot of progress has been made in a short amount of time. One of the biggest problems that remain for KDE and GNOME is the fact that installing software may or may not give you a launcher in the "start menu" (to borrow the Windows term). Joe End User doesn't care to differentiate between Qt/KDE apps and GTK+ apps, and frankly, neither do I. A dektop environment needs to make installing software something less than a chore.
If you've been using KDE, Gnome, or Blackbox for any length of time, you look for ways to make it work on your company's MS network. Am I right? I've downloaded everything the KDE team has done since its first beta, I do believe, and I can't tell you how superb it feels to sit down at my workstation in the a.m. with my cup of asphalt-like java, fire up rdesktop and Citrix ICA client, and LEAVE THEM ON DESKTOP #6. Heh heh. Well, it's particularly nice to run Outlook that way. I set it to pop up when a message comes in. Otherwise, I play in Linux GUI land all day long. When you've had a nice Linux desktop, Windows seems anemic and limiting. But I will say that the Windows GUI is sharp and fast, and some work still needs to be done in that area of XFree86 and Open Source GUIs.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
Given the fact that an economy without unemployment is an economy that cannot grow, could we reasonably assume that Linux is an OS that has not become stagnant? And could we also reasonably assume that MS Windows XP has reached the end of it's usability growth level? I know applying an economical standpoint to a desktop environment is rather unorthodox, but I think this shows that Windows XP, with it's ancestry, may be at the peak of it's usable evolution.
Given that KDE (or GNOME, not going to pick favorites here, but KDE was the environment of choice) has a vastly different desktop model than Windows XP (ok, I agree that's arguable for those who use Blackbox or Xfce, but bear with me) is it possible that KDE can grow and evolve beyond the boundaries of Windows XP? And given that a Linux distribution generally gives you all the software you require out of the box to start being productive on many levels, does it not stand to reason that this combination produces a large field for growth?
Supply and demand is being met in the desktop market. Those who need one and have the means, have one. However, a splinter in the market might end up showing us that those who have one may need more. What does everyone think? And for those economists out there consider MS thinking about charging for updates to your OS as a tax, thereby stagnating the OS economy further. The users who have a desktop that cannot grow are also being taxed for the desktop. If this actually makes money in the long run I'll be shocked considering that this disobeys the laws of a robust economy across the board.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
In all honesty I can't find a damn thing in XP without leaning over to my asst admin and going, where is...
I love that it finally has TAB completion in the CMD (which my asst admin sees as old fashioned) but other than that it is crap.
Thank GOD I come home to OS X every night.
This
Your car may have "off", "on", and "start" positions where you stick the key in the Ignition
Do the KDE team have a usability expert contributing? Or does the KDE team do usability testing? There is always the need for someone other than coders on a software project!
Implement a Windows GUI that runs on top of Linux.
;)
Check XPde
Or did you mean all the layers of code that are required to get a game running? cause that's certainly more than just the UI
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
60 users on KDE, but only 20 on Windows?!?!?! It seems that the same group should be asked to do the same tasks twice, once on each system, then poll that groups opinions. or have an equal number of people on each group, randomly selected from an average population.
No wander Windoze won, I'ts easy to get 100% of 1/4 the people (80 in all, 1/4=20). Or maybe they rearranged the groups after the fact, and then reported what they wanted!
I love that they're testing the important tasks for computer users ... "copying a CD" .... I'm sure the RIAA will love this article.
Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone
I really don't see KDE or any other linux desktop software beating Windows or MacOS in usabilities tests anytime soon.
You say that as if usability tests actually test something concrete and meaningful, like mass or height or temperature. But they don't really. Usability testing isn't physics. Yes, KDE may do slightly worse in usability tests than Windows, but what does that actually mean? At most it means that it takes a little more time to learn a few more quirks that the KDE interface has. Big deal. In return, KDE is also a more featureful interface and comes with a lot more software out of the box. Usability is only one of many things to optimize for in a piece of software, and it is not the most important one in many applications.
In fact, the fact that the users in the study had "prior computer skills" suggests that they had experience with Windows-like interfaces, which means that most likely a significant part of the slight Windows XP advantage was simply due to familiarity.
What this test shows is that KDE is in the ballpark, and that's all that is really needed.
KDE and GNOME keep playing catchup to windows instead of leading the way.
Many open source projects are unashamedly about providing open source versions of closed-source systems, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Sure there are some unique features, but the bulk of linux desktop development is recreating features that windows and macos have had for years.
Yes, and Microsoft and Apple copied many of those features from yet other systems. That's the way business and product development work: you look at what works in the market and you copy as much of it as you legally can. There is nothing wrong with that.
The KDE team does unquestionably good work, but they are going to need to keep stepping it up if they expect anyone to find their software more useable than the already existing mainstream products.
This test shows that KDE is close enough as far as usability goes. Maybe they can edge out Windows XP in such tests by sacrificing some features or some other hacks, but you are naive to think that there are any great hidden usability improvements possible.
The K stands for "Krap".
It works great, get as many desktops as you want in Windows, and it seldom crashes..
This may be off-topic, but ...
...)
As "Joe User" with moderate technical acumen, I recently made the jump and set up dual-boot SUSE. The install went very well, and I was very pleased with the KDE GUI.
But very quickly I had to spend a couple of hours doing things like learning how to set up header files in order to re-compile my kernal to support NVIDIA drivers.
I figured it out. But it took a while.
And still -- after a lot of careful study and research on linuxquestions.org -- I can't get my sound card to work. The best I have gotten for folks with the exact same configuration is "buy a new soundcard and save yourself the trouble".
My point is not to complain, but to indicate that there is still "geek time" and knowledge that must be "paid" to support free software. For many people it becomes like changing the oil on the car -- it's something that *can* be accomplished with enough time and patience. But how much do you want to fritz around with it, when all you want to do is play an MP3 ?
God forbid I want to hook up my digital camera.
Pay the dude $30 for an oil change.
For Linux, the last piece of non-geek usability may be the hardest to attain.
(It's not like I WANT to use MS XP
So instead, they should put G's in front of everything or perhaps MS or perhaps an i ?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I've been curious if there are any mildy meaningful metrics out there pointing to KDE vs GNOME usage? I personally haven't seen anybody using KDE but I see a lot of people posting to Slashdot that use it. My personal experience doesn't seem to coincide with the real world but I'm really curious about the numbers.
What is great about Linux is you can make your own desktop. Few people realise how kustomisable KDE and Gnome are and Windowmaker really rocks. The really big difference is you can run a simple desktop without any buttons and ./ everything in X Windowmaker for really fast customisable startups great for custom batch files. Like any other Os the more services you boot the slower to get things going. If you pair down KDE to the bones and make 3 or 4 different profiles under different user names it can run like lightning. What I do is use a paired down KDE with dev, and another with Office apps, and one with office and internet, one with only internet, and a full blown one for general purpose. No you did not ask a troll the thing that is great is you can just ctrl-alt-backspace to shut it off or use the switch users functions. For that matter if you set it up right you can run a whole pile of profiles at the same time. Take the trouble to learn to shell program and you will be amazed at what is possible. The best distros for that are still the ones that are closest to pure like Slackware. Mndrake and RedHat are much more difficult to customise and have many of the tools removed or they need to be added as they are not default installed. Most people turn off Linux because they miss the most important point learning to effectively use shells. You can make Linux smoke once you learn how things work. I do not say Linux is not for everyone and get on a GNU horse to preach but it sure is fun to really learn the potential. If you want the Os to dictate how everything is done and just run programs Win 98 is still a better choice than XP as far as I am concerned. From what I am seeing with XP alot faster too. It is funny but I see people still making XP run like a dog by using all the bells and whistles and then wondering why it runs like a slug!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Why try and build something more user-friendly than Microsoft? They can afford to spend tens of millions of dollars on usability. And usability is not an "aha !!" light-bulb-going-off kind of thing, its a very hard science that involves expensive practices such as sticking hundreds of representative people in labs and training cameras on their eyeballs. And say what you like about them, Microsoft are not stupid people and they do have an intense focus on usability.
Trying to out-MS with even better usability? Stupid.
Copying MS and leveraging their work as much as possible in order to shaft them somewhere else where they're weaker? Priceless.
[x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
"100% of the users" liked the "design of the desktop interface and programs"
I guess MSFT is smarter about that than I ever gave them credit for--that's not what I've been hearing here, so it's interesting that 20 out of 20 people who hadn't used XP before liked it. I presume that they came from previous Windows experience.
That said, will someone please tell me how you can learn the GODDAMN IP address that a given Windows box is using? And if it's set for DHCP or static? Every time I look in control panels, but I don't find it often enough to remember where it's at. I mean, why hide such a thing?
--
$tar -xvf
As in Deutschland.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
But just wait till the recently converted KDE user goes to the store and tries to find any software for her new OS.
As a Windows user, I've been nothing but irritated that MS keeps changing where to find anything but the most basic items. From Win95/WinNT3.51 to WinXP, they've moved everything from Network ID to the command prompt icon. There haven't been more than two releases in a row on either track where at least one feature I would consider fundamental hasn't been moved. I'm not saying that some of the changes haven't been useful, or logical, but some just look like another way to require certification. I would consider myself fairly adept, but nothing irritates me more than trying to remember where a particular feature is in this particular OS. If MS proponents want to complain about the multitude of Linux window managers, they should think about this. At least in Linux, a coimpany can pick one, and keep it on multiple versions. Some would say you can with Windows, too, but the useful new features are tied to the new UI, too.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Hrm... could we look forward to KDE .Com? Competition to Microsoft's .Net? So then all their apps begin with 'K' and end with '.Com'.
Being "almost as easy to use as Windows" is just about the worst insult there is!
Windows is only acceptable if you never think about how the the computer is supposed to be helping you. It's only easy if you've already contorted you thinking to match the few things that it can do.
Think about how it should work and avoid copying that mismash of stolen ideas. Windows is big because they have a monopoly, not because they are good.
What I want to know is where did they find "60 users aged 25 to 55 with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP"?
I mean unless you're talking purely publishing type people who have only ever used a Mac, that's not a bad achievement to find people WITH computer skills who have never been near Windows or Linux!
Yo mama so fake, she failed the Turing Test.
I posted this article with the title "Linux nears Windows XP usability". I wonder why someone at /. would change it to a more MS friendly "Windows XP Edges Out KDE in Usability Test"?
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Therefore a new user would get lost! Think about it.
Therefore XP wins!
I was about to say all of this. You'll convert office users first, then more games will be released for both platforms, and it will just snowball.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
KOK?
Yesterday I was trying to help my brother with some configuration problems on his Windows XP machine. Maybe it is just me that is too used to better things from four years of using Linux. But at least I found it hard to do just some very simple tasks. For example I would like to generate the list of all files in a directory including subdirectories. I had to give up, I couldn't find a function to do that. I'd also like to compare the contents of two directories. Again I had to give up. Finally I realized that perhaps it would be easier to just copy all the stuff to my Linux computer, because at least there I have all the tools I need. However the attempts to copy files bailed out with cryptic error messages. And I wasn't even given the option to continue with copying the rest of the files. And the progress indicator was useless, for more than half an hour it said there was 17 minutes left. While I had the computers connected I also found, that this XP installation by default had a directory shared with read+write permissions for everybody in the world. It is fortunate that this machine is not on the internet yet.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
All they try to do is emulate the MS user interface, everything is essentially in the same place as MS. I'm surprised they didn't tie. They should take their UI and start from scratch and come up with something worth using. Otherwise it just looks like a bad XP theme.
Invent, go hire some actually UI people that might be able to take that turd beyond something that comes in second to XP. Basically isn't that last place?
E.
Actually, I've noticed that XP starts up programs faster than KDE or Gnome. I have a modest, but fairly up to date system, and most basic programs pop up instantly in XP, yet in Linux, it takes several seconds for most programs. This has been kind of annoying for the past years I've used Linux, and it is the main reason I won't switch totally over to Linux and finally get rid of the Windows partition.
Look at the applications that are currently offically included in the GNOME desktop. Whether or not applications get included is specifically dependent upon whether or not they are compliant with the GNOME interface guidelines.
What we really need is for Nautilus to be more mature, and for there to be more GNOME 2 media applications which are compliant with the guidelines.
I know that many Slashdot readers scoff at what is being done in GNOME 2, but I am convinced that this is the path to a more usable UNIX desktop.
The simplicity is beautiful.
This is coming from someone who's primary use of X up until just a few months ago was 1) to have multiple xterms on the screen at once and at higher resolutions, and 2) to run Mozilla (Firebird).
The reason that I've switched to GNOME 2 on my laptop, is so that I can be a better prepared and better informed advocate for the UNIX desktop.
When people see what I am running, I do not want them to say, "Wow, that is incredibly esoteric, and looks totaly technical."
Instead, I want them to say, "That looks really great, it really looks like something I would enjoy using, and could pick up real quick."
Be an advocate.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
-1, pathetic troll
Jeez, you could have at least tried to sound plasible when you're trolling.
I have to agree with you. Anyone that's ever been involved in "objective" evaluations of any product will tell you that there is little -- if any -- objectiveness in them, especially with such a small sample.
/. article here) recently spent more on a SuSE implementation than renewal of their MS contract would have cost. While I respect (and somewhat apprehensively applaud) their decision, I have to call into question the possible political motivations behind any and all US-related decisions -- business and otherwise -- made in Germany.
The city of Munich (am I right? I'm trying to recall a previous
If this was an American company that used a larger sample as the basis of their findings, I'd give the referenced report much more credence. But, given both the potential political influence and the small samples, I have to conclude that the Relevantive report is just about entirely baseless.
As I've posted many times before here, OS or fundamental bias isn't going to help anyone. Anyone who takes this report as IT Law should really re-examine their motives and take an honest look at why they make the conclusions they do.
They're both branding strategies. How are they not analogous?
I can't see how you can find the Win2k to XP transition difficult, since not much has changed since 1995.
What ideas should KDE be doing? Here are a few:
Make Point-to-type be the default. It really is better and faster to use, but it is a bit confusing to people used to click-to-type. However if you can get anybody to use it for about 1 week they will be unable to go back (verified with several non-advanced users here using NT with the registry setting that makes point-to-type work). This could be the real difference that makes Linux obviously easier to use. But I doubt this is ever going to happen because of the brainwashing recieved from Mac and Windows and now from all Linux desktops that click-to-type is the only way.
PS: the one user-unfriendliness about point-to-type that you may have encountered is when a program decides to take the focus (like when it maps a new window). Most systems leave the focus and mouse pointer in different windows, which is confusing. Some refuse to allow the program to take focus, which is very bad for modal dialogs, and somewhat unfriendly when you double-click to launch a program. I have found that if the WM warps the pointer to the nearest edge of the newly-focuesed window that it makes it clean and user-friendly. This pretty much eliminates the only advantage I have seen in click-to-type.
Perhaps more possible, and much more subtle GUI improvement: Don't raise windows unless the user clicks on the title bar (or if the program requests the window to raise, or if a "parent" raises). Besides meaning that clicking inside a window does not raise it (something some WM's can turn off), this also means that raising a child window does not move the parent, which is an annoying bug that virtually all modern window managers (and Windows) have and you can never turn off. In any case both must be turned off by default and then it is possible to work with overlapping windows. Current systems make overlapping windows impossible to use (since any work in the "lower" one will raise it, obscuring the "upper" one such that you cannot refer to it in your work), forcing everybody to do kludges like "tiled" windows (such as every IDE uses).
The second change is quite possible, and not user-unfriendly at all. In some rather primitive tests I have found that people familiar with Windows do not notice at all that the window does not raise. First of all they almost always click on the titlebar to raise windows anyway. Second my test programs also raised the window if you clicked on any "useless" area (ie the blank area around the buttons). Most users clicked on those to change focus, since anywhere else is dangerous on Windows.
I am quite serious about this, especially the no-raise idea. I have been working on various GUI systems for 12 years and it is painfully obvious how bad the raise-on-click is hurting us. I believe that this simple change would make KDE vastly easier to use and more powerful than Windows, as soon as programs started taking advantage of it to draw larger displays and control panels.
A better virtual desktop manager for Windows is made by nvidia. I can't remember if it's free to download or if it only comes on the cd with the gfx card, but it's good.
Nvidia also has a little app called "nview" that adds "roll up" controls to windows, adds an "always on top" option for windows, can make any window alpha-blended etc.
graspee
I believe KDE has too many bells and whistles distracting the user. I'm talking thing enables by default like animated mouse cursors, task-bar apps. Some of the task bar apps are really clumsy (eg. the disk mount thingie, I had to show my dad trice until he could use it -- and he's not a moron). Nevertheless, I find KDE easier to use than the new default Winzode XP look. Always switch that to classic.
Maybe its because all the Linux UIs copy the MS UI instead of doing something different.
But when it comes to the design of the desktop interface and programs, Windows XP still has a strong edge: 83% of the Linux users said they liked the design of the desktop and the programs, compared with 100% of the Windows XP users.
I hope the study is flawed, because its too depressing to consider the alternative. Btw, why no MacOS in the test? Then we would see how KDE measures up to an OS with good UI.
Sounds like somebody doesn't know enough of what he's talking about to say anything at all.
That's a rather Fishy translation...
Things being the way they're are I'd consider XP ahead of the game in the Home Desktop area for several reasons.
/home/user directory as far as they're saving things and when they search for their files it should be done in there. Installation really needs a revamp such as the user want's X functionality it presents them choices and they click 1 button.. downloads and installs and works perfectly the first time! Otherwise it's just a mess of download compile install and pray for many applications.
Drivers
Video Card support
Cant play dvd's out of the box for 2 distro's that are mostly used.. Mandrake and Redhat
Video Game's (Transgaming helps here)
Now other than that it's mostly elemental on how the computer works.. Normal user accounts should not be able to see anything above their
It would be better if all distro makers got behind one format for installations and bundle all applications to work that way.. then a install would be essentially the same for a RedHat/Mandrake/SuSE/Gentoo or whatever else someone run's.
ex-NeXTStep users preferred Windowmaker over Windows XP at a ratio of 100:1 !!
where they get test subjects that used neither XP nor linux/KDE...
;)
mac users? i can't believe that! they'd never be pleased with the appearance of XP
The tests found from 26.6.? 16.7.2003 in Berlin instead of.
... in ..." so it's "findet von .... in berlin statt". but when written in isolation, and translated out of context, "findet" means "finds" and "statt" means "instead of".
now thats a classic... i love this. (german speaking mods will agree and mod this post funny)
for all those who don't speak german:
the sentence should say "the tests took place in berlin from 6/26 to 7/16 2003 in berlin". "to take place" is "stattfinden" in german, but the verb is split because of the "from
(non-german-speaking moderators will have learned something and mot this as informative)
Free as in mason.
-1 idiot. aRts isn't working; how do you fix it? RealPlayer audio is garbled, whats wrong with it? You've bought a new monitor but now when your computer starts up, you just get a blank screen! How do you deal with that?
With KDE, they all require RTFM & FAQ's and going to the command line. I should know, I've been using KDE for 5 years.
Don't let simple things like facts get in the way of your KDE fantasy though, Mr. Fanboy. Linux and KDE are just perfect and no one could ever improve them any more than they already are, right?
I have Mac OSX for a few eeks now and I find it sucks major compared to XP. Aqua is barely configurable (I couldn't even make a black desktop easily), and you can't start the same program multiple times from the docker. And don't get me started about the Finder... Let's hope 10.3 is better!
And by the way, why is this a troll? The guy has got a good point. Linux is almost as popular on the desktop as Mac's are, so why not test them too?
-- Cheers!
Why is debugging in any way a special activity? It's not supposed to require any special priviledges that keep you from killing the debugger if you feel like it.
Sorry for ranting like that. Couldn't help it, I just had to get this off my chest. And thank you for giving me another reason why Windows is crap.
MOD PARENt up funnay
The only Win-anything I can think of are third-party applications developed specifically for Windows such as WinZip; which is no better or worse than Mac-this and Mac-that...
...who thinks that installing applications is not quite THAT hard? Most applications today have FAQs, manual and documentation both online and as text files that come with the source code. Usually you don't even need to read them, typing ./configure
make
make install
seems to take care of 98.07% of the applications available today. If that is difficult, does everybody go to the car mechanic to empty the ash tray in their car, too?
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
However, as we probably all know, life is on some, but important, occasions more than *using* programs.
- If you buy a new piece of hardware, you get a CD with device drivers for windows. Put it in the drive, install, it works (most of the time).
That's something most Linux distributions don't offer as comfortably.
- If their Windows doesn't work, most people know how to "fix" it themselves: fiddle around with tab buttons, re-install program, re-install windows. I couldn't imagine most of the Windows users I know correcting the
.XF86Setup after apt-get upgrade has messed it up ;).
The point I'm trying to make is that for everything beyong everyday usage, linux presupposes more knowledge about and interest in operating system internals that windows does. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just something one has to be aware of.Again, as others have said, this is a learnability test rather than a usability test. Why not add two more groups, given 30 minutes tuition in using XP/KDE first and compare their times too?
The KDE GUI is just fine by now, more or less at least (I still can't stand X), but the real problem is the integration with the underlaying OS, especially since it can be different OSes and different Linux distributions (which does thing differently for no good reason at all).
An example, it took me 10 seconds in 1995 to figure out how to share a folder in win95, but after almost an hour I gave up on getting samba to share properly in gentoo. I have a fair amount of Linux experience, and would count myself as knowing quite a lot about computers (I'm a software engineer), but I have no intention of learning all about smb just for getting a few files over.
That is the problem with KDE, that is the problem for Linux, if you want to make it an easy to use system for ordinary people (if you want to make it a geek system that's never really finish, well, it's there;)).
It seems to me that KDE currently is the only Linux Desktop choice for endusers anyway once they have outgrown the I have never seen a mouse stage.
Gnome simply ruined their desktop by forcing the users to a dumbed down desktop.
The approach, well the usability test fails lets take this functionality out for all users simply is wrong, KDE goes into the different direction with the kiosk mode.
I hope the Gnome developers one day come to their senses, but until then it might be too late.
Sorry to rant here, but the current state of the Gnome desktop just makes me sad, there is a good foundation there, but the current Nautilus and the missing splitting functionality and the we separate the browser from the file viewer mentality, simply is wrong and it seems to become worse every release.
The article refers to a report which is already available in german and will be available in english soon. The german report is 91 pages and addresses all your questions in perfect detail.
On page 8 they point out that a usability analysis usaualy consists of 10 to 20 "testpersonen", but that they increased this amount for the linux testing group dramatically in order to be able to analyse differences between users or what they call Nutzentypen. The researches find those differences indeed and expand on them on pages 74 through 77.
They test on 10 tasks ranging from writing some text in a wordprocessor to burning a document to CD. It occurs to me this is a very well designed and planned usability test.
Check you facts; this article is hardly unsubstantiated.
windows xp is hard to use, and so are other win sys. Even though windows is predominant (desktop interface) it requres instruction and is dificult to use if you dont know it. We should create better windowing systems such as robert carrs penpont os/ go os / eos not copy a copy of something like windows. look at smalltalk, penpoint, mac, xerox and learn and do it better.
IMO, the biggest problem I have is that I can't find a decent shell in Windows.
In Linux, even when I run SX, I just open a bunch of terminals and type happily away. I can do everything from CLI whether it's inside a GUI or not. In windows, I keep looking for bash or any decent shell, but all I can find is this stupid Dos shell that seems only useful for changing directories. I can't quickly check my running processes, launch an app or 2 , write scripts or code and check on stuff running in the background while changing some stuff in my Mysql databases.
It's like the GUI works against the OS not for it..
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
it's still second place. If you guys want to win converts, user-friendliness is only one of the categories you need to beat Bill in. If you only win ease-of-use contests, you'll just be another MacOS.
Has anyone done any studies on what environments are best to learn at? I mean the GUI is so much more complicated than the CLI. Look at it, with the GUI you've got the cursor you've got to remember which buttons on the mouse do what and also what a single and double click do. Thats several options just for one device. Then you got to worry about all the objects on the screen, all of which act differently, icons, desktop, windows.. You can go further, windows -> buttons, sliders, check boxes, radio buttons, text boxes, ... this list goes one.
,programs etc i feel would all be better learn on a unix or dos command line. Because, theres less to distract and less the user has to worry about. Its also a lot easier for an experianced person to teach a novice.
With the command line, its a lot simplier. You have some space to type in and well, thats basicly it. I knows theres more to it, but i propose that linux is easier to learn the simplier things than windows.
Eg, such things as files, the difference types (text, binary), directories, file system structure
When i try to tell my mother stuff, i use words that well, are no big deal to us such as title bar, window, icon etc but she doesnt know what the hell is going on. But with a command line, i'd just have to tell her a few basic commands, tell her what the command line is, tell her how to type in something and press entre...
I think linux, for the simplier stuff would be a better start than any GUI environment. And then when your ready to go for the GUI, load up explorer or X or whatever...
Has anyone ever done any studies to see if this is true. It seems so obvious because the simplier things always come first. The command line was first, the gui was second.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Looks like the astroturfers are out in force on this one!
BZZZZTT! Wrong. KDE is not "part of the OS" like the XP GUI is. I've got a perfectly useful FreeBSD firewall box with no XFree86 on it, let alone KDE. I've got another that I chose to load the XFree86 and KDE applications on. No choice with MSFT.
Oh, and I guess you GNU/Linux folks can also run XFree86 and KDE. But KDE is still not part of the OS. Just ask any GNOME user. Most (non /.) users wouldn't know the difference between KDE on FreeBSD and KDE on GNU/Linux.
I've used JSPager for about 5 years, and it's one of the first things I download whenever I get a new Windows install. It doesn't interact perfectly with every single program out there, but it makes Windows a lot more bearable.
That is indeed a very impressive achievement, and one of which the developers behind KDE and its fellow Linux tools can feel justly proud.
The thing that gets me is that Linux has two usability hurdles to overcome before it can take on Windows head-to-head for desktop market share:
This survey suggests that applications are now at least comparable, although I suspect most of us had figured that out already. It's interesting that the tasks mentioned were pretty straightforward on both platforms, though. I suspect typical commercial Windows apps are still some way ahead of typical free, Linux-based equivalents when it comes to usability for more advanced tasks, at least for now.
The killer, as I see it, is still that getting a Linux installation up and running can be a nightmare. The situation is getting much better, with many distros now shipping with excellent installation software and/or package managers for later changes. Yet, it still requires at least "guru" status to fix a problem when it does go wrong, particularly where things like hardware and device drivers, or configuring the GUI, are concerned.
It's notable that this study was done using preconfigured systems, glossing over this whole issue. There's obviously no problem with that if it's not what they were investigating, but it would have been interesting to see an equivalent study of experienced sysadmins, trying to get an office network of Linux-based systems up to speed compared to the equivalent Windows-based set-up, and to try the same experiment again in a year or two.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
And it has been this way for at least 15 years! (Probably longer, but that's how long I've been working with it.)
I think you should bare in mind that Windows XP is the 6th version of Microsoft GUI OSs which have been under development for over 10 years (Win31, Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP). Now, call me old fashioned, but I think you should see progressive improvements in each version of a software product. Considering that KDE is only at version 2, XP should be a lot damn better. The article says that WinXP is only a small bit better. The reason why we don't see the expected 10 years worth of functionality, is because of MS marketing droids dumping flashy features that actually make the UI less usable (for example, the fad-in menus and screen wasting fat titlebars). All novice uses I talked to hate the telly tubby user interface.
There is a free one which is an XP "Powertoy". It works pretty well.
In a word, the article is subjective bullshit. Nothing more.
Furthermore, 80% of the Linux users believed that they needed only one week to become as competent with the new system as with their existing one, compared with 85% of the XP users.
But when it comes to the design of the desktop interface and programs, Windows XP still has a strong edge: 83% of the Linux users said they liked the design of the desktop and the programs, compared with 100% of the Windows XP users.
WTF are words like "believe" and "like" doing in reports of a supposedly objective evaluation?
One group consisted of 60 users aged 25 to 55 with computer skills but no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP.
Does anyone believe that it is possible to find someone with no exposure to Linux or XP? The common concept of a GUI is modeled after MS (or you can say vice-versa, I know).
This article reeks of bias.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
n/t
What this journalistic snippet fails to mention is the fact that there are some tasks that XP excelled and other tasks where KDE outperformed XP. In other words, while XP was a bit faster for the user to initiate email it was easier for the Linux user to play an audio CD.
Most of the numbers were expected. For example, the Windows Media Player is a more complicated tool than the KDE CD Player; therefore it is not surprising the KDE was quicker at this task.
What did surprise me was that KDE took so long to change the background (almost x2 as long as XP) yet the users thought it was easy. This might have something to do with the more advanced background features native to KDE; for example, a background per-desktop or a scheduled background change.
To modify shortcut icons in the toolbar was much quicker under KDE and I have always found this to be more cumbersome than XP. Perhaps the XP "personalized" menus have something to do with this? Users not only took less time to create icons in the toolbar but KDE users generally graded this task as easier than their Windows XP counterparts.
One other interesting comparison is email; users took a little longer to perform this task under KDE but they generally graded this as easier to do than their XP counterparts.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
So you'd recommend Slackware as a Linux distro that's fairly robust / customizable, but still easy to get up-and-running? And both KDE / Gnome sound cool, but should I be concerned about compatibility with hardware I already possess? Most, if not all of it is from big-name manufacturers -- Lite-On, Intel, Corsair, Western Digital -- so there's at least a decent chance of them offering / supporting Linux drivers (, isn't there?).
.NET is released sometime this century, I won't be doing my programming on Linux, either. :) But if I could keep it as a utilities box -- for tasks such as checking email and file / webpage serving -- it would still be interesting to try out.
I've accepted the fact that I'll be doing most of my gaming on a Windows machine. In fact, I'm not exactly sure what I'd use Linux for, at this point -- I'm an MS web developer, and unless Visual Studio
Oh, and as for WinXP, I don't think much of it. Windows 2000 suits my needs perfectly, and I have little need for all the bells and whistles it contains. And be it paranoia or perhaps merely stubborn misinformation, I still believe that WinXP isn't as widely supported as Win2k, where mature, stable drivers are concerned.
On a slightly different topic -- do you think it's possible to contribute to OSS even though I'm not terribly OSS-savvy? I figure assisting with documentation is always a good place to start, but I thought I'd ask..........
The answer to "Why do you have to click 'Start' to stop" has been answered more than adequatly by Raymond Chen here:r yview.a spx/History
http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/raymondc/catego
To sum up his answer:
While trying to create a simple yet space efficient design, they decided on a single button in the bottom left. This was called the 'System' button. However users would boot the system and look at it with a puzzled expression. So they called it 'Start'. Then they asked the users to shut down the system, and guess where they clicked? Yeah. The start button. So that's why it is.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
You can seriously mess up your computer MUCH easier in Linux than in Windows. Which is much preferable to Windows seriously messing up your computer for you.
From Astonshell, www.astonshell.com
I had to use Windows NT at work, and really missed the virtual desktop functionality I got from pretty much all the X window managers, and searched until I found AltDesk. I've used it on Windows 98, NT and 2000, and it works great. I assume it also works on XP, though I've never tried (I don't use XP).
The only downside is it's shareware, and costs $15 to register, but it works great and I've never had it crash my computer.
BTW, it gives you up to 256 virtual deskops, can be activated by the mouse or a key combination, allows you to make applications "sticky", meaning they appear on all desktops, and is skinnable.
No matter where you go... there you are.
Well, sure, they're branding strategies, but they're still different. You don't have Office.NET or IE.NET or Exchange.NET, but you have KOffice and Konqueror and KMail. Anyway, it's semantics, and I was just arguing for the sake of arguing, and nobody probably cares anyway (I know I really don't), and so I'll shut up now.
Yo mama so fake, she failed the Turing Test.
DOS had virtual desktops!! And I think it worked with Win 3.1 as well. I just ran it under DOS in order to run a multiline BBS. IIRC it worked a lot the same way that Alt-F1... does under Linux for virtual consoles. Each session got a virtual machine to run in.
The news article says
It does not say whether they have had prior Windows experience at all. XP is very very very much like 2000, ME and 98 when compared to KDE or Gnome. So if they had any prior experience with one of the older Windows versions they would have an advantage to understanding XP.
So we'll have to see. If this is the case the survey could very well tell a different story than what this article talks about.
I've sort of done an unofficial survey of the same type. My laptop sits in my apartment living room and runs KDE as the window manager. When friends come over its used as the random computer that we search for stuff on while watching tv. All my friends(more technically minded, we do go to a major tech university) have no real problem using KDE to do stuff(browse web, IM, type in Kate, etc). The major complaint is that they're not familiar with the icons or the program names when they first see them. Now everyone knows what the Firebird and Gaim icons look like though. I've even had a few friends sit and play with it for a while to see what its like.
Plus, I use XP at work (sadly) and I find it much more difficult to use and I used to run 2000 (I switched to linux after its release).
this is like americans saying that SAE is easier to learn than metric. it's not, it's just that they've seen it for so long.
still, if people begin to percieve KDE as even close to XP, there's a change.
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
The results, really are in KDE;s favor and the people at ComputerWorld have spun it as pro Windoze as the could. There was no real difference in any of the meaures, besides the "apearance" survey. If one more person in the Windoze group had said it would taken more than a week to "master" the interface, the two groups would have been equal. The time difference was less than 10%, a difference that could easily be made up by one or two slow winoze users. To me, those kinds or results are identical. That's astounding when you consider that most of the users have been brainwashed by years of M$ use. As a test of migration, this says KDE is just as easy to move to as XP is, depite years of M$ "training", which has plauged users in the past. Only people begging for M$ advert money would describe the results as KDE not as easy to use as XP, which is what the spin implies.
That's a great result to get out of 45 minutes of computer use. Free software has made great improvements for total newbies to be able to jump right into a free desktop and do as well as users of the new Windoze GUI. I've thought things were this way since KDE 2, but it's nice to see a study of head to head competition with potential migrators.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Linux starts to fall down when you try to install 3rd party applications (what if you can't get RPMs? what if you're running an older GLIBC?) or hardware.
First, what the hell is a "third party application"? Because most free programs are developed and maintained by different people, the whole "third party" thing makes no sense. EVERYTHING is "third party", it all works together because free software developers follow interface specifications in a way that everything works together. All of the major packaging systems tell you about the rare instance of program incompatibility or conflict. This is why you can have as many windowing systems, desktop managers and applications as you can fit on your computer in the free software world. Quit trying to project the DLL hell of the Windoze world, where installation programs actually replace chunks of your operating system without telling you and without knowledge that the printer DLL will wreck the scanner DLL. That's the kind of thing that only happens in the non-free world.
Sure, things do change over time. Today, I can easily install Star Office on just about any Linux Distro, including Debian. That CD might not last forever. My 4 year old Word Perfect CD does not install on anything but Red Hat 6, as far as I know. Binaries are dead, that can happen, but so what? My Microsft budies would be giving me trouble if I were still running the Office 97 I might have bought instead. Non-free software is a pain in the ass that way. Don't blame free software for the problems inflicted on you by people who refuse to share their code.
When Microsft dies, my equipment problems will also die. As is, I get by.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm a linux-friendly windows user, and i have to say, -- including windows 3.1 -- I think that XP is the first inexcusably bad version of windows. I don't want to run linux as my main OS (I happily use *BSD and linux shells on a daily basis, but I've never, EVER been able to get comfortable in X.)... but I'm going to, because I just want an OS that works.
The "find file" function of XP is labyrinthene and anti-intuitive, even months after I've been using the OS. And my favorite is that I can't figure out how to associate winamp with mp3s in ie6. (I clicked the wrong choice the first time, and now I'm fscked. If you think I'm spending more than 15 minutes figuring out how to do it you're crazy). The volume control doesn't work as it should (and.. who chose the green on blue color scheme? Can I have their address and a baseball bat please?), yadda, yadda, yadda... I could bitch all day but the bottom line is: I was always happy with 2000, but XP is massively, bloatedly, titanic-headed-for-the-iceberg awful.
So if KDE rates just below XP, I would suggest we don't pull out the confetti and champagne quite yet.
The fact of the matter is that an experienced free software user can run circles around an experienced Windoze user. Being both, I can say that. Users can do much more than Microsft gives them credit or tools for.
Your concerns of "companies improving learnabilty at the expense of useability" are unfounded in the free software world. Free software works because it's written by people who have a job to do, not by slaves toiling under a marketing department. Tools made for free software simply add on to those existing. You can put a different face on it, or make a new one. It's all still there in the end. For example, you can use the GIMP, Image Magic, or the individual graphic manipulation tools. Your old script that used the individual tools will still work, but your newer one with Image magic might be easier to write and the GIMP is the easiest of all to learn and use, though you might take a while to become a script fu master. Of course, on a larger level, you are free to use an interface that is not KDE if you don't like it. All of the applications seem to work just fine under GNOME and Window Maker.
Can you say any of that about Windoze? No, you can't. Without free software, windoze scripting is poor, you are stuck with a single GUI, and God help you if you decide to use a "thrid party" email or web browser. Microsft has a well earned reputation for breaking other people's toys.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Well, I'll be damned. The Jedi mind trick DOES work....
When you truly believe you can make up for lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do.
yes, and even if the jedi misspells "mod" :)
Free as in mason.
Network neighborhood? Browse the network?
;)
Real men use UNC paths
Why in the world would you wan't to have a program open more than once?!
Okay, I can think of a few instances of bad programming where it would make sense, but come on. 99% of the time when people open a program more than once it is an accident. The dock isn't the only way to open a program either. Make an alias on the desktop.
I personally find the finder has the best file browser. XP and Konquerer don't come close. Column view is the best thing sense sliced bread. Built in search is great. You dont have to look forever for a search program. Yes, Konqueror has built in searching, but it requires going in a menu and is not nearly as elegent as an interface element for searching. But it is more powerful. I want both.
The only thing I don't like is the get info menu. KDE has it right, with multiple tabs. Even OS 9 had that funky pull-down menu.
Have you ever seen some of the shareware programs out there for Windows? Admittedly, there aren't that many anymore, but their UIs are all over the place. Roughly, I'd say their UIs are about as consistent as linux's. For KDE apps, however, I'd say the uniformity is pretty darn good. It boils down to this: if developers follow the standards (and KDE makes this relatively easy), the interface will conform. If developers don't follow the standards, it won't. How hard is that to understand?
I don't know much about this stuff. Will it be implemented in gnome too?
So, the testing done on this "usability study" was really basic user-level stuff. The test missed this study...
/usr/local/dl/leenexex/strnlgg and modify the file thnode.properties to match that of the Fort Knox system*
/opt/dir/bin/lins directory he fell to the floor and began sobbing like a small child.
We asked a home user to plug in his USB cd-burner and get it going on both systems.
Microsoft : 20 mins KDE: We'll let you know once the test subject finishes counselling.
The KDE test subject blew a gasket while trying to enable USB support, after scouring the web for 3 hours for directions on HOW to enable the USB support.
He gleened information from 4 different sources, selecting criteria based on the user's signature to their post on the messageboard as to who's looked "kookiest" and which had the most wit. One was selected sheerly on the quote from Monty Python's Holy Grail in the signature.
At one point he needed to have his keyboard replaced because he was repeatedly induced to vomit by disturbing color schemes...
Figuring that the most unreadable sig. was most l334, he followed that advice, and found himself inside the Fort Knox security system. Once inside the Fort Knox security system, it required that he go to
Multiple times he scoured the net for such common terms as grep, ps -ef and prop.conf.
When asked to perform a rm -f upon the
*(Fort Knox admin was unavailable for comment)
I had a nice long reply typed out that matched each one of those product to its company. Not one of those companies was Microsoft. Then Opera ctrashed, but that's besides the point. Microsoft didn't name all those programs, their developers did. That's not true with all the K programs.
How do you have computer skills but "no prior experience with Linux or Windows XP"? Mac users?? Surely these aren't Windows 95/98/ME/2000 users since basic tasks in XP are almost identical to previous versions.
Low memory footprint, familiar Windown 3 interface, and fast reaction times all combine to form one bad-ass environment.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
That's a feature of sawfish, not GNOME.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Why in the world would you wan't to have a program open more than once?!
"Why" is not relevant to the design of a useable system. You just have to make it possible for the user to do whatever they end up needing to do. Making something awkward or impossible just shows you didn't do it right.
I bet there are a lot of people here who have had more than 1 copy of a text editor open at once. That's what GUIs are good at - multitasking.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Get a grip. My workstation is dual boot Mandrake 9.1 and WinXP. I really, really, really wish Linux were as good as you all say, but XP kicks the shit out of Linux in ALL tests on the same hardware platform. I know I suck and my kernel is not tuned and I don't have the right libraries and Mars is not aligned with Venus etc.
Flame away punks. Unlike you, I have an objective viewpoint. I at least acknowledge there might be more than one functional operating system on the planet.
When some outfit that is loosely connected to Microsoft puts out some report indicating, for instance that the TCO for Windows is less than Linux, you guys jump all over it as blatantly biased. But when some German company whose emphasis is Linux puts out something that says Linux is as easy to use as Windows, it somehow magically is not biased? Spare me. I want Linux to become a serious desktop competitor to MS about as much as anyone here. However, saying it is as user friendly as Windows when it is not, is not doing anyone any favors. Linux has come a long way in the past couple years but there is still some work to do.
Look, it's iThis and iThat. Get it right.
Yeah, I'm a Mac OS X user, and the iNamingConvention does annoy me too.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I guess at least the Windows people and the Mac people take a break from their naming conventions... not like those BeOS people out there ;)
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
'termensch
wtf ist ein 'termensch? *amkopfkratz*
Free as in mason.
Thing is that large user interface (and architectural) overhauls in Windows have taken place only every 7-9 years: 1985-1994, 1995-2003 and 2003-2011; The interface is kept consistent and changes are implemented little-by-little and step-by-step.
My idea is that all improvements in Windows were always subtle over the major versions and all added features were always sorted in a right way and put in all the right places.
Getting from Windows to Linux is like a cultural shock, because almost everything is different and instantly inconsistent.
IMHO, A beginner has to learn using Linux longer than Windows or Mac and most people want to begin their work right away and not after two months when they are advanced users of some system that has an inconsistent user interface.
As a longtime Netscape user since version 3 and continuing with 4, I didn't use IE unless utterly necessary. Once circumstances led me to use IE more frequently, it was IE5 that I was going to use, when the browser had reached the point of high maturity at the time.
But both programs had consistent user interfaces and in both cases it was easy to find what I wanted in terms of configuring and setting up these applications. I brought this parallel in order to show that Linux differs alot.
While the look and feel of the Linux GUI can match and outmatch Windows and even Macintosh, then performing tasks is a completely different story.
Depends on what one wants, but to do something on Linux requires more time and a very steep learning curve than with Windows or Mac. Not everything that you can do Windows or Mac will actually work in Linux.
Because Linux or parts of it still are and remain cryptic: things like setting up a network, audio and video availability, possibility of connecting Windows hard drives to read from and write to them (without having the disks ruined).
Yes, there are a gazillion of programs that are useful and usable. But if you want to boot a Windows hard drive (primary master) by default and by choice boot a secondary master or primary slave Linux hard drive, when you want to connect to a network in the first day of installation and when you have a system that is unable to boot a hard drive and competently connect to the Internet and the interface really is unable to tell in plain English what the real and not cryptic reason is to why accessing the network is not possible, then why do I have to have a system, usability of which is immature, cryptic and arrogant to beginners?
In my irrelevant opinion, the two Big Missing Applications in Linux are PowerPro and GoBack.
May you fall through an open manhole cover on the way to work/school/daycare tomorrow, bust open a sewer pipe to cushion your fall, swallow radioactive waste, mutate into a hideous rat and be doomed to an immortal life in the refuse beneath New York City.
GoBack is easily the most vile, insidious program known to man. Well, maybe the second most vile. Everytime I have even *thought* about using it, GoBack has abruptly trashed an innocent system beyond recovery. And you thought mind reading was only in stories...
Linux users, for example, needed 44.5 minutes to perform a set of tasks, compared with 41.2 minutes required by the XP users. Including the crashes?