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Groklaw Tries Their Own Linux Usability Study
inode_buddha writes "There's a new project taking shape at Groklaw. Calling it Grok-docs, it aims to do what many of us have long whined about - a large-scale linux usability study. Evidently, PJ had some frustrations with linux, and is asking for suggestions. So far, it seems to be following a Wiki-style setup. Everybody is welcome, especially those with little or no linux experience. I hope the distros and vendors are watching this one!"
I've honestly wondered why more distros don't adopt something similar to Debian's APT.
Apple has now, hasn't it? (I don't own a Mac myself, but I saw a friend of mine using "fink", which he described as "apt for Macs")
I use Debian, and in 98% of all cases, I simply do apt-get install foo, and then I'm done. Menu shortcuts, proper dependencies, everything.
Actually, I find Apt-Get far easier than Windows.
This statement is solely an opinion. Kindly take it as such in all cases.
Urpmi, Synaptic, APT-GET etc work well so every mention of denpendency hell should at least make mention of its cure.
Did you actually read the articles? The point is that this won't be on Groklaw, but on a new site. It is a separate project designed to further the growth of FOSS. Ain't nothing wrong with that, and it won't affect Groklaw since it will be the community that does this project. PJ merely proposed it. She won't be the one doing it. She'll just be one of thousands of people who offer input.
That crack you're on is really, really good. Where can I get one?
... well, less intuitive than Windows. We'll leave it at that.
I've been managing UNIX systems for about fourteen years now, with a focus on Solaris. I've installed my share of W95/W98/W2K/WXP systems. I've pretty much always had an install that ended up being what I expected it to be. I have read *no* documentation on how to install Windows. Ever. I'm pretty sure that I've never even watched someone install Windows.
I've installed Linux a few times. I had to tell it what serial mouse I was using and what video card I was using. I had to figure out how to apportion swap. Mind you, figuring out what swap was was easy for me coming from the UNIX world, but for the average person? And the tool to repartition the filesystem was
Look, Windows is the scourge of humanity, there's no disagreement there. But claiming it's as easy to install Linux as it is to install Windows? That way lies insanity.
In my opinion, there should be two separate clipboards, which I refer to as the "Tempboard" and the "Permboard" for clarity. Yes, I hear many of you saying--this is the way it's implemented. Well, yes--partially. Let me first explain The Right Way to Do It, followed by applications that break the rules.
The Right Way to Do It:
(I'm using Eterm 0.9.2, Gaim 0.75, and Opera 7.23 on a Fedora box. Please let me know if these errors don't happen on other versions or other distros.)
- Select some text in a Gaim window, then close that window and attempt to
middle-click paste it into another program. No pastage.
- In Gaim, select some text in the textbox and then attempt to middle-click pa
ste it to the same text box. No pastage.
- Highlight some text in Opera. Then unselect it. Try to middle-click paste
it somewhere. It works!
- Highlight some text in Opera. Unselect it. Highlight something in another
window and close that window. Try to middle-click paste--you get the old fake
Opera-select.
- Highlight something in an Opera textbox. Middle-click it to the url box.
It works. Highlight something using the keyboard. Middle-click it to the url
box. It pastes instead your old highlight.
- In the Gaim textbox, type "Text1". Select the text and CTRL-X it. Type
"Text2" in the textbox. From another window, select "Text3".
- CTRL-X "Text1" in Gaim again. Select text from Eterm. Shift-Ins in the
terminal window. Shift-ins in Gaim. Different things are pasted to each
window!
- CTRL-C text in Gaim's chat screen, and try CTRL-V to paste it into the
textbox below. It instead pastes what was previously in the Permboard.
Does anybody else have ones they'd like to add to my list?Problem: The Tempboard gets deleted when the window is closed.
Problem: The Tempboard gets deleted when you middle-click inside the same text input widget.
Problem: Opera uses "fake selects" in order to work around the clumsy situation of not being able to highlight multiple things at the same time. Firefox does is that well, and so does OpenOffice.org. As we shall see, they don't always get it right.
Problem: The Tempboard reverts to Opera's old fake-select when the window is closed.
Problem: Highlighting with the keyboard doesn't update the Tempboard.
Go back to Gaim, select "Text2", and type Shift-Ins. "Text1" is pasted.
Problem: Shift-Ins pastes from the Permboard, not Tempboard.
Problem: Shift-ins pastes from the Tempboard in Eterm, but pastes from the Permboard in the Gaim window.
Problem: Selecting chat text and CTRL-C doesn't update the Permboard.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
They do! No one using almost any major distro has to download dependencies. Mandrake has urpmi, Redhat- Yum (or apt-get), SUSE-Yast, all of these take care of dependencies.
There are still plenty of things to be fixed on the desktop for linux, but installing software is no longer one of them! It's as easy (if not easier) to install software with linux than with windows. With windows you have to find the software on the internet, download it and double click. With Mandrake (for example) you go to the menu entry which says install software, tick what you want to install, and it installs it and all the dependencies. It's hard to get easier than that!
I've installed Linux a few times... But claiming it's as easy to install Linux as it is to install Windows? That way lies insanity.
Your comment makes clear that you haven't installed Linux in the last year or two, or if you have, that you haven't used an easy-to-install distribution. Most modern distributions install more quickly, more easily and with fewer questions than Windows does. Oh, and they do more stuff after the install is complete.
Grab a current Mandrake CD, for example and give that a try. You'll be surprised.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Actually it was originaly a problem in Windows.
She used Knoppix to verify that it was not a problem with the operating system or drivers, and was instead a problem of the modem.
Advanced users are users too!
However the programmer should be a slave to the user?
In a word...yes. Or else you fail usability.
Nobody's gonna act like your app is some gift from heaven. If users can't use it, they'll bitch and move on to something else. There are few things I hate more than programmer egos. YES, you're not God's greatest gift to computing. YES, if you're developing software you expect to be used publicly, you are slave to the users who will demand features, or else you're just another asshole who puts software out and then complains when people don't like it.
I've installed plenty of distros in the past two years. Everything he said is true. Heck, Mandrake even wanted me to check the button for the 3-button mouse, then shake the cursor all over the screen to get it to work (huh?).
:P
In Windows, it just knows when I plug the damned thing in.
Red Hat still asks you to partition things, and to mark out swap space, etc. It also asks you for a lot more network configuration than Windows does (Windows lets you just check "Typical settings"), generally asks for more questions on things like security levels, program groups to install, and so forth. Hell, check out the look on someone's face when they're asked to install a "bootloader"--what's more, their choices are things called "LILO" and "GRUB," typical OSS project names definitely showing how useful they are to people outside of development communities.
He's right--to say Linux is easier to install than Windows is insane fanboyism. It's just not true, and there's nothing wrong with admitting that so it can be addressed.
Yeah, I hate this one myself. I hate spending ages downloading something, then realising that I've still got several components to hunt down and install/reinstall/upgrade first.
apt-get really is your friend in these situations. OK, it's only as good as the repositories for whatever distro you're running. But if it contains the program you're after, it'll contain the dependencies, too. Then it just does the whole thing foe you.
(But in a rather nice verbose way so it actually tells you what changes it's making. Maybe not essential for newbies, but I certainly appreciate learning these things.)
Actually, I'm finding that an increasing number of projects are actually doing this. And not only do they list the dependencies, but quite often they link to the Project Page for the dependency in question.
That would be nice, too. If for nothing else than for use in "If all else fails" scenarios. I'm not sure how viable it'd be, though. Both technically and license-wise.
TiggsPlus, for the things that do get static binaries, statis packages would be nice. Or at least an install-script. Actually, the latter would be nice. You can run it and get the work done for you, but then you can also look at the script and see exactly where what things are being put.
Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."