Slashdot Mirror
Linux's Difficulty with Names
JohnTyler writes "This article at XYZ Computing takes a look at Linux's strange naming practices. When compared to their Window's equivalents, the names of many Linux programs are difficult to recognize and even tougher to remember. This may seem like splitting hairs, but it is actually an important usability issue. Just think, if you had to do a bit of graphic design which would be easier to pick out of the menu, GIMP or Photoshop? Or if you wanted to play a song, Media Player or xine?" The article is a bit thin, but it raises an excellent point.
That's why you need a Linux command quick reference sheet:
http://www.suso.org/infosheets/
Most of these applications are listed as in the K-menu in the box I'm using are listed by function first. For example: Web Browser (Firefox) and Advanced Text Editor (Kate). That eliminates pretty much all the confusion there, doesn't it?
acroread.exe and winword.exe are meaningless names, too; and yet thats what the Windows executable are called. The name of the file is an irrelevance. If the GIMP appears as 'gimp' instead of 'Image Editor' in the Desktop menus and icons, that's really is stupid, but it's fine to call the executable that.
up2date is a silly name, but as long as it appears in the menu as 'Add/Remove Programs', that's hardly relevant, is it?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I usually just click on "actions" -> "shutdown" to do that, your way works too though.
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Back in the 80's, we were on teletypes (tty) with greenbar and the fast modems where using 75-150 baud modems. While I coded in the 70,s it was on punchcards, but I do know that other system were using less than 75 baud modems. Basically, each letter came at a high cost both in paper and in bandwidth. So, the commands were kept small and simple.
Look, if it really bugs you, then create your own commands, perhaps with alias or symlinks. But to think that commands were done due to lack of typing is silly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
omg, and here I thought all slashdotters were geeks to some extent.
c _88-tty.asp)
The *nix operating system was developed when the input/output device was a teletype. ( http://www.virtualaltair.com/virtualaltair.com/va
There was no backspace key, and you didn't see what command you typed in until AFTER you hit the enter key. So to keep things easy, you end up with 2 to 4 letter commands. ls, ed, df, dd, etc...
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
It's against the Windows HGI to do this now (I don't know if it was ever documented as the standard, but it was extremely common) although many companies (and installer frameworks) still do it. Windows HGI also says that if all you're installing is link(s) to your executable(s), you should put them directly in the start menu root instead of into a subfolder.
Corrected list
Linux entries are read off directly from my GNOME menu
==============
Web Browser
Windows: IE
Linux: Firefox Web Browser
Graphics Editing
Windows: Photoshop, Illustrator
Linux: GNU Image Manipulation Program, Inkscape Vector Illustrator
Movie Playback
Windows: Windows Media Player
Linux: Totem Movie Player
DVD Playback:
Windows: WinDVD, Windows Media Player
Linux: DVD Player, Totem Movie Player
Simple Text Editing
Windows: Notepad, Wordpad, TextPad
Linux: Text Editor
Instant Messaging
Windows: AOL Instant Messenger
Linux: Instant Messenger
Music Playback:
Windows: Windows Media Player, Itunes, WinAmp
Linux: Music Player
CD Ripping:
Windows: Itunes, Windows Media Player
Linux: Soundjuicer CD Ripper
CD Burning
Windows: Roxio Easy CD Creator, Nero
Linux: CD/DVD Creator
"Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
Wow, where've you been? In 2.0 and later, you click Actions -> Log out. They've changed the menu in 2.12, so now you click Desktop -> Log out or System -> Log out*. In either case, one of the choices in the window that comes up is to shut down the computer: http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/original.php?rel ease=469&slide=76
*- Honestly, I'm not sure of the difference. I see the "Desktop" menu on my Arch Linux GNOME panel, whereas the Ubuntu screenshot I linked to has a "System" menu. I wonder if Ubuntu's is modified at all, though that seems only reasonably likely.
Specifically the convert program
The names listed in your Gnome menu are not the names of the applications. A while back the Gnome devs recognized that Linux applications have stupid unintuitive names so they decided to give the core programs used in Gnome easy to identify aliases. It's not called "Firefox Web Browser", it's called Firefox. "Totem Movie Player" is an alias for Totem. "Text Editor" is an alias for gedit. There is no Linux app called "Instant Messenger", it's Gaim or Gabber. Go down your list of Linux names and what you find almost every time is an instance where the Gnome devs thought that the real name of the application was too stupid and non-intuitive to be listed by name, so they created an alias for it. This is the entire point of the original article: most Linux applications have stupid names.
I believe the point is that most comparisons compare the names of the Windows apps in menus with the command-line filenames of the Linux binaries. It's just as fair: neither side is making a truly fair comparison.
Most distros provide more descriptive names for applications, just as Windows does. Linux suffers a little because the application author gives the binary an obscure name, even if the big distributions make it clear what the app is for.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think the parent poster meant that as a parody of the original article's bias ;)