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Living Free With Linux, Round 2
bsk_cw writes "About a month ago, in Living free with Linux: 2 weeks without Windows, Preston Gralla wrote about what life was like for a long-time Windows user trying to live with Linux. His main problems came when he tried to install or update software. Loads of people responded with advice — so he went back and tried again. Here's what he learned, and what did and didn't work for him."
I find these reviews of "converting to linux" a bit pointless really; they're only ever one persons' perspective on what a conversion is, of which I often find I can't relate to much of what they go through.
I'd suggest if someone wants to do a "Linux conversion log" type write-up, they consider a target audience. In particular, i'd like to see:
- The web-user; email, web, and IM (99% of reviews fall into this category)
- The business user; Exchange, blackberry, important Office data (spreadsheet, word), Wifi, power-saving management, enterprise facilities
- The multimedia user: MP3, iPod sync, games, DVD, video editing.
That in my opinion makes up most computer users, and in particular most MacOS/Windows users...the target audience. Take a person from each category and see how they survive 2 weeks on Linux; that I'd be truly interested in.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Yeah, pretty bizarre that a two word command causes so much vexation. Most people can handle a command line interface to, for instance, their dog. "Rover, fetch" "Rover, sit" etc. Is "apt-get install" really that much different?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"That's exactly what Linux needs."
I disagree. What it needs is people who can write for clueless users. NOT people who are actually totally clueless writing about it.
We seem to have the latter here.
And have to say that it is rather well balanced. But it also reminds me of something: I've been using Linux for more than a decade, and things to which I'm accustomed - like using the command line - are not at all intuitive to the Windows user.
There is this tendency among Linux evangelists to try to "fix" a neophyte's problems rather than listening to what he's saying. While Linux has made large inroads in the desktop arena, at its heart it is UNIX, not Windows. One of the larger issues of Linux adoption is that Windows users have a mental model of computers which is Windows-specific:
Making Linux ubiquitous on the desktop will be a matter of coming up with a simpler, more accessible mental model of a computer for the end user. It will not come about by fixing a particular problem with a particular distribution.
The average computer user is an expert in something *other* than computers. They're not interested in learning the vagaries of hardware configuration or knowing about kernel dumps and command lines. They use a computer as a tool to *do something other than programming*. They want something easy to use, secure, and reliable. Windows comes through on the first part. Linux on the latter parts. However, security and reliability are a moot point if you can't use the computer in the first place. Hence, Windows gets chosen time and again, in spite of its flaws.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
The thing he found hardest, the thing he singled out for special mention as the worst problem, was: installing new software.
Eeek.
That's what Linux distros, particularly Debian-based ones, do best! The package management is the best single feature of Debian and Ubuntu, light-years ahead of the situation in Windows.
Now, he's not a troll and he's not an idiot. Which means that he has just helpfully identified something we should work on.
His basic problem is that he is used to Windows, where things are done differently. Either Microsoft Office is installed or it isn't; and the only pieces of Office that you can see are large chunks like Word, Excel, etc. It was surprising and alarming to him when there were hundreds and hundreds of little packages with odd names. For example, the updater told him it would update "anachron -- cron-like program that doesn't go by time" and he didn't know what to make of that.
In his Part 2 article, he recommends that you never update any package you don't understand. Eeek, again! What if there is a critical security update to DNS or something? He is unlikely to know what it is, so he will decline it. And he will be working very hard to go through the list and uncheck the update box for the vast majority of his packages.
The correct policy is to have the updater pull from a trusted source, and just let it update. Trust the system.
In all fairness, Windows has its share of similarly weird stuff. But they have done a much better job of wrapping it up to present to the user.
When you run Windows Update, it won't give you anything called "anachron", but it will give you things like "hotfix 967363: A Windows Server 2008-based DHCP server does not register DNS records for earlier version DHCP clients that do not send option 81 to the DHCP server". But this will be labeled as a "critical" patch that you really need to take.
Perhaps Ubuntu should have a popup on the update manager that gives newbies a quick overview of package management on Linux? Things are much better than the mess in Windows, so we need to make sure that newbies understand what's going on. When new users are confused, that should be treated as a bug, and fixed.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
A beginner also doesn't know what to do when setup.exe pops up a dialog box saying 'Installshield Error: -51'. Actually, most advanced users don't either, come to think of it.
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But not everyone WANTS to learn how to use apt. Most people want to turn it on, click an icon, and have something install. Not have to add a repository, update the package listings, install it, etc.
Writing for a clueless user and telling them how to do that only works for non-lazy clueless users. Which are somewhat rare. Most clueless people are clueless from laziness.
Except that a better comparison is if you named your dog "Farciot-Shake", "Sadi-RollOver", "Satyendra-Heel", or, in general, some combination of a name completely outside of your native culture and a verb which sounds like a command you've already given the dog.
(note: obviously, I'm assuming an American English culture; substitute names alien to your culture to fill in the gaps if need be)
Forget Debian/Ubuntu/etc. Then, ask yourself what an "apt" is. And why it has anything to do with installing programs. Then, still remembering that you're forgetting you know Debian/Ubuntu, ask why you need "install" at the end of "apt-get", which sounds like you're already asking the system to get the program you're asking for. Non-geeks don't care about the difference between "get" and "install", and the redundancy throws a wrench in their understanding.
Same goes with "yum" (same situation as apt, minus the redundant verb). Same with "emerge" (which is on a system with far more baffling points for a non-geek). Same with "ports" or "portmanager" (while "manager" helps, the "ports" part of it can cause non-BSD geeks to puzzle over the new meaning). It's the sometimes strange, it-made-sense-at-the-time command line names that, at times, drive the laypersons away from the command line.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Well, if he's trying to review from a 'clueless user' perspective, he's certainly on track.
You don't get it, do you?
Adding a user through GST's "Users and Groups" is also the same thing as editing /etc/passwd, /etc/group and /etc/shadow. Guess which one a newbie end-user migrating from Windows is going to understand?
Vim and Gedit also do the same thing (more or less). Guess which editor newbies have an easier time understanding?
In fact, Brasero and cdrtools do the same thing. Brasero even calls cdrtools to do it's thing. How many newbie users migrating from windows are going to type 'man cdrecord'?
Big hint: if the answer to all of these questions is not obvious to you, my friend, then you are decidedly not helping 2009 -- or any other year -- be the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
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Try sitting someone inexperienced with computers in front of Synaptic, and sit someone else in front of the Apple App Store. Don't help them. See who figures out how to install a program first.
There's an absolute night-and-day difference between a package manager, written by and for people who don't ever think outside the *nix box, and an App Store, written by design experts for people who have never installed a software program before. Claiming that a package manager is "more powerful" is utterly missing the point.
You don't have to be a mechanic to put gas in your car. You don't have to be an electrician to plug in a lamp. You shouldn't have to be a CS major to install a program.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I'm negating my moderation to reply to this...
Command lines lack language intuitiveness. (If there is such a thing...) I deal with this with my designers when I write up an API for their work. If I want them to add content to the screen, do I have them type Screen.Load('mycontent.file') or Screen.Add(new File('myContent.file')? There are so many different ways to "say" something to a computer to make it do what you want. If it's in the GUI, the user can visually determine what button to click because the button is given to them. They don't have to guess to type "Yes", "Okay", "Continue", "Cancel", "Stop", "Abort" or several other verbs to describe how the program should proceed. They only have the choices available on the screen.
when I go to the command line and I want to add a user, do I type:
ADDUSER nschubach
ADD USER nschubach
ADD ID nschubach
ADD LOGIN nschubach
LOGIN ADD nschubach
LOGINID ADD nschubach
USER ADD nschubach
USERADD nschubach
If it was in the GUI, there would simply be a text field and a button. They likely wouldn't have to guess if it was called a Login ID, User ID, Active Directory ID, or any other. They would know that it was the field you enter the user id into. With a GUI you can group content to make it more intuitive as well. If you have a field called Client, is it the client ID or the client name? If you group that with Address, you can figure out that it's the client's name. If you had that in a command line, you'd have to first know to use "client" instead of "customer" or "user" and you'd have to use it in a way that the executable understands it.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Why exactly does the GUI exist as a visual tool, then? What is the benefit of it that makes it so compelling for so many people? Perhaps you need to put away your man pages and THINK about it.
There's another corollary benefit to GUIs beside what I mentioned above: they can tie visual memory to other symbolic memory. The two can be very separate and distinct. For instance, I will routinely forget the details of something I've read, but if I read it in a book I'll remember which opposing page contained it and even which column or paragraph it was in. In other words (no pun), I'll forget the words but remember its spatial location.
A properly implemented GUI can use visual memory and reasoning to enhance other forms of memory. It's not all-or-nothing.
Yeah, and I'd like a full-service gas station at every fracking corner so I'm not required to learn how to pump gas.
The the hell is wrong with people?!? Not everyone in the 80's with PCs were early-adopter whiz-kids. You remember the 80s, right? The pre-GUI-centric days of the PC where people had to actually type in commands to get shit done? Where the hottest programs of the day were Lotus 123 and Wordstar and Wordperfect that required byzantine key combinations to do half the interesting stuff? If Granny could figure out Word Perfect 20 years ago while being a secretary at the local elementary school she sure as hell can deal with popping open an xterm and typing a few "apt-get" commands today.
We see phrases today about people being more "technology savvy"? Give me a break. Pressing "Play" on the Blu-Ray player, being addicted to WoW, or running around like a pompous ass with a bluetooth phone dongle hanging from your ear at the 7-11 does not make people "savvy" at anything, except knowing how to fashionably piss away their money.
An "apt-get" or "portage" one-liner or two typed into a command prompt is no more effort than going to a web site, finding the downloads page, clicking a button, and then running the installer with all its options to choose from and EULA to read. In fact, the typical command line package manager is LESS work for the end user.
I've had it, man. I'm totally fed up. I've been rooting for the Linux underdog since the late 90s. No more. Linux just is what it is, which is a kick-ass operating system for the PC and various other devices. Chasing the "Year of the Desktop" is a fool's errand for Linux and other open source efforts. Come *ON* people, quit making excuses for the users. If Linux were the the only OS in the mass market, people would be doing wonderfully, just like in the 80s when MS-DOS was king. The truth is, people don't want it. Period. They like what they have (Windows mostly, with some OS-X sprinkled around), and fear change. At least Linux is gaining traction in the netbook market, where at least some people will inevitably cut their teeth on the OS and become set in their ways.
There is simply no point in these articles, as all they do is highlight not only how lazy the end user has become, but how tech-oriented people not only expect, but condone, such laziness. It's really sad when you think about it. To hell with the lowest common denominator. Let them sink or swim on their own. They truly don't deserve the fruits of open source developers' labors unless they're willing to roll up their sleeves once in a while.
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