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Miguel de Icaza On Usability and Openness
doperative points out comments from Miguel de Icaza on the struggle for usability in many software products:
"De Icaza uses OpenSUSE as his main desktop (with the GNOME interface, of course), says he likes Linux better than Windows, and says the Linux kernel is also 'superior' to the MacOS kernel. 'Having the source code for the system is fabulous. Being able to extend the system is fabulous,' he says. But he notes that proprietary systems have advantages — such as video and audio systems that rarely break. 'I spent so many years battling with Linux and something new is broken every time,' he says. 'We as an open source community, we don't seem to get our act together when it comes to understanding the needs of end users on the desktop.'"
Closed source audio can break too. My last motherboard had onboard RealTek audio. Worked perfectly in Linux. Under XP, it crackled endlessly. Ended up buying a discrete sound card.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I use both Linux and Windows at home and the office. The reason is simple - for back end stuff where I need to write custom stuff, hack data about and get it to do stuff then Linux or occassionally *BSD is king. For front end usage where I want a clean slick and above all consistent interface I'll often use Windows. Partly because I need to interoperate with other people, but mainly because it offers a better and easier working environment. Linux on the desktop is good if you are doing teechnical stuff, like writing an encoding system for digital amateur radio (my current pet project). For using the computer more as a commodity tool for email/word processing/video watching etc Windows still is better presented and more importantly doesnt break grotesquely with every new update that appears like Ubuntu does (and yes I'm looking at 9.10) Until Linux, or more strictly I suppose GNOME/KDE etc get over this then I suspect that further adoption of linux on the desktop will stall.
Understanding the needs of desktop users is perpetually hampered by a large component of Linux culture. The "by nerds for nerds" attitude. Historically this was a great asset when targeting the server and unix workstation markets, users in these areas were typically nerds. However going after the public in general (the mythical year of the Linux desktop) requires a different attitude. To be specific one Linux distribution would need a different attitude, not all of the Linux distributions. Having different distributions focus on radically different communities would seem to be the way to go.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/28/vista_drm_analysis/
Vista's content protection requires that devices (hardware and software drivers) set so-called "tilt bits" if they detect anything unusual. For example if there are unusual voltage fluctuations, maybe some jitter on bus signals, a slightly funny return code from a function call, a device register that doesn't contain quite the value that was expected, or anything similar, a tilt bit gets set. Such occurrences aren't too uncommon in a typical computer... Previously this was no problem - the system was designed with a bit of resilience, and things will function as normal. In other words small variances in performance are a normal part of system functioning.
They cant document these 'tilt bits' (security through obscurity/patent/dmca) which is what causes the problems.
You cant create reliable open source drivers under this kind of shafting from MS/MPAA/RIAA.
How long until Intel's remote shutdown features in SandyBridge gets used to stop 'piracy'.
... that certain components (for example, audio) take a long time to figure out how to make work, and end users tend to get impatient about such things. That doesn't mean no progress is being made, or even that good progress isn't being made.
I've used Linux since about 2000-2001, and I'm not really an expert. From my perspective, Linux of today is leaps and bounds over what it was then in terms of user friendliness, configurability, etc. And in terms of multimedia, well... it's somewhat usable but not there yet. But it gets closer constantly. That doesn't mean it isn't frustrating, and I still cuss out pulseaudio (and eventually uninstall it) every time I try to get it to do things that seem intuitively obvious to me... but each time I've used it I notice improvements, and I'm pretty confident that one day it will just work... at which point there will be something ELSE that everyone complains about.
Because Linux developers don't have direct access to proprietary information, progress on proprietary-heavy aspects of an operating system (like audio, and video, etc.) is unfortunately slower than other areas. Nothing can get around that other than companies open sourcing their drivers and putting patents in the public domain (which is a longer way of saying "nothing can get around that.") But the progress is still both remarkable and laudable. Though I still reserve the right to cuss out the parts of Linux that don't work when I want them to. It's nothing personal, guys, it's just a pain in the ass.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
You know Miguel works for the GNOME project, right?!
Joking aside, it's perfectly possible thanks to open source's inherently modular structure. Someone makes an idiot-proof GUI, distro X bundles it as the default and only option. Someone makes a uberhacker GUI, distro Y bundles it as the default and only option. Distro Z prides itself on being able to switch from newbie to expert and back again in less than three seconds.
IMHO, GNOME tries too hard to lower itself to the lowest common denominator jack of all trades - look at the recent decision to remove the "minimise" button from the taskbar because it's apparently not useful and not optimised for touchscreens. But neither is the rest of GNOME, or all the apps it's going to run. Sorry, if it's touchscreen users you're after then I'm sure GTK is perfectly capable of having a new UI constructed from the same frameworks.
Similarly, KDE often gets flak for having too many confusing options. It's personally the UI I prefer (after I've spent forever configuring it) in *nix but it's not without its own share of problems either, and much like GNOME they seem to have some project heads who are entirely convinced that theirs is the One True Way of doing it. KDE remains more usable to me because of its configuration flexibility though, but it can be baffling if you don't already know your way around, and they make fewer stupid choices than GNOME.
The problem with both KDE and GNOME's approaches (and windows as well for that matter) is people who are convinced that one tool can be everything to everybody (this goes for almost every DE I've seen in the PC world), and that the inherent differences between, say, a 5" touchscreen and a 60" TV warrant completely different approaches. So to answer your question: yes, Linux can (and does) cater to computer novices (I'm not aware of anyone needing to use the CLI in ubuntu for example, but I could be wrong) and still leave all the juicy stuff available to geeks like me. I'm no fan of apple, but when they released a phone they were smart enough to realise it would need a brand new interface, not a badly screwed fork of their desktop OS as MS did with WinCE. This supposedly revolutionary idea has netted them billions because it's the only approach that makes sense. Tightly coupled with the need to have differentiated UI's for different purposes is the attitude some people take is that theirs is the only way to do something, anyone not doing it their way must be stupid. This is tragically false - everyone has a different way of working, and what works for one person doesn't work for another. For instance, I can't live without focus-follows-mouse, despite the fact it took a lot of effort to get working in windows 7, but almost everyone else hates it. Some people just don't want the options to be there because they don't think they're important, and this stops people from finding tricks and tweaks that may help them work better; some bury the config panels with boxes and the user often doesn't have a clue what options to start with.
Off my high horse now. All YMMV, IANAL, IMHO, etc. I just think all these "there is one best way" arguments are detrimental to the computer experience as a whole.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
At this point one might point out that if you can't watch Hulu or Netflix (we're talking about OpenSUSE here), cannot put in a credit card number to buy or rent a movie from Amazon Unbox or iTunes, and must install separate pieces of software in order to watch DVDs, this OS may not be "broken" but it might not really be meeting modern consumer expectations.
Of course you could argue they shouldn't be paying money for content, and that the DRM is illiberal or something, but you're still keeping the customer from doing what they want to do and what other platforms don't think twice about forbidding for what are essentially elitist moral reasons.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Oh hi, I see you are an ATI/AMD video card user trying to use the ATI/AMD drivers. Haven't you heard? Their drivers have been crap from the very beginning.
Want to be up and running playing games within an hour and a half of starting? Here is what you need:
(Prerequisites)
* PC utilizing NVIDIA video chipset
* Ubuntu or OpenSUSE install DVD (either one - if your interest is saving time these are the only two distros worth your time as an end user)
* Internet connection
(Procedure)
* Install your desired distro (it's stupid easy) - including kernel source packages
* Install NVIDIA drivers (slightly less easy; you have to shut down X and run one command line to install the drivers
* Download and install Crossover Games
Now, you can install many, many Windows games, including Rift
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
You know, I'm pretty fed up with OSS attitude toward usability. Apparently you just don't get it.
There needs to be a way to use the software on my machine that doesn't require me to open a MAN page and edit a config file. There's a simple reason for this; people do not have TIME to do these things. The utopian world of thousands of sweaty, Cheetos-encrusted Metallica T-Shirt-wearing geeks the world over writing code that will break the Microsoft monopoly is permanently doomed to failure because you all think that design is making a Mac OSX Metacity theme.
User Interface design has nothing to do with making things "pretty"-- it has to do with making things usable. This is something where nearly all F/OSS fails. Miserably. Making software that does work cleverly is good. Making it intuitive and powerful is excellent. That's not dumbing it down; you'll find that making a user interface that works well, and designing software to do things right, quickly, is significantly harder than writing good, clean code. Shifting the blame of not being able to design an interface well to users being "stupid" is shameful-- don't blame your inadequacies on anyone but yourself.
There will never be a year of the Linux desktop because geeks will never get that.
There goes the lower TCO I guess.
I think you exemplify the fundamental open source attitude, namely that only people who know how to code deserve to have a working computer, and everyone else has to pay through the nose that the coders may deign to help them. The fantasy is world where the IT dweeb becomes the overpaid fat-cat and the right to compute is really a privilege delegated by a priesthood.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The content owners have asked (and the hardware providers agreed, at least partially because a number of the content owners are hardware makers - Sony) that the hardware not play some things in some ways without "approved" software. And there's an active campaign against "open" because doing things with "open" like putting custom "open" firmware onto a drive to remove region coding is legal but undesired. So if they malign "open" and call people who play region 2 disks in their region 1 drive "pirates" then they can associate them with criminals who fraudulently sell fake software as the real thing. And the RIAA and MPAA are very involved in that campaign against "open" and that campaign, even if not crafted to harm sound and video drivers on the desktop, does have that effect.
Learn to love Alaska
My argument is that I want a product that has one predictable price, and once paid it works like any other tool. The open source business model is about selling services to make products that only work well enough to keep you buying more services -- Shuttleworth can engage in all the altruism he pleases but eventually someone needs to pay their bills, and for devs services on Linux are the only option. I don't want a serf, but if you decide a priori that shrinkwrapped software is forbidden, it becomes impossible to retail a "just works" solution; you're stuck paying the $100/hour guy who rolls his eyes at you all the time. I mean, this is your pitch for consumer Linux: it's free but your costs for support of X that Windows and OSX have will either cost you $unknown or $MAX_INT, if the feature is in forbidden by "stupid laws." Why would anyone take that deal? If you cannot yourself code, the continuing free-as-in-freedom benefits of Linux are meaningless.
Everybody here assumes I'm using Windows, which is interesting. I've never used a Windows PC outside of a Kinkos, let alone owned one...
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I thought the discussion was about mainstream adoption of open source software.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It's not "his personal problem" with open source. It's A LOT of people's problem with open source. Plus, anytime someone actually dares to say some interface is, shall we say, less than optimal, someone like you comes out of the woodwork to say "don't you dare tell me what to spend my time on! If you want it fixed, why don't you lead the effort to fix it yourself!"
Therein lies the problem. You want desperately for Linux to succeed, but you don't want to actually spend the time and effort working on the things that ordinary users care about.