Slashdot Mirror
Salon on why "Linux Needs Help"
Matt Welsh sent us
a link to a Salon story on
Why
Linux Needs Help. It features a lot of truth, and
poses the simple question, can free software geeks write
software for dumb users? Has a spiffy penguin graphic and
a lot of good points (most of which aren't new to us,
but they are well written).
For the same reason some people don't know how cars work, or how antibiotics work, or how tv's work.
THEY HAVE OTHER THINGS TO DO AND LEARN!
Isn't it great that you don't have to know how every single tool you use works?
Don't drive that car, you don't know how the engine works!
Don't take that medicine you don't know how the biochemistry works!
Sounds like: Don't use Linux if you don't know how your computer works!
Bullshit!
No one should be shut out of a solid and robust system just because they don't know how it works.
Those fucking elitist attitudes just waste time. If you don't want to help newcomers who don't have time to learn Research OS (another name for Linux) but want to use it anyway, then ignore them.
SOME of us, however, have been down the long hard road of learning how to use Linux and so no reason to force other people down that road when they don't need to or want to take it. AND I won't stick em with MS crap either. Everyone should use a powerful and stable operating system.
AND perhaps I'll charge the hell out of them to do it for them, just like a mechanic, or a doctor.
(very evil grin)
There is an inverse relationship between the level of a bullding block and the amount of training needed:
- Compilers
- Kernels
- Toolkits
- Applications
- Interfaces
- Documentation
We're at the point where nonprogrammers should start to get more involved.
I've been able to explain to a dumb person (by her own definition) how to create XMT resource files to create an interface to a program. If the Linux desktop were just an XML thing, a lot of designers can join in.
The same dumb person was able to produce a manual for a VR application. She had no previous knowledge of graphics and was not a designer. After explaining to her basic concepts in a simple way, she wrote a much better manual than I would have. She was also very pleased with the things she learned. As usual, she would discover how to do things I had not tried to implement, many times because of bugs which resulted in features she found useful.
Reason #152
"For the same reason some people don't know how cars work, or how antibiotics work, or how tv's work.THEY HAVE OTHER THINGS TO DO AND LEARN!"
Reason #153
Some people are lazy and want things to be handed to them instead of striving for them.
"No one should be shut out of a solid and robust system just because they don't know how it works."
Reality check. Life isn't fair
You get out what you put in.
"SOME of us, however, have been down the long hard road of learning how to use Linux and so no reason to force other people down that road when they don't need to or want to take it. AND I won't stick em with MS crap either. Everyone should use a powerful and stable operating system."
*Need to? Bully for progress.
*Want to? If they want the fruit they're going to have to climb the tree.
*Everyone should? People should have many nice things out of life, but apparently life has hearing problems. Bummer.
I'll tell you what GNOME offers that is more than pushing pixels... session management, CORBA, multi-language widget set, etc. And for the future.. a real font api with anti-aliasing, component structure, and unicode support.
You simply dont like GUIs, so fine dont use them and quit complaining about them.. no one makes you use them.
Ok people this not Nietzsche or alchemy or the hammer or the ruler...this is fire.
In the beginning there was fire.
Fire was warmth
Fire was light
Fire was flesh preserved
Fire was protection
Fire was the knowledge of Fire
Fire was the domain of the magician
Fire is dangerous
Flint and stone and twig and the secrets of breath
Now is heat pump air conditioner 100 watt toaster over microwave saturday night special
The knowledge is dead. The magician is dead. The danger is dead.
Linux is fire.
Fire only destroys the past. The future must be built.
I love the coders for they are the roads we travel
I love the promoters for they sing the songs
I love the CLI - 12 button mice zealots for they prepare earth, animal and plant for the future.
I love the GUI advocates for they love man
I love the dreamers for they dance as they walk
I love the newbies for they are the stone turners
Always remember the highest mystery of every secret society is that the puzzle is only to conceal the conspiracy of world domination. Who will create a new country. Who will retake Jerusalem. Who will reconcile the opposites.
Linux will only be a secret handshake and no one will understand why the secret symbols linger in their easter eggs.
Thus spoke the anon cow.
...if you know the name of the command you are looking for!
:)
There are many many users coming to linux who know exactly what it is they want to do, know there is a way to do it in linux, but are at a loss as to how to find how to do it.
A help system, like OS/2's, that will search the howto's, man pages, etc, for phrases you type, and give an appropriate list of man pages and howto documents located on the system would be a wonderful thing.
'help disk space' should point a user to the 'df' command, for example.
Just an idea
first of all, its rude
second of all, its mean
third of all, if one used it in the context
of discussing design of a computer, it would
be an 'ad hominem' argument form, and thus logically
invalid. afaik, logical validity is important
when discussing design issues.
fourth of all, it hurts people's feelings
fifth of all, it drives off good developers
who don't go for that sort of 'user hostile' attitude. sixth of all, just becuase you think something is a joke doesn't mean its funny for others.
you stupid fuck
not everyone can afford big fast computers like you
I was a fair article. The crap I had to put up with the get a bootable disk/latest kernel/latest netscape/kde/gnome/videocard up was an exercise in determination. Can I do that to set up my mom's computer? Yeah, maybe but I made what I hope is my last Microsoft purchase and dialed 1-800-Micron-whatever. Next year, it'll be "www.dell.com/linux". Maybe Mom can hack out a few Gnome apps!
I hate those uppity geeks that
quote html tags and monitor
resolutions (all the way up to
800 x 600 are we) AND TYPE THINGS
IN CAPITAL LETTERS BECAUSE IT'S
THE CLOSEST THEY GET TO RAISING
THEIR VOICE IN A CONVERSATION.
If you did not get it, use the
'asshole' function to see what
I mean.
Apropros is an english word.
Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, unless they've been lying to us all these years.
Ummm - while I do find many people hostile to newbies in the linux world, that car line is not accurate. Alot of people would simply say if you don't know how to read a street sign or put gas in the car, you shouldn't be driving. I take calls everyday from people who can't even tell me what browser they are using unless I ask them if they have big 'E' or 'N' in the corner of their screen.
Even the lowest level job has the expectation that you will learn something about the tools involved in working.
I am allergic to the 'man pages and howto' style of documentation as well; I know where Leonard is coming from.
But there are good manuals already available! Matt Walsh and a collaborator wrote a dandy Linux book for O'Reilly (Running Linux) that's damn close to being a complete introduction to the operating system. I am thinking of buying a second copy so I can have a spare to loan people.
I'm sure others here could recommend other books (and will deep-fry me for my choice).
And who doubts that O'Reilly will come out with a good GNOME manual?
Stefan
Yah Duude CLI Rules (unless you want pics)
I will try to keep this brief, but I have thought about these types of issues ever since I made Linux my primary OS 3 years ago.
I. Computers are not easy! Look at cars. You put gas in them and turn the key. Not many people maintain their own car these days. Computers for the masses should be that easy. But the only way that can happen is if there is a stable platform and applications that conform to standards that don't constantly change. I believe that Linux is headed in that direction.
II. Linux is not meant for the casual user. GNU, Linux, and most of the other OSS software was written by and for computer professionals. Therefore, it is aiming at the business market. This is why M$ is so afraid of it. M$ would probably be thrilled to dump the casual user market. But they cannot afford to lose the business market.
III. What Andrew Leonard really wants is a personal sysadmin. There are plenty of books on Linux (even a "Linux for Dummies", God forbid!) But when a user at a business walks up to a terminal, the software is already installed, configured, and they had better not mess with it. At that level, the only difference between OSes and apps is stability and performance. This is what is winning business over to Linux.
IV. I also read the link to the "vocal minority". That is a rant about how anyone who won't take the time to learn Linux by installing 1.0.0 and work their way forward doesn't deserve to be a Linux user. This is where I have a problem. If that is true, then everyone in the Linux community only deserves to have a car, a house (with plumbing), a computer (with power), and an international communications system if they build it themselves. We computer professionals are way too full of our own importance! The other 99.9% of the world think of us as overpaid mechanics who can type.
V. It may not belong in this discussion, but regarding the comment about standards above, the way the M$ messes up standards, there is a danger of the WWW fragmenting into virtual subnets of compatible servers. Note that IBM's history with open standards is not stellar. For that matter, most businesses hate open standards. So beware folks.
VI. The part I liked best from the article was where Andrew told everyone what RTFM really stands for.
"And I wasn't talking about closing windows; I was talking about the system hiding the windows when you switch tasks.
Although the system thinks I can only operate on one task at a time, usually I'm working on one task using many
tools. I don't like my work in one tool to hide just because I switched tools. If I wanted my app to hide, I'd do it myself."
----
For a while, I couldn't figure out what you were talking about, since it doesn't happen with my system. In fact, I can see my Excel spreadsheet open behind the Netscape window. Then it hit me: there is a switch in a control panel to toggle this option. Go to "General Control" and click on "Show Destop when in background". This will keep the windows of background apps open.
As far as the menu bar goes, another reason for having it at the top of the screen is that it creates a natural barrier when mousing around. You can't overshoot the menubar. Although this might not sound like much, it makes navigating much easier and quicker. In Windows I have to be more purposeful when moving the cursor to the menubar. In the Mac, I make just one little inaccurate flick to the top of the scfreen and I'm there. It might not sound like much, but when you add up all the little things, it leads to tasks getting done much more quickly and less stressfully.
Another thing that leads to faster and more relaxed mousing (once again, remember it's the little things that count) is that the MacOS puts the destructive window button in the top left corner all by it's lonesome. Windows puts this tiny little button next to the minimize and expand buttons. If you're off by one pixel in Windows, zap goes your work! When I use a Mac, I can expand or minimize (windowshade) the window without having to be careful with my mousing. If I'm off by one pixel, so what?
It's the small things that add up. When you take a deep and long look at the Mac GUI, you find that there is quite a bit of reasoning and science behind the decisions that were made.
I have some principles on how to make Linux user-friendly while preserving its integrity...
check out
Linux Is For Everyone.
I've two more articles waiting for completion: 1 about licensing issues, and another about Matrox and starting a campaign to support companies that support Linux.
Anyone who can provide credible, solid legal counsel on the difference between the Apple license (APSL), the BSD License, the GPL, the LGPL, and the QT Public License (QT) would be GREATLY appreciated, as I am putting those analyses on my website so everyone can truly understand the differences (which will cut down on a LOT of confusion).
As for the Matrox thing, I've got that one (sorta) covered.
-- Steve
paladin@best.com
"No one can make you feel inferior without your own consent"
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Well, anyone who needs "expert" information for Windows or Windows NT just to install the software (or figure out what is wrong before calling Technical Support) isn't in any different of a position.
This huge intellectual bias that Windows & Windows NT are "easier" than Linux is wrong. Yet everyone just keeps holding on to it, with help from the Microsoft propaganda machine.
Double plus good! Time for my therapy in room 109.
the .info format and the 'info' browser are .info docs themselves, though,
pretty crappy. the
are quite often kick ass. especially for glibc. theres your example of
OSS with good docs.
Hmmm.... you know, for a while I was giving away technical support to anyone who needed it. I was overwhelmed and had to resign the idea.
/. comming) at:
My website is in need of a new focus (just moved servers, and deleted the old stuff - waiting for ideas)...
If anyone would be interested in helping - I would be willing to set up a 'users for users' type of thing. Keeping a FAQ going, answering questions thorough web/e-mail, putting the answers and questions in an archive (gee I wish they would all use DejaNews as I did.), etc...
We (the Linux users) have to realize that there are going to be (and are) MANY 'Windowz Users' who just want to point-and-click there way into the Linux community.
It seems to me that the only way to do that is through a support system, and why not free support for a free OS?
If anyone would find this interesting please don't hessitate to contact me (ugh oh... I feel the
day e-mail: jlh@vantagetechnology.com (a non interested company) eve e-mail: a.sleep@home.com or ICQ (day: 28664131, eve: 4950280)
Andrew Leonard misses the point by a mile. He wants help? So why doesn't *he* write it? Because he's dumb. So why are we reading his article?
Open source has worked because when people had an itch, they scratched it. Now we've proved the modelw orks, a whole bunch of technically illiterate jerks come along and tell us we gotta *change* it? To hell with that.
If they *really* wanted help, they'd write it themselves. If they can't even do that, they should stick to writing about what they can understand.
We have got to escape from the simple idea that systems are either easy or hard. Even the "help" required is different for different kinds of users.
,and the end result is that they dumbed down Win 95. Particularly they seem to have tested Win 95 on people who have no capability of *abstract* reasoning and no ability to generalize. The result is that instead of organizing help under general principles, showing the conncetions between activities that are similar, Win 95 is ruthelessly concrete, and about a particular activity, giving no hint as to the place of this activity in a more general scheme of things.
Something that brought this home to me dramatically was when I upgraded from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. I couldn't believe how much WORSE the help had got. Sure, there was much more of it, but there was so much extra-wordage telling me about trivialities that I already knew, that it was impossible to find the detailed information underneath. Win 95 was so determined NOT to overwhelm a naive with user with difficult stuff, that it witheld anything useful at all.
Now, I don't think MS are stupid. Win 3.1 help was OK. But I guess they went away and did loads of usability studies with loads of REALLY dumb users
The message I take form this is that there isn't just easy / hard. There's *appropriate*. What's great about Linux is that being open, there's a real chance for experimenting with different ideas of "appropriate" may be we'll see different UIs / distributions for different types of user. Ones who think more abstractly, and one's who think more concretely.
Social skills. You might want to look into them.
You have a choice:
You can be an asshole all day when in fact people are out there.
Or you can go and find them and live.
Life is short. Your move...
Very very short.
Jedidiah has it right, I think. The computer is not "becoming an appliance". People WANT an appliance. A computer IS a powerful, general-purpose tool. Trying to make a computer an appliance is like trying to turn a machine shop into a pair of safety scissors.
Appliances are not a bad thing; people like appliances. Phones, game consoles, PDAs...you plug them in and they work. But they are fundamentally different in scope from a computer. Computers are not at the point where you can just plug them in and go, because their flexibility and complexity requires much more tuning and stroking. And maybe they never will be. Trying to force the issue only results in monstrosities that combine the worst features of appliances and computers. (A dialog box with a little picture, and one button labelled 'OK'...and a message saying "An error of type -11045 has occurred.")
Frankly, Joe and Jane (L)User would probably be better off with WebTV and a Playstation than with a computer. Don't want to bother messing with the technical details of computers? Don't get a computer. This should not be construed as a flame, any more than "Don't drive a Model T if you don't want to spend time learning about how it works" is a flame. Computers are very complex and still very young; don't expect them to become turnkey appliances overnight.
Just about every KDE app comes with HTML help.
Wake up, you Freaks.
Of _course_ Office runs fast *after the first start* because the Office DLLs are now in memory.
Didja ever wonder why Micros~1 has a floating app bar for Office? That bar pulls in the bloated DLLs at boot, when you don't notice them.
Of course, RAM occupied by those DLLs are useless for your other apps...;)
The article raises several good points but doesn't go far enough or relate the need for usability to the need for free software, which is at the heart of the issue. *** Free software (GNU) requires and demands usability and usability needs and requires free software ***.
I would like to add some points which were left out of the article, probably because of lack of space for this journalistic assignment. Taken togther, these points may bring it all into focus even though my way of expressing it isn't the best or most carefully thought out. I'm composing as I go.
1. Free software isn't really free unless people can use it. It is only free for the technical specialists and only for those specialists who have the time to learn the arcane structure of unix or who have already been trained in using it.
2. Good software developers write programs which are easy to use. Incompetent developers write programs which are difficult to use or have arcane features. Here an "operating system", as such, is not a program, but is like a library or support software. By program I mean any kind of application, including apps for system administrators like cron and sendmail.
Does this mean that most unix programs are poorly written software? Yes , it does. Even for professional programmers, engineers, and sysadmins, most unix progarms are not good software. The authors of these programs are incompetent, and should be ashamed of calling themselves software developers.
3. The reason why unix (and therefore most derivative Linux software) is arcane and difficult to use is for the job security of those who have traditionally administered or used it. By requiring a hazing process to gain admission to the circle or fraternity of unix competent users or administrators, the job security of those who hold such positions is enhanced. That is a low motivation, but it's the primary one.
Writing documentation and making programs easier to use is not avoided because it's not sexy or glamourous. In fact, people who are good at this are well paid and well respected. The reason is that doing a good job in this area is opposed by the majority of current unix administrators and other who make a good living (too good a living) from maintaining a monopoly on administering poorly written software for "end users", usually in large corporations and government bureaucracies. This is directly in opposition to the spirit of freedom embraced and expounded by GNU and by Linux.
4. Linux documentation does suck. That is not so much the fault of those who write the documentation, but of the software authors or coders who don't design programs which are self-documenting and which even have consistent and meaningful command line parameters, flags, etc. These are wildly inconsistent from on app to another, leaving both the documentation writer and the end user at a loss - without actually reading the code. Reading the code itself is currently the only way to properly understand 90% of Linux programs well enough to use them effectively.
5. GNU's not unix and Linux is not unix. Rather than saying Linux sucks, it would be more accurate to say that unix sucks. Yes, unix has its good points which Linux embraces and builds on to the point that Linux is now more compatible with the various flavours of commercial unix than they are with each other, but still that is only a place for Linux to start.
The first step was to free the code and build a solid foundation. The next is to free the programs so that people can use them. The author of the article was correct in pointing out that several efforts in that direction are underway, and in encouraging these developments. Not negative at all.
6. People who post here at Slashdot who state that making Linux easier to use will water it down or make the underlying system less powerful are to be disregarded out of hand. I will not be polite - those who pride themselves on being command line junkies and who think that to be "intelligent" users must be command line junkies are not intelligent people. I do not know of a single really good software developer who regards users this way - they want to write programs that are powerful but easy to use. Quite a few people who are a lot more intelligent than 99% of programmers and sysadmins including medical doctors, nobel prize winners, and others do not want to learn everything about how software works to use it. They just want to use it. Likewise, do you nerds and geeks need to know everything about how an airplane works to fly on one or about how your car works to drive it? When your car breaks down, the mechanic doesn't tell you to RTFM, but fixes it for you if he is any good. A good backyard mechanic who is your friend or relative may fix your car for free in the same way that a programmer might do in the free software community.
7. Finally, the author of the article is by no means a "stupid user". He was just trying to put himself in the place of one. Read the article carefully - he has delved into some of the software quite a bit and knows what he is writing about.
8. The cartoon with the nerdy or geeky penguin leading other penguins off a cliff is quite accurate. Nerds and geeks should not be representing Linux to others. Nerds and geeks are not intelligent or creative people - or even good software authors. They are people who may have a few specialized skills but who lack wisdom and real intelligence and above all social skills. Really good software authors have skills in a wide range of areas and respect for "dumb users" who have skills in other areas. It is a shame that people who visit this site have adopted the moniker of "nerd" or "geek" with pride and given it a different meaning. I choose to refer to the original meaning, which is quite uncomplimentary.
9. Because business amd society and civilization needs free software and needs software it can use, the success of Linux and what may evolve from Linux is assured, regardless of roadblocks set up both by proprietary software companies (including proprietary unix vendors) on the one hand and by nerds and geeks who don't want people to use Linux on the other.
Nerds and geeks - go work for Microsoft. You are in the same camp - opposing the evolution of human life and the advance of civilization. Linux needs and demands something else, software authors with real intelligence and understanding of what software is supposed to do. Fortunately Linux has plenty of such people, and more are coming on board every week.
calling people 'dumb' is not any more
productive than giving up on finding
the man page you want, or giving up
on getting something to compile.
in fact, they are the same thing, and
they come from fear.
Making Linux easier to use SHOULD be a goal of ours. But sometimes I think people fail to look at it from the right perspective. Ease-of-use almost always gets rolling after functionallity.
Alot of reviewers groan about the difficulty of installing and using Linux compared to Win-anything. Well, a couple things here. First, let's not forget the giant strides Linux has made. The distributions are better, as are the Window managers available.
Second, don't forget how BAD that 'other' OS used to be. Remember the DOS / Win 3.1 days? Memory management? Loading TSR's into high memory? Let's face it - that was little more than a chore for a geek, and downright mystifying to a so-called stupid user.
The strides Windows has made in ease-of-use are simply a factor of its gradual evolution. It's not something only dedicated programmers working for a corporation can do. Linux can make similar strides.
The problem is that these writers doing tech stories on Linux expect that leap to be made instantaneously. But realistically, that process so far has been chugging along faster than DOS/Windows ever did.
- Speed
"Want to? If they want the fruit they're going to have to climb the tree."
No they will pay some kid 5 cents to climb the tree for them.
actuall the ppp problem is that pppd hasnt
been fixed much for several months ( years? )
-----check the source for pppd-----, 'chat' is a half assed
attempt to separate the 'talk with the modem
and get it working' part from the 'handle the ppp
protocol stuff' part.. but there are bits that belong
in chat still left in the pppd daemon. meanwhile who
gives a shit about poor people w/o T1 lines, we'll make a
shitty gui wrapper instead of fixing the problem.
Uh, if I were sitting in a car for the first time in my life, I might
ask that question. I might also wonder about that stick with
the knob on the end. Is it a joystick? And why do I hear
horrible grinding when I move it around? What are all those
little lights?
It turns out that a car really isn't all that obvious or user-
friendly. But, once you learn a little about it, the controls
turn out to be a very efficient way to control a heavy
vehicle at high speeds. And once you learn the basics of
one car, you'll have little trouble using a different one, even
one from a different manufacturer.
The same is true for Unix/Linux. The "ls" command may
have seemed obscure to me when I learned it 15 years
ago, but I only had to learn it once. And it works the same
pretty much everywhere. You can't say the same for the
various MS interfaces.
I hate those clueless newbies that do not know that on slashdot comments 'enter' means 'new paragraph' (close as p.../p in HTML) and not 'new line'. Let the browsers do the line wrap themselves, they are pretty good at it anyway, and DO NOT MAKE YOUR COMMENTS HARD TO READ ON 800x600 BECAUSE YOU PRESSED THE ENTER KEY IN THE WRONG PLACES!!!
If you did not get it, use the 'preview' function to see what I mean.
MacOS X has/will show that that a powerful OS and a powerful OS are not mutually exclusice. Linux needs serious help in this area. I've tried KDE and Gnome, and they are both very weak in this area. I don't want to spend my time using a computer, I want to spend my time getting work done (yes, there is a difference).
Somebody (www.LUIGUI.org?) needs to lauch a serious effort to design a professional level GUI. From what I can tell, KDE and Gnome have gone the Windows way of GUI development: try to copy the look, without understanding the reasoning behind the decisions that lead to the look. The result is a usability disaster (e.g. the current Windows UI).
I'm sure there are many people out there that haven't contributed to Linux because you are very good at programming. But Linux doesn't need programers right now, Linux needs usability engineers, ergonomisists, human factors engineers, psychologists, cognitive scientists, etc. Heck, Linux needs naive usability lab rats!
So, umm, err, I'm out of steam...
Very well put.
I wouldn't consider Salon a mass market e-zine. Sure, it's slick and it covers general topics. But People or Time are what I think of as mass market print magazines. Salon isn't like those; it's acually good. I think Salon is the best general read on the 'net, and as we know, anything that's the best is not mass market.
we have w2k server an "professional" (workstation) boxen running in the office. sux up about 64MB ram just running, no other apps running...they have yet to Get A Clue. I'll stick w/ Linux and BeOS, THAAANK youverymuch.
well acshully stability doesnt seem to be too bad (hasnt taken a beating yet) but memory issues are goin to be just as bad or get worse as it approaches release. It could have debug stuff running on it (i'd have to care to find out). But its gonna be a ram hog in any event. Thing is apps (at least Office2K apps) start VERY fast after their first start (sets some settings etc). Its still evil tho ;)
Linux, like MS Windows, is mostly a giant game of Trivial Pursuit. Quick, how do I fix .fvwmrc so that clicking the right mouse button brings up a menu of current windows?
If you're a geek, you hang around with other geeks, and one will know the answer.
Me, I'm just a 55 year old Development Director who wanted cheap internet access and email. Getting this question answered is a tough one, because I have a different social group.
We just need a reference book filled with answers to these questions. Book=more than 1000 pages. Skip the silly chapters on C++ and Tcl, which are not needed. Just a thorough grounding in configuring X, especially how to add items to the menus in whatever it is that comes with RH5.2. And a rational explanation of email. Please, keep sendmail and qmail. Communigate Pro looks interesting.
Quick, what's the easy command line to recompile PHP with support for ODBC and Postgresql? A. rpm -bb mod_php3.spec See, I'm not so dumb.
I did write a donor management app in Paradox that ran 15,000 lines. I retired on it. I'm rewriting it as a web app. I may not hit 1000 lines of HTML.
My information needs for Linux are very different from yours. What makes it so hard is that I keep getting hammered for asking stupid questions.
The key piece of help the article points out is needed is help with documentation. I cannot agree more. There have to be thousands of people out there who use Free Software, and wish that they could contribute, but they don't know how to code.
Write documentation! You don't need to know how to code if you can write (you don't even need to be able to write perfectly). If there's a program you know how to use, but doesn't have good documentation, write some. If the program has some documentation, maybe it could use an update, or maybe it could use some more.
Every program needs at least reference documentation, something saying what the program does, and how to get it to do that. A more complex program could also use a Tutorial, a FAQ or an Installation Guide. Also useful is task oriented howto-like guides. If you have a new or interesting use for a program, document it, I'm sure others would be interested.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Now if every system aliased 'apropos'(surely one of the most cryptic command names of all) to 'help'...
When something is difficult to do, it becomes an opportunity for business to sell a product. A need is percieved, a need is satisfied, and a profit is made.
Take for example - the Linux system: Before distributions, it took an experienced and determined computer user to even get it to boot! (A business opportunity if ever there was one.) Take the installation of applications on a computer system - not easy for newbies but now is a no-brainer thanks to InstallShield. Take the problems with having to reinstall and reconfigure a Windows system - not easy for anyone but now is alot easier thanks to GHOST. Take the percieved lack of administrative coherancy in systems - opportunities for products such as CA-UniCenter and Novell Directory Services.
Difficulty equates to business opportunity. There is NO reason why a profit can't be made on making something easier to use. It is, after all, Microsoft's claim to fame.
With Linux, however, the promise of stability is as real as the firm foundation the Linux Kernel represents. The addition of ease of use items may well be left to third-party developers who have a free and open ended invitation to make a quick and solid buck.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
but not at the expense of stability.
I'll say right off that I like the Mac interface and feel that it is about the easiest one there is to use. Macs are also VERY easy to support! You can reinstall the System folder while the machine is running by doing a simple copy! You can boot clean by holding down a simple key. The OS provides meaningful feedback to help diagnose and fix problems etc... etc... etc...
While the Mac is an excellent Multimedia machine, it's stability is still no great leap over what a Windows machine's is. Hence, Apple's adoption of a more stable OSX/BSD kernel while retaining the World Famous Mac interface.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is carrying so much baggage (read backwards compatability), proprietary interfaces (read exclusivity), and interdependencies (read House of Cards idea incorporated in DLL structure) that they have painted themselves into a corner. They have so tightly integrated the User Interface with the rest of thier OS structure that it is nearly inextricable. Microsoft has focused on ease-of-use to combat Apple - thier main strategy for the last five years, taking competitor's ideas and incorporating them into the OS - Browsers and Multimedia Extensions, and hiding the underlying functions from the world and presenting stylized API's - Win32, MAPI, TAPI.
All this time, Linux has been putting in the plumbing and laying a firm foundation. Now the framing is done, the electricity is in, the insulation is up, the sheetrock is delivered and the brickwork is just finished. It wont be long until this house is ready for the average user to live in. All the components are interchangeable and customizable by the homeowner too.
You wouldn't build a house and put pretty woodwork and all the amenities in it and then find out that your foundation was cracking would you? Apple found it's foundation aging so, they moved the house, added a new and improved foundation, and put the same house back onto the new foundation. Microsoft went in and gutted thier house, lifted it up - crumbling the weak former foundation, shoved a supposedly firmer foundation under it and set the house back down on the foundation only to find that it doesn't quite fit. (Reportedly breaks 70% of existing applications.) Also, Microsoft has prefurnished it with it's own implements and nailed them to the floor leaving little room for differentiation.
I really look forward to seeing and using MacOSX, laughing at Win2000, and enjoying my Linux system along with all the new software and opportunities included.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
in Linux are easy to classify.
:)
1. Lack of OEM Manufacturer Support. Many manufacturer's of hardware don't release enough information for the creation of OpenSource drivers. This is changing rapidly.
2. Many manufacturer's don't adhere to the letter of the specifications that ARE open or available. For example: The Plug-N-Play spec. Many times, information is incorrect or ommitted entirely from the on-board ROM. The manufacturer's rely on special OEM drivers to take up the slack. I expect this to become a major issue and be resolved in future generations of hardware.
3. The rest are items that are yet to be addressed and represent opportunities for enterprising businesses and OpenSource projects.
Things are getting better all the time!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
With GNOME, I just right clicked on the little modem monitor thingy that I'd added to my panel, chose properties and added "ifup ppp0" for connection and "ifdown ppp0" for disconnection.
:)
System configuration was easy using linuxconf and the gnome configuration tool. E has a nice configuration tool too!
Works like a charm!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Hrm. I'm squinting my eyeballs at you, but...
I think I agree with you. Finally. If I read you correctly, it isn't so much that Linux *can't* be like a Mac, but that it *won't* be like a Mac. (Same with FreeBSD, which pretends to be different from Linux, but really isn't.)
Okay. I'll go there.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I fear the day KDE or Gnome win the interface war. On that day, diversity and *variety* die. Figuratively, of course.
Do you know what happens when a genetic pool collapses into a single point? In all cases, the ecology collapses, as well. Homogeneity is *bad*, pure and simple. If MS or Apple became the only producer of operating systems, the world of technology would shrivel up and die. The same is true of user interfaces, though not on such a dramatic level.
What you want is a world in which everything is the same, and predictable. What I want is a world in which everything is different, but logical. I bet my world is more interesting, and just as "easy-to-use."
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I don't see it. You say the Mac has the most homogenous applications-- but Lightwave is as different from Photoshop on the Mac as it is in NT. The Mac is just as bad at it as MS-WinXX. At least, in my limited experience.
I agree; you should be able to approach a new application and figure it out from the interface. A push-button should be the same in a word processor as it is in a RAD environment.
I haven't read "Tog on Software Design." Where do I find it? I mean, I can think of a couple of oddball reasons to have a 3D modeller talk to a word processor. (Self-documenting models come to mind with little imagination.) And manipulating a procedural texture should be similar whether I'm using a modeller or a vector-graphics program. But to insist on integration constrains what a computer can be, just as insisting that all cars have automatic transmissions constrains what a car can be.
Integration isn't the key to ease-of-use; intuition and human nature is. The world is not integrated. My home life is so completely different from my work life it's unbelievable. And at work I wear at least 3 different job descriptions, and each job is different.
I'm gonna take a wild leap and predict where the next leap in ease-of-use will be, and it has nothing to do with whether the menu is at the top of the screen or under the title bar.
It's in AI. Or at least, Adaptive Environments. (I just made that up.) The computer should be able to profile a user, make adjustments to the user's preferences (based on past experience and use), and adjust the environment to the user.
I just figured out what it is about Cassius's arguments that upset me; not only does he assume programmers are idiots, but he also assumes that we aren't even smart enough to copy the Mac, as is, and catch up to it in ease-of-use. We'd have to be damn stupid not to be able to do that.
I think we want something better. The Mac leaves a funny taste for most computer geeks. It's that funny taste that puts most of us off. I think we want something better. And we know we can do better. And its taking us a lot of time, but I think we are getting there.
It's not just Linux. It's everything. We're stagnating into arguing over whether a mouse should have one button or three. (Nobody wants two.) We've reached a point where *we don't know what to do next.* I don't think there's been a true innovation in 10 years. (Can you think of one?) It's just bigger, better, faster, better-looking.
I think that's the *really* frustrating part.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I think most of you guys are missing the point of this article. He needs HELP, not documentation. While most of you (including myself) hate people like this, they do exist, and it doesn't take a lot of work to write up HELP.
:)
2 friends of mine and I were thinking of doing something along the lines of "Linux for Dummies", only, actually helpful. Talking about everything from standard compiling routines, to using various package managers, handling bash, vi, emacs, etc.
It's not the fact that this stuff is hard, but the fact that most people just are not affluent to tech-speak. So, if we translate our speak to english (and other languages of course), this shouldn't be too hard to master. Also, you might want to note that while the average joe has to learn how to compile the kernel, he may not know enough about bash to even get to the directory where the kernel source is located.
We need a few distinct things to happen before we can really get this going. Please mail me at belman@hempseed.com if you are interested in taking on such a project.
1) Centralized Help Directory. No LDP, man, info, xman, kfm's help, gnome help, etc. etc. etc. Something that all linux users can find, and know exist on their system. Also it would be nice if programs could call these files via a mimetype or direct program, so that the system could get integrated into GUI programs.
2) HELP, not documentation. That means, those of you in tech support and are familiar with standard user problems (whether in linux or not) could be of great help here, describing normal problems that new users face.
3) Cross-Linked Index of Terms. Ala, when MTU appears in a HOWTO, Help file, or other docs, it would be linked to an index entry on MTU, describing it. This could probably be done relatively simply with perl and HTML, using a wordlist to parse and finding various information on the net to use for descriptions of the terms.
The point is, is that all of this stuff is already there, we just need someoen to collect ALL of it, not just the Linux HOWTO's, and put it in a simple to use, easily accessable interface. The rest is just some elbow grease, and I think that if we got enough people interested it would be easy to do.
email me at belman@hempseed.com if you are interested, especially if you have some experience writing GUI apps (As I do not), wanting to write documentation, or are a self-proclaimed perl god.
-Erik-
When it comes to computers there are many things that are intrinsically complex, and no amount of smart GUI will make it simple. It will merely hide its complexity.
That's why some tasks, when atempted with Windows, become like a magic ritual, needing endless trying and lots of reboots before it works. And when it finally does, we don't know exactly why it did, nor can we do it again without going through all the mystic wizardry again.
I'm sorry but I've tried more than once to
install GNOME and KDE and had to give up in both
cases. I use Red Hat, so I try to get away with
installing just binary RPMs if I can, but the
GNOME RPM required me to install a dozen other
RPMs, which each needed various upgrades and
further RPM dependencies which I had trouble
locating and installing...
...so then I tried installing KDE. I plowed my way
through the CVS setup then ran CVS to install
KDE, again confronted with dozens of missing
dependencies and other things that needed to
be installed and upgraded and configured and
reconfigured and recompiled and installed and
setup and reinstall and download this patch and...
Oh my aching head!! I'm sticking with plain
ol' WindowMaker!!
type cd \
It says invalid switch
You typed the forward slash; the backslash is above the enter key"
what?
I said you typed foward slash instead of backslash; the backslash key is just above the enter key.
oh
(long pause)
Now it says bad command or file name.
What did you type?
nothing...
I enjoyed reading it. Salon seems to cover Linux and OSS pretty cleanly. The writer has a point, but the tiered development model seems to me, IMHO, to be right on the money. This is the type of article that reads well; pointing out a weak area w/o jumping up and down saying "Aha! Linux really isn't for normal people, etc, etc. ad nauseum". My $0.02.
BTW, how "mainstream" is Salon, anyway. Anyone know?
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
...unless it's based on UNIX. :)
.PICT) files and give them nifty preview icons. However, the Mac couldn't load them in the first place, thanks to it's user-friendly file associations.
Yep, that's right. And also, native security and networking features could also use some work. The macs around here are loaded down with so much third-party software to support Kerberos and AFS and provide some basic OS filesystem permissions (like making the HD pretty much read-only) that it's a wonder we can still log in, it's about as bad as NT.
I admit that some of these problems are specific to this particular Mac set up as a server. However, we have a fairly competent IT staff that tries to use anything as a network client, and get it to work. It should be noted that they have to work much less to set up UNIX, and have to buy much less third-party stuff for it. (they still buy some of it, they just don't *need* it all) Students try to surf the net and write papers on these things, so I think this is a fair comparison for user-friendliness.
The first time I found this particular new blue Mac server, I said "Cool. It's got a built-in ZIP and DVD drive." I can get a floppy drive anywhere, but this stuff is neat. Then I tried to log in. It had crashed. I rebooted it, and then logged in. I said "look, they have ports of cool UNIX apps." I tried to run GSView. The machine locked up. (no, force-quit didn't work)...
You get the idea. The only use I've found for that Mac is downloading to a ZIP disk (the ZIP disk part, not the downloading, because of the security, the Desktop is inaccessible from a File/Save dialog, so I have to click-and-drag files from Netscape to the ZIP disk. Easy, you say? What if I wanted to change the name...) and trying to repair messed-up Mac files on DOS disks.
I tried to load a file associated with Photoshop 4. It couldn't find the (apparently completely different) version of Photoshop 4 installed on this computer. I dragged the icon to Photoshop 4. It claimed not to recognize the file format. I clicked on another file. It loaded up in GraphicsConverter, which wasn't even listed with the other applications! GraphicsConverter could open and save all of these (apparently
User friendly. Bah, humbug. Shoot me now. The Mac has a level of user-friendliness I never want to emulate (ooh, look, help baloons! these things are completely useless, because they don't tell me that this file with the PC-text icon is associated to Photoshop 4, even though it will only be opened by GraphicsConverter, if you can find it...). If Linux had friendliness like this, newbies would fear the GUI, not the CLI.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I would have to agree. When I have the luxury, I love using UNIX, even for the simple things. However, sometimes there are hardware or platform incompatibilities which require the use of another machine, perhaps running a different OS.
.PICT files, and their associations but not their icons were intact. However, the associated application (the one they were created in) couldn't load them, and the one .GIF file was associated to GraphicsConverter, which could load them.
.PICT files only when GraphicsConverter (a well-written Macintosh application, even if it is at least nagware) told me they were.
A different UNIX, I can deal with. Windows NT 4 or MacOS 8 is more annoying, arguably because I don't use it as much. (even though I have used them both extensively, and I appreciate that NT tends crash less than other versions of Windows and that MacOS 8.x generally runs better than earlier versions of MacOS (although I liked the interface better in 7.5, and hate how so many useless extensions are so often preloaded on newer Macs))
However, some of the problems I run into on these platforms could surely be encountered by novices, even doing simple things. Should novices be forced to become experts when things go wrong, or is that when they have to find an expert to help them?
I don't know why the files I was working with on the Mac were so mangled. All I know is that my girlfriend sent them to me after giving a few (PC-formatted) disks to a clueless teacher (apparently a Mac user) so she could get some images. I know that the second disk she had was corrupt, but the other two should have been fine. The files were
I'm not about to blame all of this on the MacOS, but consider this. Any novice (and even my girlfriend, who is by no means a novice) would never know what these files were. I found out for sure that they were
Under DOS, these files would have had extensions, but MacOS mangled those. I also don't know why the long names weren't intact, but the other Mac didn't read them properly. Although the icons didn't work, the associations weren't there. Under UNIX, I can autodetect filetypes, but this didn't work until I resaved them, so perhaps the extra data in the files interfered with this.
I'm sure that horror stories exist for all OSes, but I have yet to find a platform with more irrational behavior, providing less information, when things go wrong. It's fine to say that a platform is user-friendly when everything works, but in my experience they don't work far too often for this sort of design to be a feature.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Why do people insist on using this analogy? Yes, I know that at one time, you had to be your own mechanic. But the reason it was able to be simplified to the point is now is, IMO, because a vehicle serves one main purpose. That main purpose is moving people and items from place to place. It's that simple.
On the other hand, a computer isn't a single purpose machine. You have to have some idea what you're doing. There are countless things you can do with it. It's not like an N64/PlayStation (another machine with a singular purpose - game playing). With them, you plug in power, video, audio, controllers, drop in a game, and go. Not so easy with a full-fledged computer. And along with having a lot you can do, there are a lot of things that you should do (system upkeep, for one - I know, most Windows (l)users don't do much of that).
It's just not the same thing. That's a tired analogy. Let it rest in peace now, people.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
The docs don't suck. They expect you to have a working understanding of Linux. Or is that really too much to ask? Linux wasn't designed with the cluebies in mind - it was definitely designed for the power user, someone who knows what they want to do and doesn't need babying. Maybe one of these days, Linux will be easier to use. But like the poster before you, I don't know if that should be concentrated on now - increase the stability, streamline it more, worry about the pretty GUI later. Besides, it's still UNIX. UNIX was never meant for cluebies, either.
And man pages are just fine most of the time too (some of them are pretty bad, but let us hold off on the glittering generalities, 'k?). They assume the same working understanding of Linux as the HOWTOs do. I don't see that as unreasonable.
Yes, you're right. UNIX/Linux _is_ a different mindset. But for those who don't care about changing their mindset, well, Linux just probably isn't for them. They're happy with Windows/MacOS? Ok. Whatever.
A "Windows user's guide to Linux" would be long and tedious. It's just not an easy switch. Most of those who are what I would consider clueless wouldn't be very interested in Linux if they knew what it involved. I don't care what anyone else says - Linux isn't right for everyone. User-friendly is one thing (I think Linux is doing fine moving that way) but cluebie-friendly is going too far in the wrong direction.
"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day - teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." Too many clueless users want a handout - they want to be told how to do EVERYthing. They need to learn to take a little initiative. If we have to spoon-feed them everything, then what's the use in switching them away from Windows? They're just as bad off if they can't do anything on their own, IMO.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
As far as netatalk not compiling on RH 5.x - make sure you're getting the latest version with the ASUN patches. Also, RH's headers may be braindead (wouldn't be the first time - that's why I use Debian or Slackware). Also, I bet you build an old 1.0.x GIMP against a 1.1.x or 1.2.x GTK+ lib, breaking ALL plugins (yes, all - the API changed a lot!). The GTK+ project (and Gimp, too) need some better documentation. Like more complete API references for GTK+ and GLIB, for one.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
This article is very informative and gives a good kick in the pants towards a direction. And it is also reminscent of the same old trash (I'm even unafraid to say FUD) I saw before the DOJ case against Microsoft.
~
Linux is a morass of arcane text commands, bewildering options and incomprehensible Unix concepts
Linux is not Command Line dependant. In *very* easy instructions that comes with Redhat I removed any command line boot up on my computer at home. Once KDE was installed (is 'rpm -ivh kde*' that hard? If it is the package manager in the control panel is easier!) I only had trouble setting up the menus to handle everything I wanted to do. But that wasn't harder than learning Win95.
the Achilles heel of their open-source software development model -- the need to get cool people to take on uncool tasks. [i.e. make it simple for non geeks]
There is Stampede lite, Simple End User Linux, Corel, and other potentialy good distributions working on just those problems. There is a lot of work being done in this area already.
Installing Linux as many have pointed out can be easier than Windows, and when something goes wrong, it is even easier to fix.
I didn't accept this trash before, and I don't see a reason to accept it now. This is where I draw the FUD line, when they project an image of Linux that is not true. It isn't a cryptic mess of command lines (unless you like it that way.) Non-Geeks won't be abandoned by the community, just by Ivan.
Remember when the community won an award for its support? As far as I know the Linux-Help IRC channel is still an invaluable help line. Maybe we've gotten lax with IBM and other companies promising support? No, it may sound like it until we remeber back that its just a rehashing of fud with the same old answers we've maybe forgotten because we haven't been challenged by them in a long time.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^
Thats what everyone on slashdot says. And usually it means "I didn't understand what you said." This seems one of those instances. (Did you even read the mention of Package manager?)
You do make a good point of what user friendlyness is, my point was not that it is user friendly, but that it wasn't the kludge of command line cryptics that Salon makes it out to be.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^~
People have already been doing this. They just don't get the press.
People would rather dwell on the PPP-HOWTO instead of the ISP-HOOKUP-HOWTO or Sprynet's Linux PPP docs or the LDP or the fact that you can just buy a manual and get the Linux CD gratis.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Bullshit! People need professional tools made to suit THEIR needs not meant to keep them goosestepping to some absurd notion of conformity.
This is the most intriguing aspect of the 'user centric' Apple philosophy.
A computer has never been just ONE tool. It is many tools, a chameleon that can change it's skin at will. Those that need to get stuff done need to have the interface suited to their needs regardless.
That's regardless of whether or not the interface is a pipe or WP5 or Nextstep.
This 'its one tool' crap simply needs to go.
A secretary that is going to be spending the next 5-40 years using a word processor can stand to waste a little time learning it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So? There are plenty of other people chipping away at the documentation problem or just working to make that documentation problem obsolete.
That 'prime example' of HOWTO's, PPP has had GUI configurators available for it for at least 2 YEARS (before either KDE or GNOME) as well as better documentation available (for as long).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
My car doesn't break as easily as Win98 does.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Unix is designed to work, period. It's percieved arcane nature has nothing to do with 'job security' no more than the complexities of an engine are put in place to keep 'Pep Boys' in business.
The tool has a purpose. It's design serves that purpose.
Being designed to stay up and running just has the side effect of being sometimes more efficient for those with the ability to fix their own Windows problems.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
'read the instructions next time' is not an insult. That's the whole problem with the current culture of rampant anti-intellectualism. A directive to go back to the source and pay attention is considered somehow mean or insulting.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Hardly, Unix has been in the TRENCHES for 20 years. The only real constrain on Unix has been computing power and percieved cost. As soon as THAT was overcome, Unix began to spill into microcomputing quite easily.
THAT attitude is what gets things done and why when WP5 ruled the roost you could expect a secretary to manage 50 WPM. What you 'its gotta be easy whiners' forget is that many things simply aren't easy. Life isn't like that. Some work and learning is going to be needed. Learning a specialized interface is only a small addition to that.
The tool is meant to get work done, not make the lazy feel good about themselves.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
There is little point in this. A user can merely read the label on the printer. The need for PnP isn't quite there as much as it is for the random ISA card.
The same goes for the monitor. A user should at least know what resolution they want to run. Beyond that, they can select the most conservative generic monitor types.
Vidcards and any PCI card are already handled. Those are PnP by design (like the Mac).
Grafting sometimes-working PnP features onto a facility that was never designed for it can quite often be self defeating. It certainly drove me away (from Windows).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Release early and release often. Bugs are shallow given enough eyes.
This can apply to documentation as much as it can to code.
Besides, what really matters is if it works. Once it achieves that, whether or not it was done by someone(S) that have any clue about technical minutia is irrelevant.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Just 'can' what's already been done on the web and run it on a protected (from non-local use) port.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Then the machine need to be turned into an appliance rather than just an appliance-wannable (PC). Appliances work because they require relatively little expert care while in use. WinTel PC's aren't like that. Unix and VMS machines are like that (set it up and forget it).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That's why you download all the files that they actually tell you to download and use the 'extra special' rpm command that they tell you to use.
It's not rocket science (GNOME,KDE or E installs).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The bandwagon is KING, not ease of use.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"Why do I need my Word Processor integrated with my 3D modeller? They are two different,
orthogonal applications, with two different interfaces. "
It's attitudes like that that have made application integration the #1 deficiency in almost all existing shrink wrapped and business applications.
"Dumb users" _accomodate_ user interfaces to their lifestyle. Programmers , tend to _assimilate_ interfaces to their lifestyle.
This means that "dumb users" require lots & lots of training in order to use something. This also means that a typical large company with 30+ in-house applications requires the user to memorize 30+ applications plus the multitude of "processes" that take place within those applications (I.e. how to place an order, edit a customer profile, etc.)
This is plainly inefficient. Actually, no, more than that: it's dumb. The concept of the independent "application" is a technological constraint, and from a usability perspective is STUPID.
Read "Tog on Software Design", and you'll get an idea of WHY you'd want a word processer to talk to a 3D modeller. And it *CAN* be done, it just hasn't been done on a wide scale yet - Oliver Sims' book "Business Objects" explains one way of creating a UI integration utopia...
In the end, Tony - as much as Cassius is being pessimistic about Linux's chances of UI integration - he *IS* right - the Mac is the best platform at this today, though it is a long way from what "could be".
And I'm a bit more optimistic: I think Linux "could" have this next-generation kind of integration - the only problem is, I don't think the hackers at large will agree to develop for the underlying framework. Such a framework would go beyond what KDE & GNOME seem to be targeting, so it won't be the "in-thing" to do....
-Stu
There is no reason a newbie user should have to type: "rpm -ivh kde*"
You simply don't get it. THAT IS command line dependency.
User friendliness means that it doesn't try to have the user conform its reality to the machine, as this is something non-programmers have difficulty doing.
User friendliness goes beyond Windows. It even could go beyong the Mac.
It's about using a metaphor to help the user relate what's going on in the computer to what he/she understands in real life. And if that doesn't work, providing an easy-to-access and understand help system to walk things through.
Linux doesn't have any of that KDE and Gnome right now are simple little environments that doing what Windows & Mac did 8 years ago. All other "really user friendly interfaces" are VAPOR for now.
-Stu
That depends on what you mean by "true innovation" :).. Innovation is a business term - hence it really is broad. Technical people seem to only like two kinds of innovation: the "invention"/bright idea, or the innovation based on "new knowledge".
,which I admit is far fetched.
:) [flashbacks to Sneakers]
In reality, "bright ideas" account for piddley - most bright ideas rarely become full fledged "products". Innovations based on "new knowledge" are usually most successful, are as you say, rare.
But there are other forms of respectable innovation: those based on demographics, shifting opinions or incongruities between "what is", and "what should be". The iMac is an example of that.
Now, back to the topic at hand: First, check amazon for "Tog on Software Design". It describes a user interface codenamed Starfire that Tog & other digerati were commissioned to create (as a demo) while working at Sun Microsystems. The concepts in that UI were formed by the leading thinkers in this area: Tog, Jakob Nielsen, and Donald Norman [Mr. "Design of Everyday Things"].
Hence, Starfire has a lot of credibility behind it. Of course, it's way ahead of its time. The scenarios described in that book describe levels of integration "akin" to attaching a word processor to a 3D modeller
in the book, one of the characters integrates a 3D CAD model onto a spreadsheet with her search on the Internet for determining temperature-ranges for a piece of manufacturing material... oh, and she was blind
As for your AI analogy: you may be more right than you imagine. There are some *key* economists that I know of that view "expert systems" [which could be seen as low-rung AI systems] as the next big thing - few people know about it, few people care about it, but if done properly, they will make a HUGE difference for businesses that can encode "expert procedures" in a computer.
-Stu
I'm a 36-year-old mainframe programmer who admittedly loves playing with this kind of stuff and collecting useless tidbits of OS configuration trivia, but I find that quick searches of Usenet via search engines like DejaNews (http://www.dejanews.com/home_ps.shtml) have answered almost all of the questions I've encountered, at least in a Linux context. Not only is it possible to find threads of discussion about the topic you're interested in, but you can also obtain contact information -- many folks who answer questions on Usenet (like myself) are quite willing to answer questions via e-mail as well, and even if your specific question hasn't already been asked and answered, you might find a pointer to someone who knows the subject and can help you directly.
:-)
I know I'm sometimes guilty of becoming annoyed with the types of common beginner questions which flood comp.os.linux.* at times (like "will my Winmodem work with Linux?" [answer: no, not at this time], or "How do I start X at a higher bit depth?" [answer: "startx -- -bpp xx" where xx is the desired bit depth]), and one of the reasons for that annoyance is because I know that tools like DejaNews exist, and that I actually *used* such tools myself when I was starting to use Linux more seriously. DejaNews is a living meta-FAQ in many ways, and if more beginners were made aware of it up front, I think we'd see a lot less repetition and "noise questions" (VFAQs) flooding the forums on Usenet.
There are times when I'll even use DejaNews myself to answer someone else's question, and then let them know how I found the information.
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, Mac, NT, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Most of what you say is false.
The Lisa interface - the direct parent of the Macintosh interface - wasn't actually all that much like Smalltalk's interface.
Go read Inventing the Lisa Interface for more on how the Lisa (and therefore the Macintosh) came about. Read the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines and Tog on Interface to learn more about why the Mac interface is the way it is.
This is not to say the Macintosh interface has no deficiencies; some of them -- though less than you imply -- are due to the original Mac's anemic hardware specs when compared to the Lisa's. But as someone who's used MacOS, NEXTSTEP, various X-based systems, BeOS, the Lisa, and Windows rather extensively it's obvious that it's the best personal computer interface yet.
(Also, just so you know, you can get a multi-button mouse for the Macintosh. I know people who swear by their 4-button mice. You can also get a command line environment for the Macintosh with pipes and redirection; it's just not part of what's shipped to end users because end users generally don't wnat or need that functionality.)
Wrong. They're two different, orthogonal applications, which will have all of their most basic interface elements in common. The point isn't to build a single binary, the point is that applications from different developers (who may not even know about the other app) work well together.
For instance, say the preferences dialog in the word processor and the preferences dialog in the 3D modeler both have a text field you can type something into, a couple of radio buttons, and a couple of checkboxes. The look and behavior of these controls need to be identical between the majority of available applications before you can even begin to talk about whether your operating system is easy to use.
Now compare a drawing program and a modeling package. These have more in common. If a single click selects a shape in the drawing program, a single click should select a model. If dragging an object's handle in the modeling application resizes it there's no way in hell that doing so should move the selection in the drawing app.
"Ease of use" does not simply mean "easy for newbies to learn." It means that a system can be learned easily, and that knowledge about how one application behaves transfers to every other application. This leads to increased efficiency for even extremely expert users because such knowledge transfer reduces the cognitive load involved in using a system.
You're not talking about "ease of use", you're talking about "ease of customization." Look at how customizable the average system running X-Windows is -- ooh, you can change your window borders!!! Yeah, you've really "changed your GUI" there... Now look at a Macintosh running Kaleidoscope or an Appearance Manager theme. Notice how all of the buttons and all of the scrollbars look the same, from application to application? I think that's what most people really want, not just some decoration around the edges.
KDE or GNOME may allow for true wide-scale cross-application consistency eventually, but only if the rest of the X-Windows software base is buried, and only if just one of them "wins."
RH's Control Panel utility has an applet that will search thru man pages, info files, and other documentation in /usr/doc, and show the filenames that meet the search criteria. Double clicking on a file name brings an xterm with man or info and the requested file, or a simple textfile viewer if it's a file in /usr/doc (well, that's what I remember, I don't know if it's exactly like that).
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Manuel de Icaza didn't beging the GNOME project; Miguel did.
Alright, I'll stop.
^D
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
er... s/beging/begin/
^D
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
I don't know what you think, Rob, but a penguin graphic doesn't make a good article (oh, yeah, I've noticed that many posts have something to the effect of "it's nice; it has a penguin in it").
Just nitpickin', you know...
^D
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
There are KDE rpms for about every version of KDE and Red Hat, why didn't you try that, if you say you aways try that?
:-)
I can't understand your line of thought
I noticed something interesting in this article that I hadn't noticed before. This guy is configuring his network connection. He goes through the GUI setup utility, but then gets stuck. He reads the documentation, and then realizes that he's going to have to edit configuration files with a text editor. *This* is where he decides it's difficult.
So why is this? He's got the documentation, he's already been typing stuff, so what's the big deal about using a text editor?
I think the next important area for documentation is going to be setting up text editors to document what you're trying to configure. If there was documentation which specified the format of the configuration file, and you could lock the text editor into a mode where it formatted stuff to work for a given sort of config file, and it would put the documentation with the stuff you're actually editing, it would basically be a GUI configuration device. And it wouldn't messy with your plain text configuration files, and the configuration clue would seep into the clueless user.
A "point," used in this context, implies a logical argument leading to a conclusion. The only logic you've presented has only one point: the Mac and Linux are developed differently. On that, we can agree.
Otherwise, you have presented dogma and rhetoric, with no point. As I've stated elsewhere, your only supporting evidence for ease-of-use (the Mac) is a counter-example; the Mac was designed by programmers, *not* by ease-of-use experts.
Ditto with the NeXT.
Now, ease-of-use was a design goal. But it is also a design goal for KDE and Gnome. KDE is already easy to use; Gnome is approaching that ease-of-use.
Installation is still a problem, but that is separate from, though not independent of, ease-of-use issues.
The biggest problem with your argument is your use of absolutes. To claim that something will *never* happen just indicates you operate on dogma and faith. It's hard to take you seriously.
If you claimed that it will be difficult for Linux to match the Mac's ease-of-use, and is not likely to happen, I might agree. To say it will never catch up is a statement of ignorance and lack of imagination.
My point still stands.
I agree with some of your points; however, I do not agree with all.
There are many things you cannot do with a gui that you can do with a CLI. Pipes+filters are just one example-- and even the best scripting language (Perl to some, Python to others, Applescript to some others) cannot match the simplicity of a plethora of useful commands strung together hastily on a command line. Get a list of running processes, and pull out only those that are over a day old and not run by the system. I can do it in three seconds on a CLI; how long would it take to accomplish that in a GUI?
And I wasn't talking about closing windows; I was talking about the system hiding the windows when you switch tasks. Although the system thinks I can only operate on one task at a time, usually I'm working on one task using many tools. I don't like my work in one tool to hide just because I switched tools. If I wanted my app to hide, I'd do it myself.
And as far as "properly-programmed" apps-- a good system (including the GUI) will allow me to work around constraints in the application, whether it is lack of foresight on the part of the programmer, or I'm just wanting to be perverse and do something the programmer hadn't considered.
Now, you argue that apps must be well-designed to avoid the Mac limitations on one hand, and then using poorly-designed interfaces of applications as an argument against multiple buttons on a mouse. Most applications make good use of the multiple mouse buttons. xfig and many other applications using the Athena widget set were designed over 10 years ago; we've come a long way since then.
The biggest problem the "ease-of-use" of the Mac is also its biggest strength-- it shoe-horns everyone into the exact same method of doing things, no matter the skills of the user or the complexity of the application. What you consider ease-of-use, I consider a straight-jacket.
The funny thing is, I learned to program on an old Apple ][, back before they added anything to the ][. When the Mac came out, I was overjoyed, and wanted one so badly. I had to settle for a ][gs. (What I really wanted was a Lisa. Damn Jobs forever for killing that project.) I love the Mac interface.
But every time I sit down to use a Mac, I realize how constraining the stupid things really are. I'm more sophisticated, and able to do things in a non-linear way; I *do* multitask. Many people do. I can only perform one action at a time, but many things happen at once.
As a side-note: you're right about Copeland. The Mac was designed when pre-emptive multitasking was still a technical novelty, so the fact that MacOS-8 still doesn't have pre-emptive multitasking (and mentioning the Copeland disaster) was just a strawman, though unintentionally.
And I don't consider this a flamewar-- it's a brisk conversation. You make logical arguments, with supporting evidence; therefore, it is not a flame, or even flamebait.
The NeXT had better ease-of-use than the Mac without all the terrible drawbacks and limitations. (Yes, I know OS-X is based on NeXTStep. But it is no NeXT.)
There have been so many, "Linux will never do foo," statements that Linux has already overcome. Keep the faith in whatever way you wish; but faith has never stopped progress before, and I doubt it will now.
The Mac interface has barely changed in 10 years. This is a good thing, in some ways, and a testament to the greatness of the original design; but it is not the ease-of-use utopia.
Perhaps Linux will never match the MacOS in ease-of-use-- but then again, perhaps it will.
Here is an irony:
People who talk about the Linux interfaces always bring up this argument: "Programmers cannot design interfaces. It takes lots of research to make a good interface-- research done by interface professionals." Then they always mention how grand the Mac interface is.
I hate to >*pop* your little bubble, but the Mac interface was designed by programmers. Almost all of the research done in human/computer interfaces for the Mac has contributed little tiny modifications; the original interface was written by programmers who saw a similar interface at PARC; and that interface too was designed by programmers.
There are some interesting assumptions implicit in these arguments:
1) Programmers are idiots who know only how to code
2) Users are idiots who don't know the first thing about actually using a computer and figuring out logical interfaces on their own
3) Programmers, removed of corporate direction, don't know what to do
4) Money, and only money, can solve all problems
Almost all arguments against Linux ease-of-use rely on at least 2 of the above preconceptions. And I don't believe any of them.
And as far as the Mac being a paragon of usability, lets look at some really foobar features:
The program's controls are at the top of the screen, as far away from the actual application as possible. Also, windows keep disappearing. I'm never allowed to launch more than one instance of an application, so if the application isn't programmed to allow more than one open window, I'm screwed. To switch to an application that is not active, and is hidden, I have to go to the multi-finder. There's only one mouse button-- you have to use the keyboard if you want to emulate more than on button. And this sucks if you are missing an arm. (This is more than a nitpick-- I've worked in a university environment where I've had to help disabled people like that.)
This addresses just the basic ease-of-use GUI choices-- it doesn't even touch on the more complicated technical issues (such as the lack of pipes, redirection, and CLI).
Plus, have you ever wondered why it took so long to change anything but the most cosmetic aspects of MacOS? It's because the core OS was poorly designed. Copeland failed because it was hair^2 to add basic pre-emptive multitasking.
Oh, I know why some of the design decisions went the way they did. The original Mac screen was low-resolution, so there was limited screen real-estate. Instead of putting the application controls with the application, they saved a few vertical pixels by putting the controls at the top of the screen. Since there wasn't enough RAM for virtual desktops, they made it so only one application displayed at a time. And the mouse had only one button because.... well, I'm not sure why. A friend of mine swears you only need one, and the other buttons are on the keyboard ("Where they belong!"), but I *like* having 3 buttons. It's easier to use, for me.
And that is the rub-- just because you find the Mac easy to use does not mean *everyone* thinks it's easy to use. For me, there are many annoyances.
But then, some people like Anne Gedes ("So cute!"). Ya can't account for taste.
I can't understand why you insist ease-of-use requires integration, especially among things that don't need integrated. I also can't understand why you keep using the term, "Never," when historically "never" has turned out to be, "eventually." (Do you need some examples, or are you familiar with computer history?)
Although we have one common goal (ease-of-use), there may be more than one path.
Linux is integrated into the hardware; otherwise, it wouldn't run. There are even setup programs that autodetect almost all hardware, and install the appropriate drivers.
(The Mac behaves this way exactly; there are many hardware types, and the OS installation routine detects hardware and installs it. The fabled "Mac Plug-and-play" is fabled. The Mac can also have conflicts, just as the PC does.)
Why do I need my Word Processor integrated with my 3D modeller? They are two different, orthogonal applications, with two different interfaces. And why does my spreadsheet have to be integrated into the GUI? Shouldn't I be able to choose the GUI that works for me, and use whatever spreadsheet I like best? To me, ease-of-use is defined by my ability to customize my environment to fit me, not to change my desires and preferences to fit my environment.
As far as the ease-of-use of KDE, I have set KDE up at home for my S.O. She is a Mac-head. However, she had no problem at all adapting to KDE. Same for my Mom. Both have said that KDE was easier to use than the Mac interface. And if you want KDE to behave as a Mac, use only KDE apps, and put it in Mac mode. you get the funky little menu bar across the top and everything. In every respect, the interface behaves just like the Mac interface. If you use KDE, and only KDE apps, then you have your GUI and GUI integration.
The apps are a different beast. They are not currently as full-featured as the Mac apps. But they are evolving at a tremendous rate. KOffice is already a very easy-to-use and powerful office suite. When complete (and stable), it will give any Mac or MS-Windows suite a run for the money.
Me, I prefer Gnome. It's not quite a mature, but it is a lot more powerful, without sacrificing the ease-of-use. If you install the Gnome desktop, and use only Gnome apps, you get a common application interface. So there is your integration. Linux can be exactly as integrated as you want; so you can have ease-of-use without sacrificing power.
Someday soon, you will be able to install Linux on a any computer, and install any desktop you want. Everything will be fully integrated, if that is what you wish. There are already 2 major desktops, with a third coming soon (GnuStep), with their own applications. You will be able to install SuSE or RedHat or any other distribution, specify the desktop you prefer, and have a fully-functional computer where you never have to see a command line. If that's what makes you happy.
And if you want to stick with your Mac, be my guest. No skin off my nose.
Then what's consigned the Mac to the shelf these last 7 years?
And people will never fly faster than the speed of sound, either. And forget getting to the moon-- it's impossible. There's nothing to push against in space, so nothing can move. And don't go too far from shore-- you'll fall off the edge of the world.
The Lisa was slow because the technology was slow. It was bloated because it wasn't finished. It was expensive because it was a first attempt, and ate a lot of money in development. It failed in the marketplace because of a factor of all of the above, and Jobs discovered a little project that a few engineers were working on, and he grabbed control of (and credit for) the project. Since it was in direct competition to the Lisa, he kept it quiet, while sabatoging the Lisa project politically. If Jobs had not interfered with the Lisa, it might have been something other than Just Another Apple ///. (Historically, Jobs tried to kill anything in which Woz was involved.)
/after/ the usability studies. Although, the "ugly" comment makes sense, too. I suppose aesthetics factored in, to a certain extent.
And if you want to get rid of that Lisa, just let me know. I've been wanting one since they came out. And the disk drive was a great idea-- two independent heads, one for each side; but just like the rest of the machine, it was unfinished.
And these religious/GUI wars are really silly. Yeah, I know, I have been participating in them too. But the Mac is not a paragon of usability, as much as it was pioneering.
And I will stand by my critisisms. I read at the time the reasoning for many of the design decisions, and the reason the bar was at the top was to save pixels. It was retconned into being "consistent" in later years,
And though there is a common multi-button mouse API, it is not extensively used. You are right-- the mouse-button argument is a nitpick, but an important one: it is just as critical as most arguments levelled by Mac folks against other UIs. It always comes down to one argument: "It's not like the UI I'm used to."
Anyway, this isn't a "Mac SUX, LINUX RULEZ," thread. The Mac doesn't suck, and Linux doesn't rule. It's a, "Linux *can* grow to be as easy-to-use as the Mac," thread.
And I'm serious about that Lisa.
I am the semi-proud owner of the Amiga Flow program originally written by New Horizons (I purchased the rights to it and some other progs. when they went boom).
:-). There is probably stuff for Linux like this already.
There is no substitute for a really good technical writer, but I wonder if some better tools for actually documenting an app as you are putting it together might be in order (the way Flow allowed you to). At least when you are done you can hand off a well ordered, concise document with everything that needs to be said (at least in point form) to a writer for smoothing...
Maybe Linux has apps like this already - tell me what is available. It should integrate easily into a progammers development environment and form some kind of tree structure for organizing topics. Should also link to your favourite text editor so you don't end up coding in one and writing in another.
I doubt that the Flow source would be useful to anybody but I'd be more than happy to give it to whomever wanted it (I'd have to re-compile a kernel with FFS support in it
If not, however, I'd be more than happy to organize something in this area.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
As stated above, the Linux documentation tends to be
"expert friendly". Maybe what we need is alternative
docs for people just learning Linux, like a Cliff
Notes version of the HOWTO's.
Is anyone else interested in helping out? Obviously
this would be too much for one person to undertake,
but a small group could really make a difference.
With all my friends now starting to use Linux, I
wish I could just give the the URL for such a resource.
... that someone devoted a project to Linux Usability issues. (Looks great, too) Good luck!
OUCH! Damnit, not enough sleep. I'll fix that.
Editor, Salon Business & Technology
Salon.com
I despise GNU Info... I wish all that documentation was available in HTML...
The more real-world useful things I can do with Linux, the better Linux is. When we make Linux easier to use, we enourage more hardware and software support for Linux.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
>time, usually I'm working on one task using many
>tools. I don't like my work in one tool to hide
>just because I switched tools. If I wanted my app
>to hide, I'd do it myself.
Educate yourself.
This is a preference on the Mac. Those who prefer less clutter turn it on, others keep it off. Check out the General Controls control panel if you're not sure of where to find it.
Second: the 'one button mouse' thing is a copout. Admittedly Apple does not ship multi-button mice, but there is a publically accessable API that Apple developed to allow for multi-button mice in most operations. You can use a one-button mouse if you like, or even 2/3/4 button mice if you prefer. Compare this to 'other' operating systems which force a certain model on you.
I personally like those mice by Kensington. Good quality stuff. I believe Logitech makes multi-button Mac mice as well.
Third: The Mac menu bar was not only put on top of the screen to shave off vertical pixels, but also to provide one consistant place for commonly used commands. There's no 'hunting' for a menu bar (which slows you down), your hand basically just shoots up to the top and you're automatically pointing at a menu. All you need to do is scan left or right and you've got your item. Anything else would be a waste of space, extraneous (why do you really need menus for inactive windows?), and ugly.
Fourth: You wanted the Lisa? It was too slow, too bloated, and failed miserably in the marketplace. Jobs didn't kill the Lisa, the Lisa killed the Lisa. The Mac came around, cost a third of what the Lisa cost, ran faster, and got just as much done. Plus, the disk drives didn't suck. The Lisa belongs in computing history (I know, I actually own one - albeit not working any longer)
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
salon is good and dandy, but in this particular article i see no single reasonable point.
one simple question for the author of this article potentially ruins all his reasoning:
do you prefer dumb friends or clever friends?
This article has a lot of good, valid points, but I feel that a lot of ease of use issues are completely overblown by journalists because they're missing the most important point: perspective.
It seems that whenever someone writes about ease of use in Linux the "evil command line" issue keeps popping up. This is a perspective issue, not an ease of use issue. Both Windows and Linux have GUI and command line interfaces. It's just that Linux's CLI is good and Windows' isn't. I know a lot of people who've come from Windows to Linux, who after getting used to it actually prefer using a command line for many jobs.
CLI-o-phobia is a mindset of someone familiar with only GUI tools, but the door swings both ways. My first serious exposure to a GUI environment was Windows 95, before that I had only ever used DOS or other types of CLI interfaces. When I first started using Windows, I would've told anyone who said it was easier than using DOS that they were on crack because I was not used to a GUI environment. Don't get me wrong, GUI's are great, but they're not "magic pixie dust" that automagically makes a program easier to use.
I agree with this article in that a lot needs done to address ease of use in Linux, but the continual references in such articles to the "arcane commands and intimidating CLI" are just as damaging as lack of documentation. Recalling my experience with learning to use Windows, I do not think Linux is harder, it's different, and whether someone is going from DOS to Windows, or Windows to Linux, or Linux to Mac, there's going to be stumbling blocks along the way.
I think the key thing this article captures is the state of the underlying modern culture that requires stupid user help. The stupid user. phenomena isn't limited to Linux or even computers. It is a common and generally accepted state in the modern world. We wear ignorance with pride.
What are the most popular series of instructional books today? That's right, X for Dummies and The Complere Idiots Guide to X. Teach Yourself X in Y comes in third. Finally, there is a For the Clueless series concentrating on social science and literature. Only one of these four lines has what I'd call an optimistic or inspired title, Teach Yourself. The other revel in not knowing something to the point of needing hand-holding all the time.
Now I realize that almost all of us need special help for some topics, but this is different. This phenomena of Dummies and Idiots is for people who don't want to try, but to be spoon feed. I would argue the open source/free software world is made up of the opposite: Teach Yourself people (or to use the series I'd like to see I Can Learn people). Linux, Hurd, FreeBSD, Emacs (no idiot would use emacs, despite the fact that I've claimed only idiots do use it), gcc, and the rest aren't written by or for people who lack drive and confidence. They shouldn't be.
This isn't the same as saying Windows or Mac people aren't welcome (I mean there is Mac for Dummies, so Mac can't equal dummy). Lots of users in the world aren't stupid users. They have taken the time to learn and master their systems. They aren't afraid to learn.
As arrogent as it sounds I want the Linux world to stay that way. I think OSS has always been for success oriented people. By that I don't mean rich, but people who set themselves challenges and goals and pursue them. If there is one thing the two polar opposites of the OSS/FSF community have in common it is success orientation. RMS and ERS both have a view of software and the world and set up to create it. Linus had a goal and learned what it took and did it. It is an insult to everyone who has learned and struggled to build the wonderful tools and toys we have to spend our energy making them stupid friendly. On the other hand it is a complement to make them friendly to non-computer people willing to use their minds.
It might be elitist, but at least its honest: Let Microsoft have the stupid users, they deserve each other. Let us go win over the smart ones.
Herb Nowell
Who refuses to own a dummies book on moral grounds.
Herb
Again, feel free to sentence me to death if my questions annoy you. I'll come back in 5 minutes anyway. -Sythi
If you want to help, then PLEASE check out the Linux Documentation Project. There is a lot of documentation already being written, and some of it is excellent. The last thing we need is to have a lot of people spending time on duplicated effort.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
The start of the article isn't too nice. The author claims that he is speaking as "a stupid user." Let me say that Linux isn't FOR stupid users. If you're a stupid user, install Windows. Point and click your way to happiness.
But if you're a stupid user who just wants to get on the Net and surf for Spice Girls pics, and the words "command-line interface" send spikes of terror through your bone marrow, then Linux is gruesome. It is not designed for you.
Correct. It's not designed for stupid users.....BUT, the author continues:
Linux, in other words, needs help.
Yeah, Linux can be improved. It would be ignorant to say that it DOESN'T need improving. But gearing an operating system toward idiots is not the way to plan for the future. Improve power, performance, and usage. Powerful operating systems don't belong in the hands of clueless users.
The Linux HowTo archive is a terrific resource.......But it doesn't do a darned thing for the stupid user.
How can extensive documentation not do anything for users? This article is clueless on so many points, and it seems to contradict itself on almost all of them.
I can go on, but I think I made my point. Bah.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
By the way, I am FAR from elite in the world of Linux. But I know enough to maintain my systems, and maintain them well. And the documentation, whether it have been online, or installed in the HOWTO pages, helped. Tremendously. Elite has nothing to do with it.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I felt that Leonard tries to emphasize documentation bundled with software along with simple GUI customization as part of the ease-of-use process. The idea is to appeal to the Window/Mac experienced user without pandering to the true beginner.
-Shelley
-S. Louie
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
Match the tool to the user, and/or to the task at hand.
If you are a novice, doing simple things, use a Mac.
If you are an expert, doing complicated things, use Unix.
This simple notion has escaped most users here.
You proved my point exactly - your example of ease-of-use is KDE, which is "layered on as an afterthought" just as I explained.
You haven't understood a thing I've said. Ease of use requires integration. Integration includes hardware, software, and apps. ALL apps. Linux does not have this. NeXT did, and the Mac does (as does the Palm Pilot). What can't you understand?
A secretary that is going to be spending the next 5-40 years using a word processor can stand to waste a little time learning it.
This is the attitude that has consigned unix to the server shelf for 20 years.
Thanks god the inventors of the phone had more foresight.
I don't use a Mac - I use FreeBSD.
Nonetheless, I don't expect Mac-like levels of integration and ease-of-use.
I prefer power and flexibility. There is a pure trade-off.
Linux/FreeBSD has power and flexibility, and that is how most users like it. Mac has inflexbility but ease of use. That is how Mac users like it.
Trying to make Linux into a Mac is like trying to make a screwdriver into a hammer. Let the screw drive screw, let the hammer bang. Screwdriver users and hammer users everywhere will be happier when their products excel in their given areas of strength, which for linux is serving.
The Mac doesn't make a good server, so conversely I think Apple is silly to pursue this server thrust with OSX. Macs will never make it on server racks.
What is important is what you said in the last sentence.
Currently the KDE/GNOME split is nearly 50/50.
Nothing could be more damaging to creating a pervasive UI for linux.
Until people simply let the debates rest and choose one, they can forget their UI dreams.
Like the Mac, NeXT was designed from the ground-up to support this ease-of-use. It was a design factor from day one.
The same cannot be said for linux. It must be layered on as an afterthought. This type of design only works well for Elightenment themes. For true ease of use, you need to have a plan before any hardware or software hits the shelves.
My point still stands.
WordPerfect "ruled the roost" because it was the first real word processor. GUI products destroyed it when they came along. Where is WordPerfect corp now? Part of an even lamer corporation, Corel!
Its called the Mac, and it will always be easier to use than linux.
There does not exist an alternate reality where linux is easier to use than the Mac. The entire philosophy of the Mac is that hardware, OS, interface, and apps act in a way that is easy to use, even if that sacrifices other qualities.
Trying to match this level of user-friendliness on linux is a waste of time because it will never happen. Sorry for the downer.
It takes everyone out there developing to agree on stringent guidelines for applications.
It takes hardware interfaces that are not designed for tinkering, but designed to auto-detect.
It takes getting EVERY app to use one UI, and support it pervasively.
Sorry, that just doesn't happen in a distributed open-source model.
Open source software is not driven by the market, it is driven by what the programmers want to program. Looking at linux, *BSD, etc., this historically has not covered any of the issues that Apple takes care of for users. You need a dictator.
nuff said.
Reading this thread, I must conlude that Slashdot readers are really lacking a clue when it comes to "ease-of-use" in computing for consumers. If you insist (like me) that linux is not for consumers, then you should stop reading - this rant is in response to users who think Linux can be the next Mac by simply using GNOME.
/etc?
To understand what "ease of use" means for true consumer appliances, look at the VCR. Most people still can't manage the programming of even the most simplest units. How on earth do you expect them to understand a computer that may require them to edit files in
when looking at the future of computing devices for consumers, you should consider the Mac to be too complicated. The model you are aiming for is the Palm Pilot. This is the type of computer that will bring computing to the masses. Its cheap, its effective, and it accomplishes only a few tasks but does them well. If you really want to, you can expand it to do other things, but most people don't want to.
Listening to this thread has really been humorous for me. Most contributors seem to believe that redhat linux with gnome is going to pass the "mom test". Only if your mother is esther dyson.
Most contributors here are very computer literate. Some are capable of writing complex apps. These are not the people you go to in order to understand ease of use. Power users assume too much of novices. Most people out there in the world can't even wrap their heads around the notion of logging in.
I wish Corel luck, and I hope they get some Windows users - these people are already used to dealing with complicated systems that break, so they will certainly enjoy a complicated system that is much much harder to break. Mac users will never be linux converts, unless they were already versed in unix.
Going after consumers is far too lofty. Palm Computing has the best shot of anyone right now of building a computer that a billion people can use.
I am so sick of the Linux is hard comments. Just last night i was fighting with my system to install Windows 95 in a partition.
Why in the hell doesn't Microsoft just put a fricking CD-ROM driver in their OS that works? I have a standard ATAPI CD-ROM and their ATAPI-CD.sys device driver doesn't know about it. I fixed the problem and copied a driver from another machine and installed.
Linux never every gave me a bit of trouble during an install, and that's going back all the way to the 0.97pl4 days in Jun3 1993. Linux is EZ!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
For a slick, mass-market type e-zine, Salon has very good coverage of Linux and Open-Source stuff. As an added bonus, they seem to understand the hacker/cracker distinction. If only CNN and NYTimes would follow their lead...
--JT
I mis-stated myself, apparently. My "elitism" comment was in response to people calling other people "idiots" and "cluebies".
And no, quantity != quality. I know this probably counts for nothing, but I'm a tech writer, and it just doesn't work that way.
- deb
How can extensive documentation not do anything for users? This article is clueless on so many points, and it seems to contradict itself on almost all of them.
Quality, not quantity, is key. It isn't easy to write good technical documentation. The Linux Howtos are written with the assumption that the readers already know quite a bit about Linux. The vast majority of Linux docs are written with the assumption that the readers already know quite a bit about Linux/Unix.
Blathering on and on and on and on for pages and chapters isn't doing anyone any good if the docs suck, or if the docs make assumptions about the readers that aren't true. Quality, not quantity. For example, even if there were 40,000 pages of docs available that covered every minor detail about running Linux, it wouldn't do an English-speaking person much good if they were written in Swahili. Linux docs suffer from a general lack of user-analysis and profiling.
Gah...don't even get me started about man pages. Jesus those things suck.
I can go on, but I think I made my point. Bah.
Being elitist isn't going to help the situation. Just because someone doesn't have any Linux/Unix experience doesn't mean they're idiots. Making the leap from the Windows world to the Linux/Unix world is not an easy thing to do. It's a whole different mind set, using different models and different approaches. There is little (if any) documentation written to aid people in making that transition.
Someone should write a "Windows-users' Guide to Linux". There should be an ongoing documentation effort that produces docs to help people make that leap. There are people out there who have never seen a CLI. Through no fault of their own, I'll add. Just because they haven't ever used a CLI doesn't mean they're stupid, it just means that they have a bit more of a leap to make between worlds.
The first step is to stop being so elitist.
- dria
Most of the so called "stupid users" have never had to install Windoze on a *clean* machine.
I think Linux usablitiy will come when a "stupid user" can easily order a computer from a major distributer who can pre-install Linux, set up gnome and/or kde, have ppp set up, etc. Progress is being made toward this.
Windoze is no more user friendly than Linux really. People just think it is because they don't see the whole story.
But that is just me.
This sig is false.
KDE under red hat 5.x was one of the cleanest installs ive ever seen (RPM's). As for gnome well its not really that hard if you just follow the instructions they give.
That's not the right analogy to use. You see, there are just about as much "stupid" users who use cars as there were 60 or 70 years ago. The factor is that the CARS have changed. Earlier, you had to have a knowledge of the engine and how the car worked to be able to fix and maintain it. With time, service centers developed, cars got easier to use - simpler. Have you tried driving a '59 ford truck? It's fun as hell, but you gotta pull a hell of lot of cranks and levers to keep the thing going. You have to know about the internals of the truck to actually get some use out of it.
In short, the people havnt changed, the product has. Thus, in the future, there will STILL be a lot of so-called "stupid users", but they will have products that are designed well so that they cant really mess it up unless they do something really bad - like spilling coffee on their monitor - something which could be compared to a car crash.
The state of the market right now is far from it. People still havnt started demanding stability from the software, like they did from their cars. The difference is - if they lose control of their cars, they might lose their life - but if they lose control of their computer, they simply lose some documents and their 'spice girl pics'.
-Laxative
This article is plain bullshit, and the growing trend that it signifies is also bullshit.
Now that a lot of people have heard of Linux, and they've all heard how "snazzy" it is, the trend they are pushing at is to make Linux "easy to use". The mainstream is gently chiding the Linux user-base and developer-base for not providing a "user friendly" product. This is absolute crap.
I ask - what is the big deal with user friendlyness? Linux is (for most purposes) UNIX. UNIX is a developer's system. It is not a happy system where you can "get on the web easily and surf for spice girl pics," as Salon puts it. But should it be like that?
The power of a Linux system in the Command Line. No decent Linux user runs X without running an x-term (rxvt, kvt, etc..).
A lot of you say though - that the both can co-exist. There can be the command line for the geeks and a nice pretty gui for the newbies. Sure, I can accept that - but look at what the attempts have produced so far: GNOME - a graphical user interface system that is in reality very little more than a pretty pixel pusher. Same for KDE. Is there anything you can do in GNOME that you cant do on the command line faster and with more power? (except for picture-viewers/editors, but that is a special case). It's redundant effort.
I can immediately spot command line application for most GNOME apps.
text editor? vi/emacs
irc client? what else - BitchX
web browser? lynx counts, unless you want pics
file browser? um.. bash, csh, mc
calculator? bc
ide? emacs, and there are tons of text ones
Almost all GNOME/KDE apps are just pretty covers on top of the real power of the console utils.
I'm not saying that nodoby needs a graphics interface. For some applications, GUI are essential - you just cant conceptualize them on a command line - eg. Office suite with WYSIWYG, Graphic modelers, etc.
If people really want to develop easy to use applications. That's fine. If they feel the need to really create a seamless easy-to-use intuitive graphical interface for the layman - it's cool with me. But dont do it because you feel a need to "justify" Linux or GNU to the majority. Linux has nothing to prove - and you can see this even in Linus's personality.
If it keeps going like this, it will come to even more "chidings" and requests.
'Its a shame that rm -r / just deletes the whole hard drive without telling you.. would it be possible to maybe print out "YOU ARE ABOUT TO DELETE ALL THE FILES AND DIRECTORIES ON YOUR ROOT DIRECTORY, AND ALL OTHER DIRECTORES WHICH BELONG IN THIS DIRECTORY. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? YES/NO?" '
-Laxative
Yes, but Laxative, your post doesn't address the message of the article, which is that Linux could use better documentation. Duh. What couldn't use better documentation? I mean, can you really justify saying "Linux *should* be hard. Linux *shouldn't* be documented"? If you don't like documentation, sit there and don't RTFM and see if anyone cares. The Salon article makes a great (if obvious) point- the documentation of most Linux apps is abyssmal and if it were as good as the code then it would be easier for *everyone* to use Linux. More newbies using Linux means that, two years later, all those newbies could be experienced users ready to start coding/documentating/helping other folks. This is A GOOD THING. Attitude will get you nowhere.
Bowms
I agree and disagree with this comment. I agree that the measure of success of an OS doesn't need to mean distribution to the masses. On the other hand, I disagree in that I think that Linux has already succeeded.
Look, it's a complete, robust, stable operating system that meets the needs of millions of users. If that ain't success, then I'm a crack-addled chimp. :-) The fact that it now has support from some of the industry's biggest players is icing on the cake; as long as Linux meets enough people's needs that they will take time to maintain and update it, it will stay a success.
This IMHO, is one of the best points in this comment, that argues both for, and against, many of the points made.
dria makes some very good points about what good documentation requires, however many ideas are drawn from the way things work in a proprietary software shop. However, what works there, may or may not work (or even be desireable) in an open source environment. Thus the interesting question, is what development model/methodology will work best for documentation. Does writing tech docs require co-ordination? One thing the whole "bazaar" model of development does relatively well, is feedback, and incremental improvement. Can useful docs be made by starting with something, and a whole butch of Natural-Language programmers (maybe a hacker-friendly term for doc writers?) hacking them into line?
Maybe the help system should actively solicit user feedback on what worked and didn't. Get "end-users" when the docs are wrong, to fix them. This sort of dynamic involvement of the user has always been our greatest strength, programming-wise, and it's often been done with little, or no, centralized co-ordination. Can we leverage it into documentation?
-FyndoI wonder how many of you know how to build a car from the ground up? Or how about a house? Using the logic of some of the /.ers, you shouldn't be driving a BMW or Mercedes unless you know how to build/repair it yourself!
BTW, does anybody else remember Linus saying about 2 years(?) ago the guy who created MIME should be shot?
(Anyone interested in buying one of those old missile silos to start a hacker utopia community, drop me a line so we can talk.)
I'm mipfed about the graphic. A geeky herd of penguins, the leader wearing a pocket protector, marching off a cliff?? It bodes ill.
But the article makes an excellent point - the same point made by ZDNN in their otherwise favorable and objective rebuttal to the recent NT vs Linux test - that the documentation for Linux is 'expert friendly'.
A nice, searchable, online knowledgebase a'la M$ would be a boon for new converts and cutting edge hackers alike.
Not a glamorous undertaking by any stretch. Perhaps the new Academia-centric Linux 'regulatory committee' would care to tackle this one?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
If his main problem was gnome-ppp (yea, I know the main problem really was documentation), the linux GUI isn't so bad. I can also say that gnome-ppp wasn't that easy to use, as you had to make the scripts yourself. The fact that you have a gui editor didn't help. Is there a way to have it automaticly generate those scripts.
Redhat PPP was simple. Just run "netcfg" as root. Give it domain name servers, phone number, username, password, and tell it what port your modem is on. It is almost as easy to use as a ppp configurator reasonably could be. And I am pretty sure VAResearch comes with redhat.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
I have trouble with the statement:
"""""""""""""
Borenstein argues that the volunteerist, gift-economy ethos
underlying the open-source development model is an outgrowth of
the traditional academic approach to information
"""""""""""""
Most academic info is jealously gaurded Intellectual Property.
I would love to have access to the lecture notes
of grad courses at Princeton or CalTech.
Is there much academic info that is GPL'ed ?
Salon is pretty good in a lot of ways (I started
reading it because they carry columns by Camille
Paglia and Susie Sexpert), but they also get some
criticism for being flacks for the Democrats...
and in my opinion the criticism seems to be
deserved. They do a good job of writing about
open source software because their biases happen
to be in support of it... if they were biased
against it, then there'd be serious problems.
Internet news sources seem to be having a hard
time with concepts like "ethics".
I like Linux the way it is/was. I like that it wasn't easy to install. I like the 1000's of programs which can be piped together to do anything. I don't care about linux's world domination. An easy to use gui would be nice for some. I love some of the gnome/kde apps....but I *love* the command line. If newbies don't like it, use micros~1's stuff. Who cares if linux dosen't dominate the world? Maybe we should all keep worrying about the technical, hacking side of things, and forget about the whiners/media.
Here's what i don't like about GUI based versions of some apps. Look at the samba gui attempts...some of them use the direct output of the samba cli, and others incorporate large parts of the actual samba cli code. So, the people writing the gui ontop of the cli have to change their app for even minor changes, and the standalone gui becomes huge as the cli version becomes bigger....
Again, this is going to be hard to achieve, unless everyone supports this standard...and even then, command line will always be fast....someone who has been using the gui for a long time might become very fast, but imo, it is easier to become more productive with the cli version, if you're willing to put the effort into it. cheers, ajit
Pann McCuaig (wonderful name) wrote an especially clear procedure for installing the [hamm] release of Debian. Imho, it's a fine example of the way an HOW-TO should be written. Here's where to find it: Pann's Debian install How-To
Legacy hardware/software addict. Midnight hacker, 1960. Codepage 819 in DOS: Total Latin-1 compatibility (no boxes/lines
It was a long time ago (in computer time) when Jef (not "Jeff") Raskin developed the Swyftcard for the Apple ][, and used the same design ideas for an obscure computer, the Canon Cat.
The Cat was exceptionally robust, and extremely easy to use. It was horribly mis-marketed, and disappeared.
Legacy hardware/software addict. Midnight hacker, 1960. Codepage 819 in DOS: Total Latin-1 compatibility (no boxes/lines
Several reasons why. For one, curiosity is systematically destroyed so kids won't ask embarrassing questions that teachers can't answer. (I'm referring to that subset of teachers who got the lowest SAT scores in their class, before choosing teaching as a career. After all, every society needs a repository for its least competent. Some teachers are wonderful; let's not forget that.)
Second, as a nation, our society has developed to the degree that almost everybody can get by (and have fun) while knowing very little about anything. We no longer oil ar grease squeaking mechanisms; it's un-American! We don't know which way is south at noon on a sunny day. In preceding centuries, lots of practical knowledge was required in order to survive. No longer.
Third, there's a strong anti-intellectual streak in our society.
Fourth, there's apparently a strong prejudice against taking things apart to find out how they work (although, much of what counts in a computer doesn't yield to that approach. I'm really talking about a mindset.) (See first item.)
Fifth, science and technology are rarely taught to the general public, with the result that the average American is as stupid as a rock about how things work. (See second item.)
However, none of these factors is closely involved with computer interface design, other than the inability to do creative and clear thinking, as Jef Raskin could do.
The problem is not stupid users, though. The problem is poor interface design, for the most part, as I see it.
{I've written better, but not in the not-so-wee hours!}
Legacy hardware/software addict. Midnight hacker, 1960. Codepage 819 in DOS: Total Latin-1 compatibility (no boxes/lines
This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to try Linux.
I just hope they will be releasing one for RedHat 6.0 with gnome, Civilization CTP etc..
On the other hand, games are the only thing that sell hardware to normal users, and software too by the way!
So BRING ON THOSE GAMES!
The kernel needs a Gtk/Gnome-based post-install device configuration tools "a la" make xconfig. (Better sig coming soon
I have never been really happy writing those man pages as I never got the lingo. What would be nice is if man supported HTML pages as I know how to write those and I know tools that know how to write them.
Actually, it would be nice if man could support plug-ins so that I could also get it to point to alternative help sources (a webpage?) and formats.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
And before people start bitching about modern autmobiles, I would like to remind people of a few of the benifits to everyone:
1. Greater fuel efficiency.
2. Less Polution.
3. More free time to spend poking around with our computers.
Right on!
Your classification devalues the practice and effort it takes to write solid documentation and in doing so, reduces non-monetary incentives to people contemplating this goal. This is counterproductive.
I disagree, the machine that set the standard for useability, the Mac, arrived with many fundamental usability features and principals already fully formed, newer innovations have been added on to the framework. It has evolved, but much of its evolution really built on the strong framework that was laid down at inception.
As a counter example, I give you Windows. If anything, the evolution of Windows is much more obvious than the evolution of the Mac. The problem is, they started with shit, and dispite the willingness to throw alot out and start over (forcing users to relearn things) what they have now is still misses some very fundamental usabilty standards.
I would say that a strong first implementation is really important when talking about user interfaces
Following up on this one. Maybe what's in order is a simple installation server module (based on Apache?) using Lynx as the non-CLI interface. You wouldn't HAVE to be configured and connected to a network to use it, but once you are, the sky's the limit.
:-)
Everyone worth their weight knows how to code in HTML, and command-line configurations are easy enough to embed in cgi scripts, so it wouldn't be hard for the developers involved to take the extra step.
Best part would be scalability - server doesn't care which browser you use, so use Lynx in text-mode and GUI-browser in X-mode. Or if you don't use graphical anything (say, braille or morse-code-thru-speaker), you're still on familiar ground.
Thoughts?
--The more you know, the less you know.
I just have to say that until Linux for Dummies
came along, every other book was too complex
or cryptic. I feel I represent the new wave
of clueless newbies coming onboard to Linux,
and I really like the way Linux for Dummies
has held my hand in going from windows to linux.
People who don't know anything should really
check it out. Please note that on page 122
the directions for adding a user through x windows
is incorrect but on page 125 the directions
for adding a user without x windows is correct.
Anyway...I like the book
Quite frankly I'm glad Linux is hard to install and setup. Thats how you learn! I started using Linux not too long ago and since I started my knowledge of computers has nearly quadrupled. When I was using first DOS and then Win95 (and accually I still do use it most of the time because I haven't quite got X tweaked the way I want it because of video card probs)I didn't know jack about how a computer really worked. I had no idea what a kernel was, how ppp or tcp/ip for that matter worked, what smtp dhcp svgalib and a multitude of other terms were. But in the last couple of months I've had to drag myself through the howtos and faq's (and special thanks to www.slackware.com) but I'm glad that I did. And while I'm still a Linux novice, I've come a long way and within the year I might accually be good enough to help other people learn the ropes.
;P
Thanks Linus, and everyone who's helped to create something I can play quake on without having to reboot every 10 mins
-Lee
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GIT d? s: a-- C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E- W++ N o-- K- w--- O- M+ V PS+ P
You've got it completely backwards.
If I was _able_ to write comprehensive documentation for a piece of software, I'd have much less motivation to do so. By the time I've acquired sufficient mastery to write help, the "itch" is no longer there.
I think this is a valid criticism; those most interested in having help are least able to provide it, right? It requires not only the desire for help at the time, but also the determination to learn _anyway_, and the continuing motivation to write down what you've learned.
I'm not saying this is insoluble--- the existence of Linux HOWTOs is a counterexample. But I think it'd be interesting to look at how many of these were written out of a desire to see "their" piece of code get used rather than a desire for documentation.
Obviously somebody hasn't been keeping up. Caldera just announced the new version with Lizard, which takes you straight from Windoze thru Partition Magic to a full-gui setup thingy, don't pass the command line, don't rape the sheeple for $250 payable to Bill Gates.
To counter the question of online help, well, no, help isn't clickable yet, but somebody DID bother to write "Linux for Dummies" and related treeware... and I also thing that the first outfit to come out with the Linux equivalent of SyBooks is going to make a mint. I'm not even suggesting you open source TFonlineM or otherwise give it away. Sell the CD set for $50. You'll make millions, and those of us smart enough to do without don't pay a dime.
'scoo? 'scoo.
$ apropos space
df (1) - summarize free disk space
...
They were written by geeks. They are easy to use, and becoming the standard
Hmm.. maybe that's because your running BETA software... could that be it?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
They have a commercial interest in "dumbing down" linux. Meanwhile all of us happy geeky programmers can continue to code (and document) the way we want.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't take responcibilty for our own documentation (I consider it a form of braging) - I'm just saying that the creation of cool programs is neatly complemented by Redhat and other comercial entities who can employ an armada of coders to "dumb it down."
Correct, It's time to stop catering to the dumb user, and educate the public.
I agree. I tried to get Windows installed on a clean drive only to realize that they didn't ship a floppy with CD ROM drivers! The drivers, of course, are on the CD, so I guess they figured they had it covered.
Then I had to get my modem working. That is never an easy task under Windows (at least, if you use a real modem, not a WinModem).
I was able to get things going by using an old DOS diskette I had hanging around, but even then the trouble wasn't over. It took me three full installs to get everything working right. That can take a long time with all of the "Please reboot your computer for the 80th time" crap going on. For some reason their hardware locator crap (that sits at 90% for 5 minutes) works in a random fashion.
This is not the first Windows box I have ever set up from scratch, either. They are all difficult. I agree that getting Linux prepackaged on shipping hardware will greatly improve its market image. Heck, once I have Linux configured well, even my roommates can use it, and they are all Windoze heads.
you always have to remember, people used to be scared of cars and look at them wondering where the horses were ... some day there will be no "stupid users" ... some day the % of stupid users will be equal to the % of stupid people ... instead of like now where there are way more stupid users than stupid people ... that's when linux will be truely usefull ... you have to wait out for the long hall ... thank god we aren't doing this for profit ... because it may be till my grandchildren's time before all can program as well as then drive
if knowledge is power, the internet is god - me again
I'm sick of hearing complaints like yours to. Maybe I'm special or something. but I work in a place that we only use windows95 & besides a few driver conflicts (& issues caused by our novell netware server) there has never been an issue that has even slowed us down. & at home I've used windows95 & 98 without one problem even with all my hardware changes. 98 even runs 24/7 without crashing for weeks (except I hardly ever let it run that long as theirs always something I download that needs a restart after install, but I've had it up straight for 2 months once when I was back home without any problems).
I do use linux to, but I don't think one install is harder than the other. Or even one harder to use than the other (though I do like M$ explorer better than any linux tool for the same purpose). I'm not a microsoft fan, I just feel their is a place in the world for any OS. I've defended linux to the point of arguing with my bosses that having a linux server run as a backup file server would be a good idea, but they are strong netware supporters & doubt the ability of any other OS.
ok rant over... everything can go back to it's normal chaos.
it is inuslting if they already have, it's like saying something to someone over again even though they understood it the first time. In this case he never actually said if he read their instructions or not, so don't just assume.
My roomate would be running linux almost exclusively except he has yet to be able to get either networking or an internet connection to work & he has read everything on both topics he could find they just don't seem to work no matter what he does. He isn't stupid & he read the instructions given, but their is something going on that just invalidates what the instructions say & we can't weed it out.
Dudes, when (real) penguins march over the edge they dive and swim. Then they are more graceful than the birds of the air. THEY FLY BABY!!!
So maybe Salon hints that once over the edge of being installed it will be great, or something.
I'm still RTFM and reading newsgroups, what is stopping me from loading Linux is a finicky motherboard. Hardware is not for novices, but eight to twelve months ago I would have never tackled scratch building a PC either.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
Remember that sometimes monitors bought with computers aren't labelled, so some users do not know what the highest refresh rate is.
And if a monitor is unbranded how are users suppost to know what the highest refrash rate is?
Another thing is that monitors don't always have printed on them the exact model number used for install programs my monitor says "Vision Master Pro 17", but it doesn't tell me that the model number is a MT9017T. (however with a bit of guesswork you can guess it, but some people probably wouldn't know what it is)
How about mice, does a new user know a ps/2 mouse from a serial mouse?
Here's a few examples of how stupid users can be
(these are all true that I have heard over the past few years)
-On person went in a shop asking for colour floppy disks, because he wanted to store colour photos on them.
-Another person had a problem with his set of disks, he phoned up a help line they asked him to return the disks, the next day they found a fax of the two disks
Stupid people exist.
Stupid people can only learn by trying, and if they can't find how to delete a file "rm" (it isn't that obvious)
Or how to start x windows "startx"
One of the most complained about problems with Linux is that it doesn't autodetect that much hardware.
I was looking on the net earlier today and I spoted a file that tells you how to autodetect printers (It isn't that difficult) would anyone care to help program some code to autodetect the printers (I hardly know C) and then perhaps go onto harder things like monitors, graphics cards etc.
The way I undestand it, Apple's imminant Mac OS X is simply NextStep buried deep under a Mac Windowing system.
There is no technical reason that this could not be done for Linux.
Dagnabit! I'm sick and tired of everybody jumping on the Industry Rag bandwagon, "An OS is only good if IT CAN CONQUER THE WORLD!". Different OS/architecture combos have different strengths and weaknesses. If you don't wanna muck about with the complexity of a UNIX box, get a Mac and go forth as a happy user.
/Linux|Windows|WinNT|MacOS|BeOS|.*BSD|Solaris|VMS( ouch!)/ suits your needs best, use it. Do you need some industy viewgraph to tell you what you like?
I like the idea of a heterogenous computing environment. If everybody plays by the rules (ie. Open Standards), you don't have to spend so much effort worrying as to whether your OS meets everybodies' needs. Everybody is arguing over what the "killer OS" is. Didn't we learn our lessons with our quest for the "killer app"? That degenerated into web browsers that are 50 ton swiss-army knives, only thing they're killing is your fscking resource utilization.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I see this at work on a grand scale, IT wants to make the whole environment homogenous, so they spend a lot of time and effort forcing people to use products that just don't fit the job correctly. If you want to get stuff done, use the right tool. And it's not just what is technically the best for the job, it's also what you find the most comfortable to use. I like Linux for it's flexibility, but I don't expect EVERYBODY ELSE to feel the same.
If
Why not just do what I do ... write your documentation in Perl's POD (Plain Old Documentation) format and use the /pod2....?/ utilities to convert them to whatever format you want?
i did mean to come off as elitest, what i was trying to say is that i see that most poeple dont take the time to understand Universe (or computers, cars etc... ) and then are confuced when things go bad... ie most "stupid users" dont know ANYTHING about programming ( or biochemistry but if they did then they would understand that if you take this with that, this could happen. )... some poeple i work with dont even know HTML and they write for the web... maybe if poeple had more time ie didnt spend most of there time having to WORK FOR A LIVING then they could care to understand how Universe works...
nmarshall
#include STD_DISCLAMER.H
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
who said that most computer users are stupid? ( note the subtitle ) why can't most people TRY to UNDERSTAND? or why does www.salonmagazine.com think that most users of a computer are stupid is computer literacy not valued anymore? can someone explain why sombunall (some but not all) of computer users dont understand the technology that makes there computer run?
nmarshall
#include STD_DISCLAMER.H
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
I think you touched on a very important, and under rated point regarding "ease of use". There needs to be a variety. I like good old FVWM with one simple dot file that I tinker with regularly. That is my idea of "user friendly". My best friend loves IceWM; won't consider anything else. Occationally switches between predefined themes, and has never edited one. That is his idea of "user friendly".
How many other WMs are out there? Everyone has there favorite. No way in hell is one GUI going to please everyone. I hate the idea of unification. A dozen different distributions, a dozen different WMs, and now Gnome and KDE. This variety is great.
You have a choice:
You can whine all day when in fact information is available.
Or you can go and research and learn.
Life's short. Your move...
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
>...if the documentation were as good as the code
now THAT would kick ass!
ahem. This is the attitude we have to avoid. Don't insult someone when they made an honest effort. HELP them.
I installed KDE last night. I used the RPMS. I did everything EXACTLY as the instructions mentioned. When I logged in, I got sent right back to the login screen. When I killed X then used startx, it took me to twm, probably the crappiest Window Manager around.
I spent half an hour looking through documentation. No luck. I went on EFNet and joined #kde. It took m000es and I an hour and a half to find something that worked. We never found out why the normal way of doing things didn't work.
Am I an idiot user? Not by a long shot. The actual answer was very close to something I had tried myself. But if m000es hadn't been friendly and DAMN patient, I wouldn't be able to use KDE.
"Linux needs help" is a play on words, for those who didn't read the article. Linux is getting more and more Software (as opposed to just Applications), and the documentation will be the final touch to signify that Linux is completely ready.
I've had trouble installing Linux. The first time I had trouble, my motherboard was at fault (still don't know what was wrong). I was never able to get X to work with an old VGA video card and a monochrome monitor (I'd just telnet from my MKLinux box and use it's display, keyboard, and mouse. Of course, I didn't have the specs for the monitor.) I upgraded. My MKLinux/RedHat installer did not recognize my entire SCSI hard drive on my MAC and I had to install from a ZIP drive.
I've never been able to get netatalk to work with RH5.0 or 5.2--it won't compile! Also, the GIMP is broken in that I can't open/save anything but it's native format even though I have the appropriate libraries. I've recompiled it and GTK about 5 times and still have the same problems. (etc., etc.) Yes, I've read the README's, web pages, man pages, and searched the web for answers until I felt like doing something else.
So, my point is that Linux/X is not the easiest thing in the world to use and everything doesn't always automatically work, even if you read the README, the web page, and the manuals.
The problem with the user interface part of Linux is that, as I learned in a user interface design class, we are programmers and we know how the computer works. Users don't. It is nearly impossible to separate our knowledge of the underlying computer software technology from our user interface design. We can't be subjective about the user interface. A good user interface needs to be designed for an average user by a team that includes usually a programmer, an artist or someone who understands asthetics, and someone who understands the psychology of the average user.
Oh certainly it's succeeded! Heck, I thought it was a success the first time I ran gcc ;)
--
Behold the Power of Cheese!
there is an important (and flawed) assumption
burried under there somewhere. So many articles
that I read lately seem to equate the success of
an operating system with distribution to the masses. Now, I'm as much of a world domination advocate as the next guy, but I'm not sure that success means penetration into all markets. I would say that Linux can be honestly considered successful when (not if) it takes hold of a significant portion of the developer and server markets. I don't want this to be another Stupid Users are Bad rant, but hey, what about the concept of the right tool for the right job?
By rushing into making Linux the right tool for every job, there seems to be a real danger of turning it into the wrong tool for every job.
Frankly, if the options are making Linux more Windows-like or keeping it too arcane for the common man, I'd like to see what's behind door number 3.
--
Behold the Power of Cheese!
The article also mentions that there are people who are working on usability from a third-party standpoint. I think that getting a set of guidelines for the various GUI's is a good idea, something similar to the guidelines for the MacOS and WinNT.
I mention this because I am part of LUIGUI ( www.luigui.org), a group mentioned in the article. We are trying to collect people who are interested in studying/coding for a wide range of users. I am interested to hear if others are willing/interested in creating a set of defaults or guidelines for the various Linux UI's.
There are a couple of things one might want to know about the cruelty one has to go through while installing a Linux box: Linux is hard to install since it has got a huge pile of things that can be configured. I don't think Windows will take advantage of all the details of my box, I can only configure them the right way with the Linux kernel. If Linux was easy to install, a lot of dumb users would try to go with Linux. Newsgroups would drown in newbie questions, qll these dumb users will have the "What do I do now I have this Linux installed" problem, Linux will be commercialized, goodbye free software and open source. I don't think we want that. It's a good thing Linux stays for underground only.
--- Sigmentation Fault - Comments Dumped
Posted by Mike@ABC:
The last couple of posts prompted me to write, mostly because I believe they show a fundamental lack of understanding about end-user types.
Folks, the vast majority of people who own computers today got them in the past four or five years, and primarily to Web surf and do e-mail. The computer is becoming an appliance, a means to an end and not the end itself. It's unreasonable to assume that people will take the time to become "good" users. Do the majority of the people on Slashdot take the time to become auto mechanics or nutritionists? Same goes for end-users and computing.
There is nothing to stop Linux from becoming a "hacker" OS AND a consumer OS. Today it's doing really well in server, workstation and "enthusiast" markets. But that doesn't mean it's impossible or undesireable to make it easy for your mom to use. Add a solid, hands-off installer (or get more OEMs to install it), make the GUI even more intuitive, and do up the Help documentation that people are used to. That's easy. The hard part -- creating a solid, fast, lean and mean OS -- is already done!
And wouldn't it be nice to have a cross-platform OS that could be used in everything from handhelds to mega-servers? Imagine if all these devices spoke the same language.....!! That, IMHO, is the true promise of Linux.
This article's right on -- if you want world domination, you're gonna have to do stuff you might not want to do. Nobody said it would be fun all the time.
>I hate to >*pop* your little bubble, but the Mac
>interface was designed by programmers.
Yes, it was. After a couple of years of study be psychologists, interface experts, and such. The final interface, perhaps. But they stood on the shoulders of giants, or experts in this case.
>Almost all of the research done in human/computer
>interfaces for the Mac has contributed little tiny
>modifications; the original interface was written
>by programmers who saw a similar interface at
>PARC; and that interface too was designed by
>programmers.
You're right about the PARC interface being designed by programmers, but have you ever seen that interface? It and the Mac interface have very little in common (the WIMP concept, and that's about it).
The program's controls are at the top of the screen, as far away from the actual application as possible.
Wrong. See, here's the thing: I take it you can read English. How is English read? Top to bottom, left to right. Notice: the menubar (the most-often used set of controls) is at the top left. It's a psychological thing, you see. This is also why the trash can is at the bottom right (the last thing you read on the page, therefore the lowest-priority, therefore a good place to put the control representing the most destructive actions you can do).
Please don't get into other languages here; this is not meant as an insult to those languages which are read in different directions.
Also, windows keep disappearing.
It's called closing the window. Or, when you're switching apps, it's called hiding extraneous palettes that you're not going to need when you're working in one application. And make no mistake: even if a computer can multitask a human can only work in one app at a time. I offer the following challenge to prove my point: start up any two X applications (any other platform will do, but I'm guessing you'll be using X). Make one of those applications active. Now, work in the other application without leaving the first. If the window of the first application loses focus, you are considered to have left it.
I'm never allowed to launch more than one instance of an application, so if the application isn't programmed to allow more than one open window, I'm screwed.
That's the fault of a poorly-programmed application, not the OS. By the way, while we're on the subject, please open up two distinct instances of Netscape (in other words, no just opening a second Netscape window; open another xterm and start Netscape from there without quitting the first one). Bet you can't do it without one instance or the other complaining.
There's only one mouse button-- you have to use the keyboard if you want to emulate more than on button.
Nobody needs more than one. It can come in handy, but it encourages convoluted, confusing, horrible interfaces like XFig's.
And this sucks if you are missing an arm. (This is more than a nitpick-- I've worked in a university environment where I've had to help disabled people like that.)
News flash: lots of things suck if you are missing an arm. Ever tried typing with one arm? I'm doing it right now, actually. It sucks. Keyboards were designed for both arms; its width becomes a hindrance to someone typing with one hand. Yes, there are keyboards designed to be used with one hand; some of them are even pretty nifty. There are also pointing devices designed to be used with no hands.
This addresses just the basic ease-of-use GUI choices-- it doesn't even touch on the more complicated technical issues (such as the lack of pipes, redirection, and CLI).
Pipes: a nice convenience, but nothing which can't be worked around with exceedingly simple scripts and a properly-done application.
Redirection: same thing. It merely requires a properly-done app... OH, THE HORROR! The programmer might have to do some extra work!
CLI: Unnecessary. Let's not even go there; I can do everything with a GUI that you can with a command-line; the reverse isn't true. The best would be natural-language processing (which is more akin to a CLI than a GUI, admittedly) but we're decades away from that at least. As evidence I present Forum2000. Assuming it's not a hoax, it's a massive cluster of Alphas totalling, I believe, 32 terabits of RAM. It's the only thing out there even capable of natural-language processing, it still makes some mistakes, and it can't even do it in realtime. In other words, we're a long way off from that.
Plus, have you ever wondered why it took so long to change anything but the most cosmetic aspects of MacOS? It's because the core OS was poorly designed. Copeland failed because it was hard to add basic pre-emptive multitasking.
That had nothing to do with it; Copland was a total rewrite of the OS, which would in fact have required something not unlike the OSX Blue Box to run current MacOS programs. Copland failed for other reasons.
I might also add that back when MacOS was created, few people, including most current Slashdot readers, had even heard of preeemptive multitasking. The guts of an OS don't matter anyway, if it works correctly (which is why Windows still sucks even though it has partial memory protection and pseudo-preemptive multitasking; it still doesn't work, where MacOS at least does a better job of it than the stuff Redmond puts out).
I think I've risked starting enough flamewars for today (without intending to start any, I might add; if any of this is flamebait is is not intended to be so).
You remind me of a father who kicks his son down whenever the son threatens to eclipse him.
I don't see how improving the GUI-useability of Linux systems precludes you from doing what you have always done, yet you damn ordinary users to a world of Microsoft products anyway.
Consider this, a well thoughtout method of interapplication communication can improve execution and programmer efficiency of even command line apps. It reduces the programmer overhead of having to write code to parse STDIN into a useable format and the execution overhead of doing the parsing.
Good observation, in the article; Programmers like to tackle the 'cool' issues, and tend to ignore the more boring ones, like help systems and documentation...
Some of the posts in this thread already seem to be missing the point. Salon was not talking about the relative ease or difficulty of use and install of Linux, though that is surely an issue. They were targetting it's help system, or lack thereof.
In the normal capitalist market, as studied and practiced in the US, a simple way to get unenjoyed activities done is to compensate; to pay for it. In this case, who will pay for it? I would imagine an enterprising company like Corel, Caldera, or Red Hat, would or should soon step up to the bat, or the three of them together, and tackle a uniform and consistent complete help system. Who would pay for it? Anyone and everyone who wants to use Linux for its price, stability, and performance, but who don't already dabble, tinker, code, or play with it.
Or this is the chance for that small group of hacker/coder friends out there, reading Slashdot, reading this article, reading this post, to get together, write a powerful and useful help system, and then start giving out the documentation for recognition, or selling it to corporations and comapnies for 'official' support and such. Or even to just sell it to RedHat, Caldera, or Corel...
Would this idea violate the sensibilities of the Open Source crowd? I'm saying sell the service of documenting and collecting references and information, while maintaining all the info on their site in an HTML searchable format, but providing a more robust and integrated solution for sale...
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
As much as the hackers don't want to admit it, documentation is a very important part of any software product. And documentation is part of the product...it's not something you sort of tack on to the end when you happen to think about it.
:)
I am a technical writer. I work documenting products with GUIs and also CLI products. Here's some stuff I've learned in my two years (yeah, I'm a newbie still) of tech-writer experience:
a) Tech writers do actually have to be technically competent. Those who are technically incompetent might be able to write, but they can't write good docs.
b) Technical documentation cannot be treated as an afterthought. The documentation team should be incorporated into the development process as early as possible...ideally, as soon as the project team is put together. OSS projects can't really do this, of course, because there is no formal process in place...there is no real "team" that is put together for a project...projects just sort of grow and morph and change and develop as time goes on. Or at least that's the impression I get...if I'm wrong, please correct me. I'm sure there are some examples of OSS projects that do have a more formal development process.
c) Technical documentation is a cooperative effort that involves writers, developers, and users. The developers have to provide the basic information and they have to review the documentation for technical accuracy. Writers have to work with the developers on this, as well as diving in and learning everything they possibly can about the product. Users have to provide feedback not just about the product itself, but about the documentation as well. Writers have to use this feedback to improve the documentation and to make suggestions to developers about how usability of a product can be improved. It's all one big symbiotic process that helps create really good and usable products through an evolutionary development process. It takes time and it takes a lot of work and coordination.
d) Technical documentation has to be written for a specific user audience. You can't write good documentation if you don't know who you're writing it for. This means that writers have to develop user profiles, and then write for people who fit these profiles. If you just start writing, you're going to end up with documentation which is way too technical in some areas (you write for experts), way too newbie in other areas (you write for new users), and a mishmash of in-between stuff. This makes for documentation that doesn't suit anyone's needs. This also means that you might have to write more than one set of docs for a particular product: one set for experts, one set for rank newbies, one set for people who are interested in working on development, etc. Defining your users and creating profiles of these users is a key aspect of writing docs (and in developing apps).
er...
Etcetera. I could go on for days about this stuff. My point is this: the OSS movement is sorely lacking in the documentation department. The vast majority of docs that exist are written by the people who developed the applications, which means that most of it is far too technical for the average user. Most of the docs are also written about the particular product rather than about how to use the product. It's extremely important that documentation is task-based and user-based rather than technology based. Writing docs like that isn't nearly as easy as some might think, because as soon as you know how to use a product, you tend to start skipping the details when you write it up.
Oop...I got rambling again. Sorry.
We need docs. We need good docs written by people who know how to write docs. I volunteered to help the documentation effort for one product but I never got any feedback from the coordinator. I'd like to help. I am not a coder, but I do have skills which I think would be useful in context of the larger OSS movement. The problems are: writing doesn't have the same prestige value as hacking code; writing tech docs is not an activity that can be done in communicative isolation (which means we can't just sit in our basements crankin' this stuff out like code hackers do); developers (in general) don't want to be bothered with docs or with helping writers with docs...etc.
Ach. I could go on and on. And on
We need good docs. If there are any other tech writers out there who are interested in chatting about this stuff, email me. I could start a linux-writers listserv and we could start hashing out some ideas.
- dria