The community has had a rough time and is letting off some steam.
Consider: -./ pans the iPhone. iPhone is successful -./ derides the iPad. 75mil sold. -./ calls every year the Year of the Linux Desktop. Farther than ever. -./ Friends the N900 Maemo. M$ co-opts Nokia
You want people to vote with their wallet, i.e., exercise choice. In order to do this, they have to have information. (That's not controversial, is it?) In order to increase information, they are having a discussion.
It's the same thing as your political vote: In order to make an informed vote, you have to have information, and discussion. Some politicians get praised, others are called evil. People try to influence other people's votes by using persuasion. That's what's happening here.
Not only that, but if showing icons all the time right out in front (as opposed to some menu or tree) is bad, what would Gnome/Ubuntu have to say about the iPhone/iPad? They also feature everything out in front all the time.
For me, I actually prefer the menu/tree approach, but desktops have worked great for a lot of people for a long time.
One of the problems with the Weird Innovation Syndrome afflicting GNOME and Ubuntu, and the reason for the intensive reaction from the community, is that there hardly ever a coherent reason for the changes.
Take the dropping of min/max buttons: Who is this for? For advanced users? Were they hobbled by existence of the buttons?
Or is it for newbs? Well, how is a noob supposed to know (and have memorized) the keyboard combinations? It used to be that the keyboard combos were nicely listed in the window control menu accessible by a button on the left top corner, but, conveniently, they're dropping that too.
What happened to discoverability, and allowing users to have simple, easy, direct methods of operation instead of forcing them to become power users from the outset and fiddling with mouse gestures?
>Internet is the last thing on the average Libyan's mind right now.
Haven't you been watching the news? Libyans in the east were described by journalists as overjoyed to meet them and finally be able to tell their story to the outside world. Ben Wederman of CNN said people were throwing candy and juice into his car in Benghazi.
BBC's John Simpson reports rebels shot down an airplane, then brought pieces of it to show him and his film crew plus took a video on their phones.
Why would they do that? They want to get their side of the story out.
Not everybody's going to be on the Internet, but not everybody needs to be. Some are on the front. Some have rifles, others man the anti-aircraft guns. Some are on the cleanup committee. And some will be on the media and Internet committee.
I don't know what country you're posting from, but the American Revolution was surely helped by the French, and appreciated it.
>'Internet' isn't a basic human right.
I don't quite know what the relevancy of that statement is. Food also isn't "a basic human right", but people still send food to, e.g., earthquake devastated areas like Haiti.
Well, here's one use for minimize: (Depending on your settings) it removes windows from the Alt+Tab switcher. Or it sends them to the bottom of the Alt+Tab list.
Yeah, I know: workspaces. But just let people work how they want to instead of removing features.
By the way: I hope they're not removing Alt+Tab, as well.
Nothing. It's just the latest from the Department of Stuff Nobody Asked For.
Who exactly is supposed to be the target audience for these inanities? On the one hand, you have people who have already being been using computers for a long time. They already know how to work a standard Win/Lin interface. What's the need to present a "baby" interface?
For children? 5-year olds can (and do) run current versions of GNOME without a problem.
Meanwhile, how many mod points do you want to bet that Gnome still will not have fixed 5 or 10 year old basic usability bugs in the file chooser, etc., as opposed to creating whole new ones with shiny, fancy stuff?
See, with 1. RedHat doing their weird patches thing, and their restrictions when you use RedHat Network (Red Hat Stops Shipping Kernel Changes as Patches), and the huge lag times between RHEL updates plus 2. Ubuntu doing stuff that some people don't like, plus the whole Unity/Wayland thing,
the importance of a good, free, working and fresh distro is highlighted.
OK, so you're going to say "Debian, fresh?" But I think this might be a good time for both Ubuntu users to test the Debian waters, and for Debian to get its act together.
For all the crying and moaning about features, 90% of the people in most offices just use Word for writing dead simple letters or 2 or 3-page "strategy papers" if they can manage that.
Back in the day, they'd hand it off to the typing pool, but now companies give everyone a computer and expect them to come up with their own documents.
And if you're using Word for brochures, or books: Come on, people. Use a desktop publishing program (Adobe's, or at least MS Publisher), or FrameMaker.
Slashdot Mirror
Guilty as charged.
The community has had a rough time and is letting off some steam.
Consider: ./ pans the iPhone. iPhone is successful ./ derides the iPad. 75mil sold. ./ calls every year the Year of the Linux Desktop. Farther than ever. ./ Friends the N900 Maemo. M$ co-opts Nokia
-
-
-
-
So, Apple, MS, and Nokia end up on the Evil List.
1 cent apiece to find out why CowboyNeal is the way CowboyNeal is?
>If you don't like it, don't buy it.
You want people to vote with their wallet, i.e., exercise choice. In order to do this, they have to have information. (That's not controversial, is it?) In order to increase information, they are having a discussion.
It's the same thing as your political vote: In order to make an informed vote, you have to have information, and discussion. Some politicians get praised, others are called evil. People try to influence other people's votes by using persuasion. That's what's happening here.
Not only that, but if showing icons all the time right out in front (as opposed to some menu or tree) is bad, what would Gnome/Ubuntu have to say about the iPhone/iPad? They also feature everything out in front all the time.
For me, I actually prefer the menu/tree approach, but desktops have worked great for a lot of people for a long time.
Well, for touch devices, sure. And it's highly natural.
For a normal desktop with a mouse? Less so.
Part of the problem seems to be how Gno-buntu seem to want to force one paradigm for all computing devices, small and big.
For me, the fact of GNOME finally relenting after years of lecturing users on the spatial file browser seems a cautionary tale.
One of the problems with the Weird Innovation Syndrome afflicting GNOME and Ubuntu, and the reason for the intensive reaction from the community, is that there hardly ever a coherent reason for the changes.
Take the dropping of min/max buttons: Who is this for? For advanced users? Were they hobbled by existence of the buttons?
Or is it for newbs? Well, how is a noob supposed to know (and have memorized) the keyboard combinations? It used to be that the keyboard combos were nicely listed in the window control menu accessible by a button on the left top corner, but, conveniently, they're dropping that too.
What happened to discoverability, and allowing users to have simple, easy, direct methods of operation instead of forcing them to become power users from the outset and fiddling with mouse gestures?
>Internet is the last thing on the average Libyan's mind right now.
Haven't you been watching the news? Libyans in the east were described by journalists as overjoyed to meet them and finally be able to tell their story to the outside world. Ben Wederman of CNN said people were throwing candy and juice into his car in Benghazi.
BBC's John Simpson reports rebels shot down an airplane, then brought pieces of it to show him and his film crew plus took a video on their phones.
Why would they do that? They want to get their side of the story out.
Not everybody's going to be on the Internet, but not everybody needs to be. Some are on the front. Some have rifles, others man the anti-aircraft guns. Some are on the cleanup committee. And some will be on the media and Internet committee.
I don't know what country you're posting from, but the American Revolution was surely helped by the French, and appreciated it.
>'Internet' isn't a basic human right.
I don't quite know what the relevancy of that statement is. Food also isn't "a basic human right", but people still send food to, e.g., earthquake devastated areas like Haiti.
Was that a rhetorical question?
Anyways, Google says he was killed by a Hindu terrorist group:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi
http://pratyushgarg.instablogs.com/entry/why-gandhi-was-assassinated/
Well, here's one use for minimize: (Depending on your settings) it removes windows from the Alt+Tab switcher. Or it sends them to the bottom of the Alt+Tab list.
Yeah, I know: workspaces. But just let people work how they want to instead of removing features.
By the way: I hope they're not removing Alt+Tab, as well.
And why is constant change better *inherently* than stable interfaces?
Consider: round steering wheel, left to go left, right to go right. Brake, accelerator on pedals.
Is there a need for a car company to replace that with, say, a touchpad plus software stop/go buttons just for the sake of "Mini-Steve Jobs" points?
Nothing. It's just the latest from the Department of Stuff Nobody Asked For.
Who exactly is supposed to be the target audience for these inanities? On the one hand, you have people who have already being been using computers for a long time. They already know how to work a standard Win/Lin interface. What's the need to present a "baby" interface?
For children? 5-year olds can (and do) run current versions of GNOME without a problem.
Meanwhile, how many mod points do you want to bet that Gnome still will not have fixed 5 or 10 year old basic usability bugs in the file chooser, etc., as opposed to creating whole new ones with shiny, fancy stuff?
Yeah, I do. And, I don't mind you pointing it out because some people might not.
My point being that Debian might be considered to not have the latest weirdness that Ubuntu is moving toward.
So what is the best benchmark (however that is defined)?
Phoronix test suite
The venerable UnixBench BYTE magazine lineage, updated by Yahoo.
Geekbench
See, with
1. RedHat doing their weird patches thing, and their restrictions when you use RedHat Network (Red Hat Stops Shipping Kernel Changes as Patches), and the huge lag times between RHEL updates
plus
2. Ubuntu doing stuff that some people don't like, plus the whole Unity/Wayland thing,
the importance of a good, free, working and fresh distro is highlighted.
OK, so you're going to say "Debian, fresh?" But I think this might be a good time for both Ubuntu users to test the Debian waters, and for Debian to get its act together.
Twitter to Benghazi: Got .ly?
Benghazi to Twitter: Got ammo?
Could there be a way to transfer control of .ly to the Benghazi Provisional Government of Libya?
I, for one, would welcome new overlords of .ly.
It's about time the Justice Dept. gave value for money.
LA == 'Licensing Agency'?
I always vaguely thought of Los Angeles (Hollyood) when I read that.
1. People under tyranny
2. Write pamphlets anonymously
3. Make a new country
4. GOTO 1
5. "Goto considered harmful"
Talk about gall.
By the way, is it also OK to "attach" a tracker (trojan) to a computer system?
And then when you're caught, demand "your property back"?
Anybody want to comment on how good (or bad) Webmin is for that kind of stuff?
Hear, hear. Somebody mod this up.
For all the crying and moaning about features, 90% of the people in most offices just use Word for writing dead simple letters or 2 or 3-page "strategy papers" if they can manage that.
Back in the day, they'd hand it off to the typing pool, but now companies give everyone a computer and expect them to come up with their own documents.
And if you're using Word for brochures, or books: Come on, people. Use a desktop publishing program (Adobe's, or at least MS Publisher), or FrameMaker.
I didn't realize you could set a "real" domain name to 127.0.0.1
Very cute.
Do you find leaving mail on a POP3 server is better than downloading locally to an mbox ?
Just wondering what's better for long-term archiving of lots of mail.
Anybody know the limitations of mbox files?