Make Linux easier for the general population! Please.
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View Poll Results: Do you want a Linux with an Interview Style Install and Setup?
I'm a newbie/novice and Yes, I love that idea. thats just what Linux needs.
906
53.83%
I'm an occassional user, I don't care either way.
222
13.19%
I'm an experience/hardcore user and I don't need it to be any easier. I am happy with it the way it is.
Originally posted by unholy
I think this is an acceptable statement. The most common distros usually have quite a few loose ends untied, that make linux less intuitive than windows. Linux doesnt have to be like windows, but a home users desktop should be intuitive.
Code:
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
-- Bruce Ediger, on X interfaces
Code:
After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new
folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or
speaker of intuitive likes".
Code:
How do I type "for i in *.dvi do xdvi $i done" in a GUI?
-- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces
From my personal experience NO GUI is intuitive,
my mother who had been "brought up" on dumb
mainframe terminals couldn't make sense of the Mac
I gave her, couldn't make sense of my sisters Win95,
or my (back in the day) OS/2 intuitively ... it's all learning,
and once you've learnt your share, you believe this
is intuitive.
'Nuff said - windows is as much (or as little) intuitive
as any other gooey, errrh, GUI.
Originally posted by Tinkster From my personal experience NO GUI is intuitive,
my mother who had been "brought up" on dumb
mainframe terminals couldn't make sense of the Mac
I gave her, couldn't make sense of my sisters Win95,
or my (back in the day) OS/2 intuitively ... it's all learning,
and once you've learnt your share, you believe this
is intuitive.
Gee mate, you're one hell of an entertaining
troll ... :} ... you still "owe me" two responses
to older posts, instead you kick off a new
lashing ;)
Quote:
Originally posted by smcoptyltd
OK. So please tell me, what people do on Linux better and more efficient
than in Windows???????
Beside Internet which is obvious and it's only a small part of a computer' activities.
What is done more efficiently and better on Linux?????????
In which program?
How many files of type avi, mp3 and HTML
have you got on your HDD, and what do
they sum up to in sizes?
Code:
#!/bin/bash
for i in '*.avi' '*.mp3' '*.htm*'
do
echo "$i"
find -iname "$i" -exec ls -l {} \; | awk '{total += $5 ; lines += 1 }; END { print "column total is", total ,"with", lines ," matches"} '
done
Quote:
1. Start machine.
2. Insert CD with Windoze.
3. Press Enter to install.
4. Press F8 to accept EULA! :(
5. Press Enter to format partition.
6. Punch serial number.
Ring M$ to obtain activation code
Quote:
7. Select country for your modem.
8. Select basic network settings.
25-35 minutes and all done. Usually no glitches here
Good on yah, once again. For every single
windows installation I have done over the past
10 years there was "glitches usually".
Quote:
Up to here Linux is a win.
Now Windows is a king!!!
6. Put CD with all motherboard drivers (Chipset, video, modem, network, sound)
That will take about 10 minutes at the most.
7. Go on the net. Another 3-5 minutes. If ADSL - about 1 minute. Just type user name and password.
Put MS Office - 10-15 minutes.
Put Adobe Photoshop - 10 min
Put Antivirus - 10-15 min (Norton)
Put Q3A - 10 minutes.
Put two machines on network - 10 seconds up to 3 minutes!!!
Boot pre-installed windows XP on brand
notebook, tell it it's IP address, the gateways
IP address, never manages to connect to
anything. In two days, no luck, with or without
that stupid network wizard.
Insert Slackware 8.1CD, manullay delete XP partition,
select full installation, be prompted for IP address (or
DHCP), and after about 25 minutes I'm browsing with
Mozilla ... while I'm browsing OpenOffice is installing,
and another 10 minutes later the machine is all go.
cups (installed from tgz) picks up my printer automagically,
and after 40 minutes overall any user can do any
office task.
Quote:
Beat that!
I just did...
Quote:
I would never go back to Win 2000. The same kernel as Win XP.
Originally posted by unholy You are not forced to do any of this with windows. With a custom install, I have no paperclips installed in my office suite. My default webpage is google. I deleted the favourites folder with a click. My default web browser is Opera. My default JVM is sun's, not MS'. And I use my own service provider. There is a tab in the options for office, in which if you uncheck the master checkbox, you will have no spelling, grammatical or formatting 'suggestions' by the application.
I take youre point, and I understand that the 'paperclip' is being used here as an analogy for everything that people find obtrusive in windows, but the fact is that all these things can be disabled when you know how to use the operating system. This infact is quite similar to Tinksters argument
I know. My multiple-desktop, mouse-activated autoraise windows, dogless and paperclipless and lunaless, mozilla set to 'about:blank', XP looks and acts nothing like the default. And I still don't use it. I'm glad you took my paperclip thing in the right spirit (drives me nuts when people nitpick examples as though they were crucial literals) but... well, hell, this has meandered around so much for so long, I forget exactly what we're even talking about. My point is that, while knowledge of any OS is crucial and any OS is configurable, the question is whether I'm learning to combat stupidity or maliciousness and configuring within relatively narrow parameters on something not really meant to be altered, or learning how to maximize performance and capabilities within a wide range on something meant to be tinkered with. Windows isn't a good model for user-friendliness if you are not a 'default' kind of person because you are learning to achieve bare tolerability. Linux, in this sense, is more user-friendly already, for deviant weirdos who actually want to do their own thing, because you're learning how to harness something excellent.
Quote:
Originally posted by iceman47 Isn't 2k NT 5 and XP 5.1?
Not that I care lol
Yep. DOS 1-6 with Windows 1-3 - NT started at 3-4, while DOS/Windows converted to 7 and 4. Replacing both NT 4 and Windows 4, was NT5 aka Windows 2000, followed by NT5.1 aka Windows XP. Current vaporware in the que is NT6.
Linux isn't too complicated for the "general" user in my opinion
Everything that an average person does linux has it already set up usually in the OS when you install it.. Like XMMS, Gaim, and some Office programs. These are programs that most people use typically.
It's really just a matter of finding the right distro.
It may seem complicated but it really is just highly customizable. That's a feature that I absolutely love about this OS. I can make it work the way I want to.
The other day I was using a Windows 2000 sys. (probably the best distribution of windows still on the market today) and It was a pretty good sys.. 2.4ghz Pentium, 1gig of memory, good MB.. A fairly fast computer. I was burning a DVD at 2.4x and even with all the power behind it.. Windows started to freak out when I wanted to multitask .. Just text document.
Linux handles these types of situations so much better.
I suggest to newbies... surprisingly.. Gentoo. for a few reasons. Most people who have issues with linux. that I have noticed complain about the following...
1- installing new programs.. RPMS and .tars
2- eye candy on program interfaces
3- Cheap/Unpopular computer accessories not having drivers.
Gentoo isn't the easiest OS to install on your system, but there is a lot of documentation listed on the Gentoo website explaining it step by step. Read over the directions first and find the answers prior to install. If you have a spare HD around you may wanna try loading it on that one first...
But if you hate installing RPMS or Tars.. and like to get the latest programs at a click of the mouse ... Then this os really is the answer for you... all you have to do is open up your terminal and type "emerge packagenamehere" and it downloads the program AND installs it on your system along with all the program dependencies. You can also do the "emerge rsync packagename" and it will sync it to a log file that keeps up with all the latest packages.. So if the current program you have isn't the latest and greatest you can do a simple command like "emerge -p world" and find out what packages on your system are outdated...
Really emerge has been a saint for me. Installing rpms and tars is a pain in the arse. I feel that Gentoo (www.gentoo.org) is very organized indeed.
I am a newbie.. ive been using linux for half a year or a little more.
yep yep...
Originally posted by smcoptyltd
That Gento Linux is something what I was talking about in previous posts.
Any comments abut that particular flavor of Linux???
What are you up to now? We're not comparing
the simplicity of windows with one particular distro
now? How about you start a new thread in the
Gentoo forum?
Cheers,
Tink
p.s.: I still believe this whole thread is grabbing the
bull by the tail rather than by the horns. It's like putting
the de facto identifiers of the lifestyle of a new generation
(stupidity & laziness) - which up to now weren't fashionable
terms - on a banner, and proudly carrying it :}
C'mon, Tink, you know better than that. Many very intelligent and industrious and productive people have neither the inclination nor the time to learn the necessary skills to effectively use and maintain Linux. Damned shame, really.
Has anyone thought of the amount of maintenance of windows compare to Linux? Take 2 systems fully setup and running with all required software. Windows first, the daily running of maintenance routines, The daily virus updates and the support software like nortorn utilities just to name one. Linux Next Hmmmm.. I cant thing of any daily maintenance or support software needed. After thinking about it, taking the time to do the daily maintenance how much time you have for real work. Windows 75% of you time. Linux 99.9% of you time. This is the real reason people are starting to make the change to Linux. Once the machine is setup properly and to your needs it just plane works. Linux system setting don't change on their own and if you stay out of ROOT. No program you run as a user can change any system setting period.
"What are you up to now? We're not comparing
the simplicity of windows with one particular distro
now? How about you start a new thread in the
Gentoo forum?"
I'm searching for user friendly Linux. Since I like the idea of Gentoo, I want
to know, who else is using and if it's worth to d/load the thing and try, if that flavor is more intuitive and user friendly.
You don't get it! Huh?
One smart version of Linux and that's it! People will run for it. Smart I mean easy to setup.
You may not but thousands of others will.
Maybe Gentoo is the one!? I certainly love that idea of Portage.
Below is info, copied from Gentoo web page:
"Portage is the heart of Gentoo Linux, and performs many key functions. For one, Portage is the software distribution system for Gentoo Linux. To get the latest software for Gentoo Linux, you type one command: emerge sync. This command tells Portage to update your local "Portage tree" over the Internet. Your local Portage tree contains a complete collection of scripts that can be used by Portage to create and install the latest Gentoo packages. Currently, we have over 4000 packages in our Portage tree, with new ones being added all the time.
Portage is also a package building and installation system. When you want to install a package, you type emerge packagename, at which point Portage automatically builds a custom version of the package to your exact specifications, optimizing it for your hardware and ensuring that the optional features in the the package that you want are enabled -- and those you don't want aren't.
Portage also keeps your system up-to-date. Typing emerge -u world -- one command -- will ensure that all the packages that you want on your system are updated automatically."
I think I had an similar idea several posts before and I'm glad someone is making an effort in that direction all ready.
What's the hell is wrong with asking for an opinion?
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My point is that, while knowledge of any OS is crucial and any OS is configurable, the question is whether I'm learning to combat stupidity or maliciousness and configuring within relatively narrow parameters on something not really meant to be altered, or learning how to maximize performance and capabilities within a wide range on something meant to be tinkered with. Windows isn't a good model for user-friendliness if you are not a 'default' kind of person because you are learning to achieve bare tolerability. Linux, in this sense, is more user-friendly already, for deviant weirdos who actually want to do their own thing, because you're learning how to harness something excellent.
Linux isn't too complicated for the "general" user in my opinion
