Trivial Barriers to Personal Linux Use? 239
saintp asks: "I'm currently multitasking: building a computer for my girlfriend, and also trying to convince her to put Linux on it, so I've been thinking a lot lately about the barriers to adoption of Linux by Normal Everyday People. One that seems to be a major problem is that Windows users are addicted to downloading every piece of crapware that comes down the tubes -- hence the popularity of Gator and subsequent popularity of Ad-Aware. While geeks the world over sigh at this behavior, it makes a lot of people really happy, and they are very chagrined to discover that they can't do this on Linux without some command line mucking about, compilation, etc. What other minor, apparently trivial barriers exist to personal Linux use? Is anything being done to address these, or do many of the major vendors seem to be focusing exclusively on the business market, possibly to the detriment of Linux in the long run?"
Not all Windows user download that much software.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I know back in the day before I had migrated to Linux, I would install various programs just to play around with them. However, I never installed crapware like Gator, it was usually just stuff from sourceforge that sounded useful.
Maybe you could try giving her a distro that uses RPM, then show her freshmeat and sourceforge, and teach her how to install any programs she might want. That should satisfy her urge to try out new things.
Software installation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Software installation (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Mac OS X does a pretty good job of this. It maintains all the Unix-y stuff in the typical Unix-y places, and has a whole secondary structure for GUI-crap. For instance, there's a
Re:Software installation (Score:2, Interesting)
"OSX Apps", the pretty ones with icons that bounce, live in a subdirectory with a ".app" at the end of it. Finder (and not much else) knows that any time a user clicks on a file with ".app" in it, this whole subdirectory contains the full suite of resou
Re:MacOS Technique (Score:4, Insightful)
The directory structure is also something that doesn't necessarily need to be scrapped - I personally think it's a Very Good layout from a server/workstation administration standpoint, although I agree that it's terrible for a desktop computer. Again, I think OS X has hit on a very good solution - keep two separate file structures. One would be aimed at a desktop user and would be visible through the desktop environment. Applications that a desktop user needs can be placed here. Keep the old file tree, but make it invisible to the desktop environment (by default, anyway).
This system isn't without its faults, but I've found it to be an excellent comrpomise on OS X.
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
Now Windows approach to installing may be easier, but the Linux way is a whole lot safer. Having executable installers means that you can get a virus by double clicking. It also means that there isn't a uniform way to install stuff. On Linux it's just yum install blah. Windows is always a different look and feel.
The biggest problem facing Linux tod
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
Tried and it's not working the way you describe. I can use any of my USB ports and the behavior is always the same - no need for driver instllation. This is with a Windows XP Pro machine.
Really? Only thing that ever works on any USB port is the USB Mass Storage. On any machine whenever I wanted to use a Web cam or any device that needed drivers not built into Windows XP I always had to
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
Linux has a desktop metaphor as well. It works great and most users can do everything they want. They can't just go ahead and install things without so
From my point of view (Score:2)
The UNIX methodology: every program uses the provided spaces and follows the system's rules (/usr hierarchy); if the program chooses not to (e.g.,
Conclude from this what you will. I'm too tired to think anymore.
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
Linux does have some pretty advanced packaging system, generally standardized on
So whats a new package to do right after install to become a small icon in the desktop menu? It has to discover what window ma
Why copy one of Windoze's weaknesses? (Score:2)
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
So install Mandrake. Then you can just double-click RPMs and be lead through the install, just like Windows.
Well, just like Windows except it works even if you're not administrator, and you don't have to reboot...
Re:Software installation (Score:5, Insightful)
Who, other than geeks, is going to remember those commands?
It's so much easier to do it the Mac way: download it and drag it into the Applications folder. Even easier would be a program that lists all the available applications instead of forcing the user to find them on the web.
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
That would seem to be exactly what you're suggesting.
I haven't tried it myself (being a died in the wool Mac guy nowadays), but it would definitely be worth a look.
D
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
Hope that helps
D
Re:Software installation (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether it is safe to throw away the RPM's is also unclear to me. For some reason Windows installers do seem to make it clear that you can throw away the install program after using it.
Incidentally all the Linux desktops I have ever seen let you double-click RPM's and they *try* to install them. The problem is not that you can't do this, but that all too often it does not work, and you are forced to go to the shell to try again with the "--force" switch or whatever. I suppose you could make an argument that if a Windows installer does not work you are completely hosed, while it is physically possible to fix an RPM, but in reality Windows installers tend to always work (only counter example I have seen was an ATI driver for an old OpenGL card that crashed and the driver did not appear until I rebooted the machine).
I am still baffled why Windows has so brainwashed people that they think they need to "install" anything. Really I should be able to grab the file from the web page, drop it on the desktop, double-click it, and RUN the program, not "install" it. If I want it on the start menu I should then drag it there. And to "uninstall" I should be able to drag it and drop it in the trash.
Programs that need to mess with
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
You just installed the program by putting the application file on your hard drive. Feel free to get rid of the archive you got it from.
Doing this on a PC can be nearly identical - you get a compressed archive. You get the file out of the compr
Re:Software installation (Score:4, Interesting)
With OSX you get a
It kind of sucks to have your OSX desktop cluttered with foo.dmg.sit, foo.dmg, and Foo, just for one program.
Re:Software installation (Score:4, Interesting)
I think installation on Linux is better, if it worked as the package creator intended. The problem on Linux is that the packages often don't work. Windows would be as bad if 60% of the windows installers crashed or failed with errors when you double-clicked them.
I think in the ideal system, what you get is a file that you double-click and it RUNS the program (it it is not and "installer" and not a directory containing either the program or an installer). Only if the program needs daemons or other system setup, it can then detect if it has not been installed correctly and offer to do that, or just let you run to test it. For 99% of the programs "installation" should consist of dragging that file to the correct directory so users other than yourself can see it. "uninstallation" should consist of throwing the same file in the trash, and any symbolic links or init or daemons that it "installed" should have enough smarts to delete or kill themselves when the program disappears.
Nobody (not Windows or Linux or the Mac) seem anywhere near this. Some of it seems to be complete brainwashing by the installers on Windows. We have discovered that people don't believe the installer works if it does not present them with a big scrolling box of text with an "I agree" button!
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
Or to have users remember that [insert apt frontend] has lists of all sorts of cool programs they can install?
Re:Not happy (Score:2)
Let's also say that this application I want isn't in the ports tree, so I can't get to it with apt-get. What do I do then?
Or maybe let's say that I heard a program's name, but I don't know the package's exact name. Or maybe I want version 2.x, but there are packages for version 1.x and 2.x. I don't really want to have to bother with finding out that I only get 1.x when I $apt-get install foo, and to get version 2.x I need to $apt-ge
Re:Software installation (Score:2)
Don't blame debian for not including a binary package for qmail, when per qmail's license, they can't release a binary of qmail that fits in the debian directory structure.
Dude, what the fuck? (Score:2)
Sun Java Desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
Though you won't be able click and install applications, like one would do on a Window box, but Java Desktop System is a very close to it.
I think Sun Java desktop introduced a happy medium. Making it too easy to install software, increase chances of getting infected by a virus, worm etc.
Here are some more presentations on Sun Java Desktop [xml-dev.com]
Forget Java Desktop -- Java Web Start! (Score:2)
Similarly, InstallAnywhere, the ubiquitous Windows installer, is actually a cross-paltform Java application. It allows a developer to plug in routines to install an app on any system -- Windows, Mac, or Unix/Linux. The trouble is getting developers
Newbie detector (Score:5, Funny)
perhaps "dir" should start a linux tutorial as i'm sure i'm not the only person who's first instinct was to type "dir" when given a command prompt.
Re:Newbie detector (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Newbie detector (Score:2)
Re:Newbie detector (Score:2)
Re:Newbie detector (Score:2)
Even though it may not do you any good, some of us can't use Windows without CygWin [cygwin.com] anymore, which takes care of the "all your unix commands are belong to us" syndrome quite nicely.
4DOS (Score:2, Interesting)
Simple, small, clean, fast, and with all the features a power user want, even more that you could dream of.
I even prefer its TAB completion over bash.
It was incredibly productive.
Re:Newbie detector (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Newbie detector (Score:4, Funny)
Are you sure you want to do an ls -a? That will
show hidden files, and files are hidden for a reason.
>y
Okay, are you absolutely sure you meant to say yes to that last question?
>y
Ehm depends on the distro (Score:2)
There are some good books out there apparently to help complete beginners, personally I learned from a unix guy, but you really need to start to worry when you hit midlevel.
When ls and such no longer hold any secrets there are few books who will help you along in a general way.
I can see plenty of tutorials on installing apache. Sadly all of them seem to be for very low volume sites. Start hitting t
Sharing limitation (Score:4, Interesting)
I might be wrong at this, but I haven't seen in either GNOME or KDE something like 'right button click' -> 'share this folder' option, to get a list of the known users and automatically add it to the samba/nfs shares/exports list. If someone knows about some work being done in that direction, that would be a Godsend.
Regards,
Re:Sharing limitation (Score:2)
Re:Sharing limitation (Score:2)
Re:Sharing limitation (Score:3, Informative)
It needs to be enabled by the administrator, but right-click on a folder, go to Properties, and there's a Local Net Sharing tab there (KDE 3.2, dunno about previous versions as I don't use that feature).
Re:Sharing limitation (Score:2)
That's assuming that the Windows way is best. The jury is still out on that one.
If there is something good in Windows, we should implement it. But not everything there is good. For someone who is most familiar with Windows, it's hard to determine what's good or bad. You need to take a step outside of Windows and evaluate it objectively.
Lindows (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lindows (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lindows (Score:2)
My personal list of barriers (Score:5, Insightful)
What concerns me most is the situation for the rest of the family; We are Norwegians, and my father does some accounting for a few locale companies. I've yet to see a decent accounting application for Linux which works according to Norwegian rules. We're actually talking about one application which separates my father from using Linux instead of Windows.
My brother took over my father's farm a year ago. He needs Windows for some special software related to running a farm. Once again - it's only one piece of software.
My other brother doesn't have this problem, but he's not so good in English. I would have loved to install Linux on his laptop so that I didn't have to help him out every time Windows f*cked up. But most of the Linux software lacks in the localization field. Not many applications are being translated to Norwegian.
Conclusion: Some special software which still looks a few years from now, and the lack of localizing the most popular software. I guess both of these problems will be solved over time, but I would've given my lef...right foot for having it solved now.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a solution (Score:2)
Re:My personal list of barriers (Score:2)
Capice, kemosabe?
I've got one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. I mean, I like messing about with computers, OS flavors, etc, etc. I've currently got a couple different flavors of linux, looking for a third, and am thinking about a BSD. It's just lack of space for hardware that keeps me from having more toys. It's nice to use, it's powerful, it's flexible..
However, I'm not always in the mood to sit down and figure out why something doesn't work right. For instance, why Mandrake currently has told me three times in a row that my glibc is out of date. And upgraded it to the newest version each time. (Yes, using "mandrake update".) Oh, and doing so BROKE Mandrake Update. My OS update feature broke itself. I'm sure this is fixable, but why should I have to screw with it just to make the admin tools work again?
My mouse. It's got 5 buttons. Why the HELL would I want to install a program, tweak multiple files, and chant ominously just to get the side buttons working? I know how, sure. It's just I have better things to do.
I don't WANT to make my game work. I want my game to WORK. I don't want to have to make X program load properly, or hand-twiddle a configuration file. I want to open a damn document, view it, edit it, and save it with formatting. No, I don't want to learn TeX to do it. I know I CAN, but why do I have to?
Seriously. I'm a damn hobbyist, and I do these things for fun, and it still pisses me off that I have to spend more time playing with it to make it work than it does working. Updates shouldn't break things. Upgrades shouldn't cause triple-layered dependency hell. THere shouldn't be dependency hell at all. We hate "dll hell", why is fucking about trying to find just the right version of a given module acceptable? I mean, there's girls and liquor and music out there for me, why should I spend all my time fixing something that can just work? (I know it can. Apple did it. It's been done once, thus can be done again. It's just not BEING done.)
Choice? Screw choice! I want function! Would you drive a car if you had to put the damn wheels on every time you parked it? Would you put up with having to buy the correct grade of gas from JUST th right pump style, from the exact proper petrol chain, just to start the car in the morning?
For fuck's sake, the 2.6 upgrade, which I look forward to installing on GENTOO for the love of god, isn't covered by the documentation, requires a full replacement of the main module utilities, and Still might not work right. I CAN'T RTFM, since this shit isn't IN the FM to R.
I think you get the idea.
I love doing this stuff, and it STILL pisses me off and drives me to drink. What do you think your granny's going to do?
Go back to windows, or Mac, or something that does what she wants, when she wants it, and doesn't have to be babysat.
And enough with the goddamn text editors, people. I understand you like them, but I don't need 50 of them. Spend the time you used to put those on my distro app disk to make sure the distro doesn't randomly shit itself.
(Not bitter or anything, me...)
Re:I've got one. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I've got one. (Score:2)
dporowski: I've got one. I have to keep screwing with it.
Wish I had that problem.
Re:I've got one. (Score:3, Interesting)
You've obviously never had to drive a British Leyland product, or anything with Lucas prince of Darkness electrics :-)
But back on topic - you don't have to do that with Linux. I run RH8.0 at home, play games (such as RTCW:ET) that come for Linux, and spend no more time 'screwing around with it' than I ever do with Windows. My printer just works. The only bit of hardware at home I di
Re:I've got one. (Score:2)
You should select OS vendor by OS update quality. If Mandrake isn't cutting it, try something else.
2 - Five button mouse
One for each finger, that's cool. Now, if the mouse vendor only supports Windows, then don't buy the product. Or, buy the OS that the mouse vendor IS supporting (if you *must* have that mouse.).
If Linux hppens to support it, good. Get someone to install it for you (and pay for it). Solve the damn problem -- why are you whining?
3 - You just want it to WORK
So pay someone
Re:I've got one. (Score:2)
Re:I've got one. (Score:2, Interesting)
Ease of installation (Score:4, Interesting)
As much as I would love to use Linux and OSS, I have an even greater need of a working system that handles my basic needs. Right off the top my system has to handle a USB and parallel port printer, HP scanner, Palm sync, Internet connection, access to the Windows boxes on our small network, and allow the Windows boxes to use the printers and see my files.
If all of those work, I can spare the time to wade though the great morass of information that Linux calls "documentation" and learn the obscure tricks that are needed to manage a Linux system.
What I can't afford is to have a system that does only some of the things above. Thus far installing Linux has always left me with at least two of my needed functions absent. I already know that trying to find out how to fix them will consume days if not weeks.
With Windows 2K (and driver discs) everything above "just works" out of the box.
Just for the record: Mandrake (a few times) RedHat (3 times), Suse, Caldera (long time ago), Knoppix, and at least two others.
Re:Ease of installation (Score:3, Informative)
Except, I now have SuSE 9.0....
And everything works, just about, right out of the box. On one system, with a Geforce FX, everything just works. Installed the NVIDIA drivers using YaST2 update (SuSE's installer). Configured NVIDIA drivers using SaX2 (SuSE's X setup). Everything else worked without setup, and far faster than a Windows install would take.
Minor problems: My nforce system needed the nforce rpms from Nvidia's site. My ATI Radeon 9800 Pro needed the rpms from ATI s
My first barrier, (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My first barrier, (Score:2)
Re:My first barrier, (Score:2)
Text editors under Linux (Score:2)
Re:My first barrier, (Score:2, Informative)
So what's your problem? Use kwrite, gedit, or whatever is in your desktop menu. Both blow the pants off of notepad. I can somewhat understand the intimidation factor of having to choose something during install time. Is this worse than Windows that doesn't let you choose between ANYTHING?
Re:My first barrier, (Score:2)
Re:My first barrier, (Score:2)
might not be that big a deal.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Next time I went home, they had me switch the default to Linux so they didn't have to sit there when it booted up. My mom, sister, and stepdad (who can't even figure out how to use the DVD player) have been using it quite happily since then, and aside from having to install flash for my sister (which I was able to do remotely via ssh, another plus), they haven't complained at all about not being able to install shit. They're just damn happy they can read their email (they use mozilla), chat, & web surf w/o being bombarded by popups all the time. They're also quite impressed that they can each have their own web bookmarks and desktop pictures (first thing my sister did was put up a Pirates of the Caribbean background). I don't think they've booted into Windows much at all since then.
Only real problem they've had is that there's currently no way I know of for them to switch users when my sister has xscreensaver locked, short of killing X.
Re:might not be that big a deal.. (Score:2)
If you limit them to low-impact screen savers (no realtime ray tracing or other cpu-hog bloat code) you could give them each their own session (and they could hop back & forth with Alt-F<your number here>); that way, even if one of them is in the middle of something, they could yield the system to someone else without needing to close or exit anything (although it's generally a good idea to save!).
We've used this sort of setup at work with reasonable success, though we did have to break a few MS
Re:might not be that big a deal.. (Score:2)
It could be anything from vt1 to vt12 (Ctrl-Alt-F1 to Ctrl-Alt-F12)--higher, actually, but there aren't simple key chords for those.
And rather than having them do a (manual) startx--and presuming that the machine is in an environment where walk-up-security isn't an issue--just replace the getty-flavour-of-your-choice in /etc/intittab with a scrupt that does something along the lines of "su - -c='startx -:-...(formulas to grab this vt number in the right format)' (the user who gets this vt)".
If you're rea
Re:might not be that big a deal.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not post the code here? Sounds like a nifty method.
Here it is, in bite-sized chunks. First, the command to launch X on the current tty:
startx -- :`tty | tail -c 2` vt`tty | tail -c 2`
Note the back-ticks. If you call this "win", make it executable, and put it in the happy place of your choice, you can do an number of interesting tricks with it.
Re:might not be that big a deal.. (Score:2)
One issue I have had with KDE is that the devices (fd0, sound) are only available to the user who logs in first. I don't know if that is a KDE bug.
*smile* I almost included that in my note (it's part of my general-system-frendliness process). Provided that the system is only accessable to trusted people (people that won't pipe fart.au to the speakers when someone else is trying to work), you can just:
to give everyone access to audio in/out. I think that will do what you want.
Re:might not be that big a deal.. (Score:2)
I'd think you could get away with doing it once (as root) when you build the system, no?
-- MarkusQ
Re:might not be that big a deal.. (Score:3, Informative)
This is on debian unstable, it's a really nice feature. And maybe it isn't x-screensaver but k-screensaver, but whatever it is, it works pretty good.
Good luck, glad to hear a success story.
--Robert
Re:might not be that big a deal.. (Score:2)
Anyway, under the newer KDE's when the deskopt is locked with screen saver, you have the option of Starting Another Desktop for a different user. Yep, Fast User Switching is already available for Linux under Debian Stable (with the KDE addon
Re:Obligatory windows-can-do-that-too post (Score:2)
What!?! He set up a dual boot system! The family can CHOOSE Linux or Windows. If they DON'T have Windows/XP, they would have to pay for the upgrade. Why would they, if Linux works?
And, after PAYING, they then have to install Mozilla, or Opera (replacing IE), or the "Google Toolbar" (no, I don't know what that is, sorry). I do know what google is, but have never seen this "toolbar".
Love of Crapware (Score:3, Insightful)
I have one particular user, a cute girl, who just loves her Hotbar. "It's pretty!" she gushes. And of course her desktop picture is filled with Pink, her favourite colour.
I have been quite surprised how much people get attached to these things. As someone who doesn't even switch away from the default MacOS X desktop theme (it's tasteful!), I find them absolutely bewildering
But since they love their Hotbars, I leave them alone, because above all, I want my users to be happy. Happy users are productive users. And so on.
But why are people addicted to things as silly as ever-changing resource-killing screensavers, and Hotbar?
I'd love to know.
D
Printer Support (Score:3, Insightful)
My wife wants to print things like cards or color signs and labels. Until someone writes a much better BJC-3000 driver, (I'm using the gimp-print-4.2.5 driver) I'll have to keep that windows partition around.
Re:Printer Support (Score:2)
It's difficult to reverse-engineer hardware, and even Microsoft doesn't write it's own print drivers. It's no surprise that Cannon's drivers are better, they did write the hardware after all.
But no company will write CUPS drivers if they think the demand for them isn't significant. And they don't know unless people tell them. So it really does make a difference to ask for driver support.
Mainly (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I don't feel like pluging into the user forums and mailing lists only to get flamed because I didn't read the entire 400 pp manual accessible only with less.
I don't feel like getting flamed on IRC or Usenet or Slashdot for asking what to me is a really hard question and to you what is really easy.
I don't feel like it because right now I've got what I need on Windows. If some day I can switch to Linux with a little online support that will not result in a bunch of elitist geeks calling me whiny or annoying or stupid just because I asked a question or tried to answer a question that f********* calls for people to be whiny in the damn first place, then maybe I'll switch.
If you want people to join your &#&$##@ club, don't bitch them out when they walk in for the first time. It's just basic.
People like you... (Score:2)
show up in technical forums all over Usenet. Here is a hint to make your life easier:
Be prepared to do some work on your own before asking questions - ones that have no doubt been asked countless times before - in a public forum.
Learn to use Google (and Google Groups). Learn to search text files so you don't *need* to read all 400 pages. You should also learn not to exaggerate.
If you aren't willing to put in the time to do a little research, and if you expect people to take their time to hold you
Re:People like you... (Score:2)
No, this doesn't mean you specifically, or even 90% of the community. However, for whatever reason, there's a sizable section of Linux users that like to tout their superiority. It's great that these people know so much about their OS of choice, and it's great they're taking the time to answer a question, but if the
Try BSD. (Score:5, Insightful)
But I've installed FreeBSD a week ago, and it's going along pretty well. There's still a fair bit of f***ing with configs, but less so: it's secure from the start.
FreeBSD feels, to me, like it was designed. Linux always feels like it just accumulated by accident.
Re:Try BSD. (Score:4, Insightful)
Whenever I use Windows I find it a frustrating experience, having to deal with obscure registry settings and drivers and service packs.
Comparing FreeBSD to Linux is like comparing a Toyota Corolla to a V8 engine. Try comparing FreeBSD to a distribution like Suse, Red Hat or Mandrake.
My experience is that FreeBSD is no better or worse than any of the community driven distros like Gentoo or Debian. Seeing as the majority of userspace is the same (XFree86, OpenOffice and GNOME) that's really no surprise. It's strange to claim FreeBSD is "designed" whereas Linux is not, because most of the software in FreeBSD is accumulated in exactly the same way that it is accumulated in every Linux distribution.
A few of my issues (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A few of my issues (Score:2)
2. Dpkg/RPM
3. Permissions!!
4. Have you tried to read your windows Registry recently?
5. 2.6 reads all MS filesystems
6. My 2.6 kernel "just works" with most everthing I plug into it. I have to install drivers for a new MOUSE under MS XP.
Lastly: Because diversity is the spice of life, mother of invention, and conformity breeds monoculture, incest, and extinction.
Linux IS a great free software movement. Part of that free is Freedom, freedom to d
Re:A few of my issues (Score:2)
2. SOMETIMES it uninstalls with one click, other times it doesn't or it sort of does and leaves crap all over your HD and registry.
3. Permissions CAN be a pain, but they are usually set up in a very sane fasion. If a normal user can't change it, they probably shouldn't be. BUT try running Win2000/XP as a limited users... MS is getting
Re:A few of my issues (Score:2)
Is it the Prereq Disk? The user is at a site that has a blanket MS licence so the ISO for the Preq Disk was avaialabe... except its bogus. For the life of me we could NOT get that thing to burn, mad a really nice set of shiney coasters though. Finally had to get a Made-In-Redmond version of the disk to get it to install.
If you are having some other problem let me know and I might be able to help.
B
People, Places, Things (Score:4, Interesting)
I migrated my wife to Linux a few months ago, after some skips and jumps migrating her IE Favorites over (had to write my own script to migate them over. Ask for the source if you want it) I had to move her mail client from Kmail to Evolution.
What a nightmare.
Just coverting between maildir to MBOX formats were a pain, getting her people in her addressbook was another fight, and in the end I decided, there must be a better way.
Anyone remember good old BeOS? In Be you had People... Every mail client used People as a master address book. It was clean, intelligent, and you didn't have to code up your own converter every time you wanted to switch mail clients. The same goes for Mail... The system saved mail on the hard drive in a specific place and format (Maildir, I think it really ended up being). All mail clients used it, and they all behaved well with it.
And finally, the browser favorites were located in one place, installed a third party browser? No problem! They all read the favorites from the same place. Coolest part, if you had to backup, just a few folders to drag from the users directory and all the important stuff was backed up to cd.
Here lately i've started working on a framework to unify People (address books) Places (Favorites) and Things (Mail) so that users can use any mail client they wish, with any browser, and everything stays (and, more importantly, keeps) updated, no matter what client one uses.
Oh, well. Someone get in touch if you want to bring back some of the cooler aspacts of BeOS to the world of Linux. It's not going to get any easier until we make it so.
Re:People, Places, Things (Score:2)
thanks!
It's called Xandros. (Score:2, Insightful)
It looks good, it detected all my hardware on multiple machines and set everything up properly, and it's extremely user friendly.
IMHO, the best desktop Linux distribution on the market today. And I've been using Linux since '95 and have never seen it as well put together as Xandros.
Oh, and it has shiny graphical interfaces for software installation and what not.
Try it.
APPLICATIONS FOLDER (Score:2)
This is very simple, It avoids breaking various distros by working outside the distros file tree.
each installer package would link all the executables to a
ln -s
Have a script run before every install to check all the links in the
Familiarity and software (Score:2)
Linux has to make it onto the office desktop before it will make it onto the home desktop.
Most people still learn to use computers in an work context (but computing in schools is making this less prevalent) and at work or in school the desktop is (by and large) Windows. This gives the advantage of familiarity to the Windows OS, and people will typically choose something familiar.
Related to this is the lack of Linux software in stores. When you walk into a computer store you see plenty of software and
application support (Score:2)
anyone can walk down to a PC store and pick up the software they want (games/ quicken type stuff/ desktop publishing/photoshop....) and install then easily, by themselves, on Windows.
Until Linux gets the native app support from the big software guys, AND the software is as easy to install, its not going to succeed in the long run.
THEN the PC vendors will start to sell Linux with the hardware (or will send lawyers at them?).
Give her a Mac. (Score:2, Insightful)
(Put Konfabulator on there first, and set up a few nice widgets for her
Brain dead options (Score:3, Interesting)
Installing software is a joke. Where? Which RPMs do I need? Which RPMs need updating? What other apps fall over because their dependent RPMs have been updated without their knowledge? The number of times I'm like "oh for fuck's sake" and back to the old Windows box.
Click - done. This should be available. Of course, this doesn't mean that all the fannying around options should be removed for people who do want to use their brain, but not everyone wants to read gigabytes of bad-attitude HOWTOs for the slightest little thing.
I even gave up installing BitTorrent on my Windows box last night. What the fuck is a tracker? Where do I get one?
Ok, you can whine at me for being thick but that's rather missing the point. I'm
User installed software is dangerous! (Score:3, Informative)
a) Use standard installers like yum, apt-get, urpmi, whatever, which only install software as root from trusted repositories.
b) Give the user the possibility to install software, but only in their own directories as themselves, and make sure through the installer that none of this software is installed setuid root.
The alternative, to make it possible for them to install whatever software as root is probably the biggest gaping hole waiting to get exploited on Linux, if it becomes mainstream desktop software.
Desktop widgets: SuperKaramba & gDesklets (Score:2)
Of the two, SuperKaramba has more plugins that will appear to the novice or non-geek. To see SuperKaramba applets, go here [kde-look.org] (though the KDE-Look.org site is currently having fits, so you might have to check back later).
These bits of mostly eyecandy might help make a Linux desktop more interesting to the uninitated.
Format limitation (Score:2)
A lot of the modern Internet eye-candy out there has limited support under Linux. One big problem is QuickTime and WMA video formats. They have limited support i.e. you can download those files and (maybe) play them, but that's quite a few steps away from the inline-web-page proprietary-plugin-dependent hypermedia world that today's wannabe-digerati (hack spit) marketers intend -- and layusers expect.
Not to mention limited or no abi
Re:Multi-monitor support in X extensions (Score:2)
The main difference is that they made different decisions about the "old" one-monitor interface, used by any programs that are not aware of multiple monitors. On Windows it returns the "main" monitor, while on X it returns a rectangle around the entire set of monitors. This is likel
Re:Dependancies & Hardware (Score:2)
user friendliness is up to the USER not a GROUP of people who deciede to force their definitions onto other people. I have installed redhat
Re:Dependancies & Hardware (Score:2)
the only reason you would think something is a pain is if you do not know it well enough, which would cause you to expend to much T&E on it.
Re:Currently Migrating My Girlfriend... (Score:2, Informative)
LILO on a floppy.
floppy in, boots to linux; floppy out, boots to XP. XP never even knows LILO or Linux is there. keep a couple extra copies of the magical LILO
Re:Linux For Domestic Use... (Score:2)
First off, you should only run as "root" when absofinglutely necessary - and not at any other time. Plus, when running as root, you have to realize the power you have over your system, and how much it can be mucked up. All other times you should be running as a user.
I would go one step further and have a separate user for browser/email - one segregated from everything (or nearly everything) else that is writable (ie, internet user/group only gets r-x privs