Here is my point:
This is the kind of mentality I am presented with most often. Oh, I know operating systems, so I can do an expert install. What? There are thousands of packages? Oh, well I have the hd space so I guess I will install everything, and figure out what I need later.(Yeah, that will happen!) Or, I don't have the hd space, but don't want to weed through thousands of packages, so I will let the installer only install 50% of them. It knows what I need. :) I couldn't possibly do a standard install, because when I do a standard install with a different operating system it installs a bunch of stuff I don't want. Therefore I must do either a custom or expert install. (And unknowingly install a bunch of stuff I don't need or want)
Balancing security and usability is a constant problem, and since Mandrake is aimed at the "newbie" I would say that enabling everything by default makes sense from a usability standpoint. However, with a lot of people moving to Linux from other operating systems, mostly for security and/or performance reasons, I think we need to strive to maintain that security and performance. I think one way to do that would be to not start services by default and work on informing the user that the functionality that they want is there, but they need to enable it. Then work on making it easier for the users to understand how to enable it.
Ok, I am done now. That was waaaay too wordy.
Pete
Prana wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Alexander Skwar wrote:Hmm, thinking about it - hmm, as Mandrake is targeted at the newbie kind of
user, I begin to think that even after an install, a service should default
to being turned off. Yes, it's beginning to make sense. If someone knows
that he wants something, than it's easier for him to turn the service
intentionally on.AGREE.But then again, someone may not know what he wants. Suppose a new linux
user, who just read, that linux comes with an email server. He knows that
he wants an email server, but fails to see that postfix is an email server.
Now the service is turned off - he comes to the conclusion, that "Linux is
not working" because he expected to have an email server when installing
Linux. What about these kind of users?
It makes much more perfect sense to write a message in a dialog box
after install: "Dear user, your servers are not turned on by default so
that you can choose which one you want to run by yourself. If you need
it, log in as root user and type drakxservices from the console and
start the services that you need for your servers. If you only want to
run Mandrake as a desktop/development workstation, you don't have to
turn on any services so that your computer is optimized for desktop. To
update Mandrake, you can run Mandrake Update Robot if you user your
computer as a server or rpmdrake for Desktop user"
Another good idea is, try installing Caldera OpenDesktop 2.4 and you'll
see that login boot screen says "anacron [Enabled], crond [Enabled],
apache [Disabled], portmap [Disabled], nfs [Disabled], etc etc etc"
However, Caldera still doesn't turn them off by default, which is bad.Yes, this should not happen. Upgrading packages should not change the
whether a service is turned on or off.Of course it should NEVER happen. I don't understand why the packaging
forces us to run these unwanted services.... :-(
