Dear Denis and friends: Remember my rant about this problem (i.e. of combinging the install/upgrade option with automatic/custom/expert on THE SAME DIALOGUE BOX? Well, as luck or rather misfortune (almost!) would have it, it just happened to me. Anxious to try out the new 7.1 anti-aliasing (which is a welcome relief from squinting my eyes for the past year and half on the Web), I decided to download 7.1 from the Web by FTP using a floppy network. Thanks to your excellent troubleshooting, the original problem of downloading the two CD has indeed been fixed, and the installation went FLAWLESSLY from metalab.unc.edu. I choose to do an Install (Custom, Normal) into hda (/). hdb is my /home directory and hdc is my Win98 partition. No problem. After configuring everything and setting up KDE, I went back, as I usually do, to metalab.unc.edu to download the Devlopment files (Expert, Normal). [Footnote: I found it very difficult to highlight more than one category at a time in order to download the various categories. Fortunately, I only needed Development, so that was no problem, but you may wish to investigate the matter and see if there is a bug in highlighting and selecting more than one category. I had no such problem in my official LM 7.0 Power Pack CD.] NOW THE PLOT THICKENS: As soon as I got through the first few screens (mouse, keyboard, etc.), I suddenly find myself face to face with the Installation Options: Automated, Custom, Expert arranged vertically on the left and Install or Upgrade horizontally on the bottom of the dialogue box. And, to add to the confusion, Automated is checked as Default. I cannot imagine, as I have already mentioned this earlier, a more disaster-prone situation than this. And, lo, just as I thought, before I had a chance to think through, I hit the Upgrade button and suddenly I see: "Getting available packages."' No way TO TURN BACK AND CORRECT my mistake. NO ERROR MESSAGE STOPPING ME DEAD IN MY TRACKS asking: Are you sure you want to select "Automate" (since Automate will probably wipe out all of your drives, including Windows). After spending several hours downloading and installing and configuring LM 7.1 and doing it perfectly, suddenly I found myself about TO LOSE EVERYTHING due to human error, an error all to commonly made by us mortals, in fact, as likely to be made by the more experienced as by the newbie. Fortunately, I understood what I had to do: I immediately powered off the system and removed the floppy network.img install diskette. Then, I went back to metalab and very gingerly made sure to select Upgrade and Expert, then Development. Believe me, if I were a newbie or even an expert (even experts are prone to human error), I would be mad as hell at Mandrake for ruining my installation. Wouldn't you? Whoever joined those two sets of options was thinking of EFFICIENCY, NOT, I assure you, USER-FRIENDLINESS!!! Here is what I suggest to protect newbies, moderately experienced users and even experts: First dialogue box: INSTALL or UPGRADE (just as in LM 7.0. With option to go BACK and change one's selection. Second dialogue box: Automated, Custom or Expert with Automated checked, if you wish (again, as in LM 7.0. With option to go BACK and change one's selection. Third dialgoue box: Normal, Development, Server with option to go BACK and change one's selection. NOW, AN EXTRA SUMMARY DIALOGUE BOX (just as you do for the printer or Xconfigurator): a summary of all selections made with an OPTION to EDIT these selections or to go BACK and change them. Then, and only then, should a user be thrown into the irreversible process of downloading the packages themselves. I implore you, heed my example and I am sure that of (tens) of thousands of others. The installation process is TERRIFYING enough. Think of the user. That's your motto: "a user-friendly OS". Protect the user. Don't expose him/her to unbearable stress and anxiety that are TOTALLY UNNECESSARY. Combining the two installation options as explained above to save a few bytes is EXTREMELY REGRESSIVE and extremely anxiety-inducing. You are one of the easiest Linux distro to install so far and, in my opinion and that of many others, the finest distro available. Don't mess it up with cost-cutting bullshit. Always look at it from the point of view of the user, especially the newbie or the ordinary user who is installing for the first time (and then upgrading for the first time). I know that the combined dialogue box looks LOGICAL. But that's the point. Sometimes LOGIC is in direct conflict with COMMON SENSE and USER-FRIENDLINESS. I will close with an example from Windows 3.1. Those of you who used 3.1 might remember that in the File Manager, Microsoft in its infinite wisdom choose to arrange the options under File as follows: MOVE COPY DELETE Now that looks very logical. Doesn't it. Yes, all too logical. It's a recipe for disaster, all the more so since Win 3.1 does not have a Recycle Bin. You can easily see a newbie who is still struggling with the mouse accidently hitting the Delete button instead of the Copy button and losing an entire year's work. The question is: Who designed this "logical" arrangement? Surely, not someone who actually uses the computer. Even an expert, all the more so an expert who is relying on habit, might hit the "Delete" button and inadvertly delete instead of copy a file. Obviously, "Delete" is too dangerous to place right under "copy" and "Move". It should be placed somewhere on the right side of the File Manager protected in some special way. Same for Linux-Mandrake. You must think NOT just of LOGIC but of ACTUAL USE, of the user and how to protect him at every critical point, at least, wherever possible. You have been doing a great job at this and I heartily commend you for your security options, for you graphical partitioning, etc, your optimisization, wealth of applications, now beautifully organized in 7.1, etc. etc. All of this is great, but none of this will mean a thing if you ever forget the user, if you think "logically" as a programmer only instead of as a user who is actually using your OS and applications every day, in and out, to do his and her work. Thank you so much. Benjamin -- Benjamin and Anna Sher [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sher's Russian Web http://www.websher.net
