Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Matt Randolph schreef: Holly Bostick wrote: Matt Randolph schreef: I don't think Knoppix really has an administrator. It really is an enduser only flavour of Linux. It's sort of a fire and forget distro. Sure, someone had to go to a lot of trouble to get it set up just right in the first place, but once that was done it can perform reliably without further administrative intervention. The enduser not only probably won't set the root password, the enduser doesn't even need to know that it is unset. Or even that a root account exists! Interesting. But again, *someone* had to administer the system to set it up so that a user could be 'pure'. It sounds like we are in agreement on this point. We both state that someone had (past tense) to administer the system... at some point in time. We also both state (or imply) that the enduser doesn't take up the role of administrator. Is it possible to have any sort of computer that hasn't felt the effects of an administrator? Of course not. Any device of any significant complexity can only exist by the labors of some knowledgeable persons. I don't think anyone is trying to say the opposite. But does the Knoppix user's system have an administrator NOW? I say it does not. It has been configured by an admin... heck, the OS was installed to it's filesystem by an admin... but there is no admin looking over the shoulder of the Knoppix user. Right so here's a real-world problem, from elsewhere on this list (authorization failure when sending email) Matthew Lee schreef: I've tried every combination of kmail settings available, no joy. I've reemerged all the software that --depclean removed, no joy. I've reemerged kmail, no joy. I've reemerged ssmtp, no joy. However, I think ssmtp, or something associated with it is the problem. But what I haven't a clue. Is there another simple mail transfer agent I could try. I don't need anything fancy it's just a laptop connected to the lab DHCP server. Since this issue seems to revolve around programs also available to Knoppix (and likely also being used under Knoppix), it's probably a valid example. So you've got a user who is unable to use a simple user function (send email). In the proposed administratorless world, who is supposed to fix this? The invisible administrator (who must exist, but is no longer necessarily present). In the case of Knoppix, that's the Knoppix team or the Debian team, if we're restricting ourselves purely to the packages involved. Is the user supposed to download and install another fixed Knoppix disk in order to be able to use KMail as they did last week? Or is the user to follow the Debian protocol and not use the newer version of these programs (meaning they wouldn't be available to Debian stable in the first place, which of course, they probably aren't)? If everything is supposed to JustWork and does not, someone must be at fault. Who? The user is experiencing some unidentified conflict between programs that worked together well last week. Is there any way for those who are 'to blame' (development, packaging, some admin along the line) to work in such a way that these conflicts never ever filter down to the user? I say no, because we persist in making the conflicting applications known to the user before all such conflicts are identified and eliminated-- partly because development requires that these errors filter down to the user to be identified in the first place, as developers cannot test under all possible conditions. Basically the limit of software technology is that we make it immediately available to everyone as if it does not require administration, but it is (almost) never so stable and intuitive that this is in fact the case. The solution would seem to be to either not make the software available until it has been sufficiently tested so that it does JustWork under all possible conditions (which the trained greed of users will not allow), or teach the user that sometimes they may have to do something a bit more complicated than just click 'Send' (which means that the user cannot be a pure user anymore). I don't see any middle ground here, but maybe I'm missing something. Holly I don't believe this sort of user experience is limited to read-only systems like Knoppix, though. Look at Lindows/Linspire. How about those $200 Linux computers they are (or were) selling at Wal*Mart (strewth!). I expect those machines ARE intended to provide the enduser with an essentially administratorless (to coin a word) experience. Linspire (at least used to) have the user running everything as root. But do you think the enduser always knows that? I think the enduser simply knows that when they pay to install OpenOffice.org from Linspire's private apt servers, it just works; it installs without their ever having to `su` or `sudo` or anything. That Linspire user essentially is the
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On 9/6/05, Holly Bostick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SNIP The solution would seem to be to either not make the software available until it has been sufficiently tested so that it does JustWork under all possible conditions (which the trained greed of users will not allow), or teach the user that sometimes they may have to do something a bit more complicated than just click 'Send' (which means that the user cannot be a pure user anymore). I don't see any middle ground here, but maybe I'm missing something. Holly SNIP I don't think you're missing anything but I do think there are options. None of what I say below is necessarily for Gentoo folks to do. It's just comments, none of which are original: 1) Having this 'Just Work' is important for end users. End users aren't interested in what's under the hood. They just want to drive. 'Just Works' is the most important thing. Nothing else matters unless you're ready to make a commitment. 2) The 'trained greed' mode is really with, IMO, coming from CS and IT types and other such folks who like living in the 'Wild West'. At my advanced age I personally don't care much if things are really up to date or not, unless they don't 'Just Work'. Unfortunately for folks like me portage keeps me far more updated than I really think I need to be. All my desktop and laptop machines (5 PCs) are almost constantly doing compiles. On the other hand my 4 MythTV frontend machines haven't been touched in 1-2 months. Of course, at this point they 'Just Work', so why touch them? 3) Releases could be more layered, such that consumer ready apps that do 'Just Work' are what's available and the stuff I'm emerging this morning isn't made so easily available to non-CS/IT types like me. In my mind this would probably end up looking more like a 'desktop release' instead of just the difference between stable and ~x86/~amd64. Of course, that's pretty much Fedora/Suse, Debian, but I want Gentoo's stability and I want an environment where it's really easy to do the few things I do that require me to compile and administer code. (Ardour Linux Sampler mostly, but a few other audio apps also.) 4) Some set of apps, like the web-based CUPS manager, could be set up, documented and maintained better for end-user types like me. These apps should be able to administer all aspect of networking, video setup, sound, etc., so that the end-user type doesn't need to know how to use an editor. no more nano, vi, etc., for end-user types. Over time they will learn it, but in the beginning they should be able to set up a machine without it. (Maybe these already exist. I've heard of Webmin but the one time I tried it I ended up with problems on my Redhat box so I stopped.) All in all it's a big job, and I think a huge portion of what Microsoft appears to offer people. It's sad that underneath their offering is so little stability, so many viruses and so little control, but folks jump in, get set up, spend their money and then find the way out of that mess is not easy. To you Holly, thanks for all your inputs and insights. you've got lots of good stuff to say. Cheers, Mark -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Holly Bostick wrote: Matt Randolph schreef: But does the Knoppix user's system have an administrator NOW? I say it does not. It has been configured by an admin... heck, the OS was installed to it's filesystem by an admin... but there is no admin looking over the shoulder of the Knoppix user. Right so here's a real-world problem, from elsewhere on this list (authorization failure when sending email) Matthew Lee schreef: I've tried every combination of kmail settings available, no joy. I've reemerged all the software that --depclean removed, no joy. I've reemerged kmail, no joy. I've reemerged ssmtp, no joy. However, I think ssmtp, or something associated with it is the problem. But what I haven't a clue. Is there another simple mail transfer agent I could try. I don't need anything fancy it's just a laptop connected to the lab DHCP server. Since this issue seems to revolve around programs also available to Knoppix (and likely also being used under Knoppix), it's probably a valid example. So you've got a user who is unable to use a simple user function (send email). In the proposed administratorless world, who is supposed to fix this? The invisible administrator (who must exist, but is no longer necessarily present). Mr. Lee's problem is not that he cannot send email. It is that he cannot send email by the method he has chosen to use because he hasn't the knowledge necessary to make that method work. I assume he could probably resort to webmail in a pinch. If his distribution had provided those packages together with a wizard to bring the task of configuring them properly to within his grasp, he would not be having this problem. Is the task of producing such a wizard the responsibility of the Gentoo team? It would be only if he had paid them to provide such. But Mr. Lee hasn't paid anyone to do this configuration for him. He has consented to serve the role of administrator for his laptop himself by choosing a non-commercial distribution without a tech support line. However, it sounds like he is administering his laptop in a reasonable fashion by first exhausting every idea he can come up with before turning to the community for help. One might say that the admin is the person (or persons) that through knowledge and experience enable a system to perform what is required of it. Building systems that do not require physical interaction with administrators on a regular basis does not make the admin go away per se. It merely moves the admin FURTHER away. It may mean that the developers have assumed some of the roles an admin would have performed. So if developers can produce software that actually is maintenance free (to the satisfaction of the enduser), what has happened to your administrator? Now it is the developer that has made the system work by virtue of their experience. If the authors of kmail and ssmtp can't or won't do that, there may be others who will. The paid people at Redhat and Linspire come to mind. In the case of Knoppix, that's the Knoppix team or the Debian team, if we're restricting ourselves purely to the packages involved. Is the user supposed to download and install another fixed Knoppix disk in order to be able to use KMail as they did last week? Or is the user to follow the Debian protocol and not use the newer version of these programs (meaning they wouldn't be available to Debian stable in the first place, which of course, they probably aren't)? If everything is supposed to JustWork and does not, someone must be at fault. Who? The user is experiencing some unidentified conflict between programs that worked together well last week. Is there any way for those who are 'to blame' (development, packaging, some admin along the line) to work in such a way that these conflicts never ever filter down to the user? I say no, because we persist in making the conflicting applications known to the user before all such conflicts are identified and eliminated-- partly because development requires that these errors filter down to the user to be identified in the first place, as developers cannot test under all possible conditions. Basically the limit of software technology is that we make it immediately available to everyone as if it does not require administration, but it is (almost) never so stable and intuitive that this is in fact the case. The solution would seem to be to either not make the software available until it has been sufficiently tested so that it does JustWork under all possible conditions (which the trained greed of users will not allow), or teach the user that sometimes they may have to do something a bit more complicated than just click 'Send' (which means that the user cannot be a pure user anymore). I don't see any middle ground here, but maybe I'm missing something. Holly In the world of the cathedral, the middle ground is both. Console video games cannot easily be
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Matt Randolph wrote: Mr. Lee's problem is not that he cannot send email. It is that he cannot send email by the method he has chosen to use because he hasn't the knowledge necessary to make that method work. I assume he could probably resort to webmail in a pinch. If his distribution had provided those packages together with a wizard to bring the task of configuring them properly to within his grasp, he would not be having this problem. Is the task of producing such a wizard the responsibility of the Gentoo team? It would be only if he had paid them to provide such. But Mr. Lee hasn't paid anyone to do this configuration for him. He has consented to serve the role of administrator for his laptop himself by choosing a non-commercial distribution without a tech support line. However, it sounds like he is administering his laptop in a reasonable fashion by first exhausting every idea he can come up with before turning to the community for help. Excuse me. I have just learned that Mr. Lee is actually Dr. Lee. My apologies. - Matt -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On Sun, Sep 04, 2005 at 02:11:51PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote My 'disagreement', if there is one, is that a savings of $300 for a new computer and a $99 Windows upgrade won't convince many people to learn to do it themselves using Linux. It takes a much stronger reason than that, at least in my limited part of the planet. How about the hard truth... Admiinistering Linux is hard. Keeping a Windows machine free of spyware is harder. -- Walter Dnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On 9/6/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Sep 04, 2005 at 02:11:51PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote My 'disagreement', if there is one, is that a savings of $300 for a new computer and a $99 Windows upgrade won't convince many people to learn to do it themselves using Linux. It takes a much stronger reason than that, at least in my limited part of the planet. How about the hard truth... Admiinistering Linux is hard. Keeping a Windows machine free of spyware is harder. Damn straight!!! Actually, building a Win XP machine is pretty damn hard also. I wrote down what I did today building my only dual boot machine from scratch. I swear it almost took long to load Win XP successfully than it did to do a stage 3 Gentoo install! No less than 12 reboots and one spontanious reboot that shouldn't have happened. All this just to get XP loaded, Windows update done, and NAV loaded. What a mess!!! Everythign is up except grub. I need to send the list a question about that before I run grub and actually install it. Cheers, Mark -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On Sep 6, 2005, at 8:08 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Sep 04, 2005 at 02:11:51PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote My 'disagreement', if there is one, is that a savings of $300 for a new computer and a $99 Windows upgrade won't convince many people to learn to do it themselves using Linux. It takes a much stronger reason than that, at least in my limited part of the planet. How about the hard truth... Admiinistering Linux is hard. Keeping a Windows machine free of spyware is harder. amen brothercan I get a witness? As an independent technical consultant, I make most of my money, unfortunately, cleaning windows computers of spyware. In most of those cases, any old linux desktop with openoffice would fit their needs, but they've bought the marketing. In most of those cases, the amount of money they'd have paid me to do the up front administering, would have been less. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Matt Randolph schreef: [I just thought I'd chip in my two cents on the question of whether Linux is easy or hard. It's turned into more like my $11.62, so it's a good thing it's broken into sections.] Linux is easy. snip of Matt's tour-de-force, virtually all of which I agree with, except it still assumes that a 'knowledgeable user'; i.e. an admin, is involved, which was the point of the whole debate-- Windows users believe that they should always be 'pure users' and the very fact that they or someone must 'admin' Linux automatically makes it too hard The only thing that is harder to do in the Linux world that in the Windows world is to find commercial software and some driver support. In the Windows world, you don't have to ask yourself is this software available for my OS? In the Windows world, you buy the hardware first and then check to see if it's compatible AFTER you start having trouble getting it to work in your computer. Which is, btw, completely bass-ackward to start with, which was my original point (the assumption that 'pure user, no admin necessary' is possible is fundamentally wrong, and patently false based on the observed evidence). You can't buy a couch on a whim without taking into account the measurements of your doors/room first (well you can, but if you can't get it into your house, no vendor is going to say, 'oh, sorry, that's my fault'). If you do, and the movers can't get the couch up the stairs/through the door/into the room, whose fault is everyone (including you) going to say it is that you can't use the couch? *Yours* for not determining that the device (couch) was appropriate for your environment before buying. This idea that somehow computer hardware is different (fostered by MS, where everything supposedly 'JustWorks') is completely contrary to knowledge and experience we have of the Real World --where you can't just buy 'anything' without checking something first (you try on clothes, or at least check the size, you make sure that electrical appliances have the right connectors for your wiring or needs, heck, if nothing else you make sure the color matches your room or shoes). Judgement is an 'admin-level task', and it is unavoidable that judgement should be involved in such a situation as buying computer hardware (because we are currently unable to create computers that are able to either make such judgements for themselves, or are so flexible/standard that such judgement does not need to be made at all). The fact that the OS manufacturer with 90+% of the market is actively fostering the complete untruth that judgement is not only outdated and uncool, but furthermore completely unneccessary in Our Modern World (ha!) is, shall we say, deeply disturbing to me. Holly -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Who was is said the only truly intuitive user interface is the tit? Somebody who never had children: babies and moms have to _learn_ how to nurse, and sometimes aren't able to pull it off. john. -- genehack.org * weblog == ( bioinfo / linux / opinion / stuff ) * daily * Don't compare floating point numbers just for equality. - The Elements of Programming Style (Kernighan Plaugher) -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Holly Bostick wrote: Matt Randolph schreef: [I just thought I'd chip in my two cents on the question of whether Linux is easy or hard. It's turned into more like my $11.62, so it's a good thing it's broken into sections.] Linux is easy. snip of Matt's tour-de-force, virtually all of which I agree with, except it still assumes that a 'knowledgeable user'; i.e. an admin, is involved, which was the point of the whole debate-- Windows users believe that they should always be 'pure users' and the very fact that they or someone must 'admin' Linux automatically makes it too hard The only thing that is harder to do in the Linux world that in the Windows world is to find commercial software and some driver support. In the Windows world, you don't have to ask yourself is this software available for my OS? In the Windows world, you buy the hardware first and then check to see if it's compatible AFTER you start having trouble getting it to work in your computer. Which is, btw, completely bass-ackward to start with, which was my original point (the assumption that 'pure user, no admin necessary' is possible is fundamentally wrong, and patently false based on the observed evidence). You can't buy a couch on a whim without taking into account the measurements of your doors/room first (well you can, but if you can't get it into your house, no vendor is going to say, 'oh, sorry, that's my fault'). If you do, and the movers can't get the couch up the stairs/through the door/into the room, whose fault is everyone (including you) going to say it is that you can't use the couch? *Yours* for not determining that the device (couch) was appropriate for your environment before buying. This idea that somehow computer hardware is different (fostered by MS, where everything supposedly 'JustWorks') is completely contrary to knowledge and experience we have of the Real World --where you can't just buy 'anything' without checking something first (you try on clothes, or at least check the size, you make sure that electrical appliances have the right connectors for your wiring or needs, heck, if nothing else you make sure the color matches your room or shoes). Judgement is an 'admin-level task', and it is unavoidable that judgement should be involved in such a situation as buying computer hardware (because we are currently unable to create computers that are able to either make such judgements for themselves, or are so flexible/standard that such judgement does not need to be made at all). The fact that the OS manufacturer with 90+% of the market is actively fostering the complete untruth that judgement is not only outdated and uncool, but furthermore completely unneccessary in Our Modern World (ha!) is, shall we say, deeply disturbing to me. Holly I don't think Knoppix really has an administrator. It really is an enduser only flavour of Linux. It's sort of a fire and forget distro. Sure, someone had to go to a lot of trouble to get it set up just right in the first place, but once that was done it can perform reliably without further administrative intervention. The enduser not only probably won't set the root password, the enduser doesn't even need to know that it is unset. Or even that a root account exists! I don't believe this sort of user experience is limited to read-only systems like Knoppix, though. Look at Lindows/Linspire. How about those $200 Linux computers they are (or were) selling at Wal*Mart (strewth!). I expect those machines ARE intended to provide the enduser with an essentially administratorless (to coin a word) experience. Linspire (at least used to) have the user running everything as root. But do you think the enduser always knows that? I think the enduser simply knows that when they pay to install OpenOffice.org from Linspire's private apt servers, it just works; it installs without their ever having to `su` or `sudo` or anything. That Linspire user essentially is the admin, though she doesn't know it and she almost certainly doesn't behave like one. That's true for Windows XP users too (personal users, at least). The default Windows XP account runs everything with administrative privileges. But that doesn't mean there's an admin at the controls. Microsoft has tried to shift the most frequently performed critical administrative task, namely installing security updates, from the user's shoulders onto their own. I think portage and apt achieve similar (nay, superior) functionality for Linux users, and I don't think that's a bad thing. Should Linux users be able to get away without administering their systems? Well, I think Linspire users should be able to get away without administering their systems themselves. For their target users, Linspire systems should me largely maintenance free. For these people, any administrative tasks that must be performed should probably be handled by corporate HQ as much as possible.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Matt Randolph schreef: Holly Bostick wrote: In the Windows world, you don't have to ask yourself is this software available for my OS? In the Windows world, you buy the hardware first and then check to see if it's compatible AFTER you start having trouble getting it to work in your computer. Which is, btw, completely bass-ackward to start with, which was my original point (the assumption that 'pure user, no admin necessary' is possible is fundamentally wrong, and patently false based on the observed evidence). snip I don't think Knoppix really has an administrator. It really is an enduser only flavour of Linux. It's sort of a fire and forget distro. Sure, someone had to go to a lot of trouble to get it set up just right in the first place, but once that was done it can perform reliably without further administrative intervention. The enduser not only probably won't set the root password, the enduser doesn't even need to know that it is unset. Or even that a root account exists! Interesting. But again, *someone* had to administer the system to set it up so that a user could be 'pure'. I don't believe this sort of user experience is limited to read-only systems like Knoppix, though. Look at Lindows/Linspire. How about those $200 Linux computers they are (or were) selling at Wal*Mart (strewth!). I expect those machines ARE intended to provide the enduser with an essentially administratorless (to coin a word) experience. Linspire (at least used to) have the user running everything as root. But do you think the enduser always knows that? I think the enduser simply knows that when they pay to install OpenOffice.org from Linspire's private apt servers, it just works; it installs without their ever having to `su` or `sudo` or anything. That Linspire user essentially is the admin, though she doesn't know it and she almost certainly doesn't behave like one. And many now question whether Linspire can even be called a Linux distribution for this and other reasons, despite the fact that it runs on a Linux kernel. We're all wondering if that is then the only requirement, or does it also need to follow 'the rules' to be counted? But that's a whole 'nother discussion. snip What I think I hear you saying is that being able to get away with this foolish behavior should not be one of our goals. I did not mean to imply that careless hardware shopping should be encouraged. Rather, I used this as an example to try to illustrate how lacking driver support slows the growth of Linux. If Linux is going to grow it's user base significantly, it's probably going to have to attract quite a few of those careless boobs too. And if Linux can't be made to work on their hardware, do you think they are going to run out and buy a new computer or will they simply rethink the decision to try Linux? Although careless hardware shopping should not be encouraged, being able to get away with it (that is, having nearly ubiquitous hardware support) should indeed be one of our goals. OK, I understand that, but... how exactly is allowing one to 'get away' with such behaviour not 'encouraging' such behaviour? If one has always been able to 'get away' with any behaviour, why would one think that any other behaviour is possible? If for my entire life, I have walked into stores, taken what I wanted, and left again (which is perfectly acceptable behaviour wherever I'm from), the day I walk into a real store, and get taken away by the police for 'stealing' (because I didn't pay, which I have never heard of and thus never even considered that a 'store' represents an 'exchange' of 'money' for 'goods'), it may be true that I have not been 'encouraged' to 'steal', but I definitely have been poorly trained in the actual working of The (rest of the) Real World, and that is not a good thing. Ubiquitous hardware support, on the one hand, is closer than you think (there's not all that much hardware that cannot, no matter what you do, be made to work under Linux; it's just not that it all JustWorks), and on the other hand is less relevant than you think (I have drivers that enable my ATI card to 'work' under Linux, but they suck, so whose fault is that? Not Linux's. Nor is it Linux's fault if I plug in my digicam and it is mounted, but I don't know how to get the dv output into Kino, or can't figure out how to properly mount my perfectly-well-detected Flash card to get my pictures into whatever graphics display or editing program I might use). The hardware works fine. But that's no help if I can't understand how to use it, or can't use it effectively. And enabling some kind of efficient communication between the hardware that is being properly detected by the kernel, and the programs the user uses to utilize the device is a design issue, which is an administrative task. If Wine/Cedega will run Morrowind using my ATI card under certain configurations,
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Holly Bostick wrote: Matt Randolph schreef: I don't think Knoppix really has an administrator. It really is an enduser only flavour of Linux. It's sort of a fire and forget distro. Sure, someone had to go to a lot of trouble to get it set up just right in the first place, but once that was done it can perform reliably without further administrative intervention. The enduser not only probably won't set the root password, the enduser doesn't even need to know that it is unset. Or even that a root account exists! Interesting. But again, *someone* had to administer the system to set it up so that a user could be 'pure'. It sounds like we are in agreement on this point. We both state that someone had (past tense) to administer the system... at some point in time. We also both state (or imply) that the enduser doesn't take up the role of administrator. Is it possible to have any sort of computer that hasn't felt the effects of an administrator? Of course not. Any device of any significant complexity can only exist by the labors of some knowledgeable persons. I don't think anyone is trying to say the opposite. But does the Knoppix user's system have an administrator NOW? I say it does not. It has been configured by an admin... heck, the OS was installed to it's filesystem by an admin... but there is no admin looking over the shoulder of the Knoppix user. I don't believe this sort of user experience is limited to read-only systems like Knoppix, though. Look at Lindows/Linspire. How about those $200 Linux computers they are (or were) selling at Wal*Mart (strewth!). I expect those machines ARE intended to provide the enduser with an essentially administratorless (to coin a word) experience. Linspire (at least used to) have the user running everything as root. But do you think the enduser always knows that? I think the enduser simply knows that when they pay to install OpenOffice.org from Linspire's private apt servers, it just works; it installs without their ever having to `su` or `sudo` or anything. That Linspire user essentially is the admin, though she doesn't know it and she almost certainly doesn't behave like one. And many now question whether Linspire can even be called a Linux distribution for this and other reasons, despite the fact that it runs on a Linux kernel. We're all wondering if that is then the only requirement, or does it also need to follow 'the rules' to be counted? But that's a whole 'nother discussion. I didn't mean to imply that Linspire is a proper Linux distribution. It certainly doesn't follow 'the rules' of a proper operating system. But neither does Windows for that matter (and for much the same reasons). Knoppix doesn't follow the traditional 'rules' in that it is read-only. Embedded versions of Linux don't follow 'the rules' in a sense because the user might never interface with the OS at all, merely a single application instead. Linspire IS trying to follow a set of rules. Specifically, the ones Windows goes by. So doesn't that mean that Linspire is at least as valid an OS as Windows is? No, Linspire is not proper Linux, but it is bringing the kernel and Linux apps into some peoples homes. It may not be bringing the traditions, the behaviors, or the ways of thinking that are a part of Linux, but those may come with time to those that seek them. But even if they never did, why should certain sorts of people be prevented from using Linux just because they aren't clever enough or are too busy to do it properly? Some people will never learn more than the basics of operating a computer. If those people are forced to chose between learning to use a proper OS properly versus using a typewriter, they'll start dusting off the old Selectric. I have heard rumors that some futurists are predicting the death of the PC in the not too distant future. Instead of PCs they predict people will use weird multi-function mobile phone devices with speech recognition interfaces. Will you want to have to log in to your mobile in order to answer it? Will you want to have to create a cron job to get it to download your email? But don't you want it to be Linux-based anyway? What I think I hear you saying is that being able to get away with this foolish behavior should not be one of our goals. I did not mean to imply that careless hardware shopping should be encouraged. Rather, I used this as an example to try to illustrate how lacking driver support slows the growth of Linux. If Linux is going to grow it's user base significantly, it's probably going to have to attract quite a few of those careless boobs too. And if Linux can't be made to work on their hardware, do you think they are going to run out and buy a new computer or will they simply rethink the decision to try Linux? Although careless hardware shopping should not be encouraged, being able to get away with it (that is,
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On Sun, 4 Sep 2005 23:46:02 -0400 Paul Hoy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Bob, I found your email really informative and I have a question regarding one of your final comments. To paraphrase, you state that doing things the hard way will make employees more knowledgeable, more so than any certification will. So, my question is this: is it worthwhile to obtain certification? And, if so, which would be a better choice in your opinion: Red Hat certification or say, for instance, certification from the Linux Professional Institute? The certification tests do require real knowledge - mainly on setting up things like mail, ftp, drive arrays, etc - lots of after the install items. certainly all requiring skill and knowledge. Red Hat focuses on Red Hat, though many items are transferable for the motivated individual. LPI certification is broader, and, some say, the harder test of the two. Are they worth it? Depends upon the job market. The knowledge required to pass the tests is certainly a large part of managing any Linux system. But if your starting with a blank hard drive, then neither will get you past any problems that may occur during the install or with the package manager. Btw, I'm not sure if I have hijacked the thread. If so, please feel free to edit the subject line. Hijack a hijacked thread that was originally an OT about window managers? Bob - -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Mark Knecht schreef: To become a Linux user is a commitment. People don't make new commitments lightly, and making a light commitment to Linux is doomed to failure. It's far too hard to use. This is a common 'perception', and yet again I have to object to it, because it's *wrong* (not for the reasons you think), but it's nonetheless wiping the floor with us (much in the same way that the common perception that the world was flat wiped the floor with many early potential explorers). rant Yes, becoming a Linux user is a commitment. I'm with you that far. But then saying that in combination with it's far too hard to use, implying that it should be easy to use is a contradiction in terms. Operating a vehicle is also a commitment, and you have to learn to drive a car/truck/motorcycle-- you even have to learn to ride a bike. A bike is easier to use than a car, and a car is easier to use than a bus (I suppose), but in fact none of these vehicles is really easy to use and half the tools created to make it easier to use actually make it harder (how many people have trouble using a GPS system, for example?). In fact, the only 'easy' way to use a car is to get someone else to do all the hard work of driving on your behalf, since we do not yet have mental-telepathy-controlled vehicles, or transport beams ala Star Trek. Yes, of course, once you've learned to drive, it's (pretty) easy to do, but does the fact that it's easy once you've learned it mean that you can judge the task as objectively 'easy'? I don't think so-- if you have to learn how to do it, it's automatically 'hard' (or at the very least, not easy). Especially since, continuing with this example, learning one variant of how to perform the total operation does not enable you to 'automatically' perform any other variant knowledgeably (you can drive a car, but you can't drive a bus or a motorcycle, or an 18-wheeler). That suggests to me --because of the limits of the human animal, and because of the current design of vehicles-- that operating a vehicle can not ever be considered an 'easy' task, notwithstanding that many people are able to do so. Which brings us to 'commitment', proving my point. You don't make 'commitments' to tasks that are easy; you don't have to. You don't have to 'commit' to 'taking a cookie and eating it', because that's easy-- unless of course you have an eating disorder, in which case you do, because 'eating' is now no longer easy, but hard, due to your illness. *OPERATING A COMPUTER IS NOT EASY.* That's just all there is to it. The current design of computers is like a Neanderthal stone axe, for Pete's sake. It's not like a stone axe is not useful, and certainly it's better than your bare hands for chopping down a tree, but it's a long way from a gas-powered chainsaw, which is itself a long way from something like a (back to Star Trek) replicator, which would provide the result (wood, in this example), without even destroying the original source (a tree). Windows is designed with the premise that this fundamental truth should be concealed from 'users' at all costs (they've even abused monopoly power in an effort to promote the perception that using a computer is easy; yes, of course surfing all of the non-compliant sites with *IE* is 'easy, especially if you make sure that the non-compliance is built in by your free-for-the-asking design kit, fold your browser (which of course knows all the tricks) into the OS so that most 'average users' will just use it by default, and bump the competitors out of the market so that 'not-so-average' users won't wonder just what's up with why they can't view thus and so site with X browser, but can with Y(our) browser. Linux, on the other hand, doesn't see that there's anything to hide-- possibly because it was originally meant for server admins, who of course already know that operating a computer is a complex task. Now, of course, the community is all undecided about whether to break the news 'gently' to the hoped-for migrating Windows users (which is a whole sub-argument as to how to do that, or what it even means), or whether to just fling 'em in the water and let $DEITY sort 'em out. But just because Microsoft says that operating a computer is easy does not make it so-- and may I just point out that operating Windows is *not* easy either; leaving aside the idea that a complete reformat and reinstall is an 'easier' solution to something going wrong than editing a text file, icons and associating icons with specific programs and understanding the whole concept of files and applications is all *learned behaviour*-- thus, by definition, not 'easy'. So how is changing one *operating system* to another supposed to be an easier task than the global task of operating the computer in the first place? I mean, please. It's a commitment, yes (if only because in order to learn a behaviour, you must commit to learning and retaining what you learn), and when is commitment ever easy? Light
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On Fri, Sep 02, 2005 at 09:15:26AM -0400, Thomas Kirchner wrote: This can be a bit daunting, though, so when I was setting it up I found a fairly good base (taviso's, I believe) and customized the heck out of it. Now it's perfect for me, and I just can't get rid of it. I've tried pretty much every other option, but only FVWM can scratch everyone's exact itch - if they're patient. I did a search for taviso and found his fvwm2rc file: http://dev.gentoo.org/~taviso/fvwm2rc.html There's also a lot of screenshots (and even a video!) of that desktop. After starting this thread, I got to playing with enlightenment DR16 (not ready for 17 yet). Despite being known for the eye candy, it (so far) has proven itself to be a great lightweight window manager. Raster (enlightenment author) wrote a simple window manager benchmark program; see the results of some typical window managers here: http://www.rasterman.com/index.php?page=News I'd like to see some more window manager benchmarks (because I'm a bit suspicious given that enlightenment had the best results in this benchmark). But I ran the two tests on my machine, and my results were consistent with Raster's. In fact, the two fastest window managers I tested were enlightenment DR16 and FVWM. I did play with Fvwm for a while, though. And taviso's configuration pretty much proves that *anything* is possible. It just takes so much work to get it looking nice! The Fvwm development team might take offense to this, but they could probably improve their market share if fvwm looked... different... out of the box. Not that market share is really important here, but it's a bit ironic to see all the window managers that have been written, either from scratch or as hacks on FVWM, when FVWM has been able to do pretty much everything for a long time. Well, now I'm thinking I need to learn X11 programming, and hack on FVWM or something... another project in my infinitely-long queue of started-but-not-finished projects. Matt -- Matt Garman email at: http://raw-sewage.net/index.php?file=email -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
050904 Matt Garman wrote: I did a search for taviso and found his fvwm2rc file: http://dev.gentoo.org/~taviso/fvwm2rc.html There's also a lot of screenshots (and even a video!) of that desktop. The video is astonishing ! Fvwm2 looks like great fun, if you have the time. -- ,, SUPPORT ___//___, Philip Webb : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Centre for Urban Community Studies TRANSIT`-O--O---' University of Toronto -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On 04 September 2005 11:41, Holly Bostick wrote: I've tried to stay away from this thread but can't resist any more. ;-) [ snip a lot of Holly's rant I mostly agree with ] This is why I can't deal with all the people I encounter who suggest that 'it' should 'JustWork' without need for instruction of any sort (whether that be a physical manual, man pages, READMEs, or Windows Help files). Like humanity is sooo good at making stuff, and 'users' are sooo brilliantly educated, that they should be able to look at a computing device and immediately know what it all means (like looking at a screwhole, a screw, and a screwdriver). It's not gonna happen any time soon, and it certainly hasn't happened yet. Operating a computer safely, reliably, and with any degree of competence whatsoever is a hard and complex task, and it's going to be hard for some time to come. That is exactly the reason I feel I have to make sure I do not add further complexity to it for my users. My users, or actually my customers and their users, are mostly office workers, engineers and journalists or other workers at newspapers. So it's mostly about corporate computing rather than home users. They do not administrate their boxes, they use them. Or, to use Holly's example of driving, they are drivers rather than car mechanics. My POV is: The most important feature of a GUI is consistency. Before I'll argue that point, I have to put away a fairy tale of computing: The intuitive desktop. Such beast does not exist. Intuition is highly based on one's cultural background. Since cultures are pretty much diverse, desktops cannot be intuitive across different culture. Lemme give you some examples, all of them coming from KDE because that is what I know best. Let's have a look at the icon for Email. That's a capital E, an envelop leaning against it. Pretty intuitive, no? Alright, let's just assume I have grown up with a language that does not use the Latin script, and I do not speak English at all. In that case, the E is meaningless to me. Let's additionally assume my culture doesn't use envelops for mail but scrolls. The entire icon does not contain one single hint for me to guess what it means. Look at the icon for Help. Let's say you have never been on a ship. Let's say you have never seen a ship - and yes, there are a lot of people like that. What does that red-and-white ring tell you? Next to nothing. Same for the Home icon. Unless your home looks somehow like that, you won't be able to associate the icon with home intuitively. A diagonal line from the bottom-left corner to the top-right one means upwards, right? Well, yes, it does for most of us. The keyword here is most. Most of us read from the left to the right. That gives us the sense of direction when we look at that line. Those who read from the right to the left perceive it as downwards. And how about those who read from top to bottom? Actually, I have no idea how they may perceive that line. Alright, I have got into my favourite pasttime: Intercultural communications. I'll stop here as long as we can agree on intuitive desktops being a fairy tale that has never made it into real life. Let's forget about that concept and come back to my initial point: The most crucial property of any computer (G)UI is consistency. Inconsistencies make it damn much harder for users to learn their environment or, in Holly speak, to commit to it. To borrow from Holly's example of driving again: All cars have their accelerators on the right hand side, the clutch on the left hand side and the brake in between (alright, cars with automatic gearboxes omit the clutch). That makes it feasible to change to another car without learning driving from scratch. Same for computers and, especially, desktops. All Open dialogues *must* look and operate the same regardless which application one uses. The Print entry *must* be in the same menu regardless of the application. The same icon means the same in every application; a particular action is represented by the same icon in each and every application. Same for wording. Dismiss, Cancel, Bail out - that's simply confusing for someone who *tries* to commit themselves to something new like linux. That's the reason I strongly advise to go with a real Desktop Environment for users rather than choose a windows manager and all the apps at random. Throw KDE or GNOME at your users to make it easier for them commit themselves. Make it easier for them to drive their desktops by providing a consistent interface. /my rant If you geeks want to use whatever you want, that is fine. For *you*. Don't even dream about converting the vast majority of computer *users* with that approach. Good night Uwe -- 95% of all programmers rate themselves among the top 5% of all software developers. - Linus Torvalds http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004) -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On 9/4/05, Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 3 Sep 2005 15:56:34 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: In general I'll have to take the unpopular position and say I disagree. All those potential converts are just like you - They don't run desktops they run apps - and because they are so entrenched with dollars already spent on Microsoft Windows, Microsoft email, Microsoft Office, Quicken,, etc., they won't come just because they can save $400 buying a new PC. To become a Linux user is a commitment. People don't make new commitments lightly, and making a light commitment to Linux is doomed to failure. It's far too hard to use. Imagine knowing absolutely nothing about any Linux editor, nor even terminal commands, and trying to configure networking. It's nigh on impossible. You're confusing using with administering. Yes, administering a Linux system takes more knowledge than clicking a few buttons in Windows, but using a correctly setup system is no harder with Linux, even Gentoo, than Windows. My partner is about as computer-illiterate as they come, but she uses a Gentoo system. She runs apps, not a desktop and not an operating system. She uses KDE, not because she prefers it, but because it's what I use, so it was the easiest one for me to show her around. But as long as her mailer, browser and office programs work, she doesn't care what's underneath. This is someone so technophobic that she cannot use a VCR, but Linux is not hard to use for her. -- Neil Bothwick Neil, But to use it you have to set it up, right? ;-) I'm not confusing administering a system with using a system. Although my skill set is permanantly locked somewhere around the 6 out of 10 level I do understand that difference. I also understand what it's like on the other side. I administer not only my own Gentoo systems (numbering 3) but I also administer my wife's Gentoo box, my son's Fedora box, my father's Gentoo box and 4 Pundit-R's that are used as MythTV frontend machines. I get the difference. I love Gentoo, and Linux in general, but it took a long time. The point is that not a single one of those people could even begin to take a Gentoo CD and end up with a running system, or if they did it would take weeks. Everyone of them can do that with Windows in an afternoon. They have. None of them could even begin to do what's in a Gentoo install doc in terms of configuration. The editors are arcane, the instructions sometimes a bit vague, and RTFM instructions would simply send them back to Windows in a heart beat. We both understand that without vi or nano experience that without luck you'll probably never get networking, and without networking you go nowhere fast. We both can see that if someone tried to use Linux on a Windows network the first question after getting the machine up would probably be some Samba oriented issue about 'Where is network neighborhood' Windows gives me that. How do I get my files? ...etc... I've had to solve that for my family. Browsers are almost OK these days, as long as you don't want or need multimedia, flash, etc., but after I'll hit the real issue that was raised earlier. Even if the machine is up and working perfectly, I need M$ Word, Excel, Outlook, or all my old stuff is lost and I'm just starting over. Damn, the kid sure is screaming loud about his stupid games not working, my wife want's her 'Family Tree' program or some other such thing. I give up and go to the pub for liquid therapy. I've done this, both for myself and for 3 family members. Granted, I ain't that smart, but I've seen the problems. On the other hand I think many hot shot Linux folks cannot always see the forest for the trees and take far, far too much for granted. For someone who just wants to browse the web and get a little email through GMail Window gets the job done until it fails. When it does they wipe their disk, reinstall, and go on. That sort of user is never, IMHO, going to make a commitment to learn vi... Just my two cents, respectfully given. I'm not bashing Linux, or developers, or anyone here. I'm just saying life isn't all about CS majors just out of college. cheers, Mark -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
Uwe Thiem schreef: On 04 September 2005 11:41, Holly Bostick wrote: I've tried to stay away from this thread but can't resist any more. ;-) [ snip a lot of Holly's rant I mostly agree with ] This is why I can't deal with all the people I encounter who suggest that 'it' should 'JustWork' without need for instruction of any sort (whether that be a physical manual, man pages, READMEs, or Windows Help files). Like humanity is sooo good at making stuff, and 'users' are sooo brilliantly educated, that they should be able to look at a computing device and immediately know what it all means (like looking at a screwhole, a screw, and a screwdriver). It's not gonna happen any time soon, and it certainly hasn't happened yet. Operating a computer safely, reliably, and with any degree of competence whatsoever is a hard and complex task, and it's going to be hard for some time to come. That is exactly the reason I feel I have to make sure I do not add further complexity to it for my users. My users, or actually my customers and their users, are mostly office workers, engineers and journalists or other workers at newspapers. So it's mostly about corporate computing rather than home users. They do not administrate their boxes, they use them. Or, to use Holly's example of driving, they are drivers rather than car mechanics. Yes, Uwe, I see what you mean-- but do you see that they don't *have* to be competent/educated/committed because they have you to be that for them? My point was only that *someone* has to be, because we are not at such a state of technological advancement where it's possible for such a device to operate without somebody who knows what they're doing somewhere along the line. Behind every good (and bad) user, there's a frazzled admin keeping the channel clear for them. snip of Uwe's rant, most of which I agree with If you geeks want to use whatever you want, that is fine. For *you*. Don't even dream about converting the vast majority of computer *users* with that approach. Hey, who you calling a geek? ;-) But seriously, where are you going with this? First of all, who cares about converting anybody? But let's say somebody does... and there are, naturally, those who do. Those who do are... let's see... commercial distributions like Mandriva, SUSE, RedHat. Seems to me that they already go to a lot of trouble to conform their environments to the type of standard you describe. Only a few apps like OO.o just won't get in line. So those who have a stake in managing such issues, manage such issues. Those who have a stake in such issues being managed, go with the organization that's managing the issues they need managed. So is there any reason that I, as someone not particularly interested in managing this issue, need to think any more about this :-) ? Holly -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On Sun, 4 Sep 2005 13:02:30 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: You're confusing using with administering. Yes, administering a Linux system takes more knowledge than clicking a few buttons in Windows, but using a correctly setup system is no harder with Linux, even Gentoo, than Windows. My partner is about as computer-illiterate as they come, but she uses a Gentoo system. She runs apps, not a desktop and not an operating system. She uses KDE, not because she prefers it, but because it's what I use, so it was the easiest one for me to show her around. But as long as her mailer, browser and office programs work, she doesn't care what's underneath. This is someone so technophobic that she cannot use a VCR, but Linux is not hard to use for her. Neil, But to use it you have to set it up, right? ;-) Wrong. someone has to set it up, but it doesn't have to be the user. I'm not confusing administering a system with using a system. Although my skill set is permanantly locked somewhere around the 6 out of 10 level I do understand that difference. I also understand what it's like on the other side. I administer not only my own Gentoo systems (numbering 3) but I also administer my wife's Gentoo box, my son's Fedora box, my father's Gentoo box and 4 Pundit-R's that are used as MythTV frontend machines. I get the difference. I love Gentoo, and Linux in general, but it took a long time. See, you are the admin, your wife etc. are users. they don't care about the ins and outs of the system, only what they can do with it. The point is that not a single one of those people could even begin to take a Gentoo CD and end up with a running system, or if they did it would take weeks. Why would they need to, they have you for that :) -- Neil Bothwick OPERATOR ERROR: Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah! pgpBLvG5fnSiu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On 9/4/05, Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But to use it you have to set it up, right? ;-) Wrong. someone has to set it up, but it doesn't have to be the user. Surely... I'm not confusing administering a system with using a system. Although my skill set is permanantly locked somewhere around the 6 out of 10 level I do understand that difference. I also understand what it's like on the other side. I administer not only my own Gentoo systems (numbering 3) but I also administer my wife's Gentoo box, my son's Fedora box, my father's Gentoo box and 4 Pundit-R's that are used as MythTV frontend machines. I get the difference. I love Gentoo, and Linux in general, but it took a long time. See, you are the admin, your wife etc. are users. they don't care about the ins and outs of the system, only what they can do with it. Fine, but going back to the only thing in the thread that got me involved (why do I get involved? ) ;-) Walter siad: I think lightweight WM's will be important. Linux in general will have a great window of Opportunity when Vista is released. A lot of current machines will not be able to run it well (crawl != run). If people are faced with a choice of throwing out their old W2K, and XP machines, and buying new ones, versus keeping their machines and switching to linux, I think we could see quite a few converts. Now, if by a 'few' we want to assume one or two who learn enough to make it work, then I agree with Walter, but that's not very interesting. On the other hand, if by a few mean mean thousands (not millions, etc.) then I suggest it isn't going to happen because they won't be able to administer it themselves and they won't know someone who'll do it for them like I do for my family. My 'disagreement', if there is one, is that a savings of $300 for a new computer and a $99 Windows upgrade won't convince many people to learn to do it themselves using Linux. It takes a much stronger reason than that, at least in my limited part of the planet. The point is that not a single one of those people could even begin to take a Gentoo CD and end up with a running system, or if they did it would take weeks. Why would they need to, they have you for that :) 3 people do, but thousands don't. Anyway, 'nuff said. Thanks! Cheers, Mark -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On Sun, 4 Sep 2005 14:11:51 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: See, you are the admin, your wife etc. are users. they don't care about the ins and outs of the system, only what they can do with it. Fine, but going back to the only thing in the thread that got me involved (why do I get involved? ) ;-) Walter siad: I think lightweight WM's will be important. Linux in general will have a great window of Opportunity when Vista is released. A lot of current machines will not be able to run it well (crawl != run). If people are faced with a choice of throwing out their old W2K, and XP machines, and buying new ones, versus keeping their machines and switching to linux, I think we could see quite a few converts. Now, if by a 'few' we want to assume one or two who learn enough to make it work, then I agree with Walter, but that's not very interesting. On the other hand, if by a few mean mean thousands (not millions, etc.) then I suggest it isn't going to happen because they won't be able to administer it themselves and they won't know someone who'll do it for them like I do for my family. Fair comment. If you're talking about individual user/admins then the learning curve of installing and administering a different OS (not necessarily more difficult, just different) is a serious obstacle. Why would they need to, they have you for that :) 3 people do, but thousands don't. Be thankful for that, I'm sure three is more than enough at times :) -- Neil Bothwick Time for a diet! -- [NO FLABBIER]. pgp3PNYaNeoZT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:56:56 +0100 Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Fair comment. If you're talking about individual user/admins then the learning curve of installing and administering a different OS (not necessarily more difficult, just different) is a serious obstacle. Based on my experiences, I'll disagree with you Neil. I had a couple of interns working for me last year. One was about to graduate from college and the other was in the middle of getting a Master's degree. Both were comp-sci majors. The Master's degree intern had been running Red Hat or something, but really didn't know Linux. The other intern used WinXX - college was teaching her Java, nothing much more than that. First thing I did was get them set up with systems and hand them a Gentoo minimal CD and url for the installation manual. Told them to ask anything they wanted at any time. Explained to them that they needed to learn Linux, but that RPM based distros wouldn't give them any type of broad knowledge, and wouldn't be any better than learning to install WinXX. They took about a week, with a couple of restarts, had them run fluxbox and Enlightenment before allowing them to run their choice of WM. Eventually, they moved to KDE, which is fine, but they had an X environment and additional knowledge, they could work while KDE was compiling. *Btw - they were also learning how to install and use Irix at the same time.) While they were there, they had no real problems with Gentoo. As part of their task at the time was porting/fixing former Irix tests to run on Linux, it was a lot easier to deal with the issues on Gentoo, then move the the tests to RH and SuSE, where all kinds of things broke. But they were more able to fix the tests because they had a better peek under the hood. While they've left to go to other companies, one of the interns told me that she misses her Gentoo system - she's back in the Java/WinXX world of Corporate computing. For training new technical individuals on Linux, source based distributions with package management systems that stay out of the way, are great tools. Even if the end of the road for many of them is some - keep your distance, GUI installer based, RPM Linux system. For a long time I used to think that starting a new user with a nice RPM based distribution was the right answer. I was wrong. It's the wrong answer. It teaches them nothing they can use in the future. It's painful during upgrades. It binds their hands in the shackles of - you will do things the way we tell you to do them. And letting new users utilize GUI based installers, always ends in - where is the install everything check box? They may migrate to another distribution, and that's fine. But they will be prepared and have knowledge. To use Holly's car analogy - they learned to drive a stick shift, but now want an automatic. No problem. (It's a poor analogy on my part - too simplistic and not fair to Portage.) Also, this isn't just the two interns. With only two exceptions - a Slackware user, and a remote Engineer who prefers to have Corp IS administrate the box, I've moved a lot of technical people to Gentoo. A few have gone to other dists, and a few have returned back to Gentoo - the others are just too painful to administer. But, in all cases, they are more knowledgeable because of having to do things the hard way. And being more knowledgeable make them much more valuable as skilled employees. More so than any certification will. Bob - -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On Sep 4, 2005, at 11:20 PM, Bob Sanders wrote: On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:56:56 +0100 Neil Bothwick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Fair comment. If you're talking about individual user/admins then the learning curve of installing and administering a different OS (not necessarily more difficult, just different) is a serious obstacle. Based on my experiences, I'll disagree with you Neil. I had a couple of interns working for me last year. One was about to graduate from college and the other was in the middle of getting a Master's degree. Both were comp-sci majors. The Master's degree intern had been running Red Hat or something, but really didn't know Linux. The other intern used WinXX - college was teaching her Java, nothing much more than that. First thing I did was get them set up with systems and hand them a Gentoo minimal CD and url for the installation manual. Told them to ask anything they wanted at any time. Explained to them that they needed to learn Linux, but that RPM based distros wouldn't give them any type of broad knowledge, and wouldn't be any better than learning to install WinXX. They took about a week, with a couple of restarts, had them run fluxbox and Enlightenment before allowing them to run their choice of WM. Eventually, they moved to KDE, which is fine, but they had an X environment and additional knowledge, they could work while KDE was compiling. *Btw - they were also learning how to install and use Irix at the same time.) While they were there, they had no real problems with Gentoo. As part of their task at the time was porting/fixing former Irix tests to run on Linux, it was a lot easier to deal with the issues on Gentoo, then move the the tests to RH and SuSE, where all kinds of things broke. But they were more able to fix the tests because they had a better peek under the hood. While they've left to go to other companies, one of the interns told me that she misses her Gentoo system - she's back in the Java/WinXX world of Corporate computing. For training new technical individuals on Linux, source based distributions with package management systems that stay out of the way, are great tools. Even if the end of the road for many of them is some - keep your distance, GUI installer based, RPM Linux system. For a long time I used to think that starting a new user with a nice RPM based distribution was the right answer. I was wrong. It's the wrong answer. It teaches them nothing they can use in the future. It's painful during upgrades. It binds their hands in the shackles of - you will do things the way we tell you to do them. And letting new users utilize GUI based installers, always ends in - where is the install everything check box? They may migrate to another distribution, and that's fine. But they will be prepared and have knowledge. To use Holly's car analogy - they learned to drive a stick shift, but now want an automatic. No problem. (It's a poor analogy on my part - too simplistic and not fair to Portage.) Also, this isn't just the two interns. With only two exceptions - a Slackware user, and a remote Engineer who prefers to have Corp IS administrate the box, I've moved a lot of technical people to Gentoo. A few have gone to other dists, and a few have returned back to Gentoo - the others are just too painful to administer. But, in all cases, they are more knowledgeable because of having to do things the hard way. And being more knowledgeable make them much more valuable as skilled employees. More so than any certification will. Bob - -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list Hi Bob, I found your email really informative and I have a question regarding one of your final comments. To paraphrase, you state that doing things the hard way will make employees more knowledgeable, more so than any certification will. So, my question is this: is it worthwhile to obtain certification? And, if so, which would be a better choice in your opinion: Red Hat certification or say, for instance, certification from the Linux Professional Institute? Btw, I'm not sure if I have hijacked the thread. If so, please feel free to edit the subject line. Paul -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
[I just thought I'd chip in my two cents on the question of whether Linux is easy or hard. It's turned into more like my $11.62, so it's a good thing it's broken into sections.] Linux is easy. That's not to say that it can't be hard. Depending on what you're trying to do, you may have to be able to think like an engineer to get the desired results. But that doesn't detract from my previous statement. In general, Linux is easy. Allow me to explain my reasoning. Knoppix is easier than Windows. Koko the the sign-language gorilla could turn an OS-less computer into a feature-loaded Debian system by merely pressing two buttons and inserting a Knoppix CD. ANY idiot that has ever used Windows 95 can find their way around in KDE without help (that's not to say that Koko is an idiot, mind you). If Koko is familiar with Gaim, Firefox and OpenOffice.org from her Windows experience, she's instantly able to do in Linux what she spends 99% of her time doing in Windows (actually, I'm pretty sure Koko usually uses a Mac, but you get my drift). Out of the box Knoppix should be completely intuitive to anyone that has ever used a relatively recent version of Windows. Is KDE intuitive if you don't read from left to right, or email doesn't begin with an E in your language? Maybe not. It's probably not very intuitive to pygmy headhunters either. But I'd bet 90% of Windows and Mac users could figure out how to do everything they want to do in Knoppix in twenty minutes or less... they just have to be willing to try. (Knoppix might be beyond the abilities of some BSD people, though. ;-) Installing Linux can be easy. While a Windows user is twiddling her thumbs as Windows XP installs, Koko the gorilla is getting in a quick game of frozen-bubble as Debian is copied to the disk. If something goes wrong during the install, well Koko just opens up a browser and Googles the error message. Our person installing Windows has to find another working machine in order to do that. The only thing that might give Koko some trouble about the install is partitioning her disk. This must be done during a Windows install too, of course, but our Windows user only had to accept all of the defaults when she partitioned a disk during an install. Installing Linux USED to be hard. This is probably why so many people think Linux IS hard. I've tried Slackware, Redhat, Suse, Mandrake, Debian (and Lindows/Linspire), and probably others. FreeBSD too. For years and years I wanted to play with Linux, but I could never even get it installed. I think I tried to install Redhat about half a dozen times (each time a new version number was released or so) before I ever had a working graphical system. I think Redhat was up to version 6 or 7 when I finally managed to get it up and running to my satisfaction (I switched to Debian when Redhat started demanding subscription fees). Getting X configured properly was always a sticky issue. The monitor never had refresh rates listed on the back label. And I could never find the hard copy manual for the monitor either. I only had one computer so I had to power off, swap disks, boot into Windows, look for the refresh rates online, power off, swap disks, try installing Linux again, type in the refresh rates... But what's this? How the hell am I supposed to know the speed of my graphics card's RAMDAC?! WTF is a RAMDAC!? If Windows does this automatically anyway, why can't Linux! Screw this! Fortunately, Linux has come a long way since then. Installing Gentoo can be hard. I tried to install Gentoo on three different occasions. Just like with those ancient versions of other distributions, the first two times I attempted to install relatively recent copies of Gentoo I was thwarted by mysterious errors while having no ready access to the web (or even a proper GUI) for help. On the third occasion, unable to get the LiveCDs to work, I finally managed to get Gentoo installed from within Kanotix64. Each time I encountered an error, trusty Firefox was there to display the solution. I had to promise myself the reward of buying and installing Doom3 to get me to stick with it. Actually, the fact that Doom3 and AA were both in amd64 in portage is what finally pushed me towards trying Gentoo again (I erroneously assumed they would be 64-bit versions). Well, that and the prospect of effortless updates and the fact that REAL Linux men and women (and gorillas) install all their software from source. So getting Gentoo (circa 2004) installed was a challenge the likes of which I hadn't seen since Redhat version 5 and prior. But keeping it installed (solving every problem that came along without throwing up my hands and switching distros) has been easy. I owe that in part to the large and largely savvy Gentoo community. Getting Gentoo to do all of the things that I want has certainly been harder than in Knoppix. It's been harder
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On Thu, Sep 01, 2005 at 11:31:28AM -0400, Charles Marcus wrote IceWM (with ROXFiler if you want Desktop icons, etc) lightening fast, easy to configure Blackbox WM here. This goes back to when my 6-year-old Dell, 450 mhz PIII, 128 megs of RAM, was still my main machine. The GNOME and KDE people write some great apps (Gimp, Gnumeric, AbiWord, KDE Office), but their desktop environments are huge, bloated, resource hogs. With Blackbox, I can still run the apps, without the desktop. Put it this way I don't run desktops, I run applications. I think lightweight WM's will be important. Linux in general will have a great window of Opportunity when Vista is released. A lot of current machines will not be able to run it well (crawl != run). If people are faced with a choice of throwing out their old W2K, and XP machines, and buying new ones, versus keeping their machines and switching to linux, I think we could see quite a few converts. We can also pound away on the TCO angle at Microsoft's expense. Running the latest version of linux doesn't require you to buy a new desktop. On the other hand, that may explain why some PC hardware companies are so lukewarm (in some cases hostile) about linux support. -- Walter Dnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
On 9/3/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, Sep 01, 2005 at 11:31:28AM -0400, Charles Marcus wrote IceWM (with ROXFiler if you want Desktop icons, etc) lightening fast, easy to configure Blackbox WM here. This goes back to when my 6-year-old Dell, 450 mhz PIII, 128 megs of RAM, was still my main machine. The GNOME and KDE people write some great apps (Gimp, Gnumeric, AbiWord, KDE Office), but their desktop environments are huge, bloated, resource hogs. With Blackbox, I can still run the apps, without the desktop. Put it this way I don't run desktops, I run applications. I think lightweight WM's will be important. Linux in general will have a great window of Opportunity when Vista is released. A lot of current machines will not be able to run it well (crawl != run). If people are faced with a choice of throwing out their old W2K, and XP machines, and buying new ones, versus keeping their machines and switching to linux, I think we could see quite a few converts. We can also pound away on the TCO angle at Microsoft's expense. Running the latest version of linux doesn't require you to buy a new desktop. On the other hand, that may explain why some PC hardware companies are so lukewarm (in some cases hostile) about linux support. In general I'll have to take the unpopular position and say I disagree. All those potential converts are just like you - They don't run desktops they run apps - and because they are so entrenched with dollars already spent on Microsoft Windows, Microsoft email, Microsoft Office, Quicken,, etc., they won't come just because they can save $400 buying a new PC. To become a Linux user is a commitment. People don't make new commitments lightly, and making a light commitment to Linux is doomed to failure. It's far too hard to use. Imagine knowing absolutely nothing about any Linux editor, nor even terminal commands, and trying to configure networking. It's nigh on impossible. That said, Linux, and Gentoo specifically, is a pleasure to run when it's running, but even after 3-4 years of being a newbie it's taken me 3 days of work to get my new AMD64 machine to the point where it's starting to do multimedia. Just my 2 cents, Mark -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
I don't run desktops, I run applications. In general I'll have to take the unpopular position and say I disagree. All those potential converts are just like you - They don't run desktops they run apps - and because they are so entrenched with dollars already spent on Microsoft Windows, Microsoft email, Microsoft Office, Quicken,, etc., they won't come just because they can save $400 buying a new PC. To become a Linux user is a commitment. People don't make new commitments lightly, and making a light commitment to Linux is doomed to failure. It's far too hard to use. Imagine knowing absolutely nothing about any Linux editor, nor even terminal commands, and trying to configure networking. It's nigh on impossible. I agree. I'm a longtime unix administrator with many opportunities to convert family and friends to linux, but haven't yet, either due to lack of linux drivers for multi-function devices, or lack of linux compatibility to apps they need to run. Until companies support all their hardware o linux (specifically in my case lexmark), people will feel trapped in windows. even clients of mine that have spent hundreds of dollars for me to clean their windows boxes of spyware can't afford to move due to websites they NEED to run requiring activeX controls. -- John Jolet Your On-Demand IT Department 512-762-0729 www.jolet.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
* On Sep 2 20:59, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: seems that nobody likes FVWM Hey, I use FVWM and love it, have for a long time ;) FVWM is small, ultimately customizable, and can do everything any other WM can do, with a bit of work. Virtually any dreamable interface is possible with it. This can be a bit daunting, though, so when I was setting it up I found a fairly good base (taviso's, I believe) and customized the heck out of it. Now it's perfect for me, and I just can't get rid of it. I've tried pretty much every other option, but only FVWM can scratch everyone's exact itch - if they're patient. Tom pgptAgFGN6VLu.pgp Description: PGP signature
[gentoo-user] Re: Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?
IceWM (with ROXFiler if you want Desktop icons, etc) lightening fast, easy to configure -- Charles -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
