Making Linux Look Harder Than It Is 764
drkich writes: "According to an article on The Register (by our very own roblimo).
Many 'gurus' teaching new users about Linux make it look harder than it needs to be, and apparently fail to explain that yes, you can make PowerPoint-style presentations in Linux, you can view Web Pages that use Flash animation and other "glitz" features, and that you can manage all your files though simple "point, click, drag and drop" visual interfaces. Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"
The O'Rielly book made the same point. (Score:3, Interesting)
In the basic O'Rielly book on Linux, it makes a point that most textbooks on Linux go into detail about such topics as how to use the ed command and other things that most people never use.
There are some conceptual points about Linux that even a newbie needs to know...such as permission and the file tree, but there is a lot of stuff that you really can just open it up and click around on stuff.
I think the problem is that a lot of Unix work in general has been going on in academia, and so that a lot of books are written with a lot of traditional complicated busywork in them. Students now are learning about the vi editor for the same reason that students for a long time had to learn Latin, because it is a tradition.
making it look harder? (Score:2, Interesting)
But i find the bigest problem I have with trying to teach someone else how to use it, is the nice graphical user interfaces. A lot of people think of this as a great teaching tool, to make linux "look" like windows translates into the user being able to "use" linux but not "work" with linux. For example, my ex-girlfriend runs Mandrake 8.0 , and has been since early summer, but ask her something about linux and you can literally see the question marks floating above her head, she has no clue about it, she doesn't even know how to install an RPM (not that it's a bad thing).
I believe the only way that someone can really learn how to use linux, is to do it themselves, and only seek help if they are really stuck, that way, what they learn will stick with them, like anything else. My ex-girlfriend can call me up and say "hey, i want to install napster, how do i do it?" i could easily tell her to go to the gnapster website, download the file, open up the terminal, type "rpm -Uvh filename.rpm" but she will only remember that for 33 seconds it takes for her to type it, after that, it's gone, and she'll be calling me up again in a few more days asking how to install another program.
Note: If you go out with a girl, do not introduce her to Linux, because when you break up, she will still be calling you for months and months.
Take A+ for example (Score:5, Interesting)
In contrast, I went to a LUG meeting where a workshop was held for Newbies and I distinctly remember someone saying "Look, mounting a share with NFS is hard." You would never hear this at a Windows workshop.
Take my example:
C:\net use p: \\foo\bar
versus:
hookado@monkeyfudge ~$ mount -t nfs gorilla:/export
Why is one "easier" than the other? Is it just cultural?
I beg to differ... (Score:2, Interesting)
and apparently fail to explain that yes, you can make PowerPoint-style presentations in Linux,
The keyword here is "style". PowerPoint-style. My boss wants to create
you can view Web Pages that use Flash animation and other "glitz" features,
Ha! You're joking, right? All those sites "enhanced" for "best experience" with IE... maybe if you have Mozilla, Konqueror, Galleon, Opera and Netscape 6.2 and you them one-by-one, on each website!
and that you can manage all your files though simple "point, click, drag and drop" visual interfaces.
Well, no details about this in the article. Personally, I dislike the "graphical, point, click, drag and drop" interfaces - call me old-fashioned... I would use mc, but nothing more.
So... I use linux both at work and at home for 99% of the time; but it's not ready for my mom (or the other way around... hmmm...
Re:Nope. (Score:2, Interesting)
Then there's no point in ever creating anything different. I think a better goal is to make it so much more efficient/friendlier/whatever than the original that it's worth the initial loss in productivity.
YES (Score:5, Interesting)
These are some of the major points I've seen guru's forget about "average" computer users.
1. Average computer users are afraid they will break their computer. Example: Many think if they mess up setting up a drive in the BIOS, the drive will physically break.
2. Average computers users need to get their information visualy. Just look at all the Visual MS products. People don't know where to look for information so they need all the info laid out in front of them. They need menus and GUI's that can show them all the options they have to use. They don't have the time or ability to hunt out where the information is they need.
3. Average computer users have a very short time span for learning something on a computer. A computer is just another utiliy they need to use. They don't learn how it works for the same reason they don't learn how their TV, VCR, microwave, refrigerator, cellphone, etc works, they don't have the time. They expect someone else to do all the detailed work for them.
4. It takes logic to understand a computer, and most people just can't grasp the concept of logical thinking. "The computer shouldn't do that when I click there!" "Why?" "Because.. that's a stupid thing to do!"
Re:The O'Rielly book made the same point. (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that there shouldn't be access to expert materials like man pages in linux, but that the man page still constitutes the norm rather than the exception to designing linux help. I can't tell you the number of times I've watched a linux expert try to explain something to a novice in a discussion like this:
You get the picture. Getting linux to the mainstream is going to require both a reconfiguration of how the OS treats users, one that doesn't dismiss or ignore experts, but that offers multiple paths for experts, intermediates, and novices in the same space. How many linux developers usability test their apps or docs? How many force themselves to sit back and take a deep breath while their novice friend thinks for a second?
@johndan (whose hyphen and tilde keys are broken)
Disclaimer: I'm an academic and I've written several textbooks (although none about linux). On the other hand, I also run a usability lab.
Re:Too knowledgeable?? Hardly. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I actually have found myself having problems helping people with linux because I really can't see the problem from their point of view. It's hard for me to recognize what they will or won't know, and I tend to make assumptions, completely unintentionaly, about their knowledge base such that I end up just confusing them.
It also doesn't help that I have never wanted my Linux box to be "easy to use" (as defined by those who say Linux needs to be more so), and thus have a hard time trying to make it so for others.
All in all, I'm just not that great a teacher, but I do think that the difference in technical knowledge is part of the problem.
Not that roblimo isn't still an ass.
I agree (Score:0, Interesting)
Overwhelmingly YES (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nope. (Score:5, Interesting)
But I do think that there are apps that are meant to be clones. Like StarOffice. The first time I used it, I felt like I was using office -- all the way to the exact menus and buttons you had to click to turn off auto formatting. I was amazed, until I realized that I hated StarOffice for all the same reasons I hate Office.
But still this doesn't matter. Because no one is going to try out StarOffice to find out that it's exactly like MS Office, simply because it -isn't- MS Office and that's scary.
Damnit.
Re:Nope. (Score:3, Interesting)
Since MS has a forced (or strongly persuasive) upgrade cycle is also an investment that should not be underrated. As StarOffice gets better and better (and it seems to be) and remains free... the margin narrows.
A person ( or a corporation) has to make the tradeoff between 3 factors while switching: features, familiarity, and cost. Right now, MSoffice blows SOffice5.2 out of the water on features and familiarity, but loses on cost. But if the features are pretty similar, then the only tradeoff is between cost and familiarity. IF the cost of upgrading (or purchasing new machines) with Windows and MSOffice is greater or equal to the retraining costs for Linux and StarOffice, then people will start to switch.
It's happening already as the Linux GUI gets easier to use, and more feature-rich and user friendly.
Re:i'm new (Score:2, Interesting)
I knew I wanted a Unix-like system so I could run the IRC client that I was used to, learn Apache/CGI/Perl development, and read mail in Pine-- all things I'd gotten accustomed to doing on Unix shell accounts during college. (Plus Mac OS crashed on me constantly, what a pain!) Now running IRC and Pine were no big deal, neither is a default install of Apache and Perl. But before you know it you've got services all over the place and maybe some serious security issues. Besides, you know how it worked for you as a user, but you never had to think about the administration side.
And so yes, I agree that it's important for Linux newbies to get the basics down. After all, just learning about process management, disk space, and things like that means (if you ask me) learning the Unix way of doing things. Now maybe GNOME and KDE have made this less problematic, but how many Linux users just want to surf the web and do email? If they bought a new computer anywhere in the USA it came with an OS that is fairly reliable for those two things. So why would anyone switch at that point?
I guess, to me, the upshot is: yes, setting up a non-default Apache server or a Samba share probably is biting off more than you can chew if you don't know du from df. But we also need to recognize that there may be ways to work with Linux that don't require understanding the deep magic to get something going-- even if it is something we traditionally think of as complex. That was part of the point of the article "geez, look at all the pointy-clicky configuration stuff that's out there now."
Re:If my mom can explain it to my dad... (Score:3, Interesting)
But anyway, to get on topic, given the impending exinction of Win98 I hope somehow to learn to use Linux. There's two reasons I haven't done it already...
1. I know a lot more about politics than I do about computers.
2. I don't know if Linux is, as yet, fully compatible with my gaming addiction.
But I know for certian that I'd rather learn Linux or buy a Mac than give any of my money to Microsoft.
My Personal Experience (Score:2, Interesting)
All right, I just started using Linux last month, so I ought to be able to comment on this.
First thing I did was visit my University's CS Club, where they were offering to give a full version on CD (Which happened to be convienient at the time). They ask me what version I want. I only know of Red Hat and Mandrake (from friends). He says that I should get Mandrake, while I nod my head, not really caring at that point.
So I start the installation process, and begin to enter information. I choose advanced installation (naive me), and was amazed at all the options that I could choose to install of the CD. A reasonable selection, so I picked anything that looked interesting.
About an hour later after all the files had finally copied onto the hardrive (and the partitioning, etc.), I booted up. Created my account, and was immediately greeted with a happy first-time wizard. Except the text-boxes wouldn't work. Needless to say, after a few minutes of frustrations, I just skipped it. I have no idea how to get it back, but it would sure be useful, as I still haven't got my Internet working under Linux. Plus, the fact that there are so many control pannels (3 or so, I think), I never know where to find anything. In fact, once I have KDE running, I can barely tell the difference from Windows, and besides the fixed memory leak, I can hardly tell the difference.
So what's the benefit of switching right now? The only positives to using Linux are: it's not Microsoft, and the lack of a memory leak. Quite frankly, rebooting my computer every two days is worth the price for being able to use all my old stuff.
Personaly, I believe the best interface would be one that is so intuitive it would require no training at all, you would just 'know' what to do. And frankly, I think we said goodbye to such an interface when MAC OS X came along.
That said aside, I happen to use Linux a lot as a UNIX substitute, the terminals I work with get garbled all the time, and have broken mice. I think Linux is a wonderful replacement for UNIX!
How much harder can they make it look? (Score:0, Interesting)
Secondly, what in the world is keeping them from creating a universal clipboard buffer with cut'n'paste functions? I mean, I'm sure that there are messy hacks out there somewhere to give KDE that functionality, but, quite frankly, I shouldn't have to do that with my desktop. Why not? Because Windows (and all Windows applications) support a global clipboard buffer. Which is no trivial feature when you are playing around with PHP and HTML code.
Until KDE can become more stable than Windows and eliminate some of its really stupid idiosynchrosies, I think I'll stick with Windows when I want to get all my work done.
Re:The problem is... (Score:4, Interesting)
Absolutely. Mac OS X is an example of this. Nontechnical users get pretty icons to click in the Dock, and geeks get a fully functional Unix under the hood.
Vi is not like Latin (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm afraid I have to disagree. I held off for 5 years on learning vi/vim, because it scared the shit out of me, but I bit the bullet recently and bought Steve Oualline's excellent Vi IMproved - Vim [greymatter.com] book on the subject.
The first seven chapters alone have speeded up my coding already - that's less than 20% of the way through!
Yes, it takes a huge leap to learn it but, unlike latin, I have yet to find a *nix machine that doesn't speak it's language :)
One day I aim to do all my coding in Vim. that may sound weird, but the time savings I will be able to make will be huge.
cLive ;-)
Re:Right ON! -- addendum (Score:2, Interesting)
I bought a Red Hat 7 book. I downloaded Red Hat 7.1 Is it really that unreasonable to expect the various config tools to be called the same name? This is a minor update, and yet many sections of the book failed at easy-to-follow section 1 - where the command name is wrong.
Another example: I installed this on a computer with 128MB ram. I knew this for 2 reasons, firstly that I could see the stick in there myself, and secondly, Windows had happily used 128MB. When I installed Linux, it used 64MB. My only option of course was to go to the book. After much scouring I found an obscure (I guess not obscure for those in the know) option to tell the kernel to use a certain amount of ram. So I did this, and guess what? Kernel panic.
Eventually I found the problem, after brainstorming with my friends; the onboard graphics card that was sharing main memory was confusing the hell out of Linux. Now to start with, this should not happen. Hell, maybe people don't care enough to fix this. But even if this is not the case, why could I not find this in any book I looked at? And before anybody tells me I'm wrong because it says it in their book, I looked in 2 distinct Red Hat 7 books - 2 books on configuring a desktop system should be overkill. It's all very well explaining everything in a step by step fashion, but after I went through this experience, I paid more attenton to the books, and noticed they virtually *never* explained reasons why things might fail.
In my experience, with the documentation available, if you ever have a problem that takes you offthe beaten track then you will not find your way back on without expert assistance.
BTW, the only time I had a similar problem under Windows was when installing hardware that conflicted. This had nothing to do with Windows, and was fixed by exchanging the hardware.
Bit of a rant, but my experiences left me a little frustrated with the installation (the graphics thing was only one of many examples)
Mac OS X (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd say no, actually. well... (Score:2, Interesting)
I've taught unix classes for a few years now. If you are teaching from the standpoint that the student isn't going to administrate the machine, then yes, teaching point-and-clic stuff and powerpoint stuff is fine. But if you're teaching someone how to be an actual linux *user*, then you want the course to contain as little point and click as possible. Point and click comes once you get used to how text works. If you teach future admins point and click with no text, then you're wasting your time.
Re:I'd say no, actually. well... (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, I guess I'd have to agree, *BUT* you're forgetting one major thing. This article was in reference to a user, not an Admin. Most people don't have the "know how" to be an Admin. They just want a machine to boot and be able to check their e-mail and such. This article deals with the (L)user, not the Admin.
But, I do still agree with you. To train a *NIX Admin with only GUI utils is indeed not only a wate of time, but I'd venture to say: flat-out dumb.
Re:i'm new (maybe troll) (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe for some, reading Slashdot then running Linux takes a long time.
Could also be that they got an account early on, forgot about Slash (what a sin!) then decided to post.
Either way I found it interesting that most of the answers were sane.
This is not a problem exclusive to Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
I know by experience that I am one of the last class. It's my job to be. I wrote the Gedit help file a while back just because it's what I can do. When one of the techs at my company says a customer can't get on the internet I tell them step-by-step what to do rather than present large overviews of the process. This is a skill that we all should try to learn.
Too intelligent? (Score:1, Interesting)
The problem isn't that Linux people are too intelligent -- the problem is that, by and large, they're too stupid. Yes, that's right, two stoopid.
Linux fanatics often think that using a computer is an end in itself, and completely fail to understand that its merely a tool for some other purpose. They tend to scoff at other professions. Accountants? "Bean counters." Managers? "pointy haired numbskulls." Marines? "jar heads."
Humilty is anathema to the culture. Adapt to us, say the Linux zealots, and damn the consequences.
What sort of debates permeate the community? Whether or not things compiled locally should go in
Real font management? Courier is all we need, and besides, if you can't manage xrdb you're a wimp anyway. Color synchronization? Red and magenta are close enough. Consistent GUI? Ask ten people how to quit an application in Linux and see what sorts of answers you get.
Making everything a file is another real cool idea. Printers are files, processes are files, memory is a file, blah, blah, blah. Except guess what? Some things aren't files. Some things talk back. But why bother listening?
Everything is just a stream of bytes, right? Yeah, and a cathedral is just a pile of bricks, and a cow is just a sheet of leather.Nevermind going to all the work to build useful data type and abstractions, JUST STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW, AND MAKE YOUR USERS CONFORM. Above all, don't admit that you're not the person with ALL the useful knowledge in the world. Your mastery of regualr expressions gives you special insight into finance, marketing, art, and politics.
Here's another great idea: distinguish between different kinds of whitespace in configuration files. Fuck, if the user can't see the difference between a TAB and a SPACE, they shouldn't be editing the file. And if they just used {vi, vim, emacs, sed, ed} like God intended, the dumbass wouldn't have had the problem in the first place. Ain't that right?
Yeah, you Linux guys sure are smart. If I ever need any of my text files sorted by the first vowel following the third consonant, I'll be sure to hire one of you.
Re:Too knowledgeable?? Hardly. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not specifically "intelligence" per se, but more the difference in knowledge. I have a hard time explaining Winblows to people who have never used a computer before. This is even true for my parents, who have been using computers for almost as long as I have (considering they bought me my first one at age 7), but who still don't understand many of the things going on under the covers. It took a while, but I think I got them to the point where they can install a CDROM drive with only phone-based tech support from me.
The real problem is the frame of reference. Could you explain a mouse to a complete tech newbie if you used one for twenty years? You wouldn't realize that even if they figure out how the mouse connects to the cursor, they might not know what the "buttons" look like, that "icons" require a double-click to activate instead of a single click, etc.
This also points to one strength of Windows -- a consistent user interface. If buttons look different between GTK, Qt, even Motif and Athena widget sets, can you imagine how confusing this is for newbies?
With that exception, however, Linux is not really much harder to learn that Windows and the problem is that it is typically the very experienced user who is trying to teach it, not just the most intelligent ones.
Re:/. and Linux Bigots (Score:3, Interesting)
No kidding... I have a computer science degree, and have been using computers forever. But I can't keep up with everything that is out there. For instance, I mentioned on slashdot that I only had enough time to get basic security on my linux box, and everyone screamed that I should take my box off the net [slashdot.org]. My box is secure enough to not have been hacked in over a year, but what about these newbies? How are they going to secure an OS, when they barely understand the concept of logging in?
LS
swing by mandrakeuser.org sometime (Score:2, Interesting)
Linux doesn't have to be hard folks, it's just that some people, in order to maintain their 'leet linux egos, make it that way.
Re:Yes (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No, the problem is not that it looks too hard (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, much of this was fixed in Windows XP and 2000 but try under Windows XP (Home edition) to set the login sytle to the same as Windows 2000. Well, you have to visit the registry. For a lot of the configurations in Windows XP it cannot be done via the GUI. In fact several options are available via the GUI under the professional version but not in the home edition. Personally I prefer the documented organized text files verus the huge registry that windows has.
The example concerning RPM v4 I actually had that headache myself. Yes, that was annoying. The flash bit is also something that the linux community needs to work on, but its not because linux is more difficult it's because a high standard is put on linux users. Under windows there is a install program that puts the files in the right place (and with many/most program requires you to reboot your pc) however with linux in most cases they don't even bother since they assume that the average linux user knows how to add the plugins into the right directories.
All in all, I use Windows every day. The Windows XP GUI is amazing (considering I'm using netscape 4.x running w/twm as the window manager). I like Windows for the most parts since it works now - the reason I originally went to using linux (slackware at the time - now that involved much more).
In order from most complicated to least complicated OSes that I use on a daily/weekly basis I would put them in this order:
Linux
Windows XP
Windows 2000
Windows 98
FreeBSD
SUN/OS
Vax/VMS
My favourite of all time is FreeBSD even though I find it a little complicated (damn that naming convention for devices)
You missed one thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Installing most distributions (I consider Debian an exception) is easy now.
Administering a Linux box is still not easy.
As an example, to get the pictures off my digital camera:
The Red Hat upgrade (somewhere around 7.0, I think) installed my USB drivers automatically.
Easy to install, check.
When I have new pictures, "mv camera/* pictures/new" (in my home directory) transfers them to my hard drive.
Easy to use, check.
Setting the "camera" directory up required editing two of my automount config files and making a symlink to the mount point.
Easy to administer? No.
Well, okay, this was easy to do, but way too difficult for someone uninterested in computers to learn to do. Similarly with most tasks that require you to touch the
Ironically, this makes Linux a great choice for office environments where users aren't expected to administer their own systems in the first place, but other considerations (say a little prayer for OpenOffice and KOffice tonight) are the limiting factor there.
Re:Problem! (Score:2, Interesting)
What I don't get is that Be figured out how to integrate this into a "legacy" hierarchial file system back in 1995 with folders where you'd save search criteria with the folder and they'd update themselves constantly with little to no overhead. For example, I could attach the search criteria "any file whose MIME type is 'text/html'" and the folder would always contain a list of every HTML file on my hard disk. And the kicker was that there was essentially no speed penalty. It was truly just an awsome setup, and a functionality I haven't seen on any other OS. I can't imagine that this would be terribly difficult to implement in Linux, and the adition of a feature like this would definitely be at least close to a "killer feature" compared to Windows. Granted, a better solution ultimately would probably be to design a new OS around data bags like what the Newton did, but the BFS solution seems like it makes sense in the near term...
NO!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
That is not the term at all... The term is arrogant.
I don't get it people. Why is being a Newbie a bad thing at all!!! Hell! If i'd wanted to market a good and free OS properly, i would want a lot of Newbies! And i wouldn't make them feel like incompetants each time they ask a question. Even if the question seems stupid. ( Remember there are no stupid questions, just inquisitive
The problem with Linux teachers... THERE ARE NO LINUX TEACHERS!!! All i've seen up to date are smart geeks holding all the info for themselves, while laughing at the ignorance of others.
The problem here is selfishness and arrogance. Grow up!
If i could kick all your pretty asses, i would!
It would make the most beautiful domino effect ever!
Re:NO!!! (Score:2, Interesting)