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?"
Yes (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm, no. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, it really is that simple. Yes, that is why Linux will always be a niche OS.
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.
The biggest obstacle (Score:4, Insightful)
It'd be a risk, though...because I don't know if the average person is ready for Linux.
But people are going to be scared until they see Linux boxes for sale at CompUSA and Sears.
Re:The biggest obstacle (Score:2, Troll)
I don't know if Linux is ready for the average person.
Too smart? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too smart? (Score:2)
Um, maybe that's because helping users learn how to work with an OS is the job of a company? Windows, MacOS, UNIX and every other OS known to man has a company behind if offering help and support, and many other companies offering training. And more important, for every OS there's a company spending $$ on advertising and marketing to convince users how "efficient and easy to use" is their OS. Linux is perceived as an OS for geeks? Well, duh. That's what you get if you rely on geeks to support new users.
Re:Too smart? (Score:5, Funny)
It might not be too smart as much as too arrogant...
What!! a Linux user arrogant?!? No way
Re:Too smart? (Score:5, Insightful)
i'm new (Score:4, Funny)
Re:i'm new (Score:3, Insightful)
I still have trouble with some things (configuring new hardware for example), but usually find the answers in a HOW-TO or on a web site.
You might also get a "Learning Linux" type book to give you information about basic features. Once done getting your feet wet, a great book is "Running Linux". Also the "Linux In a Nutshell" has lots of the commands for the shell explained.
Poke around on the Red Hat site. I found lots of useful information there. Don't try to run too fast with this new OS. Pretty soon you will be working in windows and think "Dammit I wish I could just write a BASH script to automate this
Hang in there. Every Linux guru had to start somewhere.
Re:i'm new (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with this guy
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."
But on the other hand... (Score:2, Informative)
Remember Linux was designed for geeks by geeks and slowly it's working its way back to being usable by normal people. There's still the occasional chink in the armor though.
Re:i'm new (Score:3, Informative)
Another very common newbie problem - samba uses unencrypted passwords by default. This only works with Windows 95 and possibly 98. Later versions of Windows encrypt their passwords so you won't be able to connect to your Samba shares. Run smbpasswd -a on your Linux boxes to fix this.
Also while you can access Windows machines from Linux using Samba, its default setup is to access Linux servers from Windows. You will need to learn about mounting Windows shares (try man mount) ala mount -t smbfs to access Windows shares in Linux.
Above all be patient. Unix is not for those who give up easily.
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.
My theory is . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Too knowledgeable?? Hardly. (Score:4, Insightful)
I hardly think it's because they know too much. It's more that they want to show themselves as sauve and intelligent infront of those they're instructing. I think you'll find all the people who deserve the right to brag are generally much more humble because they honestly have nothing to prove.
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.
Re:Too knowledgeable?? Hardly. (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt that Jordan would be able to explain how to do stuff... it's too natural and instictive to him. Rambis, on the other hand, IIRC, had to work hard at it.
I have the same problem when it comes to helping my daughter with her math homework. I can't help her because I can't explain how to do it. I just do the problems instinctively. I send her to her mom, or to our next door neighbor (who is a math teacher).
I wonder if this is a case where the old saw actually works out better... "Those who can, do. Those who can't do, teach".
Re:Too knowledgeable?? Hardly. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing that you've never had children, nor ever tried to teach a young child something like math. (By "young", I mean under the age of 7.)
Exactly what do you do to "break down the solution" when you're trying to explain why 1 + 1 = 2? You're dealing with someone who is on the power curve if they can even write that, let alone understand it. What, you're going to explain the concept of whole numbers, the meaning of zero, decimal arithmetic...
No. You're trying to get a bunch of ideas across, as simply as possible, so they can have an "a-ha!" type of learning experience. And that does take someone special - someone who is very well-trained, very experienced, very creative, and very patient.
Being able to break the problem down into smaller pieces does nothing to help if you decompose it as far as you can, and they still look up at you and say, "But why?" and the best you can say is "That's just the way it works."
Re:Too knowledgeable?? Hardly. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a lot harder than that. Computers are based on analogies, and those analogies are all flawed. Understanding how the analogies are flawed takes time.
On a daily basis I teach people how to do things on their computer.
Probably the most interesting was when I was showing one woman a DOS prompt. I was typing a command and getting a result.
She was baffled by this. The last computer she used did not have a command-line interface. She had trouble putting a CLI into her idea of how a computer works -- her last computer used punch cards.
When I tried to explain directory trees, she was amazed by this concept of files. Operating systems blew her away as a very wasteful idea.
I guess that's what happens when you have to take a college course to use a computer, work with them for a few years, then step away from them for 20 years.
I managed to get her started so that she could teach herself again, but it was interesting to watch her fail to understand a concept, not because it was elementary, but because it was too high-level.
That's at least one example where you have to choose your teaching methods very carefully. Teaching adults is not the same as teaching children.
Right ON! (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest obstable to widespread Linux adoption is not its actual difficulty to use, but perception that it's for geeks only. An idiot proof installer would be good, but evangelests and PR that speaks to average users is perhaps the single most important thing standing in the way of more pervasive acceptance.
I understand how the general attitude that "you've got to know how to use a computer to use a computer" gets bred. I used to work 1-800-support. But that won't cut it on the public image tip.
GNU/Linux needs salespeople. Jeez, I can't believe I just wrote that, but it's true. The barriers are 90% cultural at this point....
Re:Right ON! -- addendum (Score:5, Insightful)
I started geeting into this stuff about 2 years ago, and I'm naturally a technical guy. The documentation currently has a terrible 80/20 problem: 80% of it is...
Most often, documentation is an afterthought to a coding project. This is not a good way to get novice users to get to use the software, because those writing the docs are too intimately involved with the project and usually burnt out to the max.
Re:Right ON! -- addendum (Score:5, Insightful)
One problem with that approach.
Users. Don't. Read. Documentation.
Go around your office, and ask your non-technical (marketing, accounting, etc.) Windows users questions like:
I'll be amazed if more than 5% of your user community answers "yes" to any of those questions.
Re:Right ON! -- addendum (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Right ON! -- addendum (Score:3, Informative)
Now as one who is just a normal computer user, I can say truthfully that I do not use help files at all- they have never sorted out the problem since they don't suggest anything that I haven't tried before. As far as manuals and documentation are concerned, I have consulted them occasionally if I specifically can't find a feature I want, but again as far as trouble shooting is concerned, they have never worked. Anything to do with hardware installation is a bit of an "ah scary get bf to do it" area. I did proudly install my modem though
So getting to the point, if we are trying to get users to move to linux, the very first thing is let them hear about it! Nobody has heard of it! I'm not just being extreme, but I hadn't heard of it, nobody at school has heard of it, my parents certainly have not heard of it, and in an A level IT text book (I don't do IT but I was curious so I looked) it gets one mention under the operating systems bit, whereas MS OSs gets several pages. Is it any wonder very few non-geeks uses it?
The stigma is not about linux being for geeks only. People love their computers, love having fancy desktops and something slightly different (such as using winamp rather than the windows media player). People start on MSN messenger then go to ICQ because it's different. So they are just waiting for a different operating system too, just they have not heard of it. Perhaps if it was offered pre-installed on computers like windows is then people might well opt for it.
There is however a huge fear about going non-MS. There is a huge fear about the installation, and whether anyone will be able to help them if things go wrong. Perhaps this is why I myself have not progressed to linux. My reasons would not be that I need it for coding, it's just that it's different, I like the idea of it being non-MS, and it just looks so cool! So perhaps I am your typical example of one who is considering linux but not actually making the step.
So my reasons for windows over linux? It's simply that I'm afraid of the transition, and of messing up my computer. The reasion I'm afraid is because I no nobody in real life (my bf is miles away) who can help me and actually come round and sort out my problems. So the problem isn't really the documentation as such- windows users never use it, it's the fact that should something go wrong there is nobody to help, only the internet, which whilst is very helpful, if you're not sure what the problem is at all, its virtually impossible to find help.
Re:Right ON! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget--Unix isn't straightforward! (Score:3, Insightful)
We should learn our own tools... (Score:2, Insightful)
His eyes get generally glazed over when I do something like:
$> rpm -e `rpm -qa | grep -i ^xf`
...which actually came up today in reinstalling X. And I've done quite a few nastier things.
I think that it would do Linux users--especially Linux evangelists--well to learn our own GUI tools so that when our non-geek friends ask us for help we can give them something that's meaningful to them.
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.
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.
Agreed (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the problem is that most "guru's" know how to use a commandline, but not how to use a GUI.
When I install software, I use the commandline, not Kpackage, Gnorpm or Rpmdrake.
So when someone asks me how to use such a program, he mostly knows more about it then I do, I just know more about the underlying architecture.
Though I do think the users are coming along.
Recently I heard about people who were using Linux, because they liked Tux, and were collecting pictures of him. Sure.
Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
WAAAAIT! Hold off on that flame-thrower!
I'm talking serious productivity applications.
There is no Linux equivalent to MSWord. Yes, yes, yes: I *know* there is StarOffice and others. But they aren't MSWord.
There is no Linux equivalent to AccPac. Yes, yes, yes: I *know* there are other accounting packages. But AccPac is the defacto standard.
There is no Linux equivalent to Photoshop. Yes, yes, yes: I *know* there's Gimp. But it's not Photoshop.
WAIT! Hold off on that flame-thrower!
I know it's unreasonable to expect Linux apps to be identical in functionality -- and misfunctionality! -- and appearance to the big-time, deeply-entrenched "standards."
But that's not the point. The point is: the problem with Linux usability is that its lacks applications that are direct clones of the standards.
That's unreasonable, illogical, stupid, and every other abusive word you can toss at the idea...
...but it's the truth. The PHBs see it that way, and countless users who've spent years learning the ins and outs of the standard apps see it that way.
It takes years of invested time and experience to become at all proficient at any comprehensive productivity application. No one wants to throw that investment away, just to move to Linux.
And that is, I think, at the very core of it all, a usability problem. If it isn't exactly like the original, it is less usable for many folk.
And now you can flame. Ouch.
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.
Re:Nope. (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Congratulations! You've just encountered inertia and have hit on an effective way to counter it. Microsoft used this same technique back in the 90's to build its Office franchise in the first place.
Better than you credit (Score:2, Insightful)
I would go beyond your statement and say that what Linux really needs to be accepted is not clones, but *the real thing*. Which is unlikely to happen any time soon.
But you said we don't have any functional clones of the leading productivity apps. In the cases discussed above, I say we do.
Re:Better than you credit (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
By Far, I agree with the claim (Score:2, Funny)
No, but really. Anyone who's tried to teach me the larger part of linux commands has taught me in "code form". In other words, they've tried to teach me how to do everything through the console, and what's worse, they try to add their own, new "terms" for them. A "Flood Ping" is suddenly a "Hurricane River Overflowing of Packets", and you casually ask them what EITHER of them are, and the kid tells you that he's talking about sending large amounts of binary data through his umbilical cord into an unsuspecting system. Right.
I think that schools should consider hiring IT professionals who can teach as well as do IT. It might open up a whole new market of jobs. Open Source software would be a great class, if anyone ever got around to TEACHING it.
100% agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Expert - "First of all, you need to make sure ppp is compiled into your kernel, then recompile, RTFM."
Newbie - "Is there an easier way?"
Expert - "Yes, but first, lets's get you all the kernel patches, since you're using 2.4.9, which has some known VM problems under high loads, then, we'll need to gut your X server, then, you might as well recompile/build KDE, since the one in Red Hat sucks, which comes with GNOME, but I think it sucks, so I'll make sure that you think it sucks too
Newbie - "What's a Debian?"
... and so on and so forth
Re:100% agree (Score:5, Informative)
Newbie - "How do I use my dial up modem in linux, using redhat 7.2?"
realEXPERT - click on that configure dial up icon on your desktop and follow the instructions.
an expert knows what he/she is talking about your expert example was that of a poser trying to make someone think they know what they were talking about and obviously never touched Redhat 7.2 or 7.1 for that matter.
and that is a HUGE problem in linux. a ton of posers and very few real experts. Just like it is in the windows
Crap (Score:3)
Contrast this to when I was just getting started... I expected people to know things or at least care why the computer acted the way it did.
Boy, was that a crock of shit!
I have nontechnical users merrily sending mail from Mutt and Pine on OpenBSD now because I simply give them a set of directions, say "It's not perfect, but it's a compromise, and in 3 years we've never been hacked; please play along nicely". Since my users all accomplish what they want to, they are happy, and since they're happy, I have more time to twiddle RAIDframe, play with Coda and Heartbeat, and generally nerd out.
The more experience I get, the less experience I expect my users to have, and the happier they are overall. Next week the marketing guy will be switching over to using RSA keys for SSH access from his cellular modem. I'm not kidding.
It doesn't have to be intimidating or nerdy to do the job right!
it's all what you are used to (Score:2)
The main reason Windows seems so "usable" is because people already spent years learning it. And, pictures and graphics engage people (just like television), whether they actually help or not. Of course, people coming from Windows expect the same interface on Linux, just like UNIX users have tools like Cygwin on Windows. But there is little that's intrinsically intuitive about the way Windows handles files, applications, and all that.
If my mom can explain it to my dad... (Score:5, Insightful)
In my own example, I taught an advanced database course at Stanford, and how no trouble connecting with upper division CS majors and industry professionals in the course. Two quarters later, I taught "CS01i: Introduction to the Internet." I found myself at a loss sometimes trying to relate to the uninitiated Internet user. I had become detached.
It seems that the same thing is true of linux. We get ingrained in an OS/culture that requires a certain level of sophistication to succeed. Then (for better or for worse) we often become trapped in that paradigm.
I've found that with Linux education (and CS01i), that an old maxim holds true: "If I can tell my mom how to do it, and she can then successfully explain it to my dad, my job is done."
It may sound like an elementary test of fitness, but it works as a good filter for teaching the uninitiated.
(please note, this only works if your mom isn't a kernel contributor...):)
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.
Sadly, often true. (Score:2, Insightful)
Still, while some people aren't good at explaining things in terms that a newbie can understand, others are. It's the same way with teachers of anything, though, so let's not lump this in with Linux/Unix/BSD* etc. I had many math teachers who made things sound so horribly complicated and uninteresting I just couldn't get it. Then I had one teach me enough Algebra/Trig to get an A in Calculus and 1st year Physics in about 3 hours. I remember thinking, "That's it? Why the hell didn't they say so???"
Partly, too, there is a prestige aspect to this. Sadly, some people's teaching style is all about showing off how wonderfully smart they are and showing how woefully stupid the student is. No, this isn't everyone, but I do seem to encounter a lot of people who feel that if you can't use vi, then you are just hopelessly dumb.
Maybe the gurus need to think more about what the goal is. Is the goal to make it so that other "ordinary" people can use Linux, or so that we can all be some kind of honored clique who, together, are just so much cooler than everyone else? Once the goal is declared, act accordingly: simple as that.
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'll admit to that crime (Score:4, Insightful)
As an excercise in trying to be more helpful I've been trying to learn the easy way to do things. I did an out-of-the-box install of Redhat 7.2, and I'm trying very hard not to touch the command line. As it turns out I can do an amazing amount of stuff without touching a command line. The stuff I do have to do is usually obscure power user stuff that normal humans don't have to mess with.
Maybe too stuck in their ways... (Score:5, Insightful)
He looked at me like I was from mars.
Then he said, "Don't you have explorer like in windows?"
I was stunned. Of course I did. I was running KDE for Crissakes. I never use it, so it just didn't occur to me. Then I showed him again, using konqueror for ftp, and file management. (He was impressed that you could use the same program to get files from other computers, and file management.) He did have to do command line cd recording, since I didn't have a gui, but he was ok with moving files to the right directory, and hitting up-arrow, enter.
When he was done, using almost all GUI tools, he came in and said something about Linux not being as tough as everyone said. If he hadn't hit me over the head with the obvious, though, he would have given up in frustration at the command line.
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...
The problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most casual users don't want all of this complexity - heck, to most the idea that they need to login to their home system seems absurd.
Linux was written by geeks, for geeks, and it shows. Most Linux users (myself included) would not give up the security and reliability of Linux for the sake of using something simpler.
And from a user design standpoint, the system fails - unlike windows, 3 different Linux boxes can have 3 different interfaces - each of which confusing to the new user.
Linux will be ready for the clueless masses when:
- Users can use the machine without logging in. (perhaps under some restrictive user account...)
- Users never have to manually configure hardware - the kernel detects the hardware and compiles and loads the requisite modules automatically
- There is one standard GUI interface across all distrubutions; even though GNOME and KDE are remarkably similar in function, the different appearance of windows will confuse the average user.
- The user can install or upgrade any system with a single click of the mouse.
Granted, this is an OS that not many geeks would like. However, there is a tradeoff involved - one can run a good, but obscure OS, or use a popular, but buggy and restrictive OS. If Linux is changed to suit the average desktop user, most technically astute users wouldn't use it; the old adage holds - make something that even an idiot can use, and only an idiot will use it.Re:The problem is... (Score:2)
Users can use the machine without logging in. (perhaps under some restrictive user account...)
GNOME Display Manager->Automatic login->"Login a user automatically on first bootup"
Users never have to manually configure hardware - the kernel detects the hardware and compiles and loads the requisite modules automatically
Mandrake's kernel comes with every stable module compiled and ready to go. If a process looks to the
There is one standard GUI interface across all distrubutions; even though GNOME and KDE are remarkably similar in function, the different appearance of windows will confuse the average user.
Perhaps, but only for a second. Besides, if someone is going to load Linux on their system, I don't think they won't have any problems taking 15 minutes to orient themselves to the slightly different look-and-feel of the GUI. My wife's been a Mac person her whole life, and I had her happily using WindowMaker in no time flat.
The user can install or upgrade any system with a single click of the mouse
No OS in the world can meet this requirement (at least no OS worth seriously considering; people should have some involvement in what is and is not loaded onto their computers). But, for what it's worth, Mandrake can be upgraded by booting off the CD-ROM and choosing "upgrade" when prompted. I've even created a software RAID and installed the OS on that RAID with Mandrake's installer, simply by using the GUI fdisk-like program they provide. How simple can you get?
Re:The problem is... (Score:2)
- Users never have to manually configure hardware.
- The user can install or upgrade any system with a single click of the mouse.
If your next statement thatthis is an OS that not many geeks would like
is indeed true, this says a lot. I would argue that making an OS suit the average user doesn't have to make it unusable to technical users. Different distributions might target different audiences. Just because you can install or upgrade with minimal effort doesn't mean you should be deprived of flexibility. Even Windows has that figured out. (Typical install, or Custom detailed checkboxes?) Windows online update lets you pick and choose what to upgrade, to a limited degree.
the old adage holds - make something that even an idiot can use, and only an idiot will use it.
I've often wondered about this. I think this statement is false. Just because an idiot can use something doesn't mean that it logically follows that only idiots will use it. This statement is true -- if an idiot can't use it, an idiot won't use it. A hammer can be used by idiots and non idiots alike. Similar for firearms. Automobiles. Should non-idiots give up driving?
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.
Re:The problem is... (Score:2)
But this represents both a problem and an opportunity. The truth is that there are real world advantages of having separate logons for each user (to pick the specific example you give) and it's only necessary to show those reasons to people to get them to consider the advantages. Once people get the idea that they can customize their system to be just the way they want it without having the next user screw it up, they'll accept the tiny inconvenience of logging on. When they realize that having separate home directories (and a little bit of fiddling) will keep other people from looking at their personal files without permission, they won't want to go back.
This is the most overhyped disadvantage I've ever heard of. As long as the different desktops are all installed, it's just a matter of setting which one is your default and you can get the same behavior everywhere. Disk space is no longer a serious objection to doing this, so it should be a non-issue.
Re:The problem is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Autodetection of hardware is a sensible feature for geeks as much as anyone else; if you're in to turning random old machines into linux boxes, you probably don't know what the video chipset with all the printing worn off is.
A single click of the mouse is not much simpler than apt-get. In fact, if you're installing something, it's probably simpler to know what the thing is called than to have an icon for it. Even tar zxvf $1-*.tar.gz && cd $1-* &&
There's no need to have only one GUI. What's needed is to have the user's GUI of choice available with any distribution. Ideally, a user would be able to fetch their customization info from somewhere, too, and then it wouldn't even be as confusing as sitting down at someone else's windows box (not to mention switching to CE or ME or NT or XP or... how many interfaces did you say?).
The adage doesn't really hold. A good tool can be used by an idiot and used very well by an expert. Looking around my desk, I see a telephone, a box of tissues, a coffee mug, a book, a pair of headphones, a paper bag, etc.; they're all really easy to use and pretty idiot-usable, and every geek I know uses them. Linux should be similar: it works well without fiddling around inside. You can take the cover off and rewire it to make it do other things, but you don't have to.
I mean, I *could* configure things with echo, sed, grep, and cat, and I actually do on occasion, but usually I use a text editor if that makes it easier to get the result I want. If I had a special config tool that worked well, I'd use that instead, so long as it didn't needlessly destroy my hand-tuned files and left files that I could hand-tune if I found I needed to do something not supported. Being a real power user isn't about always using the more powerful tools; it's about using the tool which will have the effect you want in the shortest time.
Re:The problem is... (Score:2, Insightful)
I really don't think there's a tradeoff "required" here. The features for making Linux idiot-proof are in the system right now. The 'culture' of the product in fact seems much less of an issue than availability. Can I (in the UK) get a new PC with Linux from a high street retailer? Can I get a distro on the cover of a PC magazine? No. Why not?
<BLINK>Problem!</BLINK> (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the problem in a nutshell, right there. "clueless masses"... they're only "clueless" because they don't understand the computer as well as you do, though they probably severely outclass you on other knowledge (history, or art, or automobile mechanics, or any one or more of a million other things). Does your lack of knowledge about 16th century French Realist poetry make you "clueless" as well?
This elitist attitude shows up again and again with advanced computer users and programmers--usually from people who should know better, like some of the wizard programmers I know who will try to plug an ISA card in a PCI slot: they may do fantastic software, but they're "idiots" when it comes to hardware. Are these guys "clueless"?
I'm sorry, but this attitude really needs to be adjusted. It's the difference between:
Scenario A:
Scenario B:
Simplified Linux =! End of Power Users (Score:3, Insightful)
I am so sick and tired of these kneejerk assumptions about Linux and average users.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that that an Everyday Linux for Average Joe would automatically wipe out a Linux geek's Superduper Power Linux setup.
What could Everyday Linux do to you? Would it nullify the GPL? Somehow kill off vi or emacs, or destroy OSS developer communities? If you think so, how? I can't even imagine why folks are so worried.
In case you had forgotten: LINUX IS OPEN SOURCE. Also, lots of related software is open source too. Nobody can take your carefully crafted Power User setup. Nobody.
Or put another way: Existence of Simplified Linux =! No More Linux for Power Users.
Additionally, it would be in Everyday Co.'s best interest to keep Everyday usable by Power Users and average users alike, without alienating either group. If the OSS community gets drowned somehow, the company would lose their developer base, right?
So please stop with the "simple & stupid will absolutely destroy powerful & smart" Linux arguments already. If you want to put it that way, you are simply wrong.
You have to *get* it working first... (Score:3, Insightful)
On a Windows box, if PowerPoint wasn't already preinstalled, then most people at least know that they need to get PowerPoint somehow... MS has at least done their job in getting mindshare. Love it or hate it, everybody's heard of Office.
But will they know what to use on Linux? Will they know what to download, whether they need KDE or GNOME or whatnot? And where to find it if they do? How to build an app from source, or how to use a package management system to install it? Probably not, and there is a lot to learn there...
On Linux, the software is there for the most part, and some of it finally doesn't suck (not just a Linux issue; most software sucks, although at least on Windows it's a form of suck people are familiar with). It's just a question of familiarity with it, I guess. Things in the Un*x world are sufficiently different from the norm that people just aren't comfortable with it yet. The only way to fix this is lots of exposure, which is tricky to get sometimes.
But to get back on topic, knowing a lot of geeks, my guess isn't that they're too smart to teach "normal" people but just tend to focus on what they deal with, which is the technical details which tend to intimidate everyone else. Geeks are tinkerers, "normal" people like to get things working and leave it that way. So when systems running Linux that have all this stuff, and work fine without any tinkering, become widely available the problem might go away somewhat.
Re:You have to *get* it working first... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree entirely about the learning curve of getting a system running. After having installed multiple versions of both windows and linux, I would prefer not to put a newbie through either one of these trials on unfamiliar hardware unless they knew what they were aiming for.
There is also the learning curve associated with the usability of linux. Previously, people have always approached it from "learn the command line first and we'll deal with those GUI addons once you have the basics down". I personally can't think of a faster way to alienate a new user, especially if they have experience using a GUI based system.
I recently upgraded my box from a tower that I've been using for the last 4 years to a much more powerful laptop so that I can travel and still work. As a result I donated the linux tower to the graphic designer in my company so that he could have a "play" and work out what was going on, but not really expecting him to get that involved (have you ever tried to move a designer of his beloved Mac?).
As it turns out, he is currently using the box for everything other than Illustrator and Photoshop. And he is considering getting involved in the development process of Gimp and Sodipodi or Sketch as a non-programming contributor to the process so that he can switch completely. However, he didn't learn any shell commands or any incomprehensible alien languages to make this jump, but rather got given a configured tool that just worked and did the job.
The nicest thing about the whole process is that he is now starting to get interested in those wierd terminal boxes that I tend to leave open and has started to get his head around methods that for me appear faster and more obvious but which for a Mac user are the very antithesis of useability. This would never have happened if I'd started him on shell scripting in console mode on day one.
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:YES (Score:3, Funny)
But I'm fucked if I can set the clock on my VCR,
99% of what? (Score:2, Funny)
Having Worked Tech Support... (Score:4, Insightful)
I see a lot of people intentionally going over the user's head and the vibe I get from the people who do that is "See how leet I am?" Those people need to grow up. Of course, when you get free support you often get what you pay for. If you get that attitude from someone paid to provide end user support, you should ask to speak to their manager immediately and complain.
Some of us can't help but go over the user's heads. I'll do it if I start focussing on the issue at hand but I've learned to pick up on that blank look and pause at that point and say "Ah, you don't care about that!"
Part of the problem too is that some of us are just unfamiliar with the tools. I haven't used StarOffice in ages and get better results with LaTeX. I'm a programmer so I never need to do Powerpoint presentations. I _like_ mucking around behind the scenes to see how things work, and I've become used to working behind the scenes as well.
The best way to approach someone you want to help is to view it as a learning experience for you both. You have to learn to put your personal preferences aside and look at what is best for the user you're working with. You can actually expand your horizons that way.
Now if only... (Score:2)
Now if only Roblimo could try to make the point without overgeneralizing. I know quite a few old time Unix/Linux users who happen to agree with Roblimo. But his writing sure doesn't seem to leave that option open. Lots of flame wars in our community get started in this fashion; too bad Roblimo hasn't learned how to avoid the problem.
No, the problem is not that it looks too hard (Score:5, Informative)
Now, installing something like flash under Mozilla/Linux. I managed to install it fairly easily. But at our crowded computer lab at school, where the only box left was a linux one (we usually use mac), a student couldn't quite figure it out. He downloaded the file, and that was the end of his knowledge. He doesn't know how to use tar. And I'm sure he didn't know what root was or where mozilla was installed. I even had to start X for him. In Windows/IE it's auto install. You click "Yes" on a prompt and it's installed.
When I was first running Debian I wanted to get my sound card running to play some music. I went into modconf and I just couldn't get it installed, even though a pnpdump seemed to find it. So a friend suggested ALSA, which I tried to install. What do ya know, I need to do a kernel upgrade. It still doesn't work. In Windows its found, you put in the driver CD or floppy, don't have to worry about mounting, and a reboot. Maybe it's just my crappy hardware, or I'm just stupid, but with 6 billion people on this planet, I'm sure more than one person has the same problem as I do. The worst part is I got smart people with their degrees to try and help me out, who have been using linux for years. Like the sysadmin for our school district, someone else who just got their CS degree and is a debian package maintainer, someone who is in college learning the kernel. They couldn't get it installed as fast I could, someone who has taken zero (0) college courses in Windows.
Re:No, the problem is not that it looks too hard (Score:3, Informative)
As another poster mentioned, you can easily use up2date in 7.2 to keep your machines updated - it works a lot like Windows Update or apt-get, automatically grabbing the necessary/desired RPMs and installing them for you.
For the installing flash example, how was he running mozilla already to get flash if you had to start X for him? I completely understand what you're saying about the problem, but that just seemed a little weird to me.
I think that you'll find hardware gets adopted by Linux distros pretty well. Every successive release of RedHat that I've installed on machines has gone a better and better job recognizing and installing hardware without me having to go in and recompile or anything. If you have a computer that's a year or two old, you should probably be able to install something like RH 7.2, or the latest unstable Debian and have nearly all of the hardware supported without manufacturers' or third-party drivers.
Re:No, the problem is not that it looks too hard (Score:3, Informative)
If you had kept up with the updates as they came out (as all people who maintain and operate a computer should), you would have gotten the intermediate versions of RPM and glibc that eased the transition. The fact that RedHat doesn't keep these intermediate versions around after the latest comes out is unfortunate, but the fact that they were there and all the good users got them is undeniable. As a bonus, if you had kept up with the 6.2 updates, you eventually would have gotten up2date, a splendid tool which takes care of updating your system semiautomatically... all you have to do is run it and keep clicking on 'Next'. Note that up2date shipped with all later versions of RH Linux.
If you're really feeling adventurous, a 6.2 user can grab the redhat-release package from 7.0, upgrade that one package, and up2date will think it's updating a very out-of-date Red Hat 7.0 system. It isn't quite automatic at that point, since there are things that disappeared from 6.2 to 7.0 and the replacements conflict with them, but barring that one drawback, it's as powerful as 'apt-get upgrade-dist'. (Actually, I would presume that that's the difference between 'apt-get upgrade' and 'apt-get upgrade-dist')
Also, IIRC, Red Hat 6.2 is a year and a half (or is it two years?) old. If a modern Windows system can tell you what updates are available automatically now, great, have fun, but don't say your distro of the week can't when your looking at an obsolete version. After all, I don't recall anyone's Win98 SE systems telling them there were updates available.
the core of the problem is... (Score:4, Funny)
I know many people who are very smart, yet I cringe when I hear them try to explain things to non-experts in the field. It is not that they aren't trying, just that they lack the ability to put themselves in the shoes of someone who doesn't have their level of knowledge.
No, the real problem is the users. (Score:2)
The real problem is the users themselves who are migrating from another operating system (typically an MS OS, although I'm sure this would apply to any other). While taking a Human Computer Interaction course not very long ago (early this year), the project we chose was to create a simple interface for the Linux lab, for new users.
Now, most users are familiar with buttons, right? Everyone who has used a modern GUI has seen and used and is familiar with buttons. So, we made a little app in QT 2.x [trolltech.com] that would have a screen with a few rows of labelled buttons. There would be categories (office apps, math and science apps, development apps, etc.), and the user could select a category and click the button of the app they wanted. You don't really get any easier than this.
The results were disturbing. Our team (made of mostly windows users) had little problem, since they had seen it in development. But almost no one else could use it! We tested on a decent number of people in the NT lab (since this was our target audience), gave them a few simple tasks (like "start a word processor"), and only a very small percentage could complete these tasks. They just couldn't handle something different.
This is the problem I see with making it "OK to be ignorant (about computers)". People can't really use a computer at all, they can only repeat a set of rote tasks to do what they want.
Using a computer isn't difficult. Understanding what is happening isn't difficult. Which OS you use, whether you have a GUI or a command line, is irrelevant. Most of the problem people have with "Linux is Difficult" stems from the fact that they only know a series of rote tasks on one platform, and these rote tasks don't work on Linux. (Even if they do, there is mental confusion simply because it isn't the platform they're used to... we tried this with GNOME and KDE as well, which are quite similar to what people here do, which is use the Start menu.) I have set up a Linux computer for my mom and sister, both of whom had no previous computer experience, and they had absolutely zero trouble using it. My dad, however, who had a deal of Windows experience, just couldn't handle it. (In fact, I had my sister edit a LaTeX document one time, just for kicks, and she picked up on the formatting codes without any explanation. She didn't get them all right, but she came very close.)
People don't like to change. They don't like to learn and adapt. But they should, even though they will make a fuss. We know they should. We are experienced, and we do know better than they. This is not an elitist attitude: we want them to learn too. (An elitist attitude would be that they are inferior and cannot, or should not, learn.) Making it OK to be ignorant is merely harmful for them and ourselves, as well.
Too smart? (Score:2)
If this is so, then the secret to Microsoft's success with usable operating systems must be that Microsoft people aren't very smart or knowledgable. That implies that Apple people must be totally ignorant morons. A description of Amiga poeple would be unprintable on this public forum.
Overwhelmingly YES (Score:2, Interesting)
You can't convince anyone that it's hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Example: "How do I use a USB hard drive under Linux?" Answer: "modprobe usb-mass storage, and use the mount command (man mount)"
And no one sees why there is a problem with such a statement.
Re:You can't convince anyone that it's hard. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You can't convince anyone that it's hard. (Score:3, Insightful)
Example: "How do I use a USB hard drive under Linux?" Answer: "modprobe usb-mass storage, and use the mount command (man mount)"
I don't see the problem with that, because it really is simple. If an average windows user had asked me this, I would have to say, "Insert the driver CD into the CDROM drive. It's the CD that came with your USB hard drive. Now, Autorun should launch the installer program. It didn't? Ok, go to My Computer. Double click it. Under My Computer, go to your CD-ROM drive. Which one? I dunno, try your D: drive. Yes, Double-click it. Now, there should be a program called SETUP -- double-click it. Now follow the insturction on-screen." (assume that user can do this, which they usually can't.) "Now, when Windows reboots, plug the hard drive in, and Windows should recognize it and set it up as your E: drive. Windows freezes whenever you plug it in?" etc. etc.
If a newbie linux user had asked me and I might say "modprobe usb-mass-storage, and use the mount command. You don't know what modprobe is? It's a command that tells Linux to load a drive. The one you want is usb-mass-storage. Ok, now that that's loaded, make a directory under your mnt folder and call it 'usb-harddrive.' Just type 'mkdir /mnt/usb-harddrive' -- mkdir tells Linux to create a folder. Now, mount the usb device to the folder you just created with 'mount /dev/usbwhatever /mnt/usb-harddrive.' It can't find a filesystem? Do this: 'mkreiserfs /dev/usbwhatever.' While we're waiting you want to know what the last two commands do? mm... just accept that they do what they do for now -- we can set up a one-on-one session with later. Now, just type the mount command again. There. It works."
nope (Score:2)
I disagree. See there are three types of people that use computers. Those that thoroughly understand them. Those that use them for a little while and then "get it". And those that need to be taught.
I think the secret for a piece of software's popularity is to capture the second group. If linux was really as easy as it needs to be, it wouldn't need to be taught. Just like most people don't need someone to teach them how to use windows and most of its apps. It's the second group that make most users and eventually they drag along the third group.
fonts (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen people ask how to fix that. I'm sure there's an answer, too. But the fact is that it's fucking RIDICULOUS to have fonts that look like that in the year 2001.
If you give them some complicated instructions for fixing it, 95% of new users will just say "screw that" and either: 1) abandon Linux, thinking it sucks, or 2) keep using Linux with crummy fonts, and think it sucks, or 3) keep using Linux and waste a bunch of time fiddling until the fonts are right.
All three of these situations are horrible, yet it doesn't seem to bother any of the developers that RedHat still ships this way.
This type of situation is common and it infuriates me that not only are you assumed to be stupid if you can't make it work, but everyone is amazed that you'd complain about it in the first place, because fixing it is supposed some sign of your computing prowess.
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!
"Smart" it ain't (Score:3, Funny)
First, it is stupid to think that a user wants to understand the inner workings of the system. The user wants to unlock functionality. They want a simple, easy way to accomplish a task. They want to have to learn as little as possible in order to accomplish that end.
The second is related, and that is in implying that those who are users and see computers as tools used to accomplish a goal rather than an object of study in and of themselves are not smart. Frankly, this is the sort of sub-cultural elitism that stops most "geeks" from actually having meaningfull career advancement. Until you can think of mere users as equals you'll always be working for someone else.
I'm sure /. will eat that up (Score:2)
Yeah, that's it.
Reminds me of those "tricky" job interview questions where you lie your ass off to make your weaknesses sound like or be derived from your sources of strength
Interviewer: What's your biggest weakness?
Me: I'm just too damned focused in everything I do!
I use Linux, so I don't understand why it's so hard for most Linux users to grasp the fact that the reason Linux is unpopular is that it lacks apps and that the user experience is wildly inconsistent and unruly.
Stop looking for answers that make you feel good about yourself, and start looking for solutions that will cure the real problem
/. and Linux Bigots (Score:5, Insightful)
And for people who devote alot of their time to making the stuff work, I don't find this unreasonable. I mean, after all there is real effort and dedication involved is it too much to ask to read a man page?
What MS gets and the Linux commnity doesn't is that most people just want the damn thing (the computer) to do something useful. They want to turn it on and have it work. They don't give a crap about the technical merits of the OS or the effort behind it and for the mass market that is how it should be.
They don't want to mess with config files.
They don't want to care about what hardware is in their box.
They do want to be able to plug stuff in (USB) and have it just work.
They don't want to compile a program to install it.
They dont want to untar things
They don't want to deal with RPM (they want something called setup.exe).
they want easy access to the internet.
they want a browser that works.
and above all they certainly do not want to have to recompile a kernel to upgrade their OS.
MS has money and time to spend on these and other usability issues. Linux does not. Linux is not easy to use unless you are steeped in Unix. There is no way around it.
I think Linux should stop wasting cycles on a mass market that will never happen.
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
If I could throw my two cents in.... (Score:4, Insightful)
While programs such as gnorpm, kpackage, and the Ximian setup tools are available, these tools are mostly either not easy enough to use, not widespread enough, or not stable enough for most users.
Secondly, the menu layout in both KDE and Gnome is incredibly confusing. Gnome puts the main menu on the screen in two different places by default! KDE has at least two address books. And how is anybody supposed to remember that Konqueror is a web browser or that GIMP is an image manipulation program? The naming of Linux programs is very hard to understand, and while these names might work in the Windows world as "brand names", new users facing hundreds of unfamiliar programs deserve something more helpful. Also, there isn't a standard menu system for GNOME and KDE (even regular GNOME and Ximian GNOME use two different menu systems!), so users installing programs may find that it never shows up in their menu at all!
I hope the GNOME and KDE usability projects result in some feedback for those two desktops, because, up until now, these projects seem to have been focused on building a development environment first and a usable desktop second. These priorities really need to be changed.
Re:If I could throw my two cents in.... (Score:4, Funny)
Teach a man to fish... etc. etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO, the problem with 'gurus' teaching 'users' has nothing to do with their relative intelligence. Rather, it's an issue of the semantics of teaching, or more specifically, teaching the use of computers. To a 'guru', teaching the use of computers means getting their student to the point where they can figure out what's going on when confronted with a new program, task, or problem on their own, by connecting it to what they already know. This is called understanding, but that's not what 'users' are used to in the context of computers. What's worse, it is continually suggested to them that it's not what they want.
To quote from the linked article:
This is the basic problem. Telling someone "To A, push B" is not teaching, it's more like programming the student. The student will not understand what they are doing. They'll end up with an unconnected heap of little task descriptions in their head; actually, a lot of people end up with a heap of Post-its glued to their screens and keyboards. They are unprepared to cope with B not causing A (at best they'll reboot, typically they'll call tech support), and if they're given new software where B happens to look a lot more like C and is 5 inches off to the left, they'll need retraining.
That sort of thing doesn't happen with, say, cars. But contrary to popular opinion, that's not because cars are easy, it's because Driving School actually teaches you something, while 'Computer User School' does not.
One can only speculate as to the reasons behind that; after all, driving schools surely wouldn't complain if their students had to return at regular intervals to be told that "in this new and improved model, the windshield wiper switch is now located on the second stick right of the wheel". But in the computer user world, this is exactly how it works. The end result is the perpetual myth that computers are complicated and hard to use, plus excellent job opportunities for 'teachers'.
Feh, that came out rather rambling... Thanks for reading it anyway. ;)
Experts are the worst people to teach novices (Score:3, Funny)
Novices know nothing.
Apprentices know some things by rote.
Competent people have mastered all the rules...
... and so on, until you hit experts, who no longer follow any easily described rules at all - they understand everything as it is, with no simplification.
In general, the best people to teach novices are the competent, whose knowledge is still at the "rule" stage, but whose abilities are broad ranging and well learnt. The worst people to teach novices are experts, who understand so much that they no longer think in the same way as the novice.
Hence the derision experts often express for teachers ("those who can't, teach"). The good teacher knows something the expert doesn't - what to leave out, how to convey broad principles memorably, what explanations to leave until later. Cranky experts knock Dummies books, which for all their cutesiness and condescension are models of clear technical writing.
The first wave of Linux documentation was written by experts for experts. I have no doubt that the simpler stuff will come along (there's a Linux for Dummies, perhaps it's coming already).
The point: don't assume that you can teach well because you are a subject expert. Conversely, don't think that you have nothing to teach because you're not.
Linux documentation bred the Linux users of today! (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, I get the feeling that most Windows users believe that us Linux geeks have purposely encrypted current linux documentation in our own esoterica so that we can feel special when nobody else understands; We also explain things extra difficultly so we can feel better about ourselves, like we all have some sort of inferiority complex.
Of course neither is correct. Here are some of the underlying reasons I believe this situation has come about:
Until VERY recently Linux has been pretty much a system administrator's thing, or a serious code hacker's thing. Because nobody outside of the circle probably ever even heard of Linux, why the hell would the documentation have been written for those outside of the circle? It was generally (and correctly) assumed that anyone else reading the documentation was either a sys-admin, hacker, or similar type, who knew Linux/Unix and simply wanted some configuration details or command line arguments. There's no reason our HOWTOs and man pages should have been written any differently, at the time they were written.
Now suddenly Linux got some time under the spotlight and a lot of people are trying Linux for various purposes, Server, Desktop, or for the reason maybe a good portion of us started playing with Linux, just to tinker around. They "grew up" in GUI land for the most part, don't know jack about using a command line, and are now confronted with something that's somewhere between both. They are obviously interested or they wouldn't have bothered, but they are completely frustrated because all of the documentation is really just there for configuration details or usage details. Maybe we don't see it that way, but they probably do. It seems like a lot of energy is being spent in finger pointing when it could be spent writing migration-documentation (I don't know if I just made that up or not). If I did, what I mean is that for the transition from Windows to Linux to be easy we need documentation that not only explains how to do things, why you are doing each step, and what exactly it's going to do, but also what the equivelant would have been in Windows.
Just my $0.02
P.S. Yes this nick is completely unoriginal, but you jerks already stole all of the good nicks! =)
copy&paste (Score:3, Insightful)
Why I don't use GUI tools (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with the tone of the article -- this basically disqualifies me as someone to help newbies. I recently went to a LUG meeting, where some relatively new Linux users demonstrated all the GUI tools you can use on Linux. I didn't even know what "Evolution" was until I went to the meeting.
I suppose the best advice for the newbie is to find some kind of user group and meet people with common interests and/or struggles with their systems (usually the slightly-less-newbie types as proposed by the article).
the hell you know (Score:3, Insightful)
Less technical users (i.e. normal people) have no hope of dealing with problems: unless things are exactly as they expect and work perfectly, they are completely lost. (This is not a criticism, but rather follows inevitably from the first paragraph.) With windows, they are endlessly frustrated, but they have memorized a few dozen "tricks" that work. With linux, a different set of "tricks" are required and they are completely lost when one of their tricks fails. Linux ends up looking harder simply because it is different.
Had they been raised on linux, then windows would seem impossibly complex.
"Backward compatability" (i.e. desktop behaving like windows) is essential for linux to make headway on the desktop. Perhaps this is a bitter pill. Sorry, that's life.
I just want my email, search the net, type a ..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Option Anxiety is the result of having at least a half dozen different ways to accomplish a single simple task! Take the Linux ditros themselves for example. Each one has a different way of installing the OS. Each one generally has its own preferred way of managing software, either apt-get, rpms, tarballs
I actually had a client say to me, "I just want my email, search the net, and type business letters that my clients can read on thier computers. I don't wnat to know about all that stuff."
From the article:
"People using their computers don't need to know much beyond "Push button A and action B results." They don't need to get confused with a lot of complex commands while they're just starting to figure out the way to do things in Linux that they already knew how to do in Windows. That basic level of knowledge is enough for a start - and for a good while afterwards."
I totally agree with that! What I think is more important is that Linux and Linux distros keep getting more and more "approachable" by novices while still allowing seasoned Linux users the freedom and ability to do what it already allows them to do.
My experience (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Documentation that assumes too much. This has been mentioned above, but I'd like to stress this as a number one problem. After all, what good is a free operating system if you can't use it in a meaningful way without buying 2 or 3 books. Some of the HOWTOs will walk you through setting something up in one particular way, and don't give much guidance on general principles. I guess that's the definition of a howto, but that's really a poor substitute.
Installation program: What packages would you like to install?
New User: Huh? I DON'T KNOW!
2. Too many configuration files. When I first started using linux, one word came to mind: Chaos. Configuration files are all over the place and they all have their own particular formats and quirks. And 99% of the time, the defaults don't work for anyone but the developers. This is getting better though. Some of the more professionally developed applications are better at this. MySQL really shines in this area. It was a breeze to install and the things that it asked for were clear. It is a very peaceful, well-behaved piece of software. But I really wish software developers would include configuration wizards. Lengthy editing of text files just for basic functionality is unacceptable. This is such a problem that I'm considering helping open source projects by specializing in documentation and ease of use. Configuring the kernel has gotten easier in recent years. Modern configuration tools step you through the process and help is readily available if you don't know what something means. Even better, it tells you what you probably need. This is a step in the right direction.
3. Dealing with dependencies. Linux gets a lot of praise for quick bug fixes, which can be a good thing, but its a double-edged sword. You have to juggle kernel versions, glibc versions, and GNU tools. If Linux is trying to reach a mainstream audience, do you expect the average user to have to recompile their kernel and rpm half a dozen other dependencies just to install the new web browser? Windows software developers have a much easier time - you know that an app that will run on one Windows 95 machine will run on just about any Windows 95 machine. Occassionally you run into things like needing X version or a above of DirectX or something, but that's a minor upgrade. Linux applications don't often check for their needed libraries.
Social Psychology perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
You might want to check out this case from a social psychology [ship.edu] point of view. People who are not real experts but perceives themselves to be experts might want to emphasize their expertise by showing the new user how smart they are in comparison.
It should be noted that real experts shouldn't (at least in theory) have this inferiority complex, which makes the interaction for them with newbies much more straightforward and purposeful.
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?"
Or is it they don't know that much but think and want others to think they do?
Printing is a big problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the biggest problem, is getting things to print. I truly dread printing in unix. It is unnecessarily complicated. Granted, my experience with it is network printing where a printer has to be specified (I suppose you could set it up to default to one...but that of course requires manipulating some config file somewhere). Until printing is as easy as windows (literally, just click the icon and whatever is on your application prints perfectly)...
Re:it's a two way street.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Did he not believe you when you said, "Linux doesn't have any anti-virus software because Linux is not popular enough yet to be the target of viruses"? Or was it because you told him that Linux is intrinsically safe from viruses. That's not true, and here's why:
Right now, most people running Linux know better than to do everything as root. As such, there is a logical separation between what the user can do, and what can damage the system (in that, little of what the user can do can damage the system). Also, right now, there aren't any e-mail apps that are as featureful (bugful, if you must) as Outlook, in that they won't automatically handle whatever attachments you get (you have to download the attachment and then load it up with whatever tool you use to view it). This is a bane when it comes to executable code (already been fixed in Outlook for some time -- people just don't patch), but it's a boon for everything else. It exemplifies a fundamental design difference between the Windows experience and most Linux GUI experiences -- being that Windows is very much "Document-centric". You don't open Word and then open a document. You don't open Excel and then open a spreadsheet. You just double-click on the document or spreadsheet, and Word (or WordPerfect, or Star Office, even, if that's how you have things set up) fires up and loads that document for you. Now, to get off of that tangent and back on to the original point -- as Linux grows in the desktop market (if Linux grows in the desktop market), more and more and more people will be running as root 24/7/365. What that means is that suddenly, viruses are very much dangerous. Or, users start clamoring for an e-mail app that has the same power as Outlook, at which point we get mail virii spread through Linux. Oh, sure, it won't affect you, but what about that guy at work?
The point? Linux is not intrinisically safe from viruses. It's "safe enough" right now, through a combination of obscurity (it's not worth the time to write a virus for it, as it'll see little spread) and security (though a virus could still trash a user's $HOME just fine, even if it's not running as root). Expect to see that change if Linux does penetrate further into the desktop market (this will take some time -- the Macintosh is fairly free from virii mainly due to the obscurity argument, so Linux would have to substantially overtake Apple's marketshare to make itself a target).