What Might UserLinux Look Like?
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Nov 18, 2003 08:39 PM
from the it-will-be-green dept.
from the it-will-be-green dept.
Lucky writes "This story at Linuxworld talks about some of the potential features of UserLinux, as well as Bruce Peren's proposed community desktop project and its potential features. There's some exclusive commentary by Perens there, too."
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What Might UserLinux Look Like?
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UserUtopia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Desktop intergration... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://sgik.org/)
You can't accomodate them all with a single UI.
What is really needed is a virtual layer between the (G)UI and app that would allow GUI "themes", similar to the way that KDE and GNOME have themes for their WMs.
For example, say that I am using a program that displays various objects that can be moved, copied, etc.
Rather than receiving events like <KEY C with CTRL modifier> or <MB1 with mouse coord> , the program would receive events like <COPY> or <MOVE with delta/coord>
Then, the GUI theme that I was using would determine what keys/mouse movements generate what events.
Some programs already allow users to customize keyboard shortcuts and menus.
This would be like that, except that, instead of customizing per-application, it would customize across all applications.
The problem is determining the domain of events that the virtual layer would support.
Operations like copy, paste, and move are easy (and have already been done for things like text boxes); file open/save operations are semi-standard in that many apps use <CTRL+O> and <CTRL+S> (but not necessarily customizable, and certainly not globally); other, less common operations (e.g., drawing a line from point A to point B, adding to or subtracting from the current selection, etc.) could be handled using some sort of modular system (ala XML XPointers, etc).
Better standards and documentation (Score:5, Insightful)
Something else that'd increase desktop Linux: accurate, up to date documentation. Man pages are hopelessly out of date (read man resolv.conf and find out that most machines should be running local copues of Bind, or the various setting up a SLIP PPP connector on kernel 2.0 docs on TLDP).
Re:Better standards and documentation (Score:5, Insightful)
Good troll. Now, about the only person who seems to think man is deprecated is RMS and his cohorts, and as you say, they seem to prefer their own obtuse documentation system info.
While info might sound like a good idea for some developers too lazy to write man-pages, or a real manual in a readable format, it's completely ridiculous for the rest of us.
First, GNU documentation guidelines state that an info manual should be both a tutorial and a reference, which flies in the face of any advice you could get from both people experienced in reading or writing manuals. While man-pages are at least good for getting a complete reference of something, info-pages are almost always completely confused about their purpose, being as comprehensive as the average man-page, but much more wordy, making neither a good introduction nor a good reference.
Second, there is the file info.dir, which must either be manually updated, or gradually fall into a long unorganized mess of links pointing everywhere, but without any comprehensible organization.
Third, there really aren't that many programs having an info-file. While you can expect almost everything to have a man-page (and possibly point you at the info-manual), the other direction is not as common. A good documentation solution should probably have some way of accessing info-files, because of their historical significance, but it should not be based upon it, as it is quite despickable. The same can of course be said of man, but man never tried to be everything you need.
Last, the GNU info program has a loathsome user interface, with keybindings as intuitive as those found in dselect. The emacs version is slightly better, but requires you to run emacs. But apart from the other problems with info, this is actually fixable.
In conclusion; there are serious problems with GNU info. It is certainly not better than man, in any way. Man makes it easy to incorporate it as part of a better help-system. Info makes it hard, and instead tries to be everything for everyone, but fails completely at the task. A good documentation system should cater for the user, info seems to only care about the person writing info manuals.
Re:UserUtopia? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think everyone agrees that rpms suck. Most of the good code comes in source tarballs - configurable for any *nix... but this is where the user experience falls apart. What person is going to want to dig out the command line to compile source code, and will he or she know about all the ocnfigure options... and then, will there be dependency issues (or should the source contain the dependencies too?). Then there are the legal issues of bundling dependancies... and then there will be future commercial Linux apps which won't want to include source code.
In an ideal world, packaged installs will be a compressed single file, containing all source code, configurable on any *nix like normal source code EXCEPT that now there's a graphical interface so that setting compile options, creating desktop shortcuts, and "Make clean, make install, make uninstall" now all work under X with a point-and-click.
PLEASE! Will someone serious about standardizing Linux installs do something about this... or desktop Linux will never take off.
Re:UserUtopia? (Score:4, Insightful)
I must disagree with: "When someone downloads a package for "Linux" it should work on any Linux distro out there, similar to the way which "Windows" software works (excluding win9x/NT incompatibilities) across the board. this.
"Linux" is an OS-kernel, and it should set no policy. When someone downloads a package for windows CE, they don't expect it to work on windows XP. And there are plenty of server applications that refuse to work on XP or 2K professional even without any technical reasons.
Similarly, when someone downloads a debian package, they shouldn't expect it to work on mandrake or suse. And when somebody downloads a package for a linux distribution for the ARM, they shouldn't expect it to work on one for the Itanium. And you shouldn't expect ximian rpm's to work on the fullpliant linux distribution either.
Your expectations are unrealistic. What is good for one linux distribution is not necessarily good for another. You could just as well complain that "When someone downloads a package for "Unix" it should work on any Unix distro out there, similar to the way which "Windows" software works (excluding win9x/NT incompatibilities) across the board.".
If you want the ease of windows, you have to make some choices. This includes choosing between rpm, dpkg, or something else, KDE, gnome, a mix, or something else. Supported packages, etc. Debian (and many other distributions) is a nice example of this.
But even debian gives you too many choices. I can expect most debian packages to work out of the box after installing it with apt-get, but not every combination that the package system allows would make sense for the end user.
So, we limit it further, and call it UserLinux, or something like that, which is a subset of debian. But you can't call it "Linux", because that is something else.
No, it isn't. You don't need to understand much more to be able to write "apt-get install openoffice", than you need to get down to your favourite software store, get Microsoft Office, insert the CD's and click next, next, next, and finish. I would actually go so far, as to say that debian is simpler for the end-user in this arena.
Now, I wouldn't recommend linux to non-technical users either (unless I or someone knowledgeable sysadmined the box), but having to use the command-line for access to apt-get is not the reason. They can learn that pretty fast. There are other more complicated issues that hurt the user-experience a lot more.
Solution for configuration babel (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://perens.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday February 07 2006, @08:49PM)
Bruce
Re:Solution for configuration babel (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://perens.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday February 07 2006, @08:49PM)
Bruce
YALD (Score:3, Interesting)
My list has two overwhelming requirements for the Linux desktop. First it has to be easy to use. It should pass the "Grandma test"
Choose the the grandma well, or fit her Sonotone with a hidden HF receiver so you can discreetly tell her what to do.
So, the customers involved in UserLinux will be paying for the engineering of creating a Free Software system, rather than for boxes, "seats", or user licenses.
Oh okay, I didn't realize it was a YALD that was also doomed to fail even before seeing the light of day. Nevermind
[Moderators: this is not a flamebait. Think about it, how many such schemes have ever worked ?]
A good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://alliance.sf.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday May 08 2007, @11:57AM)
The UserLinux initiative is an excellent chance for us to penetrate into the mainstream desktop market and start making software houses recognize and implement for linux - because their target audience can finally use the system.
The list posted in the article looks to be a rather [complete] connonical set of programs. --- This has been just a few, incomplete, thoughts ---
Browser Plugins (Score:4, Insightful)
hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://go.away/)
Linux could do with a few less 37337 coders and a few more artists and graphic designers, people who have an understanding of what colors work together, and most importantly what proportions are pleasing to the eye. The thing I like least about linux is how so many little aesthetic things are off. Dialog box fonts are a little too big for the dialog box, the borders between windows are too narrow, nothing matches like it should.
Consistency and control (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.gidds.me.uk/)
What's really needed IMO is consistency. Dialog boxes, for example should have the same style across applications &c. - and that doesn't just mean the font size, or even the font; it means having a similar layout (where appropriate), with buttons in a similar order, the same default focus, similar keyboard controls, similar positioning. And the same principle applies right across the GUI, from having the menus arranged in a similar fashion with common menu options in similar places, to similar behaviour of toolbars and palettes, and so on and so on.
The trouble with this is control. This sort of consistency would mean developers willingly going with someone else's design principles and UI guidelines, and too many developers seem too keen on doing their own thing to let this happen, whether from a desire to make their app stand out, thinking (rightly or wrongly) that the usual principles don't apply to their app, incompetence, or just sheer stubbornness.
Not everyone has graphical skills or UI design skills, so IMO we need a way of working where developers who want to can do so without needing those sorts of skills, but without inflicting that lack on their users. I think this is one of the fundamental problems that the free software community needs to address. GUI toolkits are a step in this direction, but clearly don't go far enough.
Maybe we should consider some fundamental reorganisation. With everything split by application, each has its own way of doing things; what if there was some other way of doing things? What if application developers yielded ultimate control of their GUI to a separate project of some kind? I've no idea how this might be done technically, and even less idea how developers could be brought on board, but IMO it's the only way to achieve the sort of consistency, predictability, and least astonishment that more centrally-controlled systems have.
Re:Consistency and control (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.solidstategroup.com/)
The only way the Linux desktop is going to become consistent, and not only from a GUI perspective but from a config file and usability, and application integration (i.e. clipboard) perspective, is for EVERY application that is available for UserLinux to filter through a single point of contact.
This group would then standardise (with regards to the GUI, config files etc) EVERY application that is submitted.
I dont see any other bullet proof solution. It would be a ton of work (and really shitty work at that) but it *would* work.
It's basically what distros are doing already with their different package management implementations, but taken to the next level; i.e. instead of making sure the package compiles/binary is not left with missling libs, you make sure of not only that but also the applications all have the same file dialog, windowing toolkit etc.
Hehe, amusing (Score:5, Informative)
(http://nekobox.org/)
But what you just described is how Mac OS X's Interface Builder works! The widgets, guidelines, interface paradigms, and look and feel are encouraged and enforced by the UI; the menubar, window layout, widget placement, texturing, widget types, etc,
It's not perfect; developers can still intentionally (or unintentionally) violate the HIGuidelines, but it's a lot harder than any other IDE I've ever seen.
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
(http://csilo.com/)
Queer eye for the GUI?
Hmm.... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.drgw.net/~nnthayer)
Well, if the link's any indication, UserLink will look very rectangular. And white. Did I mention white?
And who's Bruce Peren? Nice to see a new name bursting onto the Linux scene!
Masses Vs. Community (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday July 16 2003, @11:17PM)
More often than not what the (geek) community considers the most important might not be in tandem with what the masses think. So for linux to be a viable desktop for the masses, we need a little mind storming. Going with the obvious of aping MS Windows definitely should be resisted, but fresh thoughts with the masses in consideration would certainly help make postive moves.
Nice. (Score:3, Funny)
Where to begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ease of use means making the computer work the way PEOPLE think, not forcing people to work the way COMPUTERS think.
Linux geeks and other developers, who have been conditioned to think like the computer because of the work they do, have the mistaken notion that advanced computer user means a user who has learned to force the natural human way of doing things into the artificial machine way a computer does things.
Any interface that doesn't force this paradigm is "dumbed down."
The truth is, the Linux geek has simply been conditioned to do things the difficult way, not the natural way. Designing the interface to do things the natural way is not dumbing it down, it's making the Linux Geek's paradigm obsolete. Of course, the Linux Geek doesn't like this, so in a fit of human ego, he looks his nose down on anything that points out the stupidity of his position (working the way the computer demands; being the tool of the computer), and calls it "dumbing down."
Re:Where to begin... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.geektownhall.com/ | Last Journal: Friday November 28 2003, @09:26PM)
Since we are the ones programming them, doesn't that mean that they've been conditioned to think the way that we do? After all, they're running our logic. Kind of like a small section of our minds...
Re:Where to begin... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.adamfranco.com/)
About the Finder... [arstechnica.com]
As a Linux user (and user of OS X at work) I have, like most of us here, am very comfortable with flying around in and out of the hierarchical nature of the file-systems on our computers. When giving my mother tech support over the phone, she is continually amazed that I can just list to her (while driving down the road) the series of directories that she had to go through to find her necessary document. A little after this, I read the above mentioned article which gets into why the finder in Apple's OSes =9 were so "user friendly" and got some new insight.
Like many of us, when using OS 8-9, I was always annoyed with how the icons would never line up and you very soon built up this annoyingly HUGE mess of windows whenever searching very deep for something. What I missed about this system in my attempts to over-ride it, are Syracusa's main points: - There is ALWAYS a one to one correspondence between folders and windows. I.e., you can't have the same folder open in two windows. - The contents of a folder ALWAYS look EXACTLY how you last left them, even if that causes some weird overlap or scrolling nastiness.
The result of the absolute consistency of the above two things is that when you interface with the computer, you can build a visual sequence of landmarks to your data. Something akin to driving your route to work. You may not know the names of all of the streets (directories), but still find your way because you can recognize the arrangement of streets, like taking the third one after the blue house. Syracusa gives the example of light-switches. After a couple of days in a house, you don't need to hunt for them because our minds have developed over millions of years to recognize these sorts of visual information so that we can find things in the world around us.
Contrast this with your the file browser in OS X, Konqueror, Windows, etc. When you open up a given directory you really have no idea what the contents will look like. This depends on the view options you chose in the parent directory as well as auto sorting and all of these such things. Because of this lack of visual consistency, you are forced to remember the file names of every parent of the file that you are looking for. While I do well with this and am perfectly comfortable keeping the whole darned thing in my head and navigating from the cli, MOST people aren't. This is one of those things that should be heavily researched (anyone doing a psychology PhD and need a thesis topic?) in order to move not just Linux, but computing in general forward.
The Biggest Problem is Printing!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://humc.us/)
I have been slowly switching one of my clients over to Linux desktops, but the printing situation made the move stall. I settled for XP with Open Office, Firebird and Thunderbird as the base.
Though to give yuou an idea of the level of user I am dealing with they all still think they are using new versions of IE, Outlook and Office (they all swore they would only use MS products). The management approved of the alternatives, the users are none the wiser at this point.
When is printing going to be unified?
Re:ease of use (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that a secure box? Nope. But quite a lot of peopole are running their PC configured just like that.
Can the same be said for a Linux installation?
It must have a GUI option for just about everything. "Do you want A or B? Click here."
It must have standard install locations for programs. No "3 files for this must go in your
Linux can be easy to use, once it is set up, and if you never change/install anything.
Plug & pray mostly works on Windows. Plug the printer/camera/joystick in, and it's recognised and set up. Rarely do you have to put the accompanying CD in.
A successful neophyte GUI leads the user to the answer, instead of making him look for it.
Now...the question is, does Linux need a 'neophyte GUI'?
How to solve the installation problem (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.welsh-buck.org/jbuck/)
Answer: no installation problem because the user doesn't have to install it! Almost no one installs XP themselves.
Get a hardware partner. Sell boxes that have components selected that work optimally with Linux, pre-install and pre-configure the software, and make the desktop so beautiful (by appropriate choice of themes) that people who see the machine in stores have to have one.
Re:Back to bare-bones? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://forums.boiledfrog.us/ | Last Journal: Friday February 21 2003, @01:08PM)
everyone I know that has been toying with the idea of switching to linux has wanted at least one of these things before switching:
1) Macromedia creation tools - maybe wine can do the trick, but not likely.
2) DirectX/game support - not going to happen until the userbase is there, and even then, it's iffy - when was the last time you saw a good game for PC? not terribly frequent, are they? nearly everyone's developing for Xbox now.
3) adobe products - some work, but just barely, though wine. not an option. gimp is not an option, because it doesn't compare. neither are all the other tools - they've got nowhere near the feature list (which is invalueable in something like premiere or ps).
4) easy to configure, and then to change their configuration, from the desktop, using gui tools - people don't really care what's underneath. they want to be able to add, remove, etc. their printers and everything else. sure, there's largely hardware support available - but it's difficult for the users t oset up due to lack of cohesive gui tools.
I hate to say it, but I'd blame X for these shortcomings, largely. Sure, it does what it does well, some might say. But it is bloated, buggy, leaky, and inadequately designed for the task at hand. It's trying to do the wrong thing.
If we had a pluggable gui TK framework with a single programming interface, instead of the individualistic layering we have now, then there'd only need to be one network configuraiton tool, one printer tool, one hardware setup tool. there could even be multiple instances of each functional tool set, all approaching it in the same fashion, but: all these tools could then use the same TK, depending on the desktop used, so that there's not a) extra memory overhead, b) extra dependency requirements, and c) an ugly, incongruous desktop. Additionally, TKs wouldn't have to duplicate silly things, like AA fonts, OGL support, and the like.
Likewise, dialog boxes (save document, etc.) should also be pluggable, so that anyone using any application can use the file navigation method that they want (or that the distribution packager decides). This way someone using GIMP would get the same
I'd say that doing this does indeed need an X rewrite, because the above illustrated design is not possible with the current TK-on-X arrangement. the current situation on the desktop is chaos, at least compared to the majority of other major functionality. With X, everything runs on top of X. With apache, the kernel, emacs, and various other mature projects, things are modular. You don't write a userland hardware driver. You don't use CGI to process PHP. It's modular.
People say "but linux is about choice", and i'd agree. However, X currently doesn't provide any choice: if the average user wants to use a graphical interface, it's a fairly safe bet that they'll be using X. In that case, they're stuck with everything: not GTK or QT, but both; that is, if they want any semblance of a desktop that's comparable to windows.
The perspective that most linux users seem to take is one of the old school unix user, even though most of them are not. "X works fine, that's what X is supposed to do". I'd agree, if the competition was Windows 3.1 w/ modern hardware support with OGL and other 'modern' features - because that's what it amounts to, in my mind. I'm not saying, "the GUI should be integral to the OS", but that the GUI is indeed integral to the desktop, and cohesion is necessary in that regard.
Apple recently realized that their OS and GUI infrastructure from the last millenium was inadequate for the future, integrating OGL into the core of the GUI, vector graphics for everything, and the like. MS has apparently realized this as well about their own products, what with Longhorn looming on the horizion, and is transitioning everything to
Linux Users (Score:5, Funny)
Where was Bruce? Oh where was Bruce? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.clarux.com/ilan)
Where was Bruce? Oh where was Bruce?
If he so cared about so much about Debian not having desktop marketshare, why didn't he use his position as Debian project leader to speak out against the elitist, anti-end user attitudes that have come to define Debian as a community and a distribution?
Where was Bruce? Oh where was Bruce?
Re:Where was Bruce? Oh where was Bruce? (Score:4, Informative)
(http://perens.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday February 07 2006, @08:49PM)
I wrote a character-mode installer that fit on one floppy, and was the best installer in 1996! It's not 1996 any longer. I think character mode would still be OK if it were easy, and that's where the new Debian installer is heading. It partitions your disk if you want it to, and so on. But it is built so that it can get a GUI front-end too. I think the developers are going for functionality before eye-candy.
I don't like developers who bear contempt for newbies. But the place to handle them is somewhere other than where the developers are attempting to do their work. This is why you need a layer over Debian.
Bruce