On Sat, 12 Jun 1999, Gertjan Klein wrote: > point-and-click interfaces suck, because they are too easy. Windows > could learn a lot from Linux in terms of performance, power and > stability, but Linux doesn't even come close to the ease of installation > and use you'll find with Windows. This is not something to be proud of,
Who said it was? > or something to blame on (new) users. It would be nice if the people you It is not blamed on users. Contemptible complaints and demands attract contemptuous replies. Ignorance does not. Love of ease does not. These have nothing to do with it. > mention above realize that the vast majority of computer users in > general are absolutely not interested in learning about operating > systems, file systems, the files in /etc, and so on - they just want to > get a job done, as quickly and easily as possible. There is absolutley > nothing wrong with that. This self-important and self-serving claim is made too often. There is a pretence that I am a serious, business-like person with a job to do, and therefore I am too important and too busy to learn how to do it. That is bogus. > >If you like to do things the hard way, then fine. But it doesn't really Not many people like to do things the hard way. That is not intelligent. This is absolutely irrelevant. > >mean that you're more intelligent or more knowledgeable than people who > >click a few buttons in a GUI to accomplish the same thing. > Even if it did mean that, so what? And intelligence has nothing to do with it either. It is laughable to think high intelligence is required to discover the Install Manual on the Debian Web site or to discover install.txt on a Debian CD. The problem was that too much explanation was given. That is hard to avoid in the circumstances. The information is addressed to people who know nothing, who need background in everything. But this has nothing to do with intelligence. Simpler here means save me the effort of reading all this. > Alan Cooper has written an interesting book about user interface > design (he prefers to call it interaction design). It addresses a lot of > the issues that users have to deal with when operating high-tech > equipment like computers; these issues are universal, and apply to > interacting with Linux as well. A sample chapter is available online at So what? What is the relevance of saying that user interfaces can be designed, and that we can move beyond the present to better systems in future? We would all like the installation of Debian to be simpler. Debian is a huge effort directed to making installation and maintenance of Linux simpler. That is exactly what it is about. However simple it is we would like it simpler. We'd like to do everything more easily. But only a shithead screams "MAKE IT SIMPLE!" so that he won't personally have to make any effort. If you want someone to MAKE IT SIMPLE! all you have to do is ante up a billion dollars. Come to the party with Microsoft's development budget. Debian is developed and maintained gratis, by volunteers. Linux is developed and maintained gratis, by volunteers. A few, with very good track records in free software development, may in the end get do to paid development on tiny parts of these systems by the likes of RedHat. But in essence, if anyone gets paid it is a donation, a grant. Ditto the GNU utilities. The person who screamed "MAKE IT SIMPLE!" had not paid a cent for the software. It is completely bogus to suggest that the world is divided into businesslike people who want to do serious work with the computer, just want to get on with using the software, and masturbators who just like to fool with it. The real distinction is between the tolerant and appreciative who will make an effort to solve their problems, and the intolerant and demanding who will not, who think people who have given them free software are their servants and that they have a right to complain about anything not perfectly to their liking. And a right to demand to be helped by the user community at large. Those in the first group learn by their first efforts. They find their problems are soluble. And then they are better placed when they strike other problems. They grow in knowledge and ability. They are able to help others. And to judge and flame others who will not do what they did. But they are still users who have the software to use it. People in the first group, even if they stick to Microsoft Windows and leave Linux alone, use the software effectively. The person who is too busy to make an effort to learn how to use Microsoft Excel, who just wants to use the program for real work, who is too busy and too important and too demanding to direct any attention to the software itself, will remain a lame and inefficient user, just limping along, wasting vastly more time than he pretends to save. My employer once sent me to a two-day course in Excel. No-one recoils in surprise that there are such courses and such training, that it takes so long just to get an introduction to the program. Why the amazement that you have to read a few pages to install the Debian Linux operating system? Why the complaints about difficulty when you have refused to spend the necessary time learning how to do something on Linux?
