Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3434 mails)

[Aaron Kulkis <akulkis00@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Stefan Hundhammer wrote:
> On Tuesday 05 February 2008 15:30, Aaron Kulkis wrote:
> > > you're right that the box is smaller than before but
>>> the manuals you're asking for are available as PDFs
>>> on the media.
> > ...
> >
> > They need to be presented to the new user at first boot up.
>
> Well, no. Not only no, but "hell no!". ;-)

Put the crack pipe down.

> That's the way we got all that annoying stuff you have
> to click away during installation and then at your first
> login. It always started like that: Some  people not
> finding it right away (but OTOH also not giving it a real hard
> try).

So when do you propose to inform people who are NEW
to SuSE (especially those who have just switched
from Windows).... 5 months after installation????

This may be annoying for you, the experienced user,
but it's not about YOU..it's about the INEXPERIENCED
USER who is *lost*... doesn't know what the "man"
command is, has never heard of "info" either, and
seriously needs something BLATANTLY IN HIS FACE to
show him where to go to find answers.

To the newbie, that's not annoying, it's FRIENDLY.

> Look at what stuff we already have that nobody (well,
> make that "very few", but usually "very few who have
> the authority to make us") wants to see. Let's take a
> small tour through current and recent releases we made
> - just a very random selection:
> - License agreement at installation start. Yuck. But the lawyers demand it. 

Because the law does.

> There must be some old lady who once in the course of this universe couldn't 
> find it right away and then died of sorrow or desparation. ;-)

You're saying that the license agreement should be queried AFTER
installation?
> - Media check. Come on. My CD / DVD buring software can do that
> a lot better, and at a much more appropriate time.

When it comes to detecting errors on an installation disk,
which "much more appropriate time" do you mean, precisely?

I certainly do NOT want to waste *MY* time going through the
software selections (which usually takes me about 2 hours)
only to find out AFTER the installation that there are
detectable errors on the installation media.

Sure it takes time.. SO WHAT?  I want to know IMMEDIATELY
if there is an error on that DVD *BEFORE* I waste a bunch
of time going through all the steps of doing an installation.

And if I already know that the DVD is good, I can just
*SKIP* the media check by clicking "no" to the question
of whether I want to check the media or not.

> - Time zone selection. Interesting for users who happen to
> install in Thai language on their way to Vladivostok, but
> just annoying for all those people whose location we can
> easily deduce from the language they selected. German,
> Czech, Swedish - time zone unique (unless they are on that
> train to Vladivostok, too). English is harder, agreed.
> Some other languages, too. But for most languages there
> is little question.

So when I was doing an English language installation while
in Iraq, I'm just screwed, eh.

Time zone selection takes minimal amount of time, and
yes, it SHOULD be done at the beginning.  Any other time
is even less appropriate.

English-language users are in a tremendous number
of time zones - 6 or 7 in North America alone.

> - Release notes. Well, I might be interested in them
> after I have my installation done and everything works
> as expected (including the good MPlayer etc.), but
> certainly not bang in the middle of all that.
>

I agree there.  In fact, relevant release notes (i.e to
that software which is actually installed) should all be
linked into a directory (like /root/release-notes).
The installer already knows where they are (that's how
they're put up on the screen)...but frankly, they flash
by too quickly to be useful.  By the time I've seen them
all, I barely remember 5% of what was shown.

> - YaST control center. Yes, it's been a while, but we were
> made to force-press that thing upon the poor user at the end
> of the installation, too. It was broken for a long time, yet
> nobody complained. Must be quite some crowd out there using
> that thing. ;-)

I've noticed problems since 10.0.
And instead of fixing it, you guys seem more interested
in changing the appearance.

Misplaced priority, if you ask me.

> - Novell customer center (during registration). Well, marketing. 
>
> - SuSE greeter. Do we still have it? Well, I guess so - when
> you don't recycle an existing home directory. It also used to
> have no window title bar etc. so  you really had to hunt that
> icon down to get rid of it. Gah, gimme a break.

/home should be on a separate partition by default, (and by
default NOT re-formatted) so that /home is recycled

> - KDE tip windows on startup on every program. WTF?! When
> I open a "konsole" (the KDE xterm) I don't want to be
> bothered with that stuff. I want to issue some commands,
> and probably not just for fun. Get that thing out of my face.

Then click "do not show me again" or whatever it is, and
stop whining.  That's what I did, and you can, too.

> And now let's think again about documentation or anything
> else being force-pressed upon the user... ;-)

I cannot fathom your mindset, when it's the onus is on
the vendor to make things easier for the newbie user.

> CU



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