Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-factory (464 mails)

[Vincent Untz <vuntz@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Le jeudi 28 février 2008 à 12:44 +0100, Martin Schlander a écrit :
> > > the installer is way too complex, with too many things to do, even with
> > > the current simplification work going on in Factory.
>
> The live-cd installer is much simpler, you can use that. If I'm not mistaken 
> there are plans to push the live-cd more in 11.0 times. No need to dumb the 
> real installer down further. 

It's not about dumbing it down, but about making it easier for people.
Maybe it's better to recommend the live-cd installer for desktop users,
I don't know.

> > > sudo should be used by default for a desktop install. It doesn't make
> > > any sense to have the root account. There's an option "Use the same
> > > password for root as the one used for the user" in the installer, but
> > > it's not about sudo, I believe.
>
> You're not the first former Canonical employee hired by Novell to make this 
> request.

I've never worked at Canonical. Don't know why you think I did :-)

>  To me it's nonsense. The sudo system is a lot more complex and 
> confusing. You can use your normal password for system administration, then 
> it's remembered for x amount of time, but only the first user on multiuser 
> systems can do it. Ubuntu users have no clue what's going on, and very often 
> they sudo things that they shouldn't.

Not only the first user can do it. That's a simple checkbox when you
create a new user. But I agree that sudo is not perfect either (and that
users tend to use it when they shouldn't -- although I wouldn't say they
have less clue what's going on than in openSUSE, since it's the same
with su/root).

> Regular root user is much simpler. Either you're root or your not, either you 
> know the root password or you don't. Couldn't possibly be easier to 
> understand.

Well, I disagree with this since you first have to understand what root
is and you also have to remember when you're root. That's fine for most
people on this list, but it's not fine for 90% of the people I know. But
I've absolutely no problem with keeping the root account. It's just a
feeling I had when switching from Ubuntu. I'm not claiming it's the best
way to handle things.

[...]

> > > the menu bar is completely unusable in openSUSE: icons are too big
> > > (distro patch), and there are tons of submenus (because we use the same
> > > menu config as KDE?)
>
> Not having the second level of categorization makes the menu much more messy 
> and cluttered. Unless your next great idea is to install only a handful 
> programs.

Well, it works really well. I very rarely have more than 7 or 10 items
in a menu. In gnome-main-menu, the app browser doesn't have all those
subcategories, while we have them in the GNOME menu bar. That sounds
wrong. This might be something we just want to change on the GNOME side
of openSUSE.

> And some general remarks...
>
> I think the general point of view around these parts is that the success of 
> Ubuntu has a lot more to do with astoute marketing trickery, than with 
> technological prowess.
>
> If we thought Ubuntu were so great and perfect don't you think we would *use* 
> Ubuntu instead of openSUSE?
>
> For years people have been arguing "copy MS Windows as much as possible", now 
> we keep having people telling us we must do everything that Ubuntu does and 
> in the exact same way.
>
> I certainly hope that all those people wanting to turn openSUSE into Ubuntu 
> won't succeed. Imho openSUSE strikes the balance between powerful and ease of 
> use almost perfectly at the present time.

I'm sorry, but I have the feeling you're missing my point. I'm not
saying "hey, Ubuntu is so fantastic, I can't live without this, let's
turn openSUSE into the same thing". I'm just saying that Ubuntu has done
some things right, and that we can also do the same things right while
continuing to do other things in a better way than Ubuntu.

(and if you have any doubt: there are things I really disliked in
Ubuntu)

> You can dumb down GNOME and yast-gtk as much as you want, but please don't 
> destroy the rest of the distro.

That's not about dumbing down. We can keep all features *and* have
things easier for most people out there. That's where I'd like openSUSE
to go.

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.


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