Well, I haven't seen 8.0 yet... (still waiting for the snail-mail to arrive, here in Canada), so I don't know if it's already been improved. 1) Overall, in YaSTx, make it much more easy and obvious to point to a driver file (for whatever device you are trying to configure at the time), INCLUDING mounting CDs or floppies as part of the dialog. People who are at the edge of panic because they don't even recognize half the terms, really, really don't want to be told that they can't continue with a config within the GUI, and must later go and find some strange files and do strange things, to make up for the twenty-seven steps the GUI configuration utility could not perform when it couldn't find the right [printer] [soundcard][video][mouse][modem][nic] driver. 2) Do not be haughty toward the poor Windoze user. When your setup utility asks for all the various bits of information needed to setup a network or a dial-up, etc., maybe you could also include the Windoze-equivalent terms in brackets, so that people might recognize some verbal sign-posts. ("Oh! NOW I know what they're talking about!...) Just as an example, when every device between your keyboard and somebody else's screen on the other side of the world is called "host", you start to get a bit cranky and confused when the cryptic, translated-from-german interface demands that you fill in the name and address (and gateway... but that's sometimes called a host, too.... I dunno...) and netmask for device after device, all of which seem to have "host" in their names. Ok, I'm exaggerating a tiny bit. Same idea with X config. Right there in the setup, you could have a button "Are you a Windows user?" If "yes", then we jump to a brief explanation of how X sits on top of the command line Linux (much like old Windoze used to sit on top of DOS, only better, of course...) and that the file managers and window managers and schemes are separate items -- here it would be good to do some checking to exclude some combinations that do not play well together... 3) If possible, have the setup tool TRY to get a result at every possible step. A bit of that is done in YaST2 when you give some video parameters and then are asked to test with a sample X window. If it's broken, then you have a chance to change some of your entries and try again. Thankfully, YaST doesn't just kick you out of there and say "Sorry! You're too dumb or uninformed to do a proper video config, so you'll have to work from command line until you get smarter..." Instead, it gives you a chance to keep going with some acceptable, if not optimal settings. For example, if you are setting up your connection to the outside world, the setup tool should TEST AND REPORT BACK -- in a friendly way -- at every step of the link, rather than demanding a whole page of obscure (to newbies and non-geeks) names and addresses and settings. So, if you will use cable-modem or ADSL or LAN, then the system should show a graphical summary of the steps (with little computer and router and modem icons), starting with the NIC(s) in your PC. "You just answered a series of questions. We did not do anything yet. This is a picture of what you described. Now we will attempt, step-by-step, to configure each segment of this proposed connection." If the NIC can be found, great! Say so. "I found this NIC" or "I don't recognize the brand, but your NIC seems to respond to some default parameters.... it's alive! We are proceeding to the next step." Then, are you connected to a gateway (like, in North America, a D-Link or LinkSys box)? Well then, we must ping it. If it responds to a ping, we report that to the poor anxious user. Maybe we even have a mini-web-browser in the setup tool, so that we can talk to the administration page inside the D-Link or LinkSys (or European or Asian equivalent) and set it up with the protocol and address of your ISP..... WITHIN THE SETUP TOOL. I know there are quite a number of possibilities for connections and routing, but they are not infinite. And it is SO very reassuring to get some feedback at each step, to BUILD your way to a useful connection. I know I'm harping on this, but the reality for newbies is that many other things can go wrong when you configure your new Linux installation, but you can always ask Mr. Google or inquire in a mailing list.... IF you have a working connection. If you don't get that connection, then all the lovely promise of the helpful SuSE web site is just that much more frustration. 4) When setting up for video, if you can't support the card's 3D capability out-of-the-box, then REMEMBER that fact... and COME BACK to it, later in the config... after you have successfully established a network connection. "YaST remembers that you wanted 3D acceleration, but we were unable to find drivers a while ago. We have an internet connection now... would you like to try to find a proper driver for the enhanced features of your video card?" 5) In a similar vein, "Alsortsa Sound is installed. Please try a few of these sample sound files to verify that you are getting sound output. Good. Now, please insert your favorite music CD to verify that CD audio is working as well as the system sounds. Can you hear it? Try increasing the volume (default is very low, to avoid noisy accidents). Now can you hear it? Yes? Done. No? Ok, then we will try some troubleshooting steps to see if we can get CD sound working..." Ok. So my point is that wherever possible, the setup of a device or service should proceed in increments that either reward the user with some intermediate success, or show them at what step the procedure is failing. The tool should also remember how far the setup went, and at a later date, it can ask if the user wants to start from just before the point of failure, or wipe out any current settings and try again from scratch. For another example, if you goof your internet setup, then you may not find out for sure until you bring up a web browser, and it says: "http://www.suse.de not found" Better would be a tool that told you how far the attempt actually got before failing. I'll stop now. /kevin
-----Original Message----- From: Christopher Mahmood [mailto:ckm@suse.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 12:18 PM To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: [SLE] Survey for U.S. users
Hi all,
I've been asked by the marketing folks to get suggestions on how the International version of SuSE Linux could be improved for the US. If you have any suggestions regarding features that could be added/improved I'd really appreciate if you'd send them to the reply-to address and not to the list. Suggestions like "Please upgrade package foo to version x.y" aren't terribly helpful, suggestions like "Please be a little less conservative with package updates" are. You get the idea...
I often say that there's no point in complaining about things on this list because it's not read by the people who make a lot of the big decisions; this is your chance to bypass the feedback@suse.com bottleneck and give input directly to them. I'll stop collecting feedback on Monday, Apr. 29 so you have some time to think about it.
Thanks in advance,