On 10/03/2008, Martin Schlander wrote:

You guys think that removing for example adding of update repo from installation and forcing the user to figure out himself how to do it manually later, will make openSUSE easier for people to use? Isn't ~everybody _supposed_ to set up update repo sometime anyway?

One of the things we've noticed on IRC with 10.2/10.3 is that a significant proportion of people skip the connection test or registration steps, thinking "I don't want to send any information to Novell". So they end up without security updates. Meaning - Their systems become insecure. - Installation of nvidia/ati/madwifi drivers etc fail once the kernel module symbols change IMO it should be less easy to opt out of having the update repository configured. Users simply are not adding it themselves with community repositories or even noticing that the tray updater warning them it can't check for updates. Perhaps have it added by the installation with option to remove it later. Even if no internet access is available during installation. It can be separate from the registration now that we have the redirector surely? -- Benjamin Weber --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On 10/03/2008, peter nikolic wrote:

Should registration be mandatory i think not you are heading down the MS road there you have to remember not everyone has or even wants to be connected to the net so updates become a little pointless

Registration is not mandatory to have an update repository defined. The addition of the update repository is simply a part of the registration process at the moment. Probably from before we had the redirector and the registration process was used to choose a mirror close to you. Obviously there are people who are not connected to the internet. Having the update repository defined out of the box will result in a failure when package management is started - but they can simply disable the repository then. Surely this is better than the alternative where a significant group of people who are connected to the internet remain vulnerable. -- Benjamin Weber --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 10:00:56AM -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:

Isn't it possible to add the update repository without being connected to the internet and postpone the download of remotely stored information about packages later?

I guess this is what others do in this field, but I'm not sure.

Question is how do you determine if the network is up or not. This is quite difficult to find out ;) Ciao, Marcus --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

...

Question is how do you determine if the network is up or not. This is quite difficult to find out ;) /proc/net/arp should show a MAC address for the default gateway.

Probably in some scenarios, but not all. :-( gp@rana> cat /proc/net/arp IP address HW type Flags HW address Mask Device gp@rana> Same reason why Firefox insists I'm offline when actually I'm connected via UMTS. The same may or may not hold for other "modems". Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer E gp@novell.com SUSE Linux Products GmbH Director Inbound Product Mgmt T +49(911)74053-0 HRB 16746 (AG Nuremberg) openSUSE/SUSE Linux Enterprise F +49(911)74053-483 GF: Markus Rex --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Am Montag 10 März 2008 schrieb Felix-Nicolai Müller:

In my eyes, this is a typical example of taking away the control from the user and copying Ubuntu. openSUSE has got a userbase because it is openSUSE where people have a choice. If this userbase wanted something else, they would probably use a different distro that makes it even simpler than it is not on factory.

No, we do not take way the control, we only moving the "I don't want the default printer config" step behind the end of installation. And while I agree, that openSUSE's current users may be perfectly fine with the installation workflow of their currently installed system, because they fortunately do not have to go through it again. But we want new users. Users that may so far have rejected using openSUSE because they failed to install it. Greetings, Stephan -- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Stephan Kulow napsal(a):

Am Montag 10 März 2008 schrieb Felix-Nicolai Müller:

...

In my eyes, this is a typical example of taking away the control from the user and copying Ubuntu. openSUSE has got a userbase because it is openSUSE where people have a choice. If this userbase wanted something else, they would probably use a different distro that makes it even simpler than it is not on factory.

No, we do not take way the control, we only moving the "I don't want the default printer config" step behind the end of installation. And while I agree, that openSUSE's current users may be perfectly fine with the installation workflow of their currently installed system, because they fortunately do not have to go through it again.

But we want new users. Users that may so far have rejected using openSUSE because they failed to install it.

See this: --- cut --- Plan of the Battle 3.) Offer the possibility to enable the second stage on request. A reasonable place is the Installation Mode dialog. --- cut --- We are still keeping the backward compatibility in mind by simply selecting a check-box in the Installation Mode dialog (that one with "New Installation", "Upgrade...). I fully agree that some users want to control every single step the installation program does. My test was done from the view: *How much can we automate the workflow?* And it was still actually only test. BTW: One more change to the workflow might be done: If user doesn't fill up a first-user password (in first stage) and/or doesn't select a check-box to use that password for 'root', the very next dialog should be added: 'root Password'. User has to set that password anyway, so waiting for the second stage is pointless. Well, maybe if you install system for someone else, but this is what we have YaST FirstBoot for. Lukas

Le lundi 10 mars 2008 à 13:52 +0100, Felix-Nicolai Müller a écrit :

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

Stephan Kulow schrieb: | No, we do not take way the control, we only moving the "I don't want the | default printer config" step behind the end of installation. And while | I agree, that openSUSE's current users may be perfectly fine with the | installation workflow of their currently installed system, because they | fortunately do not have to go through it again. | | But we want new users. Users that may so far have rejected using openSUSE | because they failed to install it. | | Greetings, Stephan

Moving those steps after the installation will lead to exactly what I complained about with my windows example in my last mail. If this step is supposed to be after the installation there has to be a questionnaire the user has to answer just like the one during installation in 10.3 . If this questionnaire is not shown, users will have to click themselves through yast. This will be especially confusing for the new users, as they have to ask themselves why their printer, soundcard, whatever doesn't work. Having everything work after installation is the beautiful thing about openSUSE. Even worth, especially those new users won't even know what to do in yast, which will confuse them even more.

Wouldn't it be even better if the printer/soundcard/etc. just works, without any configuration? I know that it's sometimes not possible, and we have to handle this case. But keep in mind that for some people (and hopefully, with the good hardware support that we have, for most people), it's the case and it just works. Should we "annoy" these people with extra steps? The solution could be to have an easy-to-find second-stage-installation-like wizard in yast for people who still needs to manually configure this kind of stuff after the installation. For example, the first time you log in, you could have some notifications saying "If some hardware was not properly configured, you can manually configure by clicking this button." [that's just a proposal, I'm sure someone can come up with something even better to properly integrate this process after the installation] Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Mandag den 10. Marts 2008 14:14:38 skrev Vincent Untz:

Wouldn't it be even better if the printer/soundcard/etc. just works, without any configuration?

I know that it's sometimes not possible, and we have to handle this case. But keep in mind that for some people (and hopefully, with the good hardware support that we have, for most people), it's the case and it just works. Should we "annoy" these people with extra steps?

I think the sum total annoyance of 85% of users having to click "next", is dwarfed by the annoyance of 15% of users with non-working hardware and no clue what to do or what went wrong, because important information is hidden from them. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

...

I think the sum total annoyance of 85% of users having to click "next", is dwarfed by the annoyance of 15% of users with non-working hardware and no clue what to do or what went wrong, because important information is hidden from them.

But it's not hidden, just delayed. That's the point: keeping the current features, but not forcing everybody to have to go through them when it already works.

I am kind of undecided if I like the change idea or not.... but in support of it... of several installs that I have done recently, I had 2 distinct paths through the install: - the install path where it was simply clicking next and everything worked with the defaults - the install path where the defaults did not work, and neither did any tinkering in the "advanced" part of the 2nd install stage. The problems were sorted only after the install was completed (additional drivers downloaded, 3rd party repositories configured etc). So... in both cases, the 2nd install stage was not as useful as it is supposed to be. C. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Dne Monday 10 of March 2008 16:14:04 Alberto Passalacqua napsal(a):

...

...

I think the sum total annoyance of 85% of users having to click "next", is dwarfed by the annoyance of 15% of users with non-working hardware and no clue what to do or what went wrong, because important information is hidden from them.

But it's not hidden, just delayed. That's the point: keeping the current features, but not forcing everybody to have to go through them when it already works.

I agree with Martin. What does delayed mean?

If you move it just a screen or a reboot later, it doesn't change the substance, so leave it there.

If you remove it from the installation workflow and put it somewhere in YaST, you're hiding it to the user, and a new user won't know where to find it.

There are several ways to assure that even new users can handle this situation - proper icon to the desktop - welcome screen after first login providing links - perhaps some other way Jiri

Finally, if you make it optional during the installation workflow, you're falling in the above point. A new user, assuming the step is unselected by default, will probably skip it.

Regards, Alberto

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-- Regards, Jiri Srain YaST Team Leader --------------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: jsrain@suse.cz Lihovarska 1060/12 tel: +420 284 028 959 190 00 Praha 9 fax: +420 284 028 951 Czech Republic http://www.suse.cz

Dne Monday 10 of March 2008 16:41:04 Peter Czanik napsal(a):

Jiri Srain írta:

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...

If you remove it from the installation workflow and put it somewhere in YaST, you're hiding it to the user, and a new user won't know where to find it.

There are several ways to assure that even new users can handle this situation - proper icon to the desktop - welcome screen after first login providing links - perhaps some other way

Now, that XFCE is easily available, and very popular on 'low end' machines, could you add the icon also to XFCE? I must admit, that I don't have any icons on my desktop and do most of my work from the command line, but YaST and updating should more prominently available for XFCE users. Bye, CzP

If you "do most of my work from the command line" then I think you are familiar enough with the system to be able to configure whatever is needed :-) I think that almost every desktop environment provides a prominent place where to put an icon, link, or whatever, for the user. It needn't necessarily be an icon on the desktop and the experience will be similar. Jiri -- Regards, Jiri Srain YaST Team Leader --------------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX, s.r.o. e-mail: jsrain@suse.cz Lihovarska 1060/12 tel: +420 284 028 959 190 00 Praha 9 fax: +420 284 028 951 Czech Republic http://www.suse.cz

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Jiri Srain schrieb: | | There are several ways to assure that even new users can handle this situation | - proper icon to the desktop ok, this is a way, but will not safe anybody any time in the end. So it is pointless. | - welcome screen after first login providing links same as above, most new users (probably even me) would jut click "exit" without ever reading the welcome screen | - perhaps some other way which would be? The Baseline is: Most users must configure their printer. Most user must configure their screen (imo a bad idea not to do it during installation as one might never see (literally) their desktop after booting after the installation), many users also configure their soundcard and scanner. Kind of hiding the dialog to do all that will not safe any user group any time at all nor will it make it easier. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFH1Vl5aQ44ga2xxAoRAqKPAJ4mjHYvgpRY80aDBM0Y4znp1QvNeACfTPQz yMOnZonwT3fNC7qRa+tWpfA= =1BZf -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Stephan Kulow írta:

Am Montag 10 März 2008 schrieb Felix-Nicolai Müller:

...

Most users must configure their printer. Most user must configure their screen (imo a bad idea not to do it during installation as one might

Do you have done surveys or are you just making it up?

I don't know if he has done any surveys, but I know quite a few people, who switched to (open)SUSE, because it did not have (wrong) assumptions about their hardware, but configure it themselves. The most popular problem these guys ran into is a blank screen after installation: monitor set up with wrong parameters. It is no problem with me (being a SuSE user from version 4.3 :-) ), but it is a valid problem for anybody just getting known with Linux... Bye, CzP --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Hello, Stephan Kulow írta:

...

I don't know if he has done any surveys, but I know quite a few people, who switched to (open)SUSE, because it did not have (wrong) assumptions about their hardware, but configure it themselves. The most popular problem these guys ran into is a blank screen after installation: monitor set up with wrong parameters. It is no problem with me (being a SuSE user from version 4.3 :-) ), but it is a valid problem for anybody just getting known with Linux...

People not knowing Linux will not know that their X config can't be automatically guessed. Not by having to press Next on the "Hardware configuration" screen. And people having this problem, can easily dig out the FAQ telling them to check the "detailed second stage" (text tbd) checkbox.

The guys I referred to were pretty computer literate (windows sysadmins), so they knew about monitor refresh rates, resolutions, etc., just did not have a chance to properly configure it during installation and got a blank screen. With SuSE they could configure it, and became happy SuSE users, even if they were on Linux course for a competing product :-) Bye, CzP --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Felix-Nicolai Müller napsal(a):

Stephan Kulow schrieb: | Am Montag 10 März 2008 schrieb Felix-Nicolai Müller: |> Most users must configure their printer. Most user must configure their |> screen (imo a bad idea not to do it during installation as one might | Do you have done surveys or are you just making it up? | | Greetings, Stephan | In order for a printer to work, I believe it has to be set up first. Same accounts for scanners. The experience with the screen comes from my work on IRC. But this is purely heuristical (and a bit of logic on how yast activates periphery _not_ automagically as far as I know).

Well, it actually doesn't need to be manually configured. In a business/school environment, there are often rather network printers automatically configured by broadcasting the internal network. I actually always click just [Next] in the hardware proposal because everything is detected well. Another example: the same for my computer at home. L.

Hello, On Mar 11 01:59 Stanislav Visnovsky wrote (shortened):

Dna Monday 10 March 2008 17:17:00 Felix-Nicolai Müller ste napísal:

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In order for a printer to work, I believe it has to be set up first.

Yes, for a locally connected printer. But not necessarily for a printer in the network when it is already configured on a remote CUPS server which broadcasts its queue so that client systems (with a local running cupsd) can use the printer via the CUPS server without any configuration, see http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_in_a_Nutshell "Intrinsic design of CUPS for printing in the network"

... Fedora and Ubuntu are setting the standard, where you can use your printers without minimal hassle

I.e. with much hassle! ;-)

Scanners are not part of the 2nd stage ATM.

Neither printers nor scanners should be part of any stage of the system installation. I mean that neither the printer setup software nor the scanner setup software should be part of the system installation software. Reasoning: Only hardware which is mandatory to run the system at all (e.g. mainboard, harddisk, keyboard, graphics card) should be set up during system installation. All other hardware setup should be independent of the system installation so that it works independent of the system installation (in particular also later in the installed system). In particular USB hardware setup can be done via udev events which trigger an appropriate setup program call. For USB printers we have already cups-autoconfig, see my previous posting. For USB scanners we will have sane-backends-autoconfig, see https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=347943 Kind Regards Johannes Meixner -- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany AG Nuernberg, HRB 16746, GF: Markus Rex

Felix-Nicolai Müller schreef:

Jiri Srain schrieb: | | There are several ways to assure that even new users can handle this situation | - proper icon to the desktop ok, this is a way, but will not safe anybody any time in the end. So it is pointless. | - welcome screen after first login providing links same as above, most new users (probably even me) would jut click "exit" without ever reading the welcome screen | - perhaps some other way which would be?

The Baseline is: Most users must configure their printer. Most user must configure their screen (imo a bad idea not to do it during installation as one might never see (literally) their desktop after booting after the installation), many users also configure their soundcard and scanner.

Kind of hiding the dialog to do all that will not safe any user group any time at all nor will it make it easier.

A new installation, especialy with a new os, is *allways* very *very* exciting. I remember the first time installing suse, i went back 3 times, started over, before i finaly took the first install....plonge... in the deeeep... Would i loose all, or valuable data? Would 'my windows' be recognised? Would it boot up, when something would go wrong? How does this partitioner work? Do i need to know all these things? WTF they are talking about here? After my first install the windows partitions were not visible, and i did not like to have all in one partition, so after a few days of 'new experience', it looked if i had come 'home'... So i decided to install again, 'my way'.. At first i went back to widnose, but after 3 weeks, i asked myself why the hell i did not switch much earlier? *All* new stuff, is difficult, you have to get familiarised with new terms, new expressions, new ways of dealing with things.... I tried knoppix, knoppix install, debian, DSL, and SuSE, Ubuntu I stayed with SuSE, because i liked it the most. I tried KDE, I tried Gnome, I liked KDE More.. I used Icewm, which i love, and am glad it is available in SuSE now. I used, and use XFCE still. What am i trying to say?: The system chooses the user, look feel, rich and happy, or very minimal and happy. To me SuSE has it all. New users feel good, or they don't... They will overcome the difficulties, and live with the shortcomings, if they like the os. If they donot? They will go elsewhere, nomatter what. Personaly, it confused me very much with the new installer, not to be asked to 'config' the password, after almost all was done... because that allways gave me the feeling it was all most ready for the connectiontest, and the updates, and the hardware install, but before, something was done. That realy confused me.. Was i supposed to give a root password or what? And indeed, my user has got my root password. (offcourse i can change that afterwards...) To a new user, it would be the way it is done in suse, and not ask himself if anything would make a difference..... I hope the intention of my words are clear? A new user will allways 'compare', with what he/she is used to... -- Enjoy your time around, Oddball (Now or never...) Besturingssysteem: Linux 2.6.24.1-6-default x86_64 Current user: oddball@AMD64x2-sfn1 System: openSUSE 11.0 (x86_64) Alpha2 KDE: 4.0.2 (KDE 4.0.2) "release 8.1" --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Alberto Passalacqua napsal(a):

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There are several ways to assure that even new users can handle this situation - proper icon to the desktop - welcome screen after first login providing links - perhaps some other way

It's just postponing the "problem". :-)

For me it rather seems to "offer a solution if there is a problem". In an ideal world, there is no problem to solve, in the other ones we will provide a possibility to correct what was wrong. BTW: there is still a solution if an automatic proposal fails: Installation can still check what has failed and offer user manual tuning in that case (at the end of the first stage). L.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Alberto Passalacqua wrote:

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...

It's just postponing the "problem". :-) For me it rather seems to "offer a solution if there is a problem". In an ideal world, there is no problem to solve, in the other ones we will provide a possibility to correct what was wrong.

BTW: there is still a solution if an automatic proposal fails: Installation can still check what has failed and offer user manual tuning in that case (at the end of the first stage).

Now I'm confused. Let's try to explain :-)

If the installer will allow the user to tune everything at the end of the first stage in case something "goes wrong", I don't see the improvement. It's just before the reboot instead then after.

Currently, the second stage configuration is moved to the end of the first stage but it doesn't provide any feedback to a user. The current implementation is: 1.) make a proposal 2.) write it (both silently). First, what I plan, is to provide some feedback by running this functionality using a progress SCR agent that enables inter process communication. The (questionable) improvement now is that you don't have to: a) wait for the second stage to have your hardware, network configured ... b) click [Next] in every proposal or other dialogs (because second stage just doesn't exist) and thus there is no [Next] button ...

I also wonder how you can check that things like printer, network, tv card work before you have a complete installation, so I don't understand how you can "check" what failed.

I can check whether some hardware was found but that we were unable to find a driver for it, for instance. Proposals return special `warning or `blocker flags in case of problem. In these cases, we can re-enable those steps where problems occurred and let user choose what to do.

To add some consideration, I think that the idea of cleaning up the installation process, which was considered too long, and not too complex by users, at least in my experience on IRC, is good. But it seems to me that the proposed solutions add complexity instead of removing it, by just moving configuration options to a more hidden location or postponing the configuration.

Not necessary, just for developers :) Users can choose whether they want to go the auto- or the manual-way.

Anyway, I hope to see the new version in action in alpha 3, so we can talk again after a test :-)

Hmm, deadline is Friday :) We shall see... Bye Lukas -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFH1a5kVSqMdRCqTiwRApyhAJ0fOqcoT8/dlTAQzTpFs1hqFox7+gCeOcii rGQgetLAvVCO49fglvygjFw= =r+AF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Hello, On Mar 11 01:51 Stanislav Visnovsky wrote (shortened):

In fact, if you hardware does not work, it is pretty complicated to find out from the proposal screens. Your hardware will be:

1) misdetected - then, you need to be an expert to figure out 2) not detected at all - here, we might think about how to react in this case,

I wonder how a piece of automated software can be implemented to react if a piece of hardware is not detected at all? I.e. how to react to noting? Perhaps it can react if a piece of mandatory hardware (e.g. keyboard or graphics card) is not detected at all but what should it do for a piece of optional hardware (e.g. printer, scanner, ...)? Force all users to configure a printer in any case? ;-) Kind Regards Johannes Meixner -- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany AG Nuernberg, HRB 16746, GF: Markus Rex --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Dňa Tuesday 11 March 2008 17:15:50 Martin Schlander ste napísal:

Tirsdag den 11. Marts 2008 01:51:41 skrev Stanislav Visnovsky:

...

Dňa Monday 10 March 2008 14:21:31 Martin Schlander ste napísal:

...

I think the sum total annoyance of 85% of users having to click "next", is dwarfed by the annoyance of 15% of users with non-working hardware and no clue what to do or what went wrong, because important information is hidden from them.

How is the information hidden? In fact, if you hardware does not work, it is pretty complicated to find out from the proposal screens. Your hardware will be:

1) misdetected - then, you need to be an expert to figure out

2) not detected at all - here, we might think about how to react in this case, but you are on your own again and you will need to pick up your sound card manually (I personally have no idea which chipset I'm using).

I'm mostly worried about graphics card/monitor settings - which was also a concern on the blog. I don't think you have to be an expert to know for example the best resolution or aspect ratio for your monitor.

On the other hand the option to test the configuration was already removed on 10.3...

If you're shown the hardware configuration screen at least you know which chipset _SUSE thinks_ you're using.

You can already see this if you click on "System Information" in the proposal. There, you can see all hardware SUSE sees. Maybe we could improve the summary there?

Another benefit of the hardware configuration step is that you can blame the user for clicking next too fast when things go wrong. With the new layout only openSUSE is to blame for any problems, since it has assumed total control without letting the user know anything or have any say in what goes on.

LOL! Stano --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Vincent Untz schreef:

Le mardi 11 mars 2008, à 17:15 +0100, Martin Schlander a écrit :

...

Tirsdag den 11. Marts 2008 01:51:41 skrev Stanislav Visnovsky:

...

Dňa Monday 10 March 2008 14:21:31 Martin Schlander ste napísal:

...

I think the sum total annoyance of 85% of users having to click "next", is dwarfed by the annoyance of 15% of users with non-working hardware and no clue what to do or what went wrong, because important information is hidden from them.

How is the information hidden? In fact, if you hardware does not work, it is pretty complicated to find out from the proposal screens. Your hardware will be:

1) misdetected - then, you need to be an expert to figure out

2) not detected at all - here, we might think about how to react in this case, but you are on your own again and you will need to pick up your sound card manually (I personally have no idea which chipset I'm using).

I'm mostly worried about graphics card/monitor settings - which was also a concern on the blog. I don't think you have to be an expert to know for example the best resolution or aspect ratio for your monitor.

When the user installs in graphical mode, can't he already see that it's right or wrong? (and when it's wrong, it should only be a matter of letting him press some key like F12 to change this setting)

Vincent

When the installer assumes there is not enough memory, it will tell, and change to dos. The few resolutions one can choose of, are not in depth, what are they 8 bit? Not enough for real monitor settings. -- Enjoy your time around, Oddball (Now or never...) Besturingssysteem: Linux 2.6.24.1-6-default x86_64 Current user: oddball@AMD64x2-sfn1 System: openSUSE 11.0 (x86_64) Alpha2 KDE: 4.0.2 (KDE 4.0.2) "release 8.1" --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Tirsdag den 11. Marts 2008 18:39:53 skrev Vincent Untz:

Le mardi 11 mars 2008, à 17:15 +0100, Martin Schlander a écrit :

...

I'm mostly worried about graphics card/monitor settings - which was also a concern on the blog. I don't think you have to be an expert to know for example the best resolution or aspect ratio for your monitor.

When the user installs in graphical mode, can't he already see that it's right or wrong? (and when it's wrong, it should only be a matter of letting him press some key like F12 to change this setting)

It's fairly common that graphical installation works fine, but nevertheless X fails to start afterwards. I'm not an expert on these matters, but I assume it has something to do with the installer running in framebuffer, while afterwards it will be run "properly". (Btw. this happens with the mighty Ubuntu also - tried it on my fathers HP laptop after SUSE failed - believe the nv driver didn't yet support the card at the time or something) Also the installer has a max. resolution of 1024x768 I believe, so the installer is no indication that resolution and aspect ratio was detected correctly for a lot of (most?) people. But, I'll give you this, after the possibility of testing the configuration was removed on 10.3, the information, and the possibility to configure is a lot useful than it was before. Never did quite understand why the "test configuration" option was removed - I always thought it was a way cool feature. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 2008-03-10 at 14:14 +0100, Vincent Untz wrote:

Le lundi 10 mars 2008 à 13:52 +0100, Felix-Nicolai Müller a écrit :

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Stephan Kulow schrieb: | No, we do not take way the control, we only moving the "I don't want the | default printer config" step behind the end of installation. And while | I agree, that openSUSE's current users may be perfectly fine with the | installation workflow of their currently installed system, because they | fortunately do not have to go through it again. | | But we want new users. Users that may so far have rejected using openSUSE | because they failed to install it. | | Greetings, Stephan

Moving those steps after the installation will lead to exactly what I complained about with my windows example in my last mail. If this step is supposed to be after the installation there has to be a questionnaire the user has to answer just like the one during installation in 10.3 . If this questionnaire is not shown, users will have to click themselves through yast. This will be especially confusing for the new users, as they have to ask themselves why their printer, soundcard, whatever doesn't work. Having everything work after installation is the beautiful thing about openSUSE. Even worth, especially those new users won't even know what to do in yast, which will confuse them even more.

Wouldn't it be even better if the printer/soundcard/etc. just works, without any configuration?

I know that it's sometimes not possible, and we have to handle this case. But keep in mind that for some people (and hopefully, with the good hardware support that we have, for most people), it's the case and it just works. Should we "annoy" these people with extra steps?

The solution could be to have an easy-to-find second-stage-installation-like wizard in yast for people who still needs to manually configure this kind of stuff after the installation. For example, the first time you log in, you could have some notifications saying "If some hardware was not properly configured, you can manually configure by clicking this button." [that's just a proposal, I'm sure someone can come up with something even better to properly integrate this process after the installation]

Vincent

In that case, i would opt for an trinary question at the very beginning: a) Best guess (feeling lucky, like google) b) Skip all those questions that will get the "default" answer Like discussed at Fosdem c) Present the user all of those detailed questions, for the die-hards This would everybody happy, not? --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, 2008-03-12 at 10:01 +0100, Vincent Untz wrote:

Le mardi 11 mars 2008, à 22:22 +0100, Hans Witvliet a écrit :

...

In that case, i would opt for an trinary question at the very beginning: a) Best guess (feeling lucky, like google) b) Skip all those questions that will get the "default" answer Like discussed at Fosdem

Hrm, what are the differences between a and b?

...

c) Present the user all of those detailed questions, for the die-hards

IMHO, it's better to not have an expert mode in the same installer as lots of users will think they are expert while they're not and will get lost. So I'd provide two sets of CD/DVD: desktop install and standard install. But I can understand people disagreeing on this, so... :-)

Vincent

Hi Vincent, Difference between A and B is, The first one does result in configuring a particular item (write mbr, use pwd instead of ldap, configure first network card with dhcp, run-level 5). While the second one just skips it, and leaves the expicit configuring upto the user/afministrator untill the moment he needs it and knows how to give a sensible answer to the questions. No printers, no scanners, no BT or irda.... The "C" option is rather sensitive, hope i don't start war on it. It gives the user to ultimate choise what to install/configure or what not. Yes, one can allways remove things afterwards. But by then you wasted time and diskspace (that my be scarce). I don't want to remove things i didn't want in the first place. This last line i had to repeat over and over again to the sales man last week when i had to buy another system, that came pre-loaded with Vista.... (yes i know that the removal of vista is the best thing you can do with it ;-) How about a slide-bar named "ease of installation 1..10" If it rates "super easy for the beginning user" then just one question: Install yes/no. If affirmative, just install a default KDE-desktop, GMT, English. No questions asked. period. Just like a live-dvd. If it rates a little bit more advanced, the user gets *some* more questions, like kde/gnome, language, time-zone If it rates certified admin, he gets ALL the nice questions, like lvm, raid, wifi-protection, sshd-options, all those nice mail possibilities, ldap, kerberos .... To sum it up: Newbies are not troubled by questions they can not answer, While more advanced users have the freedom they can handle. And the user themselves decide what to do, no-one else. Hans --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Moving those steps after the installation will lead to exactly what I complained about with my windows example in my last mail. If this step is supposed to be after the installation there has to be a questionnaire the user has to answer just like the one during installation in 10.3 . If this questionnaire is not shown, users will have to click themselves through yast. This will be especially confusing for the new users, as they have to ask themselves why their printer, soundcard, whatever doesn't work. Having everything work after installation is the beautiful thing about openSUSE. Even worth, especially those new users won't even know what to do in yast, which will confuse them even more.

I agree. Having those steps adds _seconds_ to the installation, not hours, and the final result is a working out of the box system. I consider this a typical SuSE added value, not an issue. Regards, Alberto --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

Dňa Monday 10 March 2008 13:12:28 Felix-Nicolai Müller ste napísal:

Martin Schlander schrieb: | Mandag den 10. Marts 2008 11:17:45 skrev Lukas Ocilka: |> I've just finished a blog entry [0] about how we were able to get rid of |> the second stage of installation. Our proposal has been already |> published at Stano's blog [1]. My blog currently shows a real |> applications of that proposal. | | You guys think that removing for example adding of update repo from | installation and forcing the user to figure out himself how to do it

manually

| later, will make openSUSE easier for people to use? Isn't ~everybody | _supposed_ to set up update repo sometime anyway? | | Likewise for the hardware configuration step. Even if you don't need

to change

| the settings, it's very nice to have an overview showing that

everything has

| been identified and configured correctly before you finish installation. | | To me this looks a little bit like a case of making things so simple,

that

| they actually become more difficult and painful. | ---------------------------------------------------------------------

I fully agree. In the end it will be like Ubuntu with a normal installation CD that might just do whatever it wants and therefore break someones system by e.g. automatically overwriting the MBR. So if it is done this way I guess we will also need and alternate installation CD where you can set the settings you like (like Ubuntu has got, for the cases where their automation will actually make it impossible to install the system).

Please, read the blogs. This is about 2nd stage of installation, bootloader handling is not touched at all.

Remember the days where SuSEconfig was overwriting files, etc. This was a strong reason for people not to use openSUSE. If people want everything to be fully automated, they should choose a different distro...

In my eyes, this is a typical example of taking away the control from the user and copying Ubuntu. openSUSE has got a userbase because it is openSUSE where people have a choice. If this userbase wanted something else, they would probably use a different distro that makes it even simpler than it is not on factory.

It really should not matter if it takes 40 or 50 minutes to install a system if everything has been set up the way you want it after 50 minutes. This really reminds me of windows where you have to install the system and than set it up (which takes an awful lot of time due to the configuration settings not being in one place).

There are still pieces you cannot configure during installation and integrating all of them is not feasible. I would like to hear a discussion about each of the steps in the 2nd stage, not generalizing. Yes, me and Lukas got this to extreme to show what is possible and now we are looking for feedback. Stano --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org

...

You guys think that removing for example adding of update repo from installation and forcing the user to figure out himself how to do it manually later, will make openSUSE easier for people to use? Isn't ~everybody _supposed_ to set up update repo sometime anyway? Yes, if they have network setup in their preferred way - not necessarly the yast way. The desktop applets will signal the user with a warning icon that he doesn't get updates.

Why don't add a button with "Configure updates now", which will automatically setup the repository in the same notification, if there's no way to add the repository even without network? How do others solved this issue? Regards, A. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org