-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Kai Ponte wrote:
On Sun, August 12, 2007 12:38 pm, G T Smith wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Kai Ponte wrote:
I didn't realize the OP was downgrading to the CLI to achieve this.
Whether using the CLI is an upgrade or downgrade is a matter of opinion, there are some things a GUI interface is useful for and for other things its a pain. Horses for courses.... :-)
No, it isn't opinion.
The fact that one MUST use the CLI for some things on a modern OS desktop such as KDE - even in this day and regardless of ease - is simply sad.
Were I able to open a nice GUI and click a few options, I'd much appreicate it over having to type...
mencoder -oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -vf scale=720:480,harddup -srate 48000 -af lavcresample=48000 -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:vbitrate=5000:keyint=18:aspect=16/9:acodec=ac3:abitrate=192 -ofps 30000/1001 -o netbeans_test_record.mpg netbeans_out.ogg
...to encode a video.
(The test screen capture listed above is located here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQAjPIZR2dg - by the way.)
I want a nice GUI like SMB4K (http://smb4k.berlios.de/) for selecting networks of all sorts and setting mount points. This is MUCH preferable to slogging through some incomprehensible man page to figure options on a CLI-only app.
That said, if I were administering a SLES box from a remote location, I'd want to be able to do most things through the CLI. That - believe it or not - has been my argument against Windows "Server" products such as NT 4, 2K and 2K3.
In a nutshell, I want the OPTION of doing it MY way. If I want to do CLI work then I wouldn't need a GUI. If I am running a full-featured GUI such as KDE or something else, then I shouldn't have to EVER go into the CLI.
/soapbox
Not really certain where to start with this, the command given and the context of the operation is where a GUI interface would probably be more helpful. However, if I found myself needing to use such a command regularly I would knock together a quick and dirty script in the first instance anyway. However this is fairly easy for me for me as before before I got tied up with sys admin and user support stuff I was primarily a programmer in a R&D context. Possibly the best way of exposed the weakness of the assumptions in the above is to treat the interaction between the human and the computer as a conversation. To converse we use language which has grammar (syntax rules), vocabulary (descriptors, adjectives verbs etc) and semantics (meanings). The constraints of IBMs original CUA definition set up some fairly comprehensive constraints on interface designs which use menu, dialogues and the various field boxes which cover design rules which avoid CUI/GUI designs that confuse. This is still the basis of much GUI design. This gives at best a very limited grammar for defining an activity, and very limited vocabulary. At best for sys admin work a GUI can give you a simple sentence in babytalk, which for a lot of activities is all you need so this is fine If you have ever had the misfortune of having to struggle through Strawsons meta physical work Individuals, (which is an attempt to describe a meta physics in words on one syllable) you should grasp that is is extremely difficult (but not impossible) to present a complex semantics from a simple grammar with a limited vocabulary. Building usable GUIs to front end complex activities is not easy mainly because of the limitations of the GUI/CUI grammar (and for most of the people which write the code which does the real work, not much fun). Most *nix shells give a much more complex grammar and once even a small amount of that grammar is understood it becomes easier to perform more complex operations. There is the ability to combined simple words to extend ones vocabulary and build more complex definitions. In short one can turn very complex activities into very simple activities. In very many ways the Bash shell is much more powerful than most GUI interfaces. Unlike most GUIs it is a learning environment in that one can learn to communicate with machine in a much more sophisticated manner. To regard one approach as a downgrade or upgrade to the other is at best an arrogant value judgement. The assumption that reducing everything to a very low intellectual common denominator is an advance, is probably really what is sad. Each individual has there own preferred way of working, and one of the freedoms of the Linux and open source world is if you cannot find something which does do a thing the way you want to do it, you can usually write it yourself. The main reason a thing does not exist is usually because no-one with the relevant technical background is interested in writing it,. I have not been in a Macdonalds for 25 years and rather hope to set up a similar record for yourtube (I tend to think of yourtube as the Big MAC of the web, it makes your PC fat and is generally unhealthy :-) ) So I decline on the video thingy, (More pertinently, I have also have not bothered to configure the multi-media bits on the working machine as I rarely use them :-) ). - -- ============================================================================== I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGwCAkasN0sSnLmgIRAl62AKDrk9v48uTHRrpki0P4kZc+xdb14QCeMCvL uinjGOY8r9PonF4LnxFMH7U= =QGpj -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org