On Wednesday 30 October 2002 05:45, Serguei Chabanov [...]
It is easy to notice that a large number of problems users experience are described, and often solved, in this sort of empirical manner. I wonder sometimes if people who program for Linux/KDE actually understand what's being discussed.
I'd venture to say that much of the linux user angst is created by users' inability to integrate their empirical knowledge. I've been using linux since SuSE 5-something, 5.3 I think. I've learned a lot. But without a proper framework it all looks just a collection of ad hoc pieces of information.
Exactly. Before you learn it, or after you learn it, it all seems to be in separate little cubby-holes, with each bit of info, or each set of instructions, or each "fix" being equal to all others, and unconnected. No heirarchy. No way to read a message or a FAQ and be able to say: "This piece of information from 1997 is still as true and valid and valuable as it was when it was written." versus "This piece of information was valid in June and July 1997, but only for the then- current Mandrake release, and was obsoleted by a kernel patch from Aug 4, 1997... but the kernel patch was never publicly described in words that relate to this information, but rather in obscure behind-the-scenes terms that mean something to kernel developers."
Many people say that linux should win desktop from the other os, and this would become possible when users would not need to know what child processes are. Maybe one day it will happen. But as it is, linux is used, managed and advocated by people who are commonly referred to as "geeks". Geeks may share the belief that linux is the best and willing to spend a lot of time tinkering with it, but not all of them went to programming college or professionally wrote in C for many years. Many users actually seem to be ashamed of demanding certain features/fixes for themeselves, they demand it on behalf of joe sixpack or business production environment.
Well, I have Linux (SuSE) only, at home, and Linux (SuSE again) dual-boot with Win NT at the office. The office IS a business production environment, and I'm constantly discouraged from addressing that environment (i.e., where I work all day, five or six days a week) without frequent reboots into Windows, just to get the job done. You know that old saying: Never attempt to cross a chasm in two leaps...? Well, that's what I feel like. The chasm is between all the other employees in this office (who are using Windows and MS Office), and the holy-grail of them doing the same work they do now, but on a Linux desktop. So far, one guy has built a flimsy little scaffold that extends a few meters over the chasm (using Windows and MS Office and FrameMaker and Illustrator and Visio, when I have to switch back from SuSE 8 with OpenOffice... and Gimp and Dia and...). But, the scaffold is swaying in the breeze, and the open space appears to be still a kilometer wide. I persist in having high hopes for OOo, and have bought a book to help me get there... but I was discouraged to learn that the authors of "The StarOffice 6 Companion" were unable to write the book using that software. In the interests of time, expediency, getting the job done and edited before the publishing deadline, they used FrameMaker. Well, hey! *I* have the very same needs every day. I have to produce my work in an efficient and expedient manner, to meet my publishing deadlines, or to interact with my cow-orkers to help them get *their* jobs done. Does anybody on this list think that, when I fill out my timesheets, I actually include things like "nine hours trying to get printing to work from Linux... and failing"...?? Not on your life. I'm sure that I'll be a resource for other people in the company when we begin moving from Windows (if I still work here...), but in the meantime, I try to hide how much of a time-sink this is. I don't impress anybody when they come around asking me for something... or giving me something... and I say "Hang on a few minutes, while I boot into Windows". Or, I'll *be* in Windows and I have to reboot into Linux to get at my mail. I can use Outlook to look at recent messages, but I have it set to just look, and not to move messages from the server. KMail is the app that now captures my mail from the server, so if I want to look at messages from a few hours ago, or yesterday, I need to be back in Linux, since Windows can't read my Linux partition. Some programmers have worked here in Linux, but they still needed Windows when reviewing/ editing company documents (like specs and reports) and when using ClearCase/ClearQuest (commercial system for version control and bug reporting). The tools that they used for programming and editing, etc., in Linux had almost no overlap at all with the tools that I need to do my job. My job -- and those tools -- more closely resemble what most of the other people in the company will need, if they ever move over to Linux. In other words, Linux was mostly great for the two guys who were: a) programmers b) programming for Linux For Kevin, who represents most of the rest of the office population, Linux is still an uphill battle that is consuming far more time than I can admit, and that still can't get me through an entire day or let me produce the work that I get paid for. And I don't do anything fancy. So, I think that "business operational environment" is not just an excuse, behind which I'm hiding my embarassment. Rather, it's where I live and work all day, and where my cow-orkers would live and work if I could show the way. The IT people are bringing more Linux stuff into the server rooms, but I'm the only one trying to make it real on the daily desktop. So far, I haven't even satisfied myself. That means that I'm nowhere near being able to satisfy all the other Windows users here. (And did I mention that even though we are all still using Win NT, it's simply not all that fragile anymore.) I still want to get across the chasm, but I keep falling in and then dragging myself up the near side, for the safety of what works (and eating up a lot of time, each time). Linux on the desktop for actual everyday work is still "the far side" for me. Since I'm the unofficial guinnea-pig, that means it's not even on the radar screen for the other people who work here. Even after I get to the point where I can deliver a project entirely via Linux, that will mean only that *I* have reached the other side. Then, I have to pull the rope across, so that I can start to build the narrow, shaky bridge that a few other people might be willing to attempt. Once a few of the ordinary folk get comfortable, and IT dept. becomes confident at keeping them up, *then* the rest will be persuadable. Probably somebody else at my company should have been the Linux-desktop pioneer, but no one else had the interest (or the masochism?). So, I'm self-elected. Wish I had more progress to report. /kevin