Thank you for all your replies. I think I am still a bit jaded by the larger Linux communities *cough* Ubuntu *cough* who refuse to ever admit to a problem. I plan on giving Suse a fair try, and I'll let you know what I think. I am a massive supporter of OSS but as I said I will use whatever software is best for the job, rather than using software out of ideological reasons. I'll try to explain some of the usability issues I have been having and some of my thinking. I run an Internet cafe, so I see and help people of all skill levels interacting with computers all day. If someone can do something the wrong way, they will. I see what people find hard, and difficult. It gives a good insight into how average people use a computer. Firstly, GUI vs CLI. CLI will never be 'easier' than a GUI. It may be quicker, it may be more resource efficient but it's not easier. The benefit that a GUI environment brings is discoverability. In a GUI environment (provided its a well made one) you should be able to achieve your goals without knowing how to work the system prior to this. With a GUI you can sit down in front of pretty much any software on any platform and be able to work it out in a few minutes. It provides a visual metaphor (icons, windows) to make things easy. Since you are limited to clicking, all options you need are on the screen and if you look, you can find them. CLI's are entirely unintuitive, undiscoverable and not user friendly. The only way you'll know how to do anything in a CLI is by reading the manual first. Also since you can have no idea of the scope of the abilities of the CLI you need to read the *entire* manual before you know all the options. Unlike a GUI which enables you to discover and learn as you go, a CLI is a brick wall to you, no matter how clever. Imagine going back in time and putting Archimedes in front of a GUI based system (say OSX (Greek edition :)) and then put him in front of a CLI on a Linux distro. I would bet large sums he would be whizzing about on OSX (or even KDE/Gnome) after a few hours, where with the CLI system he'd probably still be sitting at a blinking cursor. That's not to say CLI's are useless, or crap. They have many applications and are extremely useful (I use them, and scripts, a lot), but they are certainly not 'user friendly', and should never be presented to a user as such. I used to use Ubuntu as a recovery CD to rescue files off of people with botched copies of Windows. Where I used to have to remove the HDD and plug it in to another machine, I could now put in a Linux CD and just copy it across the network. Great! The Ubuntu team has decided though to not only stop automounting any drives, but to also remove the GUI mount tools from the LiveCD (it may be fixed now). I tried to rescue someones HDD using this 'new' CD, here's a rough guide (of how I remember) to how it went...
:cd /media :mkdir hdd :mount /dev/hda1 ./hdd Random Unhelpful Error :sudo mount /dev/hda1 ./hdd *switch to nautilus, find out I cannot access it as I am not root. I can only mount it as root though.* :sudo nautilus *I can access it, but cannot copy the files to the network share. I am not surprised as the other Nautilus window is running as a different user.* :sudo nautilus *Open another one. For some inexplicable reason though, under Ubuntu, sudo nautlius is unable to access network shares. Tried it on 3 different hardware configs, same result. Defeat grabbed from victory's jaws*
So I was unable to get the files off of the HDD onto the network share. I tried a few other things (chmod'ing the ./media dir) but to no avail. In the end I just downloaded Knoppix, which worked. After a few weeks I stumbled across the solution. I didn't use the umask=0222 switch, which sets the access permissions. I suppose I should have scoured the mount command manual but I was in a hurry. If there was a GUI mount system available (there used to be) I would have had no problems. Again though, I do not think CLI systems are bad, only that they should be presented 'as well as' rather than 'instead of' a GUI. They are for advanced users who do the same tasks repeatedly, and are incredibly useful, but they are a pain in the neck to learn and use the first few times, even for someone who already has plenty of CLI experience. It's ridiculously easy to shoot yourself in the foot. I personally still use the CLI to do all my searches on Windows boxes as I hate the search feature so much (want an example of a bad GUI, there's one). I wouldn't even think of suggesting to a casual user to do the same though - it's easier for me because I know how, but everything is easy once you know how. Secondly, I do not feel that there is much advancement when it comes to GUI's in FOSS software. Improvements are always in added functionality and stability, very rarely is the GUI focused on as a 'lets redesign this to be as user friendly and discoverable as possible.' Generally any improvements in this department are only minor. I can understand why though, given the amount posted to Bugzilla. For example the Ubuntu GUI has not changed significantly since its launch. It is also just a carbon copy of the Windows 98 interface, split onto two bars. Apart from the desktop switcher and log-off button it's feature identical. You can make it look like the Windows interface in about 5 minutes. The real giveaway is the quicklaunch bar. It has FireFox(Internet Explorer), Show Desktop and Evolution(Outlook). This is exactly the same configuration as Windows. The thing is I have always doubted Microsoft's wisdom of adding a POP based email client in such a prominent position, given the widespread use of webmail. It makes even less sense on a LiveCD where all your settings go when you reboot. It would make much more sense to add a shortcut to the console, or synaptic there instead. The only reason for it to be a mail client is thats what it is on Windows. Not that I have any problem with copying (there is no reason not to have a good feature just because someone else thought of it first), it just it shows the lack of innovation in the GUI arena. It's not that the GUI is horrible, it's just not particularly great, and no effort seems to be committed to improving it. It seems 'good enough' is good enough. This is true for a large majority of the FOSS software I have tried. There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule I do not see much effort put into GUI development on FOSS software - I think largely because nobody ever really says anything about it. I always link this article by ESR about CUPS when talking about usability - http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html The points he brings up are exactly what I mean. If I was to post that exact same article on a Linux forum I would be torn to shreds. I think curing problems such as the ones he listed for CUPS are of paramount importance for FOSS to gain a foothold, yet progress in that direction still seems glacial. Usability is often seen as a joke, something to be despised, or even just a myth. The surprising thing is despite the glaring problems he pointed out, nobody else before him said anything. I am assuming that people had been putting up with CUPS for years before this point. What I would like to see is an open forum (not necessarily a web one) for discussion on OSS usability issues. A set of recommendations could then be drawn up for the software (with GUI mockups, descriptions of functionality) that the developers could then see and take on board - essentially do the usability testing for them. Anyway I certainly think that discussion never hurts. I am going to download Suse and try it out tonight. I'll try to share my thoughts about it tomorrow. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-usability+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-usability+help@opensuse.org