RE: My Top Picks: Long Rant

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 01:46:08 -0700
From: Zed Shaw <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Annoyances] My Top Picks: Long Rant
Reply-To: [email protected]

>2.  While we're on the subject of sound, can we please set the mixer to
>a sane default rather than making me go insane messing with some weird
>curses interfaces to my particular sound card just to find out that the
>mixer thinks my "headphones" are actually my "aux" output line? And can
>it please remember these settings?  And can it set things up so that
>KDE does *not* blast that horrible sounding knock-off of the
>not-all-that-pleasant-to-begin-with-Windows-startup-sound? Oh wait, I
>don't have that problem because artsd locks up when KDE starts.

You probably know this, but just go the the KDE Control Center and look at the Sounds section.  Now, turn off the startup sound or change it to something that you like better.  Pretty easy fix.  There is a funky guitar chord one that I kinda like buried in some of the shared KDE sounds.


>I think you could sell a lot of books by just covering the media blues
>related to Linux.

>4.  Could KDE take any longer to start up?  It seems to me that the
>advantage of a multi-tasking, threaded, forking capable operating
>system is that I can have stuff happen in the background.  You know, no
>point in starting artsd just so KDE can blast my eardrums right away. 
>Do that in the background and get me to my application.  This also has
>usability implications since the user's perception of speed is based on
>what they see happening.  Seeing an annoying "I'm doing this
>nondescript icon now" dialog makes it look slow.
 
I second this one.  Have you ever tried Fluxbox?  That window manager is 
incredibly stripped down and it pops up incredibly fast.  Maybe the startx 
script could include a "--" startup script to that pushes a lot of the KDE configuration and startup processes in the background.  Then it would appear to load quicker.

>5.  I have actually managed to get my non-geek girlfriend off of
>Windows on to Linux (believe it or not, she asked me since she gets
>tons of spy bots).  She can do everything she needs, which amounts to
>using the Mozilla, Evolution, OpenOffice, Acrobat, and Gaim.  Now, I
>know it's super sexy to have a kiloton of apps in your menu after you
>install the latest release of Debian-woody-silverado-unstable-testing-
>version-alpha-four or upgrade from Mandrake 9.1 to 9.1.1 (because you >must!  No packages for you!).  But, when I sit a newbie down in front of it 
>and they try to find Mozilla, I have to go through this:

>"Alright, go to the 'K'.  It's like the Start.  Don't ask, they like
>the letter K.  I don't know, maybe the guy is an Ecstacy fan.  Anyway!
>Go to Internet.  Go to Browsers.  Go to Mozilla.  Don't ask.  Go to
>Mozilla.  Look, I said don't ask, Netscape is just weird OK?  No, you
>don't need that other stuff.  No, don't touch the System Menu.  Darn,
>you clicked on KMail, not Netscape.  Crap, I mean Mozilla.  Oh wait,
>get out of KMail.  Damn, you have to fill out the stupid "wizard". 
>Yeah, that's really wizardly.  Alright, now run MOZILLA."
 
To be fair, most OSes are like this.  I do Windows tech support... the users have similar issues especially if they are coming from another or no operating system.  To have a menu "make sense" requires experience.  
 
I agree that the menu's can be paired back more than a bit, but you have to realize that most distributions come with the Operating System and the applications.  Windows just comes with the Operating system.  The average user's program menu looks almost the same after a year or two of buying and installing the applications in Windows that come by default with a Linux distribution.
 
As far as defaults... How much sense does it make that Wordpad is under Programs --> Accessories in Windows.  That is not intuitive either.

>5b.  One thing that would be nice is if I can "switch menu views" and
>get a Task Based look, a search interface, an Alpha Sort, etc.
 
This would be a great feature!

>6.  I watch lots of...uh..."movies" online...uh...from the BBC...yeah.
>:-)  Anyway, it would be really nice if I didn't have to download all
>this media to disk and manually run mplayer (or others) from the
>command line.  I usually end up going through the painful process of
>trying to get all the MIME types and file endings (remembering that
>.rpm is actually a RealAudio format) and setting up all of them in
>Mozilla so that it will launch my favorite player.  Couldn't some smart
>guy or gal who packages Mozilla for me do this?  This also applies to
>mp3 files, and others.
 
I nominate this THE MOST ANNOYING thing about almost every linux distribution.  I believe that Slackware does this by default (or maybe it was SuSE).  I hate having to do this with every installation.  

Jim
 
*All views and opinions are my own and not those of anyone or any other institution.  No one else would want them.*