Re: linux annoyances

Christopher Taylor wrote:

>  
> 1. The support for interoperation with windows filesharing is crap. 
> When I fire up a box and put in the workgroup/domain in the install I 
> should have a "network neighborhood" style browsing through the 
> network immediately available without further configuration, just like 
> in windows. Configuring samba is just plain stupid. It should work 
> immediately. You should also be able to right click on folders in the 
> gui and share them just like in windows.
>  

What window manager are you useing? I simply use 
smb://computername/sharename and get access to windows shares. But more 
on your concern with needing a "Network Neighborhood" try configureing 
LISa. Not only does it automaticly show smb hosts/shares but it supports 
many other protocols , FTP , FISH, SMB, HTTP and NFS unlike windows. For 
GNOME there is gnomba.

> 2. Auto mounting of hard drives. No normal user is going to know how 
> to use the mount command. Its ludicrous, auto mount them and put icons 
> on the desktop. Give them their windows labels if they have them. hda 
> is a stupid name for a drive.

 Mount is not ludicrous but your right lusers wont use it. hda is as 
good a name as any, better than rdisk(0)multi(0)partition(0)slice(0) 
yadda yadda how ever MS puts it, this is transparent to the user they 
need not know what the hard-disk device name is... Concern them more 
with Home, Home Directorys and / . They need to understand 
permissions/owner/group even if they dont understand how to change them.

>  
> 3. A unified installation is needed for application installations. All 
> dependencies should be included in an application installation. Screw 
> the geek install crap. It should be one executeable file that has 
> EVERYTHING it needs to install and it should be smart enough to adapt 
> to all major distributions with absolutely minimal user input and all 
> options available as check boxes or some other menu. Some kind of 
> utility that will repackage those ridiculous compile installations 
> into an install would be good too.
>  

If linux becomes mainstream developers will have more reason to include 
selfinstallation scripts. As for now try gentoo, its package manager 
allows you the simplicity to install it all as you may like or tailor it 
down to specific needs. Very easy to teach how to use portage also.

> 4. Clean up the application menu and start having icons placed there 
> automatically for new installs. If a user doesn't pay attention where 
> they installed something it could take them forever to find it. Make 
> the menu drag and drop adjustable so it can be easily reorganized.

This seems like a personal prefrence, I like my menu clean too but I 
don't want new apps put there by default, perhaps a drag and drop 
alternative is a happy medium.

>  
> 5. Make a gui for all system configuration files. Everything. Give 
> them all buttons and text boxes. I know the geeks love doing it all by 
> hand but that just doesn't cut it when you are calculating the TCO and 
> including customer support for suits and low level data entry people.
>  

Do you want non geeks configureing Everything? I know I don't...Just the 
other day I got a call: lUser says,"Nothing works what did you do?" Me 
replys, "Nothing, what do you mean nothing works?... Never mind I'll be 
right there." I get there and she had reconfigured the 'doubleclick 
speed' on her mouse and had been sitting there for over an hour 
rebooting and trying to open an email, she couldn't click that fast and 
had forgotten she had changed anything.  I don't think that is a good 
Idea too windows like. Besides if your doing support for a company you 
can ssh in and fix it right, or remote desktop or get off yer ass and go 
fix it.

> 6. The display resolution needs to be able to be reset from a control 
> panel and it needs to have a simple failsafe mode and a test mode. It 
> should absolutely never be necessary for a standard user to have to 
> type some cryptic command line in and navigate a bunch of ridiculously 
> obtuse questions in order to change the display resolution and depth 
> to their liking. And then if they choose the wrong setting they can't 
> get to their gui. That's ridiculous. I couldn't even count the hours 
> I've spent configuring X on machines. Its a HUGE WASTE OF TIME.


There is try <ctrl><alt>+ and <ctrl><alt>-  If the drivers for your 
video card are worth a darn and the configuration for X is set to allow 
it you can change resolution without a menu. If you hit a resolution 
that is not supported you can simply switch back.

>  
> 7. Simple driver management interface. Ever had to remove a driver? 
> Replace it? Go back cause the new one didn't work? Theres no way linux 
> will make headway in the desktop world if drivers are in tarballs and 
> require a compile to test and swap. Better generic drivers are needed 
> too that will work with most anything if you don't have a specific 
> driver for a piece of hardware.

Call your hardware manufacturers and complain. They seem content on 
developing windows drivers for their hardware and not provideing Linux 
drivers. If they would release specifications the Opensource community 
would develop drivers for this popular hardware, If they would fully 
develop drivers for linux the hardware would become popular in the linux 
market.

>  
> 8.There should be a setting to hide the system directories from the 
> users vision in the file explorer windows. It would be even better if 
> all the major system directories and mount points could be put in one 
> "linux" folder in the root. Not like it will ever happen but it would 
> be one of the best things for end users.

Learn about ch-jails.

>  
> 9. Some kind of keystroke that actually works to suspend all non 
> essential processes and call up a list where the user can kill the 
> runaway proces by right clicking.

If its an X process, map a key to xkill.  Or map a key to an alternate 
runlevel that doesnt include the process running, not sure if this could 
work in all circumstances.

>  
> 10. Better documentation. Some of this stuff is just plain geekspeak. 
> Sure I can understand it if I try, but I have end users who get 
> confused when I tell them to right click or use crtl-c, crtl-v

AMEN documentation is key, I think even lusers become enlightened a bit 
with good documentation... Contrary to popular belief Google doesnt have 
the answer to everything, and more good documentation will close this 
gap. Long live google!

>  
>  
> OK, thats it for me for now. L8r.
>  
> *Chris Taylor, Systems Engineer*
> MCSE/MCSA, CCNA, A+, Websense WCSE
>