[Wylug-discuss] new member

Sat Feb 28 23:36:50 GMT 2004

HI
im a linux user that keeps been dragged back to windows :( :(
i have been using linux on and off for the last few years
started off with mandrake and then to suse and now debian for my mail server
and gentoo for desktop pc
but i have windows *spit* on my laptop
but still better to have a few pengiuns around then non at all

Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: <wylug-discuss-request at wylug.org.uk>
To: <wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk>
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 12:00 PM
Subject: Wylug-discuss digest, Vol 1 #890 - 7 msgs


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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Linux GUI design [Was CUPS] (John Hodrien)
>    2. Re: Linux GUI design [Was CUPS] (Dave Fisher)
>    3. Re: Linux GUI design [Was CUPS] (James Holden (WYLUG))
>    4. Re: Linux GUI design [Was CUPS] (ric)
>    5. Re: new member :) (ric)
>    6. Re: Linux GUI design [Was CUPS] (Dave Fisher)
>    7. Re: CUPS (Roger Leigh)
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 12:50:27 +0000 (GMT)
> From: John Hodrien <johnh at comp.leeds.ac.uk>
> To: WYLUG <wylug-discuss at list.wylug.lug.org.uk>
> Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] Linux GUI design [Was CUPS]
>
> On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Dave Fisher wrote:
>
> > Clearly, Eric Raymond's point was not that CUPS and Linux printing in
> > general are pants ... although they clearly are.
>
> Indeed, his criticisms were of the rationale behind the interface.  It's
> seemingly been put together by someone who doesn't want to use it...
>
> >   i.e. Linux heads like ourselves will continue to suffer the negative
> >   consequences of a Windows-dominated I.T. ecosystem so long as we leave
> >   Microsoft with a monopoly over desktop systems.
>
> Indeed.
>
> > 3. Linux will never get any serious traction in desktop computing until
> > its developers treat 'dumb end-users' seriously, and develop software
> > from the perspective of said users.
>
> Fedora-Test mailing list, complaint from a new user that they'd got no
sound.
> It defaults to muted (an alsa default to stop annoying pops and clicks
during
> driver initialisation).  Fedora2 wasn't bothering to change that...  What
> fruit-loop would ship an OS with sound muted by default?
>
> > I suspect that some WYLUG members will find such views quite abhorent,
> > but I would like to set off a _serious_ debate about this issue.
>
> Why abhorent?
>
> > Ideally, I'd like to assume that Raymond's perspective is correct and
> > discuss the positive things that can be done to rectify the situation,
> > but if there are insuffient numbers of people willing to make that
> > assumption, I am more than happy to make the case for it.
>
> Hackers' wives should be more willing to test their creations...
>
> jh
>
> --
> "My mother said to me, "If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if
you
>  become a monk, you'll end up as the pope." Instead, I became a painter,
and
>  wound up Picasso."                                  -- Pablo Picasso
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 14:50:08 +0000
> From: Dave Fisher <davef at gbdirect.co.uk>
> To: John Hodrien <johnh at comp.leeds.ac.uk>
> Cc: WYLUG <wylug-discuss at list.wylug.lug.org.uk>
> Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] Linux GUI design [Was CUPS]
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 12:50:27PM +0000, John Hodrien wrote:
> > On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Dave Fisher wrote:
> > > I suspect that some WYLUG members will find such views quite abhorent,
> > > but I would like to set off a _serious_ debate about this issue.
> >
> > Why abhorent?
>
> It is a sad fact of human behaviour that we often treat other people's
> failure to identify with our own values and commitments as threats to
> our personal identity, assumptions and worldviews.
>
> When combined with the practical impossibility of value-free judgement,
> this fact often turns what might otherwise be considered no more than a
> different opinion into a heresy that must be denounced in order to
> justify one's own personal preference.
>
> Personally, I see no intrinsic reason why those who wish to treat Linux
> as a hackers-only paradise shouldn't continue to do so.
>
> On the other hand, I have yet to meet anyone who managed to practice
> that perspective with anything like consistency, i.e. to show complete
> disinterest in the doings of non-Linux systems, non-hackers and their
> effects on the computing ecosphere.
>
>
> > > Ideally, I'd like to assume that Raymond's perspective is correct
> > > and discuss the positive things that can be done to rectify the
> > > situation, but if there are insuffient numbers of people willing to
> > > make that assumption, I am more than happy to make the case for it.
> >
> > Hackers' wives should be more willing to test their creations...
>
> The statistically accurate assumption about Hacker gender does raise at
> least one question about how positive a suggestion this might be, i.e.
> how many WYLUG members are hackers wives? ;-)
>
> When debating the issues of what to do and why to do it, rather than
> discussing how to achieve a goal that has already been
> assumed/determined, it's useful to keep the agenda relatively open.
>
> Having said that, I'm happy to start the ball rolling by expressing some
> provisional ideas about the elements of current hacker which prevent the
> development of good GUIs, and some of the experiments we might pursue to
> overcome them.
>
> I don't have the time to compose a detailed analysis right now, but the
> tendency to treat collective project work as a zero-sum game is clearly
> one handicap that must be overcome.
>
> Forking is an an ecologically normal process which can have incredibly
> beneficial effects in terms of experimentation and creativity, but it
> can also be incredibly wasteful.
>
> Biologically speaking, evolutionary forks don't produce better
> organisms, they merely produce variations which may or may not be better
> suited to particular conditions.
>
> The more interesting contributors to contemporary debates in genetics
> recognise that human evolution transcends many 'natural' evolutionary
> constraints, precisely because humans  modify and even invent the
> conditions for their future development.
>
> I'm inclined to think that Hackers need to do something similar if they
> want to free themselves from the sociological and economic constraints
> of the current environment, e.g. find an itch to scratch which irritates
> them and which irritates non-hackers, and make a _joint_ effort to
> develop solutions which satisfy their different goals through a common
> toolset.
>
> The list of projects which could satisfy such criteria is endless, and
> in most cases there is plenty of basically sound and pre-existing OSS to
> build upon.
>
> I am sure that other people can come up with more interesting and/or
> representative ideas than I can, but here are just two that I've
> pondered recently:
>
> 1. A fully-featured set of bibliographic tools for OpenOffice
>
>    Bibliographies aren't that interesting, but education/research is
>    probably the easiest market for Linux to conquer, and the absence of
>    uasable bibliographic tools is an absolute block on its widespread
>    adoption therein.
>
>    Latex/BibTeX/SQL has much of the functionality, but decisively lost
>    the evolutionary battle with MS-Word years ago.
>
> 2. An integrated video/audio editing and authoring GUI
>
>    This is an area of huge consumer/business interest and, most
>    importantly, a complete obsesssion for the media organisations which
>    dominate our perception of the world.  Change the media view of Linux
>    and you change almost everyone's view of it.
>
>    Virtually all the basic tools exist on the command line, and there
>    are plenty of partial/esoteric GUIs around, but nothing that would
>    let a dumb end-user capture, edit and re-edit multimedia content with
>    all of the commonly used formats and devices.
>
> Lunch break over, so back to work ...
>
> Dave
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:32:19 +0000
> From: "James Holden (WYLUG)" <wylug at jamesholden.net>
> To: wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] Linux GUI design [Was CUPS]
>
> Dave Fisher wrote:
> > On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 10:51:38AM +0000, James Holden (WYLUG) wrote:
> >
> >>So I'm not the only one who thinks CUPS is a shoddy pile of rubbish:
> >>
> >>http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
> >>
> >>Seriously though. I've always said that printing on Linux is seriously
> >>lacking, and needs addressing if we're ever going to achieve world
> >>domination. It makes me wish I had the time to make some serious
> >>contributions in this area.
> >
> >
> > Clearly, Eric Raymond's point was not that CUPS and Linux printing in
> > general are pants ... although they clearly are.
> >
> > I think his main points were that:
> >
> > 1. Almost all Linux GUI design is poor because it doesn't deliver the
> > things that GUIs are supposed to deliver.
> >
> >   No, not endlessly repetitious themes, widget sets, and frameworks, but
> >   discoverability and relief from the requirement to understand and
> >   memorise every function and configuration in the system.
> >
> > 2. That this is a serious problem, even for techies who never use GUIs,
> >   because most I.T. systems are bought and paid for by people who
aren't,
> >   and never will be, Unix hackers.
> >
> >   i.e. Linux heads like ourselves will continue to suffer the negative
> >   consequences of a Windows-dominated I.T. ecosystem so long as we leave
> >   Microsoft with a monopoly over desktop systems.
> >
> > 3. Linux will never get any serious traction in desktop computing until
> > its developers treat 'dumb end-users' seriously, and develop software
> > from the perspective of said users.
> >
> > I suspect that some WYLUG members will find such views quite abhorent,
> > but I would like to set off a _serious_ debate about this issue.
> >
> > Ideally, I'd like to assume that Raymond's perspective is correct and
> > discuss the positive things that can be done to rectify the situation,
> > but if there are insuffient numbers of people willing to make that
> > assumption, I am more than happy to make the case for it.
> >
> > Dave
>
> Oh no, I entirely agree with you. Eric happened to highlight an example
> that's caused me quite some grief in the past though. It was nice(?) to
> see somebody else in pain with it, if you see what I mean.
>
> Although I've not seen it myself, Xandros seems to be gaining a
> reputation for cleaning up the GUI design to produce a desktop-oriented
> distro for the clueless. As you say, some may find the concept of trying
> to ape Windows a bit disturbing, but like it or not, MS products have
> the polish that our own apps often lack. That's a serious issue.
>
> Linux is mostly there for the corporate desktop where you actually do
> have a sysadmin to make it all work for you, but home users are where
> the roots of the evil empire are firmly embedded.
>
> James
>
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 4
> From: ric <x-ric at brucenetworks.com>
> Reply-To: x-ric at brucenetworks.com
> Organization: home
> To: wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] Linux GUI design [Was CUPS]
> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:50:12 +0000
>
>
> > Oh no, I entirely agree with you. Eric happened to highlight an example
> > that's caused me quite some grief in the past though. It was nice(?) to
> > see somebody else in pain with it, if you see what I mean.
> >
> > Although I've not seen it myself, Xandros seems to be gaining a
> > reputation for cleaning up the GUI design to produce a desktop-oriented
>
> I've had horror with CUPS printing myself I'm sure others have as well.
> http://www.lycoris.org is also very good for "joe user" I've had none
> Linux using techies and teachers using it with some decent results.
> I'll be covering some of these issuse in my talk at the April meeting.
>
>
> ric
> brucenetworks.com
>
>
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 5
> From: ric <x-ric at brucenetworks.com>
> Reply-To: x-ric at brucenetworks.com
> Organization: home
> To: wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] new member :)
> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 17:16:59 +0000
>
>
> > > just wanted to say hi as i've just joined the mailing list and will
try
> > > my best to attend the next meeting as i don't really know any linux
users
> > > so it would be nice to get to know some of you :)
> > >
> > > Speak soon
> > >
> > > Richard
> >
> > Welcome on board, Richard.
> >
> > The next meeting is on the 8th of March, with directions on the website.
> >
> > If you're travelling from far away you may be able to scrounge a lift
> > from someone, as people attend from various parts of the region.
> >
> > How long have you been using Linux?
>
> I'd say richard is looking into moving from windows to linux.
> If you can make it to one of the meetings I'm sure someone can help you.
> I'll be at the April meeting.
>
>
> ric
> brucenetworks.com
>
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 17:54:30 +0000
> From: Dave Fisher <davef at gbdirect.co.uk>
> To: "James Holden (WYLUG)" <wylug at jamesholden.net>
> Cc: wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] Linux GUI design [Was CUPS]
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 04:32:19PM +0000, James Holden (WYLUG) wrote:
> > Although I've not seen it myself, Xandros seems to be gaining a
> > reputation for cleaning up the GUI design to produce a desktop-oriented
> > distro for the clueless.
>
> I'm quite interested in what I've seen of Xandros, but I don't think
> that commercial distros can really solve the fundamental problems until
> the major package developers (plus the Gnome and KDE shells) lift their
> game.
>
> Otherwise, the effort to produce a consistent, effective and integrated
> GUI would require the distros to re-write elements of just about every
> package, i.e. a prohibitively expensive prospect.
>
> > As you say, some may find the concept of trying to ape Windows a bit
> > disturbing, but like it or not, MS products have the polish that our
> > own apps often lack. That's a serious issue.
>
> Just to clarify,  I do not advocate aping the Windows GUIs themselves
> and I am relatively unconcerned with the purely aesthetic elements of
> 'polish'.
>
> The fundamental question to be answered is always: does the GUI enable
> the intended user to carry out the operations s/he wants/needs to with
> the minimum effort and maximum effect?  Ugly but functional always
> trumps pretty but useless ... indeed, the Linux dustbin of history
> contains more than a few pretty toys.
>
> In fact, I am not entirely convinced that the replication of Windows
> metaphors, key bindings and window operations in many recent Linux apps
> is the wisest option.
>
> Familiarity is certainly an important issue for Linux GUI design, and I
> accept that virtually every new Linux user has prior Windows experience,
> but (on balance) I am inclined to give it less weight than issues like
> discoverability, consistency and navigability.
>
> ... which is why I can't usually be bothered to argue strongly against
> the Windows-like key bindings in Gnome  ... even though Galeon's recent
> propensity to override Emacs-style key bindings was a big factor in my
> personal decision to drop it.
>
> What we really should be copying from Microsoft or, better still, Apple
> is the proportion of resources, effort and attention they give to their
> end-users' needs.
>
> > Linux is mostly there for the corporate desktop where you actually do
> > have a sysadmin to make it all work for you, but home users are where
> > the roots of the evil empiroe are firmly embedded.
>
> I am not entirely convinced of this.
>
> Home desktop use is, arguably, more homogenous than corporate desktop
> use, e.g.  Office Suite, Internet, Multimedia and Games covers the vast
> majority of home use.  I am quite convinced that Macs sold at Wintel
> prices would wipe the floor with Microsoft in the home market.
>
> It is true that the legal and technical framework enables those
> businesses who wish it, to implement dedicated, restricted and
> well-supported desktops, but a surprising proportion don't do so ...
> indeed the proportion of unrestricted and frankly stupid Windows
> desktops seems to increase as you climb up most corporate hierachies!
>
> Most decision makers tend to form their opinions from personal
> experience.  Many top managers can't use computers at all, and many who
> can, are inclined to treat their desk/lap/palmtops as personal toys ...
> except, of course that they always have priority access to
> over-stretched tech support when they cock-up.
>
> That said, I think that you are entirely right to emphasise the way in
> which desktop use in general dominates strategic perceptions about what
> computing is and aught to be ... sadly.
>
> Dave
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 7
> To: "James Holden (WYLUG)" <wylug at jamesholden.net>
> Cc: wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [Wylug-discuss] CUPS
> From: Roger Leigh <roger at whinlatter.uklinux.net>
> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:51:25 +0000
>
> "James Holden (WYLUG)" <wylug at jamesholden.net> writes:
>
> > So I'm not the only one who thinks CUPS is a shoddy pile of rubbish:
> >
> > http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
>
> Before heavily criticising CUPS, please read all the comments here:
>
>
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2004-02-26-024-26-OP-DT-DV&tbovrmode=3#talkback_area
>
> What ESR is criticising isn't CUPS itself, but the RedHat/Fedora admin
> tool.
>
>
> --
> Roger Leigh
>
>                 Printing on GNU/Linux?  http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/
>                 GPG Public Key: 0x25BFB848.  Please sign and encrypt your
mail.
>
>
>
> --__--__--
>
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