Linked by Jeremy LaCroix on Thu 3rd Jun 2004 07:02 UTC
During the majority of my time working with computers, Windows was the operating system of choice. Reason being, it's all I've known. In 2002, I took a college course titled "Linux Administration" which entitled me to a few cd-roms of Redhat 7.x. While this course was nothing more than a few extra credits for me, I fell in love with Linux and went through the entire textbook a week into the class. It was a nice feeling to use something "different" than what I was used to.
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personally i thought the "article" sucked.. He failed to list any VALID usability issues. After reading through a few paragraphs of drible we find
...no matter if I have to compile from source or search for an RPM on Google. My point is, I shouldn't have to...Sure, I could use Apt-get to install everything, but what happens if I forget to pay my internet bill? I can't install anything, then.
If you forget to pay your internet bill you cant install anything on Windows either (unless you pay for it, but if you cant afford to pay for your internet how can you afford to pay for software?)... or any OS for that matter
One of the things that makes Windows so popular is that if you download a setup program and activate it, it installs your new software without a hitch, providing the developer made it compatible with your system.
How can you download it without internet access? Also, this can be done with apt-get which is even easier imo. No searching google to find the website, etc, just apt-get install package.
In my opinion, the way RPM's are handled is excuseless. Why should I search for a dependency, then search for a dependency for that dependency? It's annoying. I think there should be a "new" kind of RPM (Maybe call it "Enhanced RPM", or ERPM or along those lines) that contains all the dependencies you may need for that program. If the dependencies in the package are necessary, the system installs them. I may be behind the times, but I don't think this exists yet, and it's unfortunate.
apt-get, next.
While KDE improved on the GUI, it doesn't seem like anything was done on the "ease of use" feature, to install a program
KDE is a desktop manager, its meant to manage your desktop, next.
I installed Suse 9.1 last week, and not only did it have 5 cd-roms, I also had to choose from a list of hundreds of programs, to make sure I would have all dependencies resolved. I would like much better a one cd Linux distribution, that contained nothing but the core OS and a Window Manager
Most likely you dont need ALL of the CD's.. The reason for multiple CD's are because they include packages that Windows DOESNT provide for you, for ex: openoffice.org, etc, etc.
Upgrading software in Linux is another thing that could use a facelift, back when I was using Fedora Core 1, installing KDE 3.2 was almost a rite of passage, but I did get it installed, but not without totally destroying my Gnome configuration.
apt-get (this is getting repetitive)
This article was not about usability so much as it is about "downloading and installing packages" which is addressed(and is, imo, handled better than it is in Windows for the most part).