Linked by David Adams on Mon 24th Aug 2009 09:21 UTC
A reader asks: Why is Linux still not as user friendly as the two other main OSes with all the people developing for Linux? Is it because it is mainly developed by geeks?
My initial feeling when reading this question was that it was kind of a throwaway, kind of a slam in disguise as a genuine question. But the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I felt. There truly are a large amount of resources being dedicated to the development of Linux and its operating system halo (DEs, drivers, apps, etc). Some of these resources are from large companies (IBM, Red Hat, Novell). Why isn't Linux more user-friendly? Is this an inherent limitation with open source software?
Thread beginning with comment 380430
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[8]: Whats wrong with a logical file system?
by ichi on Tue 25th Aug 2009 07:53
in reply to "RE[7]: Whats wrong with a logical file system?"
Member since:2007-03-06
Except it doesn't. Have you tried double-clicking on a .bin file?
Have you bothered checking that there's a filed bug for nautilus regarding that?
Oh, and how did you manage to snip my comment about doing "chmod"? You might have seen that I'm perfectly aware of x-permissions (but that shouldn't be a concern here anyway since I was supposed to install software with a single click right?)
For linux packages, sure. It's a single click.
For binary installers, you have to make them executable. You say you were aware of that, yet decided to turn it into an issue with the "no standard way" crap.
Now we're far away from "single click"...,and NO even with chmod 0755 it didn't work because Acrobat happens to be a text based installer and if you "execute" it thru the file manager there is no /dev/stdout -> HANG!
Again, single click install works for linux packages.
Is it so awfully hard to download the deb package?
Member since:
2009-08-24
Guess what: linux identifies files for their actual file type and not by their extension.
A .bin though wont execute until it's been marked as executable (which it's not by default, and that's a good thing).
Except it doesn't. Have you tried double-clicking on a .bin file? And yes, I *know* I can type "file bla.bin" and get the file info...
Oh, and how did you manage to snip my comment about doing "chmod"? You might have seen that I'm perfectly aware of x-permissions (but that shouldn't be a concern here anyway since I was supposed to install software with a single click right?)
Right click -> properties -> permissions? I still haven't found any file browser that doesn't let you change file attributes (ok, maybe you can find some obscure app that doesn't, if you dig deep enough). "
Now we're far away from "single click"...,and NO even with chmod 0755 it didn't work because Acrobat happens to be a text based installer and if you "execute" it thru the file manager there is no /dev/stdout -> HANG!
Maybe this is just to avoid paying royalties to amazon for their "one click" patent?