Le mer 19/11/2003 à 15:18, Buchan Milne a écrit :
> FACORAT Fabrice wrote:
> > easier to see where are the windows partitions.
> > A normal users should noyt browse the filesystem, that's why people ask
> > for multiroot view with the Home directory at first place because a user
> > should only have to access his files in his Home, and, for people with
> > multiboot in a desktop usage, easily shares somes files between win and
> > linux ( divx, mp3, doc, firmware, etc .. )
>
> Again, you're confusing the limitations of KDE's file system abstraction
> with the function of $HOME. Windows partitions don't deserve links in
> $HOME. They must be easy to find, just as any other filesystem should be
> easy to find. This doesn't mean they should be treated specially (IMHO).
>
> I feel that if you do everything to make it easy to keep using Windows,
> how can you even suggest to someone to try Linux (since you seem to be
> saying that Windows is better, if you need to be able to use it so
> much). What about the user who doesn't use Windows???? If we don't think
> about this, how can we expect users to migrate totally??? If we don't
> expect users to migrate totally, why are we even wasting our time making
> things easy for them?
because sometimes they can't as we can't provides some application they
need. providing easy access to windows partition is not a showstopper
for a complete migration from migration. This is useful during the
transition period.
> Yes, it must be easy to access the Windows partition, but no easier than
> to access the Redhat partition (etc).
IMHO this is wrong.
On desktop environment we target people wanting to migrate from windows
and/or wanting to use linux. Most young people that will try mdk may
still have a dual boot to windows because they need :
- games
- educational application for their mother/young sister/brother/...
- use dreamweaver ( Crossover officejust make Dreamweaver and at least
works partially ), etc ...
Because of this when they may decide to share some files between windows
and linux ( for example divx/mp3 ) in order to be able to access them in
both world.
Another kind of situation I usually see on forum : modem firmware.
Indeed the user install linux ( dl edition ) and his USB modem doesn't
work because he need to put the firmware, so he load windows, take/dl
the firmware, then come back to linux and most of the time we see him on
the forum saying : where can i access my windows partitions in order to
take the firmware for my modem ?
I see this at least once a week ! and i follow only one forum !
> >>So, if they have a backup partition or something (easy enough to do with
> >>diskdrake), they shouldn't be able to access it as easily as a Windows
> >>partition?
> >
> > Not needed as they decide where to put it so they know where to go !
> But the user can just as well decide where they want to mount their
> Windows partition (probably more easily).
1°/ during install they don't see diskdrake ( most of them will just let
mdk do this automatically ) and they don't know where are the
mountpoints of their windows partitions. On top of that they don't know
what a mountpoint stands for.
2°/ after installation, they don't know that diskdrake exist, and even
if they know MCC and maybe launch it one time, most of the time they
don't even dig through MCC in order to see what's available.
Last week end, i had to clean a windows computers that some people where
using since 2 years. They were friends of my girlfriend. The problem was
that something pretending "working in informatique" installed many
games/apps on their computers ( so very very very long start menu, many
icons on desktop ). You know what ? to remove a game/app, this guy just
remove the directory of the game. the same for this 2 peoples. Worst,
someone tell them to use Add/Remove program, but they don't try to know
where it was located and never use it ! Find it is so simple ! just
launch Config panel and you can DIRECTLY see it ( winMe ). So imagine
for people when using MCC ... if they can't see it at first sight, it
doesn't exist or they don't bother to search for it.
> > They don't know that their windows partitions are accessible hanks to
> > /mnt/windows or /mnt/win*
> > They don't knwo what mount points means !
>
> Who needs to know what mount point is to look in /mnt ??
where are my FAT32 partition ? in /mnt.
If i don't launch mcc/diskdrake, how can i know that I have to go to
/mnt ?
> > They used to have a multiroot view ( A: C: D: CDROM ... ) ! They don't
> > even know that rpmdrake exist ! Howmany times I tell some newbies to use
> > urpmi/rpmdrake to install packages ! They don't even know how to perform
> > search to see if they have a package and if the package is installed or
> > not ! They don't even bother to browse completely the menu !
>
> Well, if users can't browse the menus, how do they ever find paint.exe
> in Windows? It's 3 levels deep!!! I guess no-one ever uses paint.exe (or
> Solitaire), simply because they can't find it.
some people act like this and you have to show them the path in the
menu.
> Do the users ever uninstall software in Windows? Who told them where the
> control panel is????
see previously.
> Sorry, but we're not here to make Mandrake exactly like Windows (that's
> what Lindows does, except not quite as secure or easy to use etc etc).
This is not about making mdk/linux like windows. it's about provide an
easy access to something that many newbies from windows world will want
to have a look ( their windows partitions, their windows shares ).
Remember the discussion concerning the network neighborhood icon. This
is the same philosophy ...
> > The description seems to be fine. standard stand for which level ? Most
> > people don't care much and just click next when they reach security
> > settings. If standard is level 3, we'd better have umask=0' =>
> > $opts{security} <= 3,
> > By default most system are installed with level standard
> > Note : it seems it's level 2
>
> This is a difficult one (see below).
>
> >>>I'm talking for home/desktop usage. in multiuser/workstation usage, the
> >>>sysadmin have the responsibility to enable/disable this feature. Now for
> >>>desktop/home usage when several people have access to the computer the
> >>>problem is Linux/unix rights limitations ( need ACL and easy way to
> >>>managed ACL ) or need away to specify that this group and only this
> >>>group of users can access theses drives.
> >>
> >>The problem is that as soon as the user has a daemon running (ftp,
> >>apache), they *are* multi-user. Whether it is real users or not is
> >>irrelevant.
> >
> > I'm talking about different physical users !
>
> No, for security purposes it doesn't matter. Is a user going to be any
> less upset if another user deleted his thesis, or if a vulnerability in
> some daemon the user enabled by mistake had a remote non-root
> vulnerability, and deleted his thesis? I don't think so.
>
So we have to improve linux to have the ability to defined ACL like
access to mount points ! for example, only users from windows group can
have access to windows mount points and have write access ... is this
possible ? if not, we will have to find a compromis between block by
default and open by default.
> > real user for real life or
> > normal/basic/joe/smith user.
>
> Who thinks he wants some cool server software, but doesn't know how to
> configure it or how critical it is to do updates?
Are you seriously thinking that grandmother/mother/daddy is going to set
up a server on their computer ? !!!
> > You're wrong. you have the sysadmin point of view. For user home is ...
> > Home !
>
> You didn't say home user, you said "desktop". That's not very precise ...
English is not my native language. When I say desktop user, you can
directly translate with home user. I will be using workstation/server
usage when talking about utilisation in enterprises/professional
environment.
> > They don't care that home is on their HD, or on the LAN on an
> > NFS/SMB/CODA/... share, on the server or on the computer of their
> > colleague.
>
> Exactly, but I am quite sure they know which machine the CD-ROM drive is
> on. You can't group two file locations that may have different physical
> locations (IMHO).
You should do it.
For user a a CDROM is a CDROM. Now that the CDROM is IDE/SCSI/USB/NFS
mount/... is not important -> this is a CDROM, and so you put it under
the CDROM section.
> > We need abstraction and the user don't need to knwo what's under the
> > hood. it's just : ok, this is your home directory, you put everything
> > there and that's all !
>
> Does the CD-ROM drive appear in My Documents or the profile in Windows
> (the equivalents of $HOME)?
>
> No.
They are appart. When i say "ok, this is your home directory, you put
everything there and that's all !", i'm talking about document ( not
devices, etc ... ).
> > 1°/ A user need to have access to the printer icon only for maintenance
> > ! ( oh ! it's not printing. what's the matter ? I'm going to check the
> > printer jobs ).
>
> Or "is my long print job finished? Is there any chance of my print job
> being finished in 5 minutees if I print now (maybe the printer has 200
> jobs waiting).
So they don't do this everytime, so this don't needto be directly
accessible.
> > Normally a user from the application just hit print, select the printer,
> > some options ( page format, double sided, margin, tray ... ) and that's
> > all. They don't need to have access to the printer icon when everything
> > is going fine ( i.e when the page is printed ).
> >
> > 2°/ Some computers still have floppy drives and windows still provides
> > easy access to floppy drives.
>
> I don't say it should be difficult to access floppy drives, but they
> should *not* be grouped with files that in many cases are nowhere near
> the mahine.
>From a user point of view near and from are not relevant as they access
the file from the same place ...
You say, take this from the second CDROM and the user go to CDROM
section and select CDROM. This is easier than take this from CDROM on
NFS -> the user need to know what is NFS ( do they need to know this ?
), go to network section, then to NFS section, then to the CDROM
> > On top of that for user wanting to save
> > some files it's easier than CDRW ( as a sysadmin i don't want that my
> > users could burn some CDROM ), and cheaper and more common than Zip !
>
> USB flash disks are cheaper (1 floppy drive + 40 floppies is about the
> price of a 64MB flash disk).
How many people have a USB flash disk ?
> > 3°/ On workstation it's true that normally a user don't use CDROM ( I
> > even remove CDROM from computers and just let floppy drives for network
> > installation and do everything by network ), but in desktop environment
> > users use CDROM all the time ... in the windows world.
>
> Please be more specific. "desktop" refers to anything besides servers,
> so in our network we have 60 "desktops" (you seem to refer to them as
> "workstations", but "workstation" usually has different connotations.
>
> On our 60 desktops, CD-ROMs are almost never used.
s/desktop/home
s/workstation/desktop
> > - Use an encyclopedia -> CDROM for installation and sometimes for
> > consultation.
> > - educative CDROM -> CDROM for installation and sometimes for usage
> > - gaming -> CDROM for instalation and sometimes for gaming
> > - audio -> CDROM for audio CD or mp3 CD
> > - Video -> CDROM for divx or DVD ( yes sometimes you'd rather burn CD
> > and put them in bag bag with the jacket of the film in order to keep all
> > the divx and freed space from your HD )
>
> Most of these are "home" uses, not necessarily applicable to all
> "desktop" uses.
idem
> > So you have many many possibilities when you could end up using your
> > CDROM in a desktop/normal usage.
>
> Sure. But it still doesn't belong in $HOME.
No it's apart
Home
Media ---> Floppy
|-> CDROM
Network ---> NFS
|-> SMB
> Think about a network setup, with NFS homes and remote X.
>
> If I have an app running on a remote machine, displaying on my local
> machine, where would $HOME/cdrom point to? This could be very confusing,
> as the same "location" in two different windows is different, with no
> easy distinction that the location is machine-specific.
you're right but i think that this could be solved
> > Linux limited set of available
> > applications that users can buy at WalMart/FNAC/Virgin/... should not
> > hide the fact that one time they will have to install things from
> > foreign sources and that this will be thanks to CDROM
> >
> > 4°/ A good sysadmin provides links on the desktop ( .desktop or symlinks
> > ) to the others NFS share so that the user don't need to browse in order
> > to find the files. When the user is logged, it should directly see where
> > are the files and not have to dig through the FHS to find something.
> > This increase learning curve.
> >
>
> I don't think this is ideal (IMHO). Many user work with full-screen
> windows, and hardly ever see the desktop. So, for Windows we just map
> drives. But, how is the user supposed to know which drive is which (even
> with the maximum comment we can fit in)? Under Linux, we just tell them
> to look in /home (and from there it's much easier than in Windows.
yes and no. When they are connected the first thing they see is ... the
Desktop. When they don't where is something, they start again from the
desktop.
> But, before you start advocating desktop links everywhere, maybe we need
> some solution to adding links to user's desktops that will actually work
> well (ie like Default User profile in Windows).
I think that having a directory in /usr/share/apps/applnk or in
/etc/skel could be interesting. But because of actual linux limitation
you will have to do some "bricolage" ( evil hack ). Using an LDAP/DB
backend could be interesting in order to store some settings ( what do
you want to display, where, with which icon/color scheme ) but at this
time it's impossible.
But for CDROM/Floppy ( removable media ) and NFS/... ( not really
permanent ) they system that KDE is using is very interesting. Now the
problem is having the ability to specify what you want to see and what
you don't want.
I'm against links everywhere ( symlinks ), I'd rather have virtual links
( see KDE links for CDROM/floppy/... or gnome vfs for
Home/CDROM/Floppy/Trash ), a virtual file system that can be customized
and allow to abstract things.
---
Rien n'est si dangereux qu'un ignorant ami ; Mieux vaudrait un sage
ennemi. -- Jean de La Fontaine, L'Ours et l'Amateur des jardins
