Holly Bostick wrote:
Matt Randolph schreef:
I don't think Knoppix really has an administrator. It really is an
enduser only flavour of Linux. It's sort of a "fire and forget"
distro. Sure, someone had to go to a lot of trouble to get it set up
just right in the first place, but once that was done it can perform
reliably without further administrative intervention. The enduser
not only probably won't set the root password, the enduser doesn't
even need to know that it is unset. Or even that a root account
exists!
Interesting. But again, *someone* had to administer the system to set it
up so that a user could be 'pure'.
It sounds like we are in agreement on this point. We both state that
someone had (past tense) to administer the system... at some point in
time. We also both state (or imply) that the enduser doesn't take up
the role of administrator. Is it possible to have any sort of computer
that hasn't felt the effects of an administrator? Of course not. Any
device of any significant complexity can only exist by the labors of
some knowledgeable persons. I don't think anyone is trying to say the
opposite.
But does the Knoppix user's system have an administrator NOW? I say it
does not. It has been configured by an admin... heck, the OS was
installed to it's filesystem by an admin... but there is no admin
looking over the shoulder of the Knoppix user.
I don't believe this sort of user experience is limited to read-only
systems like Knoppix, though. Look at Lindows/Linspire. How about
those $200 Linux computers they are (or were) selling at Wal*Mart
(strewth!). I expect those machines ARE intended to provide the
enduser with an essentially administratorless (to coin a word)
experience. Linspire (at least used to) have the user running
everything as root. But do you think the enduser always knows that? I
think the enduser simply knows that when they pay to install
OpenOffice.org from Linspire's private apt servers, it just works; it
installs without their ever having to `su` or `sudo` or anything.
That Linspire user essentially is the admin, though she doesn't know
it and she almost certainly doesn't behave like one.
And many now question whether Linspire can even be called a Linux
distribution for this and other reasons, despite the fact that it runs
on a Linux kernel. We're all wondering if that is then the only
requirement, or does it also need to follow 'the rules' to be counted?
But that's a whole 'nother discussion.
I didn't mean to imply that Linspire is a proper Linux distribution. It
certainly doesn't follow 'the rules' of a proper operating system. But
neither does Windows for that matter (and for much the same reasons).
Knoppix doesn't follow the traditional 'rules' in that it is read-only.
Embedded versions of Linux don't follow 'the rules' in a sense because
the user might never interface with the OS at all, merely a single
application instead. Linspire IS trying to follow a set of rules.
Specifically, the ones Windows goes by. So doesn't that mean that
Linspire is at least as valid an OS as Windows is?
No, Linspire is not proper Linux, but it is bringing the kernel and
Linux apps into some peoples homes. It may not be bringing the
traditions, the behaviors, or the ways of thinking that are a part of
Linux, but those may come with time to those that seek them. But even
if they never did, why should certain sorts of people be prevented from
using Linux just because they aren't clever enough or are too busy to do
it properly? Some people will never learn more than the basics of
operating a computer. If those people are forced to chose between
learning to use a proper OS properly versus using a typewriter, they'll
start dusting off the old Selectric.
I have heard rumors that some futurists are predicting the death of the
PC in the not too distant future. Instead of PCs they predict people
will use weird multi-function mobile phone devices with speech
recognition interfaces. Will you want to have to log in to your mobile
in order to answer it? Will you want to have to create a cron job to
get it to download your email? But don't you want it to be Linux-based
anyway?
What I think I hear you saying is that being able to get away with
this foolish behavior should not be one of our goals. I did not mean
to imply that careless hardware shopping should be encouraged.
Rather, I used this as an example to try to illustrate how lacking
driver support slows the growth of Linux. If Linux is going to grow
it's user base significantly, it's probably going to have to attract
quite a few of those careless boobs too. And if Linux can't be made
to work on their hardware, do you think they are going to run out
and buy a new computer or will they simply rethink the decision to
try Linux?
Although careless hardware shopping should not be encouraged, being
able to get away with it (that is, having nearly ubiquitous hardware
support) should indeed be one of our goals.
OK, I understand that, but... how exactly is allowing one to 'get away'
with such behaviour not 'encouraging' such behaviour?
If one has always been able to 'get away' with any behaviour, why would
one think that any other behaviour is possible?
In my town it is the custom to drive ten to fifteen miles per hour over
the speed limit. Almost everybody does it. You're much more likely to
see someone greatly exceeding the limit than you are to find someone
strictly obeying it. By allowing people to get away with this scofflaw
behavior, do you mean to imply that the police are actively encouraging
it some how? Do you honestly believe a single one of those motorists
doesn't know they are breaking the law? Or that it is even possible to
drive more slowly? So which is it? When they put out limit signs and
mentions of fines, but then don't pull you over for every little
violation, are they encouraging or discouraging speeding?
I think I see what you're driving at, though. What I hear you saying is
that whenever someone gets away with a thing, they will invariably feel
encouraged to do it again. I feel, however, that this "encouragement"
is distinctly different from encouragement with the intent to
encourage. The latter is the result of an action while the former is
the result of an inaction. Encouraging is not the same as not
discouraging. Some people are encouraged to speed by the lax
enforcement, while others are discouraged from speeding by the signs and
a desire to obey the law. Whether one is encouraged to be a lawbreaker
or not varies from one person to the next. There is nothing invariable
about it.
But we're not really talking about cars here. We're talking about
buying hardware and the availability of drivers for a particular
operating system. Do you mean to imply that carefree hardware buying is
such an evil that we must ensure that the behavior never goes
unpunished? To me that would mean that hardware manufacturers would
have to be DIScouraged from releasing Linux drivers so that every
hardware purchase by the uninformed would be a total crap shoot.
Allowing people to get away with careless shopping is an unavoidable
consequence of having universal hardware support. If we labor to obtain
the latter, we will be enabling the former poor behavior by default.
But if Linux actually had 100% complete universal hardware support,
failing to look for an OS compatibility sticker would no longer BE poor
behavior. It would have become unnecessary entirely.
Ubiquitous hardware support, on the one hand, is closer than you think
(there's not all that much hardware that cannot, no matter what you do,
be made to work under Linux; it's just not that it all "JustWorks"), and on
the other hand is less relevant than you think (I have drivers that
enable my ATI card to 'work' under Linux, but they suck, so whose fault
is that? Not Linux's. Nor is it Linux's fault if I plug in my digicam
and it is mounted, but I don't know how to get the dv output into Kino,
or can't figure out how to properly mount my perfectly-well-detected
Flash card to get my pictures into whatever graphics display or editing
program I might use). The hardware works fine. But that's no help if I
can't understand how to use it, or can't use it effectively.
You're right. Hardware support has come a long way. Knoppix, for
instance, is awesome. More often than not, it really does "just work."
But I do not believe that having even basic hardware support is as
irrelevant as you seem to suggest. Are you not better off having crappy
support from ATI than you would be if you had none?
But I'm not wishing for poorly written or incomplete drivers. When I
say that a piece of hardware has Linux support, I mean that it "runs"
not "crawls" (to quote Mr. Knecht, I believe).
If your digicam is mounted but you cannot get the contents into Kino,
are you really getting support from the manufacturer? Shouldn't support
for Linux include instructions on how to get it to work with Linux? If
some insanely talented hacker/engineer reverse engineers your camera's
interface and adds it to the kernel, yet no Howto exists to show you how
to use it, do you really have "support?" I was talking about driver
support but I guess I really meant to be talking about complete support:
driver support, software support, technical support, the whole package
the Windows folks get. If we had that from hardware manufacturers,
Linux's growth would snowball.
And enabling some kind of efficient communication between the hardware
that is being properly detected by the kernel, and the programs the user
uses to utilize the device is a design issue, which is an administrative
task. If Wine/Cedega will run Morrowind using my ATI card under certain
configurations, but not others (or the 'default' config), then someone
has to be responsible for setting that up so that the user (who is also
me, of course) can just click an icon and run Morrowind. Hell, someone
has to make sure that the ATI drivers are installed in the first place--
and supposedly the user is never supposed to know about any of this, and
there should never be an admin, so who's supposed to do it then? The
Tooth Fairy?
As I understand it, in the case of Cedega, the someones responsible for
setting things up for a particular game are the techs at Transgaming.
In Wine, that someone is you, though hopefully someone else has posted
how they did it so you won't have to reinvent the wheel. But Windows
gamers often have to deal with administrative tasks too (and other
Windows endusers do as well). It happens quite often that a Windows
game has to be patched in order to work on a particular computer. The
enduser may have to seek help from the developers and follow their
instructions. Does this make the enduser the administrator? Or is the
administrator the one that solved the problem, made the patch, and wrote
the instructions?
I'm not saying "there should never be an admin" ever. But for certain
sorts of users, there need to be products that don't require that an
admin be present in order to keep things working properly (enough). If
a box is configured well and it can be made to be static, does it really
need an administrator? What if that box is a refrigerator, a video game
console, or even a non-networked PC? I think that a Linux appliance
like one of these can and should be able to be used without the further
help of an admin.
The fact that you may be able to "Plug and Play" does not remove the
necessity that administration must occur: under Windows, a Wizard does
it, in an enterprise situation, IT does it, under SuSE, maybe YaST does
it, under Gentoo, you do it (or Mark does it for you :) ).
But the fact that at some point somebody has to be responsible for
administration is inescapable, and I feel that saying that's wrong
somehow is... wrong.
"[S]omeone had to go to a lot of trouble to get it set up just right in
the first place, but once that was done it can perform reliably without
further administrative intervention," is what I said about Knoppix.
There was an admin, but there isn't one now. I don't know what I said
that led you to believe I thought something different.
The more that is asked of a system, the more administering must be done
to it. A video game console with a Linux OS only has to do one thing.
As a result, it will require essentially no administrative
intervention. An enterprise web server has to do more things than I can
count. As a result, it has to be closely watched and fiddled with to
keep things running smoothly. Somewhere in between is the Linspire
desktop. If all it has to do is write documents, send emails, and surf
the web, then little more than security updates would need to be
performed (by cron, even) to keep it going. But if you actually want to
use your computer AS a computer instead of an appliance, then a
different distro would be a better choice and somebody is going to need
to administer things.
Because it's a limit of technology, and pretending that such limits
don't exist (or worse yet, attempting to conceal such limits) seems very
very unwise to me.
I agree that the limitations of a technology should be made aware to its
users and it should be done in such a way that they will comprehend
those limitations. But does that mean that trying to make simple
systems that don't require constant babysitting by flesh and blood
administrators is automatically a bad idea simply because it shields the
enduser from the underlying mechanics?
I was not aware that any company was trying to encourage careless
hardware shopping. If knew it to be so, I'd be as unhappy about it
as you appear to be.
One word.... Winmodem (easiest possible example).
All winmodems are (naturally) marked that they work under Windows. How
many of them are marked that they *only* work under Windows,
All of them. The list of hardware and software requirements on each
package *only* indicates that it works under Windows. Granted, they
don't say "won't work with Linux," but they don't say "won't work with a
Cray," either. If you buy a piece of hardware and the manufacturer
didn't say it would work with your OS, and you can't get it to work with
your OS... then you're on your own.
because a
Winmodem is an incomplete piece of hardware, where the functioning of
certain physical chips (which are physically no longer present) are
replaced by software functions available only in the Windows Operating
System (because the Windows Operating System was specifically designed
with closed-source APIs to replace the functions of specific chips
formerly on the modem PCB)?
How many 'real' hardware modems (which have all the chips, and do not
replace any hardware functionality with OS-based functions) are
distinguished on their packaging from WinModems, or vice versa?
None that I've seen, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. I'm not
sure, but I think a proper external modem can be made to work with both
PC's and Macs. If so, it might even say so on the box. I believe I was
able to tell that my last (last as in final) modem was a proper one
because the box said it worked in DOS too.
And do you think that the 1) creation of, and 2) lack of disclosure on
the packaging of, such crippled hardware was somehow not 'encouraged' by
the company whose product's market share benefits the most from the
existance of such hardware (because the hardware seems to JustWork with
their software)? The benefit to the hardware companies, of course, is
that their product becomes cheaper to produce, since it requires less
chips... and there's little chance that the old PCB with all the chips
will need to make a reappearance, because the software being used to
replace the hardware functioning is eternal (not least because of the
manufacturer's new hardware design).
Do you really believe that some little Taiwanese company failing to
state "this product will not work without Windows," on a modem package
is evidence that Microsoft is up to no good? I'm not saying Microsoft
isn't. Of course they are. But I don't think they told hardware
manufacturers how to word the compatibility information on each box in
an effort to mislead those people who might want to switch from Windows
to Linux some day (and do it at 53Kbps to boot). Even if Winmodems DID
come with a warning about being unusable without Windows, do you really
think that would have affected sales appreciably? And why aren't there
Win-NICs, or Win-mice, or Win-hard drives? Granted, they may come with
the arrival of the Microsoft brand of Digital Rights Management. That
may even be the real reason they're moving towards DRM at all. But I
think the fact that the RIAA and the MPAA have been screaming their
heads off might have something to do with it too. ;-)
- Matt
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