2nd part of message...
>Otoh, there is microsoft, who has the advantage you
>only have to bother
>about
>support and updates for most of your software. This
>has several
>disadantages
>(lock-in pe) but at least it looks all easy. A
>windows system is
>develloped
>to make the admin or the user as much as possible
>away from the
>internals
>(which gets the label'user friendlyness'). Indeed
>windows is not suited
>to
>mess with internals, which seems just fine for
end->users (hautainely
>called
>'clueless end-users' by so-called linux die-hards, I
>plead guilty to
>that sin
>every now and then). I don't think that this is just
>a point where
>linux (or
>unix) fails because interest in a user-friendly linux
>system has only
>grown
>recently.
Indeed it has, thats becuse expcially in the times
we are at, people want something different. Your
right, the best way on linux is to learn a lot of
stuff. However companies can't afford that, for an
end user desktop. With anything other than linux you
can have people that have never messed with a text
file, or configured anything at all, or even looked
inside the box, and be productive on the system.
Theres more, such as that while that mess of a windows
fhs, it is good for one thing, keeping the user away
from the system, the user doesn't ever see the system,
unlike in linux. Thats why the wrapover of the linux
fhs.
Home
Drives
Programs
Linux
This is much more confortable to other system users.
Even though an admin will see the linux directory
strucure.
>If you make something easier 'under the deck' it
>means making
>it
>less powerful.
Not nessisarily. You construct your system using
middlemen, and the middleman seperates the linux from
the user, were not talking about remove a feature
someone might want, were talking about rather making
admin less of a user as it is a system, the user never
sees what the admin sees, for lack of a better way of
putting it, the user is enclosed in this happy little
world, where they dont need to know anything, and the
admin is faced with the system.
>The real problem is I think a double problem.
>1) it is hard to configure something just
>superficially, often a user
>must
>take action, read man pages, take hours of
>configging, especcially new
>users
>who aren't used to this way of working. I follow a
>local linux news
>group and
>it's allways gessing if this particular new user will
>start to love the
>neat
>design of his shiny new linux system (it has a neat
>design imho) before
>he
>gets fed up and frustrated with it and gets back to
>windows, becoming a
>wintroll who never believes linux will ever be a
>serious alternative to
>windows or MacOS. Afterwards they still expect the
>same from linux as
>he has
>been expecting from windows so far: an easy to
>configure system, not a
>very
>powerful one with lots of options, freedom, quality
>and general good
>design.
This is why i was talking about middlemen.
Also think about something for a moment. If linux
structures everything from root, meaning that root is
imortant to the system and the further up you go the
more important to the user. Why not structure levels
like that also. Some things are much more important
to the root user than they are to the end user. end
users don't want to know about services, or even how
to configure, they just want to keep their job, so
their boss doesn't fire them. :-)
>Windows allows to configure things just
>superficially, allways with a
>clean
>looking gui - eventually the config may break after a
>while, but it
>sure was
>easy to configure.
>2) As allready stated above: wild-growth.
>Documentation, if any decent
>guides
>exist in an intellegible language, take some skills
>to find and combine
>for
>three different pieces of documentation to fill each
>other's gaps.
>There is
>no fixed route that a user must follow to work
>himself through his
>system in
>a painless way. I am 200 % sure this can in no way be
>fixed with a new
>distro. We don't need more distro's with just an
>extra feature (easy
>configuration of thin clients in this case). Existing
>distro's need to
>improve. Granted that in the end your ltsp may end up
>as a
>debconf-enabled
>package in a quality distro, or as an addendum in the
>row of *drakes.
>You
>can't sell that I suppose...
Linux needs so much more documentation it isn't
even funny. What do you mean a distro can't make
documentation. Anyone who has a heart to do it, can
make docummentation. On the same level as
documentation, which most of it is written so a
programmer would understand it, is tutorials. Almost
everything i've ever seen shows in one form or another
how to use the program, without reading a manual or
anything else. Its usually in the help menu, right
were it should be, along with nice searchable help
"documentation".
>Another point that increases the impossibility to
>make such a distro.
>It must
>be able to run on different architectures. I'm pretty
>sure people who
>currently run alpha's and sun sparcs, x86 (both ia32
>and ia64!), hp
>machines,
> and so on for application servers are an important
>target group. some
>may
>even try clusters of macintoshes, They need a tested
>and reliable
>distribution for their ltsp. And those machines cost
>a HELL a lot of
>money.
>It's the reason Redhat stopped sith their sparc port
>at 6.2, and redhat
>is a
>sucesful distro no? Now doesn't that set your hair on
>ends? :-)
Actually, redhat still has an insane price
schedule. When your not making cost, you don't do
something. That is, i supose what redhat decided not
to do.
I find that most distros, while offering for different
platforms, don't always do something right. Its
called optimization. Say for instance, a component
for a 386, optimization for a 386 will work on a 686,
but not as efficently. We even want to do the
greatest optimization that works, for different
archectures. And, in reality that isn't as bad as it
seams, yea, they are expensive, but it's only an
expence. BTW, my first computer was the apple elsee,
or whatever they called it, it was a womans name.
This is important for us to do those other systems.
However, in redhats case, i think they used the same
price schedule for any type of archatecture. Nobody
does that in the real world, you price by importance.
ArtimisOS will be just as free "read fredom" to use it
on all there systems, however the sparc version will
cost more, than say for a 686.
>As for the example about menu's I think you're
>underestimating the
>power of
>linux' user-friendlyness here ;-). Your ideal sounds
>a lot like the
>system V
>init scripts. Just in case you were talking about
>window manager menu's
>(I
><don't use menu's because having kde's or gnome's
alt->F2 shortcut,
>windowmakers 'run' box or the E-run epplet for
>Enlightenment works
>faster for
>me; so I didn't really study the 'internals' of this
>system yet):
>mandrake
>and debian share a lot of their menu architecture. At
>least that's what
>I
>conclude from meeting the name 'debian' in mandrake's
>man pages :-) .
>Packages in debian can add menu items >to
/usr/lib/menu. Users can add
>items
>to /etc/menu. The command 'updatemenu' regenerates
>every menu. Since
>the
>syntax of the stuff in /etc/menu is pretty arcane,
>mandrake hes written
>a
>nice graphical frontend to it: menudrake, one of the
>many drakes. It
>works
>like a charm.
This is exactly what i mean, you just have to add it,
minus the "update menu" or the syntax. All you have
to do is symlink and the menu picks it up. Gnome to
my understanding also has the same idea. And
hopefully will be implemented at some point.
> I never said that i didn't have a company in the
>first
> place. Maybe we only have to train tech support,
> because we already have the support, oh my we also
pay
> developers... scary. Also maybe another person is
Ah-ha! ;-)
What do you sell, linux support?
We do a lot of things... Mainly I can speak on my
role, mostly im a jack-of-all. I deal in Security,
Webprogramming, and company technology direction ( Im
the CIO ).
Mainly this comes to another point, the different
server types of the ArtimisOS will have a nice
intranet feature, not the normal intranet, just best
word i can come up with. An online cmr solution,
(quite a bit like "goldmine", time management,
calender, file maping/storage, etc. etc. etc. Even an
online word processor.
> right in this, that linux and unix is to broke to
fix,
>Unix is not broke. Not at all. We have a firm house
>with strong walls,
>ceilings and floor, built by coopertation rather then
>by a central
>coordination mechanism. There is just no soft sweet
>carpet ubder which
>one
>can hide the crap the building is made off. Ok strong
>comparison but
>you get
>the point I think :-)
Your right, but were so far doing good at putting
in the drywall.. :-)
Also a lot of the centeral coordination is being
fixed, by people like the fsf. I think it is a good
idea to do have centeral coordination.
> and that we should work with something else, maybe
> thats right, well see, but i think linux is healthy,
> if misdirected under the hood. Lastly above hood,
it
> isnt about creating a new package manager, like
> sorcerer (they guy that said that was right, it is
> weird). Nor is it about denying people programs, we
> just dont think its right to have 3 of each in an
> initial build, if you don't like the default one,
put
> another in, we'll still even suport it, 3 is just
> stupid as a default.
>How do a few cd-roms of packages for each of about 5
>or 6 architectures
>sound?
Just fine, we just have no plans of installing it all
on the first run. :-) You can also get those packages
off the web. Oh yea, for the people that have
winmodems, etc. etc. all the windirvers that we can
find, and have permission to distribute will be
included, so that people with winmodems will also be
able to get those packages off the net if they so
choose.
I imaging, we will create more drivers some day,
however i think I have everyone pretty busy right now.
Exavier Scott
--
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