Bug#391118: closed by Holger Levsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (closing)
2008/9/11 Holger Levsen wrote: ... > it's actually not useful (to have this feature implemented). > > If pressing a key accellerates the repeat, how would you know how long to > press the key? Also, if you want to delete multiple lines/words of text, > there are smarter ways to do it. (Be it in your shell or in an editor.) ... What you said makes sense. Now that I have read your argument, I see that keyboard acceleration is a bad idea. Thank you for discussing this with #debian-devel, and sorry to have wasted your time suggesting what turns out to have been a bad idea. :) -Jason -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How can the OS autodetect that a user is a newbie and offer help?
2006/10/17, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 01:02:45PM +, Jason Spiro wrote:
I remember back in 2000 providing a Debian package called 'ayuda' ('help', in
Spanish) developed by members of my local IEEE Student Branch. This package
included just a simple shell script ('ayuda') and a number of text files.
When the script was called it would show up a dialog(1) menu a user could
navigate and use to access the manuals included. Manuals were ordered in
'user', 'admin' and 'programming' topics. The 'user' topic would tell him how
to use shell commands, read e-mail, use a text editor (Joe, Vi or Emacs), and
configure his environment.
I found out today: There is a similar utility for Slackware called
slackhelp at http://freshmeat.net/redir/slackhelp/57881/url_homepage/slackhelp.
It is ncurses-based and it is in Portugese only. If you want to try
it, untar the Slackware .tgz package file to /tmp then look in
/tmp/usr/bin and /tmp/usr/doc.
From the Freshmeat description:
Slackhelp is software made in dialog to help users with problems on
diverse subjects in the universe of the Slackware system, supplying an
interactive and objective menu as a form of access to the tutorial
ones. All the tutorials contained have been taken from the proper
Slacklife.com.br page, and the tutorials considered of greater
importance have been selected and classified. These tutorials range
from initial commands for laypeople in Linux to texts for more
advanced users, including assembly of servers, all written in simple
language and easy to use.
--
Jason Spiro: computer consulting with a smile.
I also provide training and spyware removal services for homes and businesses.
Call or email for a FREE 5-minute consultation. Satisfaction guaranteed.
416-781-5938 / Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How can the OS autodetect that a user is a newbie and offer help?
[I have snipped everything except the words I am replying to.]
2006/10/17, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I think 'help' is by far the most common one ('?' might be close too).
Currently 'help' brings bash's help which might not be what a newbie
expected. Some (older?) people might even try pressing F1 and see what
happens [0].
In xterm my F1 key causes a beep. Perhaps there's a way to remap the
F1 key in bash and/or readline?
I remember back in 2000 providing a Debian package called 'ayuda' ('help', in
Spanish) developed by members of my local IEEE Student Branch. This package
included just a simple shell script ('ayuda') and a number of text files.
When the script was called it would show up a dialog(1) menu a user could
navigate and use to access the manuals included. ...
I guess it would be nice to have something similar.
Interesting idea. But, since a) most people have web access nowadays
and b) people with no web access in a new Linux install can reboot
into Windows if they need web access, therefore I personally wouldn't
want to maintain such a package. Of course, you could get such a
script into Debian yourself (maybe in package debian-goodies or
elsewhere) if you wanted.
> What would be a good help text to offer when a user types a command that
> indicates he/she is a newbie? Also, what package should I file a
> wishlist against to request that such help be added?
Since there is no package providing that tool I would say 'general'. However,
filing bugs vs. general doesn't mean they will get fixed by themselves. I
think that it would be much better if somebody sat down and wrote a "Debian
help" system that provided some Debian-specific things and integrated
properly with both gnome-help and khelpcenter.
Is more Debian-specific help really needed for KDE/Gnome users? IIRC
Synaptic comes with Gnome help files. Also, there are already lots of
HTML-format manuals for Debian.
[2] Bonus points if someone figures a way to l10n that 'help' call, since
non-english spearkers might write something different such as: 'ayuda',
'hilfe', 'aide', 'aiuto', 'ajuda', etc.
I really like that idea.
Cheers,
Jason
--
Jason Spiro: computer consulting with a smile.
I also provide training and spyware removal services for homes and businesses.
Call or email for a FREE 5-minute consultation. Satisfaction guaranteed.
416-781-5938 / Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[no subject]
retitle 376431 RFP: openwatcom -- C/C++ compiler/IDE that make efficient, portable code submitter 376431 [EMAIL PROTECTED] severity 376431 wishlist thanks It looks unlikely I will manage to package this. It's too big a package to deal with as my first package ever. Open Watcom is complex; it does not use autoconf; and nobody has ever packaged the Linux port of Open Watcom before. Main issues include: - Open Watcom 1.5 does not seem to build on Linux. 1.4 and the dailies seem to build fine though. - the license (though they don't have to make that many changes to it - see thread on debian-legal) - paths and $WATCOM (Open Watcom expects the $WATCOM variable to be set, which conflicts with policy) - where will the data files go? surely not in /usr/local/watcom, right? - there has been some argument in the past in news://news.openwatcom.org/openwatcom.contributors about how the paths should be arranged. - there'd be a lot of manpages to write. and forget the idea of using help2man, openwatcom help is not in the proper format I think the first thing for whoever wants to package this to do would be to work with the upstream committers to deal with 2 things: the license (my advice: try to get it in non-free first, GPL idea can wait till later) and the path issue. In my opinion, the paths issue should be dealt with later on, in private and not on a public mailing list, so as to avoid starting a flamewar. If someone else decides to try take a stab at it, I'd love to hear your progress and I might be interested in co-maintaining. Also, if someone wants my .diff.gz with a debian/rules, a debian/control, and which modifies wcc, wcc386, and part of wlink to look in other paths, email me. The changes the .diff.gz makes aren't that well-written though. Cheers, Jason change ITP to RFP
Re: How can the OS autodetect that a user is a newbie and offer help?
On 2006-10-17, Goswin von Brederlow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [snip] > > Anyway, the usual way to detect a newbie and give help to them seems > to be to assume everyone a newbie and give little hints, startup tips, > ... till they learn enough to turn them off. For examples see gimp or > mc. > > PS: One of the hints better be how to turn the hints off. :) Someone suggested to me off-list that perhaps all we need is to provide a pointer to more newbie help in /etc/issue. Perhaps that would be the easiest to implement, and the easiest for users to disable :-), no? The disadvantage would be that users who have X Window plus KDM already set up, or who SSH into a friend's machine, who need help with linux commands in an xterm wouldn't see the message, but I assume that is a rare case so just editing /etc/issue and /etc/issue.net is fine. Agree? If the issue file were changed, what could go in it? I suggest: * one link to a special webpage which points total newbies to newbie documentation and also gives newbie-level instructions on how to get technical support * also, instructions how to view one offline-viewable Linux *tutorial* which is already installed - preferably a good one, but even the bad old intro(1) manpage if there is no good one. Also, perhaps it'd be possible for the bash "help" command to display those same two things in addition to the terse reference it already displays. What do you think? -- The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will walk carefully. -- Russian Proverb -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How can the OS autodetect that a user is a newbie and offer help?
On 2006-10-17, Mario Iseli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > We could start together a project which does this shell scripts, I think > it's not really a lot of work. Don't file a bug, first we can do a > "linuxnewbie" program and someone (maybe myself) will build a debian > package one day. Has anyone ever done anything similar before? What does policy say about the idea of modifying users' PATH statements? I vaguely remember reading an ITP or something for colorwrapper, a program which colorizes the output of ps, date, dmesg, etc. which I think requires changing the user's path. But I don't remember what ended up happening. What should the help message we display say? > For me there's only one point: > We have to make sure that advanced users DO NOT get this bothering > messages. How? :-) And will it matter, if it only affects commands like 'kde', 'gnome', 'move', 'ren', and 'delete' which currently just say "bash: command not found"? --Jason -- The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will walk carefully. -- Russian Proverb -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
How can the OS autodetect that a user is a newbie and offer help?
Hi all, I believe that since command-line Linux is hard to learn, Debian should offer handholding. (This would benefit both Debian users who are new to the command line and How can the OS autodetect that a user is a newbie and offer help? For example, when a person types newbie commands like "help" or "kde" (which is bound to something already) or the DOS commands "del" or "ren" (which are not), we should point them to more help. (In case anyone here has ever watched a real clueless newbie struggle: What are other commands that 100% clueless newbies often type?) For example, there are various Linux command-line mode tutorials out there. There are also the manuals linked to from debian.org. Plus there are tons of good quick reference cards; I do some tutoring and the one I recommend most often to my clients is "The One Page Linux Manual". There's even an interactive Java-based tutorial on the Web (Google for linux interactive tutorial). There is also our support webpage that points users to the mailing lists and IRC. Finally, for those without cheap web access, there are documents such as debian-reference-en and quick-reference-en, though they're Priority: optional and so unlikely to be installed. What would be a good help text to offer when a user types a command that indicates he/she is a newbie? Also, what package should I file a wishlist against to request that such help be added? Regards, Jason Spiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will walk carefully. -- Russian Proverb -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian Love
Le 24-09-2006, John Goerzen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit : > Several people have mentioned this thread on planet, but I think it > merits mention here: > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2006/09/msg01922.html Mozilla have a feedback form on the web that, when you click "Submit", posts your message to the newsgroup mozilla.feedback. IIRC, the form was created to reduce the number of useless bug reports submitted by newbies (e.g. no set of steps to reproduce). It was necessary because Firefox is such a public project with such a wide userbase of mostly non-Unix experts. Perhaps Debian, too, should have such a form, that could submit to a newsgroup or searchable mailing list? It could hold both usability and other feedback from new Debian users. Note: IANADD. -- When you open Windows, bugs get in! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: sim package naming
Alexander Petrov gmail.com> wrote: > I think naming default version 'sim-kde' is wrong, because the name is > not intuitive to a user, who just wants to have an IM installed, and > who doesn't want to bother with libraries used by the program Now that I think of it that way, I take back my previous idea. :-) I now see that naming it 'sim-kde' would indeed be wrong. Regards, Jason -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: sim package naming
Le 03-07-2006, Alexander Petrov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit : > Hello, > > I maintain sim package - Simple Instant Messenger, http://sim-im.org/ . > The package is compiled with kde libraries. Users demand to create one > more binary package - compiled with qt only. > I would like to use 'sim' package name for kde version and 'sim-qt' > for qt-only version. > Is it ok? > I am a newbie here, but I am just curious, why do there need to be two different versions? Isn't a QT version enough? Also, if not, could the QT version use dlopen() or some such to determine if the KDE libs are present at runtime, and load them if they are? Also, wouldn't it be less confusing if the packages were named sim-kde and sim-qt? Cheers, Jason Spiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- When you open Windows, bugs get in! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: ITP: openwatcom -- C/C++ compiler and IDE that produce efficient, portable code
Le 03-07-2006, Sebastian Harl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit : > > On the website it says it's a cross compiler, that is to say you can produce > code for different target platforms on one host platform. > > Maybe you should change the description to something like "C/C++ cross > compilers and IDE". Saying that a compiler produces portable code is wrong > imho (Even the Java compiler does not really produce portable code - the Ja= > va > binary code only runs on the Java VM. The Java VM itself is portable though= >=2E). Good point. I have fixed my debian/control file as shown below. - Source: openwatcom Section: devel Priority: extra Maintainer: Jason Spiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Standards-Version: 3.7.2.0 Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 5) Package: openwatcom Architecture: any Description: C/C++ cross-compiler and IDE that produce efficient code Open Watcom includes a C/C++ IDE and a full set of command-line tools for compilation, including the superb Watcom debugger. It emits easy-to-understand errors and warnings when things go wrong. Current outstanding issues include imperfect template support and an inability to dynamically link with shared libraries built by GCC. Also, the debugger does not seem to work properly in Linux. The Open Watcom Fortran compiler is not included in this package. The Open Watcom instruction manuals are also not included in this package; most of the manuals are available for viewing on the web. . Open Watcom generates well-optimized statically linked binaries for Linux, Win32, Win16, OS/2, QNX, NetWare, and DOS real and protected mode, among other targets. Open Watcom is known to work on the i386 platform. In the past, it has also supported other platforms, including PowerPC, SPARC, MIPS, and Alpha AXP, and may still work on those platforms as well. - In case you are wondering, openwatcom has no dependencies. The Watcom compiler and other binaries are statically linked with the bits of the Watcom runtime that they depend on. The Watcom tradition has always been static linking. -- When you open Windows, bugs get in! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: ITP: openwatcom -- C/C++ compiler and IDE that produce efficient, portable code
Le 03-07-2006, Lars Wirzenius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit : > su, 2006-07-02 kello 18:17 -0400, Jason Spiro kirjoitti: >> Description : C/C++ compiler and IDE that produce efficient, portable >> code > > What does it mean for a compiler to produce portable code? > Good question. I do not have personal experience with this, but I am told you can write your code once and then recompile it for a wide variety of platforms, including DOS and various embedded boards, with few or no modifications. The runtime provides nice features that old platforms like DOS don't provide. Hmmm, I wonder if the runtime is portable to Mac OS X on Intel CPUs... Cheers, Jason [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- When you open Windows, bugs get in! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ITP: openwatcom -- C/C++ compiler and IDE that produce efficient, portable code
Package: wnpp Severity: wishlist * Package name: openwatcom Version : I plan to do version 1.4 (or 1.6, if it comes out soon) Upstream Author : an independent team of volunteer contributors * URL : http://www.openwatcom.org/ * License : Sybase Open Watcom Public License 1.0 (it is OSI-approved) Description : C/C++ compiler and IDE that produce efficient, portable code Open Watcom includes a C/C++ IDE and a full set of command-line tools for compilation, including the superb Watcom debugger. It emits easy-to-understand errors and warnings when things go wrong. Current outstanding issues include imperfect template support and an inability to dynamically link with shared libraries built by GCC. These will be fixed sooner if you help. :-) There is also an Open Watcom Fortran 77 compiler, but I probably won't package it. I might package the full manual set, or I may just ship the PDFs on the website. I have not checked if the docs are Free or non-Free. Help Wanted === I have started work on the openwatcom package already. If someone is interested in co-maintaining or helping out with it or with an openwatcom-doc package (which may have to go into non-free), please email me. Will I succeed in getting Open Watcom into Debian? == I am not a Debian Developer, and I have never built a Debian package before. Based on the challenges involved, I do not know if I will succeed in making a policy-compliant package: * Open Watcom is a huge package, and it does not use autoconf or automake. It is built using Watcom tools called wmake and builder. Luckily, wmake and pbuilder can be built using GCC / G++. * Open Watcom requires various environment variables to be set before use, which goes against Debian policy. I hope not to use shell scripts wrapping each binary and checking that $WATCOM is set; IMO that would be too big a kludge. Instead, I hope to address this issue by patching the source code, as I have started to do already with the owcc tool. In sum, I do not know if I will succeed in building a finished package or not. If you are curious about how the work is going at any point, or if you want a copy of my work so far, please feel free to email me. The package I have built so far currently installs OK and seems to work for basic use. However, the it installs a bunch of non-executable files to /usr/bin, has no real README, and has many other problems. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
