User Feedback :: Moving Forward - What's Your Desire?



DSL *is* "user friendly".

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What DSL *is not* is "Windows user friendly", and I like it that way. However, there are some resemblances, enough to make a Windows user think it is viewing something familiar, but that is it, just a bonus, something to be glad at, not the main goal. Besides, Windows interface plainly sucks: the whole idea of floating windows you have to move and resize almost every time is sick and ill-minded. Folders in the desktop is even worse, you have to minimize every window just because there is not a "home directory" culture and way of thinking.
</rant>
Quote (mikshaw @ May 07 2007,10:08)
I think the "create tar.gz from source" touches on that subject.

Thanks, Mikshaw. I hadn't seen that (although I'm not sure it addresses how icons copied to .xtdesktop get removed on reboot).
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I forgot Linspire / Freespire in my list of ground-breaking, truly friendly Linux distros.
Mikshaw, what do you think makes DS less friendly than Puppy?  It is,  in case you don't know.


Again, as so many people have repeated, "friendly" is subjective. What you are describing is, as MakodFilu just put it, "Windows user friendly". Linspire was created specifically for users who want the Windows version of friendly. You obviously fall into that category. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but I'm just trying to get you to understand that Linux is not, and never will be, Windows, and many Linux developers (and users) have a very different view of what defines friendly. It's not being elitist or arrogant to suggest staying with Windows, or choosing a distro that is more like Windows, if that's what you like...it's just being logical. I came from Windows myself, and of course it was a rather steep climb over the first few hills. I did not, however, expect it to behave like Windows. In fact, I was surprised that the most popular distros were much more like Windows than expected.

I don't know much about Puppy, apart from a very short test of Grafpup, so I have no opinion of that.

EDIT: there is one thing mentioned a lot by the "user friendly" people, and that is that Windows and Mac are both designed with the concept of "just getting your work done and not tinkering around".  I can't argue with that, and I can't deny that most people who use Linux regularly seem to have at least a little bit of tinkerer in them. Personally I love to tinker, and I honestly might still be using Windows if I didn't enjoy messing around with the operating system. After becoming used to Linux, though, I wouldn't ever go back even if I suddenly lost the tinker gene. Just having the freedom from spyware, constant virus checks, pushy software developers, and instability is enough to keep me here.
Maybe we could change the topic back to what works best, and forget the "friendly to the masses" thing all together.  Trying to please the masses only means one thing: lowering the quality. It's that way in art, music, theater, literature, journalism, science, politics, and even religion. There's only one reason to even attempt to please the "masses," and that's to make money.  Now if there was, in fact, any money in DSL, Robert would be rich by now and the DSL store  would be in the process of being acquired by Walmarts.
mikshaw:
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I don't know much about Puppy, apart from a very short test of Grafpup, so I have no opinion of that.

I've played around with Puppy a little more the last couple days. There are some things about it I find commendable (such as wizards for everything and unified dialogs for various things that should be grouped together) and some things inexcusable -- and I suspect those things are done at the expense of making it easier.

Such as:
- Puppy runs as user root. Win95 users will feel right at home with it.
- Puppy loads to RAM by default.
- Even though it's a "small" distro, it's not oriented to staying light (look at the community offerings of KDE, etc.).
Etc.

Also, about your edit about Macs and Windows: I don't think either is particularly maintenance-free. I "tinkered" with more registries, ini files, etc., than I ever wanted to -- and that was out of necessity, not just the sake of tinkering. Macs aren't always user-friendly or tinker-free, either:
http://www.macfixitforums.com/

jpeters:
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Maybe we could change the topic back to what works best, and forget the "friendly to the masses" thing all together.  Trying to please the masses only means one thing: lowering the quality.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive -- I think they actually go hand-in-hand. New users come with the territory when things work better, more easily, and more efficiently. Innovation and development reduce the learning curve for others who are hindered by certain levels of technology. I don't find that something to avoid, but something that should be embraced.

What makes things easier for "the masses" also improves things even for those who are comfortable in the console. If nothing else, the masses buying computers and peripherals and using the Internet at the rate they have over the last 15 years has spurred the industry so we're no longer paying as much (or more) for slow computers than new cars cost and we're using CDs, DVDs, and USB sticks instead of floppies and even Zip drives. I don't think quality has suffered one bit at the expense of user-friendliness. If anything, it's improved greatly.
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