Why software Sucks and What you Can Do About It Debate

[Gomer_X]

Let Linspire and Xandros make Linux for my Mom. Give me something that is usable to ME. Taking away choice and options and hiding the complicated parts (ala Windows and Mac OS) doesn't improve usability to me, and I'm just as important to Linux as my Mom (my Mom is dead, but you get the idea).

I've tested both SUSE, Fedora and Ubuntu on my mom, everyone of them worked fine, and they all work for me.

I think installation is an important issue, though. I don't think Fedora or SUSE are quite ready for Mom to install. I can't say about Ubuntu because I haven't installed it lately. Windows is too hard for Mom to install also, but we shouldn't use Windows as a measure of what is easy.

[Tsuroerusu]

Let Linspire and Xandros make Linux for my Mom. Give me something that is usable to ME. Taking away choice and options and hiding the complicated parts (ala Windows and Mac OS) doesn't improve usability to me, and I'm just as important to Linux as my Mom (my Mom is dead, but you get the idea).

I've tested both SUSE, Fedora and Ubuntu on my mom, everyone of them worked fine, and they all work for me.

I think installation is an important issue, though. I don't think Fedora or SUSE are quite ready for Mom to install. I can't say about Ubuntu because I haven't installed it lately. Windows is too hard for Mom to install also, but we shouldn't use Windows as a measure of what is easy.

I'd say my mom probably could install Ubuntu if I helped her past the partitioning part, but with regards to openSUSE and Fedora you're right, the installers of those are two long and too "big", in the sense that it ask for a lot of information, for any non-technical user.

However I stand by what I've said before, anyone who can install Windows can easily install either openSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva etc. etc.
Sure, Windows is not easy at all to install (I speak from experience trying to install it on a SATA drive), but there are quite a bunch of people out there who may not know how to tweak the Windows registry, but can install the OS and load the drivers.

[Vogateer]

Let Linspire and Xandros make Linux for my Mom. Give me something that is usable to ME. Taking away choice and options and hiding the complicated parts (ala Windows and Mac OS) doesn't improve usability to me, and I'm just as important to Linux as my Mom (my Mom is dead, but you get the idea).

I've tested both SUSE, Fedora and Ubuntu on my mom, everyone of them worked fine, and they all work for me.

I think installation is an important issue, though. I don't think Fedora or SUSE are quite ready for Mom to install. I can't say about Ubuntu because I haven't installed it lately. Windows is too hard for Mom to install also, but we shouldn't use Windows as a measure of what is easy.

I think that updates are important, since a broken update can bork a computer. I don't think installation is a big issue, since 85% of people don't install a single thing on their computers, those same 85% don't care how hard or easy it is to install something. If it isn't preinstalled or installed by a techie, it doesn't exist to the vast majority of users. I can't even get people using Windows to use Firefox after I install it for them. I'll tell them flat out, “Use Firefox, and you will avoid viruses or spyware that ruin your computer,” but the second I leave, they click on the big blue E.

[Tsuroerusu]

I've tested both SUSE, Fedora and Ubuntu on my mom, everyone of them worked fine, and they all work for me.

I think installation is an important issue, though. I don't think Fedora or SUSE are quite ready for Mom to install. I can't say about Ubuntu because I haven't installed it lately. Windows is too hard for Mom to install also, but we shouldn't use Windows as a measure of what is easy.

I think that updates are important, since a broken update can bork a computer. I don't think installation is a big issue, since 85% of people don't install a single thing on their computers, those same 85% don't care how hard or easy it is to install something. If it isn't preinstalled or installed by a techie, it doesn't exist to the vast majority of users. I can't even get people using Windows to use Firefox after I install it for them. I'll tell them flat out, “Use Firefox, and you will avoid viruses or spyware that ruin your computer,” but the second I leave, they click on the big blue E.

Dude, if people could go into Circuit City and buy a computer with Ubuntu installed they wouldn't even bother upgrading, they would just buy a new machine three years later! People don't upgrade!! The amount of people who are gonna buy Vista and upgrade their existing system and extremely small compared to the amount of users who are gonna get Vista on a new computer.

Speaking of that big blue E, whenever I install Firefox on somebody's computer, I make sure to remove the blue E from the desktop, and if it's a user who get scared of every damn dialog box, I either label the Firefox icon "Internet" or "Internet Explorer" and they don't notice any difference, besides the icon of the icon (WTF?).

[Vogateer]

Three years without an update seems like an awful long time just for security concerns. Most security vulnerabilities I see in Linux aren't remote, but all it takes is one to screw up someone's experience. I think a distribution targeting home users should attempt automatic updates on user's computer, but unless it's done with zero user-interaction, and either perfect or easily reversible, it's a bit of a scary thought. One Xorg breakage and people may never trust it again. I still want to hear more about Ulteo, and find out whether it might be great or just a bunch of hype. Most users don't want to administer their computers, and I'd like to see someone figure out a way to do so for them.

[Tsuroerusu]

Three years without an update seems like an awful long time just for security concerns. Most security vulnerabilities I see in Linux aren't remote, but all it takes is one to screw up someone's experience. I think a distribution targeting home users should attempt automatic updates on user's computer, but unless it's done with zero user-interaction, and either perfect or easily reversible, it's a bit of a scary thought. One Xorg breakage and people may never trust it again. I still want to hear more about Ulteo, and find out whether it might be great or just a bunch of hype. Most users don't want to administer their computers, and I'd like to see someone figure out a way to do so for them.

Are you referring to actual version upgrades of the distro itself or just security updates? I have yet to see a new user friendly distro that did not provide a mechanism for installing security and critical bugfix updates.

openSUSE has their new opensuse-updater, Ubuntu has their updater-notifier, Fedora has pupplet, you get the idea.

[Vogateer]

Yeah, sorry, I'm just referring to security updates. I appreciate those update notifications, but does the Opensuse update program require proactive user interaction? They all do, to my knowledge. At least on Ubuntu, you have to click on the little star up at the top, for which the icon is completely meaningless, and I think the Red Hat red bubble with exclamation point conveys the meaning better than anything else I can think of.

I think OS X may have a better method to this. I would think it better if a pop-up box came up on Ubuntu, perhaps greying out the rest of the screen, saying something like:

Ubuntu is ready to perform security updates:
Update Now | Ask Again Later.

This way the user doesn't have to be proactive, just reactive. I could be wrong, but this seems a better solution, particularly if it waits a couple of days to make sure an update hasn't been recalled or changed if some error got through testing.

[tarball]

Computers are one of (if not the most) complicated machines invented by humans and yet when it comes to using a computer, people are just too damn lazy to learn anything.

The problem with usability is that you can't please all the people all of the time. Which ever demographic you aim for will always alienate other groups.

An OS could easily be written with an interface that some who had never used a computer could start using straight away. However, any experienced computer user will shun this OS because it will be considered limiting and condescending.
Write an OS for the experienced user and novice users will shy away because the fear what they don't understand and any learning curve will appear too steep to bother.

All current OSs try to be a 'one hat fits all' and all fail in one aspect or another.

Non of the current OSs cater for the novice group (hence this discussion), the novices just have struggle with what is available.

The other part of the problem is finding subjects for usability studies that haven't been tainted by exposure to Windows.

Just my 2pence worth ... Ok, I'll shut up now.

[Tsuroerusu]

Yeah, sorry, I'm just referring to security updates.

OK, good, I just need to make sure.

I appreciate those update notifications, but does the Opensuse update program require proactive user interaction? They all do, to my knowledge. At least on Ubuntu, you have to click on the little star up at the top, for which the icon is completely meaningless, and I think the Red Hat red bubble with exclamation point conveys the meaning better than anything else I can think of.

This is pretty much how the new opensuse-updater program works, whenever it is checking for updates, the icon changes, and then if updates are found it pops up a little box saying that updates are available and gives the user to option to either click "Install" or "Ignore". If you click install it will launch the update component of YaST and then he or she needs to click "Accept", when the updates are all installed you can click "Close" and then you're done.
Please note that this updater is quite new, and still needs to be polished off. In the beginning it was written to do the updating itself, but they decided not to do that because then they had to maintain that and YaST itself, which would be a pain, so the updater just notifies the user of updates and launches YaST which does the actual updating.

And yes, YaST does work, albeit it's still not the fatest package manager around, in case you're curious.

I think OS X may have a better method to this. I would think it better if a pop-up box came up on Ubuntu, perhaps greying out the rest of the screen, saying something like:

Ubuntu is ready to perform security updates:
Update Now | Ask Again Later.

This way the user doesn't have to be proactive, just reactive. I could be wrong, but this seems a better solution, particularly if it waits a couple of days to make sure an update hasn't been recalled or changed if some error got through testing.

I have only tried Mac OS X for about 8 or 9 hours before I threw it out, it annoyed the freaking hell outta me, I hate that operating system, and I won't install it ever again. I don't need a DRM appliance, I want a computer.
I have never experience Mac OS X actually notifying me of updates, I had to launch the updater itself, click an update button, enter the password and then it would install a bunch of updates and then require a reboot.
By the way, WTF is up with rebooting in OS X? IT'S FREAKING BASED ON FREEBSD!!!

[Vogateer]

Sounds like OpenSuse has the right idea, but I think until you actually force the average user to do something, they will ignore it. This is why I like the Ubuntu method of popping up a box and greying out the background until the user answers it. Otherwise they ignore it and try to hit Cancel or the close button.

I sort of like the idea of having KDE be the power user's customizable interface, while Gnome gives one a more simplistic, uncluttered interface. I think having multiple interfaces just makes sense, targeting different users and also allowing them to try different things and learn from one another.

Tarball, I'm not sure that an interface that's easy to use straight away can be made at all, much less be made easily. There are just too many concepts for which I've been unable to find decent parallels in the real world of Joe User.

Trying to explain the hierarchy of files is quite troublesome, and one that I believe very few people understand. Ask the average user to find a file using Nautilus, Konqueror, Finder, or Explorer, and they'll likely struggle to do so. Even explaining what I would think of as a simple search utility like Deskbar + Beagle or Spotlight proves challenging. Where in the real world does the average user structure folders within folders for many levels or construct a hierarchy or tree system to organize something? Where in the real world does one search for something in the same manner one does so on a computer?

Getting users to think in terms of applications is something I find terribly difficult. I continually ask people at work what program they used to open some old Mac file without an extension, and they never have the slightest idea. Whether it was Word or Pagemaker, they honestly did not know the difference. Sure, the toolbars where different, and the interface was different, but they didn't really know why. They just clicked on the file on the desktop and used whatever windows popped up. I've never seen an interface that was task-oriented, but I doubt that such an interface would be much better. I think an interface has to be learned, because computers are really unlike anything else in the world, and to use them efficiently means learning to think in a different way. Perhaps there is some perfect interface waiting to be developed, but I really doubt it would be easy to create, and I would guess it would take decades of work, by which time kids will have grown up with the wimp interface and not really care to change.

Good to hear these ideas, gets my brain working.

[Vogateer]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I find it very consistent with my ideas that Troels has to basically force people to use Firefox by hiding Internet Explorer or making the big, blue E point to Firefox instead. It illustrates people's resistance to change. I would do that, but I worry about them finding an Internet Explorer only site for work or something, and being left out in the cold. Running IE within a Firefox tab is far too complex a concept, so unless that were pulled off seamlessly for IE-only sites, it would be too difficult to work.

[Patrick]

Troels has to basically force people to use Firefox by hiding Internet Explorer or making the big, blue E point to Firefox instead.

That's what Dan did when we visited the Crapple store in Braintree, MA. He installed Firefox on all the machines and had the Safari icon point to Firefox instead.

[Vogateer]

That's beautiful. In that case, not using Safari won't affect people. Pretty much ever site that works on Safari will work fine on Firefox, if not better.

[allix]

I think that just a 20, 15 or even 10 percent market would be great for Linux, look at Apple, they only have about 4 or 5 percent, and yet that's enough for Blizzard to port World of Warcrack to Mac OS X and for EA to port The Sims 2 there.

I am quite surprised the ipod has not increased sale of mac osx, i guess because the ipod works on windows. The only reason its ported natively to mac osx is because apple as a brand alone is pretty big.
I am glad Norway have banned the ipod because apple think they can just force there drm on anyone and be accepted.





Norway bans ipod link
http://blogs.pcworld.com/digitalworld/a ... tlaws.html

[Vogateer]

That's yet another example of how people will not change unless forced. There are several people here who only started to like Macs because they were forced to use them at work. If it weren't for that, they would never even consider switching. Apple has the right business idea with switching to more of a device company with iPods and iPhones. Linux adoption has a serious uphill battle on the average user's desktop.

I disagree with outlawing iTunes, though. I know the intentions are good, but banning something really doesn't change things. Apple's not going to change their ways because they've been banned, and the music industry is really to blame for forcing DRM on people. Apple has lock-in with their DRM, but it's far less onerous than Microsoft Office's format locking their customers in. There doesn't seem to be a principle that's being fairly applied there, unless they've outlawed Office as well. Microsoft's DRM has the exact same problem, too, are they going to get rid of that as well?