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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Fedora usability : a new project? (Rick Stuart)
2. Re: Fedora usability : a new project? (Rahul)
3. Re: Fedora usability : a new project? (David Nielsen)
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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:16:24 -0500
From: Rick Stuart <stuart.cr@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Fedora usability : a new project?
To: fedora-desktop-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <44D90D38.5050701@xxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
I welcome this idea! I have asked many folks about what they like and
dis like about Linux and I only get prejudiced statements. If you sit
someone ( a familiar and comfortable user of Windows) in front of your
pride and joy 64-bit Fedora Core 5 install and invite them to try it
out, they will fail to see any value. If you help them find their way
to stuff, they will certainly hit a brick wall that you have to fix by
opening a terminal window, and then it's all over.
Here are a couple of suggestions:
Provide an option to configure users with sufficient privileges so that
they can enter their OWN password for administrative access instead of
ROOT's. ( /usr/bin/system-config-* linked to "consolehelper" ) For a
good model, check out UBUNTU......sorry about your toes. Something like
/etc/consolehelpers a-la /etc/sudoers.
I really like YUM, but I REALLY think that it sucks to explain it to
users who are new to Linux. Package manager is nice, but then there is
that pesky root password requirement....."So, I'll just log in as root
so I don't have to type that password!" It is miserably slow. Does
it even connect to YUM? I am not seeing all the available packages I
can see with 'yum list available'. If that's not the right tool, then
why is it on the menu under 'Add/Remove software'? Don't make me say
the U-word.
Give me better Themes choices. That is a big deal...and...UBUNTU is not
any better....
FIX GNOME's SCREENLOCK!!!! I want the slideshow to be configurable like
KDE's....It USED to be!
Make wireless drop dead obvious. I hate to say it, but Windows has that
down. MOST real users are going to be on laptops and Fedora is NOT
ready for them.
That's all I can think of right now. I have poured on the gasoline and
I am waiting for the match...hurry, the gasoline is giving me a rash.
Oh, wait!! One more....give up on the default mail-tool being
evolution. Thunderbird!
Rick Stuart
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:45:30 +0530
From: Rahul <sundaram@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Fedora usability : a new project?
To: Discussions about development for the Fedora desktop
<fedora-desktop-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <44D97D82.4060304@xxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Rick Stuart wrote:
I welcome this idea! I have asked many folks about what they like and
dis like about Linux and I only get prejudiced statements. If you sit
someone ( a familiar and comfortable user of Windows) in front of your
pride and joy 64-bit Fedora Core 5 install and invite them to try it
out, they will fail to see any value. If you help them find their way
to stuff, they will certainly hit a brick wall that you have to fix by
opening a terminal window, and then it's all over.
Here are a couple of suggestions:
Provide an option to configure users with sufficient privileges so that
they can enter their OWN password for administrative access instead of
ROOT's. ( /usr/bin/system-config-* linked to "consolehelper" ) For a
good model, check out UBUNTU......sorry about your toes. Something like
/etc/consolehelpers a-la /etc/sudoers.
That isnt really a good model.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-extras-list/2006-July/msg00814.html
I really like YUM, but I REALLY think that it sucks to explain it to
users who are new to Linux.
Why? It has a consistent command line interface and it is no worse than
any other command tool that I know of.
http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/yum/
Package manager is nice, but then there is
that pesky root password requirement....."So, I'll just log in as root
so I don't have to type that password!" It is miserably slow. Does
it even connect to YUM?
Yes, It uses yum.
I am not seeing all the available packages I
can see with 'yum list available'. If that's not the right tool, then
why is it on the menu under 'Add/Remove software'? Don't make me say
the U-word.
Click the big "List" button.
Give me better Themes choices. That is a big deal...and...UBUNTU is not
any better....
We have about a dozen in core and many more in extras. I think thats
plenty of choice apart from the easily installable themes from
art.gnome.org and kde-look.org
FIX GNOME's SCREENLOCK!!!! I want the slideshow to be configurable like
KDE's....It USED to be!
It never was. Xscreensavers was that way but it isnt in core anymore.
There is a upstream discussion on adding this feature to the new GNOME
screensaver program.
Make wireless drop dead obvious. I hate to say it, but Windows has that
down. MOST real users are going to be on laptops and Fedora is NOT
ready for them.
Use Network Manager. It is not enabled by default yet till we get a few
features fixed.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2006-August/msg00081.html
That's all I can think of right now. I have poured on the gasoline and
I am waiting for the match...hurry, the gasoline is giving me a rash.
Oh, wait!! One more....give up on the default mail-tool being
evolution. Thunderbird!
Wont work. We need well integrated calendering functionality, Exchange
interoperability etc and ThunderBird extensions are not very mature yet.
Rahul
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:27:23 +0200
From: David Nielsen <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Fedora usability : a new project?
To: Discussions about development for the Fedora desktop
<fedora-desktop-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <1155108443.2872.38.camel@price>
Content-Type: text/plain
tir, 08 08 2006 kl. 17:16 -0500, skrev Rick Stuart
Provide an option to configure users with sufficient privileges so that
they can enter their OWN password for administrative access instead of
ROOT's. ( /usr/bin/system-config-* linked to "consolehelper" ) For a
good model, check out UBUNTU......sorry about your toes. Something like
/etc/consolehelpers a-la /etc/sudoers.
PolicyKit should provide this functionality the right way. I don't know
if we have an ETA on this being useful but I would rather wait for a
proper fix than use priviliage escalation that can introduce problems
like horrid security . having to audit half a million lines of GTK+ code
because it now runs as root and any slight bug could take down the
system is my very definition of not funny.
I really like YUM, but I REALLY think that it sucks to explain it to
users who are new to Linux. Package manager is nice, but then there is
that pesky root password requirement....."So, I'll just log in as root
so I don't have to type that password!" It is miserably slow. Does
it even connect to YUM? I am not seeing all the available packages I
can see with 'yum list available'. If that's not the right tool, then
why is it on the menu under 'Add/Remove software'? Don't make me say
the U-word.
You should always provide some kind of authication when installing
programs globally, not doing so is inviting all kinds of security issues.
The software manager doesn't seem slow to me, however the UI locks up
due to it not being threaded - Katz' has strong arguments against adding
that kind of complexity to the code. I think we might need to make him
compromise a bit to make the UI not appear like it died - users tend to not
like that behavior, myself included.
Ubuntu has the basically same setup was we do.
Give me better Themes choices. That is a big deal...and...UBUNTU is not
any better....
You should join the artwork team and point out specific things that would
add to your enjoyment of Fedora, just saying "make it better" isn't really
helpful. What are the specfic issues you have and do you have ideas to
investigate.
If you can provide a mockup it would be great if not, a lenghty explanation
and maybe referencing parts of designs on gnome-look you do like would help
us get to a default theme that was good looking while still retaining good
usability across the board.
FIX GNOME's SCREENLOCK!!!! I want the slideshow to be configurable like
KDE's....It USED to be!
No it didn't, we used to use xscreensaver which had all kinds of other
problems, gnome-screensaver restored some sanity. If you want additional
features to gnome-screensaver upstream is the place to do it. I personally
fail to see why this is so huge an issue that you feel the need to scream.
If you have a specific thing that no longer works or could be improve please
provide a better description of your issue than "fix it". It is not very
helpful for either one of us. It is also not likely to get your issue the
attention it deserves.
Make wireless drop dead obvious. I hate to say it, but Windows has that
down. MOST real users are going to be on laptops and Fedora is NOT
ready for them.
I think the solution here is Network-Manager, it is however not entirely
ready for rollout. SuSE and SLED have replaced their entire networking
system with it and it seems to work beautifully for them. This is being
worked on heavily - have no fear. It will not make FC6 as the default
but FC7 seems like the obvious place for it to be deployed - being a major
change it needs a metric shitload of testing so it needs to be deployed
early in the test cycle.
That's all I can think of right now. I have poured on the gasoline and
I am waiting for the match...hurry, the gasoline is giving me a rash.
Oh, wait!! One more....give up on the default mail-tool being
evolution. Thunderbird!
Thunderbird isn't a suitable replacement for Evolution, we can't provide
the same functionality like Exchange integration with it. Also it doesn't
integrate as well with the underlying system as Evolution does. Another issue
to consider is migration of existing accounts to Thunderbird which isn't
working right as I recall.
The proper solution would be to fix Evolution, maybe break it into seperate
applications so it would be easier to fix or replace in the future with
better options. Evolution sadly isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
- David Nielsen
------------------------------
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