Marv,
I won't immix in this childish thread any more because I have too much
work to do.
I beg to disagree with you on the GUI issue.
It is a bad idea.
People out there should understand that making a winmodem work under
Linux is basically not a trivial job.
The call for GUI's comes from blunt refusal to learn even the few basic
Linux tools such as a text editor.
What would a GUI do?
Launch scanModem?
And how will it obtain the most recent version (of scanModem AND of the
GUI itself)?
Assuming it succeeded, is the GUI going to display scanModem output? Who
needs a GUI for that? Any supereasy editor like Nedit or Gedit isn't
enough? If what people want is to read ModemData.txt and auxilliary
files on separate windows mocking a Web page, a 10 lines bash script can
embed scanModem and do that.
Is the GUI going to decide on its own how to assemble instructions to
select a driver? WE not always know, will a robot know better?
A new kernel pops out: who will tell the GUI, in the easy HSF case for
instance, which file to take? Is the GUI going to scan the Linuxant site
for that, BEFORE there is a channel connected to the Web?
Perhaps the GUI would start by downloading the last version of the GUI,
but through which channel?
Perhaps it will pay for and install VMWARE and Windows on top of it to
be able to communicate through Windows?
Perhaps the GUI will start a GUI under Windows ?
One GUI makes sense: having scanModem launch a window stating the
conditions to use it: learn to read, learn a dozen of basic Linux
commands, be aware that the installation is almost never automatic, and
commit to never ask help from the linmodems group about issues popping
out of the use of the GUI.
scanModem should refuse to start if the user refuses to click in box "I
agree to the conditions", which, after all, is of course much more
"friendly" than displaying the rules of the game on a console with a
Yes/No prompt.
All the rest is nonsense.
In any case, the few of us who give some time to the Community should
not get involved, otherwise, sooner or later, WE will have to take care
of that invention. People will ask, why does the GUI not work, and WE
will have to answer.
Windows hides problems, GUI's as well, instead of releasing the power of
Linux to pinpoint problems and solve them.
Jacques
Marvin Stodolsky wrote:
John
Re: ? Could it be integrated into GNU/Linux distros and can a GUI be
created for it
If you would like to take it on, swell.
A major task would be to rewrite the BASH calls with PERL replacements,
as preferred by the Debians and other Distros.
Basically, I've learned BASH scripting in the course of maintaining scanModem,
and it is easy for me to do fixes thereunder.
Not having done a GUI, I can't guess how much work that would be.
A prime guiding principle in the current scanModem output to ModemData.txt
is that all diagnostics info that might be necessary
to immediately return guidance should be resident,
so that other files don't have to be opened or other URLs gone to.
Many of fielding advice are not on out Home PCs some of the time,
and wouldn't have auxilliary files available.
The ongoing modem hardware evolution is so fast,
that it is probably wise to maintain the greater flexibility of text display.
Also some rare Users are not working under a GUI, and can only use a
command line script.
MarvS
scanModem maintianer
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:50 PM, John Zoidberg <zohn.joidberg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, thanks for the feedback. :)
May I quote you (or link to the public mailing-list ^^)?
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Jacques Goldberg
<Jacques.Goldberg@xxxxxxx> wrote:
John, see below in text.
John Zoidberg wrote:
Hi,
I just noticed 2 interesting ideas on ubuntu brainstorm:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11513
This idea is stupid because it ignores the fact that scanModem is updated
weekly on the average and often more with new modems and new solutions.
Some distribution, forgot which, once contained scanModem: a nice gift to
us support team, plenty of useless (obsolete) output to read.
What distros might contain is, perhaps, a link. But as you know (egg and
chicken) a working connection is needed to access links, repositories,
distributions, you name it.
So even that idea is of value only for probably not completely newbies who
have access to a LAN or DSL to fetch such material.
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11583/
This idea is stupid because the way is NOT SIMPLE. Reading scanModem output
is much faster than any "GUI" multiconditional search tree.
As many but not all people know, the slowest and most clever computer
peripheral device is human.
It is not because Bill Gates assumes that all users are stupid and makes
much money exploiting this, making them more stupid daily, that the Linux
community HAS TO clone his views on human beings.
I have a better idea to offer.
Near the bottom of Web page http://linmodems.technion.ac.il there is a site
usage report, very much detailed, number of calls, files, etc....
Please compare its activity with the daily number of persons applying for
help to discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Jacques
It seems the license might be a problem.
So what is the license of the scanModem tool?
Could it be integrated into GNU/Linux distros and can a GUI be created for
it?
John
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