Re: Win vs. UNIX usability (Was: Re: gnome-terminal idea)

[Steve Luzynski <sluzynsk sound net>]

Tim Moore wrote:
> > I've only two Linux applications on cdrom. Both of them had an install
> > script right in the root that does pretty graphical pointy-clicky stuff
> > to load the software.
> 
> That's pretty nice. Which applications?

Staroffice does this. Accelerated X (which I don't use anymore since
SuSE got out a Matrox Millenium G200 server) has a text mode installer
for the first part and it goes graphical to define visuals and such.
WordPerfect 8 does also (at least the .tar file had one, I assume it
will be on the CD).

When I look at that paragraph, I realize that those are all commercial
apps. Perhaps what we need is a nice Installshield like, powerful,
graphical, *free* installer program. This would probably stand a better
chance of getting popular if it was possible to build it with a small,
static library so that you don't have to have GTK installed to run the
installer..:)

> Agreed. However the Motif save panel *is* pretty poor. For that matter, so
> is the GTK+ one. Frankly the nicest one I've seen on Unix is the KDE one.
> The nicest one *not* for Unix seems to be Apple's Navigation Services API
> which will appear in Mac OS 8.5. This is still unreleased, though, so I've
> only seen screenshots and descriptions.

Motif is pretty shabby in general. One of those things that it would be
nice to see die. I Haven't seen the MacOS panel - you have an URL to go
look at?

> It would be nice to allow users to easily install into their own home
> directories, though. Of course, this assumes that software be written to
> work that way. We all know that software shouldn't hardcode locations
> anyway, but we also all know that a lot of it does.

Maybe I'm still too stuck in the mentality of protecting a multiuser
system by not allowing this. I routinely have my admins at work scan for
and remove .exe files from the home directory drive. All it takes is one
person and a copy of BackOrifice...

I agree that software should be able to run anywhere you put it, as long
as it can find its libraries by either placing them in the same
directory or in a common place (/usr/local/lib or equivalent).

> Perhaps the reason Windows 98 has such a great installer is because they
> know most people are probably going to need to use it every two weeks! :-)

You've gotten one to run that long? Wow, I've gone back to 95 where I
*have* to run Win32 to get some more time between reloads.

> I don't reboot much, but there are some types of configuration that take
> much more effort than they should. Many window managers require that you
> restart them to change their settings. If I change, say, my look and feel

That's shabby design. WindowMaker doesn't require this, nor does E. 

> properties for GNOME MDI :-) other apps don't respond until they're
> restarted. But what really gets me is that you can't change the color
> depth or resolution of your screen without restarting the X server. I was
> outraged when I first used Windows 95 and it required a reboot after a
> resolution change, but requiring a restart in the X server isn't much
> better because it basically boils down to the same thing: an interruption
> of my work. Furthermore, many users just won't be able to do it, either
> because it's totally non-obvious how to, or because they don't have root
> access. I mean, Mac OS just *does* it, and BeOS even lets me assign
> different resolutions/depths to different *virtual desktops* fergodsake! I
> guess this would require changing X, but someone really should!

That is an awesome feature. Was great for developing web pages - you can
just drag the *same* instance of your browser from a 640*480*8bpp visual
all the way up to a 1280*1024*32bpp visual and see how it looks in each
one. Too bad they probably started too late to really get any serious
momentum built. A person can only function for so long in an OS with no
word processor, no news reader, no web browser that understands
scripting or java, etc.

But now I think we're getting off GNOME and into some larger problems. I
think we need to get back on the track of thinking about what GNOME can
do to alleviate some of the headaches in giving Linux to your
grandmother. Perhaps a gnome-installer would be a good thing to see come
out of this discussion.

-Steve