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Why Linux sucks at being user friendly
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Comments (36)
16 earlier comments in the full thread.
Most of the legitimate complaints about Linux are usually just examples of trade offs, not faults. These tend to be different depending on your distro.
- Linux lets you configure X, Y and Z - Third party vendors sell Windows utilities that let you configure X, Y and Z - OS/X doesn't have X, Y or Z, but has i, A and M instead
A Linux user looks at these differences and thinks 'That's Nice.' A Mac user looks at these differences and thinks ' I am so counter culture, thanks Steve!' A Windows user looks at these differences and thinks 'Linux Lusers have to configure things! What weenies.'
- Linux lets you configure X, Y and Z - Third party vendors sell Windows utilities that let you configure X, Y and Z - OS/X doesn't have X, Y or Z, but has i, A and M instead
A Linux user looks at these differences and thinks 'That's Nice.' A Mac user looks at these differences and thinks ' I am so counter culture, thanks Steve!' A Windows user looks at these differences and thinks 'Linux Lusers have to configure things! What weenies.'
And Linux users look at Windows L***** and say, "Suckers gotta wait for Redmond to get their repairs... four versions from now..."
>What about the PRIDE of all things UNIX, the man pages?
?????
Yean the ones that say the full documentation for xxx is maintained as a Texinfo manual?
Help remains a Linux weak point, and not because it doesn't exist.
Useful help is not merely present, but reasonable to find and understand.
Most man pages (even the ones that don't say look elsewhere) show the Unix heritage as a home for technically strong users.
?????
Yean the ones that say the full documentation for xxx is maintained as a Texinfo manual?
Help remains a Linux weak point, and not because it doesn't exist.
Useful help is not merely present, but reasonable to find and understand.
Most man pages (even the ones that don't say look elsewhere) show the Unix heritage as a home for technically strong users.
Quoting: four versions from now..."
Maybe....
d d d dino, You are getting rather mellow. But as a user, a dumb, old, worn out,
technically weak user, I do appreciate your last entry:
dino quote: "Most man pages (even the ones that don't say look elsewhere) show the Unix
heritage as a home for technically strong users."
Quoting:?????
Can I point out that there was an ';)' as an integral part of that paragraph you quoted? :)
Quoting:Yean the ones that say the full documentation for xxx is maintained as a Texinfo manual?
Well, exactly what I wanted to say. Last week I've spent two hours to learn how to use 'info' (after refusing the last three years), but at this point I don't know much of it anymore. Long man pages are also not 'user-friendly' to browse.
Why not convert all Texinfo-files to HTML-files? The program to do so even EXISTS! It's called info2html. Now, I can't blame Gentoo for not installing it and converting all info files to HTML by default, but this hould be easy for a distro like Ubuntu.
I think man pages are terrific, but I'm technical. Or, at least technical enough to understand what I am reading enough to know I don't understand it and need clarification. Phew.
Coders should not be expected to assist non-technical users. Of course, providing help is expected, and they do what they can, in their fashion. Man pages.
Expecting coders to hire public relations folk or a marketing staff is rediculous, too. It's one of the great scourges of Linux because end-users have to rely on forums or sites like mine that attempt to whittle down the techno-babble into something digestable.
End-users also have the responsibility of seeking clarification; of learning a thing about what they are using. However, every time I write something like this I am branded a zealot. WTF? There is no winning.
Until IBM employs someone to take this up on behalf of the coders that cannot be expected to perform this service, or some other company or entity with the means (Canonical), it will remain a problem. Coders writing open source software just want to turn something out that works, that's beneficial to them. The community is second fiddle. It's not attitude, it's not "fix it yourself", it's just that they write something that fills a need they have. They release it (hoping?) that others can benefit from it. "Here's my program, I hope you find it useful." They get in return, "You're an asshole for releasing this hard to use software!" Oh, my.
There is plenty of proprietary software that takes a hell of a lot of study and or hands on to get to functioning as the user needs. Sure, the program may do it - but their own documentation sucks, too.
There are about 89 zillion things you could do with netcat. But fire-up the man page for it one time and try to get that impression.
Linux does not suck at all at being user friendly. Tell my wife (anti-tech) that and she'll laugh right at you. Many users do, however, suck at being new-task-receptive.
i see problems all the time relating to asking an adult Human to do something a bit differently than their normal routine. My kids' school has some construction going on right now that requires parents dropping their kids off or picking them up to take a right turn instead of a left turn. You should see the ensuing chaos.
How did we survive this long?
Coders should not be expected to assist non-technical users. Of course, providing help is expected, and they do what they can, in their fashion. Man pages.
Expecting coders to hire public relations folk or a marketing staff is rediculous, too. It's one of the great scourges of Linux because end-users have to rely on forums or sites like mine that attempt to whittle down the techno-babble into something digestable.
End-users also have the responsibility of seeking clarification; of learning a thing about what they are using. However, every time I write something like this I am branded a zealot. WTF? There is no winning.
Until IBM employs someone to take this up on behalf of the coders that cannot be expected to perform this service, or some other company or entity with the means (Canonical), it will remain a problem. Coders writing open source software just want to turn something out that works, that's beneficial to them. The community is second fiddle. It's not attitude, it's not "fix it yourself", it's just that they write something that fills a need they have. They release it (hoping?) that others can benefit from it. "Here's my program, I hope you find it useful." They get in return, "You're an asshole for releasing this hard to use software!" Oh, my.
There is plenty of proprietary software that takes a hell of a lot of study and or hands on to get to functioning as the user needs. Sure, the program may do it - but their own documentation sucks, too.
There are about 89 zillion things you could do with netcat. But fire-up the man page for it one time and try to get that impression.
Linux does not suck at all at being user friendly. Tell my wife (anti-tech) that and she'll laugh right at you. Many users do, however, suck at being new-task-receptive.
i see problems all the time relating to asking an adult Human to do something a bit differently than their normal routine. My kids' school has some construction going on right now that requires parents dropping their kids off or picking them up to take a right turn instead of a left turn. You should see the ensuing chaos.
How did we survive this long?
Quoting:Why not convert all Texinfo-files to HTML-files?
Why not use yelp or something similar? It allows you to browse & search all your manpages, textinfo docs, HTML help files and other documentation you have.
Do coders have a responsibility to support and document their applications or not? Of course they do. What's the point of writing software for other people to use if you don't tell them how to use it? The bane of Linux is a "here's my app, if you don't like it use it " mentality. Who better to document an application than its creator? No software application should require plenty of study simply because it has a crappy interface and lousy documentation.
Other cruddy dev attitudes are "I only do first drafts; other people need to clean up my mistakes" and "I am superior to everyone because I write code." I'm not excusing the poor behavior of whiny, demanding, lazy users-- that's a separate issue. The majority of Linux and FOSS users are ordinary nice people who don't understand why anyone with an ounce of pride in craftmanship, or with an ounce of concern for their users, would release junk and then get mad when users go "Er, what is this for? How do I make it go?" Or complain when users repeatedly ask the same questions-- some devs would rather spend their lives flaming than writing a FAQ, or helping someone else write one.
Eric Raymond writes about these things much better than I ever could: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=628
Other cruddy dev attitudes are "I only do first drafts; other people need to clean up my mistakes" and "I am superior to everyone because I write code." I'm not excusing the poor behavior of whiny, demanding, lazy users-- that's a separate issue. The majority of Linux and FOSS users are ordinary nice people who don't understand why anyone with an ounce of pride in craftmanship, or with an ounce of concern for their users, would release junk and then get mad when users go "Er, what is this for? How do I make it go?" Or complain when users repeatedly ask the same questions-- some devs would rather spend their lives flaming than writing a FAQ, or helping someone else write one.
Eric Raymond writes about these things much better than I ever could: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=628
Quoting: It’s no bad thing to have LHB remind us that inattention to end-users’ needs is a serious problem; it’s a point I’ve made in public more than once myself. Nor is he wrong to point out that formal project management can’t actually solve this; the developers themselves have to care.
Quoting:Other cruddy dev attitudes are "I only do first drafts; other people need to clean up my mistakes" and "I am superior to everyone because I write code." I'm not excusing the poor behavior of whiny, demanding, lazy users-- that's a separate issue. The majority of Linux and FOSS users are ordinary nice people who don't understand why anyone with an ounce of pride in craftmanship, or with an ounce of concern for their users, would release junk and then get mad when users go "Er, what is this for? How do I make it go?" Or complain when users repeatedly ask the same questions-- some devs would rather spend their lives flaming than writing a FAQ, or helping someone else write one.OTOH, another attitude -- its degree of validity not questioned here -- is that other third parties should deserve to profit off of the lack of background and clarity in a particular craft. Examples of this are the many good purchase-only books containing complete documentation, instead of the truly free and available HOWTOs, Guides, and FAQs (e.g., those at The Linux Documentation Project, http://tldp.org/) Appropriate ;) and excellent examples of for-profit documentation in the Linux world are the two decidedly non-free books by O'Reilly publishers: - 'Linux Cookbook', http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006402/ - 'Linux Networking Cookbook', http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596102487/
Quoting:Other cruddy dev attitudes are "I only do first drafts; other people need to clean up my mistakes"What about a developer in Estonia whose English is poor at best? (Or, for that matter, a developer in backwoods Mississippi...)
Quoting: What about a developer in Estonia whose English is poor at best? (Or, for that matter, a developer in backwoods Mississippi...)
Sorry, I meant first code drafts, not documentation drafts.
Quoting:Why not convert all Texinfo-files to HTML-files?
If you're using KDE, you can achieve almost that goal by opening Konqueror and typing "man:ed" in the address bar. Or directly in the app lanuncher. Very useful.
> There is plenty of proprietary software that takes a hell of a lot of study and or hands on to get to functioning as the user needs.
The difference is that the user usually gets paid to use that software. :(
> Who better to document an application than its creator?
Given the writing skills of many coders, just about anyone. :)
> (Or, for that matter, a developer in backwoods Mississippi...)
You know, I sometimes get tired of these rural stereotypes. I have it on good authority that Mississippi doesn't have any woods. :)
Seriously, poor writing skills are abundant these days, in all geographical areas. And no, to stave off the oft raised criticism, I don't consider myself a good writer by any stretch of the imagination.
The difference is that the user usually gets paid to use that software. :(
> Who better to document an application than its creator?
Given the writing skills of many coders, just about anyone. :)
> (Or, for that matter, a developer in backwoods Mississippi...)
You know, I sometimes get tired of these rural stereotypes. I have it on good authority that Mississippi doesn't have any woods. :)
Seriously, poor writing skills are abundant these days, in all geographical areas. And no, to stave off the oft raised criticism, I don't consider myself a good writer by any stretch of the imagination.
Quoting:What about a developer in Estonia whose English is poor at best?
Write docs in Estonian of course. At lesat several millions of people can use the program riht away that way, and there are far more people being able to translate documentation than their are people able of writing documentation of a program they don't know.
If someone in Estonia is poor in English, probably they're old enough to write in Russian - though they might not like to do that for historical reasons. However, that would be over 160 million served, and probably one of those 160 million is able to translate it to English.
However, just like coding is a profession, writing documentation is. It's not something everybody can do well, and I think sometimes this is overlooked. Just as the fact that politics is a profession: Some people think it can be done without any experience, knowledge or education at all, but that's just not true. I don't go to the butcher to by bread either, though probably the butcher will be capable of it. The point is, other people are just better at it.
I don't expect that coders also be splendid Faulkners of documentation, and I doubt anyone else does either. I think a minimum baseline is complete release notes, a man page detailing all command switches, features, and supported data formats, a nice complete changelog, and a brief README with some examples of a few task-oriented functions. Because when the man page says "-t inverts the bitswapped little-Endian zeroth integer", somebody somewhere has to also write "foo -t makes the cursor blink." I think dumping opaque jargon on your users is a hostile act, or maybe just showing off.
> I don't expect that coders also be splendid Faulkners of documentation,
Personally, I'd say comparing Faulkner to the documentation produced by many coders is just about right. :) YMMV.
Personally, I'd say comparing Faulkner to the documentation produced by many coders is just about right. :) YMMV.
@jdixon:
Thank you. I've seen too much user documentation that read by Faulkner, written by people who were trying to be Faulkner Jr.'s.
Thank you. I've seen too much user documentation that read by Faulkner, written by people who were trying to be Faulkner Jr.'s.
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It might be "all binary-only blobs," FAICT; I haven't checked all of them.