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CLI commands in terminal

2009-01-21 10:23:11

I disagree. Most guides out there for ubuntu involve terminal commands.

Commands that say things like this?

sudo apt-get install foo

Yeah. That's because it's easier and faster to write that than say 'Click System | Administration | Synaptic Package Manager.' Click the 'Search' button and type 'foo' and hit enter. Right click the 'foo-1.0' package and click 'Install'. When prompted, enter your password.

It doesn't matter if that's easier or faster for you, it matters if it's easier for most people (faster is good but not absolutely necessary).

Typing cryptic commands is very error-prone and disconcerting for users. You may think that the "click blah blah" instructions are long and complicated, but for most users it's what makes the most sense, and they have at least a slight idea of what's going on.

In the 1980s everyone used a CLI even on home systems. What do you think has happened since then has caused people to lose so much intelligence?

Seriously though. For Linux to be successful there needs to be a cultural transformation with regard to computing. The idea we are going to provide less information to avoid confusing people is a terrible culture.

Yesterday I was having a serious problem with my DVR, I would have loved some way to look at a log file and figure out what was going wrong. It is much harder to reverse engineer in the absence of information than to respond to complex information. That's why diagnostic medicine (for example) is so complex and error prone.

In the 1980s everyone used a CLI even on home systems.

Home systems were still few and far between. Those who had them had every reason (and likely had the desire) to know a lot about what were effectively very primitive systems.

What do you think has happened since then has caused people to lose so much intelligence?

No intelligence was lost. The audience that owns computers has expanded outside of the extremely interested and geeks to basically be a requirement of modern society. It's the car of the age: most people own one in some fashion, but how much someone knows (and indeed, can know) about the nuts and bolts of the thing is limited.

Not everyone wants to have to fuck with xorg.conf just to get multiple displays working. Hell I don't, but you still have to, even in Ubuntu.

For Linux to be successful there needs to be a cultural transformation with regard to computing. The idea we are going to provide less information to avoid confusing people is a terrible culture.

We are never going to return to the days of the 1980s when anyone who had a computer could generally be considered knowledgeable about the hardware, software, and had a bit of coding experience (if even just BASIC.) We are already at a point where for most people the computer is as mystifying a black box as their car's engine is if not moreso.

But half of what is needed to make life livable for non-propellerheads is fairly basic gui interaction and human interface considerations. This is why OS X is so nice compared to Linux and is a route that could serve Canonical well if Ubuntu were to go that way. Solve the problems that force people to screw with config files, reduce the terminal to an optional path and not required, and then you have an OS X like Linux with even more capabilities.

Or we can fight it, and insist that the broken way is the best way.

I would have loved some way to look at a log file and figure out what was going wrong.

And you're also reading Slashdot which immediately puts you out of the target audience the DVR was designed for, people who will treat the DVR for what it is: a peice of AV equipment that should just work.