Re: Making Linux Easy for Newbies

SINNER wrote:
* Mike wrote in alt.os.linux:

[...]

looked suitable then finding a usable compiler with an IDE.
I tried Ubuntu, but it was a little flakey when working with the network
interface and I had enter a password for everything I wanted to do. Wow,
that's wierd, no root or admin login, forget that nonsense.

Its called security, I know its a foreign concept to the Windows
monoculture. That said, it is VERY easy to enable root, all you needed
to do was ask. You found this group to complain, why couldn't you find it
to ask questions?

I used synaptic to see what kind of programming languages were available.
The first one I found was something called python. It installed very
easily, but, Hmm no icon on the desktop, no entry in K menu. I wonder how
I'm supposed to run this thing? Oh well, I don't have time to mess with
it that much since I don't know the language anyway. I couldn't find
anything else in synaptic,

You didn't look very hard. There are plenty. You either don't have your
repositories configured correctly or your search skills are lacking,
based on this post, I am thinking its the latter. My Synaptic lists over
1100 development packages of varying languages and interfaces.

so I downloaded Euphoria for Linux from their
site, at least I know this language enough to get my program written if I
can get it installed. Ew! They had a script that was supposed to install
it automatically, but no real instructions on how to install manually. Too
bad, cause the script just generated some error messages and didn't
install anything. Well, I kept looking and found something called Hbasic.
At this point I don't remember what porblems I had trying to get that
working, I think I got lost trying to compile it, but anyway I finally
gave up on that as well. Now this is getting silly, Am I really that
stupid?

No, but you are seriously lacking in the tenacity department.

Ok, back to synaptic. After a what seemed like a couple hours of
scolling through the thousands of packages listed, I spotted something
called Gambas. It said it featured the BASIC language and an IDE. Just
what I need. A miracle! It installed flawlessly and even put an entry in K
menu under the development submenu. I'm finally working on my little
control program.

Well, sometime in middle of all that, In order to actually get the thing
done, I gave up and decided to use an "embedded PC"

Every attempt ends with, I finally gave up, not a good sign.

[...]

I'm still going to finish the Linux version just for grins, but what a
circus to get this far. Now to fight the font mess in Linux so I
can use my LED display font. I figued I could just copy the font to the
fonts directory and away I go. Oh no, not a chance. There are fonts in
atleast 4 different directories and a lot those are the same ones. When I
finally figured out which set of fonts Gambas was using I was able to use
my font in my program, but alas, it doesn't display properly. Funny tho,
it displays just fine in Open Office Word. Btw, the only way I could
figure out to make Gambas see the font was to reboot the system. I'm sure
there's some other way, but it's much quicker and considering the help
system, easier to just reboot. I'm used to that anyway.

You could have EASILY installed the MS fonts if you had only asked. It
amazes me how people can write hundreds of words to bitch about
something they don't understand rather than 20 words to ask a question.

The filemanager, K something, refuses to open directories in the same window
now, Grrr, and no, "Open folders in seperate windows" is not checked.
Oh yeah, what's with this partition editor, it gives all these cool things
to do with partitions and then grays out the one I want to use even if the
partition isn't mounted. I could go on and on about all the little things
which make it frustrating for us noobies, but I believe I made my point.

The bottom line line is, No Linux is not so easy to use for noobies

Neither is Windows, you've been using it for who knows how many years and
you've forgotten that you had to learn to use it as well. There are posts
all over Usenet of newbies with NO programming experience that have
successfully installed and use Linux every day *raises hand*

unless
we want to use it as it is installed out of the box. Until it's refined
enough for Joe 6 pack to use,

It is, even easier, Grandma six pack of ensure can use it just fine.

It'll never have the support from hardware
manufacturers that is becoming more and more important every day as
peripherals get more and more complex. I don't think I want to even try to
get my ATI all in Wonder TV working.

More and more HW manufactures join up every day.

I guess I'm just getting too old to go back to the old days and try to
remember a boatload of new arcane commands, but it sure is fun to play
with if I don't HAVE to get something done.

What you are too old to remember is that you have to start somewhere and
you weren't born using windows or dos either.

Now, did you have a question?


But the whole point is, doing things in Linux is _difficult_. Even for people who don't have to "un-learn" Windows. Getting anything done REQUIRES the tenacity you speak of. This might be great for some of us, maybe we've the inclination to spend all day (all week?) to figure out what to install, how to get it to install, how to run it after it's installed, where to find documentation for it, or even harder, any resources on how to actually use it! For the average newbie that just wants to "get it done" it's a real pain.

The first thing I installed (and one of the main reasons I installed RedHat 8, my first venture into Linux, in the first place) was MRTG (not included in the distro at that time). It did install easily - actually it's perl, so you don't really install it. Then you have to edit the config file. Then come the commands to execute using the config file you just edited. Then more commands to generate an "index" page. Voila! NOT! (sound of game show buzzer) - Not enough info per page, real nice graph, but "interface 65 on router3" is not real meaningful. "But wait, I could see twice as much and get meaningful labeling if I tweaked the html" But then every time I generated a new index page, I'd have to manually tweak the html. "So I'll modify the script, says I". But I don't know Perl. OK, it doesn't look that much different from other programming languages. - Anyway, after HOURS and HOURS, I finally get what I want on the web page. Later I discovered PRTG for Windows. Installs in 2 minutes, configures and customizes simply and easily. Label your own sensors, label your own graphs. Pick your layout from many, many templates, etc, etc. Was it worth the $150 bucks? You bet!

Now, once again, I'm not saying Windows is better. Not trashing Linux. I use Linux boxes for Bandwidthd, BIND DNS servers, Ethereal (Wireshark), and other network monitoring tools. I even still use MRTG. I wrote my own SNMP polling program that displays my remote UPS and environment states using the free C compiler and net-snmp-utils. I use a Linux box as my syslog server and as an ftp server. And of course I have my home FC5 box as my personal workstation. Oh yeah, also run my company intranet web server on one. But anybody who seriously thinks it's easier to get most things up, running, and ready to rock in Linux than it is in Windows has never spent any time using Windows.

...kurt
.

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