Edubuntu: some observations.......contd

[Dan McGarry]

Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> 
>>Wow, it's really refreshing to hear this. I'm on the verge of opening a 
>>bug report to this effect on Breezy, because (for example) Aptitude just 
>>blithely assumes that it should download the latest kernel from the net 
>>when it performs the automatic upgrade.
> 
> You explicitly told aptitude to upgrade your system, and you felt that it
> was a bug that it tried to carry out your command?

Not exactly. I popped the Breezy CD into the drive, and it offered to 
automatically upgrade me. It never asked whether I wanted to download 
files from a remote location, and there was no way (via the GUI) that I 
could find to perform the automatic upgrade without aptitude grabbing 
the security updates from the remote site.

I agree in principle that this should be the default option, but the 
fact that it seems to be the *only* way to do it is, in my opinion, a 
functional bug that makes it impossible for computers with limited 
connectivity to use this interface to upgrade.

[Caveat: I haven't submitted a bug yet because I haven't finished my 
testing. We might well find that the pronouncements I'm making are based 
on anomalous behaviour, or are just plain mistaken. YMMV.]

I know that there are manual work-arounds, but having people hack their 
/etc/apt/sources.list file when upgrading is not a very friendly way to 
introduce people in the developing world to Ubuntu, which is above all 
about 'humanity toward others'. 8^)

This is especially true when the fix is as simple as using a dialog that 
asks 'would you like to download the latest security updates now?' to 
set a flag. As far as I can tell, it's purely a UI design issue in which 
assumptions are made that are only true in developed countries.

> I recognize that there seems to be a need for software from "universe" to be
> available in the form of CD images for situations where Internet access is
> not available; however, I find the above to be a very strange perspective.

There are a number of assumptions that seem to have been factored into 
Breezy that don't necessarily apply well to the developing world:

- When users log in, a dialog often appears and tells them, "There are 
new updates available. Would you like to download them now?" This dialog 
appears even if the user does not have admin rights, and clicking yes 
causes confusion.

- The automatic upgrade option discussed above seems to appear when any 
member of the plugdev group pops in the Ubuntu install CD, regardless of 
whether they have administrative rights or not. I suspect these first 
two issues are directly related.

- The low-contrast frame-buffered start-up screen is very difficult to 
see under natural lighting conditions, especially on older CRTs. It took 
me a day to realise that the [ok] signal actually did exist. It wasn't 
until the NTP time-sync failed that I saw the red [failed] sign and 
realised that the text was still there.

- This is a more generic issue, but: It appears that the init console 
messages are switched from console 1 to console 7 very early in the init 
process. This means that, once gdm starts, one can no longer switch to 
console 1 to view the remaining status messages. This is especially 
relevant when X hangs, which often happens with the dodgy[*], 
second-hand equipment we use here.

[*] Unfortunately, 'buy better equipment' doesn't provide a full answer, 
as the power we get here is not as reliable as it is in developed 
places. Few if any buildings have grounded circuits, and surges and sags 
are common. Many people can't afford UPSes, so they try to do without. 
Power supplies, memory and graphics cards are among the most common 
components damaged by dodgy power, IME.

- Keyboard support seems to have changed, causing errors when certain 
keystroke combinations are passed. On one test machine, the CTL-ALT-Fn 
combination does not work, making it difficult to switch to console 
mode. On another machine, SHIFT-PGUP does not work on the console nor in 
gnome-xterm. I havent had chance yet to diagnose this, so I can't even 
speculate on the cause. It's quite possibly an upstream bug.

All of these issues are new in Breezy.

***
Note that I have not finished evaluating and testing yet, so take the 
above as anecdotal (and quite possibly unreliable) evidence only. I'll 
try to replicate and qualify all of the above before submitting any bugs.
***

In all of these cases, though, I see a common tendency, which is to make 
things easier and more attractive. It's a truly commendable goal, but I 
worry that it's coming at the expense of those working on the trailing 
edge, with cheap, underpowered equipment and limited resources.

If this were the Mandrake^H^H^Hiva project, I wouldn't complain. But 
because this is Ubuntu, a project whose goal is to be the OS for the 
'rest of the world', I think these minor issues can cause significant 
obstacles and deserve to be aired.

And lest we lose perspective, I think Ubuntu is probably the best 
desktop OS for development, and I base that statement on extensive 
in-situ testing over a two year period(!). I just want it to be better 
than best, that's all. 8^)

Regards,

-- 
Dan McGarry	it.psl at fsp.org.vu

IT Consultant
Community Communications Project