[Ubuntu-ch] Linux Install Event Experience

[Wolf Geldmacher]

Am Monday 02 November 2009 14:58:59 schrieb Theo Schmidt:
> Wolf Geldmacher schrieb:
>
> > The feedback I've received up to now can be summarized as follows: two
> > participants are quite happy with the dual-boot and use it regularly; 1
> > person has decided that Linux is not for him and has switched back to
> > Win-XP only. The main reasons given are essentially "too much choice",
>
> Is this just from this one person, or from more? Is it perhaps an excuse?
> After all, a person going into (say) a COOP supermarket may grumble about
> ten types of (say) corn flakes, but will simply pick one and not leave the
> store in protest. Unless of course the store is so huge that he can't find
> the corn flakes at all.
This particular comment is from the person that switched back to XP. I don't 
think it is an excuse - she really tried hard (and I tried hard to help 
her ;-)

> > - I've been using the Swiss-Remix DVD for this experiment. The amount of
> > software available on the DVD is staggering and quite a few
> > "first-timers" are just overwhelmed by the choices they suddenly have.
>
> Yes, Swiss Remix is mainly for the curious who are not put off by "choice".
> I think it has more to do with mind-set than experience. I installed it for
> am elder lady once with icons for the programs she wanted on the desktop
> and she was thrilled. She asked me to deinstall it in the end because her
> grandson complained of not being able to play his usual ego-shooter games.
One thing several people stumbled upon is "desktop settings": Looking
to change one or two settings in gnome they hit the KDE desktop settings - 
which obviously did not do what they expected it to do. Also there are at 
least three places to look for when trying to change a setting: System under 
Programs (has ubuntu tweaks - i love that one), System Menu, Configuration 
menu.

> > Having this much software is nice for showing off (there is something for
> > everbody), but I got the impression that for actual use less would be
> > more.
> > Your non-expert user finds it really hard to cope with a choice of 5 web-
> > browsers, 4 email clients, 3 different GUIs, ...
>
> True, but...: most only ever see the default choices, i.e. Gnome, Firefox
> and (?). It depends more on what is in the task-bar or the desktop (or the
> default MIME-types) than in the starter menue. We could of course help
> beginners with custom desktops or profiles, but it's a lot of work giving
> rise to many discussions...
People do use the "Applications" pulldown - it's what they are used to. And 
looking for a media player they may hit amarok2 and then go looking for their 
MP3's in banshee the next time - hard to explain, why it doesn't work that 
way. Maybe organizing things in a way that makes gnome tools the default and 
easily reachable in gnome and kde tools the default and easily reachable in 
kde (with the other set still available but clearly marked as "foreign" and 
not as easily accessible) would help people to orient themselves? Or maybe 
defining sets of functionality and doing the desktop integration on the fly 
only for the sets selected would be possible? I don't know.

> > - The average user is *really* upset by the mix-in of foreign language
> > (i.e. English) interfaces, documentation, even links to English support 
> > pages. 
>
> I can't see any way around this, as some programs aren't translated.
For a local distribution it might again be a solution to lower the visibility 
of these apps - or maybe provide a translation locally.

> > I got the impression that this is an area that requires additional
> > attention
> > and work - maybe up to the point of providing a tool that allows
> > spontaneus
> > translation (e.g. you get an English dialog - you can right click on it,
>
> Good option, if internet available.
What I was thinking of is an offline tool with the ability to 
upload/synchronize at a later time. Main incentive for the user would be that 
he can immediately use his/her own translation.

> > - Even more testing is necessary! Having cutting-edge software on the DVD
> > is nice, but stability is even more important.
>
> Yes. Unfortunately very few volunteers do test the images in time.
Agree! I also tend to not be among those.

> > KDE4 on 9.04 is especially weak in this area.
>
> Can you give specific examples? I don't normally use KDE4 yet, but it
> seemed to work all right for me on Swiss Remix.
Example: "accidentially" close the "Desktop" folder view. Try to re-create it 
by pulling the desktop icon (or any other folder) from "Quick-Access" onto 
the screen, select "Folder View" - Plasma bombs 100% of the time and 
restarts. Try to use "lancelot component" instead - will either crash Plasma 
with about 25% probability or will try to create the component twice. Doing
the same actions from dolphin works.

> > - Don't change user interfaces without necessity. I know this is rather
> > controversial, as we as developers like to experiment and develop with
> > the new stuff and we are frequently changing/reimplementing/improving
> > things to make room for all the goodies that will come, but for Joe L.
> > User
> > it is really hard to adapt to a new GUI, Amarok2 being a prominent point
> > in case - see also the ongoing discussion there. Sad as it may be, users
> > seem to like interfaces they know better than shiny new interfaces.
>
> Other distributions seem to go to great lengths to try to achieve this.
> Whether Gnome, KDE3.5 or KDE4, it all looks the same. We could, of course,
> even imitate various flavours of Windows or MacOS rather faithfully but
> incompletely. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but it is certainly not
> the Ubuntu way. I guess we have no way of keeping consistent dialogues, as
> different programs use different toolkits.
I know the dilemma. But then: When you dowload Ubuntu from Canonical at least 
initially you will get a consistent set (this is why there is Ubuntu, 
Kubuntu, Xubuntu a.s.o) you can then select to add cross UI stuff, but it's 
not there by default.
>
> Cheers, Theo
Thanks for your comments!

Cheers,
Wolf