Ubuntu Drive Visible to OS X?

[Fábio Mendes]

On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 10:33 -0400, Brett Kirksey wrote:
> On Tuesday 21 September 2004 at 02:45-0300, Fábio Mendes wrote:
> 
> > Don't worry! Be happy! :)
> 
> On Tuesday 21 September 2004 at 02:29-0700, landminetao at gmail.com wrote:
> 
> > If you haven't yet, I highly recommend reading Neal Stephenson's
> > monograph "In the Beginning Was the Command Line."
> 
> Thank you both for taking the time to encourage me in my frustration.
> 
> I have read excerpts of the book you mention. My brother has told me
>  all about it. He has degrees in computer engineering and is somewhat
>  of a usability guru. He pretty much uses it as a manifesto of what is
>  wrong with Linux/Free Software. His saying is always, "You should make
>  an OS or software so that the average person can get work done _with_
>  there computer not _on_ there computer." And I agree.

I haven't read this essay, but there are some points that are
frequentely mistaken about command line interfaces. There roughtly are 2
kind of population that uses linux, the 1st being the people who (want
to) work _with_ computers and have linux installed in their desktop for
some reason. I won't say those people should better be using Windows or
Macs, because that's not true and linux DE's are quickly pairing up with
current mac and windows GUI. There are some rought edges, but I guess,
specially in gnome land, there's good will to change it, it has focus
and it's happening fast. 

And, of course, there are the command line freaks. Linux is a great OS
for them, for obvious reasons. The command line has its advantages, but
is not for everyone. To be a shell master you'll need to do lot's of
documentation reading and some programming skills will also help. But to
fully control your machine, you have to be a shell master, the gui don't
show all (mind what you see is all you get). And that true in Macs,
Linux and even Windows (even with its pathetic shell capabilities). Of
course almost nobody needs that kind of control and ideally all common
routine tasks should be possible without touching the console, without
reading documentation, without diggin on deep menus with arcane names,
etc. But lots of old school linux users still advocates you should learn
some console skills cause it's the Right Thing, and it's indeed right in
the way that it makes you more productive in lots of tasks.

> Now, I'm not the average person. I work with and _on_ computers for a
>  living (Web Developer/IT). But I do champion the cause of usability
>  and computing for the masses. Ideally, the perfect system would be
>  totally intuitive and easily configurable by the most technologically
>  unsophisticated.

I'm not sure this will ever happen, but there is still much to improve,
so we should (at least try to) improve. I think FOSS will have a
important role in that since it allows people to package software freely
(make distros), abstracting the user from the concepts of  -- buy a
program/install it/run it --. Of course we're still very far away from
it, but mind that if you have a geeky friend who can solve all technical
annoyances for you, linux is already too close.

> I believe that true genius will take the most complex ideas or tasks
>  and make them understandable and doable to the totally uninitiated. It
>  is a lower level of of technological acumen that says, "This is how
>  hard it is now you must come to my level of knowledge to make it
>  work." Sometimes I think the average Linux user actually likes that
>  about Linux. Sadly, as long as it is that way, Linux will be a niche
>  operating system (except maybe servers) for the computer elite.

Hey! It's getting better. Come on! Think about all work gnome folks had
put on the HIG and projects like utopia (hardware abstraction) and
desktop integration. A complete DE is a big beast, and if you sum up,
the FOSS developers had put much more work into linux desktop than
microsoft has put in windows, for example. They had to develop a whole
set of applications, support for various plattaforms, and not just the
minimal stuff which ships in a default installation of a proprietary OS.
All this with a much tighter budget, with less security holes, and
usually with high quality code, so don't expect things will change
magically. What is done is already impressive.

> My hope is that one day, with work like that which is being done with
>  Ubuntu and User Linux, free software/Linux will be accessible to the
>  average person. Maybe even to the point (and this will be heresy to
>  many Linux elitists) that Linux is seen as _more_ user friendly and
>  accessible than a Mac! I can dream can't I. :-)

I think it will happen! With big bucks getting into linux, the
development will accelerate. And not being so tightly attached to
economical constrains, permit the FOSS developers take decicions more in
a user perspective and the don't subject their actions to those evil
people in marketing departments :)

> Thank you again for taking the time to encourage me. I will continue to
>  work on Linux (but usually not _with_ Linux). I enjoy learning new
>  things and increasing my skills and one of the reasons is so that
>  others won't _have_ to.

Keep brave! Well, it's always good to see some opinions from the mac
land, since they OS X GUI usually get it right more oftenly than windows
and linux. You'll see that in few time you'll be working _with_ linux
and enjoying it :)

Cheers,
-Fabio