Going forward [Re: Automatix?]

[Daniel Carrera]

Chanchao wrote:
> People
> developing Automatix (and others) value #3 more than #2, which would be
> VERY fair looking at the Ubuntu mission statement,

The people developing Automatix are just one person, Arnie. Okay, so 
Arnie values usability above security. But if the system gets wrecked on 
the next upgrade, how usable is it? If the only way to fix it is to do a 
clean re-install, what's the point? And what about the promise of 
stability that makes people try Linux in the first place? Those issues 
must be considered.

> and which could very
> well be the RIGHT choice if the alternative is that users just give up
> on Ubuntu. 

Is it really? Mac OS X seems to manage it without wrecking security. 
EasyUbuntu seems to be a positive step forward. Why is it absolutely 
necessary to wreck security in order to install the things Automatix 
installs?

> Note that another attempt to achieve the Automatix goal also received a
> lot of flak and criticism: the Ubuntuguide website. Rather than doing it
> all for the user in a script, or explaining concepts to users, they just
> could copy and paste the commands listed in a terminal window to
> accomplish the same things; monkey see, monkey do.

I have found Ubuntuguide inmensely useful, and I think it teaches more 
than you give it credit for. I do know how Debian-based systems work (I 
administer a Debian Sarge web server), and I thought it was very useful. 
I have used Ubuntuguide to teach others, and I found it very useful. 
Really, it doesn't take that long to tell someone what 'apt-get install' 
does, or what sources.list does. And even the latter is not necessary 
(you only need to update sources.list once).

> I'm making a suggestion below, but first I'm asking everyone to
> recognize that this is a VERY tough problem.  Security AND ease of use
> are (almost) conflicting requirements, it is very, very hard to have
> both.

It is a very achievable goal. If Mac OS X can do it, why can't Ubuntu? 
Personally I think that Ubuntu has already accomplished a lot of ease of 
use without becomming less secure than other distros. It is *not* a 
necessity that improving ease of use requires lowering security. For 
example, asking a user for a password is really not that hard on the 
user, and it gives you a huge gain in security.

So, I disagree with your premise. Improving usability does not, by 
necessity, require a drop in security. In a few instances it might, but 
this is absolutely not an a priori requirement.

Daniel.
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