Boot screen: Quiet or not?

[Mario Vukelic]

On Tue, 2007-10-09 at 22:30 -0400, Bart Silverstrim wrote:

> Again, set the preference to say nothing. 

Again, each preference come with a cost. Please take the time to read
and understand the essay I linked to

>  I'm sure there's lots of 
> people that would rather watch an animated clock or undulating bar for 
> two minutes. 

See essay. In usability tests of Gnome 1 (conducted by Sun), the
existence of 5 clocks confused some users so much that they failed to
add one to the panel.

>  I mean, the installer that comes with most Windows systems 
> is SOOO informative, how it keeps going to %100 then back to %0 to start 
> over several times before the installer declares it's finished.
> What the @#%! is it doing, anyway?!

> I don't know.  It doesn't tell me anything.  It's trying to be user 
> friendly by hiding everything from me.

Yeah, but what does this have to do with anything? If we have such a
case in Ubuntu, it should be fixed by using a meaningful progress bar.

> If you don't like watching it, set something to hide it or don't watch. 

NO! So you are telling my mom that she shall set something to hide it?
I'll tell you a secret: she can't and won't. 
The correct solution is that non-computer literate users don't need to
change things and don't have to worry about preferences they don't
understand. Users who know enough to want something else can change it.

>   Most sysadmins would probably be much more annoyed if they HAD to 
> waste this much bandwidth over discussing something that happens to 
> their workstation or server at *boot*.

How do sysadmins come into play? Anyway, sysadmins are usually not
usability experts. Sysadmins can also easily change it, or *gasp* use a
distro that is more to their liking.

> Why does it annoy you so much that it is giving a status at boot anyway? 

I did not say that. I said that is is useless, overwhelming information
for the vast majority of Ubuntu users, if not now then in the future. It
is bad UI. There is no reason to turn Ubuntu into Slackware.

Read the essay.

>   Don't watch it.  Turn off the monitor.  New users are confused because 
> they watch it boot?  There are some clueless newbies that are happy they 
> can see it doing SOMETHING other than twirl around some little graphic. 
>   Means it hasn't locked up or died on them.

You have clearly no experience with non-computer literate users. And the
progress bar already tells them it has not died.

> Linux isn't for home users.  

Huh? And this would be why? Because you say so? You might want to read
the manifesto of the system you are using:
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu

"Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for
laptops, desktops and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or
at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you'll ever need ..."

> It's not a game system.

Only because of missing market share.

>   It has root that 
> are not based at all on keeping your Joe Average user happy. 

There are a gazillion distros who cater for the expert crowd. And yet
again, it's a ONE-LINE CHANGE IN MENU.CONF, what's your problem with
that?

>  Macs are 
> usually a better choice for home use.  It hides the details of bootup.

You might want to ask yourself if the two things are connected in any
way. And what sense it would make to turn Ubuntu into a less friendly
system.

> Oh, wait, as an option I can watch the Mac's bootup too.

For the fourth time: the option is there, just change it in menu.lst

> >People who should know or care enough can just set
> > the grub parameter, as was explained in this thread. 
> 
> Isn't that the same as setting a preference, only more convoluted and/or 
> archaic/difficult to do?

Read Havoc Pennington's essay. It's different because this option does
not clutter the UI with useless and confusing options

> Does that mean you're complaining because Ubuntu isn't configured for 
> the non-technoliterate by default?

No, I'm arguing against removing the non-literate configuration from
Ubuntu.

> Y'know, I don't really care, personally.  It's not politically correct, 
> but I have to deal with users for my day job.  So, I don't really care 
> if poor Joe User is going to flip when something goes wrong and it drops 
> him or her to a cryptic console error. 

Ok, so I was wrong up there with assuming you have experience with naive
users. Sorry for saying that. but you should get another job then. I
have to deal with users for my day job too, both in support and in the
UI design of an application we develop. I consider every support call
that I get as a design failure. Yes, many are unavoidable at today's
state of art, but that doesn't mean one should confuse them with
desirable or meaningless events. Every support call is a user not doing
what he's paid for or what he'd like to do better. And it annoys me, so
I'd rather get rid of them.

>  Why?  Because they end up 
> calling their local "geek" for help if anything, ANYTHING, isn't 
> precisely as they are used to, because $DEITY help them if they have to 
> read a friggin' dialog box for instructions.

Not all users have local geeks, and anyway, none of this is an argument
to make the system unfriendly or hard to use.

> So please spare me the poor user lecture.  They don't care about boot 
> messages, they learn quickly to ignore it. 

You just said that Macs are more user-friendly. I have no experience
with OSX, but I believe you. Surely there are reasons for this
advantage. I don't think that scrolling screens of cryptic text are one
of them.

>  If you don't like it, I'm 
> sure there's a nice way to hide it with some other splash screen or 
> animation or some other eye candy.

So everyone shall suffer just to spare you making a one-line change in
menu.lst? I'm afraid your logic escapes me

> Why is this even an issue when there's so many other areas that would 
> improve user experience with Ubuntu on the desktop??  Watching status 
> messages fly by is the least of my worries!

It's wrong to conclude that no other UI work happens just because one
area is not completely done (the boot screen and its errors), and there
is an argument about it.