[ale] Presentation challenge
Ron Frazier (ALE)
atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com
Sat Feb 2 11:29:06 EST 2013
See inline.
On 2/2/2013 2:49 AM, JD wrote:
> Ron,
>
> Installing a GUI on Linux isn't a big deal. It is like installing any
> other program. Heck, install both Mate and Cinnamon and try them out.
> It is just a PPA for each, then you choose which you like to run at login.
> Of course, I'd test out each GUI in a different user account to limit
> setting collisions in the ~/.config/ and other dirs under $HOME.
>
> PPAs really are nice, provided the person managing it is competent,
> trustworthy and maintains it against the main distro repositories.
>
> Not a big deal at all. Just a few minutes to install on a fast
> connection. If you don't like a GUI, remove it from the system.
>
That sounds neat. I think I'm going to put Ubuntu 12.04 in a virtual
machine and, perhaps, set up a login for Mate testing and one for
Cinnamon testing, since you mentioned that there may be conflicts. I
think I tried to install xfce once and some of my Gnome settings got
mangled. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I haven't tried it
since.
> "Control panel" what's that? Settings are usually maintained in text
> files under ~/.config/ No need for a GUI to manage them, though
> sometimes the XML is easier to handle with some GUI tool. This isn't
> MS-Windows, the tools are hardly mandatory.
>
I'm going to express a different opinion here. That doesn't mean yours
is wrong. Just different. And, everyone has a different style of using
and configuring their PC.
I will say that I can sling text files around as good as anyone,
assuming I know what to put in the text file. Been there. Done that,
30 years ago with DOS and older versions of Windows. Almost everything
was text file based. I hated it, and was immensely grateful when
Windows moved away from that trend from XP and forward.
There are still some config files hanging around in Windows, and there
is, of course, the registry; both of which I can and will edit if necessary.
I far and away prefer to do things from the GUI if possible. If there's
something I have to do, which cannot be done from the GUI, I will do it
by editing text files or the registry if I have to. If it's something I
can optionally do, I may not do it at all if there is no GUI interface,
particularly if it's something I only have to do once or infrequently.
One of the most fundamental reasons that I have this preference is that
a config file is NON INTUITIVE. I have to read a man page or help file
to find out what all the options for all the commands that go into the
config file are. As I said, I can do and have done this.
A properly designed GUI is INTUITIVE. It is immediately obvious what
your options are for whatever it is you're setting up. You have entry
blanks, radio buttons, check boxes, etc., with labels beside them which
indicate immediately what they do. In the best GUI's, you can get help
on the meaning of any entry blank by hovering over it or clicking a help
button. So, using such a properly designed GUI, I can go in to
configure the settings for the power, or the screen appearance, or
whatever, for the very first time, and get the job done quickly by
concentrating on what I want the settings to be, rather than figuring
out what the settings are and then figuring out how to communicate them
to the system.
I consider the options screens of Firefox to be a well designed GUI.
Complex, to be sure, but still well designed. Many of you know that you
can type about:config in the Firefox address bar and get to their
settings subsystem. It's their equivalent of the registry, but I don't
know what they call it. I can, and have, tweaked things there too, but
would much rather do things from the GUI.
I do understand that some things can be better done, or only done, with
a command line, a chain of commands, or a script. I get that. I also
get that designing GUI's for some purposes is complex and perhaps not
worth the effort. However, I do like the concept that many Linux
utility and some Windows utility providers are doing, of providing all
of command line, script, and GUI interfaces to their programs.
I should not have to read a man page to be able to configure my
screensaver, my power settings, my ups settings, or even to run a
badblocks test on my hdd. After comparing the GUI, specifically, of
Windows 7, Gnome 2 (Ubuntu 11.04), and Unity (Ubuntu 12.04), I have
concluded that Windows 7 gives me far and away more access and more
control of the under the hood guts of my system than either of the two
Ubuntu options, through the GUI. (Windows 8 is a total step backwards
from this.) This is the way it should be. Now, I will reiterate that I
don't think you should be restricted to the GUI. Most things should be
scriptable, or accessible via command line. But, I will say that there
should ALWAYS be an option to use a GUI for most major system
configuration functions.
The badblocks command is a prime example. I posted about some of my
experience with it in recent threads on HDD maintenance. It is a very
useful, and powerful command. But, the syntax for it can be somewhat
cryptic. The first time I tried to use it, it took me about half an
hour of studying the man page. To this day, I don't use it frequently
enough to remember the syntax. So, every time I want to use it, I have
to dig out the little piece of paper I wrote the command on, or look up
the man page again. Not only that, the starting and ending block
numbers are in reverse order, ending first, which seems totally
illogical to me.
It would be far easier for me to open something like gbadblocks (making
this up), click non destructive read write scan, check off the drives or
partitions I want to scan, and enter the starting and ending block
numbers in a blank, and hit GO. I still have to know something about
the structure of the disk I want to scan, and the meaning of the options
on the screen. Built in help could help with that. But I don't have to
spend lots of time finding, and remembering, how to activate the command
I want. They could even put a blurb on the GUI screen that says more
obscure options can be accessed via the command line.
This is the type of thing that makes the OS far more accessible to
average and semipro users. Users that are really not computer literate
at all will still need help from the geeks.
After lunch (for me), I'll do a followup post, and provide a mini
comparative analysis of how much control I have over certain system
functions via the GUI of Windows 7, Ubuntu 11.04, and Ubuntu 12.04.
Again, this is not meant to draw a dividing line between or incite
conflict between command-line-fans, text-file-fans, and GUI-fans. It's
meant to elaborate on the advantages of having both.
Sincerely,
Ron
> Am I overstating how easy this is? Anyone?
>
>
>
> "Ron Frazier (ALE)" <atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Jay L, and Jim L,
>
> Thanks for this info on Cinnamon. So, it sounds like it's pretty easy to put Cinnamon on Ubuntu. First, I have to upgrade my machines to Ubuntu 12.04, which I haven't gotten around to yet. I'm still recovering one of my main machines and installing and tweaking things from an upgrade that I did of Windows Vista to Windows 7. All my data is still there, but I had to do a clean OS install because of the particular version of Vista and 7 that I was switching between. So, I had to reinstall and reconfigure all the major apps. So it's a bit of a mess. I may have to do the same thing with all my Ubuntu installs. I don't like that idea, but I've heard more than a few horror stories about OS version upgrades, versus installs. So, in a relatively short period of time, I have a whole boat load of OS upgrade / install / maintenance to do on multiple
> computers ... and there are never enough free hours in the day ... particularly with other real life things interfering. But, al!
> l the Linux stuff is on my list.
>
> Is it just as easy to install Mate as it is Cinnamon? I may want to go in that direction.
>
> Gnome 2 provides a few key features that I really need in my new desktop environment.
>
> 1) Full hierarchical menu of all major applications on the system
> 2) Movable "panels" that I can park on any edge of the screen, to hold running apps (taskbar), status info (system tray), quick access icons, the menu itself, the trash can, the speaker icon, the network icon, etc.
> 3) I particularly want to have a small CPU usage monitor graph on one of those panels, which I can do now. In some cases, I also put a CPU frequency monitor and a temperature monitor there.
>
> So, my next question is, can Mate and / or Cinnamon do these things?
>
> My other concern about the new DE's is
> that
> Ubuntu has removed many options from the control panel and gives the user much less control over things such as power settings, special visual effects settings, etc.
>
> So, my next question is, do Mate and / or Cinnamon restore this control capability to the user?
>
> And, finally, can I potentially have both Mate and Cinnamon on the system and switch between them?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ron
>
>
>
> Jay Lozier<jslozier at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Ron Following the links from Linux Mint you get this as the
> 'buntu Cinnamon repository
> https://launchpad.net/~gwendal-lebihan-dev/+archive/cinnamon-stable
> <https://launchpad.net/%7Egwendal-lebihan-dev/+archive/cinnamon-stable>
> <https://launchpad.net/%7Egwendal-lebihan-dev/+archive/cinnamon-stable>
> <https://launchpad.net/%7Egwendal-lebihan-dev/+archive/cinnamon-stable%3E>;
> The instructions to install are Add Repo: sudo
> add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
> sudo apt-get update Install: sudo apt-get install cinnamon
> Logout and Change the session to Cinnamon. On 02/01/2013 01:08
> PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>
> I wouldn't mind a presentation on Mint, or on installing
> Mate or
>
> Cinnamon on Ubuntu. Since my Ubuntu 11.04 expired, I have to
> figure out whether to fire them and go to Mint or try to put
> Mate or Cinnamon on Ubuntu 12.04.
>
> Sincerely, Ron Jim Lynch <ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com>
> wrote:
>
> On 02/01/2013 08:20 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>
> Is mint a desktop or a distro? I would put it in
> the desktop group.
>
> I guess I've never seen a discussion of the difference
> but since
>
> Mint
>
> doesn't offer a specific server edition, I'll agree
> with you. Most
>
> of
>
> Mint specific repos are GUI related. Jim.
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> Mail.
>
> Please excuse my potential brevity. (To whom it may
> concern. My email address has changed. Replying to
>
> former
>
> messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will
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>
> address. Please send all personal correspondence to the new
>
> address.)
>
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you
> might want
>
> to
>
> call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from
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> energy
>
> mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email
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>
> quickly.)< br />
>
> Ron Frazier 770-205-9422 (O) Leave a message. linuxdude AT
> techstarship.com <http://techstarship.com>
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> --
>
> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
> Please excuse my potential brevity.
>
> (To whom it may concern. My email address has changed. Replying to former
> messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong
> address. Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)
>
> (PS - If y
> ou
> email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
> mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)
>
> Ron Frazier
> 770-205-9422 (O) Leave a message.
> linuxdude ATtechstarship.com <http://techstarship.com>
>
>
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--
(To whom it may concern. My email address has changed. Replying to former
messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong
address. Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)
(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)
Ron Frazier
770-205-9422 (O) Leave a message.
linuxdude AT techstarship.com
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