Subject: User-friendliness (was: Re: dselect returns error code)

From: "Heiko R. Selber" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 10:21:37 +0200 (MET DST)

On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Dale Scheetz wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Heiko R. Selber wrote:
> 
> > [ Problems with dselect ]

> > I am slowly approaching the point where I expect a
> > "general protection violation(TM)" from Debian.
> > I consider this a bad sign.

Sorry, I forgot to label this as 'funny'.

> Well, don't judge Debian by dselect. Dselect is the product of one mind
> and has, in my estimation, severe user interface problems.

I disagree. DO judge Debian by dselect. To the debian-newbie, dselect is
the first thing you see (thus, for the moment it IS Debian) and if it
doesn't do what it should, it will intimidate new users (maybe forever). 

But don't we all want to spread the REAL OS throughout the world?

I admit that an OS doesn't have to be foolproof, but there is no reason
that it shouldn't be user-friendly. Why not sit in front of your computer,
insert some disks, follow some instructions and end up with Linux running? 
(Yes, I know that Debian has come quite close to this, but IMHO not close
enough). 

> You can use dpkg at the prompt. Just cd to the directory with the package
> you wish to install and type: 
> dpkg -i packagename*.deb
> Let me know if this releaves your frustration ;-)

Yes, thanks, I feel much better now. Only that I prefer not having to work
around bugs (most of the time :o)

Heiko
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From: "Charles A. Schuman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 10:33:52 -0500 (CDT)

Quotes from Heiko R. Selber and Dale Scheetz.
> I consider this a bad sign.

Debian, compared to the install I have done with Redhat 3.0.3 (Picasso)
and 3.0.4 (Rembrandt Beta), is very stable.  Redhat could take some
lessons from dselect - using package dependencies made my life a bit
easier. I'm writing this while it installs - aparently enough of it has
installed for me to venture forth onto the net.  

> and has, in my estimation, severe user interface problems.

Yes, dselect gave me fits, but after I became a bit more patient with it,
I did well.  It does need a user-interfacelift, thou I'm still impressed.

> doesn't do what it should, it will intimidate new users (maybe forever). 

It does what it's told which may not have been what I ment.  I knew Debian
had more concept and organization behind it than other distributions,
but it still needs more polishing before the more easily frustrated can
walk this path.

> (Yes, I know that Debian has come quite close to this, but IMHO not close

I DO like the flexibility the install allows - I'm still
installing now in another console!  The install prompts are more detailed
and not as confusing as some I've seen.  (Perhaps my understanding
increases.)

> you wish to install and type: 

This dpkg will be useful when I want to add more things that I might
understand.  Now it is asking me to set up for X which usually fails for
me.  I don't mind being a new user.  

Charles

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From: "Larry 'Daffy' Daffner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 00:36:19 -0500

"Heiko R. Selber" writes:
-> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Dale Scheetz wrote:
-> 
-> > On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Heiko R. Selber wrote:
-> > 
-> > > [ Problems with dselect ]
-> 
-> > Well, don't judge Debian by dselect. Dselect is the product of one mind
-> > and has, in my estimation, severe user interface problems.
-> 
-> I disagree. DO judge Debian by dselect. To the debian-newbie, dselect is
-> the first thing you see (thus, for the moment it IS Debian) and if it
-> doesn't do what it should, it will intimidate new users (maybe forever). 
-> 

I agree here... I just installed debian 1.1 to replace my 3.0
Slackware system.  It seems Slackware isn't making much progress, and
my system was becoming rather patchwork, so I decided to start mostly
fresh :)

dselect IS the most visible portion of the Debian packaging system,
and the packaging system is the most visible distinctive part of a
particular Linux distribution. 

Overall, I like Debian so far.  It seems a lot of work has gone into
making Debian very sensible and upgradable on many levels.  Dselect is
Debian's ugly wart, IMHO. It took me several rounds of playing around
with it to eventually get it to install all the packages I had
downloaded.

dselect is very powerful, but with that power, it sometimes loses
intuitiveness.  One possible solution is maybe to make a 'dumbed down'
installer, which acts similar to Slackware's setup tool (from a user
interface POV, anyways), allows me to go through, select my system,
then check dependencies and advise me (or optionally after every
package set, whenever I press the "advise" button, whatever). This
could be used as a simple 'get-you-up-and-running' install tool, then
once the system was set up, the user could use dselect for the more
advanced solution.

Just a suggestion...
-Larry
--
  Larry Daffner        |  Linux: Unleash the workstation in your PC!
  [email-masked] / http://web2.airmail.net/vizzie/
It's better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all
doubt.  --Abraham Lincoln

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From: [email-masked] (Stephen M Gordon)
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 16:51:47 PST

i loged on for the first time in 2 weeks and i had 405 messages!!!!!!!!!!
i would like to know:

H O W  DO     I    G E T   O F F   T H I S    
M     A    I    L
LIST???????????//

it is driving me crazy......I WANT
OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 MANNY thanks

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From: Barid Bel Medar <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 22:27:52 -0400 (EDT)

Doesn't anyone save that message they get when they subscribe?

Send a message to "[email-masked]" with the phrase 
"unsubscribe debian-user" in the body of the message.  (That should do it).

> i loged on for the first time in 2 weeks and i had 405 messages!!!!!!!!!!

Stop bitching.  I get about 100 messages a day - we must've been pretty 
quiet.  You should really have 1,400 messages in your mailbox (probably 
it filled up or you went over your quota).

> i would like to know:

Just say it once, politely, and don't have such a stupid subject.  Calm 
down on the exclamation points.  Most mailers allow you to create a 
filter which will automagically delete or move messages from a mailing 
list (for UNIX systems, try ... uhh ... some ..proc command (listproc?)).

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From: "Brian C. White" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 11:17:16 -0400

> "unsubscribe debian-user" in the body of the message.  (That should do it).

That should read "[email-masked]".

                                        Brian
                               ( [email-masked] )

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