Newbie friebdly vs. user friendly distro's

paraflu · 2008-05-22 22:38:01

I think if you want a newbie or user friendly distro, you do have to discribe the user or newbie.
Everybody got different demands. Older peaple got other demands then the young or the geek and so on.
Arch is good base, you got to have a base from which you could improve from, why do think ubuntu use debian.
For me at this subject it is importend to collect user expierence and experience of skilled users and not
so skilled users. It is always the case that different people have the same goal to archieve. you can`t really
compete with ubuntu because of the money behind it, but if a solution could be reached with basic skills, it
could be possible to reach your individual solution for your problems. If you ask me what the equevilant of
ubuntu is on archlinux, it`s faunos, because it tries to have a auto configuration with a stable user gui and a step
release character which could lead to a stable user experience. Its hard work, which could only be easier from
the application side of view (X-server conf for example).
When i think about older people, they don`t really want to know that firefox is their brower or konqueror is
their filemanager they want consistency and their needed applications , like photomanagment, mediaplayer, videophone(in the future) and so on. This often based on their expirence with videorecorder or other outdateed
device :-) . What i see importend is that the skilled user can install a indiviual system for not so skill users
with easy. (who would not help their mothers, come on :-) )

foxbunny · 2008-05-22 22:47:10

paraflu wrote:

When i think about older people, they don`t really want to know that firefox is their brower or konqueror is
their filemanager they want consistency and their needed applications , like photomanagment, mediaplayer, videophone(in the future) and so on. This often based on their expirence with videorecorder or other outdateed
device :-) . What i see importend is that the skilled user can install a indiviual system for not so skill users
with easy. (who would not help their mothers, come on :-) )

When I see old people (and I seriously hope you meant 45~60, not 80+) are more task-oriented. For example, mom calls Internet Explorer simply Internet. And if I substitue it for Firefox, it's still just Internet to her. So the kind of interface that Asus eeePC implemented is perfect for people like her. It's not just a matter of slapping KDE4 on top of Arch with some GUI frontends for pacman. (That's IMHO, btw.) The latter setup is still more suited from someone who has some idea of what an app is, or what it means to install something.

So, as you said, it depends on how you define the "user", and wildly so.

finferflu · 2008-05-22 22:50:32

foxbunny wrote:

To answer the original post, I've written a blog entry just now. I didn't want to post it in this thread directly becuase I needed more space to explain everything I've discovered in detail.
http://eyedeal.team88.org/node/154

I didn't read it all, but I couldn't agree more on the "CLI = chat" part. That's exactly what I thought. CLI is much more interactive than a mute window. At least for me.

paraflu · 2008-05-22 23:00:36

Yes you are right. when i thought about old users i thought about the range of 45-60. 80+ got other problems
like remember their names :-)
It is nice you gave some information about your experience, because that`s what i mean to collect:
experience and after that create a solution, if possible. By the way when i reallly think about the 80+ , time moves on technolgy moves forward (we also get old) families got seperated, so the need for communications is
steady increasing. By the way the internet and IT is really suited for disabled people, so i think there is
a demand in everybody young or old to have good solution to communicate and learn even in the old state
of living.

foxbunny · 2008-05-23 11:24:25

paraflu wrote:

By the way the internet and IT is really suited for disabled people, so i think there is
a demand in everybody young or old to have good solution to communicate and learn even in the old state
of living.

For disabled people? Like this:

http://archlinux.team88.org/main.php?g2_itemId=1918

j/k

qdiesel · 2008-08-22 10:05:32

http://eyedeal.team88.org/node/154

thanks for that great post, foxbunny.

But i must add that CLI is very hard for those with poor English, especially when their native language uses non-Roman alphabet

Arkane · 2008-08-22 12:22:22

qdiesel wrote:

But i must add that CLI is very hard for those with poor English, especially when their native language uses non-Roman alphabet

I want to develop this point:

A big problem with the user-friendliness of the "Linux base system" (CLI, config files, filesystem) is that it can hardly be internationalized. How do you "translate" a config file? Can you really have your parser support different keywords depending on the user's locale? Even if you managed to, config files would then for example not be portable among different locales, which could be a huge problem.
What about command names, which are names in the filesystem?

GUI environments solve this problem very well. They (usually) strictly separate an item (program, configuration option, menu, whatever) 's internal name/value from its text representation to the user (see .desktop files for example).

Though I have a feeling this is becoming less and less of a problem, as the illusion of the perfectly internationalized desktop starts to crumble even in "i18n-privileged" areas like western Europe
(What I mean is, most users seem to accept the fact that what they're looking for may not be available in their own language, and may be ready to try out an english-language option. This could be a consequence of the fact that they can't get everything they need from Microsoft alone anymore), even now most average users I try to explain the CLI to seem more scared of the english than the command-line concept itself.

I too couldn't agree more to the CLI = chat idea. That's especially true If you've played MMOs before and are used to typing /commands in your chat window.

Last edited by Arkane (2008-08-22 12:47:41)

Arch Linux

#51 2008-05-22 22:38:01

Re: Newbie friebdly vs. user friendly distro's

#52 2008-05-22 22:47:10

Re: Newbie friebdly vs. user friendly distro's

#53 2008-05-22 22:50:32

Re: Newbie friebdly vs. user friendly distro's

#54 2008-05-22 23:00:36

Re: Newbie friebdly vs. user friendly distro's

#55 2008-05-23 11:24:25

Re: Newbie friebdly vs. user friendly distro's

#56 2008-08-22 10:05:32

Re: Newbie friebdly vs. user friendly distro's

#57 2008-08-22 12:22:22

Re: Newbie friebdly vs. user friendly distro's

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