You are not logged in.

#51 2012-05-03 02:19:27

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: Here, have a GUI

anonymous_user wrote:

@skottish - Afaik, wouldn't ldm still need some way to get permissions? I know udiskie and devmon can work through use of a custom .pkla file:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ud … rage_group

No, by default it runs as a daemon and calls udev directly, so pkla files aren't necessary.

Offline

#52 2012-05-03 02:25:01

anonymous_user
Member
Registered: 2009-08-28
Posts: 3,059

Re: Here, have a GUI

But if it runs as a daemon wouldn't you then need root permission to unmount devices?

Offline

#53 2012-05-03 02:34:01

Pank
Member
From: IT
Registered: 2009-06-13
Posts: 371

Re: Here, have a GUI

Gullible Jones wrote:

Over the past decade Linux has gotten much more competitive, on the desktop and in general. For some features (e.g. virtualization) it leaves other OSes completely in the dust. On the big desktop distros, despite the constant changes under the hood, things have gotten to the point where you can pop a CD into a computer and 10 minutes later have a fully functional desktop. Even with the recent KDE 4/Gnome 3/Unity nosedives, it's pretty good all told....

And driver support is brilliant. It is truely amazing.  That being said, I think many of your points are valid.  Outside of core utils and some very ingenous cli applications it becomes quite complicated quite fast.  Personally, I would not feel comfortable dealing with e.g. wpa_client direcly, but luckily netcfg does a excellent job.

Efficiency in power consumption's seems to be scholastically
determined on the version of the kernel...

Well, hasn't the whole point of Linux always been "to create a complete Windows replacement"?

This was never the purpose.  In particular it was never the purpose of Linux. 
When the GNU project was started noone cared about Microsoft, and it thought to replace the propitiatory UNIX OS. 

Anyone who wants to learn how their computer works.  Anyone who wants control of and responsibility for their own system.  Anyone who can follow instructions and learn new things.  Anyone who wants to configure their system just the way they want.  Linux can be for anyone.  But it's not for everyone, nor should it be, as striving to be for everyone makes it not very good for anyone.

I disagree wholeheartedly but respectful.  You are suggesting that GNU/Linux should seek e.g. `technical merits' as oppose to merits wrt. freedom. 
This goes against the basic notions embedding free software and indeed the movement started in Massachusetts.
GNU/Linux is whatever the user needs it to be; the great success of customized distributions (e.g. the myriad of Busybox distributions) shows this. 
Why should GNU/Linux not be for people for whom time is better spend with other things (say business)  than learning about software?

So, what do i think it's wrong?
-Shell (script) has a horrible syntax.

Use Python/Perl/eshell/whatever

-Shell is not intuitive.
-No settings built-in.

I don't know what this means

-Bad defaults ("rmdir" vs "rm -rf", lack of an universal archive extract script, ...)

This is fine.  You'd appreciate it in writing scripts.  You can very easily create, say, an extract function which handles archives. 

This thread has helped me put into words some of the reasons why I enjoy using Haiku so much:

It does seem nice and simple.

The more I read about the BSD model, the more I realize how much it actually differs from Linux.  FreeBSD is much more a coherent thing than Linux; I'd actually group it with Win and OSX in your scheme (sans the desktop bit of course).

Central planing has its merits. . .  But the GNU desktop strives for something similar.  We just add 'other stuff' on top of it, generally.

The hardcore *nix mindset of some people here is at minimum disturbing. Don't get me wrong, the *nix architecture is really great, but it's not made for common people.

It seems most modern OS build on a UNIX-like foundations.  The exception being MS Windows.


Arch x64 on Thinkpad X200s/W530

Offline

#54 2012-05-03 02:36:14

freemind
Member
Registered: 2011-03-07
Posts: 20

Re: Here, have a GUI

/dev/zero wrote:

I'm not sure whether karol and I are "buddies" - we haven't had much to do with each other. I was sticking up for karol because karol had valid points and you were being an ass, and I stick up for who I feel like sticking up for.

Also, karol's joke about the Start button was not in the same order of magnitude of rudeness as your responses. There is a "report" button if you felt that karol was dissing your precious ass.

At first you said he was perfectly polite and i didn't have any reason for my tone, now you're saying he make a joke and i could use the report button. You need to make up your mind about that.
Buttons are no fun, you could've done the same with me, did you? Anyway you still respond so even if you did, your argument is invalid.

/dev/zero wrote:

Sitting around on a forum bitching about it won't change anything. If you see a way to improve something, improve it.

What's a forum for? Maybe i don't have the time for it now, but someone could like the idea and help? Maybe i'm trying to see if my idea is well throughout by sharing it with others?
Maybe i'm trying to gather devs for it? Your argument is again invalid.

/dev/zero wrote:

Ditto on my previous point, combined with some contempt for anyone who doesn't like looking things up.

Not everyone has the time/patience to look through manuals, tons of people need computers but their job is other than computers. If you can't comprehend this, you need to talk to more people.

/dev/zero wrote:

You're not trying to promote new ideas and no one is pointing fingers.

That's odd, if they're not ideas what are they?

/dev/zero wrote:

From this:

freemind wrote:

And why should we follow *nix mantra or pipes or whatever?

I took it as kind of implicit that, by using the word "we", you were placing yourself in the category of people who don't want to follow some purported "*nix mantra" nor use pipelines.

Where do i *affirm* we shouldn't follow *nix mantra or pipes or whatever? It's actually a question, and what i meant with it was to criticize the blind following of an idea. I made that perfectly
clear in the next sentence, where i say we should use our brains and if we don't like a current solution, we should change it. I never discarded pipes or unix mantra, i just threw the question
out if that was really the best approach. What i disagreed with was mentioned on those 4 topics i listed.

/dev/zero wrote:

That isn't irony. Irony is when someone else makes an argument, and you describe an alleged flaw in their argument as "ironic", when in fact it's not ironic, and the flaw isn't even there from the start.

I'm not sure the dictionary agrees with you...

/dev/zero wrote:

And I've come to expect nothing but non-answers from you.

Is that good or bad? To make them answers i would have to 100% agree with you, right? Because you can't accept others views besides your own? Very mature, huh?

I won't answer anymore, because i have other things to do. I don't want to look like the douchebag in the comic. I guess you could use almost the same comic, the only difference is in the part where it says "Wrong" you would have to put "Right". Eheh,  just a harmless joke. wink
duty_calls.png

Offline

#55 2012-05-03 02:39:46

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: Here, have a GUI

anonymous_user wrote:

But if it runs as a daemon wouldn't you then need root permission to unmount devices?

Good point. I guess the "people like me clause" is in effect here. I've been using sudo-->password for so long that it's automatic. In this case, a pkla file probably won't help as it's a policykit thing, but there's probably a udev rule..............

Yeah, I failed to flow with the spirit of the thread.

Offline

#56 2012-05-03 08:46:04

skanky
Member
From: WAIS
Registered: 2009-10-23
Posts: 1,847

Re: Here, have a GUI

skottish wrote:
anonymous_user wrote:

But if it runs as a daemon wouldn't you then need root permission to unmount devices?

Good point. I guess the "people like me clause" is in effect here. I've been using sudo-->password for so long that it's automatic. In this case, a pkla file probably won't help as it's a policykit thing, but there's probably a udev rule..............

Of course, if you're feeling dangerous, you could remove the need for the password in sudo, wrap the command in a function and pretend there's no need for root... wink


"...one cannot be angry when one looks at a penguin."  - John Ruskin
"Life in general is a bit shit, and so too is the internet. And that's all there is." - scepticisle

Offline

#57 2012-05-03 11:55:34

jakobcreutzfeldt
Member
Registered: 2011-05-12
Posts: 1,041

Re: Here, have a GUI

freemind wrote:

The hardcore *nix mindset of some people here is at minimum disturbing. Don't get me wrong, the *nix architecture is really great, but it's not made for common people. Apple/Steve Jobs understood that, that's why MacOS is a bit different from the common *nix. Also the shell in MacOS X has a useful command called "open", which just by the name you can guess what's it for and you don't have to read a man or search the web to do basic stuff with it.

Just take a look at a project called termkit (http://acko.net/blog/on-termkit/). It's just an example of what a 21st century console could be like. It still has the typical shell syntax with pipes, etc, but is already an evolution from the current shells.


From the Readme:

TermKit is not a...
...Web application. It runs as a regular desktop app.
...Scripting language like PowerShell or bash. It focuses on executing commands only.
...Full terminal emulator. It does not aim to e.g. host 'vim'.
...Reimplementation of the Unix toolchain. It replaces and/or enhances built-in commands and wraps external tools.

So what the hell is the point if you can't do anything even remotely complicated in it? You might as well stick to mouse & GUI at that point.

And judging from the blog post on it, the guy is trying to fix something that he doesn't understand. 'cat' does one thing: concatenate text files and print them to stdout. Why on earth would someone expect 'cat' to display an image file? What happens if you 'cat' together two image files?

How can he claim that it will be useful for SSH, when it won't be able to use key programs like a visual text editor?

Not to mention one of the most important uses of the terminal: its usefulness when your GUI fails. You want something simple and close to the metal. An overly complicated javascript application that runs in webkit just won't cut it when you need it most. And in the terminal you want simple tools that aren't prone to hard-to-find bugs. If you want to change their behavior, it's easier to do so in a config file somewhere (conveniently, "somewhere" is almost always in the place you expect it to be) than to hunt down the behavior in source code and recompile the tool.

About the only thing I'd be interested in seeing is from a developer standpoint, and that's breaking away from ancient teletype emulation for our escape codes and such, but really, vt-100 emulation is so deeply embedded in the FOSS ecosystem that it has become a de facto standard and no longer really about emulation. If you don't want to deal with it, there are libraries that take care of it for you. Anyway, I don't have any ideas for a better replacement for vt-100 escape codes...they get the job done.

Last edited by jakobcreutzfeldt (2012-05-03 11:59:45)

Offline

#58 2012-05-03 14:15:28

alphaniner
Member
From: Ancapistan
Registered: 2010-07-12
Posts: 2,810

Re: Here, have a GUI

jakobcreutzfeldt wrote:

Why on earth would someone expect 'cat' to display an image file? What happens if you 'cat' together two image files?

Because.  Why not.  An open mind needs no other explanation.[/pedantry]

Sure, cat seems like an odd choice at first.  But its most basic use is to display a text file.  So why not use it to display image files?
What happens when you cat two images?  The same gorram thing that happens when you cat two text files: one is displayed immediately after the other.

jakobcreutzfeldt wrote:

How can he claim that it will be useful for SSH, when it won't be able to use key programs like a visual text editor?

You're thinking like a computer administrator.  He's thinking like a computer user.  I think that's the real schism in this thread: the admin mindset vs the user mindset.

Last edited by alphaniner (2012-05-03 14:20:18)


But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
-Lysander Spooner

Offline

#59 2012-05-03 15:04:47

Oxyd
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2008-01-17
Posts: 167

Re: Here, have a GUI

alphaniner wrote:
jakobcreutzfeldt wrote:

How can he claim that it will be useful for SSH, when it won't be able to use key programs like a visual text editor?

You're thinking like a computer administrator.  He's thinking like a computer user.  I think that's the real schism in this thread: the admin mindset vs the user mindset.

He also fell for a false dichotomy. This is not a matter of “Either you'll be using what's already there, or you'll be using this new-fangled thing.” It's a matter of using the best that's available. If your GUI dies, you use the same shell you use now. If your GUI works, you use this new-fangled thing. It's as simple as that. Or does the article anywhere suggest the author wants to make existing tools obsolete and have them removed?

Offline

#60 2012-05-03 15:06:26

jakobcreutzfeldt
Member
Registered: 2011-05-12
Posts: 1,041

Re: Here, have a GUI

alphaniner wrote:

You're thinking like a computer administrator.  He's thinking like a computer user.  I think that's the real schism in this thread: the admin mindset vs the user mindset.

First sentence of his blog post:

I've been administering Unix machines for many years now....

Perhaps I am being a bit pedantic, picking on that particular 'cat' example. But really, it doesn't make sense. He might as well just call it something other than 'cat', so that people know not to expect 'cat'-like behavior.  Anyway...

I'm not closed to innovation, but I don't see TermKit as a good example of how that innovation should happen. It's like what you get if you let a web designer try to code system tools. Anyway, it seems development stalled nearly a year ago. Given how many forks and "watches" exist on Github for the project, I find this a bit surprising. If it really were a solid idea and that popular, it would be moving full-steam ahead. Perhaps they ran into the limitations of the design? Perhaps it wasn't as useful as he imagined?

Offline

#61 2012-05-03 15:09:17

jakobcreutzfeldt
Member
Registered: 2011-05-12
Posts: 1,041

Re: Here, have a GUI

Oxyd wrote:

He also fell for a false dichotomy. This is not a matter of “Either you'll be using what's already there, or you'll be using this new-fangled thing.” It's a matter of using the best that's available. If your GUI dies, you use the same shell you use now. If your GUI works, you use this new-fangled thing. It's as simple as that. Or does the article anywhere suggest the author wants to make existing tools obsolete and have them removed?

More like "use what's already there or use a severely limited version of it that looks shiny". Given that choice, I have to wonder why anyone ever would choose the latter.

Last edited by jakobcreutzfeldt (2012-05-03 15:15:05)

Offline

#62 2012-05-03 15:30:29

Oxyd
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2008-01-17
Posts: 167

Re: Here, have a GUI

jakobcreutzfeldt wrote:
Oxyd wrote:

He also fell for a false dichotomy. This is not a matter of “Either you'll be using what's already there, or you'll be using this new-fangled thing.” It's a matter of using the best that's available. If your GUI dies, you use the same shell you use now. If your GUI works, you use this new-fangled thing. It's as simple as that. Or does the article anywhere suggest the author wants to make existing tools obsolete and have them removed?

More like "use what's already there or use a severely limited version of it that looks shiny". Given that choice, I have to wonder why anyone ever would choose the latter.

Myself, I wouldn't. I would choose both.

Offline

#63 2012-05-03 15:39:16

nomilieu
Member
Registered: 2010-07-03
Posts: 133

Re: Here, have a GUI

This guy is trolling us all.

The idea that a CLI should be able to be used by Mr. NewToCLI without reading the fucking manual is completely asinine.
Where would you even start? Type "help" or "info" and hope for the best? (That would be reading the manual, by the way.)
A CLI doesn't give any visual clues about how to use it because there's nowhere for such clues to be other than in the manual.

Read it and be happy, else use a GUI.

(Also, regarding program settings, you can't very well change the settings from within the program when it's not interactive.)

Last edited by nomilieu (2012-05-03 15:41:52)

Offline

#64 2012-05-03 16:05:56

Gullible Jones
Member
Registered: 2004-12-29
Posts: 4,863

Re: Here, have a GUI

The idea of an intuitive CLI is stupid. CLIs are not intuitive. It's not a matter of needing more intuitive CLIs, it's a matter of needing more functional CLIs.

BTW

Bellum wrote:

No. No, no no no no. These tools are not interactive for a reason: so they can be easily scripted and piped together. The CLI is not meant to be intuited; that's not the point, but it should be easy to understand from reading the man page.

It would be nice to do something like

# wpa_passphrase SomeSSID SomeLengthyPassphrase | wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -Dwext -B -c -

wouldn't it? But you can't. wpa_supplicant will only accept text configuration files, not pipes. And wpa_cli is basically useless for administering wpa_supplicant. Happy networking!

Offline

#65 2012-05-03 21:27:11

nomilieu
Member
Registered: 2010-07-03
Posts: 133

Re: Here, have a GUI

Could you write a script to update the config file, and run:

<your_script> && wpa_supplicant <options>

?

I wouldn't call that a winning solution though.

Offline

#66 2012-05-03 22:46:03

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,442
Website

Re: Here, have a GUI

Or just use process substitution.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

Offline

#67 2012-05-03 23:33:33

Yurlungur
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2012-01-06
Posts: 116

Re: Here, have a GUI

Gullible Jones wrote:

The idea of an intuitive CLI is stupid. CLIs are not intuitive. It's not a matter of needing more intuitive CLIs, it's a matter of needing more functional CLIs.


Absolutely. Remember text adventure games? You can't make anything text-based intuitive becuase language isn't intuitive. There's going to be a steep learning curve and that's all there is to it.


The OP may be right that the CLI framework is messy and scattered and not at all cohesive--I'm not going to argue about specific tools, I don't know enough since they've always worked well enough for me--but that's the price you pay for free and open source and I wouldn't have it any other way. The way it is now, if I don't like a piece of FOSS software, GUI or not, I can go in and change it. Or, if I'm lucky, someone who shared my opinion already produced a piece of software that meets my needs. If we force coherence on our framework, we would be limiting this freedom, which is essential to my enjoyment of my computer and my productivity in my work.

Can we improve on CLI tools? Probably. Should we? If you want to, go ahead. I'm happpy with the tools that came to me along with Arch. Should we complain about them? No. That's counter-productive. Someone else devoted her time to developing those tools and she gave them to you with absolutely no strings attached.

If you want better tools to do your job, make them. If you think the tools you have are broken, fix them. At the end of the day, share them. That's the beauty of FOSS.

Last edited by Yurlungur (2012-05-03 23:36:16)


Lenovo Thinkpad T420; Intel sandy bridge i7 2.7GHz; integrated graphics card; 4GB RAM; wifi; Arch; Xmonad WM

Offline

#68 2012-05-04 13:14:05

alphaniner
Member
From: Ancapistan
Registered: 2010-07-12
Posts: 2,810

Re: Here, have a GUI

Yurlungur wrote:

The OP may be right that the CLI framework is messy and scattered and not at all cohesive...but that's the price you pay for free and open source.

This is a cop-out.  Yes, we absolutely must be appreciative of things we get for free and respectful towards those who provide them.  And not just because it's practical (Don't bite the hand that feeds you) but because it's the right thing to do.

But that doesn't mean we should bury our heads in the sand when faced with shortcomings, or keep our mouths shut unless we are able to fix those shortcomings ourselves.  Constructive criticism is essential, even if that's all one has to offer.  We ought not ignore or ostracize those who would provide it.


But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
-Lysander Spooner

Offline

#69 2012-05-04 13:38:55

Grinch
Member
Registered: 2010-11-07
Posts: 265

Re: Here, have a GUI

alphaniner wrote:

But that doesn't mean we should bury our heads in the sand when faced with shortcomings, or keep our mouths shut unless we are able to fix those shortcomings ourselves.  Constructive criticism is essential, even if that's all one has to offer.  We ought not ignore or ostracize those who would provide it.

I agree, but then one needs to be _concrete_, saying something 'sucks' or making vague sweeping statements without backing them up with even a single example is totally pointless and frankly comes across as nothing but 'I think the world owes me lunch'-style whining.

If we can forego such nonsense then I think there's alot to be gained from discussions like these. Saying something is 'bad' is a waste of time, saying something is 'bad' and then explain in detail why you think it is bad and preferably how it could be better opens up discussion which may actually lead to something.

Offline

#70 2012-05-04 14:48:01

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,739

Re: Here, have a GUI

Yurlungur wrote:

Absolutely. Remember text adventure games? You can't make anything text-based intuitive becuase language isn't intuitive.

Um, er, What?  Language is not intuitive?  I guess I'll have to stop reading novels and start watching television.  Sounds like Fahrenheit 451.

Besides, I have always vastly preferred the vivid images painted by text based games to the "cartoons" that are most modern games.

Of course I played the original colossal cave adventure using a Teletype ASR 33 and an acoustic modem talking to a dial up timeshare system around 1978.

Now get off my lawn.


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

Offline

#71 2012-05-04 15:35:43

drcouzelis
Member
From: Connecticut, USA
Registered: 2009-11-09
Posts: 4,092
Website

Re: Here, have a GUI

ewaller wrote:
Yurlungur wrote:

You can't make anything text-based intuitive becuase language isn't intuitive.

Language is not intuitive?

I agree with Yurlungur that natural language as an input to a software application is not intuitive. This is because the commands need to be very precise and nothing is giving the user "hints" about what to do.

I think your example of Colossal Cave Adventure is a good example of this: How many commands did you type before finding something that worked?

...Please keep in mind that I haven't given this much thought. I just kind of see where Yurlungur is coming from. smile

Also, I just had a thought: Why aren't CLI applications sorted in some manner, like GUI applications are in an "Applications" menu? Like, seriously, has this been done and I just don't know about it? And no, I don't mean the Gentoo ports tree hierarchy. tongue I mean, something on my computer that tells me all of the "Networking" CLI applications that are installed and all of the "Settings" CLI applications that are installed...

Lastly, ewaller, have you BEATEN Adventure? A while back I decided I was going to try playing through it without using any hints. I made it to the twisty little maze of passages all alike. Stupid twisty passages... Even though I didn't beat that game, I can proudly say I've killed a Wumpus though.

Offline

#72 2012-05-04 15:43:06

bernarcher
Forum Fellow
From: Germany
Registered: 2009-02-17
Posts: 2,281

Re: Here, have a GUI

Well, I have beaten the Colossal Cave Adventure. big_smile Although this was a long time ago. But it was fun to hammer the commands in the keyboard.


To know or not to know ...
... the questions remain forever.

Offline

#73 2012-05-04 15:54:15

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,739

Re: Here, have a GUI

drcouzelis wrote:

[Lastly, ewaller, have you BEATEN Adventure? A while back I decided I was going to try playing through it without using any hints. I made it to the twisty little maze of passages all alike. Stupid twisty passages... Even though I didn't beat that game, I can proudly say I've killed a Wumpus though.

You betcha smile  The end game is kinda fun.  All kinds of ways to kill yourself before the final tribulation smile

For the twisty passages.  Drop things as landmarks so you can differentiate the rooms.  Of course, if you use treasures, there is that pesky pirate who picks them up.


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

Offline

#74 2012-05-04 16:07:02

drcouzelis
Member
From: Connecticut, USA
Registered: 2009-11-09
Posts: 4,092
Website

Re: Here, have a GUI

ewaller wrote:

For the twisty passages.  Drop things as landmarks so you can differentiate the rooms.  Of course, if you use treasures, there is that pesky pirate who picks them up.

I understood that part, but isn't the maze "non orthogonal" or something? I mean, going from room A -> north -> B does not mean B -> south -> A. It was just nasty. Or I'm just stupid.

On topic: Adding a GUI to Adventure wouldn't make me any less stupid.

Last edited by drcouzelis (2012-05-04 16:07:26)

Offline

#75 2012-05-04 17:08:05

Bellum
Member
Registered: 2011-08-24
Posts: 230

Re: Here, have a GUI

drcouzelis wrote:

Also, I just had a thought: Why aren't CLI applications sorted in some manner, like GUI applications are in an "Applications" menu? Like, seriously, has this been done and I just don't know about it? And no, I don't mean the Gentoo ports tree hierarchy. tongue I mean, something on my computer that tells me all of the "Networking" CLI applications that are installed and all of the "Settings" CLI applications that are installed...

What would be the point? They're all in $PATH and executed by using the executable name directly. Actually, that's how I run GUI apps in Linux as well; I don't see the point in an "Applications" menu at all. tongue

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB