Windows - Linux usability

[teknomage1]

Originally Posted by Valmont

Fun advice then:

Linux still isn't user friendly: it's for geeks only.
1) Make it friendly.
2) Make a better (sharper) font rendering system.

That'll keep you busy for a while.
In the mean time, make sure you have dreams left. What else is there to do when all your dreams came true?

I disagree with your first point, Valmont. All of the 800 artists I work with use linux at the studio and don't seem to have any problems.

[AssKoala]

Originally Posted by teknomage1

I disagree with your first point, Valmont. All of the 800 artists I work with use linux at the studio and don't seem to have any problems.

And the world agrees with it Linux is not user friendly -- even in the distributions that try to pull it off. Ubuntu and others make things better, but it has a LONG way to go.

Plus, those artists aren't using "Linux" are they? They're using Maya or some other application that is the same on Windows as it is in Linux. They know they have to start the computer and click an icon: they don't have to mantain the computer systems or deal with the Operating System at all.

As for the op, good luck. Don't start any bad habits: like not understanding how the internals work with C++ and C. It's easy to "learn" C++, it takes a long time to really know how to use the language and understand what makes good design decisions when using it.

[teknomage1]

That's a circular argument, some of them use maya or houdini, and some use proprietary applications, but in any case they also use linux features such as shells and environment features to track where in the production their work goes. Plus they have to manage their personal files and send email and write general office type stuff. If they couldn't use maya you'd say it's too hard to use because their programs don't exist on linux. I think the only difference here is that most people grew up on Windows. If we can get artist up to speed on linux in less than a day, there's no way it's too unfriendly.

[AssKoala]

Originally Posted by teknomage1

That's a circular argument, some of them use maya or houdini, and some use proprietary applications, but in any case they also use linux features such as shells and environment features to track where in the production their work goes. Plus they have to manage their personal files and send email and write general office type stuff. If they couldn't use maya you'd say it's too hard to use because their programs don't exist on linux. I think the only difference here is that most people grew up on Windows. If we can get artist up to speed on linux in less than a day, there's no way it's too unfriendly.

I'd rather avoid turning this thread offtopic further, however, you don't seem to understand that they aren't INSTALLING applications or MANTAINING the systems: the IT department is.

Remember as well that most of those apps are made to be like the Windows variants (mail and ESPECIALLY office). I'm not saying that Linux is so hard to use that only the tech saavy can use it, but it is not in any way close to the useability of Windows or Mac OS. The IT guy says: "click here and it opens your mail program" "ok" "click here and it opens Maya/Houdini/3DSM/SoftImage/whatever" "ok" "click here and you can write spreadsheets or make word files" "ok". That's the extent of it. If something breaks, you're SOL unless you have a *nix saavy type. Want to configure something? Gotta head to the console most of the time (thanks to KDE, this isnt the case as much anymore, however).

You can say "Linux is easy to use" all you want, but not even the guys writing the GUI's or distributions for Linux agree with you (in other words take your head out your...well you know) -- that's why they're constantly changing, fixing, and bettering their systems for robustness and ease of use. Otherwise, they coulda stopped at KDE 2 (or gnome 2.0 or whatever) and everyone would still be using "./configure;make;make install clean;" instead of RPM's, portage, YUM, and other software managers.

[teknomage1]

Alright, if you're going to live up to your namesake, fine. I don't see how clicking on an icon in Windows is any different from clicking on an icon in Linux or Mac. Point and click software installation works on both and users can do everything they need to do. Most can even write shell aliases and some can preform simple scripting tasks for themselves. Where does the, "oh that's so hard," come in?

But seriously just flame away and continue being an Ass.

[AssKoala]

Originally Posted by teknomage1

Alright, if you're going to live up to your namesake, fine. I don't see how clicking on an icon in Windows is any different from clicking on an icon in Linux or Mac. Point and click software installation works on both and users can do everything they need to do. Most can even write shell aliases and some can preform simple scripting tasks for themselves. Where does the, "oh that's so hard," come in?

But seriously just flame away and continue being an Ass.

Actually, the only flame in there was the "take your head out your ..." comment -- which was well qualified considering your post.

Now, you said yourself exactly what I said: there's no difference in clicking an icon in Linux, Mac, or Windows. Excellent. I never said otherwise (hell, I said the reason the artists think its easy is because that's all they're doing -- clicking icons).

Why don't you reread what I said? Maintanence and error recovery fit into (consumer) ease of use and that's the only thing I said Linux needs work on. The KDE guys are doing an awesome job with the GUI aspect and as package managers mature, the ease of use will increase. However, it's not there yet.

[teknomage1]

You seem to ignore the fact that these people can and do use the shell and grep and a whole host of unix features. I think the majority of people don't give users enough credit at all.

[AssKoala]

Originally Posted by teknomage1

You seem to ignore the fact that these people can and do use the shell and grep and a whole host of unix features. I think the majority of people don't give users enough credit at all.

That makes them (somewhat) technically knowledgable people. Ease of use is specifically about NOT having to use the command line among other things (the average user doesn't need to know about grep, the shell, etc).

The majority of Windows users don't dream of clicking on cmd.exe and when they do its because someone is telling them what to do on a step by step basis.

If the artists are working in Maya/Houdini/whatever, then I'm sure they're knowledgable enough to work "ls | grep blah". However, they are working on systems that require code input or scripts in the program itself, so simple scripting is part of their knowledge (assuming they're good artists). Shaders don't write themselves.

Now, get a pencil/paper artist near a computer and tell him to start writing scripts. Dreamworks is a Linux house and the artists get around just fine. However, using people that are generally computer saavy (such as 3D graphics artists) as your baseline for ease of use is fairly flawed.

[teknomage1]

Steps to justify Linux is unfriendly
1)Claim users aren't really using the operating system
2)Claim the only part of the operating system they use is cloned from something else so it doesn't count
3)Claim that since they really are using the operting system they are technically knowledggable and thus they don't count.

Why do I even bother?
*Also I don't work for Dreamworks.

[DJMaze]

I've read this thread with interest but it seems none have realy answered the original question and is flaming on OS's while they're not understanding an OS at all.

For example:

Originally Posted by AssKoala

If something breaks, you're SOL unless you have a *nix saavy type. Want to configure something? Gotta head to the console most of the time (thanks to KDE, this isnt the case as much anymore, however).

Which Windows user has ever find the recovery tool? And if they did find it, how many successfuly recovered their system?

The biggest issue in Windows is the registry which is the biggest file loaded at boot. Which windows user has ever been able to fix the registry file after it got screwed?

Each OS has its issues and each has its benefits. You all can't complain about linux nor about windows in the way this thread is talking about since it's just flaming.

The real issue here is software. If drivers and applications were as easy to install as on Windows then many manufacturers will support Linux just as they do with Windows, but for the moment this is a "no go" since the costs are to high compared to market share and profit.

Another issue is the maze of libraries in Linux which prevents companies to support Linux. You know how much .so files of one library are on your system and that you still can't install rpm/deb files due to version incompatibility.

Windows is not the best system but it has a interface that doesn't change much and when it's changed it still works.

Windows also has issues, why else did they create DirectX ?

Thanks to XFree Linux has the same look and feel as windows but way more powerfull then the Windows Explorer. The only issue is the lack of good event queue and multi-threading support.

Another issue is the SDK documentation, windows has a good documentation with examples where X only has simple function descriptions.

I do agree that you shouldn't write a new OS unless it is only for educational purposes since there's just not enough time.

A good thing would be to take the real deal and that is the plain Linux (the kernel) and learn it. After that you can do anything you want.

The thing is that Linux is just a kernel and Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, etc. are a compilation of many applications that run on the kernel.
Windows XP is a full blown OS and you can't simply remove parts from it without crashing it, where with Linux you can.

Windows 98 is a different deal since that kernel is only 5MB.

80% of all computer users can't work with Linux since they grew up with Windows since 3.11 so if we grew up with Linux the world would be different but not better or worse.
just different...

[AssKoala]

Originally Posted by DJMaze

Which Windows user has ever find the recovery tool? And if they did find it, how many successfuly recovered their system?

Actually, plenty, though we're working on empirical evidence here, so it's stupid to dispute.

The biggest issue in Windows is the registry which is the biggest file loaded at boot. Which windows user has ever been able to fix the registry file after it got screwed?

How many Linux users know how to fix /boot or /etc after accidently borking things? The solution is generally a reinstall. Good try, albeit irrelevant.

Each OS has its issues and each has its benefits. You all can't complain about linux nor about windows in the way this thread is talking about since it's just flaming.

Actually, I fail to see how anything I or teknomage have said is flaming (with the exception of tekno's last post which is pretty dumb).

The real issue here is software. If drivers and applications were as easy to install as on Windows then many manufacturers will support Linux just as they do with Windows, but for the moment this is a "no go" since the costs are to high compared to market share and profit.

Aye, funny that I said that in my first response

Another issue is the maze of libraries in Linux which prevents companies to support Linux. You know how much .so files of one library are on your system and that you still can't install rpm/deb files due to version incompatibility.

Yeah, that one is huge. That's worse than the dll hell of the Windows 98 days (hell, its worse than the codec hell that lives on Windows nowadays).

That's why Mac OS X has taken the Windows approach of sticking the damned software in its own folder and duplicating libraries instead of mucking with the entire OS for every piece of software installed.

Windows is not the best system but it has a interface that doesn't change much and when it's changed it still works.

Nothing is the best system, it depends on your application. In the workstation/desktop market, for both performance and stability, Windows is generally considered the best (Mac OS X is considered better for desktops by many, though workstation/graphics people and IT people who don't have their heads up their asses generally hate the platform). Servers are a different story (though the netcraft top uptimes are owned by FreeBSD and Windows 2000) and are more application dependent.

Benchmarks and theory back up performance on the workstation front, the server front is hit or miss: you can find a set of benchmarks to prove whatever side you're on.

Windows also has issues, why else did they create DirectX ?

What? That makes no sense. Why did they create SDL? Why did they create X-Windows? Hell, why did they create RPC?

Thanks to XFree Linux has the same look and feel as windows but way more powerfull then the Windows Explorer. The only issue is the lack of good event queue and multi-threading support.

That's debateable, though I won't deny that KDE has made a great system, X-Windows in and of itself isn't exactly the greatest thing since sliced bread.

80% of all computer users can't work with Linux since they grew up with Windows since 3.11 so if we grew up with Linux the world would be different but not better or worse.
just different...

That actually has to be most intelligent thing I've ever read in a Linux vs. Windows offtopic discussion. I definitely have quite the respect for you after that post of yours and that line

[teknomage1]

You raise very good points DJMaze. Some of the issues you pointed out are mitigated by different markets though.
In the high end graphics software area Linux actually has two advantages
1) a lot of companies write and maintain their own application and the rest buy from a hnadful of vendors
2 )the majority of consumers in that market used to be heavily invested SGI hardware which ran IRIX.

Because there was a huge demand for IRIX ports of stuff if you wanted to sell to the "industry" graphics software was wittento live in a unix world, which in turn made it trivial to port to linux.

Now once you step back from the table and say - okay, I've got my software and drivers out of the way, it becomes an argument about usability. If we were talking baout the gaming market with none of those perious advantages we would indeed be stuck in the chicken/egg situation you described because there is not and probably will not for the forseeable future be a strong enough linux game consumer market. (A fair number of console game developers are actually unix shops)

In terms of actual usability Linux is at the same level as windows for the majority of a user's needs and exceeds it in a few areas (system stability and security). Where it fails to shine is in support for third party binary software (because of the problems DJMAze described) though standardization initiatives are working on this. This is a secondary issue to usability though since the kernel supports most hardware out of the box and the install programs for most modern distro's can set it up correctly and provide visual config dialogs.

[DJMaze]

Originally Posted by AssKoala

What? That makes no sense. Why did they create SDL? Why did they create X-Windows? Hell, why did they create RPC?

Ehm that was not fully what i ment. DirectX was invented after M$ found out that their multimedia and graphics systems were terribly slow and figured they couldn't delete the old system so they've implemented a seperate engine for that.

Originally Posted by AssKoala

That actually has to be most intelligent thing I've ever read in a Linux vs. Windows offtopic discussion. I definitely have quite the respect for you after that post of yours and that line

LOL

[AssKoala]

Originally Posted by teknomage1

In terms of actual usability Linux is at the same level as windows for the majority of a user's needs and exceeds it in a few areas (system stability and security).

See, that's where I say bs. Linux, in general, isn't secure worth a damn. I'm not saying Windows is more secure, but Linux is far from secure. There are projects like SELinux and Gentoo Hardened that make the Linux systems significantly more secure, but as a kernel, it isn't secure.

Browse around the Securityfocus and OSVDB sites and check out the numerous holes that get fixed with each kernel revision. The holes get patches, but the fact that they existed means its insecure.

Security is 99% administration nowadays. A Windows box is perfectly secure if you have it patched up, but you need to actually patch it up (MS's biggest problem is that people don't patch their systems). A Linux box needs to be constantly updated as well (there's a reason the IT guys are around, surprisingly they do work sometimes). The only boxes that don't need constant updates are OpenBSD based, but even there the systems need to be patched when the software is shown to have problems (though they rarely have remote exploits).

Of course, it's starting to get better for the world of OSes thanks to things like Canaries and other features being built into the OS (the world of Windows will get better as limited users become the norm in Vista instead of administrative users), but all major OSes still have a long way to go with that one.

Stability is another bs'y claim. Poorly kept Linux boxes won't stay up any longer than poorly kept Windows boxes. My Windows box reboots when I patch the system. So does my FreeBSD box and so does my Linux box. There are no other times any of the systems reboot. If your box goes down, be it Windows, Linux, or BSD, its more likely a driver issue than an OS issue.

And you can blame Creative and ATI for crap drivers (among others).

[teknomage1]

I don't see where your dog in this fight is Koala, I mean you called me nuts for disagreeing with the predominant meme that linux is hard to use citing the wisdon of the crowd ("the world agrees with him not you") and yet you now turn away from the crowd and say despite every major internet affecting worm and personal info stealing virus going affecting Windows, Linux, because it is constantly improved, is inherently insecure.

Now I'm not a betting man, but I'd say you're out of ammo and are still trying to redefine the issue to make me wrong instead of actually sitting down and thinking about something.