Re: The Debian Desktop Project (was: Re: Make Debian better (Re: Two Debian 3.0 reviews at Slashdot))
On 10/22/2002 12:08 PM, marco trevisani at marco@centrotemporeale.it wrote:
> In fact for this reason i would avoid taking Windows and windows XP as
> reference...not just, or not only ideologically. It is not a rational
> desktop/configuration design.
>
Heh. Well, we are totally agreed on this point. I have been running Apple
Macintosh's since 1985, and I can bitch about clunky Microsoft GUIs all day
long. <old geezer mode> Why I was ripping on Microsoft back when all you
Linux kids were still running around in diapers. </old geezer mode>
Seriously though, from a user interface design perspective, there are a
number of areas where Win98/XP could stand some improvement. Apple Mac OS
too for that matter. I don't think Debian Desktop should try too hard to
emulate either one, but rather, offer default configurations that are
consistent with best UI design practices.
That said, I did post a query in this forum asking if Debian Desktop should
consider offering, during the install, IceWM tweaked to look like Win95/98
so that folks coming over from Windows would immediately be in a comfort
zone and quickly productive. Haven't heard any response to that idea yet.
Heh, heresy met with silence :-)
> Curiously enough after many experiments
> she ended up (but at this point all major thing were set up in the
> machine) using xfce.
>
XFce isn't a bad choice - it is lightweight, and pretty quick and easy to
learn. I hate the default color pallettes, but you can't have everything
;-)
> I'm not done...:-) One could say many things about Apple, but both, the
> old system <= 9.x and the new NeXTStep Appleised MacX are really well
> designed on the Dektop front including and in particular the Control
> Panel. Plus the transition from 9 to X is not traumatic,
>
Heh. Oh, it was plenty traumatic for some of the old Mac OS diehards :-)
I won't get into a huge discussion of this issue here - not the appropriate
forum at all. Let's just say that I disagree, for a lot of reasons, with
Tim O'Reilly when he says that Mac OS X is the ne plus ultra of Unix GUIs.
Not least of which, OS X is NOT software libre.
> That is
> the point, it isnt true that UNix it is either hard to configure or it
> needs a rewrite to become user friendly, it is instead true that for
> many reasons under GNU/linux a good configuration/system manager tool
> has never been created.
>
Mandrake, SuSE, Lycoris, and Red Hat have all deployed Control Panel type
system manager tools, with varying degrees of success. So the Linux world
is working on this issue.
> On the lagnuage/semantic side i think it is important to notice that it
> is really relevant the name and sentece choices. *deamon* & *server* are
> considered something you dont want to put your hands on.
>
Good point. Does the typical Windows user really know what a daemon is?
This strongly suggests that we should use simple, effective labels in the
menu for things like Folders, and applications. That is part of another
thread which I will get into over there though.
Cheers,
Luke Seubert
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