On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 05:02:13PM +0200, Brice Méalier wrote: > There something that you can try to do instead of double-clicking on > item (this way you'll also experience the user-friendliness of linux): > open a terminal (gnome-terminal or Konsole under KDE (yeah this ugly > command line)) and type 'fire' and hit twice the TAB key, that will give > you every command beginning with fire including firefox! If the command > needs some more argument, it will tell it to you! so according to these > messages, you'll be able to see what went wrong! I'd say that we should just keep new users away from the command line. I do all my work there, but it ceased to be the best way for new users to interact with a computer about 15 years ago. The problem with the command line (just to resurrect a horse long enough to flail it) is that it doesn't tell you what your options are. In a GUI, you have menus that list the full extent of what's available to you. The command line has the full expressive power of language, with all the complexities that that entails. Sometimes -- often -- limiting choice makes things more usable. (Ask a recent immigrant about his or her first time in an American grocery store, for an idea.) You come to the command line, for instance, and you ask yourself 'How do I launch my web browser?' How will you know even that your web browser starts with 'fire'? Tab-completion only works if you know what the filename is. The better approach for new users is to have a menu like GNOME's: Applications -> Internet -> Firefox. Though I think Firefox should be labeled 'Firefox web browser,' but they're on their way. > Well ok! but don't look to much at this! after some reading on the unix > filesystems you will understand that you can't not do such equivalent > between unix and win (I don't blame someone here). So take it for half > right for now, you'll understand that with some practice. Mmm ... give me an example of an executable file that a) most new users would encounter and b) is *not* in /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, or /usr/sbin. Granted, sometimes apps are in ~/bin, but new users will not encounter that. The odds are overwhelming that any app you want will be in one of the four directories that I listed. -- Stephen R. Laniel steve@laniels.org +(617) 308-5571 http://laniels.org/ PGP key: http://laniels.org/slaniel.key
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