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Communities... for humans?

pinotree's picture
Submitted by pinotree on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 19:51.

The fact that day by day, new people try to use free software or free operating systems (like GNU/Linux) is a good thing, and we all know that.
Something is supposed to help in the process is also the set of the various communities: GNU/linux distributions, applications, etc. Though, this is also something really delicate, where everybody invloved should (IMHO) be careful in what is shown towards the new comers.

Nowadays, you can basically do most (if not all) of the basic operations without even caring about what a terminal is. That is something really nice! KDE, GNOME, whatever graphical interface does not matter, as long it's there and works.
What I cannot really, really, really stand is when you read on user forums, blogs, and other help support dedicated to users, instructions like (emphasys by myself):

Today the application Foobar v2.1 was released.
You can update your previous Foobar version by opening a terminal and doing the following:

$ wget 
$ cd /opt/whatever
$ tar xvzf foobaris-x.y.z.tar.gz
$ chown $USER:$USER -R foobar..
$ chmod -R ugo+rwx foobar...
$ cd foobar...
$ ./foobar

What the hell is that, for a normal user???

Leaving aside the fact that distros (especially the most "user-oriented" ones) try to have all the updated versions available (even the same day of the release!), why the hell do we have GUIs for unpacking archives, file managers for managing files and their permissions, package managers to install packages even out of the distro official update channels, etc???
I feel all the work for doing these interfaces seems "lost", if the user channels just propose this attitude.

Communities, STOP IT!! The only effect is loosing and discourage new users!

Important note: this does NOT mean this is something that all the communities or all the people in each communitiy do, but still it's something sadly not so unusal to see. Sigh...

One of the mottos of Ubuntu is "Linux for humans". And sometimes the "humans" could even not bother about the terminal, especially for easy operations.

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momesana's picture

I think one obvious reason

Submitted by momesana on Fri, 04/11/2008 - 20:00.

I think one obvious reason for instructing people to use commands is that the tools used are present on about any system. wget, tar, chmod, chown ... these tools are available regardless of what window manager, distro etc. a person is using. Nonetheless, this will be all very disappointing to newcomers and I agree with you on this one.

What we need are more visual guides. This takes more effort than just instructing the user to type in some commands but is way easier for the user to grasp. Using commands may appear natural and easy to us but appear very complicated to most newbies and thus are rejected by them. If the user feels stupid and overwhelmed by complexity, we have already lost him.

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eean's picture

ignore

Submitted by eean on Mon, 04/07/2008 - 03:18.

*replied to wrong thing*

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cassens's picture

The shell is not obsolete

Submitted by cassens on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 23:18.

What the hell is that, for a normal user???

Well, I consider myself a "normal user", and yes, this is exactly what I want, a short and precise description of what I have to do, with the option to review any step and adapt it to my personal preference/setting.

GUI's are not everything, the power of the shell is one of the biggest benefits of running a GNU/Linux system. Especially in a case like the one you pointed towards. Today the application Foobar v2.1 was released. I tell all new users to Linux to stick with versions released by distributors ore a few selected sources, since they are tested and integrated (well, in my opinion that is one of the most important task of the packager). Heck, I even discourage them to do any version upgrade at all unless they understand what they are doing.

So the cli steps you cited are targeted at those who want to try this new release, knowing what they are doing, and the rest of the users should wait until a trusted packager has repackaged the software and sufficiently tested it so that they can install it with whatever tools they commonly use.

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pinotree's picture

Re: The shell is not obsolete

Submitted by pinotree on Mon, 04/07/2008 - 00:11.

Just to clarify, I'm NOT saying that the shell is obsolete.
Do you feel normal throwing terminal commands to a new user who just installed GNU/Linux yesterday, and has lots of things to learn already? I don't.

> So the cli steps you cited are targeted at those who want to try this new release, knowing what they are doing,

Exactly one of my ideas. If I'm a new user of foobar (be it a distro, an application, etc), I look for help in its community, trusting it a bit; and if its community provides me any support, I will mostly follow what is told me.
New comers (and I want to stress that) most probably have no idea of what they are doing, I've seen this pattern too many times.

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kevinkofler's picture

Instructions for copy&paste

Submitted by kevinkofler on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:38.

Well, there's a reason a terminal is used in this sort of instructions: it's much easier to give instructions ready to copy&paste for the terminal; for a GUI, you have to guide the user step by step, describe very clearly what to click on, maybe even add screenshots to illustrate your guidelines. It's much easier to say "copy&paste this, you don't have to understand, just paste it". Now of course, this won't make the user any wiser, and is actually likely to make users vulnerable to script kiddies giving malicious instructions, but it explains why the instructions are given that way (it's a lot more convenient for the developer, and might even be more convenient for the user in the short term).

My feeling is that yes, the right solution is to wait for a distro package and to just use the GUI package updater provided by the distribution.

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superstoned's picture

So true

Submitted by superstoned on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:16.

I actually often discourage newbies of upgrading if there are no packages available. It often doesn't work out for them, and leaves a bad taste. 'just wait for the new release of your distro and everything will be up to date' is a good thing.

Sure, if they want to learn, I tell them to go ahead and try - but I also tell them not to expect too much...

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pinotree's picture

Just to clarify...

Submitted by pinotree on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:46.

I was not referring specifically to the "programme update" task, but to any task that can is 100% doable (even if takes a bit more time) with a GUI. For example, telling a magic

chmod u+w foobar.txt

just to change a permission is basically voodoo, while guide'ing an user to use any file manager, can be much more easy (for them!) to remember.

The point is always: the "newbie/newcomer" user.

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bkor's picture

It might be voodoo, but the

Submitted by bkor on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 21:59.

It might be voodoo, but the user can do it without too much trouble; just by copy/pasting. Explaining how to do this in a GUI takes much more effort (toolbars that might not be in the same place, difficulty of explaining where to click, right vs left click, etc). A GUI is nice if you can demonstrate it in a video, but it is more difficult over the phone (takes more effort to determine what the user is looking at) or in text instructions (user might not understand the instructions.. best is a video/screenshots).

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eean's picture

console can be easier; consistency

Submitted by eean on Mon, 04/07/2008 - 03:19.

This is true. I used to work at a campus help desk, rather then guide folks through the process of figuring out their IP the "GUI way" that I'm pretty sure Windows XP has available somewhere, I would just tell people to do "start->run, enter cmd, press enter, enter ipconfig, press enter".

However I agree with the gist of what pinotree is saying. For one thing, at a campus helpdesk I'm not trying to really educate anyone on how to diagnose their network problems, I'm just trying to figure out the issue and fix it. Community sites should be more educational, copy and paste is pretty weak.

The main problem is that the command line tools is about the only thing consistent among any reasonable Linux distro.

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