Re: [gentoo-dev] Replacing fdisk with cfdisk in

[Luke-Jr <luke-jr@gentoo.org>]

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On Thursday 21 August 2003 05:36 am, Stewart Honsberger wrote:
> Gentoo's installation is great because it is simple, elegant, and
> powerful. It's not cluttered with every "user-friendly" (read: attempt
> at idiot-proof) tool known to man.

No, but tools should be obvious to the user when they can be without losing 
any functionality. Nano, for example, makes itself quite obvious how to use 
and is not, AFAIK, explained anywhere in the manual. cfdisk is obvious in the 
same way. As far as the manual goes, neither nano nor cfdisk lack any needed 
functionality.

> Gentoo sets a bar at a certain height, and expects users to acheive that
> height in order to get their system off the ground. How many times are
> we going to lower the bar? As with every "user-friendly" system,
> eventually along comes a better idiot.

InGen itself is designed to make even someone who has never used a computer 
before able to install Gentoo. There could then be a problem with having 
idiots using Gentoo, but I'm sure something can be found to keep them 
seperate from "real" users.

> fdisk is a simple, standard, powerful partition table editor. I've used
> Linux's fdisk to repair botched tables more times than I can count.
> Instructions for use can be very simple.

Instructions for fdisk can be simple, as opposed to not really needing 
instructions for cfdisk at all... I'm not saying exclude fdisk (it can't be 
that big), but there's no reason to use it by default (eg in the manual).

> The last patch of the slope is the Vi(M) discussion. "Vi is hard" seems
> like a bit of a cop-out to me. Vi can be summed-up in half a dozen lines;
>
> vi <filename> - Load file for editing
> /<keyword>  - search
>
> :w - Write file to disk
> :q - Quit
>
> Commands can be combined, eg; :wq - Write file to disk and Quit
>
> Five lines and users have all the knowledge they need to create / edit
> their base system files. A few more short lines and you can explain
> (global) search/replace to give them more advanced functionality.

I don't see anything in those *4* lines explaining how to enter data (eg 'i' 
or 'a'), but like fdisk, vi would require explaining how to use it whereas 
nano is obvious, so it should be includes, but not in the manual.

> I've been seeing a lot of talk, even since the day I first wandered into
> Gentoo's user support areas (IRC, forums, mailing lists) about
> 'graphical installation front-ends', install scripts, etc.
>
> Gentoo has always been a great tool for getting users accustomed to
> their system from the inside out. Do we want to remain that way, or do
> we want to become "Just Another (Half-Assed) User-Friendly Linux
> Distro"? The likes of RedHat, Mandrake, and SuSE have fully graphical
> installation utilities that make the Windows install look complicated;
> five clicks and an hour later you're staring at your gorgeous KDE
> desktop. If we're going to aim towards user-friendlines on installation,
> we're already several years behind right out of the starting gate. Can
> we possibly compete with that? (Not to mention their respective
> corporate funding)

Of course we can. Gentoo can be for everyone at the same time. There is no 
reason we need to get rid of the manual/stages to include a GUI. InGen helps 
with this by making the GUI too simple for most "real" users to like, 
therefore most (all?) current users will continue to use the manual 
installation, as well as new experienced users.

> I'm of the opinion that we have to set barriers; lines in the sand, if
> you will. "This is how friendly we will become" and stick to those
> boundaries. This would, of course, also help with the consistency issues
> that are raised weekly on this list. ;>

I agree we may need to keep the "idiot" and "real user" communities seperate, 
but there's no reason both cannot exist.
- -- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Gentoo Linux
http://www.gentoo.org/
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