From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LUzKg-0002lH-9H for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:11:34 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 979F4E034D; Thu, 5 Feb 2009 08:11:32 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 59363E034D for ; Thu, 5 Feb 2009 08:11:32 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E30A3646BA for ; Thu, 5 Feb 2009 08:11:31 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -3.436 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.436 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=0.163, BAYES_00=-2.599, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW=-1] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id ZG+24K-ewAiQ for ; Thu, 5 Feb 2009 08:11:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ciao.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.229.2]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4CD4B64304 for ; Thu, 5 Feb 2009 08:11:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1LUzKR-0001EZ-Mt for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:11:19 +0000 Received: from athedsl-412040.home.otenet.gr ([79.131.161.134]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:11:19 +0000 Received: from realnc by athedsl-412040.home.otenet.gr with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:11:19 +0000 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org From: Nikos Chantziaras Subject: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh? Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:11:25 +0200 Organization: Lucas Barks Message-ID: References: <200902042224.55289.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> <1233779854.4596.41.camel@silversword> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: athedsl-412040.home.otenet.gr User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 (X11/20090203) In-Reply-To: Sender: news Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Archives-Salt: 475f0966-346f-40fe-b31c-85aebf8d4679 X-Archives-Hash: b823f83554aa26c7076330026e12e98e Jes=FAs Guerrero wrote: > El Jue, 5 de Febrero de 2009, 7:07, Nikos Chantziaras escribi=F3: >> Sebasti=C3=A1n Magr=C3=AD wrote: >> >>> The installation experience with the traditional method must be >>> mandatory... That's why I think we are better now that GLI is >>> deprecated... >> That's not good. It hurts Gentoo's popularity if it's not easy to >> install. But since there are not enough devs left for the GUI install= er, >> not much that can be done. >> >> Gentoo isn't unsuitable for a GUI installer. It's stage 3, after all. >=20 > That's definitely good. It never worked and newbies came to > Gentoo thinking that it as some kind of uberfaster ubuntu > thing that could be installed by just clicking next. Than I'll rephrase my statement: Gentoo would need a non-bugged GUI=20 installer ;) > Then they ran away yelling how bad this gentoo crap is that > doesn't work at all unless you do a lot of black magic on the > command line! "Because I want full control over my system, but > only clicking next. The OS should read my mind!" I don't think anyone should care about that. Installation and=20 maintenance are two different things. A good GUI installer would pretty=20 much allow you to do the same things as the CLI installer. It's just a=20 different interface. And besides, installation is much more=20 "standardized" than actual maintenance. There's no reason why a GUI=20 installer can't do the same things as the CLI one. You'll just have GUI=20 widgets instead of text-mode characters, maybe with a lot of automation=20 and safe defaults thrown in. Personally, even though I'm an old fart (I installed Slackware when it=20 first came out, used it for years), I prefer GUI installers.=20 Installation is *boring*. I need to do the steps manually even though=20 they're pretty much the same every time you install. I'm OK with CLI=20 maintenance. But for the installer I really prefer GUI. > If we clear that from the beginning so everyone knows what to > expect from gentoo AND WHAT GENTOO EXPECTS FROM YOU then that > problem is gone. You don't need to make such a statement through the installer. There=20 are other, more suitable places for this. Like in the docs, website, or=20 a notice in the... installer :) Also, Gentoo isn't really black magic. There's no good reason why=20 emerge for example isn't GUI based. Or revdep-rebuild. Or layman.=20 Or... I hope you get the point ;) Yes, those things need a lot of work=20 and there are no people willing to do the task. But I'm just trying to=20 make a point here: the way you do maintenance in Gentoo isn't based on=20 the traditional Unix tools. That means, you could have GUIs for all of=20 them. But I'm drifting. The installer is pretty much separated from all this.=20 After all, "all" it needs to do is set up stage3 and tweak the settings= . > Some would call this a nazi attidute of mine, I would say that > you can't drive an f-17 unless you are willing to prepare > yourself to do so before. It's called realism. You need to > learn before you can do. Even a child can understand that. Yes, but learning is made a lot easier through a GUI interface. Not all=20 GUIs are created equal. You can have a simple "click next" wizard (not=20 suitable for learning) or a collection of GUI tools that do different=20 things but offer many options without actually obfuscating what's going=20 on. A GUI for emerge for example, could simply have a line at the=20 bottom where the actual command is shown that would be executed with the=20 chosen option. The user knows here that he can simply type that command=20 himself. That's different to tools like openSUSE's YaST for example,=20 where you have no clue how it actually does what it does. GUIs for the simple things is good. Maybe CLI for the hairy stuff. > Someone would argue that's too hard to start, but that's why > we have excellent docs, mailing lists, forums and irc, with > a very high traffic and lots of friendly people giving away > their time for free to help you. So, whomever can't find a > way is either too lazy or too shy to talk to the people around. >=20 > Gentoo was never meant to win a popularity price. I prefer to > stay without nothing at all that to have the lot of problems > that the installer has been creating during 3 years of existence. > It harmed the gentoo popularity (if you like that argument) > much more than the lack of a installer. But popularity is good for the project. It ensures that it stays=20 healthy, supported and can draw in new devs. If popularity gows down,=20 devs leave, more bugs show up that don't get fixed, etc. > Besides that, there's no easy way that you will understand Gentoo > if you are not going to read the handbook. And even then, it takes > time to become familiar with the way that USE flags truly work > (and I mean to understand it, and not just do -qt -kde +gnome +gtk > blindly that most users do (or the other way around) without > even knowing what's behind the scene and how USE flags and ebuilds > relate to each other. Now this is actually a pro-GUI argument. Why? In a GUI interface, you=20 can simply throw the truth at the user's face in an elegant way. "Well=20 dude, those USE flags you see here actually control the way we are going=20 to build the sources. Click here to get a description of what the gtk=20 flag means for this package." The user learns. > Let's assume it: you are building a distro. It's easy enough as it > is. Usability is good, but the only way that Gentoo could get > easier is just by taking features away and lowering the degree of > control that the users have. Gentoo is easy as it is. How easier could it get? GUI tools don't=20 really result in less features. They're only there to deal with the=20 most common of them. > There are enough easy-to-use distros. Let us, "masochists", live in > peace. We love pain, why do people care so much about what we do > with our privacy? :P [it's a joke, in case anyone didn't notice] You would still be free to use the CLI. Hell, even I would for many=20 things. But an nice tray icon that goes like "Gentoo Updates are=20 available" wouldn't hurt me either. I click it, the emerge GUI shows up = ;) > There have been several attempts to make a decent installer. They > all failed miserably and got abandoned. Why? Because to tell the > truth, no one has an authentic interest in the matter. The simple > answer is most probably the right one. And that's because Gentoo is not really popular. :P > By the way, did I already said that anyone that can read can also > install Gentoo? Lost of people with no experience with linux did > it with very little or no help. GUIs have fonts. You can read those too ;)