User Feedback :: Moving Forward - What's Your Desire?
Some may be misunderstanding.
The reason that debian compatibility would be good is FOR user-friendliness!
If DSL maintains compatibility with a branch of debian then a much greater number of community members can help build the mydsl repositories.
Newer people may not be aware of the deb2dsl or dsl2unc scripts. These are scripts submitted by community members that provide a great service! With deb2dsl, a user can install an application via apt. If they like the app and it runs well, they can run deb2dsl from a commandline, answer a few questions, and now they have a mydsl extension of the application! Want to run the app on a lowram machine using unionfs? Run the dsl2unc script on that mydsl app and now you have it as a unc!
THAT, my friends, is why maintaining some type of debian compatibility would be good. It's not really for the hd-installers, it's for the community to help build the mydsl repos to support the frugal/live cd/usb installations.Funny how this "user friendly" argument never ceases. Also funny how I always feel compelled to get mouthy about my position on the subject....
There's nothing arcane about Linux. It's quite the opposite. Everything about Linux and GNU is wide open, and freely available documentation and other forms of help are spread all over the internet. I might say that Windows is more arcane, as it is completely closed along with a majority of the software and hardware made for it.
As ^thehatsrule^ said, no operating system is going to be easy to use for someone new to it. The seemingly simple concept of clicking stuff isn't even terribly obvious to someone who has never done it before.
The concept of "friendly" is subject to the individual user's frame of reference and personal taste, and cannot be boxed into a single collection of features. A user who is quite comfortable with a Windows interface and its tools is obviously going to have to do at least some learning and adjusting when moving to any non-Windows system. The more unlike Windows that system is, the more learning the user needs to do.
This does not mean that the other system is less friendly than Windows; it means it is *different*. Linux is an extremely powerful and flexible system, much more so than anything ever released by Microsoft. This is a simple fact. In order to harness this power and flexibility, you *must* learn more than how to click. And this clicking is what the Windows user always seems to see as "friendly". It has to be clickable or it's somehow ancient or too complicated. But a graphical interface using current technology can do only so much before it takes more effort to use than what it was designed to save. The more functionality is given to the gui, the larger, slower, and more complicated it becomes. More complexity means it becomes harder to learn and is more prone to programming errors.
The reason I spent so much time talking about Windows and its graphical interface is because every time there is a debate on user friendliness, it basically comes down to people coming from Windows and seeing that things are done differently. For these people I would say that they should consider trying a different Linux distribution. There are several that make the transition from Windows much easier. DSL cannot be terribly friendly in this sense of the word because it is targeted toward old hardware that may not have the space and processing power to handle complex graphical applications. Roberts has put a lot of work into creating a collection of small, simple tools which certainly help in this area. It's actually quite surprising what can be done in DSL without even needing to open a terminal.
For my own idea of friendly, I prefer simplicity and the flexibility and power to do what I want with my system. This is pretty close to what DSL is. If DSL were focused mainly on binary graphical applications, I wouldn't even bother with it.
Quote (clivesay @ May 06 2007,22:12)
Newer people may not be aware of the deb2dsl or dsl2unc scripts. T
It would be nice to see the wiki updated to show how to include icons.I think the "create tar.gz from source" touches on that subject. I think you're right, though, that it should be seen in other sections as well. Perhaps a generic "basics of building myDSL extensions" should be written to explain all things that are common to all mydsl types: icon, menu item, declobbering, submission, etc.I forgot Linspire / Freespire in my list of ground-breaking, truly friendly Linux distros.
Mikshaw, what do you think makes DS less friendly than Puppy? It is, in case you don't know. Damn Small has advantages in things like the really slick encrypted CONFIG file, truly great for Internet access. I use both distros.Next Page...
original here.