Linux user-facing software usability
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@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
It's almost as if things become more complicated when they can do more things.
I've lost track of the number of times my "phone" has failed to remember that its first purpose in life is to be a fucking phone!
I get that it's a computer with a phone attached and that the phone features are handled by a Phone App... but whenever the phone hardware is on a call, I expect the computer to give crash priority to the Phone App. Kill every damn other thing running if you have to, just make sure the phone rings, the screen lights up, and you can actually take the call.
My phone rings on the last ring, sometimes never rings (and just tell me that I missed a call), or rings, displays the Call Answer UI, but is too busy with other things to let me interact with it until the call times out.
I get that a Nexus S is pretty old, but one day your phones will be pretty old, too. This shit is bananas.
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@bugmenot said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
It's almost as if things become more complicated when they can do more things.
I've lost track of the number of times my "phone" has failed to remember that its first purpose in life is to be a fucking phone!
I get that it's a computer with a phone attached and that the phone features are handled by a Phone App... but whenever the phone hardware is on a call, I expect the computer to give crash priority to the Phone App. Kill every damn other thing running if you have to, just make sure the phone rings, the screen lights up, and you can actually take the call.
My phone rings on the last ring, sometimes never rings (and just tell me that I missed a call), or rings, displays the Call Answer UI, but is too busy with other things to let me interact with it until the call times out.
I get that a Nexus S is pretty old, but one day your phones will be pretty old, too. This shit is bananas.
Mine likes to do a half ring before it consults the block list (where I put spam callers) to see if it should ring. It does this at least once a day.
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@Weng said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Mine likes to do a half ring before it consults the block list...
That's awful. That's kinda worse than having the phone just ignore the block list and let the call through.
That reminds me: on my phone there's a 50% chance that the Phone App will take until the third ring to do the phone number -> contact name lookup and replace the phone number with the contact name.
I mean, I get that I have like thirty people in my address book, so one can't reasonably expect that operation to complete in less than 3000ms for a dataset of that size...
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@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
It doesn't do that, "Windows is searching for drivers" or whatever any more?
It does, but who cares if it takes a minute to download something as long as no user intervention is necessary?
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@Polygeekery said in Linux user-facing software usability:
When was this? I have never had a single issue hooking up an external display to either of my MacBooks.
We have a few TVs on wheels in the office. A few of them do not work with Macs for some reason, but they work fine with Windows or Ubuntu. Maybe I should try a Mac with a Live-USB and see if it's hardware or software!
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@GÄ…ska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Ubuntu maintainers refused to ship MP3 codecs for ideological reasons. Dunno if they still do it.
They still don't ship with rar support, even getting
XBMCKodi from the Ubuntu repository lacked the ability to play straight out of rars.
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@bugmenot said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Weng said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Mine likes to do a half ring before it consults the block list...
That's awful. That's kinda worse than having the phone just ignore the block list and let the call through.
That reminds me: on my phone there's a 50% chance that the Phone App will take until the third ring to do the phone number -> contact name lookup and replace the phone number with the contact name.
I mean, I get that I have like thirty people in my address book, so one can't reasonably expect that operation to complete in less than 3000ms for a dataset of that size...
I think the actual ring is handled at the OS level, and the blocklist at the phone app level. So the phone app has to start before it can drop the call.
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@asdf said in Linux user-facing software usability:
BluRays won't work OOTB.
Yeah, because Windows didn't (doesn't?) need extra software to play DVDs or Blu-ray!
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@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
But what happens here in the real world is it costs $25,000 to build the Windows driver, but it costs $50,000 to build the Linux driver-- and the Linux driver has fewer features, or worse performance.
And a company has to build dozens of versions. Because you can't just run the same binary on different linuxes. Which, when you're closed source, pretty much screws you.
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@dcon ...which I believe was the point he was making about stable ABIs. (If not, feel free to correct me on this @blakeyrat.)
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@bugmenot said in Linux user-facing software usability:
My phone rings on the last ring, sometimes never rings (and just tell me that I missed a call),
I get that. But then I'm lucky if I get 1 bar in my house. (I really need to bitch to AT&T and get one of those microcells)
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@Zemm There was a time when such functionality was included. I did get the Win10 DVD player for free, but my store account lost my license somehow and now I can't download it unless I pay for it.
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@Weng said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I think the actual ring is handled at the OS level, and the blocklist at the phone app level.
My point is that the phone app should be (effectively) running at the OS level... it's a fucking phone!
@dcon said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I get that. But then I'm lucky if I get 1 bar in my house.
I wish I could blame it on signal problems. Five bars 24/7.
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@Zemm Ubuntu 16.04 even has an
unrar-free
package, but it isn't installed by default.
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@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
The obvious solution is to make Linux driver development so easy that it takes only $2,000 or less to make a Linux driver for a Woozle.
If you send an accurate, complete spec sheet and a Woozle or two to the folks at the Linux Driver Project, some of their 400+ experienced Linux kernel devs will do the hard work for you and take care of ongoing maintenance. #itcantgeteasierthanthat
@asdf said in Linux user-facing software usability:
If you're using Windows 10 and hardware from this decade, you'll have the same experience most of the time.
I remember having that experience with Windows XP. Everything Just Worked, out of the box. And then -like six months later- I built a new PC that contained a NIC and drive controller that were both made after the XP disk was pressed and shipped. I had to go scrounging around for floppy disks to put the controller driver on so that the XP installer could load the appropriate driver so that it would actually work. And then after that was done, I had to burn a CD-R to get the NIC driver on the machine.
Those few W10 users who use the install media to do fresh installs have a good OOTB driver set now, but its coverage is almost certain to become more and more spotty as time presses on.
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@Magus said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla I connected my HP printer to my wireless, and it immediately made a popup appear on my Windows machine, asking me to let it install the drivers. Like two years ago.
I have major problems installing my 3-year old printer drivers with windows when connecting wirelessly. HP is awful!
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@asdf said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
It doesn't do that, "Windows is searching for drivers" or whatever any more?
It does, but who cares if it takes a minute to download something as long as no user intervention is necessary?
I remember when in order to get an HP printer working on Linux you'd have to download hplip and then consult the list of printers and their corresponding drivers, look for that packaged learn that it's called something else in your distro, install it and be happy that installing drivers took only 30 minutes.
Meanwhile the Windows User would be like "what drivers? My printer doesn't need drivers. It just prints."
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@bugmenot said in Linux user-facing software usability:
My phone rings on the last ring, sometimes never rings (and just tell me that I missed a call), or rings, displays the Call Answer UI, but is too busy with other things to let me interact with it until the call times out.
Jesus Christ. Mine does that too. I'm pretty sure I have to factory reset it. Probably too much crap installed and too many services running.
Sometimes I can take a call on my Android, though. My iPhone has recently decided to refuse to let me swipe the icon to take a call so it just rings and rings while I paw at it helplessly. That's a phone that's completely useless at being a phone.
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@Weng said in Linux user-facing software usability:
And lo, thirty minutes later a working media center existed (most of which was spent failing at typing the serial with a faulty wireless keyboard).
Yeah, but then you had to watch Last Week Tonight.
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@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Hardware support seems to be a mostly solved problem, at least from the user's point of view
Well, unless you want to watch a video, apparently.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Hardware support seems to be a mostly solved problem, at least from the user's point of view
Well, unless you want to watch a video, apparently.
No, only if @masonwheeler or @Weng want to watch a video. I can watch videos just fine.
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@GÄ…ska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Windows 7. Had to go to this website that looks like it's from the 80s just to get the network card working. Guess what's hard to do when you need the network card working?
Yeah, it's kind of a problem to get network card drivers if you have no network card drivers. But that's about the only problem you'll have with Windows installation.
Hahaha 😂😆 you're funny!
And honestly, it's only a problem with desktops, not laptops which come with Windows preinstalled,
When did I say this was a problem with desktops? This was a Dell laptop with Broadcom wireless IIRC. I didn't think to mention it, but then you assumed.
and the only people who make installations on desktops are people who know what they're doing, and have access to another PC connected to internet.
E_CITATION_NEEDED
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@Magus said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla I connected my HP printer to my wireless, and it immediately made a popup appear on my Windows machine, asking me to let it install the drivers. Like two years ago.
Yeah, that was fucking annoying, especially when I didn't want the printer shove itself onto all my Windows 8 machines that would never in seven years need to print so much as a blank paper.
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@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Weng said in Linux user-facing software usability:
And lo, thirty minutes later a working media center existed (most of which was spent failing at typing the serial with a faulty wireless keyboard).
Yeah, but then you had to watch Last Week Tonight.
Still funnier than "conservative humor"
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@Weng Tim Allen is the MAN.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Linux user-facing software usability:
When did I say this was a problem with desktops? This was a Dell laptop with Broadcom wireless IIRC. I didn't think to mention it, but then you assumed.
Did it come with Windows preinstalled? If so, why doesn't preinstalled system come with Wi-Fi driver? If not, then I congratulate you on finding the only laptop in existence that doesn't support Windows. Do you still have it around? Could I get a model number?
and the only people who make installations on desktops are people who know what they're doing, and have access to another PC connected to internet.
E_CITATION_NEEDED
If you're buying a desktop, it means you made a conscious decision to not buy a laptop, something much more practical for home users. Which means you're either a business or building a gaming rig. If you're a business buying a desktop, you either know how to set it up, or hire someone to set it up. The hired person knows how to set it up, or you wouldn't hire them. If you're building a gaming rig, you must know how to set it up, otherwise you wouldn't know how to build it in the first place.
Assuming you're not an idiot.
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@GÄ…ska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
If you're buying a desktop, it means you made a conscious decision to not buy a laptop
Why would I want a laptop that​needs to be plugged in to a proper keyboard and monitor to be usable when I can get a desktop that's in the same place as the monitor and keyboard would be anyway, costs less for the same specs and is more expandable to prevent me from needing a whole new computer as soon? Desktops are far more sensible for home use
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@GÄ…ska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
it's only a problem with desktops, not laptops which come with Windows preinstalled
Pretty sure the few laptops that come with some sort of a preinstalled Linux distro also work perfectly fine out of the box. It's almost as if setting up the system beforehand means that the system is set up and ready to use!
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@kt_ said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Meanwhile the Windows User would be like "what drivers? My printer doesn't need drivers. It just prints."
Meanwhile with my old Samsung laser printer it's the opposite problem. Plug it into a Linux box and it will work no problems but had the manually install drivers into Windows. Annoyingly the Mac needed manual drivers too, despite using CUPS like how most Linux distributions use. It comes down to what is included.
Also my old work had a laptop who's motherboard was replaced. Reinstalling Windows was virtually impossible since everything needed drivers, even had to sneaker-net the network card drivers so the rest of it could be downloaded and installed. But we could never get sound to work, even spending hours on various websites trying drivers. For the lulz I did try booting off a Linux live USB which did actually work without troubles so it wasn't a hardware problem, just a mismatch of model numbers for the Windows drivers. Since this was a boss's laptop he wanted Windows so we got a USB sound connector for headphone use.
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@GÄ…ska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Linux user-facing software usability:
When did I say this was a problem with desktops? This was a Dell laptop with Broadcom wireless IIRC. I didn't think to mention it, but then you assumed.
Did it come with Windows preinstalled? If so, why doesn't preinstalled system come with Wi-Fi driver? If not, then I congratulate you on finding the only laptop in existence that doesn't support Windows. Do you still have it around? Could I get a model number?
It had Windows XP installed. Attempting to update to Vista (yes, this effectively marks it's age) apparently meant clean install,because fuck Vista.
Because, you know, it just works, right?
To my recognizance it was a latitude something thousand.
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@kt_ said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Meanwhile the Windows User would be like "what drivers? My printer doesn't need drivers. It just prints."
I've seen HP printer drivers for Windows that just randomly change the current locale for the process, triggering bugs where printing would make the application stop displaying numbers to users in the format that they expected. (It'd also changed where to load the message catalogs from, but the code concerned actually only did the loading at startup time.) Trying to explain what had happened to a severely irritated non-expert… not fun.
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@wharrgarbl said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Even MS-DOS just worked
Sure. Once you got your EMS and XMS config sorted, and set the right jumpers on your sound card*, and worked out what things you could load into the HMA on startup, and defined a few different config options that you could use depending on what
gamesprograms you wanted to run, and put all the right incantations into AUTOEXEC.BAT...* I never really had to do that; the first sound card I bought had an amazing new feature where you could change the configuration in software.
@Gurth said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Polygeekery said in Linux user-facing software usability:
my father who is in his 70's would not have been able to do it, at all. But, any person who is slightly above average on computer literacy should be able to do it.
My father is both. Where does he fit into this line of reasoning?
Your father is also Polygeekery's father? I don't think Polygeekery was trying to claim that nobody in their 70s could do it.
@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I used MacOS before I'd heard of Linux. It was terrible. Nothing made sense to me. Granted, I came from a DOS / Windows background, but it was a horrible experience.
I used MacOS before I had any real experience with DOS/Windows, and later concurrently with DOS/Windows and Solaris machines. It was rather nice, and I think it did a lot of things very well that have not been done as well since. In terms of "just working" with new hardware, it absolutely ran rings around Windows systems of the time. In terms of stability, well, neither of them were very stable in the early to mid 90s.
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Just by-the-by, in the last 20 years I've used plenty of operating systems, and there is literally only one that could not play a DVD "out-of-the-box" without hunting around for and installing extra software/codecs.
Congratulations to Windows 8!
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@Scarlet_Manuka said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Sure. Once you got your EMS and XMS config sorted, and set the right jumpers on your sound card*, and worked out what things you could load into the HMA on startup, and defined a few different config options that you could use depending on what gamesprograms you wanted to run, and put all the right incantations into AUTOEXEC.BAT...
I have set jumpers around in my time. But back then we didn't find as many crippling bugs in popular software as we do now. There was a few exceptions
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@gwowen said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Just by-the-by, in the last 20 years I've used plenty of operating systems, and there is literally only one that could not play a DVD "out-of-the-box" without hunting around for and installing extra software/codecs.
Congratulations to Windows 8!
Windows didn't play DVDs out of the box in all versions I remember before 7. You probably had some third party tools pre-installed in your computer.
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@wharrgarbl said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Windows didn't play DVDs out of the box in all versions I remember before 7. You probably had some third party tools pre-installed in your computer.
Definitely possible.
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@Weng said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Weng said in Linux user-facing software usability:
And lo, thirty minutes later a working media center existed (most of which was spent failing at typing the serial with a faulty wireless keyboard).
Yeah, but then you had to watch Last Week Tonight.
Still funnier than "conservative humor"
You've not seen "Tranny Bane".
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@wharrgarbl Fifteen fucking dollars:
Windows DVD Player - Microsoft Corporation
Although it's installed in my computer somehow?
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@wharrgarbl said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@gwowen said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Just by-the-by, in the last 20 years I've used plenty of operating systems, and there is literally only one that could not play a DVD "out-of-the-box" without hunting around for and installing extra software/codecs.
Congratulations to Windows 8!
Windows didn't play DVDs out of the box in all versions I remember before 7. You probably had some third party tools pre-installed in your computer.
It will not play them out of the box in any version except maybe XP Media Center.
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@Polygeekery said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@wharrgarbl said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@gwowen said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Just by-the-by, in the last 20 years I've used plenty of operating systems, and there is literally only one that could not play a DVD "out-of-the-box" without hunting around for and installing extra software/codecs.
Congratulations to Windows 8!
Windows didn't play DVDs out of the box in all versions I remember before 7. You probably had some third party tools pre-installed in your computer.
It will not play them out of the box in any version except maybe XP Media Center.
XP Media Centre, Vista Home Premium and Ultimate and Windows 7 Premium, Business and Ultimate will out of the box via Media Player or Media Centre.
Windows 8 and up don't do it out of the box, you had\have to buy an addon - but most manufacturers included some kind of playback software anyway that would do it.
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@GÄ…ska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Vista
Well, there's your problem.
Yeah, this was before everyone knew it was shit.
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@Tsaukpaetra You were using Vista before it was released?
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Tsaukpaetra You were using Vista before it was released?
Yeah, actually. But IIRC it was called Longhorn then.
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@Scarlet_Manuka said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I never really had to do that; the first sound card I bought had an amazing new feature where you could change the configuration in software.
Later SoundBlaster cards (Starting with the second version of the Sound Blaster 16?) could do that, but games would complain if you didn't set the
BLASTER
environment variable with all the IRQ/DMA settings... and of course, the software that set all the interrupts/DMAs wouldn't set that environment variable for you.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Yeah, actually. But IIRC it was called Longhorn then.
I just remembered the claims it would be a closed garden with all the things DRMed. I wonder how much of it's marketshare MS would maintain if they did it. Maybe it would've been worth it, considering thay 30% the phone markets get on everything.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Tsaukpaetra You were using Vista before it was released?
Yeah, actually.
And you complain about lack of drivers?
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@Scarlet_Manuka said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Once you got your EMS and XMS config sorted, and set the right jumpers on your sound card*, and worked out what things you could load into the HMA on startup, and defined a few different config options that you could use depending on what gamesprograms you wanted to run, and put all the right incantations into AUTOEXEC.BAT...
I have these vague memories of setting DIP switches... Initiating memory suppression routines....
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@powerlord said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Scarlet_Manuka said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I never really had to do that; the first sound card I bought had an amazing new feature where you could change the configuration in software.
Later SoundBlaster cards (Starting with the second version of the Sound Blaster 16?) could do that, but games would complain if you didn't set the
BLASTER
environment variable with all the IRQ/DMA settings... and of course, the software that set all the interrupts/DMAs wouldn't set that environment variable for you.E_TRIGGERED !!!
(oh $deity. I actually had forgotten about that until you had to remind me...)
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@GÄ…ska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Tsaukpaetra You were using Vista before it was released?
Yeah, actually.
And you complain about lack of drivers?
Considering that Windows supposedly supported XDDM drivers out of the box, yeah.