Re: a safer system
Il 23/07/2009 04:43, Anthony G Weitekamp ha scritto: > In short, the install of any one new application should never effect the > operation of the entire system. What do I need? Separate Linux > installations for each group of tasks that I may be working on? Really? > This is completely out of topic but you are asking the installation of new packages to be without side effects, I would say this is similar to functional programming, and in fact there is a software development model, and a linux distribution, called nixos, that are centered on purely functional package *deployment*. I did not have the time to understand it very well, but it's on my TODO list. http://nixos.org/nixos/ Vincenzo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Rant and Re: Ubuntu-devel-discuss Digest, Vol 32, Issue 31
Anthony, on each digest you're receiving there's a thick fat note for those who can read: > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Ubuntu-devel-discuss digest..." Hint: select the receive digest as MIME attachment option on your MM options page, makes live much easier :). Sorry for this rant, I'm tired of seeing meaningless subject lines. That said, I am in no way affiliated to Ubuntu, I'm just a normal user who used to be a Debian Developer in the past. On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 21:43 -0500, Anthony G Weitekamp wrote: > One Hundred Paper Cut Method, > > After getting tired of reading this list where almost every user > request has been handled with the standard RTFM reply and dismissed > as a newbie error, I decided to look around at various other Linux > distributions. I even went upstream to find out if anyone had a > Linux installation that would allow me to at least configure my > system the way I want it. What did I find? Basically more of the > same - RTFM answers. In each case I broke the install by installing > Firefox and Thunderbird. (Ubuntu acts freaky once Thunderbird is > installed.) I know that the OS Install comes with a mail client. > But what if your user wants a working one instead of some RTFM > incomplete or non-working pre-installed application? Do you say Evolution isn't working? I don't like it at all, but my wife who is almost computer illiterate is fine with it. > In short, the install of any one new application should never effect > the operation of the entire system. Agreed > What do I need? Separate Linux installations for each group of > tasks that I may be working on? Really? Depends on your resources. I'm running a heterogenos farm of boxes, mostly Debian lenny, squezze and sid (and if I can bear the noise an old VAXstation runs OpenBSD). Only my laptop runs Ubuntu. I'm writing this sitting in a Mall connected via VPN to my mailserver at home. > So far, Ubuntu has been the most usable, having fewer usability > problems than Debian, which performs much better than the original > RTFM provider, Red-Hat and its more-stable (broken) downstream > distros. I admit that running Debian smoothly requires a lot of learning on the user's side. If you are tired of RTFM keep in mind that in my knowledge (from '04) not a single person involved in Debian gets paid for his work on the distro, so there's no way to force anybody to do what you want apart from convincing him/her. IMHO that's a plus. If you are thin skinned - no one forces you to use their work. > My ideal system? > > Firefox, Thunderbird > MySQL, Oracle and Zend Optimizer, Apache, PhP, Perl ^^ I love their paid support > Open Office (without the email client) > No Bit torrent support. - This does not work any faster in practice > than http/ftp downloads. No it only reduces the stress on the servers, but it doesn't seem to bother you who pays for the traffic. Ah, and many thanks for the unusable copy of the complete digest you append-qauoted. angry'ly-again Siggy -- Please don't Cc: me when replying, I might not see either copy. bsb-at-psycho-dot-informationsanarchistik-dot-de or:bsb-at-psycho-dot-i21k-dot-de O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
Hi Vincenzo, You might have more luck if you describe your changes as feature requests. Whether or not you personally think they're bugs, calling them new features should avoid the "always been that way" reaction from developers. You might also want to try helping out with the "improved me too" blueprint: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/malone/+spec/improved-me-too - useful "me too" data would let you argue that behaviour is non-obvious. - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems, and an example that I'd like you ALL to read
Il 23/07/2009 12:05, Andrew Sayers ha scritto: > Hi Vincenzo, > > You might have more luck if you describe your changes as feature > requests. Whether or not you personally think they're bugs, calling > them new features should avoid the "always been that way" reaction from > developers. Hi Andrew, if I call them features, when they are bug, the reply will be that they need to be blueprinted :) And in any case the priority is doomed to be low, and so the interest of the developers. Sometimes it's just a matter of changing a wrong string, and maybe the problem is to find which package is the responsible. Now, this can be argued, but let me reply to the second part of your e-mail and then I will give an example of the issues I am talking about. The example is clearly not a feature request, but as Sebastien said it was difficult to fix and with no interested developers. But read it for more. > > You might also want to try helping out with the "improved me too" > blueprint: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/malone/+spec/improved-me-too > - useful "me too" data would let you argue that behaviour is non-obvious. > > - Andrew > I wanted to know about such a blueprint so thank you. However in my experience this is not going to help with usability problems. Most of the users don't care about usability once they got around the issues. Very often I am alone in requesting a change. This in turn triggers the response that I am the only one reporting the bug, then it's not affecting all users, hence it's low priority or even not a bug. I think some of you reading will remember such a circumstance recently :) (Perhaps not so) clearly this is wrong. Usability bugs typically affect ALL users, but all of us need to go on and learn how to circumvent those. Often, this results in users starting to fear to do obvious things such as touching their mouse, when a certain window is opened. This is a totally istinctive kind of reaction. We are learning machines and being punished because we e.g. touch the mouse and a certain program may do something annoying results in us learning not to touch the mouse in that case. This is typical in windows, and this is probably what they call the "mac user experience", that is, not having to fear touching our computer, or e.g. clicking on a menu, because it works in the expected way. Gnome is very advanced in this respect, but there still are problems, obviously. EXAMPLE: When I click on the gnome panel menus, I am constantly in a "be careful" mode, because I know that if I start a drag by mistake, I can't press ESC to cancel. In the past, I have been punished because I started dragging. E.g. it happened that I started copying some huge remote directory inside the desktop without noticing it, eventually running out of disk space. Now it seems that the bug is "fixed" in karmic by disallowing dragging. I don't know if this is a wanted behaviour or just the sum of two opposite bugs. But it seems the latter, unfortunately, since I actually see the drag start and be immediately cancelled, which is also very irritating when you actually want to drag something. That's a bug nobody cared about for years. I reported that in 2006, Sebastien (who is my best triager :)) told me it was already known upstream. Recently I found out a clue on why this happens (it was an open question since several years). The problem is that the panel does not have the keyboard focus when one is dragging, so pressing ESC is captured by the currently focused window. You can observe this by opening a modal dialog closeable with ESC in a program and then starting to drag, and press ESC. The dialog disappears. I reported it, BOTH in the ubuntu bug and upstream. Guess what? Nobody cared to reply. I don't know if my comment triggered any attention but clearly this issue is not considered interesting enough to post a reply, even if it's present in ALL the ubuntu installation. That's 100% of the users. If the priority was higher, perhaps somebody would have at least replied to my comment? I don,t know, but it's a fact that the priority can't be higher, because it's a "stupid" problem, not a crasher or a release blocker. This is a vicious circle that is not leading to anywhere. We need to handle usability in a separate way perhaps, but this is something that canonical and ubuntu have to consider, not me. Here is the bug: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/gnome-panel/+bug/69012 You can see it's old, it's low priority, and it has been rejected as a papercut. You can also follow the upstream link and see my comment stay there unreplied. That's frustrating. Consider that I kept the problem for 3 years in a corner of my mind, and when I saw a clue about the solution, I hurried to you to tell you that. This is manpower for free, or for a better ubuntu, which I am happy to have as a salary :) Nothing personal, you know that. And 2 weeks is a short time for a reply,
Re: Reporting usability problems, and an example that I'd like you ALL to read
On jeu., 2009-07-23 at 13:40 +0200, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > triggers the response that I am the only one reporting the bug, then > it's not affecting all users, hence it's low priority or even not a bug. > I think some of you reading will remember such a circumstance recently > :) (Perhaps not so) clearly this is wrong. Usability bugs typically > affect ALL users, but all of us need to go on and learn how to > circumvent those. Things are often not as clear as you think, read the list of all the bugs users suggested as hundredpapercut for some example. The way you use your computer is often different from the one the next user will use and you will have conflicting opinions (some users think that switching workspace by scrolling mouse over the applet is efficient some other that the behavior is confusing, some will want confirmation to actions some other don't get why the computer should ask confirmation rather than just respect the user action, etc) There is several issues there: - the people working on packages and softwares are often good to do technical work but not so good when it comes to take decisions on usability or design - the usability issues reported often turn to long arguments between users not agreeing on the change and those issues are in the middle of clear technical bugs, it's difficult for usability people to list the usability concern and reciprocally a high number of usability suggestion makes the list of technical bugs harder to work with since you have to find a way to filter those you have no interest in - the distribution maintainers are not written most of the software distributed and don't always feel entitled to take design decision on the software without having it discussed with the upstream authors, they also don't always want to take the suggestion upstream because they have no strong opinion on the topic and don't feel they will argue for the change in a convincing way there That said we should perhaps have a different location where those suggestions can be discussed and moved to the bug tracker once a clear design change is approved (ie rather than adding ubuntu tasks to each hundredpapercut next time only add one for things which have been set to triaged and have clear suggestions which have been reviewed) > upstream. Guess what? Nobody cared to reply. I don't know if my comment > triggered any attention but clearly this issue is not considered > interesting enough to post a reply, even if it's present in ALL the > ubuntu installation. That's 100% of the users. Did you consider that only few people are working on this software during their after work hours and they can't just managed to deal with the flood of issues and suggestions sent their way? The issue there is no that "nobody cared" or that "the issue is no considered interesting enough", it's just than there is hundred of bugs open on this component and not enough people working on it to handle those correctly. Note also that bumping settings for bugs will not make a difference in the fact that the limitation is simply due to a lack on manpower to work on those. You seem to argue in favor of welcoming higher number of suggestions and bug reports, that's good but how does it solve this workload issue? What is the use of having thousand of good suggestion if nobody is working on making those happen and the quantity is just discourage the few volunter to have a look to the list because they know they can't deal with all those? Wouldn't it make sense to have a lower number of suggestions but focused on what would really make a difference in the user experience, a list that would be manageable for people doing the changes? Sebastien Bacher -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems, and an example that I'd like you ALL to read
Il 23/07/2009 15:28, Sebastien Bacher ha scritto: > On jeu., 2009-07-23 at 13:40 +0200, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: I agree with the issues you raise. Let me see if I can even be propositive. > Things are often not as clear as you think, read the list of all the > bugs users suggested as hundredpapercut for some example. The way you > use your computer is often different from the one the next user will use > and you will have conflicting opinions (some users think that switching > workspace by scrolling mouse over the applet is efficient some other > that the behavior is confusing, some will want confirmation to actions > some other don't get why the computer should ask confirmation rather > than just respect the user action, etc) > Fact 1: need for an authority, and maybe a democratic one = From the above, I'd say that we need an authority to decide that we will not scroll on the destko^H ahem, to put an end to endless discussion. What I would like to see is turning endless discussion into creative and constructive force. I would consider the ubuntu usability team(s) but in my dreams of democracy I would also love some sort of a "popular jury" that can influence in some way the authority. Also because I am not going to become an ubuntu developer for lack of time :) But most important, because democracy will mean less "dictatorship feeling" hence less endless discussions. What importance to give to the democratic part (from 0 to 100% of the decision power) and how to select people (perhaps from the team of proposal 1 below) does not belong to me. But there is an obvious problem: how can one be sure that decisions will be accepted? Example: I myself endlessly discussed the pop-up of update notifier. I still hate the idea but in the end I had to accept the authority princple like everyone else. Here comes a proposal Proposal 1: a new code of conduct for develpers and bug reporters, and a new team == Let us design all together a new code of conduct, and create a new team. The team will have a set of bugs (assigned? separate bug tracker? just a tag? too early to say this) on which they discuss and work. The team will not have decision powers by itself (that's the authority which is a separate concern) and the condition to enter the team will be only to sign the code of conduct. The code of conduct shall be oriented to principles such as - no endless discussions, but try to accept a reached agreement even if you are not pleased by that (I am one of the biggest culprits here :)). - no underestimation of the person reporting the bug or discussing. Members of the team are supposed to know what usability is, so if at a first glance it seems they are saying something stupid, perhaps a second look is needed. Acting like the person is a newbie who needs technical explanations about why the behaviour is that way will only create endless discussions. - trying to identify common guidelines, as if all bugs reported were also in the whole ubuntu. E.g. it *should* not make sense to decide, in the same team, that rhythmbox will quit when one window is closed and banshee will not (sorry if the example is related to bad memories ), even if the argument "we will not go against upstream developers" may in the end be adopted in corner cases. Consistency of the desktop will be a good argument to avoid endless discussions. - whatever you like > There is several issues there: > > - the people working on packages and softwares are often good to do > technical work but not so good when it comes to take decisions on > usability or design Therefore the decisions may be taken by somebody else as I suppose it is already happening in ubuntu > - the usability issues reported often turn to long arguments between > users not agreeing on the change and those issues are in the middle of > clear technical bugs, it's difficult for usability people to list the > usability concern and reciprocally a high number of usability suggestion > makes the list of technical bugs harder to work with since you have to > find a way to filter those you have no interest in Therefore it is worth to create a separate place for discussion among those interested in usability, as you note below > - the distribution maintainers are not written most of the software > distributed and don't always feel entitled to take design decision on > the software without having it discussed with the upstream authors, they > also don't always want to take the suggestion upstream because they have > no strong opinion on the topic and don't feel they will argue for the > change in a convincing way there > That is out of scope IMHO; I don't have a clear vision on who should talk to upstream and on when it's just better to leave things as they are. > That said we should perhaps have a different location where those > suggestions can be discussed and moved to the bug track
Re: swt-gtk sync-request.
On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Onkar Shinde wrote: > On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Onkar Shinde wrote: >> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:43 PM, Adrian Perez >> wrote: >>> Hello list. >>> I've recently uploaded swt-gtk_3.4.2-1 to debian sid. >>> You may consider integrating it. >>> As you may know SWT is a standard widget toolkit developed from eclipse, >>> and it's objective it's to provide native look and feel in the >>> architectures it supports. >> >> I am going to work on this some time this week. It may not be sync but >> rather a merge as there are some changes in Ubuntu ex. xulrunner-1.9.1 >> is going to replace xulrunner-1.9 in karmic. >> > > Here is an update on this. There were some changes done to swt-gtk in > Ubuntu (version 3.4-2ubuntu2) to fix FTBFS on lpia and powerpc. I am > not sure if those changes are still relevant. Since the default-jdk is > different in Ubuntu and Debian, I can not rely on Debian build logs to > decide whether to drop these changes. And since currently openjdk is > not installable (dependency problems) on powerpc in karmic chroot I > can not try building the source package from Debian. > > So this merge (or sync) will have to wait till openjdk becomes > installable on powerpc. I merged swt-gtk two days ago. I had to retain all the changes. They will be useful in Debian when debian switched to openjdk as default jdk. Onkar -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems, and an example that I'd like you ALL to read
Il 23/07/2009 18:17, Vincenzo Ciancia ha scritto: > - no underestimation of the person reporting the bug or discussing. > Members of the team are supposed to know what usability is, so if at a > first glance it seems they are saying something stupid, perhaps a second > look is needed. Acting like the person is a newbie who needs technical > explanations about why the behaviour is that way will only create > endless discussions. And here I forgot to mention that the code of conduct will also clearly state that there will be no offence to developers for their decision, no sentences such that "I hope that someone will be fired for this" or "you want all hackers to run away from ubuntu" and so on. For the same reason: "no underestimation of the person developing the code or discussing". But indeed there should be a written, clear set of guidelines to which to make appeal for a clearer discussion. I think we already have those. Vinecnzo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: swt-gtk sync-request.
Great! I was trying to get a simple revision now, don't scare shouldn't break anything. I was working on azureus, then I was planning to get some space to ubuntu :D but that's great news. On Thu, 2009-07-23 at 21:58 +0530, Onkar Shinde wrote: > On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Onkar Shinde wrote: > > On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Onkar Shinde wrote: > >> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:43 PM, Adrian Perez > >> wrote: > >>> Hello list. > >>> I've recently uploaded swt-gtk_3.4.2-1 to debian sid. > >>> You may consider integrating it. > >>> As you may know SWT is a standard widget toolkit developed from eclipse, > >>> and it's objective it's to provide native look and feel in the > >>> architectures it supports. > >> > >> I am going to work on this some time this week. It may not be sync but > >> rather a merge as there are some changes in Ubuntu ex. xulrunner-1.9.1 > >> is going to replace xulrunner-1.9 in karmic. > >> > > > > Here is an update on this. There were some changes done to swt-gtk in > > Ubuntu (version 3.4-2ubuntu2) to fix FTBFS on lpia and powerpc. I am > > not sure if those changes are still relevant. Since the default-jdk is > > different in Ubuntu and Debian, I can not rely on Debian build logs to > > decide whether to drop these changes. And since currently openjdk is > > not installable (dependency problems) on powerpc in karmic chroot I > > can not try building the source package from Debian. > > > > So this merge (or sync) will have to wait till openjdk becomes > > installable on powerpc. > > I merged swt-gtk two days ago. I had to retain all the changes. They > will be useful in Debian when debian switched to openjdk as default > jdk. > > > Onkar -- Best regards, Adrian Perez signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Rant and Re: Ubuntu-devel-discuss Digest, Vol 32, Issue 31
Op donderdag 23-07-2009 om 09:52 uur [tijdzone +0200], schreef Siggy Brentrup: > Hint: select the receive digest as MIME attachment option on > your MM options page, makes live much easier :). Last time I checked, Thunderbird didn't support that very well--while that bloody incomplete non-working one that comes with Ubuntu by default does. ;-) > If you are tired of RTFM keep in mind that in my > knowledge (from '04) not a single person involved in Debian gets paid > for his work on the distro, That's not true: some of them can work on Debian during their working hours, so they get paid to work on Debian. But that's not the same as a contract between a supplier & a client of course; they have no obligation to work on $SOMEBODY's problem (unless $SOMEBODY is their employer). -- Jan Claeys -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: a safer system
> Il 23/07/2009 04:43, Anthony G Weitekamp ha scritto: > > In short, the install of any one new application should never effect the > > operation of the entire system. What do I need? Separate Linux > > installations for each group of tasks that I may be working on? Really? > > Hey there Anthony, I came late to the conversation. I use xen to separate machines from one another. I hear that kvm is good for new hardware, but mine is all crufty and old. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Reminder: First Ubuntu Gaming Team Meeting!
I just wanted to remind everybody interested about the upcoming Ubuntu Gaming Team meeting in #ubuntu-gaming http://blog.thesilentnumber.me/2009/06/first-ubuntu-gaming-team-meeting.html Here's the Agenda so far: - Defining our team - Address concerns - Go over goals, purpose, and scope - Technical discussions - How to coordinate with Debian and Freedesktop games - What we can do within the scope of the team - LP #386797 to address the need for distributed content development - Projects - Ubuntu Gaming Clan - Play cross-platform FOSS games with an Ubuntu gamer tag - Organization - What games? - Fundraisers - How often - How to elect games - How to collect and distribute funds - Tournaments and Matches - What games? - How to organize - New ideas - Propose new projects - Future meetings - Plan next one - Set a regular schedule - Jobs - Projects leaders - Lead specific projects - Meetings Coordinator(s) - Update google calendar and wiki for meetings, manage agenda, and record proceedings - Co-team leader - Help DPic manage the team - Others? - Closing - Ending questions & comments -- http://www.google.com/profiles/danny.piccirillo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
The google custom search
Dear all, today I noticed that the consistency problem between the default ubuntu start page, which is a custom google search, and the search box at the top-right of firefox, has finally been solved. Now also the search box is a custom search. I already tried to raise the problem that average users are not so expert to know what a custom search is, but they will certainly notice that "googe in linux does not work as in windows" since google will not show maps, images, and do conversions on the fly in the custom search. There is also the problem that localization is currently broken in ALL ubuntu installations except english speaking, since localised results are not returned, hence ubuntu will return english results first to my italian-only speaking mother (well she speaks some spanish, and latin too, but this does not change the problem). In the past, silence was the main answer. What I would prefer is 1) clarificaition on why this is needed, since it seems mostly a trick, and 2) some effort in localization, and in using all the google goodies by default, maps, images, conversions. Images and videos may even be questionable, even if I would rather not use google if e.g. finding inappropriate content is a concern, but maps and conversions are useful tools and people uses those every day. But if 1) and 2) can't be achieved, at least an explanation on why there are no links in the default search page (and maybe in the results) explaining what a custom search is, would be appreciated. Given that users certainly may not know what a custom search is (e.g. even if I am a computer scientist, and worked in the IT, I did not care about custom searches until ubuntu started giving me strange results), educating them by putting in-place documentation, in the form of a short sentence and a link, would be appropriate. I can understand that a custom search may bring money to canonical (correct me if I am wrong, as I said I did not care about custom searches until very recently). I think the majority of users would be happy to be able to help ubuntu by just searching the web. However, they should be made aware of the choice, instead of silently tricked into the system. Vincenzo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: The google custom search - clarification
I see that there are open bugs in launchpad about the google custom search, mostly related to the multisearch add-on. This is said to be in testing. But my e-mail is about the default firefox home page, and the necessity to push a google custom search anyways. The default page was the custom search at least in jaunty, so my e-mail has NOTHING to do with testing. This will save the list from a lot of noise I hope. Vincenzo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
