a review about a reviewer
Someone decided to post a review about Foresight Linux 1.4.2. Even managed to get it on Linux Today’s frontpage. So far, so good. The review isn’t specially fond about that particular Foresight release and – yes – raises some valid points (which hopefully are, or will be very soon, solved in our current fl:2-devel tree) but then i read…
I found when trying to run an update command in the terminal with Conary I got this message:
“Write permission denied on Conary database”
What about using sudo ?…
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Sure, “sudo” is the obvious answer to permissions problems, but the author attempted conary after the other “it just works” style tools provided by the distribution failed. Why would he expect that dropping to the terminal would also require an immediate leap from “it just works” to sudo? Running a command in console doesn’t automatically equate to donning one’s *nix guru hat – it’s just another user interface.
IMHO this is a usability issue just as much as PEBKAC. A wrapper around conary that prompted for elevated priveleges when necessary, but ran as the user for operations that don’t need it is much more usable and safe. yaourt in Arch Linux does this, for example, and this behavior is a pleasure even for this old *nix user who does know how to use sudo.
To underscore my point, here’s a quote from the just-announced update to the Foresight Web site:
“… Foresight sets itself apart by eliminating the need for the user to be familiar with Linux …”
If that’s really the goal, then this philosophy should extend to the console as well, at least for the major Foresight tools like conary, and reviewers who are drawn to Foresight by this slogan shouldn’t be castigated for their lack of basic *nix knowledge.
That was the devil’s advocate part. Personally, I find this approach rather unappealing and uninspiring. This philosophy is to Linux what learning to play the Guitar Hero controller is to learning a real guitar. There’s a big difference between avoiding unnecessary complexity or difficulty and smoothing the transition into what can be one of the most powerful and satisfying computing experiences a person can encounter. Instead of eliminating the need to be familiar with Linux, the goal should be to guide a user into becoming familiar with Linux, which takes them to a much happier place.