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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Against the system:/, media:/ and home:/ namespaces
From:       Carl <sleepkreep () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-07-11 1:35:17
Message-ID: 200507102035.17398.sleepkreep () gmail ! com
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> On Wednesday, July 6, 2005 1:20 am, Manuel Amador wrote:
> > Why the hell are we moving away from standard UNIX paths, and inventing
> > another arcane proprietary path/resource location system?
>
> Because the UNIX filesystem is incomprehensible to the average user. No
> casual user is ever going to understand the idea of a single root
> directory, or the concept of "mounting" filesystems. Unfortunately,
> Windows-style drive letters and synchronous access (that actually works)
> are probably not going to be introduced on UNIX anytime soon, and so there
> is no way to solve this except abstracting it away.

I completely agree.   The average user has no idea what mounting is and nor 
should they.  I love the concept of kioslaves because they pull away from the 
UNIX filesystem for the GUI.  I love the UNIX filesystem for the command line 
where all of us here are comfortable.  But the GUI offers to take away the 
technical aspects of the behind-the-scenes workings of the operating system 
so that the average person (my grandmother for an example) can sit down in 
front of the computer and make use of it.  This requires that we rid the GUI 
of /proc /sys /boot and other confusing directories.  A perfect example of 
why this is a good thing is OS X.  Why can anyone sit in front of a Mac and 
use it?  Because when they click on 'Hard Disk' they don't see 
the /sys /proc /bin and other folders.  In the GUI, they are hidden.  You can 
still access them from the command line if you need to though.  When my wife 
inserts a CD she doesn't want and shouldn't need to know where the hell it 
is.  All she should know is, if I click on the icon that popped up on kicker 
or my desktop, I will be taken to the CD.  Or if she clicks on the Media 
Storage icon on the side bar of open file dialogs.  Forgive me for being 
bold, but I think we need to talk about who we are designing KDE for.  
Developers (technical users) or Users (non-technical users).

> The organization of the UNIX filesystem is not really much of an issue,
> because users generally only care about browsing files in their home
> directory. That is why the Home Folder entries were introduced in the
> Konqueror sidepane and in the file selection dialog. I would support home:/
> if it made sense. Unfortunately, to access my home directory, I would have
> to type home:/luke instead of /home/luke, not much of an improvement.
> Simply home:/ would make sense.

I don't think that a home:/ kioslave is necessary.  What I've chosen to do 
with my KDE box is to remove as many traces of the / directory as I can for 
my users.  I can access anything I need from the command line.  And perhaps 
some GUI apps can browse the entire filesystem (KDevelop).  I mean, what do 
users need to know about outside of their home directories?  If any mounts 
are needed, the GUI should handle it for them.  May it be a camera, network 
browsing, jump drive, or CD.  That way the system is completely hidden from 
them and confusion over the filesystem is virtually eliminated.  Don't forget 
that the Windows way of doing things is confusing too.  So many users I work 
with on a daily basis have no clue how find a file when starting from C:\  .  
Not to mention the fact that D:\ doesn't make sense.  Our way of doing things 
is much better.  When a CD is inserted, an identifiable icon appears in 
various places for quick and easy access and is named a name that makes 
sense, not D:\ .  If the GUI eliminates the unnecessary parts of the file 
system and handles everything outside of their home directory then the 
desktop system becomes usable for everyone.  

> UNIX will never be a feasible desktop OS until mounting is completely
> hidden and transparent to the user. 

I think you can guess that I agree completely. :)

> My biggest problem with media:/ is as 
> follows: A devices should be automatically mounted whenever the user tries
> to access it (media:/ has done this) and AUTOMATICALLY UNMOUNTED WHENEVER
> THE USER IS DONE ACCESSING IT (media:/ has not done this). 

I agree for one reason.  Many distros don't handle multi-user environments 
properly.  For instance mine, SuSE 9.3 does not have the fstab file correct 
for desktop systems.  I had to modify it and add 'users' to it so that if I 
inserted a CD and left it there, my wife can still eject it and put something 
else in.  This would be a way of getting around a foolish distribution. 

> There should 
> then be no overlay on device icons indicated whether they are mounted or
> unmounted, because user's don't know about mounting. 

Again, I agree.


> 3) the floppy drive must always appear in media:/ on PC systems, even when
> no disk is present, because there is no way to tell if there is one
> present. Thus, CD-ROMs and other non-hot-pluggable devices should always
> appear in media:/ as well for consistency.

I disagree.  The CD-ROM devices should not always be there.  An inserted CD 
should appear as if from nowhere to cut down on what the user has to know 
about where things are.  If it appears in multiple places, then there's no 
confusion.  It's just up to us to make sure that media:/ is integrated well.  
A floppy on the other hand, I have two points about.  

1) Who uses floppies anymore?  I know I haven't had a floppy drive for years 
now.  Why? Because they're obsolete.  Way obsolete.  Desktops don't hardly 
even come with floppy drives anymore.  

2)For older systems with floppy drives, the floppy drive should not appear in 
media:/ at all unless it is mounted.  How you access it is from a floppy:/ 
kioslave.  I think we have one?  Upon KDE install, if the system has a floppy 
drive installed then links to floppy:/ will be placed on the desktop, kicker 
and file dialog navigation bar.  And of course these links will appear if 
hald reports that a usb floppy drive has been inserted.   



 
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