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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Localised folders in /home/user (Documents and Desktop)
From:       David Roberts <dvdr18 () gmail ! com>
Date:       2006-11-25 6:59:50
Message-ID: 200611251659.51250.dvdr18 () gmail ! com
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> From a human/psycological point of view, this is not a good way to ask.
>
> Nobody want to feel that they are in need of a dumbed down system. If
> you are a poweruser you will know how to undumb it, and it will be a one
> time operation. Exposeing complicated systems to newbies or users with
> little interest in the inner workings of the system will result in a
> never ending support nightmare. Defaults need to be set in a way that
> they feels good and natural to the majority of the intended users.
>
> Today it is very hard to find a web site, or a magazine that deals with
> open source that doesn't mention "The year of the Linux Desktop" at
> least once a year. One of the reasons that year havn't arrived just yet,
> are the far to often heard sentence: "But you can configure it to be
> simple" The desktop needs to be simple out of the box, or the average
> Joe won't touch it.
Yes, I agree with you. All I'm saying is I'm happy with it, as long as there 
are limits to the simplification.

> I have no problem with mounting them in /media as they as you say they
> are part of one system.
>
> The problem is, that this is poweruser knowledge. Most users will think
> of their USB stick as a separate entity even when it is connected. E.g.
> they might say things like: "Please move the report to my USB stick"
>
> The idea of mounting disks, and making them part of one system comes
> from the days when disk management was something done by sysadmins in
> white coates at the data center to which normal users had no access.
>
> Back then, hiding physical units made it much easier on the users, as
> they didn't need to know what physical media they were using. Nowdays,
> when we have  user mountable/removable media, that idea sort of fall
> apart. If the user can add and remove the media without a screw driver,
> it should be regarded as a separate unit, at least with respect to the
> desktop. The  fact that we need to mount it somewhere to make Unix work
> is poweruser stuff.
What do you suggest the current system is changed to?

> Well, filnames listed in a .hidden file, in a certain directory should
> be handled like dot files, i.e be listed only if you do ls -a.
>
> It could also handle localized file names. However localized names in
> the shell will require a lot of thought to get right. I don't have all
> the answers right now.
Aren't these issues for the applications such as ls rather than bash itself?

-- 
David Roberts :)
http://kavenc.sf.net/
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