Graphical boot isn't so graphical

[Jack Bowling]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 03:03:42PM -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 01:29:52PM -0400, Thomas Corriher wrote: 
> > Benjamin Vander was correct.  It is the graphical booting which is 
> > more likely to cause boot problems, or allow serious problems to go 
> > unnoticed during the boot process.  It is a bad design decision 
> > from a technical perspective.  However, it is good marketing and 
> > seems more welcoming to newbies.
> 
> It is not a marketing decision - the boot messages do show up as a
> real usability problem, and usability is one of the primary objectives
> of Red Hat Linux. It is one of our main technical goals.
> 
> When something is a usability plus for nontechnical users and a
> usability minus for technical users, we're always going to default 
> to the nontechnical setting, because technical users have the skills
> to "opt out" and change the default.


Sorry, but this is a definite case of "dummying down" and borders on a
specious argument. What will be the first thing a support person asks a
newbie stuck on a boot to do? "Hit CTRL-ALT-F1, please, and tell me what
it says." Despite your argument that it is a usability issue, it really 
amounts to coders defending the impressiveness of their work. Show me
how a newbie user "uses" the bootup and I might agree with you.

-- 
Jack Bowling
mailto: jbinpg at shaw.ca