Mainstream Usability

[Wayne Frazee]

I'm quite sure that I am far from the first to suggest this but..
 
With the advent of KDE 3.2 and the latest gnome, the x-based user
interface system has reached a level of usability that would be possible
to use by the average user while still maintaining access to the
powerful Linux command line.  Further, improvements in the 2.6 kernel
make the Linux operating system more robust than ever, offering
wide-ranging support for hardware, platforms, and user-needs.
 
Still, Linux has not really gone mainstream.  The features are there,
but the operating system is still intimidating.  Besides the traditional
challenge posed by change, in and of itself, you start your computer and
are assailed by a hundred lines of gibberish (at least to the average
end user) from the kernel loading.  Fedora has certainly taken a stride
in the right direction, offering a GUI screen with a progress bar for
those who would like it.  Still, kernel loading is accomplished by lines
upon lines of intimidating text.  Further, not enough time has been put
into building good looking themes and so forth to be included with KDE,
leaving first time users with an impression that the GUI is bland, etc.
 
So what can be done about it?  Is it really worth addressing these
points?  While for the average developer here, we just don't care.  I
use my fedora boxes more than I do my windows machines.  At this point,
I have worked with Solaris, RHEL, FC1, FC2T1, and I don't even notice
anymore the lack of polish.
 
Each time I start a workstation-configured machine for a client
demonstration on console, I am harshly brought back to the realization
that users aren't used to this level of output.  They practically recoil
when they see the kernel load and it gives them a bad impression right
off the bat.  An impression that the operating system would be overly
complicated to use, that employees would have trouble training for it.
Once a first impression is made, its rather difficult to break as for
most clients it tends to color their analysis of the rest of the system.

 
Please keep in mind that although I do programming, I have virtually no
experience working with the Linux kernel besides loading modules and so
forth.  How hard would it be to add perhaps a parameter to grub as to
whether or not to suppress that initial text pre-gui?  Perhaps offering
two modes, one spitting out everything that it does now, the other
perhaps offering more simplified (5 or 8 lines instead of 100):
"Loading Fedora Core 1."
".Init Run Level 1"
".Starting [big subsystem]"
".Starting [big subsystem]"
".Init Run Level 5
 
Is this something that OSDL would have to look at?  Certainly the
OS-related art content is not beyond the scope of the Fedora Project.
 
--===============--
Wayne S. Frazee
 
"If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming
must be the process of putting them in."
 
 
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