Talk:Feature Wishlist

From openSUSE

The documentation for installing over HTTP/FTP says to mount each ISO and copy the contents. This is waste of time.

The documentation should say to mount the ISOs as loop devices. The slight drop of perfomance is not noticable because the bottleneck is the ethernet cards.

Propose that the installation has an install script to do this for you. Also on the download offer a bootdisk.iso and bootdisk.img along with this script and some documentation.

Installable device drivers

I have yet to encounter a distribution of Linux which didn't drive me to drink because the concept of installable device drivers does not appear to have been heard of. At the moment I cannot get the system to recognise a Sagem F@ST 800 modem I have got hanging off of a USB port. At least with Windows (and even MS-DOS) all you have to do is click on an icon, and the manufacturer's software takes care of the installation for you. With Linux, on the other hand, if you download a driver all you get is a fistful of source code. Even when the vendor provides some information about how to turn that source code into something useful, the attempt invariably fails because some directory/program is not precisely where the make file thinks it ought to be.

Rant over.

Universal installer

Hello

I would like to see a universal installer for Linux that works on all distros. Something that can do all the install work from a installer file and data files if necessary. They way I see it is that this will make developing applications for Linux more interesting as users will no longer need to use the MAKE utility or scripts pretty much meaning that the user is super user. This is on bit of software that will take Linux from the hobby environment to a more usable alternative.

Hope this will be possible.

Wine

Hi I would like to see Wine installed by defult. Because I am haveing trouble installing it. I need it to play Windows Games. thanks

DirectX

As Novell has an agreement with Microsoft, please bring DirectX to Linux.

Antivirus

Could it aslo have a antivirus software Installed by defult to.

Reply to Layman's list of commands

A Sad Realisation..

The reason why users all over the world moved from DOS to MS Windows over 24 years ago was the introduction of a Graphical User Interface that was reasonabily stable with the release of Windows 3.x. This was a huge milestone in the developement and acceptance of a GUI as it provided Multiple fonts without changing your printer (most Laser printers of that era ran in either Cannon's capsual language or HP PCL. Provided your non-HP branded laser's firmware or emulation was true - you could print any True Type font. The next major challange was to provide OLE (object Link embeding). This gave the user the ability to perform tasks that were object orientated. Today we have Windows Vista - and like many who are still comfortable with command line entries, I use it regularly to save time.

In parallel Zenis/Unix/Linux was developed and the biggest challange was to provide a GUI interface to compete with what the world audience had decreed was required - A GUI.

Todays audience expect and demand a full GUI interface and they dont give a damn how this happens nor works.

Personally If I had a choice I would be completely happy in a non GUI interface - but I/we are a very small and ever growing smaller number of user who are.

Todays users want/demand/expect every single thing to be driven by a GUI: and leave the command line for I.T experts - NOT users.

Do you honestly think any one who uses a Word Processor thease days want nothing but a GUI: and a click to do everything and when they hit print - it comes out at the right printer in the shortest possible time.

If you really want to see application behind the scenes action I suggest your turn on debug process for the application.

I do appreciate your desire to share broadly command execution to the user, however no corporation will be the slightest bit interested. There is already a human uproar about Vistas security package which frequently expects a secretary to answer correctly ALL question to do with execution of just about anything. No one want to know.

They expect software to perform and no Corporate executive needs/want to know anything more. That same corporate executive may one day decide to dump Microsoft for Linux as his workstation is a tool of productivity not amusement nor play.

What you wrote here is contradictory. You want to see what is going on behind the scenes and than you want GUI alone, that means you don't want to know what is running in background. We do appreciate any feedback from users, but opinion expressed about the GUI vs. CLI is old issue, that is discussed a lot. It would be beneficial for you and the readers of this article to subscribe to opensuse@opensuse.org mail list, or better to opensuse-usability@opensuse.org and discuss this there. You can see how to subscribe on Communicate page --Rajko M 17:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea! The fact is, for home users who manage their own system, we NEED to know how to operate the CLI. If we want to do something as root, we have to use the CLI - look it up, it can't be done in GUI since 10.2. Secondly, it's expect of us. If I want to install a serialmonkey driver for my RaLink wireless card, I need to know how to untar, make and make install it as root. The instructions are given in a README file and for the CLI. There's no escaping it. The feature suggested above, in the form of an optional popup, would go some way to bridging the gap for noobs (inc. myself). --Username132 13:23, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is, that a GUI tool is not just a chain of CLI commands executed with a small GUI wrapper. The GUI application does most of the stuff internally already, and usually this cannot even be easily translated to such a CLI call. It would not really make sense. -Msmeissn

How do you suppose that it would help users? I can promise you that it would rather confuse users. And there are tools thats can identify whats going on behind the curtains. However people got a misconceptions about Linux, they think about it as a nerds only OS. Thats wrong, Linux(not per definition, but in general as of distributions) is a tool with the intention of usability towards common daily tasks. What you should rather suggest is ways to make these processes faster and more reliable/safer. A thing that should rather be done is to make a better user application listing so that the USERS know what tools are available. And last but not least I hope you understand what I meant about peoples misconceptions towards Linux, think of it as, users only want to do their common tasks and could not care less about the process underneath, there are reasons for abstraction of computer specifics and user specifics.

--Rahmi Guldahl 09 June 2007

I'm new to Linux, but I am an experienced Windows user and an MCP. I don't disagree as such with the idea behind this request, but I do think it's taking a step backwards. From what I've seen so far there is one major difference between the MS ethos and that of virtually every Linux distro I've looked at: Microsoft NEVER appear to say "you can do this in the command line, so we don't need a GUI component for it". The reason people find Linux so hard to get in to is because a command line interface is completely unforgiving: you either know the command or you don't. A GUI can be looked around; options can be taken in at a glance and the user can make judgment calls on whether or not those options are applicable to whatever they are trying to achieve. I want Linux to challenge MS as a platform, I really do, but until the Linux community as a whole makes a concerted effort to move away from relying on the command line, FOR ANYTHING, this will never, ever happen.

--Phil Hare, October 2007

Phil,

I use linux quite long and CLI is for me sometimes exit in case that GUI tools fail, sometimes just more efficient way to do the task. Unlike DOS command line where you know command to the last letter, or you can't use it, many Linux shells (command line processor) have TAB expansion that can be used to find command even if you know only one or more letters in the beginning of that command. The same is valid for file names.

For instance I know that net statistics command starts with 'net', I type

net

and press TAB key, result is:

netcat   netkey-tool  netstat

and now I can guess that 'netstat' is right, but to make sure I type:

man netstat

which prints manual, that starts with:

NAME

      netstat  - Print network connections, routing tables, interface statistics, masquerade connec-‐
      tions, and multicast memberships

now I know that I have right command, find what right switches to perform action that I want, press 'q' to quit manual and do whatever I have to do with 'netstat'.

The TAB expansion is not limited to commands, it can finish for you very long file names, like those of opensuse iso images,or nvidia drivers. Type first letters 'sup', press TAB and if you super_long_filename is there you'll get full file name. It already happened to me to be forced to use 'DOS prompt' and without this I was pretty much lost.

I do not advocate CLI as reason not to write GUI tools, but I do object attempts to scare other people from Linux CLI using their familiarity with DOS command line that is really good example of unfriendlyness. Sincerely, I'm not CLI fan at all, but I'm fan of simplicity and GUI doesn't mean simple in many scenarios. All I ever learned about text mode was just because it gives me solution in lesser mouse and keyboard clicks. --Rajko M 11:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I have maintained for a while now that Linux distros should be split into two distinct products. One is GUI/Windows optimized with little or no attention to the CLI or server based functions. The other being all CLI and server optimized with X as a secondary non-optimized feature. While it is sometimes useful to have a command line, it is not essential nor even useful in a GUI environment. The only possible exception being the application or system programming workstation. The opposite is true in a server environment. Most multi-server environments are administrated by remote client GUI machines or KVM hubs anyway. It just makes more sense to concentrate effort on the central product rather than take the Microsoft "do everything" route and do nothing very well. -- ad5xj USA 17:03 UTC 11/05/2007

Reply to Support for Microsoft software

This package is commercial and would require payment from us. We include the Wine package, which is also able to install and run MS Office, but it lacks the nice graphical installer that CrossOver has. -Msmeissn

with OpenOffice available for free, and twice as fast and responsive, why would I want MS on my computer ? ~ xavior

There are some nice features of MS Office that OO just doesn't have yet. In particular, I use the Track Changes feature in Word all the time since I write collaboratively a lot. It can be a bit slower to load graphics, but it's nice to be able to use my files seamlessly across platforms (ever have compatibility issues with a OO presentation while 50 people were staring at you? Not a fun scenario, let me tell you). CrossOver also makes installing many Windows programs easy (MSMoney, some games, etc) and I have no problem paying a little extra for this functionality. --fripszilon

Reply to Support for several window managers

You can just install more, the code is ready for it. Its just not in the graphical installation. -Msmeissn 13:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Feature wishlist cleanup

The list is now long and not really readable. I guess that we should split this. It can be:

• few sublists, like software wishlist, or
• main list with brief explanation and larger page or pages as subpages with details.

--Rajko M 00:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Easy Installation

Inexperienced new users of SUSE liniux have not been subjected to the nightmare of other distros horrible attempts at a graphical install. Believe me, SUSE is WAY ahead of some. You do make a good point though. It could be helpful to have a general choice at the start to do a default install of a Home Office, Graphics and Web Design, Programming, Networking, or Basic automated install. Granted the automated choices may not be what everyone would choose, but a chance to review and modify the choices before completing the install could satisfy most new users. -- ad5xj USA 11:31 11/04/2007 UTC