Re: main Digest, Vol 5, Issue 47
Hi Folks, Multitasking in 'doze (or any other O/S); err, doesn't this sort of clog up memory? When, if ever, minimising but leave running an app free up the memory? I am a heavy duty user of Photoshop, working mainly on 20+ mB files. I need to close down everything else when working or one image may (and its parts in cache or on scratch disk) just uses up all memory and I go into an involuntary reboot. Which is of course a real pain! I'm quite happy to have loads of shortcuts on my VDU virtual 'desktop' but don't allow for background running of other apps - even though 'doze frequently changes my prefs to suit itself. For instance, auto-hide task bar has to be reset daily, multiple windows that have been moved and sized via the very top left icon will revert to default. The dreaded MSM messenger 'service' keeps switching itself on again as does the auto-update routine. The desktop and pointy-clicky is fine, a computer that runs at the whim of BG isn't - hence my interest in Linux. However, having to type code on a command line to open OOo leaves me cold. Are you sure all this typing is not just to keep the Grockles in awe? Cheers, BD. ----- Original Message ----- From: <main-request@lists.alug.org.uk> To: <main@lists.alug.org.uk> Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 3:39 PM Subject: main Digest, Vol 5, Issue 47
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox (Wayne Stallwood) 2. USB Mass Storage woes (and ati-driver-installer-8.16.20-i386.run checksum request) (Ten) 3. Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox (Anthony Anson) 4. Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox (Chris Green) 5. Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox (Chris Green) 6. Re: USB Mass Storage woes (and ati-driver-installer-8.16.20-i386.run checksum request) (Wayne Stallwood) 7. Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox (Chris Green) 8. Re: Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox (Ian bell)
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Message: 1 Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:11:07 +0000 From: Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com> Subject: Re: [ALUG] Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox To: ALUG <main@lists.alug.org.uk> Message-ID: <1133010667.12467.128.camel@localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain
On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 11:07 +0000, Chris Green wrote:
One thing that surprises me is how few Windows users use the multiple virtual 'desktops' that are freely available for windows as they are for Unix/Linux systems. I suspect it's the 'desktop' paradigm that makes this happen, having as many 'desktops' as you want and being able to go from one to another instantly just seems wrong if you're stuck in the rut of an office desktop.
I think this is the same reason that most Windows users are still using Internet Exploiter...they are either simply not aware of the options or are scared that they may break something by installing such a utility.
Also a lot of Windows users I know don't tend to multitask...they will fullscreen one application and work on that, finish save their work and close it...open something else.
Actually that is an important difference between OS X, Linux and Windows
OS X encourages you to leave stuff running even if you have finished with it...Clicking the close icon simply minimises the application in the dock (whilst leaving it running)
With Linux I tend to leave lots of stuff running in various virtual desktops. At the moment I see that I have left a Windows XP virtual machine running on desktop 4, couple of terminal sessions on 2, XMMS is sitting doing nothing on 3 and I am writing this email on 1 with Evolution...there is also a Serial console open to the Debian installer running on the Alpha server behind me and Firefox
Windows tends to encourage (needs really) you to only have applications open that you need. I find that if you have too much open then User Interface slowdown and constant interruptions from dialogue boxes stealing focus makes the system damn near unusable.
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Message: 2 Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 14:04:13 +0000 From: Ten <runlevelten@gmail.com> Subject: [ALUG] USB Mass Storage woes (and ati-driver-installer-8.16.20-i386.run checksum request) To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Message-ID: <200511261404.16520.runlevelten@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
OK, this is doing my head in. On SuSE 9.2, which I support a few end-users on around the place as part of my advocacy antics, there is a fairly well-known problem with some USB mass storage devices.
If anybody has personally surmounted this problem - or failing that has some salient ideas about it - or failing that a shoulder to cry on - I'd be hugely interested to hear about it.
Now I've had USB dongles working in the past, but due to a bad memory module hosing my file systems I've had to reinstall and don't have one of those to check with, so I've no idea whether this is general or specific to the sony device and suse.
Issue is this. When plugging in a usb device that is supposed to have its sony memory stick mounted as a USB mass storage device (specifically a cellphone) the device is not mountable on the system, it is "offlined". See below.
The modem device for the phone is detected and configured properly, just no mass storage device.
When booting into ubuntu and plugging in the device, everything goes more-or-less swimmingly.
I've tried switching to fstab as opposed to subfs, I've tried automatically or manually mounting (as well as sync/not).
Any attempt to mount the relevant device results in "not a block device" errors - whereupon referring to messages reveals it's already been removed from the system.
Some log-type goodness:
Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using address 4 Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: usb 2-2: Product: Sony Ericsson D750 Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 356576003337234_0 Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c: Ignoring extra header Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: cdc_acm 2-2:1.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c: Ignoring extra header Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: cdc_acm 2-2:1.3: ttyACM1: USB ACM device Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: Vendor: Sony Eri Model: Memory Stick Rev: 0000 Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 Nov 18 23:00:45 amonhen kernel: SCSI device sda: 248832 512-byte hdwr sectors (127 MB) Nov 18 23:00:45 amonhen kernel: sda: Write Protect is off Nov 18 23:00:45 amonhen kernel: sda: Mode Sense: 00 6a 00 00 Nov 18 23:00:45 amonhen kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen smpppd[6159]: smpppd version 1.50 started Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen sshd[6205]: Server listening on :: port 22. Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: sda:<6>via82xx: Assuming DXS channels with 48k fixed sample rate. Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: Please try dxs_support=1 or dxs_support=4 option Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: and report if it works on your machine. Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:11.5[C] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5 Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:11.5 to 64 Nov 18 23:00:49 amonhen kernel: parport0: PC-style at 0x378 [PCSPP,TRISTATE,EPP] Nov 18 23:00:49 amonhen kernel: parport0: irq 7 detected Nov 18 23:00:49 amonhen kernel: lp0: using parport0 (polling). Nov 18 23:00:51 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6647]: add tty device /class/tty/ttyACM1 Nov 18 23:00:51 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6655]: add tty device /class/tty/ttyACM0 Nov 18 23:00:52 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6674]: remove tty device /class/tty/ttyACM0 Nov 18 23:00:52 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6677]: remove tty device /class/tty/ttyACM1 Nov 18 23:00:52 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[6705]: umount block device /block/sda Nov 18 23:00:52 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[6705]: remove /dev/sda from fstab Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6810]: add tty device /class/tty/ttyACM1 Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6824]: add tty device /class/tty/ttyACM0 Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/50-hwscan.dev[6869]: new block device /block/sda Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen kernel: drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for Generic Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[6884]: mount block device /block/sda Nov 18 23:00:58 amonhen kernel: Non-volatile memory driver v1.2 Nov 18 23:01:00 amonhen kdm: :0[6926]: pam_unix2: session started for user bcu1, service xdm-np Nov 18 23:01:01 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[7128]: umount block device /block/sda/sda1 Nov 18 23:01:01 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[7128]: remove /dev/sda1 from fstab Nov 18 23:01:06 amonhen modprobe: FATAL: Error inserting sonypi (/lib/modules/2.6.8-24-default/kernel/drivers/char/sonypi.ko): No such device Nov 18 23:01:10 amonhen kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery: host 1 channel 0 id 0 lun 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: SCSI error : <1 0 0 0> return code = 0x50000 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 248824 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 31103 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device
Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 31103 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed. Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: unable to read partition table
Oh, also, I have an ati driver which I may tentatively install to get some games going - at 50 odd MB it's a heavy old file for a dialup connection, so if anyluggers have copies of ati-driver-installer-8.16.20-i386.run they can provide me with a checksum for, warm fuzzy thanks would abound. :)
Cheers,
Ten.
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Message: 3 Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 14:14:16 GMT From: Anthony Anson <tony.anson@zetnet.co.uk> Subject: Re: [ALUG] Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Message-ID: <313030303230303843886DB873@zetnet.co.uk>
The message <1133010667.12467.128.camel@localhost.localdomain> from Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com> contains these words:
On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 11:07 +0000, Chris Green wrote:
One thing that surprises me is how few Windows users use the multiple virtual 'desktops' that are freely available for windows as they are for Unix/Linux systems. I suspect it's the 'desktop' paradigm that makes this happen, having as many 'desktops' as you want and being able to go from one to another instantly just seems wrong if you're stuck in the rut of an office desktop.
I think this is the same reason that most Windows users are still using Internet Exploiter...they are either simply not aware of the options or are scared that they may break something by installing such a utility.
All too many of them are quite unaware that there is any alternative. May I boast that I have only ever used IE once (outside the system) some time ago, and that was on a new installation, to go and get Opera. With Opera, I got Firebird. Before that I was using Netscape. (Got as far as N4...)
Also a lot of Windows users I know don't tend to multitask...they will fullscreen one application and work on that, finish save their work and close it...open something else.
I used to, using 3.11, but my Win 2000 box often has half a dozen progs running, especially if I'm manipulating images or writing html pages.
Actually that is an important difference between OS X, Linux and Windows
OS X encourages you to leave stuff running even if you have finished with it...Clicking the close icon simply minimises the application in the dock (whilst leaving it running)
Never used that.
With Linux I tend to leave lots of stuff running in various virtual desktops. At the moment I see that I have left a Windows XP virtual machine running on desktop 4, couple of terminal sessions on 2, XMMS is sitting doing nothing on 3 and I am writing this email on 1 with Evolution...there is also a Serial console open to the Debian installer running on the Alpha server behind me and Firefox
All I have ATM is the mail/news software, Nero and a couple of text files. Writing wibbles on the Windows box I might have Explorer, Notepad, Pagemill, Arachnophilia, Firefox, Opera, WS_FTP, Nero and ZIMACS, as well as the two text documents I usually have there for making notes on.
Windows tends to encourage (needs really) you to only have applications open that you need. I find that if you have too much open then User Interface slowdown and constant interruptions from dialogue boxes stealing focus makes the system damn near unusable.
Not found that, though I do tend to close anything I'm not using, just in case. It takes longer to save and close everything if the supply goes on to the UPS...
-- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/
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Message: 4 Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 14:47:21 +0000 From: Chris Green <chris@areti.co.uk> Subject: [ALUG] Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox To: ALUG <main@lists.alug.org.uk> Message-ID: <20051126144721.GA6331@areti.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 10:46:33PM +0000, Ian bell wrote:
Chris Green wrote:
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 07:17:21PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 13:11 +0000, Chris Green wrote:
Desktops as such don't hide complexity, they just mask it with a different complexity. A simple desktop may hide complexity but then so may a simple window manager with a different paradigm, how about TWM with a single xterm window on it?
So are you against a GUI interface in general and the Desktop concept is just part of that paradigm ?
No, I'm against the computer pretending that it's something it isn't.
A computer is a tool, a very general purpose tool, a very flexible tool and a very programmeable tool. It's appearance can be anything its various users want it to be. And if some want it to be a GUI with a desktop then it can be.
Yes, but all the other possible approaches seem to be disappearing and, as a result, many, many users are not well served. If the only accessible idiom is a desktop then the user is the poorer.
-- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk)
"Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
------------------------------
Message: 5 Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 14:52:02 +0000 From: Chris Green <chris@areti.co.uk> Subject: [ALUG] Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox To: ALUG <main@lists.alug.org.uk> Message-ID: <20051126145202.GB6331@areti.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Sat, Nov 26, 2005 at 01:11:07PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 11:07 +0000, Chris Green wrote:
One thing that surprises me is how few Windows users use the multiple virtual 'desktops' that are freely available for windows as they are for Unix/Linux systems. I suspect it's the 'desktop' paradigm that makes this happen, having as many 'desktops' as you want and being able to go from one to another instantly just seems wrong if you're stuck in the rut of an office desktop.
I think this is the same reason that most Windows users are still using Internet Exploiter...they are either simply not aware of the options or are scared that they may break something by installing such a utility.
Also a lot of Windows users I know don't tend to multitask...they will fullscreen one application and work on that, finish save their work and close it...open something else.
Yes, I find that wierd too, the number of people who run everything full screen. One of the basic powers of a GUI is multiple overlapping (or maybe tiled) windows and many users aviod using it!
Windows tends to encourage (needs really) you to only have applications open that you need. I find that if you have too much open then User Interface slowdown and constant interruptions from dialogue boxes stealing focus makes the system damn near unusable.
At home and at work my approach is to run a windows virtual multi-screen environment with one of the screens dedicated to my Linux (or at work, Solaris) desktop. Most of my work goes on in the Linux/Solaris desktop but it's dead easy to flip over to one of the other screens if/when I need to run something (other than the X server) under Windows.
-- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk)
"Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
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Message: 6 Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 14:52:40 +0000 From: Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com> Subject: Re: [ALUG] USB Mass Storage woes (and ati-driver-installer-8.16.20-i386.run checksum request) To: ALUG <main@lists.alug.org.uk> Message-ID: <1133016760.12467.149.camel@localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain
On Sat, 2005-11-26 at 14:04 +0000, Ten wrote:
OK, this is doing my head in. On SuSE 9.2, which I support a few end-users on around the place as part of my advocacy antics, there is a fairly well-known problem with some USB mass storage devices.
If anybody has personally surmounted this problem - or failing that has some salient ideas about it - or failing that a shoulder to cry on - I'd be hugely interested to hear about it.
Try comparing /drivers/usb/storage/unusual_devs.h in the kernel source tree on your SuSE and Ubuntu systems. It may be that there is an entry for that specific device in the later system that was not in the SuSE kernel.
I had similar problems with a Pentax Optio S camera where there was a fix for the previous model but on the new version they had changed the vendor id's
Oh, also, I have an ati driver which I may tentatively install to get
some
games going - at 50 odd MB it's a heavy old file for a dialup connection, so if anyluggers have copies of ati-driver-installer-8.16.20-i386.run they can provide me with a checksum for, warm fuzzy thanks would abound. :)
Md5 checksum as follows
11c881f1558439949d346ae184f9067a ati-driver-installer-8.16.20-i386.run
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Message: 7 Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 14:57:05 +0000 From: Chris Green <chris@areti.co.uk> Subject: [ALUG] Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Message-ID: <20051126145705.GC6331@areti.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Sat, Nov 26, 2005 at 02:14:16PM +0000, Anthony Anson wrote:
With Linux I tend to leave lots of stuff running in various virtual desktops. At the moment I see that I have left a Windows XP virtual machine running on desktop 4, couple of terminal sessions on 2, XMMS is sitting doing nothing on 3 and I am writing this email on 1 with Evolution...there is also a Serial console open to the Debian installer running on the Alpha server behind me and Firefox
All I have ATM is the mail/news software, Nero and a couple of text files. Writing wibbles on the Windows box I might have Explorer, Notepad, Pagemill, Arachnophilia, Firefox, Opera, WS_FTP, Nero and ZIMACS, as well as the two text documents I usually have there for making notes on.
As I said earlier in the thread my tendency is to have a number of rxvt (lightweight xterm) window running. I use mutt for mail in one of them and tin for news in another. I have firefox running in a screen of its own (with an rxvt window behind). The occasional other application I need I tend to run by typing its name in a terminal window. I have a GUI version of my editor (xvile) that I pop up for program development etc.
-- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk)
"Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
------------------------------
Message: 8 Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 15:40:01 +0000 From: Ian bell <ianbell@ukfsn.org> Subject: Re: [ALUG] Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox To: ALUG <main@lists.alug.org.uk> Message-ID: <438881D1.6070500@ukfsn.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Chris Green wrote:
No, I'm against the computer pretending that it's something it isn't.
A computer is a tool, a very general purpose tool, a very flexible tool and a very programmeable tool. It's appearance can be anything its various users want it to be. And if some want it to be a GUI with a desktop then it can be.
Yes, but all the other possible approaches seem to be disappearing and, as a result, many, many users are not well served. If the only accessible idiom is a desktop then the user is the poorer.
I see no evidance of that. The console is still available even under windows and if anything, the number of GUI interfaces under Linux is increasing.
Ian
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_______________________________________________ main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main
End of main Digest, Vol 5, Issue 47 ***********************************
On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 11:42:41AM -0000, Bob Dove wrote:
switching itself on again as does the auto-update routine. The desktop and pointy-clicky is fine, a computer that runs at the whim of BG isn't - hence my interest in Linux. However, having to type code on a command line to open OOo leaves me cold. Are you sure all this typing is not just to keep the Grockles in awe?
If I had icons for all the things I occasionally want to do there wouldn't be space for everything. That's why we invented alphabets, to enable us to create unique names with a small number of unique systems. With these few simple icons (called letters) I can write the name of just about anything I want to call, if there was only an icon for it firstly I'd be lost in millions of icons and secondly I'd have no hope of guessing what they all meant. -- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Chris Green <chris@areti.co.uk> wrote:
On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 11:42:41AM -0000, Bob Dove wrote:
switching itself on again as does the auto-update routine. The desktop and pointy-clicky is fine, a computer that runs at the whim of BG isn't - hence my interest in Linux. However, having to type code on a command line to open OOo leaves me cold. Are you sure all this typing is not just to keep the Grockles in awe?
typing the magical incantation "oowriter" leaves you cold?! Interesting...
If I had icons for all the things I occasionally want to do there wouldn't be space for everything. That's why we invented alphabets, to enable us to create unique names with a small number of unique systems. With these few simple icons (called letters) I can write the name of just about anything I want to call, if there was only an icon for it firstly I'd be lost in millions of icons and secondly I'd have no hope of guessing what they all meant.
*YAWN* - and that's why menus where invented, oh, and things to group icons, often called "folder" - different people - different options. For me, hitting F3 and typing a command is much easier that navigating a menu, but if I really want something and I don't know what it's called, there's a menu on F12. Menus can make life a lot simpler, if they're well designed, and you're new to $program, like maybe you've only just installed it, and it's a database app... In debian you'd go to the menu - -> Debian -> Apps -> Databases and glance through to see what's there. Hmmm. - -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFDib6eEh8oWxevnjQRAmmJAJ4xGMKAC/OU7qj1v0Qqh4IcH7FbLQCfTDBV 1josYZeGH3e73jkvSLZk6DQ= =q4rV -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Chris Green wrote:
If I had icons for all the things I occasionally want to do there wouldn't be space for everything.
Agree. That's why you have icons only for the things you use MOST.
That's why we invented alphabets,
That's why we invented menus. Ian
On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 02:34:45PM +0000, Ian bell wrote:
Chris Green wrote:
If I had icons for all the things I occasionally want to do there wouldn't be space for everything.
Agree. That's why you have icons only for the things you use MOST.
That's why we invented alphabets,
That's why we invented menus.
... but all the menus I find useful I built myself, the 'ready made' menus rarely have the applications I actually use. -- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
Chris Green wrote:
On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 02:34:45PM +0000, Ian bell wrote:
Chris Green wrote:
If I had icons for all the things I occasionally want to do there wouldn't be space for everything.
Agree. That's why you have icons only for the things you use MOST.
That's why we invented alphabets,
That's why we invented menus.
... but all the menus I find useful I built myself, the 'ready made' menus rarely have the applications I actually use.
And your point is what? Ian
On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 05:52:36PM +0000, Ian bell wrote:
Chris Green wrote:
On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 02:34:45PM +0000, Ian bell wrote:
Chris Green wrote:
If I had icons for all the things I occasionally want to do there wouldn't be space for everything.
Agree. That's why you have icons only for the things you use MOST.
That's why we invented alphabets,
That's why we invented menus.
... but all the menus I find useful I built myself, the 'ready made' menus rarely have the applications I actually use.
And your point is what?
That I don't see what good menus are. I have to know the name of the application I need to add it to a menu, therefore I might just as well enter the applicaiton name on a terminal window. -- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 08:43 +0000, Chris Green wrote:
That I don't see what good menus are. I have to know the name of the application I need to add it to a menu, therefore I might just as well enter the applicaiton name on a terminal window.
Because Menus tell you what is available and (preferably) group it by task. Imagine a restaurant where there is no menu, the only way you can order food is by correctly pronouncing the first bit of the dish....if you pronounce it incorrectly or they don't offer that dish then you are told that it's not available, even when it is but you pronounced it incorrectly or there is a very similar dish that is called a different name.
On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 09:27:08AM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 08:43 +0000, Chris Green wrote:
That I don't see what good menus are. I have to know the name of the application I need to add it to a menu, therefore I might just as well enter the applicaiton name on a terminal window.
Because Menus tell you what is available and (preferably) group it by task.
No they don't, they tell me what the compiler of the menu thinks may be useful. No menu system I have ever seen offers the full range of possible cammands you can enter in a shell.
Imagine a restaurant where there is no menu, the only way you can order food is by correctly pronouncing the first bit of the dish....if you pronounce it incorrectly or they don't offer that dish then you are told that it's not available, even when it is but you pronounced it incorrectly or there is a very similar dish that is called a different name.
Imagine a restaurant where the menu is a several hundred page book.... -- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
On Sun, 2005-11-27 at 11:42 +0000, Bob Dove wrote:
Hi Folks,
Multitasking in 'doze (or any other O/S); err, doesn't this sort of clog up memory? When, if ever, minimising but leave running an app free up the memory? I am a heavy duty user of Photoshop, working mainly on 20+ mB files. I need to close down everything else when working or one image may (and its parts in cache or on scratch disk) just uses up all memory and I go into an involuntary reboot. Which is of course a real pain!
The involuntary reboot is inexcusable. What should happen is that idle applications should get swapped out of memory...I am almost positive OSX does this and (based on the performance of my Linux box) am pretty sure Linux does it. I frequently have *huge* uncompressed lumps of video loaded in Kino and have often worked on large images in Gimp whilst having a virtual machine running in the background because I simply didn't notice from the system performance. That said I am sitting on a pretty reasonable machine here so perhaps it's just that I haven't hit it's limits yet.
I'm quite happy to have loads of shortcuts on my VDU virtual 'desktop' but don't allow for background running of other apps - even though 'doze frequently changes my prefs to suit itself. For instance, auto-hide task bar has to be reset daily, multiple windows that have been moved and sized via the very top left icon will revert to default. The dreaded MSM messenger 'service' keeps switching itself on again as does the auto-update routine. The desktop and pointy-clicky is fine, a computer that runs at the whim of BG isn't - hence my interest in Linux.
Yep my job is 80% dealing with Windows boxes and I hate them for the same reasons. Also I hate the way that XP isn't consistent in it's placement of various settings. For example in XP, you may or may not have access to Network Connections and/or Printers and Fax from the start menu depending on a set of hidden rules I am yet to completely fathom...The Control panel can be in brain dead or "classic" view each of which presents a completely different set of options....etc etc These things make it very hard to direct someone else verbally on how to do something....The same of course is true for Linux due to the diversity of different interfaces, but at least one of the strengths of configuring via a command line is that excepting differences between shells it is pretty consistent. I just can't wait for the reportedly massively multiple versions of Windows Vista...."Oh so you want to work with Video ?? Sorry you'll need to upgrade to the Vista Platinum Extreme Super Professional Version....You only have the Standard Enterprise Gold version, what the hell did you buy that for ?" One of the great things about Linux is that things stay configured how you left them...I hope in the quest for ease of use and ease of installation that always remains the case.
However, having to type code on a command line to open OOo leaves me cold.
Me too, I understand what Brett is saying that sometimes it is quicker, but that's only true if you know the filename of the application you are want. To somebody who is using it for the first time what's intuitive about typing "oowriter" to launch a Word Processor ?, Even after the first time why should I have to remember that my Word Processor is called oowriter and not just writer or OOWriter ? But as Brett has pointed out you can of course resort to using the launch menu (Applications, Office, OpenOffice2 Writer in my case) which is exactly why GUI's are handy sometimes, and whilst they are still handy lets keep developing the bells and whistles ones (Gnome and KDE) The simple and clean ones and experimenting with new ones. Because there is a place for all of them and if we didn't try to innovate past the point of them just being a convenient way of having a couple of windows visible at the same time then we may of well have stuck with a CDE workalike or something. Actually wasn't that how KDE started ?
On 28-Nov-05 Wayne Stallwood wrote:
[...] The involuntary reboot is inexcusable.
What should happen is that idle applications should get swapped out of memory...I am almost positive OSX does this and (based on the performance of my Linux box) am pretty sure Linux does it.
To the best of my knowledge, what Linux does is keep idle applications in memory where possible, and the code for dead ones too (i.e. they've been closed down), in case they're needed again. This means that resuming, or restarting, avoids disk read/writes. Unless, of course, something else needs the space, in which case idle apps will be elbowed out to disk, and dead ones will be simply over-written. You could test this (in a clean session, i.e. soon after boot) by doing say 'vim somefile' (where "somefile" already exists, to make it a fair test). Without altering the file, just ":q" to quit. Then do something else, and then come back to 'vim somefile'. You should observe that it starts up again perceptibly faster (unless of course your machine is so fast that the difference is subliminal).
However, having to type code on a command line to open OOo leaves me cold.
Me too, I understand what Brett is saying that sometimes it is quicker,but that's only true if you know the filename of the application you are want. To somebody who is using it for the first time what's intuitive about typing "oowriter" to launch a Word Processor ?, Even after the first time why should I have to remember that my Word Processor is called oowriter and not just writer or OOWriter ?
One of the features of Linux is that you can set up an alias or a symbolic link to an app, or embed it in a shell script, with an intuitive and snappy name. For instance, since I use 'telnet' a lot, I have the symbolic link "tl -> telnet" in /usr/bin. Likewise, in my /etc/hosts file my MCC mailhost nessie.mcc.ac.uk has "nickname" 'ns'. So to log in to nessie, I just do tl ns and off I go. beats "telnet nessie.mcc.ac.uk". Similarly my local machines "tedistan", "brandy", "compo" and "daisy" are "td", "br","co" and "dy", all leading to very snappy command lines ("tl td" etc.). However, there's a lurking "gotcha" if you use the symbolic link trick, in that some programs depend on this to behave differently depending on how they are evoked. For example, in /usr/bin ls -l /usr/bin | grep sendmail [stuff] hoststat -> /usr/sbin/sendmail [stuff] mailq -> /usr/sbin/sendmail [stuff] newaliases -> /usr/sbin/sendmail [stuff] purgestat -> /usr/sbin/sendmail (quite what happens here depends on your distribution). The point is that the commands 'hoststat', 'mailq', 'newaliases' and 'purgestat' all lead to the execution of the program /usr/sbin/sendmail, whose behaviour is different for each of these commands, since any program written in C (or C++) can find out how it was called. In the case of such programs, you'll get a bummer if you evoke them using some non-canonical symbolic link. For instance, 'sendmail' would react with indignation if you used a symbolic link "sm" to evoke it. But you'd be safe if you had a script called "sm" in which there was an explicit call to 'sendmail'. Aliases are probably OK too, though personally I'm a bit wary of them. To get back to the point: Your word processor may be called "oowriter" on its birth certificate, but one way or another you could set it up to be evoked by say "wp". I don't think anyone would be puzzled or upset by being able to start up a word processor in that way. Setting up snappy easy names is useful for experienced and new users alike. For instance, in the distant past I had a dialup script, whose core was a nasty command line /usr/sbin/dip -v /usr/local/bin/mcc-portmaster.dip and which also included goodies like a "child-lock" to disable unsupervised access, and the name of the DialuP script was "dp". (You obviously shouldn't call it 'du'). Likewise, the script which shut it down was "dpk" ("k" for "kill"), and included a check on whether there was outgoing mail being sent to keep it running until all was done. The non-geek users got on very well with all this. If you use your common sense, and a bit of thought, about such things you can make the command line very friendly indeed. For example, if I put a CD's worth of tracks into a directory, put a CD in the burner, and then mkaudioCD * I save a lot of hassle: cat /usr/local/bin/mkaudioCD #! /bin/bash /usr/bin/cdrecord -v -eject -speed=2 driveropts=burnfree \ -dev=0,0,0 -audio -pad $* and it's easy to remember the command (and it's much quicker than, and saves farting about with, xcdroast and all that sticky GUI stuff). Not that I'm against the GUI in its place. A running program which can switch between several different types of activity is often best driven through a GUI, such as my mailer (XFMail) which is one of the nicest mail clients I've seen. Mind you, 'pine' let's you do a lot of different things too, and it's strictly keyboard-driven; but I find that using the keyboard for this kind of thing is in fact stickier than the GUI! Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 28-Nov-05 Time: 01:52:08 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 12:29:01AM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
One of the great things about Linux is that things stay configured how you left them...I hope in the quest for ease of use and ease of installation that always remains the case.
Yes, but there is a tendency now in the more GUI based distributions to make the configuration (to my mind at least) more hidden and complex. I found that SuSe for examle was configuring things without me realising it at times, and more importantly it wasn't obvious (to me anyway) how to configure certain things because it wasn't at all explicit as to what things did.
Me too, I understand what Brett is saying that sometimes it is quicker, but that's only true if you know the filename of the application you are want. To somebody who is using it for the first time what's intuitive about typing "oowriter" to launch a Word Processor ?, Even after the first time why should I have to remember that my Word Processor is called oowriter and not just writer or OOWriter ?
Why is it any more intuitive to click on a (usually uninterpretable) icon? You have to learn what the icons mean just as much as you have to learn what words mean. -- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
participants (7)
-
Bob Dove -
Brett Parker -
Chris Green -
Ian bell -
Peter Onion -
Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk -
Wayne Stallwood