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Showing messages 1 through 110 of 110.

• no rpms and debs for x64
  2008-03-05 01:38:58  Arunabh Das Sharma [Reply | View]
  
  
  compiling from source for x64 takes so much longer than installing from rpm.

• RPMs are easy
  2004-09-08 06:01:12  gnoeroe [Reply | View]
  
  
  RPMs are easy. Just read "Maximum RPM"
  by Edward Baily.

• Device Drivers
  2003-11-29 17:02:02  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  The biggest annoyance with Linux is the lack of device drivers.
  
  That's something that Microsoft got right with Windows 95. It wasn't perfect, but worked. (If it didn't work, they would say the problem was the hardware.)

• RPM vs. Packages
  2003-11-01 08:24:31  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Solaris good!
  # pkgadd -d . SUNWcrap
  
  Nice and easy.
  
  Sun go out of business? Make admin cry. Me try
  Linux. Linux like Solaris! RPM bad! Too complicated for tiny brain.
  
  Why RPM hard? Why not use packages?
  

• MIME and application associations
  2003-10-06 09:07:20  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  There are so many different places that store information about MIME types and what applications to use when opening a certain type of document or URL.
  
  There is the GNOME control panel, the KDE control panel (I use some KDE apps as well as GNOME), each file manager and web browser decides to do it differently, then you have browser plugins that need specific configuration, then you have /etc/mailcap (which I discovered recently), and then many apps have their own settings. Where you do have integration, it's often not very easy to work out which system is being or how to change the associations. (Nautilus is an honorable exception, it integrates properly with GNOME, but unfortunately just too bloated to use if you want to actually *manage* *files* and not show off fancy icons).
  
  The worst of all is web browsers - I have mainly convinced my apps to open http URLs and HTML files in galeon, but still a number insist on opening help pages in mozilla, and I'm yet to solve this one!
  
  Next to the general bloat of many applications, this would be one of my biggest annoyances.
  

• Dependency hell - a GNU/Linux specific problem
  2003-09-30 21:04:32  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I have to agree that "dependency hell" is the aspect I hate the most. I will not mention the font issue, the GUI issue, the multimedia issue - all those small things that should have been trivial to solve (for which I can only blame the "open source way" of doing things - or of never getting small things done.)
  The stringent denpendencies allows for GNU/Linux to always be a few steps behind others: FreeBSD has solved this, apparently because you can have more than one version of the software (I'm not talking about installing the tarball on /usr/local); and on Windows, there simply isn't any such question - just extract the binary to the directory you want.
  Take Debian, for instance: while you have a system that will update *everything*, every bug that's fixed in every little package you may have that has a fix for it, the "policy" makes you have an outdated box. Now, this may be OK if you're only running a server (but then, why not use OpenBSD?), but it's inadequate for a fully functional box.
  I would like to see a mix of the following qualities: easy dependency checks and full upgrades throughout the whole system, like Debian; the capacity to install different versions, like on FreeBSD and Windows box, while keeping the stability of FreeBSD; and a "roll back" feature in case something goes awry, like Windows ME has.
  "Dependency hell" won't be solved by an O'Reilly book...it'll only be solved if people are willing to face this problem, that is *very* pronounced on GNU/Linux as opposed to other systems. The "leenox Rul3z" attitude won't get us anywhere.
  
  - s
  

• Dude!
  2003-09-25 10:43:12  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  `urpmi XYZ` or `apt-get install XYZ` ...
• Dude!
  2003-09-26 07:20:41  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  apt-cache search <string>
  apt-get install <package>
  
  - too easy?

• Minimised system installaton hell...
  2003-09-19 07:37:10  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Redhat, and probably others, like to compile lots of packages with support for everything including the kitchen sink, so with sendmail you has hesoid, sasl and ldap support build in. This means RPM requires you to install these packages.
  
  This makes it hell to instal *minimised* base systems for servers. The dependencies for sendmail require sasl, LDAP, and scads of other stuff that the server is not going to use and therefore should *not* be installed.
  
  Of course you can build your own RPM without those dependencies but that takes quite a lot of doing. Updates are also a problem because you have to regenerate your patch that changes the package compilation options to saner values, and update your spec file, every time and update comes out.
  
  (One could argue this problem is much worse on windows but that is a seperate flame war).
• Minimised system installaton hell...
  2003-11-29 17:11:07  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Hey, it's not difficult to perform a minimum install... the best example is Tomsrtbt, "The most GNU/Linux on one floppy disk":
  
  http://www.toms.net/rb/
  
  See also Coyote Linux, Freesco and other tiny distributions.
• Minimised system installaton hell...
  2003-09-30 11:50:11  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I realize that it's more difficult, but have you tried Gentoo?

• Linux annoyances
  2003-09-18 20:55:27  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  - lack of decent documentation (many utilities do not even have man pages)
  - constant configuration file format changes (old version formats are not fully supported, so upgrading means scrapping previous configuration and starting again)
  - constant API changes (need to have many versions of same library installed, programs compiled on one version are unlikely to work on another)
  - inconsistent keyboard mappings (various Unixes and Linux distributions disagree on what the backspace, delete, function keys, etc.) should do
  

• BS vs DEL keymappings
  2003-09-18 18:20:27  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Some applications use the backspace key to move back over a character and erase it, others use delete.
  It's not strictly a Linux problem, but it certainly occurs with Linux.
  For example, it's annoying to remotely login to another machine and find out the hard way you need to type "stty erase ^h" before you can edit the command line. This also occurs with editors like Emacs.
  

• Huge, slow gnome and gnome-terminal
  2003-09-18 14:45:24  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Another annoyance, at least for the long-time Linux user, is how sluggish and bloated Linux has become. I used to use OpenLook Virtual Window Manager on a 486 with 8MB of RAM. I could open multiple xterms (or, rather rxvt windows) and it's all be rather snappy. Sometimes it'd bog down (I certainly didn't use Mosaic on that beast), but for multiple text windows, it was pretty good. If I compiled an app or displayed a lot of text, X and xterm weren't horrible CPU hogs during the process.
  
  Now, if I leave a gnome-terminal open and compile a large app with lots of small files, gnome-terminal and X take nearly half the CPU, rather than GCC. If I leave a window open w/ top running, I see the corresponding gnome-terminal taking 5% of the CPU and raising X up similarly--just to refresh once every 15 seconds. What? I'm not even using transparency or antialiased fonts or anything. I'm using the exact same features I used back in 1994, only my computer is about 100 times the speed--as is my video card. Resolution and color-depth aren't the issue either--I went from 1152x900 at 8bpp to 1400x1050x32bpp. This is roughly 5x the data to move, but like I said, with a nearly 100x the speed machine. This bloat makes no sense!
  
  Similarly annoying is the sluggish GNOME interface. It's often snappy, but wait until tomorrow. That updatedb run at 4AM pushed your entire desktop to swap. Gee, thanks. It wouldn't be so much of an issue if gnome-cd didn't have a 20MB memory footprint. (It seems to keep growing if you leave it open.) And then there's the panel (20MB), and the volume control (16MB), gnome-terminal (30MB), the settings daemon (17MB), the session manager (17MB), and so on. And let's not forget Mozilla, which seems to grow without bound if you don't restart it every day. (Right now, it's at 120MB on my box.)
  
  And to think I used to run with only 8MB of RAM once upon a time. (I do admit, X was more comfortable with 16MB.) I don't see why a machine with 512MB of RAM should be 80MB to 200MB into swap on a regular basis, just running plain old desktop apps. That old 8MB machine only had ~32MB of swap at the time. (I had installed SLS 1.03 on a 120MB drive. Approx 90MB for OS and /home, and the rest was for /boot and swap!)
  
  FWIW, I don't notice as many of these problems at work. That machine runs RedHat 7.2. My machine at home, though, runs BloatHat 9. Bleh. If it weren't for the fact that RH is end-of-lifing support for 7.x, I'd "upgrade" to the earlier release. *sigh*
  
  
• Huge, slow gnome and gnome-terminal
  2003-11-07 08:22:33  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  www.icewm.org

• Wireless/network profile (non)support
  2003-09-18 14:25:02  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  My main annoyance: GUIs that look good, but just suck at covering up the configuration of a Linux box.
  
  I tried setting up my girlfriend's laptop to use our WiFi card in the several settings where it's needed -- college library, Starbucks (w/ T-Mobile), my place, and generic public spaces. Each one of these had different requirements. College needed a specific SSID. T-Mobile required a different SSID. My place requires a 128-bit WEP key. Generic public hot spots require an empty SSID and no WEP key.
  
  Under Windows, this is fairly easy. Both Linksys and Cisco provide reasonably intuitive apps for creating multiple profiles, selecting between multiple profiles, and configuring each profile independently. I get fairly instant feedback as to whether a given config is the right one, as well, by looking at the link strength meter. Wrong SSID or WEP key? No signal. Got it right? You get a signal. Bad DHCP lease? Release lease, and reacquire it. ("Repair link" under WinXP, or "Renew lease" with winipcfg under Win98.)
  
  Under RedHat 9, there is an a completely non-intuitive pair of applets for doing the same thing. I remember it having multiple layers -- you define some sort of baseline config and different profiles that overlay on it in some non-intuitive manner -- but it was so oddball it will take me a half an hour of digging through docs again to remind me of how it works. It didn't help that there were two separate interfaces to the same data--one intended for root to configure, one intended for mortal users for selection--and neither was clearly delineated. I initially accidentally created 4 virtual devices for my wireless ethernet card rather than 1 device and 4 profiles, since it was that non-intuitive. Not to mention that simply opening the app and selecting a profile causes the app to consider the profile modified. ("Save changes to profile foo?" it asks on exit. What? I just activated the profile, I didn't change it!)
  
  It was and is a mess.
  
  And when the wireless didn't work, I got no helpful feedback. Don't have my WEP key spelled right? I get a strange kernel message about an invalid parameter to a syscall or something, and then a mysterious DHCP failure. Huh? It gets worse when the DHCP client then decides to try to reuse a DHCP lease from its last successful lease, but that lease was from an unrelated network.
  
  It didn't help that on this laptop, the linksys card I have is buggy and dies after I send too many small files. I can work around it by setting my MTU very small, but guess what? I don't recall anywhere in the GUI can you change the MTU. (It might've been there, but I don't think I found it.) I have to slink around /etc/sysconfig/..... reverse engineering to determine which files are the source files the GUI uses for configuring the network, and which ones are the "do not edit, the GUI copied this here from somewhere else when you selected a profile" files. Grrrrr!
  
  And I've been using Linux since 1993!!!!
  
  If I'd done this the old fashioned way, I'd figure out the four different 'insmod'/'ifconfig' command sequences I needed (with perhaps some additional dressing to kick dchpclient), put them in 4 different scripts, and be done with it. And it'd probably work better, to boot.
  

• Printing
  2003-09-18 10:53:04  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Printing.
  
  Printers, drivers, queue managers and daemons. CUPS, LPRng, PPDs, ghostscrpt, everything to do with printing. It's so easy in Windows and Mac. Distributions try to make it easy, and do OK, until something breaks. Then I try to wade through all those layers. Please explain how it all works in great detail.
• Printing
  2003-10-22 23:02:32  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  i am very new to linux printing. well in a week, by reading doc and mailing list, i got this LPRng print server running and serve 500 users with accounting.
  
  config printcap.local is easy. you just have to get the concept of network printing or whatever env for you.
  
  look harder.... dude!
• Printing
  2003-09-30 05:59:46  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Oh, my goodness! Printing...
  
  A bit of preambule. I happen to belong to that part of humanity that does not use latin characters (I am Russian). At that time I was working in Ireland in one of the software biggies. That software company (name starts with O) has a very strong message on Linux.
  
  So, I have made a bet with my colleagues - to have Microsoft-free workstation. So, I have put SuSE8.1, StarOffice, Mozilla and was happy. I could browse russian web sites, read documents, etc.
  
  However, when it came to printing... I could not possibly make CUPS printing cyrillic fonts. It was a hell of a job. (mind you, that I took Windows fonts, they worked perfectly on screen).
  
  So, my annoyance is: why Linux does not have WYSIWYG as Windows?
  
  I could not possibly made it working. I gave up. When I wanted to print russian book from on-line library, I had to go to my Win2K PC. Annoying? No doubts.

• KDE problems
  2003-09-18 01:43:24  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  What do you means re 2? If I want to drag and drop speedily, how can this be improved?

• Reminds me of Unix-Haters...
  2003-09-18 00:06:52  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  There used to be a book called something like The Unix-Hater's Handbook... although many of the complaints in there were unfounded, a lot of them still apply to Linux.
  
  I agree with those who say that most of the Linux annoyances are either deficiencies in the user's knowledge, problems with the user's expectations (it's not Windows so you shouldn't expect Windows behavior), or problems limited to certain distros. Though once those are subtracted, there are certainly annoyances remaining, with font installation/support topping my list.

• dot files
  2003-09-16 19:55:38  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  This is an application problem. There are too many dot files filling up home. A quick "ls -d .??*|wc" shows i've 97 files and directories that start with dot.
  Almost none of them were created manually. They were put there by applications. They should be in a subdirectory. My preference is .etc but the best way would be to use an environment variable. In some cases a .lib would also be appropriate.
  

  
  Then there are the things that should be dotted and aren't. Only files that you manage explicitly should be visible. Files and directories managed only by an application should have the option of being tucked out of the way. The Mail directory is a good example. Only rarely do you manage the files manually so they shouldn't be showing up in a normal ls. Fortunately most MUAs allow you to specify the path so i do but some MUAs insist it has to be $HOME/MAIL. Desktop is another. I don't want a Desktop directory so i configure the WMs to not use it and rm -rf the sucker but if i did want such a grab-bag i'd want it hidden.

• too many to list
  2003-09-16 16:44:51  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Some of my annoyances have already been discussed, but I'll list them here again anyway, for emphasis, and in no particular order:
  
  Inconsistent font support.
  
  Lack and inconsistent online documentation. All applications must as a minumum have a man page, that describes everything that the application can do, and all of its options. If you also want to included HTML documentation you can. All of the other online documentation applications are either an unworkable superset of man or a horible subset of HTML or impossible to find.
  
  Inconsistent cut and paste. Swipe with button 1 and past with button 2 is the standard. Oh by the way, click one to position cursor, double click to grab the current word, triple click to grab the whole line (including the newline) so when you paste it, you don't also have to hit return!
  
  Modal windows... It seems like a lot of GUI applications these days are written by MS writers. There is rarely a need to have a modal window, except for maybe an error window that MUST be acknowledged before continuing. But even most error windows don't have to be modal That way you can change to another window, to browse around, and maybe fix the problem right then, or cut and paste the correct solution from elsewhere... but with all the modal windows... you can't.
  
  Why does it take forever (>5 seconds) to repaint your X screen after the screensaver kicked in? (even on a 2 Ghz machine with 512M of RAM. My old 486/66 with 16Meg unblanked the screen much faster under OpenServer than Linux does today on a _much_ bigger machine. This makes Linux feel sluggish.
  
  On the support front, the biggest annoyance are companies that have Linux software done, and working but refuse to release it. ie. Intel Centrino wireless support, Lotus Notes, etc.
  
  
  

• too many to list
  2003-09-16 16:44:34  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Some of my annoyances have already been discussed, but I'll list them here again anyway, for emphasis, and in no particular order:
  
  Inconsistent font support.
  
  Lack and inconsistent online documentation. All applications must as a minumum have a man page, that describes everything that the application can do, and all of its options. If you also want to included HTML documentation you can. All of the other online documentation applications are either an unworkable superset of man or a horible subset of HTML or impossible to find.
  
  Inconsistent cut and paste. Swipe with button 1 and past with button 2 is the standard. Oh by the way, click one to position cursor, double click to grab the current word, triple click to grab the whole line (including the newline) so when you paste it, you don't also have to hit return!
  
  Modal windows... It seems like a lot of GUI applications these days are written by MS writers. There is rarely a need to have a modal window, except for maybe an error window that MUST be acknowledged before continuing. But even most error windows don't have to be modal That way you can change to another window, to browse around, and maybe fix the problem right then, or cut and paste the correct solution from elsewhere... but with all the modal windows... you can't.
  
  Why does it take forever (>5 seconds) to repaint your X screen after the screensaver kicked in? (even on a 2 Ghz machine with 512M of RAM. My old 486/66 with 16Meg unblanked the screen much faster under OpenServer than Linux does today on a _much_ bigger machine. This makes Linux feel sluggish.
  
  On the support front, the biggest annoyance are companies that have Linux software done, and working but refuse to release it. ie. Intel Centrino wireless support, Lotus Notes, etc.
  
  
  

• notepad
  2003-09-16 15:22:29  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  What a bout kedit? or gedit?

• Debian annoyances
  2003-09-16 14:44:23  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  And the packages that are present in a respository, but no physically there. About half a year ago, apt-get install gnome -or- kde was not possible, because not all packages of this metapackage were present in the respositories. The
  same applies today for openoffice.org. If you go to
  http://openoffice.debian.net/ and put a mirror into
  sources.list, then do apt-get update; apt-get
  install openoffice.org, you'll get a nice error
  message.
  

• Ok I'll bite
  2003-09-16 13:31:55  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Here's an annoyance: adding fonts to the system. Sorry, guys, but this is one that MS got right: drop a ttf file into the right directory and kablam! it is instantly available to all apps. Meanwhile we have to su to root, run ttmfdir, mkfdir and xset, and then find out that OOO needs to be set up up separately and that AbiWord doesn't see the new fonts at all, and that ... IIRC Mandrake has a frontend for all this, but if I also RC, it sort of worked when it felt like it.
  
  It's not enough to put me off Linux (I'm writing this on a Xandros box 98% upgraded to Debian testing), but it is an annoyance!
  

• No virus support in Linux
  2003-09-16 13:24:49  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I have never been able to install the sobig or blaster virus.
  
  Seriously, there should be an easier way to install programs we want to install in Linux.
  Yes I use apt-get, synaptic, etc, but it's a pain to install most things, and a blessing that nothing "auto-installs"
• No virus support in Linux
  2003-11-29 17:14:25  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Microsoft seems to have a monopoly on that. ;-)

• notepad
  2003-09-16 10:19:35  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Why can't Linux have programs like notepad and wordpad? Even the fastest basic editor I can find is much slower to load than notepad.
  
  Also, as an ex-windows user, I want something easy to load RTF files - without having to use the bigger & slower word processors.
• notepad
  2003-11-29 17:16:43  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Isn't vi fast enought for you?
  
  To open RTF, you may like KWord or Abiword.
• notepad
  2003-09-26 07:24:08  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  kate - aint no way around it ..
  
  Now, I just need to figure out how to keep it from opening with the editor at 15%, and the shell at 85%!
• notepad
  2003-09-16 23:13:46  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  who needs crap like notepad when we have xemacs and emacs and gvim and vim?
• notepad
  2003-09-16 11:47:45  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  RTF-
  
  Abiword.
  
  If that doesn't load fast enough for you, you're just hard to please.

• KDE problems
  2003-09-16 10:17:37  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Since KDE is probably the most common window manager (if not the most common, then at least the second most common <grin>), it should get these three issues right:
  
  1. very slow to refresh file list when you go to a folder with lots of files - windows is much faster
  
  2. when you move lots of files using Konqueror, it takes forever to move them, whereas "mv ..." would do it almost instantaneously. Poor!
  
  3. Every now and then I have to re-associate files with the right programs. XLS will open with gnumeric for a couple of weeks, and then suddenly start opening with OpenOffice. Same thing with AVI being opened by mplayer, then after a while it tries to use XMovie. Sigh.
  
• KDE problems
  2003-09-16 12:19:47  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Can't resist: KDE and Gnome *are not window managers* - OK I got my pedantry fix out of the way..<grin>
  
  re 2. One more argument for the command line
  
  3. Yeah, OK that's annoying....:(
• KDE problems
  2003-09-18 01:43:29  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  What do you means re 2? If I want to drag and drop speedily, how can this be improved?

• Documentation
  2003-09-16 09:19:07  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Now I'm a real beginner with Linux, so maybe this annoyance will lessen with time and knowledge. I'm well aware of the wealth of information available about Linux (or GNU/Linux, for the purists...) The problem/annoyance is the level at which so much of this information is pitched. i can't give chapter and verse, but a humorous example goes something like this:
  
  HOWTO for app XYZ-2.4.11
  
  1. Clear comprehensible first step.
  2. Clear comprehensible second step..
  3. Gee I'm getting somewhere...
  4. "Steps 4, 5 and six are trivial and not worth documenting since everyone knows and understands them...
  
  Except me? So...
  
  $ man XYZ
  $ extremely logical and carefully crafted gibberish incomprehensible to newbies....
  
  $ lynx http:// homepageforapp.org
  
  more very logical advice incomprehensible to newbie...
  
  Maybe I get lucky on a forum....but all this can be annoying....and maybe when I know more I can help by writing a simpler doc for the app in question. In the meantime.....AAARGH!
  
  
• Documentation
  2003-09-26 23:29:01  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  On a similar note, the documentation for many linux (and open-source in general) applications is missing one crucial element: What the program actually does.
  
  So many programs have manpages (or sourceforge pages) along the lines of
  
  -- voxflorb 1.2.4452 --
  Compiling voxflorb
  command-line options
  known issues in voxflorb
  etc. etc. etc.
  
  without saying anywhere what voxflorb actually does.
• Documentation
  2003-10-11 15:51:25  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Well it voxes your florbs. Obviously.
• Documentation
  2003-11-29 17:22:12  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Unless you call it with the "-i" flag. Then it will do exactly the contrary.
• Very true
  2003-09-16 13:09:34  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  your point is 1/3 of the documentation problem with the average Open Source project. One other is lack of documentation or just lack of updated documentation. The third is unclear pointers or links to documentation available.
  
  Consider PostNuke. Where is the documentation? Why isn't the main (navigation by their terminology) page better laid out? Where is "about" and where is "documentation"? Once you search through the forums you sadly (yet typically) you see snotty posts that basically say RTFM and that "the docs are included in {$rootdir}/pnGuide" yet guess what? THEY ARE NOT! And the fact that PN devs say this recently only shows their ignorance in their own product and thus a lack of communication. Next you look around for the FAQ. My but isn't that thing completely unintuitive in its "organization" and completely goes against accepted standards in layout and categorization? Oh, btw... you gotta find the correct FAQ as searching around will yield you various broken or empty links and other FAQ's.
  
  Eventually you discover that you must search elsewhere (besides the actual tool's home site) for that tool's documentation... huh? Why can't they at least link to it (once you actually find the link that is)?
  
  Hmmm, this says to look at "docs.postnuke.com" and now I ask why there was no direct link to this from the starting page "www.postnuke.com". Then when I type that in the navigation bar of my browser I see why: the doc site lists documentation links in a story submittal manor (think slashdot) and very much by chronological order only. You have to be familiar with the term, "Sections" and their unintuitive and inconsistent manner of categorizing various documents to track what you want down. No wait... you still can't find it because it does not exist locally. (hint: nothing is wrong with date sorted elements but ALWAYS have a clear, unhidden link to or list of CORE DOCUMENTS). Go to Gentoo.org. It is not "bad" if they list how to set up a Cisco router to talk to your Gentoo box and how to brew Bock beers at home. However, those things are secondary to the point of the site... Gentoo. Gentoo core docs (Setup, tool Core Tool explantions, and basic guides) are clearly available by clicking on a Docs link. They are well organized and kept up to date. More importantly, the Gentoo system is WELL DESIGNED and not hacked together. They have a clear idea of where they want to go, even if that is not a location but a direction. And yes, there IS a connection between planning/coordination and how things are presented. The bad designers fail to take into factor inevitable changes and their web site and tools reflect this. Out of date, non existent, or broken links to resources along with a disorganized chaos of partially completed resources mixed in at various points of the site. Its like walking into a grocery store and having Milk be located in 7 different locations, some of the cartons opened, others just years old and now a cheese substance.
  
  Here we see both in design/implementation and presentation/documentation the good and the bad possibilities of Open Source.
  
  I am not picking on PostNuke, but clearly their attitudes need adjusting to factor in their own lack of organization and clarity. Bitching at newbies frequent questions is silly when you don't update your FAQ, update your docs and actually make them available. It is highly foolish if your pop-off answers to newbies are not even correct.
  
  Oh and about those API docs... they don't work. Try actually using your own tool sometime to see how it is working and don't ignore feedback about is failure. For that matter, how can you expect serious professional developers to respect a tool that itself does not work on your site. (i.e. why do I have to relogin to each and every site... think about a data bridge and single sign on) PostNuke's other method of being an example of bad Open Source is in its marketing.
  
  Most get tired of dishonest and/or clueless company's marketing consisting of lies and inconsistencies. Open Source should tell it like it is, and let the developer or user pick the right tool for the job. Don't call your tool (PostNuke) a Content MANAGEMENT System (CMS) if your own site does not manage content decently and the team clearly does not abide by the philosphy of computerized management of information.
  
  PN is a blog and gaming clan site... those that have adapted it and claim it is therefore for prime professional web application development and things like E-commerce are confused. Those arguments they give would then say that a hacked together soap box racer made of plywood and cardboard thus means that cardboard and plywood is "the tool for automobile manufacturing."
  
  
  

• Dependency hell is an outdated annoyance..
  2003-09-16 09:00:21  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  At least for Mandrake users.. Urpmi works much like apt-get for Debian, and figures out dependencies automatically, all you have to do is add sources.
  There are few "annoyances" in Linux because if something's annoying for no reason, it eventually gets FIXED. If it's annoying for a reason, it just means you need to learn something.
  
• Re: Dependency hell is an outdated annoyance..
  2003-09-16 10:12:06  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  No it's not outdated. I use Mandrake 9.1, and have tried installing a variety of programs that I could never get to run.
  
  Family tree software, CD-track loggers, video-splicers, etc. Couldn't get 'em to work ... so I just sometimes book into Win98 and use the programs that I used to use.
  
  I *never* had problems installing stuff in Windows. Pity Linux can't be like that!
  
• Re: Dependency hell is an outdated annoyance..
  2003-11-29 17:25:51  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I *never* had problems installing stuff in Windows. Pity Linux can't be like that!
  
  Windows is such a convenient tool to deploy viruses and worms: you receive a program attached in an email and execute it.
• Re: Dependency hell is an outdated annoyance..
  2004-01-14 05:29:33  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Most of the Viruses and worms you receive were written by Pimpled Linux Lovers ...
• Re: Dependency hell is an outdated annoyance..
  2003-09-16 11:43:58  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Urpmi does solve a lot of this, but requires that you find alternative sources for stuff that isn't part of Mandrake. Even then, some programs might not be fully supported as to all dependencies, although matters are improved. So compiling from source is sometimes the only way, and that requires some research to make sure all dependencies are met...since the library problem doesn't go away, unless you can find a statically compiled binary somewhere. (One reason why such binaries are supplied by, for instance, Opera. But this is not a solution, just an inelegant work-around.)

• error message that could drive you nuts
  2003-09-16 07:33:34  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  have a look at this session:
  
  # ls -l somefile
  somefile
  # chmod +x somefile
  # ./somefile
  ./somefile: Command not found.
  # what the %$&!?
  # file somefile
  somefile: perl script text
  
  what happened?
  
  # head -1 somefile
  #!/usr/local/bin/perl
  # ls /usr/local/bin/perl
  /usr/local/bin/perl: No such file or directory.
  # aha!
  # vi somefile
  fldwx
  # ./somefile
  Hello, world!
  
  
• error message that could drive you nuts
  2003-09-16 08:25:06  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  yeah, I would prefer if it would go like:
  # export ERROR_MESSAGES=abusive
  # ./somefile
  you stupid idiot, I cannot find the
  interpreter given on the first line, so edit
  me and correct that before you try to execute me!
  #
• error message that could drive you nuts
  2003-09-16 09:34:06  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I like the error message I get when I try to save an image in Gimp as html:
  
  "Are you crazy? You are about to create a huge HTML file which will most likely crash your browser!"
  
  Now THAT'S a good error message...LOL
• error message that could drive you nuts
  2003-11-29 17:28:53  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  The best one is when you execute xchat as root.
  
  Perhaps the book should have a chapter about abusive programs? :-)

• Inconsistent terminology
  2003-09-16 07:14:40  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Use the same term to describe something, don't invent a new term. Multiple distributions aggravate this. I decided to try a new email client and during setup it asked for my mail address. I thought that was irrelevant and left it blank. The email client would not work and would not tell me why it could not connect to my ISP to get my email. After hours of searching and posting to mailing lists I thought I would enter my email address into the "mail address" box and it worked. When I complained to the mailing list about the poor terminology I was told I was the idiot for thinking "mailing address" referred to my street address rather than my email address. I have wasted hours solving problems that were simply terminology problems. RTFM complicates this far more than it helps.
• Inconsistent terminology
  2003-10-29 06:19:25  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Ummm...

• Just stick with debian and apt
  2003-09-16 00:46:33  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  You'll never regret it, and as long you are ok with 6 cds of packages you can forget every dependency problem.
  
  Let's say you want to install package xyz which requires libx liby and libz, well apt just fetches those, installs them, and then installs xyz.
  
  It'a as easy as to type: apt-get install xyz
  
  I know up2date offers similar services, but I prefer to use apt-for-rpm if i'm forced on a redhat system ...
  
  my 2cents
• Just stick with debian and apt - from Arunabh Das
  2003-09-16 23:20:51  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  very true - Debian's apt-get is the most trouble free and hassle free package management in the whole world. Debian really rulez!!
• Try apt for rpm
  2003-09-16 08:20:21  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  apt has been ported to work with rpm packages. It can be downloaded from
  http://freshrpms.net/apt/
  and from
  http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/installapt.html
  
  It's well worth mastering how to configure it.
  
  Anonymous George.
• Just stick with debian and apt
  2003-09-16 08:02:47  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  precisely. It's hardly a linux annoyance if you redhat guys can't choose a decent packaging system :)
• Just stick with debian and apt
  2003-09-16 08:26:32  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Oh really? I'm a debian man myself, and I think you're full of it. Sure, the official debian repositories are great--if you can stick with them and only them. Ever try to get decent 3D gaming working on debian with, say, a Radeon 8500? Now THAT'S annoying.
• Just stick with debian and apt
  2003-09-16 09:25:18  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  >>Ever try to get decent 3D gaming working on debian with, say, a Radeon 8500? Now THAT'S annoying.<<
  
  No, but i have with a Geforce 4400 and it worked fine after no time.

• The most serious problem with Linux Annoyances?
  2003-09-15 23:10:15  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  When you are annoyed with Microsoft or Apple products you're annoyed with how a big faceless company has implemented (or not) something. Something you will never in a million years be able to change. You are powerless.
  
  When you are annoyed with Linux, you are annoyed with your own inability to to fix it for yourself. Linux is yours, you truly have the power to change anything from top to bottom, ultimately you only have yourself to blame. Sure you can blame all these wonderful volunteers, but uh that seems a bit lame.
  
• and here is the problem of any system, computer or not
  2003-09-16 12:19:48  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  arrogance, plain and simple.
  
  Starting out, it is stated that one has access to the source and therefore the ability to change/improve the annoyances. This is a good thing, it is a reminder of the inherant power of Open Source.
  
  Then comes the 'tude. Gotta play that supposed trump card of "you only have your self to blame" topped of with the always useful loaded statement along the lines of blaming volunteers and everything that entails. (namely, that they don't 'owe' you anything and you should be thankful)
  
  Logically this only makes sense if you ignore the inconsistency and hypocrisy.
  
  No one is "blaming" the volunteers OR the paid folk working on various Linux products and packages. At least no one you should bother to listen too.
  
  Consider this: If you decide there is a niche to fill then why not strike up your favorite editor and get busy? Sounds good right?
  
  Now consider this: If you want to actually fix a problem in a elegant (read: not a sloppy, temp/hack fix) then you plan and gather input from others. This is what engineering and science is based upon, the methodical and consistent use of facts with ideas.
  
  So, when someone identifies shortcomings (perceived or real), then a wise developer listens and does not react like a crying baby. Sure, that person did not do it themselves, but by identifying shortcomings or just requesting new features then the developers WITH the skill and experience then know something that they would not have considered on their own. Again, it is the difference between developers and bleeding, crying babies.
  
  One thing that these crying babies also refuse to comprehend is that many times, these identifications of shortcomings come with solutions as well. Remember how I mentioned "perceived or real?" Well, that is the key here... perception. A perceived problem often does have a very workable solution (not work around) and merely must be discovered. Helpful developers and other good souls in the open source community will be glad to solve these problems through fixes or just better pointing out existing fixes in documentation.
  
  Lose the attitude please, it reminds me of all the 1337 lusers that appeared on scene around 1996. No one needed them, and they certainly did not contribute anything but attitude and drive off many interested and talented, but unexperienced developers (and other help) from other areas of the world.
  
  "...but uh that seems a bit lame"
  Indeed. This is what I think everytime I see a "hacker" get on his high horse.
  
  The wise developer knows to pick the right tool for the job. Each comes with certain strengths and weaknesses, and more so when you factor in the problem domain at hand. Linux and Open Source is good in many ways, IMHO better than anything closed source solutions have produced so far. Yet its contains its problems as well.
  
  Throwing your hands in front of your eyes and loudly chanting "NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH" doesn't change that.
  
  Again I add... no one credible is laying "blame" on the great army of volunteers. If perhaps you have the time and skill to fix each and every problem then by all means run for dictator of the planet, as you are obviously superhuman.
• and here is the problem of any system, computer or not
  2003-11-29 17:36:42  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Arrogance? I disagree.
  
  The poster just pointed that, with proprietary software (sometimes called "lock-in software"), you're at mercy of the software creator.
  
  With Open Source, you can fix it yourself. Or hire someone to fix the problem. Or wait untill someone fixes it.
• and here is the problem of any system, computer or not
  2003-09-30 21:29:53  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Sometimes open source developers can be such lamers...I have had the misfortune of trying to work with a bunch of guys on a graphic installer. What a waste...We couldn't agree on group-management software (you know, something to track other people's effort, like Gant tables, etc), some guys refused to be "coordinated" (as in: use the *f***ing* software I'm telling you), and also stuff like scripting languages, that we couldn't agree on.
  This all happened because some of the guys had no formal training, or refused to learn, because they were very independent. So it's a kind of social issue that reflects on bad software design and coding practice that will eventually end-up in your 100th C bug of the week.
  When I see some software projects that are just replicating previous functionality I just think "what a waste."
  Nowadays, I will be carefull to install software that's been around for a while, and preferably being developed by large teams (like Gnome). I avoid, e.g., a mail package being coded by some 16 year old that barely knows C.
• and here is the problem of any system, computer or not
  2003-09-17 22:25:12  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  hmmmm
  
  Arrogance? Arrogance is a long pontificating message sent to an email list with "useability" rants and complaints about documentation.
  
  Been there? Done that? Been ignored?
  
  You type lots. Why not write some documentation and maybe your suggestions will have more weight.
  

• How do you fix things?
  2003-09-15 18:45:47  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  When I have a problem, I only find nice utopian how-to's. No where can I find a mention of if there is a problem, how to fix, or a faq. I am having problems loading latest up2date. I follow instructs to download & rpm -Fvh. Doesn't load. I --force, nothing. What steps does one do when a rpm won't install? I guess they don't want to tell you since they make their living off of support.
• How do you fix things?
  2003-09-16 12:45:13  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  That *was* annoying when I upgraded up2date last week or so. The rpm file was named such that running rpm would not work. The file I dowloaded had a '[' in it or something. Finally renamed the file, and it installed.
• How do you fix things?
  2003-09-16 07:09:28  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  
  rpm -i --nodeps xxxxxxx
  
  zozo
  
• How do you fix things?
  2003-09-16 12:35:24  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  umm...the -nodeps solution is a bit like fixing the leaking radiator on your car by disconnecting the temperature gauge.

• linux != UNIX
  2003-09-15 08:06:42  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  It's like UNIX but different...
  
  Linux developers seem to be like M$ developers, they've taken a good idea (in this case UNIX) and complicated it.
  
  Also the lunacy of trying to use wintel boxes in an enterprise setting. Not really a Linux annoyance per se, but it does perpetuate an outdated desktop architecture in a server environment. Even Macs sport openboot firmware.
• Enterprise != efficient operations
  2003-09-16 13:26:27  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  perhaps many "enterprises" are realizing that that many efforts are working against each other resulting in lower efficiency and higher cost. One section fights to create the well oiled machine for anything from mail filtering and exchange to ldap services while another team is dictating various "features" (read: chrome) that not only bog down the enterprise but cause stability and security problems. Instead of those chrome demanders merely saying they wanted certain types of functionality they demaned specific implementation for no other reason than zealotry.
  
  I've worked in areas that had all the latest and most expensive equipment from Sun and HP only to have them configured in a manner that is akin to using Ferrari's to haul tractor trailers and the rigs racing at the track.
  
  Many places (not just the government) randomly throw money at IT, not understanding what they want from IT or what IT can do (yet dictating specifics ironically). Some have decided this is foolish to spend so much money on expensive "enterprise" equipment when you can more cheaply use PC's (including multi-proc) with server farms. Eventually, I am betting the 64 bit procs from Intel and AMD will overtake all but the highest end (and highest dollar) specialized server from other vendors. The bus architectures, memory and add on components will much better be able to work in distributed environments, whether clusters, grids or simple fail over server farms.
  
  As for what Unix used to stand for... consider this, it was once said that the fundamental idea behind Unix software was that you had many small components that did one thing and did it WELL. Many in the Linux community have forgotten this and make clusters (as in cluster fsck) of inter competing components that don't allow for a clean modular extension or substitution of certain components to give you the functionality you need.
  
  In essence, they have turned Linux into a harder to use MS Windows.

• my annoyance
  2003-09-15 07:00:19  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I have a UNIX (linux too) annoyance.
  When your user account are added to a group
  you have to logout/login to let it take effect.
  
  Anyone who knows a workaround for this?
• my annoyance
  2003-09-16 07:02:08  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  % newgrp [group]
  
  or
  
  % sg [group [[-c] command]]
  
  

• vim annoyances
  2003-09-12 18:22:49  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  The authors should have started a forum and not a mailing list, I doubt many people will bother to subscribe just to detail a few annoyances.
  
  in vim sometimes the backspace key will start to work like the delete key for no apparent reason, this is _HIGHLY_ annoying
  
  cut and paste - at least in kde there is the klipper - is there something similar for gnome?
  
  ie only web sites - solution? for the book, include a nice form letter that can be posted to web site admins requesting standards compliance.
  
  open office startup times - yawn
  
  rpm and keeping up2date - rpm hell, need fix - use up2date? propriety costs money, use apt4rpm - still a bit buggy and not 'official', solution? install debian
  
  media playing - its always a bitch, install xine, install crossover plugin install mplayer, install decss - need a default that just works for all codecs - solution? wait for helix player? xine mplayer?
  
  sendmail configuration and vulnerabilities - solution? exim!
  
  not enough native games! wheres the new loki?
  
  lack of colaboration amongst distros, why dont they colaborate more on things like installers and package management tools? mandrake has an nice installer, debians is shit, why dont debain use it? its gpl no?
  
  im sure i'll think of a few more!

• No sucks, no annoyances
  2003-09-12 17:07:24  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  
  Like "Learn Foo in 15 Minutes", or "Foo for Dummies", "Foo Annoyances" is a great title. Almost like "Foo Sucks". "Linux Sucks". It has a ring to it.
  
  Here is my short list:
  
  Hardware vendors that sell more hardware because new hardware never comes with drivers for older Windows, and newer drivers aren't created for old hardware. This creates business incentive to keep hardware interfaces secret, locking Linux out.
  
  Monitiring CERT waiting to hear that X is exploitable and I need to upgrade.
  
  Linux programmers who don't give a moments thought to portability. Linux isn't the only kid on the block, and like the Solaris/HPUX/AIX/etc wars, all of the Unix venders would collective be much stronger if they cooperatored rather than tried to lock people in and segment the market. Stop including stuff from /usr/include/linux/* if you don't really need to! It doesn't make it work better on Linux, it just makes it a pain to port to other things.
  
  Bloatware. Apache is bloatware. KDE is bloatware. BIND is bloatware. Giant executables aren't the Unix way. That make it hard to get under the hood of something and dink with it. Most dinking done on Unix is done without ever touching source code. Users quickly learn the ins and outs of things and get a feel for their inner psyche just because the plumming is exposed. If X had been designed today, it wouldn't have been client/server. X is argueably bloatware. All of the drawing arcs stuff turned out not to be needed in modern use, and are now legacy stuff. The only way to effectively deal with legacy baggage is not to bloat. Mozilla seems to get buggier in each new release, and the features added are things I don't want. Quality and simplicity have been more a definition of Unix than any other single.. things. This is being lost. More code means more bugs, more exploits. After being a novice for a while and playing with every new toy, people tend to settle in to a reasonable compliement. I use amiwm. Lot of people use fluxbox and the like. KDE itself is an annoyance if it is going to suck up RAM and crash.
  
  People who want you to join mailing lists. Half of the mailing lists I'm begged to join turn out to be dead. The others are off topic, save for a few, which are extremely high traffic. Okey, nothing to do with Linux. I've lost all sense of scope =)
  
  Lack of a standard light weight database. Datacenticism is a revolution. We're seeing database filesystems, logging to database, database this, database that. JET serves MS well. This is up there with cut and paste -- applications should be able to count on a little more of a standard base, otherwise they are free to choice whatever prerequesites they want and a system will wind up with the same idea implemented 40 ways. Poor standard base. Oft cited. Perl has this problem too.
  
  Security. More of an effort is made not to make mistakes, but nothing progressive is done. IBM Japan's excellent bounds checking patches are being adopted by OpenBSD. Logging is useless. A system should do the Tripwire thing by default. Replacing key utilities isn't something an operating system should just ignore. Secure hashes or something should stand in the way.
  
  -scott
  
  
  

• standard gui config file
  2003-09-12 11:47:41  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I use fluxbox with a mixture of KDE and GTK apps, openoffice, mozilla, the standard stuff. I have fluxbox and Gkrellm2 almost configured with a theme I like, but I want to get matching gtk and kde themes etc. Why do I have to configure 5-6 files to do this? Why can't I do one? Would it be too difficult for there to be a standard theme base or something?
• standard gui config file
  2003-09-16 06:58:55  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Sadly, there used to be a standard GUI config file called .Xdefaults, and even a tool called editres to edit it, but too many of the newer toolkits have ignored it and rolled their own.
  
  As for cut and paste, once it was standard, then otehr people came in most notably trying to force Windows' conventions into Linux ignoring UNIX history. Maybe as with Xdefaults, people rolling their own instead of finding out what the system already used is the cause of inconsistancy. Fortunately, cut and paste is steadily being fixed.
  
  The gripe I submitted concentrated mainly on such situations where a developer, sometimes a big corporate that should know better, has released applications for Linux that think they're on Windows. I've seen some applications try to show the Linux filesystems as Windows style drive letters!

• Copy/Paste
  2003-09-12 10:51:13  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  The most annoying problem I have with Linux is Copy/Paste. Copying something out of one application and then pasting it into another is like a dice game, you never really know if your numbers will come up and it will work or not. Then when it doesn't work you have to be creative to find a work around, maybe save as some file, edit the parts you want in a different editor and then maybe reload or copy from that new editor.
  
  The biggest culprits are OpenOffice.org and Mozilla, but most KDE applications I've tried seem to work okay with each other, and OpenOffice.org/Mozilla to/from a KDE app seems to work, but OpenOffice.org to/from Mozilla is up for grabs. A line or two seems to work fine, but for larger amounts it just doesn't work.
• Copy/Paste
  2003-12-11 07:51:30  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  This thread is missing the point. It's not about intuition, it's about getting the job done. and when I select OR copy text from OpenOffice I expect it to be insertable in Mozilla Mail.
  
  Alas, often it isn't. Often you get a few lines or a couple of paragraphs. Often you juist don't get the whole selection and you have to check if anything is missing, which is highly annoying.
  
  I prefer selecting and middle-clicking, but that doesn't really matter to me. What matters is that either way you can't rely on the operation to succeed. And this is a Bug, a BUG, a BUG!
• Copy/Paste
  2003-09-12 15:49:34  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  The X11 "standard" way to do Copy/Paste is a bit different from Windows. Some applications (like OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, XEmacs ...) support both the X11 scheme and the Windows/Mac scheme, which can add to the confusion.
  
  There is no explicit "Copy" function in X. Instead, simply select the desired text (by highlighting it) -- copying is implicit. It can now be pasted into the same or another window, using the middle mouse button.
  
  Think of it as "Select"/"Paste", rather than "Copy"/"Paste".
  
  -tor
  
• Copy/Paste
  2003-09-30 16:45:34  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  This is very right.
  
  I identify the lack of "copy" an actual problem in X design. Many people are used to the idea that when they select something, it's immediately and implicitly copied somewhere into clipboard.
  
  So, say, you select a piece of text in an xterm, then thinking your selection has now been "copied", you close the app and try to paste in any window.
  
  Nothing happens. The process holding the selection has exitted, and thus the paste is not possible, because the selection owner can not be contacted.
  
  Another major annoyance for me is that all the scandinavian letters like ä and ö can not be pasted into any *emacs I have. I often try to cut-paste something from, say, xterm or browser, and I know this used to work, but nowadays I get all my pastes full of stuff like ^[%/1^À^ÎISO8859-15^B around every scandinavian char. WHY!?
  
  The XEmacs multilingual environment stuff seems also hopelessly broken. I had a mule version of xemacs installed and it semi-randomly prompted me for coding system to use for storing my iso-8859-1 files with absolutely nothing but standard scandinavian chars inside them, and typically *refused* to save the file as "iso-8859-1" insisting on using "iso-8859-1-with-esc" instead.
  
  Naturally, all the scandinavian letters were broken after reloading the file into emacs. Thankfully, the less featured nomule versions work except for the cut-paste problem.
  
• Copy/Paste
  2003-09-16 01:58:47  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  I'd like to second the listing of the Copy/Paste behaviour. In spite of what you say is the "standard" behaviour, it's still enormously confusing for someone used to Windows or Mac. It often takes me two or three attempts to get the effect I wanted.
  
  This is definitely the most un-intuitive behaviour encountered on the Linux desktop.
• Copy/Paste
  2003-09-16 07:04:22  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  CTRL-C is not intuitive, especially if you're not english speaking. Apparently Xerox came up with the conventions because of the shapes of the letters, X for crossing out. IBM used to use things like Shift-Insert.
  
  The most intuitive would be the old Sun and HP keyboards, which had keys marked things like "Copy" and "Paste".
  
  X does support so called secondary selection (Windows style), but it is less used than Primary Selection. Again, Primary Selection used to be the standard. X toolkits had primary selection in all text widgets and labels before Windows had any selection in its text widgets. Unfortunately consistency has been broken by people trying to force Windows conventions onto Linux.
• Copy/Paste
  2003-09-16 06:17:43  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  It's only unintutive when your background is primarially windows. And that's not unintutitive, it's "different". I'm always irritated immensely the few times I use windows when a simple select with the mouse does not automatically copy the selected text. And instead, I'm forced to do ^c or pull down edit and pick copy to get done a job that shouldn't require my hand to leave the mouse. If there were only a way to get X select/copy functionality in windows, I'd reset windows to the X method.
  
• Copy/Paste
  2003-11-29 17:54:01  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  The direct "select/paste" method is good for sysadmins: you can select a filename and paste it into the next shell command, with a single click.
  
  The problem is, the average desktop