Red Hat Linux 6.1 versus Windows 98:
Rules of User Friendliness

As a small contribution to the free source movement, allow me to assemble some motley "Rules" of user friendliness, as I step on a few land mines in the Red Hat Linux 6.1 installation and operation.

I hear Windows and Linux can run on the same computer with a "dual boot." So let's try that.

Let the games begin...

I first install Windows 98. I follow a few relatively simple instructions, and I get through it with just a few minor scratches. A Linux guru friend suggests I use a program called "Partition Magic" to change the size of my windows partition and create a Linux partition. I install Partition Magic, with no problem. Instructions for Windows installations go something like this: "Insert the CD and double-click on 'My Computer' on your Windows desktop, then double-click on the CD-ROM icon, then double-click on the 'Setup' file." The installed programs typically appear on the desktop, and in the Windows Start menu. And Windows programs usually tell you at the beginning of the manual exactly how to start them. Something like, "From the Window Start menu, select Partition Magic."

Following the Partition Magic manual, I change the size of the existing partition and add a "Linux Partition." Okay, that does it for Windows. On to Linux...Drum roll please...

Linux Install #1: I want the "vanilla" install. That is, the install for beginners, in the most simple way possible. No frills. Just the basics. Get the job done. I open up my Red Hat 6.1 "Standard edition" box (although the box does not actually have a label that identifies it as such) and open up the manual entitled "Installation Guide." ...Not till page 18 do I find a sentence telling that beginners should follow the "Workstation" class installation...which begs my first "rule"...

Rule 1: Put the beginner stuff at the beginning.

They are struggling, and easily alienated. Two or even one page of unintelligible gook and they'll likely give up, with some simple self affirming jab, like "boy that Linux sure sucks." What other choice do they have? They aren't going to say "I suck" (although they might feel it). The advanced (and dare I say jaded) user will skip the beginner stuff, and smile smugly. So don't worry too much about them. The beginners installation should be page 1, not page 18.

Okay, let's continue the installation. I'm delighted to find that the "Workstation" class installation promises to automatically install on the Linux Partition and ignore the Dos partition, and dual boot with the "LILO" boot manager (I don't know who "LILO" is, but if she'll help me boot Windows or Linux, I guess she's a very nice person). After wading through some more unintelligible pages, I find "Booting and Installation Program." Excuse me. "Booting" is not English. The manual explains that you can "boot" to the floppy or to the CD-ROM. Lose the computerese. Instead, say "Insert the Red Hat 'Boot Diskette' (and it wouldn't hurt to show a picture of it being inserted). The manual then goes on about changing the BIOS settings if necessary. BIOS? Hello. With that instruction, you've lost all novice users. Which leads to my second "rule"...

Rule 2: Don't give the user unneeded choices.

Explain one way that works for nearly everyone, and refer to odd cases in side notes and appendices. Okay fine. Let's assume against all odds that the novice is still with us. The first thing that comes up are bulleted choices. I look through the manual to see what the bulleted choices mean. When I look back at the screen, the installation has gone ahead without me! I don't know what choice was made (Side Note: When the graphical portion of the installation started, the top and bottom were cut off, which is strange considering my graphics card is capable of 1600x1200 at 16bits/ pixel). Some of the earlier (mouseless) choices have an "OK" box, but it doesn't say how to choose OK. From experience, I know to press the enter key. My mother would not know to do this. And so, my next rule...

Rule 3: If it doesn't cost you anything, don't assume the user knows what you are talking about.

Say precisely what to do. No jargon. No computerese.

Say, "Press the Enter key." In this case, it doesn't cost anything to be precise.

Continuing, I notice two choices: "KDE Workstation" and "GNOME Workstation."

Rule 4: When reading page two, novices forget what they read on page one.

Remind the user (inside the installation program, or at the very least in the "Help" area) that "these two choices are recommended for beginners."

Since nothing was said about whether to choose KDE or GNOME, I picked KDE, for no particular reason. And I choose "Use Graphical" login ("Graphical" is a word beginners like). And I decide to "Skip X Configuration" since I don't even know what it is and it sounds very advanced and scary (okay I'm playing dumb here, but out of respect to my mom...).

Okay the installing starts my CD drive humming (humming is good). And the Progress Indicator bar tells me I'm on my way.

Rule 5: Progress indicator bars make me happy.

They give the user hope, with clear promise of completion. Without them users feel they must have done something wrong for it to take so long.

... at the end, the installation says something like "remove boot media and press Return to reboot."

Rule 6: When the user provides information (in any way) keep it and don't ask for that information again.

The user has already showed the installation program what method they used. And don't say "boot media." So in this instance, you would say "Remove the Red Hat boot disk" or you would say "Remove the Red Hat CD" depending on what choice the user made. And remember, my mom doesn't know what a "boot media" is, but is quite sure it must be something very complicated (see Rule 3).

...Upon rebooting, the mysterious boot goddess "LILO" appears. Yet nowhere do I see a choice to boot Dos or Linux. At this point, a novice would say "I've been lied to. The manual promised a dual boot." We've lost them again. Where do I find exactly HOW to dual boot. On a hunch (and advice from the respectable Red Hat Linux manuals) I run "linuxconf." I go down to the boot stuff and see help related to that topic. Way down at the bottom, after pages and pages of stuff, it does say press the TAB key for LILO options. Okay fair enough. ... so I reboot, and at the LILO boot prompt I press the TAB key. The words "Dos" and "Linux" appear, but it doesn't say how to choose one (please see Rule 3, earlier). I intuitively know to type in "dos" or "linux," but absolutely no way can we assume a novice would figure this out. Proof: My wife later calls me at work to say "Why doesn't this computer work anymore?...." I just love those kinds of statements. Since LILO defaults to boot Linux, I had to tell her exactly how to boot to Windows.

Of course even after the novice clears that wall, Linux comes to a "command line" thing. What then? Remember, the user doesn't know about the "startx" command. And even if she does know, it won't help in this case. Remember, in this install we cautiously chose "Skip xconfiguration." Again, at this point, for most novice users... end of session. No more Linux for that user. Maybe forever.

Linux Install #2: By adopting the assumption that users enjoy wasting time and annoying their loved ones, I decide to run the installation again. This time I choose "Customize X Configuration" and decide NOT to skip the X Configuration. I'm soon asked to choose from a number of different Bit/Pixels (8,16,32) and 640X480, 800x600, 1024x768, etc., but nowhere does this say what you are choosing exactly. How many should I pick? I assume these choices determine later configuration possibilities, but it doesn't say (Again, see Rule 3). I happen to know these relate to screen resolution, but I have no guidance what to pick. Okay, so I make a few reasonable choices based on what the graphics card allowed in Windows. I then complete the installation, remove the "boot media," and restart the computer. When I enter the command "startx," I get the message

"Fatal Sever Error. No valid modes found."

Linux Install #4: With baseless faith, I gather the motivation to do yet another Linux installation. This time, I do everything the same as the previous installation, except I choose "GNOME Workstation" instead of KDE. My hope is that a "Star Office" menu pick or desktop icon will appear if I install it under GNOME. I install Star Office again, and this time I read the entire README file (yuck). Way down in the README it says exactly what file launches Star Office. It would help if that were at the beginning. Also, perhaps a suggestion to use the "File Manager" to open the file, for those anti command line types. It also says Star Office will be placed on the KDE panel upon restarting KDE (which I didn't install). Why not put it on the GNOME menu, too? And why not slap it onto the "Desktop," as well? In any case, when I run this file it works!. Word Processor, Spread Sheet, Database, Drawing tool, and more. I'm surprised how good this Star Office is. Wow. I really could run an office with this stuff. Things are starting to look better.

Screen Resolution: Next problem. How do I increase the resolution of my display? Why did it default so low? The dialog boxes and windows always overrun my screen. How do I get my screen resolution up to normal? No clues given. I would expect something in the Red Hat Getting Started Guide or Reference Guide. Something titled "Optimizing your Screen Resolution" perhaps? Nor do I find anything on the menus. Again, we've lost most users here. They would conclude something simple, like "Linux doesn't have good screen resolution." Don't laugh. First think about it....These people are your future. Okay now you can laugh.

I decide to cheat. I call on past UNIX cynicism floating around the back of my brain. I remember something about a /usr/bin/X11, or something, a directory containing the file Xconfig, or xconfig, or ConfigX, or something like that. Remember, UNIX is case sensitive (arguably a good thing) and the man and grep (what's that?) commands default to be case sensitive (definitely a bad thing). Sure enough, I find a file called "Xconfigurator" and decide to run it. My monitor is not listed in the choices, so I choose "Custom" only to realize that I don't know the answers to the questions they're asking. So I reboot to Windows 98 (which, by the way, automatically detected my monitor and never asked me any questions, and conveniently provides all reasonable choices for screen resolution settings). On the Windows desktop, I right-click and select Properites/Settings/ etc... and find out all the stuff that Xconfigurator was asking for, and jot it down. I reboot to Linux, run Xconfigurator again, and answer the questions. To my amazement it works. I now have a 1280x1024 desktop at 32bits/pixel. Whatever cynicism I have is seriously weakening.

Floppy Disk Drive: Okay, let's tackle one more issue: Saving a file to a floppy disk. In Windows, you simply drag the file to a graphic representation of the floppy disk. Just for kicks, I try dragging a file to the floppy icon on Read Hat's desktop. Naturally this doesn't work. And no user-friendly messages appear telling what to do. So what would most users do? Curse the computer and give up, most likely. I see that you can right-click on the desktop Floppy icon and select Mount, but this generates an error message (Okay, I'm playing dumb again, but this is what users will do). On the GNOME "System" menu I find "Disk Management." Good. I see the floppy designation there. I insert a Floppy disk and choose "Format," which defaults to "Low Level" format, so I do that. But I still can't mount the floppy. I decide to format again, but this time I don't choose "Low Level." Okay, then I can mount it. By the way, it's helpful that the disk management tells me the corresponding directory of the mounted floppy. Now I'm ready to save a file to the floppy. I open "Gnotepad" and save a file to my /home/user_name directory. I then drag the saved file from inside the File Manager to the Floppy icon on the desktop, and it works! It writes the file to the newly formatted floppy. I can even "browse" to the floppy directory and save it directly to the floppy. Now I'm starting to become impressed. Also worth noting is that I was able (through non-novice means) to mount a windows file system and read and write files to it. As far as I know, windows cannot access a Linux file system.

Reason for Hope: Now I can boot to Windows98 or Linux. In Linux, I can now easily access my floppy and CD drives, manage my Windows and Linux files, and do some real office work, on a high-resolution customizable graphical desktop. And most important of all...without feeling held hostage every time Bill Gates condescends, and at a fraction of the cost.

If this keeps up, Microsoft faces serious competition. Keep up the good work Red Hat. It seems you're heading in the right direction.

You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. -from the movie The Matrix-