maemo.org - Talk - View Single Post - Some things I don't understand

	RogerS	2008-03-31 , 17:32
	Posts: 772 \| Thanked: 183 times \| Joined on Jul 2005 @ Montclair, NJ (NYC suburbs)	#15

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles

Mostly because official PAN support isn't done, but with the community PAN support it should be fairly straightforward.

"Official." Hm-m. That's what I'm talking about. My internet device isn't very useful when the most natural path to the internet (at times) is ignored. Says I.

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Are you saying Linux is too hard or it's too hard to get to the Linux underpinnings with ITOS?

I'm going to assume the later, anyway. It all goes back to Nokia's user-friendliness philosophy of keeping the users that don't know what they're doing away from Linux. Not that I particularly agree with it, but, really, if you've got a problem with anything, that's what bugzilla is for.

I'm just saying that Linux is way stricter than MacOS and Windows about keeping such users from harming things unwittingly. That's already. The barriers put into the IT OS are overkill.

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles

Such are the pitfalls of an immature Linux platform. An enhancement request for a GUI font-manager of some sort, maybe?

I can do that. But taking a look around at, well, the internet would point out the significance of making it easy to adapt things to the way the user wants them. I mean, what are there, 4000 plug-ins for Firefox?

We live in our browser. Making it feel right to each of us should be simple as dirt.

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles

It does, it's called R&D mode. If not that, it's not as if the 3rd party packages are particularly hard to install.

The reason I write a blog called Internet Tablet Users blog is that I have an unyielding resistance to leaving the realm of what-a-typical-user-is-expected-to-know. If you think R&D mode is bending sufficiently far in this direction, then I would respectfully suggest that you have become insensate to the needs of users who have been using computers for 5-10 years already but don't want to spend any more time learning computer tips and tricks. That encompasses virtually everyone I know, btw (excepting only some of the 12-year-olds in the neighborhood who have only 3-4 years experience). I've used it. But I shook my head every time, muttering foul sentiments.

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles

Gizmo, amsn, and Google Talk all provide this and it's fairly dead-simple to use.

Gizmo's capability is newer than my last check with them. I'm happy to hear about it. amsn is unknown to me. And if you think getting the cam capability to work with Google Talk is easy, you're mistaken.

Four of us spent longer than an hour in February trying to get it to work, and we failed. However clever or dumb we are, we had the desire and inclination to make it work and we put in the time. And we couldn't get it going, despite 7 degrees among us (and one high-schooler who lives on IM).

If it's dead-simple, then something really is wrong. Or missing. Like better instructions or easier-to-find information or wider-ranging trouble-shooting advice.

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles

C'mon, now . . . get yourself a Google Talk account for both devices and you're done. Dead simple.

Where were you when my brother-in-law was shaking his head at our inability to let the IT strut its stuff?

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles

Because that's how the upgrade process works. This is irrelevant, anyway, as Diablo is just a little ways away.

Good answer for 2005. 2006 too. Probably not for 2007. Not at all for 2008. IMO.

Originally Posted by GeneralAntilles

Do you mean RAM or rootfs? Swap is RAM extension, and we already have this. rootfs extension is slightly less straightforward, but certainly do-able with a little Linux ability (or the ability to follow instructions closely). Nokia probably figured (largely correctly) that most users wouldn't run out the internal storage.

An enhancement request for GUI method to extend the rootfs to the internal card couldn't hurt, though.

I was indeed referring to rootfs extension. Since you can't increase the IT's RAM, swap is the only way to get a bigger workspace. Now, again, I don't have a problem with requesting this particular enhancement.

But when a rhetorical question is asked, it's because the interlocutor believes the question is already well known. It's not "Why is this feature this way?" It's "Why is this feature still this way? Haven't we brought it up enough times already for something to have been done?" At least, as I see things.

Roger
(corporal in the IT army, enlisted June 2005)

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