On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 08:53:44PM -0400, Scott wrote:
> Out of boredom, and in part, related to a discussion on Fedora forums, I
> made a very casual usability test comparing Fedora 13, Ubuntu 10.04 and
> Mint 9.
>
> I used LiveCDs (which wasn't really a good test, as you'll see in a
> minute.)
Just for the heck of it, I also tried PCLinuxOS' latest LXDE version.
As expected, it played Quicktime without any issue. It also was much
better in setting up the printer. I first went to the menu (which I
suspect is a bit sparser in the LXDE version) and in printing, there was
an option for HP setup. This worked.
Then, oddly enough, it had a bit of trouble with my Brother 2170W, which
all the others, once pointed to the IP address, automatically find and
install a driver. It went to automatic discovery--not giving me an
option to give an IP address--and couldn't find anything. The printer
configuration tool (again, I was trying to do what I figure an
inexperienced user would do, so I didn't go to the cups interface),
didn't see it. At this point, I used my knowledge, and replaced its
default of lp0 or whatever it had with socket://192.168.1.70, the
printer's address on the local network. That then gave me the option to
select the driver for it and all was good. Still, I was bit surprised.
It would have been fine had the printer setup tool given me the option
to manually put in the IP address, which is still, as far as I know,
frequently necessary with both Windows and Apple.
Additionally, using the printer setup tool, it did mention that HP
printers often have additional features, would I like to use the HP
printer setup tool instead. This strikes me as superior to apparently
conveniently and almost automatically installing the printer and leaving
the user without a scanner.
Note, in case it isn't clear, that I'm not assuming the user is either
stupid or lazy--I'm assuming that the user has read about the wonders of
Linux and how it will be easy to install and use. Said theoretical user
doesn't want to google, or join a mailing list or forum--they want their
computer to do things and in all cases, they would find something that
would require specialized knowledge to do. PCLinuxOS, however, would
have passed all tests, simple as they were, if it had simply given the
user the opportunity to enter an IP address in printer discovery.
These are BASIC things, and none of the systems passes. This wouldn't
be so bad if things were clearer--but the propaganda is, Use Linux, it's
just as easy, and will work out of the box.
In fairness, Windows often doesn't work out of the box--I have a friend
who set up Ubuntu for a friend of his, because she'd lost her Windows
installation disk, and couldn't locate drivers, even for the wired
network card. In that case, Ubuntu did a better job, but again, she had
my friend to do the setup. Even a small note when installing these
printers, such as, we've discovered an HP printer--many of these have
extra features, you should install hplip and then run hp-setup, would be
better.
This seems nitpicking, but it's the sort of thing that will simply
aggravate the inexperienced user. As Jeff has written somewhere, the
trend these days is to feed the LCD (lowest common denominator), and if
you're going to do it, and offer this as a legitimate Windows
replacement, it has to be done better.
--
Scott Robbins
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Cordelia: Oxford. Whoopee. Four years in teabag central.
Sounds thrilling. And M.I.T. is a clearasil ad with housing, and Yale
is a dumping ground for those who didn't get into Harvard.
Willow: I got into Harvard.
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