Hi I was posting this on the regular fedora-list, but was told to post it in devel in stead, so here it is...
I work on a school where several Fedora systems was installed and interested students could get an account. After a test period of 2 months we had them evaluate the systems. Of the results there was 3 issues that keept on repeating it selves, and it is the background of the wish-list. (note, the students are not of the technical art)
1) Kernel messages was confusing, and unnecessary.
2) The "System Settings" and "System Tools" was available, but of no use. (I sysadmin need a menu editor)
3) Num Lock was not turned on.
1) Non technical users might think it is strange to see the kernel messages while booting. There is no way (except for sending it to /dev/ null) for hiding the messages graphical. Other systems hide it behind a splash screen. A god choice. Personally (at home) I use the kernel boot messages for errordetection, but it could be nice to have 2 boot options. One for total graphical boot (including a splash screen for kernel messages, and one debug/expert with init 3 and no graphical boot.
New users who are used to other OS tend to believe that all messages are evil, specially if they appear in a text screen.
Some reactions was that it looked like DOS, and that is NOT god PR. :-)
2) Non technical users might think it is strange to have 2 menu entries that they cant use (prompt for the root password they dont have). I miss an Menu Editor like the ´applications:///¡ in other dists. It is disabled on default in Fedora (and redhat 9), and cant be used as an menu editor. Why?
When i create a user in Fedora Linux, i log in as the user (to make Epiphany the default browser for better GUI experience). It could be nice if i also had the opportunity to delete the ´System Settings¡ and ´System Tools¡ entries at the same time.
3) Num Lock. Some users had contacted the support department because they was unable to log in. They thought that the account was not created. We mix the passwords of letters and digits. The digits simply was not typed. It could be nice if I was able to turn Num Lock on as default. As an option for the keyboard that had effect even at the login screen. Why remember to type the Num Lock all the time, when it could be made automatic?
That is just a few things we had collected.
Some things KDE have had for years (Num Lock and Menu Editor) and other things, like the boot splash have been default in SUSE for a long time...
If i was a programmer i probably had no problem in this things, I would have made them by my self, but unfortunately I am not that skilled.
I hope that some one think a bit of this is a god thing to fix for the next release Fedora Core 2.
Have a nice day!
Bjorn Andersen
On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 09:26:36AM +0100, Bjorn Andersen wrote:
- Kernel messages was confusing, and unnecessary.
Graphical boot is already in development and planned for the FC2 release.
- The "System Settings" and "System Tools" was available, but of no
use. (I sysadmin need a menu editor)
This would be a good addition. It would be good to be able to define a newly added user as a sysadmin who would then get those menu items by default. Otherwise, those items should not appear.
- Num Lock was not turned on.
The BIOS usually controls this, not Linux in my experience.
The login screen already warns if Caps Lock is on. Perhaps it can warn if Num Lock is off too.
Personally, i rarely use the number keypad, least of all for password entry.
- Non technical users might think it is strange to have 2 menu entries
that they cant use (prompt for the root password they dont have). I miss an Menu Editor like the ?applications:///¡ in other dists. It is disabled on default in Fedora (and redhat 9), and cant be used as an menu editor. Why?
It was buggy and not ready for consumption.
- Num Lock was not turned on.
The BIOS usually controls this, not Linux in my experience.
The login screen already warns if Caps Lock is on. Perhaps it can warn if Num Lock is off too.
Yick! Some of us don't have a Num Lock and such a warning would be really, really annoying.
Le mar 13/01/2004 à 16:54, Shahms King a écrit :
- Num Lock was not turned on.
The BIOS usually controls this, not Linux in my experience.
The login screen already warns if Caps Lock is on. Perhaps it can warn if Num Lock is off too.
Yick! Some of us don't have a Num Lock and such a warning would be really, really annoying.
And anyway this warning is bad security-wise. And it's stupid - it implies caps are bad for passwords when they are no worse than any other character.
Much better to add a message on login failure asking to check caps and numlock status - with maybe sample drawings/animations of where those keys are usually located and what symbols are printed on them. On most euro keyboards there is no "caps lock" label printed anywhere near the caps key.
The current warning is cryptic and confusing for a non-technical user.
Cheers,
And anyway this warning is bad security-wise. And it's stupid - it implies caps are bad for passwords when they are no worse than any other character.
Much better to add a message on login failure asking to check caps and numlock status - with maybe sample drawings/animations of where those keys are usually located and what symbols are printed on them. On most euro keyboards there is no "caps lock" label printed anywhere near the caps key.
The current warning is cryptic and confusing for a non-technical user.
but it makes sysadmins feel so good when you get a call about someone not being able to login.
and you ask them ' does it say 'YOUR CAPS LOCK IS ON'' on the screen?
And they say 'yes'
and you say 'well.....'
it's a fun thing.
-sv
Le mar 13/01/2004 à 19:06, seth vidal a écrit :
but it makes sysadmins feel so good when you get a call about someone not being able to login.
and you ask them ' does it say 'YOUR CAPS LOCK IS ON'' on the screen?
And they say 'yes'
And they say WTF is a "caps lock" (or whatever string the translator chose - most funny when it's an abbreviation that has no evident relation whatsoever to natural language and the keyboard only has pretty locks printed on it anyway)
and you say 'well.....'
And you cry
Cheers,
Why not make the Linux kernel look in bios to see if Num Lock is on, and turn it on? in steat of how it is done now, it default makes Numlock off, eaven if it boots with on.
/Bjorn Andersen
On tir, 2004-01-13 at 20:46 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
Le mar 13/01/2004 19:06, seth vidal a crit :
but it makes sysadmins feel so good when you get a call about someone not being able to login.
and you ask them ' does it say 'YOUR CAPS LOCK IS ON'' on the screen?
And they say 'yes'
And they say WTF is a "caps lock" (or whatever string the translator chose - most funny when it's an abbreviation that has no evident relation whatsoever to natural language and the keyboard only has pretty locks printed on it anyway)
and you say 'well.....'
And you cry
Cheers,
-- Nicolas Mailhot
On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
Le mar 13/01/2004 à 19:06, seth vidal a écrit :
but it makes sysadmins feel so good when you get a call about someone not being able to login.
and you ask them ' does it say 'YOUR CAPS LOCK IS ON'' on the screen?
And they say 'yes'
And they say WTF is a "caps lock" (or whatever string the translator chose - most funny when it's an abbreviation that has no evident relation whatsoever to natural language and the keyboard only has pretty locks printed on it anyway)
Sounds like you got a foolproof system. No fool seems to get into it ;-)
Hugo.
On tir, 2004-01-13 at 10:38 -0500, Charles R. Anderson wrote:
- Non technical users might think it is strange to have 2 menu entries
that they cant use (prompt for the root password they dont have). I miss an Menu Editor like the ?applications:/// in other dists. It is disabled on default in Fedora (and redhat 9), and cant be used as an menu editor. Why?
It was buggy and not ready for consumption.
Then there is a chance for it in the feature??? Core 2?
On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 10:38:07AM -0500, Charles R. Anderson wrote:
On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 09:26:36AM +0100, Bjorn Andersen wrote:
- Kernel messages was confusing, and unnecessary.
Graphical boot is already in development and planned for the FC2 release.
Planned for FC2 release? News to me!
The kernel graphical boot code I've seen so far is not something you want to look at too soon after eating.
I repeat the mantra: upstream, upstream, upstream.
michaelkjohnson
"He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book." Linux Application Development -- Ben Franklin http://people.redhat.com/johnsonm/lad/
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Michael K. Johnson wrote:
On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 10:38:07AM -0500, Charles R. Anderson wrote:
On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 09:26:36AM +0100, Bjorn Andersen wrote:
- Kernel messages was confusing, and unnecessary.
Graphical boot is already in development and planned for the FC2 release.
Planned for FC2 release? News to me!
The kernel graphical boot code I've seen so far is not something you want to look at too soon after eating.
I repeat the mantra: upstream, upstream, upstream.
Right now turning off kernel messages by passing "quiet" in grub.conf makes it look really better, until rhgb starts and takes care.
A couple of questions then: Is there any place that rhgb can be turned on and off? If yes, what about letting user turn "quiet" on and off too?
Next, does rhgb do something intelligent about not starting on next boot after a crash or something like that? Or it's just accidentally happeing so?
If no one objects I'm gonna submit a patch for nash such that it honors "quiet" too.
behdad
michaelkjohnson
On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 09:26:36AM +0100, Bjorn Andersen wrote:
- Num Lock. Some users had contacted the support department because
they was unable to log in. They thought that the account was not created. We mix the passwords of letters and digits. The digits simply was not typed. It could be nice if I was able to turn Num Lock on as default. As an option for the keyboard that had effect even at the login screen. Why remember to type the Num Lock all the time, when it could be made automatic?
Numlock is a source of much pain and suffering. If Num Lock defaults on then some laptops end up with really bizarre default key setups. I'm not sure that there is a single "right" default for it.
The quickfix before X is started is something like
for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 do setleds -D num <> /dev/tty0$i done
Some things KDE have had for years (Num Lock and Menu Editor) and other things, like the boot splash have been default in SUSE for a long time...
I actually looked at the SuSE bootsplash code, it wasn't something we felt was good enough for our codebase as an implementation. I'm not arguing about the fact it has value.
Em Ter, 2004-01-13 às 15:01, Alan Cox escreveu:
Numlock is a source of much pain and suffering. If Num Lock defaults on then some laptops end up with really bizarre default key setups. I'm not sure that there is a single "right" default for it.
Respecting setup's default wouldn't hurt, don't you think? Most desktop computers has this settings, while this is not only undesired on notebooks, but can be ackward, as you said.
DOS had the answer years ago: it didn't care. If numlock was on, it would keep it on. That simple :-)
On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 07:48:42PM -0300, Alexandre Strube wrote:
Respecting setup's default wouldn't hurt, don't you think? Most desktop computers has this settings, while this is not only undesired on notebooks, but can be ackward, as you said.
DOS had the answer years ago: it didn't care. If numlock was on, it would keep it on. That simple :-)
Send the kernel people a patch by all means
Looks like a new spamassassin high record with 104.7 points good job....
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Content preview: Em Ter, 2004-01-13 às 15:01, Alan Cox escreveu: > Numlock is a source of much pain and suffering. If Num Lock defaults on
then some laptops end up with really bizarre default key
setups. I'm not > sure that there is a single "right" default for it. [...]
Content analysis details: (104.7 points, 7.0 required)
pts rule name description
100 USER_IN_BLACKLIST From: address is in the user's black-list 1.1 RCVD_IN_SORBS_SOCKS RBL: SORBS: sender is open SOCKS proxy server [200.164.21.238 listed in dnsbl.sorbs.net] 1.1 RCVD_IN_SORBS_HTTP RBL: SORBS: sender is open HTTP proxy server [200.164.21.238 listed in dnsbl.sorbs.net] 1.1 RCVD_IN_DSBL RBL: Received via a relay in list.dsbl.org
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On Tuesday 13 January 2004 19:01, Alan Cox wrote:
On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 09:26:36AM +0100, Bjorn Andersen wrote:
- Num Lock. Some users had contacted the support department because
they was unable to log in. They thought that the account was not created. We mix the passwords of letters and digits. The digits simply was not typed. It could be nice if I was able to turn Num Lock on as default. As an option for the keyboard that had effect even at the login screen. Why remember to type the Num Lock all the time, when it could be made automatic?
Numlock is a source of much pain and suffering. If Num Lock defaults on then some laptops end up with really bizarre default key setups. I'm not sure that there is a single "right" default for it.
The quickfix before X is started is something like
for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 do setleds -D num <> /dev/tty0$i done
I think there should be an option in /etc/sysconfig/keyboard LEDS="+num" And in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit the setleds call.
Debian does something similar I'v heard.
I think I should file a RFE for initscripts.