Linux Wizard

This testimonial comes after reading a blog post from Albert Astals Cid : Consistency. Indeed I do find useless the debate about UI and buttons consistency ( which is different from buttons order issue ). So here are the point for which I do care as a Linux sysadmin with nearly 75 workstations running Linux, 5 notebook running Linux + Windows, and 7 servers running Linux. As a Linux sysadmin, when :

• /home on NFS support is not optimal ( sqlite usage, akonadi, digikam database, ... ) : I do care
• when applications have regressions ( printing support, lack of complete POSIX ACL support in NFSv4 ) : I do care
• when applications are slow or slower under Linux than under Windows ( openoffice, PDF printing with okular vs acroread, Kmail 3 vs Kmail 4 ) : I do care
• when applications crashes ( plasma ) or are buggy ( system-config-printer ) : i do care
• when french accentuated characters are not correctly handled : i do care
• when sound is not working correctly ( pulseaudio, pulseaudio support in phonon, mute mixer entry ) : i do care
• when setting a wireless connection may be buggy ( unstable drivers ) and the connection is unreliable : i do care
• when using a video-projector ( for presentations/meetings ) is not evident for the users and easy : i do care

So the UI look & feel is somewhat useless. I just want something that look mostly good, is acceptable, with a good usability. Good wallpapers ? most users just put their childrens photo as desktop background, and put a lot of icons on the desktops. Good theme ? most of the time, they don't care. Consistency ? they don't care : they just want to be able to distinguish closed and minimize buttons

The only time my users were impressed by something visual was the "present windows" effects of kwin ( left upper corner ) which shows all windows at once as they find it useful. Plasmoïds ? they don't use them. i trained them to use the folder view to have faster access to services directories, but they are not using them most of the time, they'd rather create shortcuts on the Desktop. When we switch from KDE 3 to KDE 4, they do only care about the fact that everything was still working as expected.

So endless debates about windows decoration consistency make me laugh hard. I'm giving lessons to futur sysadmins, and I do animate the Linux sessions, and theses guys care more about the possibility to manage Linux, ease of administration, ability to lockdown the desktop, administration tools, and coherence between the different distributions.

Now, some people may argue that Linux sysadmins represent 0.0000000001% of computer users. Sure, but we are managing most of the running Linux computers and servers ... As I already say : Linux can't succeed in the desktop or normal mass-consumer market. Linux can succeed only when you have controlled environment, this means :

• mobile market ( phone, smartphone, tablet, .. ).
• embedded market.
• and last but not least ( where Linux distributions and Linux consulting societies do earn money ) : workstations and server market.