How to avoid user frustration

Remove the terminal, make sure everything to be done with the os can be done keyboard and mouse.

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This, Linux does too many things with the terminal and often finds newer users overwhelmed with how exactly to complete more advanced tasks compared to Windows or Mac OS where it’s made excruciatingly simple at times. I really like how Haiku is trying to make it more simple for users to do more advanced tasks, doing so through a GUI that’s familiar and easy to learn.

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Yeah, trying to do something as basic as unzipping a file on debian is a fucking chore

Unfortunately, Linux CNC is built on Debian

But Haiku dont need a lot of terminal, as windows, you can use the terminal but is not so necesary as linux.

No need to remove the terminal and possibly alienate large parts of the community (definitely me, but I suspect most of the developers and Haikuports guys too).

But I actually agree with you on this. It would be interesting if you could list some activities that you do on Haiku which you have to do on the commandline (that are not possible in a GUI environment yet)

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I’m making a point, if you remove the terminal, is the operating system still useable. If not, that’s a fairly significant use ability issue

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From my point of view, never remove Terminal, some basic commands are still useful!
For instance, how would one go about creating new/bump version on existing recipes??

You misunderstood:

So his point is: Can you use Haiku completely without the use of Terminal?

That depends of course what the usage pattern is and that is as different as the people using the OS.

Things currently not doable via GUI are e.g. managing the index for attributes (mkindex, rmindex etc.), copying attributes (copyattr), checking/repairing the filesystem and I bet a lot more.
However, at some point the tasks become so low level or niche that the people interested in that don’t mind using the command line. Moreso, they even prefer it and the power of scripting etc.

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Those are all things that should be manageable through a gui

Big topic but I would have imagined something more here and not just simply remove the terminal.

for example, why do you think like that? In every system, the command line exists parallel to the user interface. both are part of the system and both are important.
Of course the user doesn’t want to work in the black hole, but many programmers and scripting people need exactly that to feel comfortable :wink:


Ultimately, it’s about designing the system in such a way that users who are not scripting or programming-oriented can use the system. this means that the user can operate everything with a mouse and keyboard and does not have to do anything extra via the terminal.

the problem is that many here in the forum, when answering problems, talk about terminal commands. Again and again I read that you should work with pkgman to install software. Someone who has no idea about something or wants to have an idea will be deterred. Ultimately, all of these things are also possible with the HaikuDepot, but are usually not mentioned ;-).

Haiku is in beta status, so this topic will come up again and again. at the moment there are more people on the road who don’t use something on the system or software. But eventually, I hope, there will be more users than developers.

Unfortunately, there are always installation packages in the HaikuDepot where you have to start the installed program/game via the terminal, just because no link was placed in the menu.

in addition to the forum, we also have a knowledge base regarding haiku. Every contribution is welcome here, because BeSly covers exactly the point that we try to explain things that are helpful for the user.

https://besly.de

RE: the HaikuDepot situation of no link in the menu, that could be counted as bugs, no ?

Even trying to design the system in the way you describe, either you end up with a lot of menu levels, to group and expose all of the minuscule functionalities, or with “hidden” menus ( the kind of "press the secret key combo while clicking with the mouse on the 3rd pixel from the right " ) .

Having the access to specific configuration options through the command -line helps with that, in that rarely-used options or applications don´t need to use up space in the GUI.

I would separate the “answer problems” from the "using the OS ". When diagnosing something, it is generally easier to use command-line , because we know exactly ( in every OS ) what should appear, and errors are more easy to spot. With gui configurations, one doesn´t know if the user has clicked on something they shouldn´t, or if something was selected/unselected and the user didn´t consider improtant to tell us that.

When using the OS, for the kind of people that do not like to use command lines , the necessary options could/should be accessible. The rest of the options/applications/etc can be left for those entusiasts that understand and want them. Like in linux : there are a lot of applications that help to configure settings accessible only from the command-line. Some people ( generally not much ) use them, other people don´t even know they exist because their use-case doesn´t involve those kind of settings.

No need to get rid of the water´s reservoir just because one thinks his street never had a broken pipe.

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I’m not saying to get rid of the terminal, I’m saying, as a thought exercise let’s get rid of it.

Is the operating system still useable ???

If the answer is anything but yes there exists a significant problem.

Of course it is useable without using the commandline. You can boot to the desktop (obviously only if your hardware is supported). You can start applications, install additional applications, configure system settings (networking, graphics, etc), manage files, shutdown/reboot the system.

If you think otherwise, let us know where you think Haiku is lacking. That’s always the first step to improvement.

On Haiku I generally only use the command line to update packages (because I find it quicker than going through HaikuDepot) or compile something. I consider it pretty useable without the terminal already.

There are some configurations that still need to be done through the command line, though (NFS mounts come to mind). One thing that can be done is whenever a configuration cannot be managed through the GUI a ticket should be created. These GUI tasks are probably not that hard to do, so if they could somehow be tagged as such, they could be nice introductory tasks for people that want to start contributing to Haiku.

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I disagree about removing the terminal–it is an essential service–where the instances that all the GUI fails, freezes, or locks up–the CLI always works to clean things up!! I always have a terminal opened in one of my workspaces since Haiku locks up often enough during testing or when misbehaving apps max-out memory or go to 100% CPU.

In addition, I use it more often now; for example, many Java-based programs require the command-line to be more efficient. With the advent of Wine, it is best to use CLI to better manage its use cases.

More importantly, I frequently use Handbrake in Haiku and that is only CLI since the GUI in this OS does not exist due to programmer points of contention (previously mentioned elsewhere).

As for Bash commands, I prefer the command-line since the GUI alternatives usually do not fully support all options available.

This is a good discourse…thanks everyone!

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Why not using SoftwareUpdater?

Do you have done a bug report to the bug tracker? If you know how to do that, you are the best one for the report :wink:

Ok understand, you should write some words more to expain your thinking ;-).

And yes Haiku is full useable with GUI elements. There are sotfware comes without a gui or no one have writtenon for haiku (yab language is the best solutions for such a gui).

Conclusion:

We need more native programs on Haiku (Ports are good, but most time not full tested)

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When I’m working (in Terminal) on checking some new things and I see a missing deppendency I install it faster with pkgman then opening HaikuDepot or SoftwareUpdater, I can also see that if an installation isn’t available for some reason I can track it down to where it’s failing to install (sometimes a broken build for a depending package …)

Testers welcome, issues can always be reported at haikuports :slight_smile:

Not every port have add an pull request activated and i think this is very complicated. Should be more easy, account, login, bug report, ready. Nothing for a regular user.

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You can report bugs for any port at the haikuports repo. But i agree that using github is quite complicated for that.
(even for trac the having to have an account thing is a barrier to entry)