Re: My Wishlist and strategic thinking for v2.4

["Albert D. Cahalan" <acahalan@cs.uml.edu>]

>> Why would Joe average need this information at all? I think, that we only
>> should output messages that indicate problems, nothing else, such as
>> 'Warning: couldn't connect to a network' or similar.
>
> I don't think so.  These fabled "Joe Average" types might not
> grasp much of the startup messages, but they wouldn't worry about
> them *at all*, well not after the first two boots or so.
> It would just be "those lines that scroll by when I turn on the pc."

They sure do worry! Normal users are really scared of the messages.
I'm not kidding.

Consider this:

If something terrible happens, we print a message. We'd think the
user is a moron if the kernel said "root fs has no superblock"
and they ignored it. Because of this, the user feels that they
are being forced to understand all the strange messages.

Also, messages are normally printed when something bad happens.
Users to not expect "I'm not dead yet!" messages. They expect
a progress indicator instead, When the user sees a message that
they don't understand, they (reasonably) assume it is an error.

> There are plenty of text from the bios anyway,

With a PC99-compliant PC, only a logo may be displayed.

> and even windows can produce several screenfuls of text inbetween
> displaying the silly clouds.

This happens only when using old 16-bit real-mode DOS drivers.
If you buy a new PC, you won't see such garbage.

> I don't see anybody running away screaming because
> of that - don't underestimate the users.  They won't be scared
> by a few lines.

Don't overestimate the users.
-
Linux-future: thinking about the future of the Linux kernel
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