Is customization key? [LWN.net]

Is customization key?

Posted Mar 26, 2007 21:50 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
Parent article: Bake-Off: 4 Linux Desktops Tackle The Enterprise (CRN)

One of the things I noticed when visiting a HUGE hospital (Cleveland Clinic, which hosts one of the busiest and largest surgery wards in the world. 400 or so surgical operations planned to run on the day I visited) was how vastly easier it was for nurses to use the text-based terminals then it was for them to use the Windows GUI.

With the Windows GUI they had to hunt'n'peck around to find what they were looking for and frequently stuff just didn't work right and the applications they used frequently had ackward user interfaces and such. Keep in mind this is while they are walking around doing lots of multitasking. They use this stuff day in and day out.

Were in comparision the text-based (think ncurses) style interface was something they could use quickly and easily, relatively, while on the move.

My conclusion was that the difference was that the terminals had all the information and input areas they needed in one single interface rather then having to make them look for files and such. SO it was a interface that was created for what they needed to do specificly at hand.

And then I saw last week that one article that was taken down...
http://lwn.net/Articles/227037/
http://blogs.cio.com/more-hope-for-the-linux-desktop
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:FriF2oBvLAoJ:blogs.ci...

Were they stated that one of the reasons why these large companies are looking at Linux is the fact that it can be customized to suite a specific task quite easily.

Like you have one distribution, but have a stripped down FVWM-based desktop with applications that launch on login from a server to a X terminal. OR you can have the full Gnome-based desktop for people who need it. Or you can have full screen custom application for quick data entry. Whatever works best for those people.

Something like that.

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Is customization key?

Posted Mar 27, 2007 5:23 UTC (Tue) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link]

Yes, but you forgot to mention the use touchscreens are now having.

Nothing would beat the speed of work with the old text terminals (and DOS machines), but touchscreens are giving a new live to old programs, by being ported to a minimal linux system and a new graphics interface.

With touchscreens they can have an even easier user interface. Instead of learning to associate function keys to actions, they can just select the actions from the screen (and without having to move a mouse, many time standing and sideways, which makes it difficult).

And now they are pretty cheap, too.

Is customization key?

Posted Mar 27, 2007 15:02 UTC (Tue) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link]

I've witnessed something similiar. When I worked for a major company in the U.S. healthcare industry in the 90s I was shocked that their main application was VT-based and in the "field" they all used DEC VT220s. I felt like I was taking a big step backwards. Yet the people who used them, most of which had little or no PC experience could navigate through the roll-and-scroll app so fast it was unbelievable.

The thing about the app was that everything they used was there and nothing else. Everything was key-stroke driven and repetetive; if you were using it long enough you could do it with your eyes closed.

The user interface of today is full of distractions. Don't get me wrong: I love distractions. But in the workplace it seems that they want just the opposite. I worked for a Windows shop for a while last year. This was pretty much my first (and hopefully last) Windows job. And in my experience a lot of time was spent actually "locking down" the desktop: making it so that users can't change wallpaper, fonts, install apps, burn cds, plug in USB keys, access web sites, etc.

Of course not many people want to go back to the roll-and-scroll days (though the health care company mentioned above still uses it, though they've migrated from VMS to Linux), wouldn't an alternative be a "web" terminal or perhaps some other kind of thin client? I always wonder why those never really took off.

Is customization key?

Posted Mar 27, 2007 11:09 UTC (Tue) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

Heh, last time I peeked over the shoulder of a nurse handling reception, she was apparently using a Windows NT box - but doing everything via a terminal emulator window in the middle of the screen, running a text-based app (looked like it might have been accessing an IBM mainframe).