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My kid hates Linux (ZDNet)My kid hates Linux (ZDNet)Posted Apr 15, 2008 9:52 UTC (Tue) by modernjazz (subscriber, #4185)In reply to: My kid hates Linux (ZDNet) by Janne Parent article: My kid hates Linux (ZDNet)
I don't know any details, but for what it's worth, students in my department now advise each other not to rely on the OSX backup tool---too many of them have had bad experiences when it comes to restoring (corrupted databases, I think, but I'm not certain). One of them called customer service and basically got the response, "look, if you want enterprise-level functionality you need to buy higher-level tool." Most of them now use other, free software, backup tools that are not quite as user friendly but are more trustworthy in the end. I don't disagree that there is a lot of room for improvement in the user experience with Linux. But one trait of geek software is that the internal implementation, at least, tends to be solid, even if the wrapping with a pretty interface may not always be done with as much polish as, say, OSX (with which I have essentially no personal experience, so I can't comment).
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My kid hates Linux (ZDNet) Posted Apr 15, 2008 10:41 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] I have heard of few isolated incidents of TIme Machine failing for some reason, but nothing widespread. But that said: Linux at the moment doesn't have ANY kind of backuptool. Sure, there are probably zillion apps in sourceforge or somewhere that can back up the system. But what we need is a system that is integrated in the distro. back when Time machine was first demoed, I wrote a feature-request to Ubuntu, saying that we need something similar. AFAIK, that suggestion didn't go anywhere. No backup, no undo (that Time Machine handles beautifully as well), no nothing. We are constantly reminded by the importance of backing up, yet we are not provided with the tools to do it. Only Time Machine managed to make me actually back up, since it's so easy. Plug in a drive, and forget it. No hassle, no teeth-grinding. Considering the importance of user-data, it just boggles the mind that distributions have dropped the ball on this so badly. Like you said: the tools available in Linux might be more reliable. But does that reliability matter one bit, if those tools go un-used? I would MUCH rather have unreliable backup-tool that actually gets used, as opposed to worlds most reliable backup-tool that goes un-used. Hell, I could see my in-laws (who use OS X) using Time Machine just fine, but asking them to mess around with rsync or some esoteric Linux-tool that does the same thing, seems far-fetched. And the process of restoring files in Time Machine is just so intuitive that anyone can do it. I feel that that level of ease of use would not manifest in Linux. Linux and it's apps tend to be "traditional". File-restore in Linux would propably present the user a list with bunch of files, asking the user to pick the one he wants. In Time Machine you have a timeline with graphical representation of the app you are restoring data for. Fluff, maybe. But it's so pretty, intuitive and cool that it actually amkes the app fun to use. Imagine that, a backup-tool that is _fun to use_? The thing with Linux and OS X is that they both let the user get their job done. But whereas Linux simply lets the user do his job, OS X goes the extra mile in satisfying the user. The mundane tasks that are mundane in Linux or Windows, are made less mundane in OS X through use of clean UI's, animations, polish and simplicity. That's what I mean with Linux-apps being "utilitarian". They present the user the things he needs to do the thing he's doing, but nothing extra. In Linux, backup-tool would present the user with a list of files, whereas in OS X, it gives the user a timeline of app-windows floating is space. Functionally they both manage the same task, but one of them is polished and covered with candy, whereas the other is.... utilitarian. To quote Vader: "Search your feelings, and you know this to be true". Now, I might write some kind of "article" or comparison where I compare OS X and Linux (KDE or Gnome, I'm not sure yet) with screenshots and all, depending on my resources and time. Hopefully that comparison will be constructive and help make Linux better. But we shall see.
Need for easy and reliable backup tools on Linux Posted Apr 15, 2008 16:24 UTC (Tue) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link] You are saying 'Linux doesn't have an integrated backup tool', but there are hundreds of Linux distributions, of which perhaps ten have a big share of the market. If you look at these distros, many of them do have integrated backup tools - certainly Kubuntu, Puppy and Damn Small Linux all do. Of course they may not be as slick as Apple's Time Machine, but they don't need to be - all that's needed is to make it really easy, and automatic if at all possible, to back up the most critical user data, and ideally the whole system if storage allows. Yes, Time Machine is very nice, but it's much more important that backup is so easy to enable that it's harder to not have backups. Most of Time Machine's slickness is about the restore user interface, which is hardly a major requirement, since restore is a fairly infrequent operation, as long as it's reasonably easy - people are usually highly motivated to restore! Simply letting people navigate the backup data store interactively via a Konqueror/Explorer type tree view, or a Gnome file manager view, is fine. In fact, this is what Windows/Mac tools such as Mozy do - and they do offsite backup which is very important to protect against theft, fire, etc. Carbonite is a Windows only backup tool that has an incredibly simple UI (literally 4 configuration options that are just checkboxes, and that's it), and lets you browse a special Carbonite drive via Windows Explorer to locate files to restore. Having an unreliable backup tool is worse than not using a backup tool - you can't tell when an unreliable tool will fail, yet you think you have valid backups... I don't think Linux backup tools are more reliable than on Windows or Mac, necessarily. JungleDisk is quite a nice tool for offsite backups (to Amazon S3 storage), and works on Linux, Mac and Windows - its UI is not bad but I can't use it currently because, even after quite a complex install process involving enabling FUSE, setting /etc/fuse.conf options, etc, I was still not able to make it reliably work as a target for rsync (it provides a local FUSE filesystem). So I'm back to a more complex approach using the excellent s3sync to copy to S3, with my main backup tool being the excellent command-line based DAR (which does encryption and compression at the block level so even a bad disk block doesn't mean you lose the whole backup archive) - once I have the DAR archives for a machine, I rsync them to a local server and (will) also copy them to S3 storage or a web host. There are actually no GUIs involved here, but that's just because JungleDisk is unreliable... Some links: http://mozy.com for Mac/Windows, good features and control, but more complex for end user than Carbonite http://jungledisk.com for Linux and Mac/Windows (if you can get it to work reliably) http://s3sync.net (requires Ruby and SSL, works well so far).
Need for easy and reliable backup tools on Linux Posted Apr 16, 2008 8:45 UTC (Wed) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] "You are saying 'Linux doesn't have an integrated backup tool', but there are hundreds of Linux distributions, of which perhaps ten have a big share of the market. If you look at these distros, many of them do have integrated backup tools - certainly Kubuntu, Puppy and Damn Small Linux all do. " Really? where? Is it automatic? Does it require user interaction? Does it back up everything? I HAVE seen some Ubuntu-tools that lets the user burn the home-directory to CD or something, but that is NOT what we are talking about here. "Of course they may not be as slick as Apple's Time Machine, but they don't need to be" Why not? "slickness" is a positive value in just about everything, why should those tools be "slick"? Should we just accept the fact that "Mac is smooth and slick, Linux is clumsy and utilitarian"? Why? I noticed this difference last week in a concrete way. I was testing KDE 4 with a Live-CD on my MacBook Pro. As I was running it, my wife happened to walk by. The following discussion took place: Wife: "That's not MacOS, that's Linux" Me: "How do you know?" Wife: "Well, it just looks a bit clumsy and awkward, while Mac looks chic and polished". Why should it be like that? That "chicness" and "polish" in Mac comes from all those things that you think is unneeded. And that includes that slick data-restore view in Time Machine. If we just stick to "utilitarian" UI's, Linux will always look "clumsy and awkward" when compared to OS X. Take a look at something like Delicious Library. There might be similar apps for Linux. But I bet that they have nowhere near the polish as DL does. And while some might say that that polish is useless, it makes the whole app very pleasant to use. "Most of Time Machine's slickness is about the restore user interface, which is hardly a major requirement, since restore is a fairly infrequent operation, as long as it's reasonably easy - people are usually highly motivated to restore!" But why shouldn't the process be made as nice as possible? When user finds that he has lost some files, he's nervous and anxious. making the restore pleasant and smooth is a very positive quality. That's one of the differences I have noticed between Linux and Macs (and Windows and Mac as well): Mac-developers tend to make the software smooth and slick even when there's no obvious benefit for that slickness. But even if the benefit is not obvious, it makes the whole experience of using that software very pleasant and soothing. You might say that Time Machine's restore-process is useless eyecandy, since presenting the user with a simple list of files achieves the same goal. But that's just it. One is slick and polished, the other is "utilitarian". I maintain that software that is pretty and "slick" is better than software that is utilitarian, everything else being equal. "Simply letting people navigate the backup data store interactively via a Konqueror/Explorer type tree view, or a Gnome file manager view, is fine." Sure, that might get the job done. But the whole process is less pleasant. It's "utilitarian". Would you rather have slick and smooth process, or "utilitarian" process? And note: the "slick and smooth" does not have to mean that it's less powerful or somehow worse process. Why should the apps and OS we use be gorgerous, slick and smooth? Why should we just stick to software that presents us a "utilitarian" UI that just gets the job done? Why shouldn't we have software that looks and feels gorgerous and slick, while getting the job done? Is "looking ugly" some kind of positive value these days? "Having an unreliable backup tool is worse than not using a backup tool - you can't tell when an unreliable tool will fail, yet you think you have valid backups" But if you have no backups, you have no backups. Even with unreliable backup (and I haven't heard about that many issues regarding TM, other that the restore-process is a bit slow) you at least have the hope that you have a backup.
serisously Posted Apr 17, 2008 12:06 UTC (Thu) by deleteme (subscriber, #49633) [Link] Lets play game, you are only allowed to write comments shorter than a 100 words.
My kid hates Linux (ZDNet) Posted Apr 16, 2008 10:19 UTC (Wed) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] openSUSE does have an integrated backup tool (yast/System/System backup). Just because the few distributions you've tried are lacking, doesn't mean that Linux in general hast that problem.
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