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Interview: Miguel de Icaza (DesktopLinux.com)Interview: Miguel de Icaza (DesktopLinux.com)Posted Oct 10, 2008 13:59 UTC (Fri) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222)In reply to: Interview: Miguel de Icaza (DesktopLinux.com) by dulles Parent article: Interview: Miguel de Icaza (DesktopLinux.com)
I don't post here very often lately, but I did feel a need to state my disgust for that comment.
On my first version of Linux (Slackware with Kernel 1.5.59 or some such) was Midnight Commander. I fell in love with it, and I have been using it regularly to this day.
You see, I have very bad eyesight, and am extremely grateful to anyone willing to develop software that makes good use of the keyboard. I have a few minor issues with the program, but those all have to do with some different keyboard values. Besides, it doesn't hurt to have to do things a little differently in different environments; keeps one on the ball.
Well, in a nutshell, I'm very grateful to that guy for making Linux useful to me; I came from an MS-DOS world, with the Still River Shell being my mainstay there. Were it not for mc, I'm not all that sure I would have stayed.
Don't get me wrong; I know UNIX pretty well. But frankly, the shells weren't all that easy to use in those days, and I had rather not bother much with it if I could do my work on Windows.
The fact of the matter is, Linux *still* has usability problems, not to mention that it still hasn't attracted enough commercial application developers to make it appealing to the majority of computer users, and if Miguel and people like him can come up with ways to change that, nore power to them.
I'm not in a position to write software at this time, but I am awaiting the day when I can walk in to a meeting with my totally-blind friends, start up a blank computer, and show them how easy it is for them to install and use Linux right from the CD.
Miguel and friends, are you listening? You are good people. I may have my own bad opinions of the Redmond juggernaut, but you can like Microsoft if you want to. Maybe it will help them get on better with us, too.
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Interview: Miguel de Icaza (DesktopLinux.com) Posted Oct 10, 2008 15:33 UTC (Fri) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]
<aol>
he's right - mc is awesome and I still use it every day. The VFS stuff is brilliant. </aol>
I do now use thunar too for some things and sometimes get into a slightly confused state where I end up using both for different bits of the same task in a rather inefficient fashion. Keeping 'tab' for 'switch pane' was a poor choice of keybinding, though, given it's use in command-completion.
BTW has anyone ever worked out if there is a keyboard shortcut to access the dropdown of directory history? It seems to be inaccessible without a mouse, which can't be right?
I suspect I would disagree with Miguel on many things these days, but his overall contribution has been huge, and that, particularly mc, is certainly enough for me not to be rude about him in public.
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