Graphical boot isn't so graphical

[Havoc Pennington]

On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 12:21:30PM -0700, Nathan G. Grennan wrote:
> > When something is a usability plus for nontechnical users and a
> > usability minus for technical users, we're always going to default 
> > to the nontechnical setting, because technical users have the skills
> > to "opt out" and change the default.
> 
> This decision is what pisses many of us off to no end. The problem
> really comes into play on a matter of scale. When I have to unsimplify
> it on the tenth machine or for the hundredth time it gets frustrating.
> The problem is made even more frustrating any time the
> "user-friendliness" has a bug in it.

Well, there's no way to default to two different things at the same
time. If users want different settings, some users are going to have
to change the defaults. Should it be:

 a) 1% of people, who know how to change them
or
 b) 99% of people, who don't know how to change them

Really, I don't see the rational argument for b), though feel free to
present it. Everyone in the 1% category wants something different
anyway, so you couldn't even set up the defaults to make them all
happy if you wanted to.

Havoc