Most settings applications (GNOME Settings, KDE Control Center) give very limited access to managing lower level components in the system. For example, kernel management, managing groups, etc.
If they did though, in your opinion, what would be the most effective way to offer a simple experience for some users, and more control for those who need it? How would most desktops implement this “hybrid” approach?
Or should users not be able to control those things graphically at all?
IMO most users that need to / want to tinker with such settings are proficient enough in the CLI and man pages to do so and will use the CLI anyway even if a GUI tool is available for it (at least speaking for me since if I use a CLI I know what I’m doing, with some gui I don’t know what it’s doing under the hood, sure I could read the source, but at that point why not use the CLI). Users that aren’t won’t really have the need to do so. And if they have it’s far safer to do so in the CLI because you have to have an understanding of what you’re doing and do some research than just clicking around in a GUI without knowing what it actually does.
You could have a switch in the settings for “show advanced options” with a warning message. Or like in Android tap 7 times on the Version in the About tab to unlock them
An “Advanced Mode” along with an alert to warn the user is what I was thinking.
The issue here is that the GUI would need to be totally foolproof and needs to cover each and every possible permutation of the system it is supposed to configure.
If you offer a GUI setting, it actually needs to be able to solve every related problem in GUI, so that if you mess up, you don’t have to go into CLI again.
Tbh, I am not sure super advanced settings would work well in GUI. Even in Windows there is a certain level of advancednes of settings, which require you to use regedit or powershell.
It’s been a while since I’ve used OpenSUSE but IIRC they had a separate GUI admin tool capable of doing some of the more common stuff.
If configuring more than just the most common stuff, there’s probably so many possible configurations that it’s not feasible to pre-program it graphically. At a certain point there would just be freeform text boxes for every option, and then we might as well do it with a text editor.
Yes, it calles yast2 and it is very good imo. It is one of the reasons I’m keen to recommend OpenSUSE to beginners.
If such settings are easy to change via a graphical interface, I see the danger that users with insufficient knowledge will tinker with them, which may lead to problems.
In addition, there are often so many setting options that it is not possible to manage them with a graphical user interface, or at least not in a reasonable way.
If such settings are easy to change via a graphical interface, I see the danger that users with insufficient knowledge will tinker with them, which may lead to problems.
I’m guessing you’re one of those people who answers questions on stackoverflow with “Why do you think you need to be able to do that?” instead of an answer.
You guessed wrong. I speak here from experience that I have made with third parties but also myself.
In the two decades I’ve been using Linux myself, I’ve broken quite a few Linux installations because I played around with something in the terminal emulator that I had no or too little knowledge of.
If I now imagine that these but also other advanced settings would be possible in the Mandriva control center or in the control center of Plasma with a few clicks, I would have destroyed my installations much more often. From therefore I remain with my opinion. Some settings should not be made easily accessible in pre-installed standard tools. Especially since beginners often do not know how to undo these changes if there are problems. I also think that the developers of e.g. the System Settings of Plasma have already thought about why one only has the configuration options that the tool offers. And also a warning that is displayed when you start the advanced mode, for example, will not be useful. Nowadays, this will be often ignored.
And as already written, it is not so easy for some tools to offer a graphical interface at all. For example because they have a lot of parameters. Usually a GUI becomes so confusing in these cases that it is still easier to use them in the terminal emulator.
I dispute the validity of the basis of your argument. Whether or not ease of access to advanced tools will cause problems for people who don’t know what they’re doing is irrelevant, and no design decision should ever be made with that consideration in mind. Whatever happened to RTFM? Put up a warning if you’re worried about it. And you covered that:
And also a warning that is displayed when you start the advanced mode, for example, will not be useful. Nowadays, this will be often ignored.
That is the user’s problem. Efficiency should never be hamstrung in the name of handholding. Ever.
