Posted by member 375904 on 2007-07-06 06:49:11 link
Yes, of course. You are right, it is not the fault of the core.
To clear up what I wanted to say: LiteStep is a really great piece of software and all the people that worked on it have done a really great job.
I believe that LS could and should be used by many more people and would promote not only LS itself but also free/GPL-software in general.
That's because it illustrates one very important point that most windows users (including computing experts) seem to have missed so far: the shell and the OS-core are two separate things (as every linuxer already knowns). That is something MS does NOT want you to know, because that would partially corrupt one of the most important illusions that surround Microsoft: there is no other god.
I started using LS very recently, so I know exactly what the problems are when you start at zero. And I know that part better that anyone who has already solved and consequently forgotten the startup problems.
I found that some problems can be solved by doing a bit of doc-reading. I spent some time modifying the austerity theme, and I was successful at reaching my goals (functions of taskbar, desktop, hotkeys, vwm, switching a few modules to "x-Module"). So, I know how doc-reading works.
But another problem could be solved only after lots of checking in a large number of obvious but very wrong places: half the themes did not work. I mean: half. Not one, not two, but many.
It works like this (as LS-beginner, not later): you install LS, find it to work out of the box (yippie, happy!).
Then try your first new theme. Fails for some reason. No problem, try another. Fails again. Try a third one, works (relief!). Try a fourth one, fails again (real frustration!). You get the idea.
That is the kind of situation you will not obviously blame on the themes. You just don't expect half the themers to post non-working software. Instead you wrongly assume a problem with the core.
And find out only much later and after hours of checking and posting and discussing and reading that you only missed one single module (xPaintClass-1.0.dll) and maybe a few MS-DLLs (MSVCPxx etc).
So obviously and as you say it is not the fault of the core. What I am suggesting is that it can easily be solved at the level of the core, even if that is not where the fault lies.
One simple bold text-line in the omar-installer-section of the download page can save many LS-beginners lots of frustration. The line would be:
If you use this installer you MUST also install the following dependencies: MSVCPxx and xPaintClass-1.0.dll. Do that immediately! Disclaimer: this is not the fault of the core, but the core solves the problem.
This line must be right beside the download-link for the installer. Not in the docs, not elsewhere on the page, not in the forums.
Is that too much to ask? Seriously?
To clear up what I wanted to say: LiteStep is a really great piece of software and all the people that worked on it have done a really great job.
I believe that LS could and should be used by many more people and would promote not only LS itself but also free/GPL-software in general.
That's because it illustrates one very important point that most windows users (including computing experts) seem to have missed so far: the shell and the OS-core are two separate things (as every linuxer already knowns). That is something MS does NOT want you to know, because that would partially corrupt one of the most important illusions that surround Microsoft: there is no other god.
I started using LS very recently, so I know exactly what the problems are when you start at zero. And I know that part better that anyone who has already solved and consequently forgotten the startup problems.
I found that some problems can be solved by doing a bit of doc-reading. I spent some time modifying the austerity theme, and I was successful at reaching my goals (functions of taskbar, desktop, hotkeys, vwm, switching a few modules to "x-Module"). So, I know how doc-reading works.
But another problem could be solved only after lots of checking in a large number of obvious but very wrong places: half the themes did not work. I mean: half. Not one, not two, but many.
It works like this (as LS-beginner, not later): you install LS, find it to work out of the box (yippie, happy!).
Then try your first new theme. Fails for some reason. No problem, try another. Fails again. Try a third one, works (relief!). Try a fourth one, fails again (real frustration!). You get the idea.
That is the kind of situation you will not obviously blame on the themes. You just don't expect half the themers to post non-working software. Instead you wrongly assume a problem with the core.
And find out only much later and after hours of checking and posting and discussing and reading that you only missed one single module (xPaintClass-1.0.dll) and maybe a few MS-DLLs (MSVCPxx etc).
So obviously and as you say it is not the fault of the core. What I am suggesting is that it can easily be solved at the level of the core, even if that is not where the fault lies.
One simple bold text-line in the omar-installer-section of the download page can save many LS-beginners lots of frustration. The line would be:
If you use this installer you MUST also install the following dependencies: MSVCPxx and xPaintClass-1.0.dll. Do that immediately! Disclaimer: this is not the fault of the core, but the core solves the problem.
This line must be right beside the download-link for the installer. Not in the docs, not elsewhere on the page, not in the forums.
Is that too much to ask? Seriously?