In a slight change-up to the gaming-centred videos of the previous two LTT challenges, their third video focuses on “Trying to do Simple Task on Linux,” with twelve challenges having been created for them to achieve, as they work their way through their new daily-driver operating systems.

It goes without saying that this video is important from a usability and general adoption point of view, and there had been previous teasers about the concept of using Linux as a work or development machine on the WAN show, with Luke admitting to deciding that he was going to try using Mint as his work machine.

Trying to do Simple Tasks on Linux lol - 2021-12-04

“Anything is easy if you know exactly what you’re doing,” is the basic premise for episode three, where Linus and Luke attempt their twelve “simple” tasks. Linus admits that they’ll be “simple” if they’ve got used to their new environment, which is a fair statement, and holds true for all systems.

The fifteen minute timed-tasks are:

• Cut/paste a file from one drive to another

• Digitally sign the PDF

• Export a chart from Excel (right click > save as picture)

• Add the new font

• Print the Word doc

• Compress and send all the files on this drive

• Take a screenshot

• Make a shortcut

• Connect a network share

• Setup Discord app to open on startup

• Watch 4K content

• Watch HDR content ¹

Linus

Pre-challenge Preparation

Linus starts by talking about how he practised for the challenge by using PlayOnLinux to install Notepad++. I have nothing against these applications, and have a lot of fond memories of PlayOnLinux from several years ago, but I’m not sure how they’re supposed to help Linus with his challenges, unless one of them is specifically to ‘install a basic Windows application using a Wine wrapper’. PlayOnLinux itself is still used by people, though its functionality has mostly been usurped by newer application like Lutris and Bottles.

Tasks

Starting out, Linus attempts to cut and paste a file from a folder, to his thumb-drive. The file he chooses is a movie file, and he presently announces that “it’s done” before attempting to play it back with VLC. Playback does not work. This appears to be because the transfer hasn’t completed yet, if the transfer bar in the bottom right of his screen is anything to go by, though it is hard to make out on the video (and his massive monitor).

What follows are a few complaints about Dolphin’s user experience, including the lack of a refresh button, which he says is influence by a previous video in which he got angry at macOS doing the same thing.

Linus also has Nautilus (Files) installed, which he uses to compare experiences briefly.

Reverting back to the start, Linus chooses a smaller file and transfers that instead.

Moving to challenge two, the ambiguously worded “digitally sign this PDF” is attempted. Linus opens the file with the defaults, and selects ‘Digitally Sign’ from the Tools menu of Okular. Linus is then faced with a prompt which talks about “signing certificates” which is because Okular’s concept of digital signatures isn’t a simple image, but requires a PKCS signing certificate.

Ambiguous wording is something of an issue here, but the more immediate problem is Okular’s default behaviour when you want to “sign” a document. Arguably this default is “more secure” than a simple squiggle on a page, but it’s hardly user-friendly.

Linus finds himself on the Arch wiki, which is a somewhat schizophrenic but reasonable source for information, and realises that he can use local tools to create a certificate; noticing that the end is nigh, he tries to hurry through explanatory guides to find the commands he needs to execute, but runs out of time.

Linus’ problems were caused by the immediate barrier of poor task wording, and the later barrier of strange default behaviour in the default PDF application on his installation.

Saving a chart image from the Excel file proves relatively easy for Linus, though he does appear to have a hard time finding the “right place” on the image to select and save it. Not much of a challenge.

Font-installation presents some small usability problems, and he’s not entirely wrong that the UX is again, something that could be much better on his desktop environment. He has a zipped folder of fonts, which he unzips with Ark and then attempts to copy into a folder in his Dolphin browser, this doesn’t work as expected, and he copies it to the parent folder instead. He does bypass this problem and install his font with ease, but there’s a point about expectations versus reality here.

Expected behaviour is a crucial part of designing a desktop environment, and things that “look like they should work” but don’t, can be serious blockers to adoption.

Printing! Finally something that Linux is generally just pretty good at. I’ve not had an issue installing a printer in Linux in years, even when I’ve needed to do an “installation” of sorts, and I’m very happy that Linus (and Luke) have an easy experience printing to their local devices. Linus even has an easier time printing than he does on his Windows installation.

Printing! Woo! That’s definitely a huge win in… 2021…

Compressing and sending is the next challenge, again Linus goes for the right-click menu and opts to “compress” from there, which is a fair enough action, though he is immediately baffled by the cruft which is generated on the end of the resulting file.

It’s surprising that he’s confused by this, and maybe there’s some Windows behaviour that I’m not aware of which hides this from the end user, but the concept of random appends during creation isn’t new, or unique to Linux.

That said, it does appear as if this default will change, with .part being the more meaningful suffix created in future.

Linus deletes the “random” additions to the file extension, and then tries to open the zip. It’s worth noting at this point that the zip hasn’t actually finished being created, and he’s interrupting the process in possibly the most aggressive manner. Again, his monitor is huge and he doesn’t notice the progress bar in the bottom right.

It can be argued that Linus’ huge monitor, and the odd positioning of the progress bar, are at fault here, so maybe there’s a UX meeting happening somewhere to discuss it.

Again, Linus runs out of time, but acknowledges that he “can” compress and upload files in Linux… even if he technically “doesn’t get the point”.

Searching for “Snipping Tool” from Windows, doesn’t return it to the user, though Spectacle is suggested instead, which is effectively the KDE equivalent. Linus doesn’t have an issue with this task after finding the appropriate tool.

Making a shortcut presents no issues for Linus either, as he creates a “link” to the file and adds it to his desktop.

Connecting to a network share is similarly easy for Linus, who simply uses Dolphin to reach his NAS and creates a bookmark in the Places pane of Dolphin.

A Linux desktop, connecting to a Linux-based share, shouldn’t be any issue at all.

Setting Discord to open on startup is a non-issue for Linus, as he’s already configured it previously, effectively he completed the task in 00:00.

Watching 4K content proves annoying, as Linus is able to open and watch the video, though immediately hits this bug when he attempts to full-screen the content. The bug has been fixed, but this is part of the typical experience when using a rolling-release distribution like Frankenarch. Linus installs mpv (good choice) and he’s able to watch the content without issue.

There is no HDR on Linux yet, though Red Hat is actively hiring to try and get it working (it’ll be a long, long road).

Linus rounds out his section by talking about his small complaints with KDE, though on the whole he admits that he’s had a good basic user experience. He does say that installing and managing applications makes him wish his Pop experience had been easier.

More comments follow about the general issues with rolling releases (i.e. there are no guarantees) and Linus says this can make his experience feel like work, even if he hasn’t hit any of the problems yet…

Condescending and toxic-gatekeeper comments are also brought up, around Linus’ experiences when trying to understand why he can’t open folders ‘as root’ with Dolphin. Yep, the Linux community can be completely irrational and opinionated (hello!) in the same way a lot of communities are.

Luke

Pre-challenge Preparation

Luke admits to doing a lot of ’everyday’ things on his machine already, as he works from home most days, which means he’s probably in a better position from the start, with regards to any simple tasks they might do.

Tasks

Once more, the section on Luke’s endeavours in this series of tasks feels like it’s going to be much shorter than Linus’, which is immediately supported by Luke’s success at cutting and pasting a small file about his system (not choosing the larger film straight away).

Moving to the digital signature task, Luke doesn’t find an immediately-easy way to sign his PDF, but does recall a tool he uses on Windows, which happens to have a Linux version. Sejda proves to be the easiest way for Luke to accomplish “signing” his PDF, though his doesn’t require a local signing certificate to accomplish the task.

If you’re used to a tool, and it either works through Wine or there’s a native Linux build for that tool, there’s nothing wrong with sticking with what you’re used to, especially while transitioning to a new OS.

For the task of saving an image from an Excel document, Luke accomplishes the task in a few seconds and saves the file. As with Linus, this particular task doesn’t present much difficulty.

Adding a font is also easy-ish for Luke, though he trips up over the fact it’s not as immediately obvious as to how he might do it, he ends up dropping the “font folder” into one of the dedicated font directories on his filesystem (once he’s opened the path as root.) He does have a small issue when he can’t see the font, but that’s primarily because the font isn’t called “a font” as the folder would suggest… task maker error.

Luke, as said above, has an easy time printing his document (with no issues).

Compressing the files into a zip doesn’t present problems, though Luke does have the technical know-how to open top and check that processes were actually happening. He spots that 7Zip is doing something, and just waits. The files themselves are large and it’s slightly unfair that this was a timed element.

Uploading the large zipped file to Gmail takes Luke some time, bringing him close to the wire of the fifteen minutes, although he does fire through other tasks while he’s waiting for the upload to complete, which it eventually does before the fifteen minutes are up.

Taking a screenshot presents Luke with no issues, and he’s completed the task in less than twenty seconds. Setting up Discord to open on startup is similarly easy to sort. He opens the 4K video and watches it without issue (which is where Luke’s tasks end).

Going back, Luke creates a shortcut, though admits that he never makes shortcuts. I can sympathise with this, as tags and labels are a much easier way of arranging files, and finding them on a modern device is trivial.

As Luke doesn’t have a NAS at his home, James suggests that Luke can simply set up a folder for sharing. He goes through various prompts and is told he needs a specific installation (Samba) which he installs, and then sets up a sharing folder. Again, as with Linus’ attempt at the task, this is trivial.

All in all, the tasks take Luke less than forty minutes in total, and a lot of that was simply waiting for the longest actions to actually complete (and contacting the task maker.) Luke admits that it was “really easy” and he generally looks pretty pleased with himself.

Luke rounds out his section by talking about the longstanding Cinnamon bug which I’ve linked to in previous articles, and which is still open on their bug tracker at the time of writing.

Conclusion

Luke and Linus somewhat disagree on the idea of user-friendly distributions, with Luke suggesting that “advanced” distributions should stay advanced, and that there’s immense potential in a “raw” experience. I’m much closer to Luke in this opinion than I am Linus, but I think the line is blurred too much in a lot of cases. Manjaro, and distributions like it, give the false impression to a lot of people that they’re “power users” because they’re on a nearly-bleeding-edge distro, ignoring the fact that a lot of the heavy lifting is abstracted away.

There’s also a lot of defensiveness in the wider community, and a prevailing tribalism because I happen to be in “this camp” while you’re in “that camp.” It’s basically the Linux equivalent to the kids whose parents would buy them either an Xbox or a Playstation, and suddenly their entire world revolvs around theirs being the “better” of the consoles, with all objectivity placed into the bin.

Linux, is a big family, and like a family, it’s dysfunctional and infuriating in myriad ways, with members who won’t talk to each other, individuals who steal and don’t return, small tribes starting up and in the worst cases, public spats which bring the entire dynasty into disrepute.

I’m not helping my case by being so dismissive of Manjaro, even if I do think it has a place in the wider community.

More to follow, hopefully!