Free software scares normal people • Hacker News Board

Re: Free software scares normal people

#81

Post by multjoy » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:04 PM UTC

throwaway173738 wrote: post #46

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ffmpeg with disposable or llm backed dnd interfaces. for certain types of tooling UIs should be cheap, disposable and task/worlflow specific.

Actually I think this is a killer use case for local LLMs. We could finally get back to asking the computer to do something without having to learn how to string 14 different commands together to do it.

I’ve been computer touching since the mid eighties.

Exactly what golden era of computing are you harking back to, and what are you doing that requires 14 different commands?

Re: Free software scares normal people

#82

Post by graemep » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

Gualdrapo wrote: post #65

When I used to be active on reddit I was following r/graphicdesign (me being a graphic designer) and one day someone asked a question about Inkscape. Not 5 minutes after that someone else on the comments went on a weird rant about how allegedly Inkscape and all FOSS was "communist" and "sucked" and capitalist propietary stuff was "superior".

You get weird people on social media. best ignored.

IN this particular case someone things more competition is communist...

Re: Free software scares normal people

#83

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #30

Over the years I've gotten really tired of this obsession with "normal people" and not just because I'm one of the so called power users. This is really part of a growing effort to hide the computer away as an implementation detail. https://contemporary-home-computing.org/RUE/ That's what "UX" is all about. "Scripting the users", minimizing and channeling their interactions within the system. Providing one button tha…

Some people just like to eat food, they don't want to learn how to cook it. You or I may think that's a tragedy, but I don't think e.g a dentist has an obligation to become fluent in the things that I'm competent in.

I'm no dentist, I go to dentists. I let them work, and try not to be too annoying. I learn the minimum that I need to know to follow the directions that they deliberately make very simple for me.

This will result in generations of generally dentistry ignorant people, but I am not troubled by this.

As technologically competent people, one of our desires should be to help people maintain the ignorance level that they prefer, and at every level steer them to a good outcome. Let them manage their own time. If they want privacy and control, let's make sure they can have it, rather than lecturing them about it. My grandmother is in her 90s and she doesn't want people reading her emails, listening to her calls or tracking her face. She is not prepared to deal with more than a couple of buttons, and they should be large and hopefully have pictures on them that explain what they do. It's my job to square that circle.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#84

Post by xnorswap » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

MarkusWandel wrote: post #53

andreldm wrote: post #11

If handbrake scares them, don’t you dare to demonstrate how to use ffmpeg. I remember when I used handbrake for the first time and thought “wow, it’s much more convenient than struggling with ffmpeg”.

At least with ffmpeg, for 99% of use cases you can just google "how do I do X with ffmpeg" and get a copypasta command line. Whereas with complicated GUI tools, you have to watch a video to learn how to do it.

We're going full-circle, because LLMs are amazing for producing just the right incantation of arcane command-line tools. I was struggling to decrypt a file the other day and it whipped me up exactly the right openssl command to get it done.

From which I was able to then say, "Can I have the equivalent source code" and it did that too, from which I was able to spot my mistake in my original attempt. ( The KDF was using md5 not sha ).

I'm willing to bet that LLMs are also just as good at coming up with the right ffmpeg or imagemagick commands with just a vague notion of what is wanted.

Like, can we vignette the video and then add a green alien to the top corner? Sure we can (NB: I've not actually verified the result here) : https://claude.ai/share/5a63c01d-1ba9-458d-bb9d-b722367aea13

Re: Free software scares normal people

#85

Post by sega_sai » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:13 PM UTC

I guess instead of a separate application, maybe some of these programs would benefit from having 'dumb' mode where only basic/most used functionality is available. I.e. when I run gimp, I most often just use it rescale the image, cut a piece and insert into a new image and every time I have to look for the right options in the menu.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#86

Post by bugsliker » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #56

I think there is something deeper here: people have become scared of the unknown, therefore we need to hide things for them. But people don't have to be scared. In fact even for people who are using Handbrake comfortably, a lot of things Handbrake presents in its UI are probably unknown to them and can safely be ignored. The screenshot in the article shows that Handbrake analyzed the source video and reported it as 3…

How do you gain the confidence that what you choose to ignore is safe to ignore?

Computer damage is one potential consequence on the extreme end. On the conservative end, the software might just not work the way you want and you waste your time. It’s a mental model you have to develop. Even as a technical power user though, I want to reduce the risk of wasting my time, or even confront the possibility that I might waste my time, if I don’t have to.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#87

Post by SoftTalker » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

sharperguy wrote: post #37

dfxm12 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad, a total layman, was able to use handbrake as a step in digitizing old family video tapes. I think in the context of this thread, we shouldn't overgeneralize or underestimate "normal people".

A "normal person" is just someone whose time and mental energy are focused on something other than the niche task your app is aiming to solve. With enough time and focus, anyone can figure out any interface. But for many, something which requires a smaller investment to achieve the results they need is preferrable.

Also, even the most arcane and convoluted interfaces become usable with repetition. Normal people learn the most bureaucratic business workflows and fly through them if that is their job. Then if you dare to "improve" any aspect of it you will hear them complain that you "broke" their system.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#88

Post by andai » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

The article complains there's too many old school Windows-type power user GUIs in the free software space. Most of which were not actually FOSS, but Freeware, or sometimes Shareware!

My criticism of Free Software is exactly the reverse. There isn't enough of that kind of stuff on Linux!

Though to be sure, the Mac category (It Has One Button) is even more underserved there, and I agree that there should be more! Heck, most of the stuff I've made for myself has one button. Do one thing and do it well! :)

Re: Free software scares normal people

#89

Post by thadt » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #56

I think there is something deeper here: people have become scared of the unknown, therefore we need to hide things for them. But people don't have to be scared. In fact even for people who are using Handbrake comfortably, a lot of things Handbrake presents in its UI are probably unknown to them and can safely be ignored. The screenshot in the article shows that Handbrake analyzed the source video and reported it as 3…

Not scared, time limited.

The world is a complicated place, and there is a veritable mountain of things a person could learn about nearly any subject. But sometimes I don't need or want to learn all those things - I just want to get one very specific task done. What I really appreciate is when an expert who has spent the time required to understand the nuances and tradeoffs can say "just do this."

When it comes to technology 'simple' just means that someone else made a bunch of decisions for me. If I want or need to make those decisions myself then I need more knobs.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#90

Post by thaumasiotes » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

left-struck wrote: post #76

MarkusWandel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least with ffmpeg, for 99% of use cases you can just google "how do I do X with ffmpeg" and get a copypasta command line. Whereas with complicated GUI tools, you have to watch a video to learn how to do it.

I think GUI tools lend themselves more to being able to discover functionality intuitively without needing to look anything up or read a manual, and especially so if you’re coming back to a task you haven’t done in a while. With CLI I constantly have to google or ask an LLM about commands I’ve done many times, whereas with a gui if I do it once I can more easily find my way the next time. Anyway both have their place

> I think GUI tools lend themselves more to being able to discover functionality intuitively without needing to look anything up or read a manual

Well, there are different issues.

Reading a manual is the best you can do, theoretically. But Linux CLI tools have terrible manuals.

I read over the ssh man page multiple times looking for functionality that was available. But the man page failed to make that clear. I had to learn about it from random tutorials instead.

I've been reading lvm documentation recently and it shows some bizarre patterns. Stuff like "for more on this see [related man page]", where [related man page] doesn't have any "more on this". Or, here's what happens if you try to get CLI help:

1. You say `pvs --help`, and get a summary of what flags you can provide to the tool. The big one is -o, documented as `[ -o|--options String ]`. The String defines the information you want. All you have to do is provide the right "options" and you're good. What are they? Well, the --help output ends with this: "Use --longhelp to show all options and advanced commands."

2. Invoke --longhelp and you get nothing about options or advanced commands, although you do get some documentation about the syntax of referring to volumes.

3. Check the man page, and the options aren't there either. Buried inside the documentation for -o is the following sentence: "Use -o help to view the list of all available fields."

4. Back to the command line. `pvs -o help` actually will provide the relevant documentation.

Reading a manual would be fine... if it actually contained the information it was supposed to, arranged in some kind of logically-organized structure. Instead, information on any given topic is spread out across several different types of documentation, with broken cross-references and suggestions that you should try doing the wrong thing.

I'm picking on man pages here, but actually Microsoft's official documentation for their various .NET stuff has the same problem at least as badly.