[PLUG] RE: Has this been done already?

["Steven Arbitman" <steve@starbits.com>]

I very much like the idea of introducing Linux to the novice user.

Speaking as one of the "Joe Six-Chip"'s myself, I would much rather use a
GUI application like Mozilla, Netscape, or Opera.  To a novice I think the
"internet" really means just email and the web.  These programs provide
those services in a point and click interface which we are used to.  Even
the names of the software are familiar.

To my mind the hardest part is setting up the connection to the ISP, but a
high-speed dsl or cable connection to a lan card on the PC requires no setup
at all, at least in a distro like Morphix.

Now of course if you are trying to run on a command line interface that is a
whole other story....

Steve

-----Original Message-----
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 09:22:56 -0500
From: FloydLJohnsonIII@aol.com
To: plug@lists.phillylinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] Has this been done already?
Reply-To: plug@lists.phillylinux.org

In the hour or so after the last meeting, I posed a theory as to how to get
"Joe Six-Chip" into Linux. This involves a program which, as far as the
novice is concerned, is an Internet all-in-one like AOL.

This reproduces the selling point thereof:ultra-simplicity/perceived ease of
use. Under the hood, the "brightly colored buttons" invoke the relevant
preexisting stuff. For instance:
-"Connect to Internet Service Provider"=execvp("wvdial",envp,P_NOWAIT), or
"penggy" (thank you, )
-"Compose/Send or Read Mail" launches PINE or whatever in like manner

The technical issues I see include:
-stdin/stdout redirects to the parent process
-programmatically monitoring spawned processes, and asking the user's
permission to kill a runaway browser/mail client/etc.

The key questions are:
1. Has such an "Internet control center" already been done?
2. If not, what should be the shape of the thing?
3. How would configuration be as "painless" (what may be easy for you may
not be so easy for the set-in-their-ways) as possible?


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