Choice between Administration and Preferences

[Dominic Amann]

Most users cannot figure out whether the thing the want to change is in Preferences or under Administration. I am sure there is a great rational - but the fact is, if the average user cannot intuitively figure out that rationale, they will be fumbling about in the wrong menu half the time.

I think it would be that the things I need root privilege would be Administration but how would the average user know that?

[Martin Albisetti (beuno)]

I can't figure it out either. Unifying them makes sense to me. Great report, thank you!

[Craig A. Eddy (tyche-deactivatedaccount)]

Suggestion: If combining the menu headings "Preferences" and "Administration" under "System", indicate those that require sudo. This would help differentiate between user level actions and those requiring root access.

[PhilG (ssc1478)]

This is especially true with setting the timeserver. Why can you set the time in Clock but not set up to use a timeserver? Or, add info in the Adjust Date and Time option in Clock that states it is setup to use a timeserver. I spend a lot of time every 6 months or so relearning this.

[Martin Albisetti (beuno)]

I think that if solving this for karmic would be fantastic, marking as triaged to see if it ends up making the cut.

[Jonathan Ernst (jonathan.ernst)]

Preferences affect only the current user and Administration affects the whole computer (i.e. all users).

I don't see anything difficult with this concept and they should imho stay separated (altough it could be renamed as User preferences and Computer administration if we used a control panel instead of menus).

[Dominic Amann (dominic-lbs)]

Jonathan Ernst wrote:
> Preferences affect only the current user and Administration affects the
> whole computer (i.e. all users).
>
> I don't see anything difficult with this concept and they should imho
> stay separated (altough it could be renamed as User preferences and
> Computer administration if we used a control panel instead of menus).
>
>

It has only taken a week before someone who seems to know what the
distinction is. So I take it default printer and power management are
per user settings? I never knew.

Nonetheless, I think some other/additional grouping/labeling scheme
might make things easier, as I have 24 items in one, and 18 in the other.

I trust that this will not suddenly become a cause (unfortunately common
in the Linux world) for all those that know why things are the way they
are - causing them to insist on defending the "order of things" as if
somehow an easier or better way could not possibly exist.

Perhaps just renaming "Preferences" to "User Preferences" would be a
really cheap fix that would have helped me and all the other respondents
to at least have a clue. Although I would rather see a more granular
breakdown.

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[Vish (vish)]

+1 for Dominic's idea... [just renaming "Preferences" to "User Preferences"]

Easy simple fix. Unless the Design team can come up with a sane grouping system.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Dominic, thanks for the bug report. Unfortunately, this is not a paper cut. This issue was discussed at the last Ubuntu Developer Summit <https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-karmic-gnome-control-center>, and the consensus was that the problem can be fixed only by a non-trivial change, and making any trivial changes in the meantime would be more disruptive than helpful. One of my priorities for this cycle is to finish designing a reorganized settings interface <http://live.gnome.org/SystemSettings> that will replace these two submenus, but that will not be implemented for 9.10.

It used to be the case that, as Jonathan Ernst wrote, "Preferences affect only the current user and Administration affects the whole computer". But with the advent of PolicyKit, that is no longer true. The Keyboard Preferences window lets you apply your keyboard layout system-wide, the Network Preferences window lets you apply your proxy settings system-wide, and conversely the Users & Groups window is under "Administration" but lets you change your own password and account details without entering an administrator password.

See also bug 174277 and <http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/80/>.