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What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

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Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#101

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

jhoechtl wrote: post #99
AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like these really make me believe that it is people like you who are killing the Linux desktop. Of all the window managers and desktop environments I have tried the last years on Linux, Unity, Gnome3, and Cinnamon are the only ones that don't look and behave as if they are from fucking 2003. Those others might be enough for those people who have stopped adapting and like to be left alone under their rock, bu…

You forgot KDE/Plasma5. I think the most novel concepts are being developed there

KDE has always tried to play catch-up with Windows regarding style, leaving users in some kind of uncanny valley. And I'm not very impressed with what I've seen lately in KDE. That said, I'm hopeful something useful will come out of it.

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#102

Post by pantalaimon »

paulddraper wrote: post #96
VonGuard wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! Those keyboard shortcuts and menu positions are part of my daily WORKFLOW! Stop moving them around and changing them! It is utterly infuriating to have to relearn your desktop GUI behavior. Why is there no such thing as LTS for GUI interface paradigms? There should be an LTS interface version of every GUI.

Well, there is; it's "regular" OS LTS. Ubuntu won't change the GUI during LTS (5 years).

But that means all the software on your system will be 5 years old.

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#103

Post by pantalaimon »

Asooka wrote: post #61
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always felt the GUI changes in Linux were extremely gratuitous after Gnome 2. Yes! Ironically this was what a lot of people hated about Microsoft, and why the XP->Vista and 7->8->10 changes were so unpopular. Everything moves around and works in a different way, imposing a re-learning cost. But the developers like it because they're bored with the old system and think the new one is better.

It's no coincidence. Libre software devs saw what MS and Apple were doing and went "oh no we have to do the same to stay relevant!" Couple that with the rampant egos typical for an OSS project lead and you have today's situation. Of the big 3 (or is it 4 now) DEs, I feel KDE has stayed the most sane and provides the same desktop metaphors. Then again, they mostly bet on the "semantic desktop" direction, which was tha…

Unfortunately KDE gets rewritten with every iteration of Qt, so it's foolish to expect it to work.

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#104

Post by raverbashing »

udp wrote: post #29
VonGuard wrote: post #6

I think it was the inability for GUI's to stay stable. Gnome went off the rails, Unity completely ruined Ubuntu[1], and KDE always felt very cheap and hard to navigate. My opinion, yes, but I always felt the GUI changes in Linux were extremely gratuitous after Gnome 2. Couple this with the fact that for a decade, the actual GUI was tied very, very heavily to the apps. So you had to use Gedit in Gnome, or whatever the…

> Put Unity Ubuntu on that same machine, and it's unusable garbage. I can't even hit alt-F5 to get to another terminal because Unity slows the whole rig down to an absolute crawl. Like, can't even move the mouse, 5 minutes between keypress and action taking place. Fuck Unity. I blame Unity about 40% for killing the Linux desktop. Have you tried Xubuntu? It fills the gap that Ubuntu used to, and it's my go-to desktop…

XFCE: lightweight and powerful

That's my choice as well

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#105

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

soyiuz wrote: post #58
VonGuard wrote: post #6

I think it was the inability for GUI's to stay stable. Gnome went off the rails, Unity completely ruined Ubuntu[1], and KDE always felt very cheap and hard to navigate. My opinion, yes, but I always felt the GUI changes in Linux were extremely gratuitous after Gnome 2. Couple this with the fact that for a decade, the actual GUI was tied very, very heavily to the apps. So you had to use Gedit in Gnome, or whatever the…

I don't think it's the gui. I'm a relatively savvy user running Debian on a Thinkpad for more than five years now. Printing is still touch and go. I spent countless hours to get sleep working correctly. It is broken now and I don't have the energy to fix it knowing that nothing I do is guaranteed to last through the next apt update. Wifi will mysteriously refuse to connect with some routers (a daily struggle at the u…

Sleep has never been a problem for me on any Thinkpad with Ubuntu. Debian, on the other hand, was nothing like pain for bluetooth, wifi, suspend. And don't get me started about the UMTS dongle I once bought that was useless under Debian but worked out of the box (even with a wizard) on Ubuntu. Then again, that dongle never really worked under Windows either (the drivers it auto-installed caused blue screens, and when they didn't, the abominably ugly software that came with it, never found the dongle).

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#107

Post by gens »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #93
wink wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem here is if people were happy with what they had in 2003, why change it? Not everything UI-wise in 7 or later is better than in XP I'd say. And apparently many people agree. Actually I am still using 7 and all the UI stuff that's nixer than XP or even 2000 is just eyecandy and nothing "I would totally never go back". Because I would - if I needed a stable Windows that only came with XP's UI - so be…

If people were happy with Windows XP in 2003, why change it and install Linux? We deviated from what was good enough 15 years ago! Let's put XP back on the clients and Solaris back on the servers! /s When I started using Linux, it was about thinking out of the box and about change. It had many exciting window managers that put everything in Windows to shame when it came to customizing and style. Nowadays I have the f…

If XP was secure, performant on modern hardware, stable and supported by new programs i would still be using it. More then that the reason i quit windows98 was that warcraft 3 doesn't work on it. Windows 7 configuration menus are god awful and windows10 ones are far worse then that.

You are making a fallacy in saying that old equals bad/ugly. XFCE is keeping it oldschool and can still look amazing (xubuntu looks great IMO).

There's much to talk about when talking about GUI things. Much indeed. Many things are even quantifiable, instead of being pure personal preference. Just remember that Microsoft spent a lot of effort into studies in what culminated to be windows95, while many other projects did not (the study that ended up being gnome3 is a joke in comparison).

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#108

Post by bobajeff »

ramblenode wrote: post #17

The people I know who use desktop Linux love their Linux rigs a whole lot more than my Windows and Mac acquaintances enjoy their computers--which in many cases just borders on tolerance, especially with Windows 10. Maybe software needs something beyond market share, sort of like what Bhutan did with Gross National Happiness. We'll rank products based on how much people enjoy them and then see who's the dominant deskt…

I enjoy having a machine that ultimately I control. You just can't get the same level of control with Windows, Mac, Android or iPhone. You constantly have to wrestle your wants with the wants of the platform venders.

A key area where this is most apparent these days is privacy. If you want privacy you have to keep a really close eye on Microsoft, Apple and Google every update.

With a Linux Server/Desktop I'm free from their power games.

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#109

Post by datenwolf »

The author makes a good point, namely that the Linux desktopspace is too fast a moving target. The Linux kernel is exceptionally stable in its userspace facing APIs (the most important rule Linus holds up is "we never break userspace"). And userspace has been pretty much stable for a long time as well on the API and ABI side. But everything that's regarded with making desktop environments work, the UI toolkits, configuration APIs, essential DE programs, all that jazz is moving at a breakneck speed and more often than not even "minor" version bumps introduce regressions and subtle incompatibilites.

But this problem is not going to be resolved by coalescing all the various Linux distributions into a single vendor model. If anything that would just accelerate the troublemaking processes. What's really required is infusing a culture of high quality engineering, forward thinking and consequence estimation into the community. Focus on fixing bugs and regressions instead of implementing new features.

Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)

#110

Post by chris_wot »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #93
wink wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem here is if people were happy with what they had in 2003, why change it? Not everything UI-wise in 7 or later is better than in XP I'd say. And apparently many people agree. Actually I am still using 7 and all the UI stuff that's nixer than XP or even 2000 is just eyecandy and nothing "I would totally never go back". Because I would - if I needed a stable Windows that only came with XP's UI - so be…

If people were happy with Windows XP in 2003, why change it and install Linux? We deviated from what was good enough 15 years ago! Let's put XP back on the clients and Solaris back on the servers! /s When I started using Linux, it was about thinking out of the box and about change. It had many exciting window managers that put everything in Windows to shame when it came to customizing and style. Nowadays I have the f…

There are actually issues with Windows XP, the only thing is that IMO people learned how to work around those issues.

I think UIs should either change very gradually and only in ways that literally are better, but also have a way of ensuring the options aren't removed entirely, or at the very least if the option is obscure ala options removed in Gnome 2, then they should be kept and allow someone to create a tweaking tool to change them.

If a huge change is to be made, like the Gnome Shell, then it should be done in a development release and ALL of the compatible UI should be kept on the desktop, with an easy UI option to switch between the modes. It turns out that Gnome Shell could do this - but only after a time.

UX and UIs are one of those things you really should be incredibly careful about foisting on anyone. If you do it, you need to do it somewhat gently.

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