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Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

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Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#181

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

KlaymenDK wrote: post #177
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #160

Honestly I think a lot of ideas about where to go with Desktop OSs these days are just complexity fetishist slashfiction. I don't think we need new complicated paradigms, instead we should take a look at our history of what worked and what didn't and build based a simple combination of good ideas we already have. My opinion, short version, hastily written, and incomplete: 1) Applications are self-contained objects th…

> modern Mac application bundles I just want to say that OLD Mac applications were exactly that, too -- even the OS was basically just "Finder" and "System", that was it. Dragging those two files to a different floppy (and swapping them 12 times to complete the copy) gave you a bootable disk. Meanwhile Windows apps were hundreds of files ... then eventually Mac apps went the same way, although not as wildly.

Yes, it was also used in RiscOS. Even DOS applications were really just a folder. It was a common feature of Desktop OSs of the time.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#182

Post by josteink »

rtpg wrote: post #123
josteink wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not thinking about files And I hate app-data not being files, not being portable. My data may be stuck inside a SaaS and only accessible through a closed-source app, and I have nothing to say about it. > Real sandboxing, with a nice permission layer Sandboxing apps is a good thing. Depending on your use-case, Snap/Flatpak or containers kinda solve this, but they are not the default way of running apps for now. What…

Files are emphatically _not_ good first class primitives for rich sharing. If you have a contacts program, are you going to make each contact a file? What about performance or bulk editing? From that program's perspective, the ideal is probably to have a single file (SQLite DB for example). But now you don't have granular sharing mechanisms except through a clumsy export which requires you to give a name to the thing…

> But now you don't have granular sharing mechanisms

Many (Windows) apps support OLE/COM-based objects which can be copied, mixed and processed in between applications. This allows the clipboard to hold rich objects and not just text-based contents. Things like tables, images, rich text, contacts... and even files, or folders of files!

This allows for a much more rich (and empowering!) way to share data than currently done on popular mobile platforms.

This was already implemented back in Windows 95 or something. It's really old tech. Not sure how well this concept is implemented (or at all) on other desktop operating systems though, so it might not be a "universal" desktop solution for everyone.

That said it can clearly be done better than mobile, because on Windows it has already been so for two and half decades.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#183

Post by least »

soapdog wrote: post #110
nly wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surfaces are tablets with plug in keyboards. I'm talking about a cellular device that you can slip in your pocket

The problem with that vision is that people break/lose phones a lot more often than laptops. We tend to carry your phone all the time with us, that leads to it being potentially exposed to way more dangers than our laptops. What happens to all your stuff when your phone is stolen in a pub? or when it fall into that subway gap? If the answer to this is: it is all backed up automatically into the cloud and your new dev…

> If the answer to this is: it is all backed up automatically into the cloud and your new device will become a clone of your lost device, then you don't need the device in the first place, all you need is a terminal.

Why do I only need a terminal if my data is backed up to the cloud, exactly? If I wish to watch a video that I downloaded to my phone, I can do that without having connection to the internet. If I wish to edit a photo with an application on my phone, all the processing of that file can be done locally on the device. Having a cloud backup of a device does not mean that there's no value in having a device with its own capabilities outside of the cloud.

> If the answer is: you're screwed, then maybe storing all your stuff on a device small enough to be easily stolen/broken was a bad idea.

For any valuable data you should have more than one backup solution, including data you store on your phone. Just because there's more risk of losing your phone than your desktop pc in your home doesn't mean that you take less measures to mitigate the chance of data loss on your desktop pc.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#184

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

72deluxe wrote: post #180
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of these points sound like macos apart from 4, possibly 6 and definitely 7. MacOS has some good ideas. 1 and 2 actually apply to a lot of OSs from the 90s. Good luck finding a spacial file manager today though. > Your home directory is your profile/account (what's the difference on a single computer?). The difference is that there is no OS concept of an "account". Right now, you can't take your home directory b…

Thanks for the explanations. I realise that the spatial file manager is missing these days, but I prefer the navigation file manager. Whenever I use BeOS I find the plethora of open windows for each directory unnavigable. You can get Finder to open each item in a new window and hide the sidebar to make it spatial-like, although I am not sure if there is a method of making "open in new window" the default. I think the…

What I'm saying is, you don't need the permissions at all. From the user's perspective, everything is 777. If you happen to have the edge case where more than one user is using a personal computer, and there is a desire to keep things safe from each other, then you should use encryption for this since it actually works. File permissions are easily bypassed with local access and a boot disk.

As I recall, Pottering is actually working on portable home directories for Linux. Naturally, the solution is over-engineered and involves a new service and file format.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#185

Post by izacus »

jmnicolas wrote: post #168
izacus wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This literally what Samsung phones do right now. No need to wait for Apple to save you.

What does Dex mode brings you? Mobile apps arranged like a desktop that's it. Where is Android studio ... on Android?

In the place where Xcode for iPad is.

And yet iPad is still very useful computing device for millions.

Dex has fully functional browser, office apps, media software and file management. That covers huge amounts of use-cases.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#186

Post by happyjack »

sanitycheck wrote: post #145
LuvSauce wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind using Linux? It's been my experience that it's done everything I wanted it to well. Linux on desktop has changed. I hated it too in the 2000s. Now mostly everything just works, KDE can look and feel like any desktop including OSX. Very reliable. You'll find a pirated version of XP running as you wish soon since the leak of the XP source code not GPL though.

I almost just spat out my tea. I've tried to move to Linux once a year since 2005. A few weekends ago I did my annual attempt and had a go at Elementary OS (live USB wouldn't boot, gave up), MX Linux (couldn't get sound, wouldn't boot after installing nvidia drivers), Manjaro XFCE (kept locking up, requiring a power cycle) and Pop OS. Pop fared best, but even then I had all kinds of showstopper problems with monitor…

^This

I run Linux as my daily driver, but I really do get your pain. There are way too many items problems that run in the way. Live usb didn't boot. Volume keys don't work, etc. etc. It has gotten WAY better, but the polished professional feel just isn't there yet. Your trackpad won't feel 100%, if you don't know your hardware inside / out your Nvidia card or something else might not work. Part of the problem, too, is that there are way too many projects inside the open source world. While that is a blessing, it's also a curse.

Some people just want to boot a machine and get to work. Even though I run Linux, I have become that person as well.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#187

Post by paol »

nt2h9uh238h wrote: post #171

my #1 feature request to @apple and @microsoft and @linux -- start making SPEED a priority again. I hate all this slow software.

Then you need to address your petition to app developers. The OSes are not the source of the problem.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#188

Post by egypturnash »

richardjdare wrote: post #141
bobthepanda wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Real question: Do we continue to dumb down software to exclusive casual usage for house-moms or we try to move our society to be more techn savy as we are clearly moving to a more tech relying world. Why shouldn't everyone know how to code? Why shouldn't everyone churn their own butter? Why shouldn't everyone sew their own clothes? Why shouldn't everyone build our own homes? Should we continue to dumb down feeding,…

I think the idea that programming is a back-room industrial or maintenance operation performed by specialists misses the point that programming is also another way to use your computer. The most fluid and limitless way, in fact. Programming is not just like being a car mechanic or factory floor engineer, its like being an expert driver at the same time. When I use my desktop, it often occurs to me that I could write…

Get a Mac.

Macs have AppleScript, and while application support can be hit-or-miss, I’ve got several little things I’ve done with it that have made my life a lot easier. There’s a couple features I wanted in Illustrator that I’ve been able to work around with scripts, I have a script hanging around to help with a tedious part of turning a big pile of individual page files into a comic, I have a hotkey that rotates my display and my Wacom tablet with one keystroke when I want to work with my monitor in portrait orientation for a while, and a few other things I’m not thinking of. Some of these I use once every few years, some I use multiple times a day.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#189

Post by happyjack »

swiley wrote: post #128
saagarjha wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elementary OS is based on Ubuntu LTS.

In general if you see something super polished on Linux there's a decent chance it's broken. I think that's what GP was trying to say.

There is WAY too much truth in this post :)

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#190

Post by lostmsu »

swiley wrote: post #133

>who's doing exciting interesting things with the desktop? X11 DE/WM authors are. FVWM is still one of the only WMs with a true virtual desktop (ie you can pan around a virtual screen larger than the physical one.) CWM is extermely minimalist and my personal favorite currently. Fluxbox has some nice and flexible theming/configuration. I run this on my phone since CWM doesn't work without a keyboard (or at least a met…

I can assure you FVWM statement is wrong. I had a GNOME issue recently, where it would enable panning on the primary screen, and I couldn't find how to disable it :-D
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