Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 271 posts

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#191

Post by happyjack »

maxerickson wrote: post #35
_where wrote: post #8

I want old pre-AppStore OSX/macOS that doesn’t nanny my installs or screw old drivers, with a good package manager, and easily tabbed and gridded terminal windows without tmux necessarily. I’d also like GPL’d Windows XP running flawlessly like a mac. I’d use Linux on the desktop, but I’ve never liked any of the desktop managers and it was never as reliable as OSX/macOS.

Xfce doesn't really do enough to get in the way. I guess I don't pay much attention to the look and feel though, mostly clicking around inside a couple of apps.

This is me. I run Xfce (Xubuntu default settings) and it gets out of my way. I love it.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#192

Post by arvinsim »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #161
spurgu wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not extremes. Modern society is designed so that we don't have to do any of those things (in extreme or even in between), we just throw money (that we generated doing one specific job) at our problems.

It's a strong point. Personally, I find it both hard to argue against and at the same time extremely dehumanizing . Related to this is the phenomenon of turning everything into service. Why would you own things and accept responsibility for maintaining them, if you could just throw money at the service provider and have the thing be present when it's needed? Of course the thing will be extremely limited in what you c…

"Specialization is for insects"

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#193

Post by ghaff »

boudin wrote: post #137
raziel2p wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your metaphors work. There's a huge difference between knowing how to sew a button or flipping a circuit breaker and being able to code.

Though a lot of elementary schools and junior high schools provides basic coding classes, but no sewing ones.

Many schools used to, as well as shop, etc. albeit pretty heavily split by traditional gender roles. Personally, in high school at least, I think a good case could be made for carving out a bit of time for practical life skills (also personal finance, etc.).

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#194

Post by m1el »

imglorp wrote: post #176
m1el wrote: post #169

Sometimes when there's a discussion on alternative operating systems, people bring up Urbit. Urbit advertises itself as an OS with simple foundation: Nock VM. Here's the entire specification for Nock: https://github.com/urbit/urbit/blob/master/doc/spec/nock/5.t... You may notice that there's barely any English in this specification, or even examples. But that's not the main problem. The main problem for me is that th…

Another critical work here: https://github.com/tibru/tibru Tibru is Urbit spelled backwards. But these are implementation concerns. How about the user experience: is there any substance there to learn from or improve?

I sincerely can't tell. I tried reading what is it about, and 6 years later I still don't understand what is it about.

If you feel like it, please tell me if I'm missing anything:

https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit/

> 1 - Technology

Well, step one is explaining the brand new VM and OS built on top of it. Non-starter. Then explanation follows by claiming global IDs, allocated using a blockchain.

> 2 - User experience > We want Urbit to be a single, simple interface for your whole digital life. > A picture of nokia 3110 signifying OSv1, > iPhone v1 signifying OSv2, > and a blank space, signifying the supposed new OS version 3

What?

I've re-read the entire website multiple times and I'm yet to understand the problem they're trying to solve, or lessons I'm supposed to learn.

Maybe it's me, maybe nobody just told me that I don't understand new technology. But this seems like an elaborate toy for nothing.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#195

Post by glippiglop »

The timing isn't great for me to show anything, but I'm working on a UI framework that is exclusively vector graphics based. A few of the interesting things that I've come up with so far are: screenshots can be exported as SVG files rather than bitmaps; a lightweight remote graphics protocol is possible thanks to the desktop being described as a scene graph; apps can easily scale to any DPI/resolution; new and interesting widgets and app designs are possible - pie menus and the like.

Unfortunately the GitHub build is currently broken and I'm probably 2 months away from sharing anything here. I'll post something when it's more presentable.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#196

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

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…

> 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.

Arguably, programming is what computers are for. If you're not programming it in some way, then it is more like an appliance that just happens to contain a computer. Personal computers of the 80s booted directly into a programming environment.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#197

Post by KlaymenDK »

brnt wrote: post #70
usefulcat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now mostly everything just works 'Mostly' is the key--and the problem. I've been using Elementary OS as a daily driver for at least a year, maybe two (and before that I used Mint for several years). For the most part (there's that pesky word again!), it works quite well. And it really is beautiful--aesthetically, I quite like it. But boy do I wish that bluetooth would work reliably. Since working at home full time,…

If you want it to just work, stay away from those cutting edge distros stick to Linux' Windows: Ubuntu LTS. Its boring, but like Windows, that's precisely why it works out of the box.

To add to this, I prefer Ubuntu MATE, where "MATE" refers to the desktop environment: it's exactly what it needs to be, light and responsive and useful, without the need for a GPU just to render you friggin' desktop. It's neat.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#198

Post by agentultra »

The next desktop OS, I hope, will be a real, physical desk. I'd like a computer that doesn't have a glowing screen and a tortured simulation of a space that doesn't exist. Instead I would prefer that I could simply write on a sheet of paper under a calm lamp and move to the white board when I feel like it. I could use my voice if I needed to or gestures as my abilities allow. The computer is there but you can't see it and it doesn't have to impose itself on my and force me to adapt to its interface. It adapts to me, my space, and my context.

Prior art:

http://screenl.es/

https://dynamicland.org/

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#199

Post by kdtop »

paol wrote: post #187
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.

That's not completely true. MacOS has started this process where all apps are checked for safety prior to launching. It makes app launch seem slow, which feels like an app problem.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#200

Post by imglorp »

m1el wrote: post #194
imglorp wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another critical work here: https://github.com/tibru/tibru Tibru is Urbit spelled backwards. But these are implementation concerns. How about the user experience: is there any substance there to learn from or improve?

I sincerely can't tell. I tried reading what is it about, and 6 years later I still don't understand what is it about. If you feel like it, please tell me if I'm missing anything: https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit/ > 1 - Technology Well, step one is explaining the brand new VM and OS built on top of it. Non-starter. Then explanation follows by claiming global IDs, allocated using a blockchain. > 2 - User experien…

No, it's not you.

I can't tell anything either, the doc is both too abstract (aspirational marketing) and too low level (buzzwords) at the same time. I can't tell what the entities are, what they do, and what the actual user experience is.

What would help is put on the front page (1) a concrete system architecture diagram and (2) a UI screenshot. That would go a long way to answering WTF is this thing.

They seem pretty active though! https://github.com/urbit

Post reply on HN