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Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

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Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#211

Post by wsc981 »

wraptile wrote: post #65

Wow, I'm masively disappointed with this thread. We have so many different Desktop "OS's" already. There's hardly a need for a _revolution_; strong stability and support is needed but there's just no paying market for it by the looks of it. 4 biggest desktop environments are by mega corporations (apple, microsoft) and by big open-source collectives (Gnome, KDE). But is that it? No, there's also a bunch of tilling-win…

I feel the Classic macOS did one thing quite well. It was rather easy to manage the system.

System functionality could be expanded through various means, but most often devs used Extensions. And if a software issue arose, it was easy to disable all Extensions by pressing SHIFT key on start-up. Also, on start-up you'd visually see what Extensions were being loaded. So at start-up you would always be aware what you had installed.

In current macOS it's very hard to keep track of what I've installed. I install a lot of stuff using tools like Homebrew. Some software might install some system level hooks, etc... From my perspective it's kinda hard to keep the system "clean". And it's probably a good idea to do a clean install of my computers maybe once every year or so, since I might have installed stuff I don't really use anymore.

Also, there was the System Folder and that directory contains the Extensions, Preferences, Control Panels directories, etc... So you could also at the file system level manage your System Folder. You could just delete an Extension manually from Extensions directory in the System Folder to uninstall it. You didn't need any "uninstall" software most of the time.

A classic macOS like environment with a view more modern features (maybe a WindowMaker-like UI, multi-user and real multi-tasking) would be pretty neat.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#212

Post by Siira »

egypturnash wrote: post #188
richardjdare wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Note: Applescript is mostly abandoned since some years ago, and most apps don't support it in very useful ways in my experience. It's also slow. I imagine Linux would allow more scriptization, but I only ever use Linux for my servers.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#213

Post by whoomp12342 »

We need a new methodology of human and computer interaction to warrant re-thinking desktop os. What we have is very fine tuned to keyboard, mouse, screen and occasional audio input and output. When we have a new set of IO, it could be that "windows" and friends are irrelevant.

Yes, we had touch screen, thats how we got to windows 8 hell, we failed to adopt the new UI. I would argue we are still working on that.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#214

Post by magnusmagnusson »

imglorp wrote: post #200
m1el wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pret…

It's an operating system and personal server designed for the cloud era. You should be able to test it with a comet, they have guides in their page.

"What does OS for the Cloud mean?" It attempts to make personal server as easy to use as browsers made front end, motivated heavily by idea of owning your social graph - instead of it being owned by the big tech companies.

Pretty cool thing in my opinion, I own 1 planet. I recommend "Understanding Urbit" podcast if you are even remotely interested about their ideas/motivations.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#215

Post by freehunter »

efitz wrote: post #7
x87678r wrote: post #3

Everything for my PC is one of: 1) Web based (something lightweight like ChromeOS can do it) 2) Command line (easy to ssh into a remote box) 3) IDE (heavy) I only need a light weight terminal for 1&2 but 3 keeps tripping me up. Would be great if IntelliJ ran with remote back end.

Amazon Cloud9 [1] and GitHub CodeSpaces [2] already offer cloud IDE. There are almost certainly many more. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/ [2] https://github.com/features/codespaces

I’ve used Codespaces and I use Cloud9 for basically everything line of code I write. The problem is Codespaces is ridiculously overpriced and Cloud9 is growing increasingly outdated compared to VS Code. No extensions, limited language support, doesn’t support Amazon Linux 2 or Graviton EC2 instances, etc.

Also even though they’re browser based, many features still don’t work on an iPad. Amazon really needs to put more effort into this space or Microsoft will wildly outcompete them. I still use Cloud9 quite heavily but as soon as Codespaces allows for scrolling with a mouse wheel on an iPad, it’s going to be hard to keep me on AWS.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#216

Post by rimliu »

vetinari wrote: post #155
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,…

> 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, clothing, and sheltering ourselves for exclusive casual usage of ? Why shouldn't everyone read? Why shouldn't everyone write? Why shouldn't everyone do the basic math? Being able to use computers efficiently is knowledge, not chores. To be…

Being able to use computers and being able to program are different things. Not exatly at the level of being able to write and being able to make your own pencil, but not that far either.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#217

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #163
buran77 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we live in a world and society where you're expected to know a lot about a lot. And we just keep adding to the pile we need to learn. You need to know how to sew or mend your clothes, you need to know how to tinker with your electrical system or plumbing, with your car, with your electronics, know your stuff around a kitchen. And the list can really go on and on. Now you need to know how to code .…

> Any reasonable definition of "coding" is creating something. Not necessarily creating something . The OP really did shoot themself in the foot by using the word "coding", where what they most likely meant was doing simple alterations to computing systems that require understanding some basic control flow structures - conditionals and loops. Things like, "I seem to be doing the same repetitive sequence of steps 100x…

[deleted]

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#218

Post by rimliu »

bichiliad wrote: post #39
taeric wrote: post #28

I want less in the "lets make the desktop good" vein, and more in the "lets stop making the desktop crap" vein. Things that seem to be making things worse, ironically, are all things that ostensibly are there to make them better. Web technologies, I'm mainly looking at you.

I think the portability of web technologies make them super appealing to new developers, which is what I think the appeal of languages like Java were a decade (or more!) ago. I think web tech has all of those advantages plus the ability to get started so much more quickly (it takes so little effort to get a simple website online). I started writing some Swift recently and built a small app, and it kinda shocked me ho…

I shake my head in disbelief every time I read someone touting web tech as the best way to make mobile apps and how more productive it is. It is obvious that that person has absolutely no idea what native APIs offer.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#219

Post by sincerely »

wraptile wrote: post #138
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.

I didn't necessarily mean "learn to code" in such explicit manner with my original comment. More like learn technology itself and some strong basics of how everything works so people would be more equipped to grok this new world we're living in. To get a driver's license you need some basic knowledge of car internals. I'd argue that computers are infinitely more important in our society than a car yet majority of peo…

>To get a driver's license you need some basic knowledge of car internals.

Where do you live that this is true?

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#220

Post by zepto »

pjmlp wrote: post #149
wraptile wrote: post #65

Wow, I'm masively disappointed with this thread. We have so many different Desktop "OS's" already. There's hardly a need for a _revolution_; strong stability and support is needed but there's just no paying market for it by the looks of it. 4 biggest desktop environments are by mega corporations (apple, microsoft) and by big open-source collectives (Gnome, KDE). But is that it? No, there's also a bunch of tilling-win…

Good that you mention Engelbart, because none of the mainstream desktop OSes are close to his ideas, or what the Xerox workstations allowed for, ironically Windows is probably the one most closest to it. While GNU/Linux have the necessary tooling for making it as well, but thanks to the fragmentation and some communities hatred against GNOME/KDE, it will never happen. This is what a modern desktop OS should look like…

Can you say more about why Windows is closest?

I’m not looking to debate - just that it’s not obvious and I suspect the specific reasons why would be interesting to know about.

Thanks!

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