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Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

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Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#221

Post by brnt »

saagarjha wrote: post #78
brnt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Elementary OS is based on Ubuntu LTS.

Hackintoshes are based on macOS, but that doesnt mean it receives the breath of testing and scrutiny as the real deal.

Thats the whole point, right? Obviously smaller and non-mainstream distros with non-mainstream packages, more cutting edge packages will have more paper cuts.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#222

Post by dagw »

sincerely wrote: post #219
wraptile wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

At least true in Sweden. You don't have to know much, but you at least have to be able to check your tire pressure, pop the hood and check the oil and know which hole to pour which liquid into.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#223

Post by jrm4 »

The simplest thing for me:

Why can't they be MORE MODULAR? See also cellphones.

It shouldn't be hard to have a sane default setup, but also have the opportunity to easily have your own kind of dock, or add and subtract widgets, even switch between tiling and not, etc.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#224

Post by zepto »

DonHopkins wrote: post #140
buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have an iPad Pro that’s useless for software development without SSHing into a machine. And even that is a horrible experience because the iPad keyboard doesn’t allow key repeat, making vim a terrible experience. That used to be an issue anyway. Maybe they’ve fixed it.

And no escape key! How do you get out of VIM insert mode? Control-[? Might as well use Emacs. At least there's an Option key for Meta.

What do you mean ‘no escape key’?

All the terminals I have used swap out the suggestions bar for a row of extra keys, with escape in the place you would expect it.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#225

Post by historyremade »

agentultra wrote: post #198

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 i…

It doesn't work..

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#226

Post by II2II »

raziel2p wrote: post #129
II2II wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we usually discuss things in extremes. We don't need to know how to sew our own clothes, but knowing how to mend them is useful. Do we really want to live in a world where we toss out a shirt simply because a button falls off? We don't need to know how to build a home, but knowing how to fix simple problems is useful. Do we really want to live in a world where we have to call in an electrician eve…

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.

A lot of it comes down to what you mean by coding and what you mean by sewing (as an example).

There is much more to sewing clothes than threading a needle and guiding it through a button hole, at least if you want to make something that will fit and will last. The complexity of the product also plays a strong role.

Much the same can be said of coding. Being able to issue a command in a shell or compose a function in a spreadsheet is probably the closes analog to sewing on a button, but how many people can even do those things?

We live in a world where our phone's calculators are typically as powerful as a four function calculator from decades ago, perhaps with a subset of functions found on a scientific calculator. How do we expand our minds beyond that limited scope if vendors are afraid of creating software that allows us to compose anything more complex? With the status quo, we have to seek out options and those options are mostly targeted at professionals.

Similar things can be said for other domains. While writing of coding, I was actually thinking of graphics design and word processing and databases and the many other domains that have been over simplified by modern consumer applications. For the most part, their functionality has been simplified to the point where you can perform a very narrow range of tasks and have very little scope of the imagination. For example: that database that backs your address book cannot be adapted to catalogue your books, or the online word processor that is fine for writing reports is poorly suited for preparing a book for publications. Sure, there are professional alternatives out there. On the other hand, it seems as though people has a lot more flexibility with the software of the 1990's than the 2010's.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#227

Post by paulchap »

The computer is the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with. Yet the modern computer is the equivalent of a bicycle with stabilisers: the added support might be nice for children, but comes at the cost of agility and manoeuvrability. Do we really need the PC to become another device used exclusively for entertainment?

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#228

Post by vikramkr »

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…

No the ideal end game is that we specialize into whatever role we want with full autonomy without having to worry about things we don't want to worry about. I dont want to have to know how to build a house or do construction work. Once upon a time, I would have had to know how to make a shelter. Now, because that's become a service, I can focus my energy on things I enjoy. But if I wanted to, I could focus my energy on construction. But I dont want to - instead I specialize in ields im good at and build a competitive advantage to generate wealth. We are a species are wealthier than ever (well, maybe we were wealthier a few months ago) and have accomplished more and more because of specialization. We were stuck in the role of "generalist survivor" for a couple million years, never really advancing, until specialization happened.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#229

Post by no_wizard »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #107
dognotdog wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those observations resonate with me. This does sound a lot like the now almost ancient dream of Prolog/Smalltalk where you'd have this much more semantic and malleable environment to work with and shape to the specific purpose it needs to fulfill, without any artificial barriers. And I don't see why that semantic singularity couldn't be local (or at leat private), instead of the current hodge-podge of "cloud" offerin…

Could you and the parent please elaborate in concrete terms what you'd like to see. I'd be terribly interested.

For me, I think this picture[0] illustrates how I feel about this pretty well. The idea that the data, for lack of a better term, that we generate just via interaction with our devices isn't somehow useful is now a concept that I fundamentally feel is a little astonishing in 2020. The very foundational idea of the internet, that ideas can be shared via links and documents (and so much more now) never left me. I think there is huge room in building user interfaces that take this to its core. For instance, why shouldn't my filesystem be used in such a way that I can build links between applications, files, and sharability? Why can't this be extended to say, link inside one application to another so discrete application functionality is available regardd of what app I have open at the very moment? The idea that I have to "switch" apps is fundamentally old.

I'm not sure that I have all the answers, but one area where I know this would make a ton of sense is the simple note taking apps that I feel tech and non tech users alike use. The digital sticky note is something that has been strived for since the early days of graphical computing in particular, but alas no one entity has ever really delivered on it in a way that I would call 'semantic' but it perfectly illustrates a situation where I think this concept is super obvious, because you want different things to be linked for different reasons. And that fundamentally describes what I'm talking about, is I want to be able to have things be linked based on their relationships with other things, be it applications, data, etc that I build over time. The fundamental interaction model here is that I should be able to make these switches and those switches to have meaning when I make them, rather than the current status quo, which is I have to deliberate strike an interaction between programs or actions within programs, rather than things be linked semi-heteogenerously based on exposing semantics based around my whole "system", if you will.

[0] https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_a...

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