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Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

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Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

#81

Post by aidenn0 »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #11
foob wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Spaces' aren't new They aren't new but they've been fairly common in Linux desktop environments since the 90's while OS X didn't introduce them until 2007. I'm not sure where they first appeared but at the very least they've certainly become a common idea because of Linux.

The 80s. Originally out of PARC. Also, while Project Looking Glass (Sun) may have borrowed some stuff from Quartz, Apple borrowed a lot of UI stuff from Project Looking Glass

Thus confirming that any GUI feature that I don't know where it came from, came from PARC.

Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

#82

Post by clawrencewenham »

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #79
clawrencewenham wrote: post #76

After using modern smartphones and tablet computers I'm starting to think that the last thing we need is more innovation in how to manage lots of little windows on a medium sized screen. I don't want another window manager, even if it auto-tiles for me or has a really gosh-darn nifty way of hiding and revealing them. I want innovation in devices and apps that are designed to operate full-screen on all of them. It's a…

That is all well and good if you are passive user but when it come time to do some work on a computer you will likely need to use more then one application at a time and some way to manage all these application easily so that you can keep task organized and easily switch between them.

That's not really true. If I'm writing a book, I don't need anything more than a word processor on that device. If I'm browsing research material on another device, there's nothing breakthrough about the idea of transferring that material to the word processor wirelessly: highlight the material in the browser and "bump" it to the device with the word-processor on it.

Having each app on a separate device would actually make it worlds easier to perform real work, because I'm no longer Alt-Tabbing or Expose-ing back-n-forth between programs. I hate doing that because it forces me to stop thinking about my work in order to think about how to manipulate boxes of pixels into the configuration I want.

Right now I'm considering spending another $1K to get a 27" Cinema Display to go next to my $2k 27" iMac. But I'm wondering if I should have spent that $3k on a stack of wireless tablet computers of various sizes and leave some Bluetooth keyboards around the house instead.

Edit: Now that I'm thinking about it more, I believe this is the trend and the reason desktop innovation has stalled. In a decade we'll all have solid state hard drives and ten times more RAM, so every app can run in its own VM. You could suspend an app's runtime state to disk, transfer it to another device and resume where you left off. "Bump" your Final Cut session to your big-screen when you need to, then "Bump" it back to a tablet when you wanna continue editing on a park bench.

I don't know why we can't do this with web apps already. It transcends the whole idea of a desktop manager.

Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

#84

Post by exDM69 »

rbanffy wrote: post #40
cageface wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux-style package management is a lot more useful for servers, where you have fairly tightly controlled distribution requirements. I find it an encumbrance on desktops where I often want to update individual apps or keep several versions of a single app side-by-side.

> keep several versions of a single app How many people actually do that? I have Python 2.5, 2.6, 2.7 and 3.x, but I am a programmer who writes lots of Python. And they were all very easy to install (2.6 and 3.x from packages, 2.5 and 2.7 from source). I also have two different releases of Eclipse (I also write lots of Java). Package management frees you from managing the software you don't want to manage, like MySQL…

As a desktop user, you might not need this a lot. Sometimes when you have a new version of a software that's really cool but a bit buggy and you keep the old version to get work done. Case in point: Blender 2.4 vs. 2.5.

As a programmer, I would need this all the time. Sometimes you need several versions of a certain programming library or language implementation like Python or Ruby interpreters. I also need several versions of GCC, I have one native compiler for C++0x, a cross compiler x86_64-pc-elf for my hobby operating system project and another cross for arm-eabi-none that I use to hack system-on-chips at work. I get my GCC from Git sources.

Nix (http://nixos.org/) is a package manager that allows you to install multiple versions of the same software. NixOS is a Linux distro based on that package manager. You can also use Nix in your home directory on top of another distro.

Unfortunately I have not had the time to try Nix. Anyone else tried it?

PS. I was visioning a "versionless package manager" that downloads sources from Git repos, builds and installs them and keeps the build files for fast updates via incremental build. I only need a name for the thing, which is better: "vpm" or "dll hell 2.0"?

Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

#85

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

clawrencewenham wrote: post #82
jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is all well and good if you are passive user but when it come time to do some work on a computer you will likely need to use more then one application at a time and some way to manage all these application easily so that you can keep task organized and easily switch between them.

That's not really true. If I'm writing a book, I don't need anything more than a word processor on that device. If I'm browsing research material on another device, there's nothing breakthrough about the idea of transferring that material to the word processor wirelessly: highlight the material in the browser and "bump" it to the device with the word-processor on it. Having each app on a separate device would actuall…

What you are describing does not sound at all practical in the long run. The complexity of syncing up many devices is far worse then dealing with a occasionally fussy desktop manager. Running them as dumb terminals might work if it was actually possible but I'm still not sure it would be practical in most cases (I have thought that being able to send a workspace to another device would be cool though). I realize everyone has their taste but, it sounds to me like you just need a second monitor.

Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

#86

Post by bonch »

This is a poorly written article. Linux on the desktop is infamous for relentlessly cloning Windows and OS X. When citing the changes in OS X Lion (while leaving out major changes like the removal of manual document saving) that he believes to be trivial, he repeats "that's not a joke," as if that's a valid enough rationalization for his position that he doesn't need to explain it further.

The source of desktop innovation today is mobile operating systems. He believes that features from mobile OSes are being "forced" onto desktops, without explaining why it's bad to be adopting mobile features. Full-screen display, automatic document saving, and removing the need to manually quit applications are major innovations that simplify desktop computers even more, moving them closer to the long-sought idea of appliance computing.

I'm tempted to think the article was intentionally written as flamebait. The writing is poor, and there are no examples given to explain why exactly Unity and Gnome are so much more innovative. The absolutist claim that Microsoft and Apple have "completely dropped the ball," as if their operating systems haven't changed in 10 years, is just false.

The source of desktop innovation today is mobile operating systems, or more accurately, appliance computing devices that finally remove extraneous aspects of computer interaction (e.g., manual saving, manual quitting, filesystem management, and so on).

Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

#87

Post by clawrencewenham »

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #85
clawrencewenham wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true. If I'm writing a book, I don't need anything more than a word processor on that device. If I'm browsing research material on another device, there's nothing breakthrough about the idea of transferring that material to the word processor wirelessly: highlight the material in the browser and "bump" it to the device with the word-processor on it. Having each app on a separate device would actuall…

What you are describing does not sound at all practical in the long run. The complexity of syncing up many devices is far worse then dealing with a occasionally fussy desktop manager. Running them as dumb terminals might work if it was actually possible but I'm still not sure it would be practical in most cases (I have thought that being able to send a workspace to another device would be cool though). I realize ever…

The second monitor still requires me to spend a large percentage of my time manipulating rectangles.

Nor is there anything impractical about process migration. I suspend and resume Windows VMs all the time, and Windows wasn't designed for that. Think of what's possible when the programming language and OS API makes it easier to write programs that can re-orient themselves.

And even if process-migration doesn't become a feature, there is still the inherent advantage of manipulating "windows" in physical space. It's more intuitive, it's more convenient, and it's direct. When people didn't "get" the iPad and dismissed it as just a big iPod Touch, it's because they didn't grasp the benefit of manipulating the UI directly instead of through a mouse.

When you manipulate windows with a desktop manager, you're two steps abstracted: you use the mouse to manipulate the widget that manipulates the windows. THAT is what's impractical.

Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

#88

Post by twsted »

twsted wrote: post #72
bad_user wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own both a Galaxy S II (Android 2.3) and an iPhone 3GS. IMHO, Android has the lead on the user interface. Reuse of components and events provided by other apps is at the heart of Android, the system notifications are better, it has desktop widgets that are actually useful, keyboard interaction for writing text is better (I love copy/pasting or moving the text-cursor around on my Android) and you can use the back-bu…

But you are a bad user...

Hey, it was a joke, after his user name... doesn't matter

Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

#89

Post by winestock »

Xuzz wrote: post #4

I think it's really awesome that Linux is finally taking the lead with innovation on the desktop — Gnome-Shell and Unity are just the beginning. And, they are not "catch-up": they are released both before and with more interesting changes than Lion or (what we've seen of) Windows 8. However, what Cupertino and Redmond are up to isn't "nothing", it's just not the desktop. The Windows Phone "Metro" UI is downright amaz…

"I think it's really awesome that Linux is finally taking the lead with innovation on the desktop..."

The key word is "finally."

The proponents of the open source development model and, in particular, the proponents of X-Windows, promised that their way would lead to superior innovation in the user interface and user experience areas. That innovation has been a long time coming.

Now that those promises are finally coming true, momentum has switched from desktop computers to mobile computers, an area where everyone is still trying to catch up with Apple.

Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation

#90

Post by rcxdude »

exDM69 wrote: post #84
rbanffy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> keep several versions of a single app How many people actually do that? I have Python 2.5, 2.6, 2.7 and 3.x, but I am a programmer who writes lots of Python. And they were all very easy to install (2.6 and 3.x from packages, 2.5 and 2.7 from source). I also have two different releases of Eclipse (I also write lots of Java). Package management frees you from managing the software you don't want to manage, like MySQL…

As a desktop user, you might not need this a lot. Sometimes when you have a new version of a software that's really cool but a bit buggy and you keep the old version to get work done. Case in point: Blender 2.4 vs. 2.5. As a programmer, I would need this all the time. Sometimes you need several versions of a certain programming library or language implementation like Python or Ruby interpreters. I also need several v…

portage on gentoo has this kind of functionality, although it needs to be enabled by the package, producing multiple 'slots' which can each hold a different version of the same software. GCC by default works like this, as does python between major versions. It can also do compiling from git although I don't think it keeps the build files around, but with ccache you can somewhat mitigate the recompilation time.
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