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

Mercury OS

mercuryos.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 165 posts

Re: Mercury OS

#131

Post by thiht »

rewgs wrote: post #122
frodowtf wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you people are so touched about somebody's attempt at redesigning an OS. Here's the thing: You are not the target audience of this OS and you are by no means required to use it. In my opinion, this is a solid attempt at creating an operating system for non-techies. Way fewer concepts to learn, way easier interaction.

I think the entire concept of "non-techies" is condescending to the people you're referring to. Computers exist, the cat is out of the bag -- computer literacy is now simply a facet of literacy in general. I would much prefer a world where we empower people to actually learn about the tools they use, rather than one in which we jump through hoops in order to try and design around predictions about what we think "they…

> I think the entire concept of "non-techies" is condescending to the people you're referring to

It's not, stop being offended on behalf of others. "non-xxx" is as neutral as it can be to refer to a population.

And it does make sense to give different end products to techies and non-techies, because the needs are wildly different.

Re: Mercury OS

#132

Post by dizhn »

This looks like a graphical design project with no concern for actually building something that has to work. I guess the "speculative" bit gives the artist license to do it.

I personally would have loved to see some working code because I have no idea how this new age sounding stuff is meant to actually work to get anything done. Or is getting something done inhumane nowadays?

Re: Mercury OS

#133

Post by prmoustache »

andai wrote: post #95
SkyMarshal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, the fact that stealing focus still exists in 2023 is maddening. Please just let me open windows and apps in the background while I continue to work uninterrupted in the main focus window in the foreground. Even web browsers let you open tabs in the background, why haven’t OS’s caught up to the yet. That said, I like the concept of this OS design. It reminds me a little of the theoretical concept behind Star Trek…

I have the opposite problem. If I open too many Windows, the Windows window manager starts glitching out. When I open an app, it doesn't always come to the front and I have to go alt-tab through dozens of windows to find it. (Sometimes it ends up at the bottom, so alt-shift-tab switches to it... but sometimes it ends up in the middle ...) Also if I open too many windows, opening Windows explorer takes 1-2 or more sec…

Why are you still relying on alt+tab in 2023? I haven't touched a windows for more than 5 minutes in a long time, aren't there a function to show all windows like in most Linux DE and Mac OS ?

Re: Mercury OS

#134

Post by hnlmorg »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #126
hnlmorg wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not redesigning an OS. They are describing a theoretical UI. This is about as close to designing an operating system as drawing a front cover is to writing a book.

That thinking is why Linux failed as an OS for desktop. The UI part is harder than the hardware part, because it deals with a piece of diverse, non logical and unpredictable piece of meatware, instead of simple and predictable silicon.

You've shared quite a number of misconceptions there (not least of all your definition of "failed" -- Linux is used by millions of consumers every day so if that's a "failure" then you have some rather unrealistic expectations of what is considered a success. But ultimately "Linux" isn't an OS anyways so it isn't really fair comparing it as one).

> That thinking is why

What kind of thinking? Acknowledging that writing an OS is a massive undertaking? I have written hobby OS kernels so I'm not speaking hypothetically here. I wasn't suggesting that the UI isn't important either (which is what I believe you were alluding to with your "that thinking" snub), just that the UI is literally just the surface layer in a much deeper stack of technologies -- all of which is important.

> The UI part is harder than the hardware part

Writing device drivers is much harder. The failure modes are much more extreme. No amount of UI polish will improve the user experience if your OS frequently trashes your file system because it doesn't handle buggy storage devices correctly. No amount of UI polish will improve the UX if your platform frequently crashes, or even just doesn't support your hardware at all. And to compound matters, the vast majority of hardware isn't documented either.

So yeah, UI is important but your OS isn't going to win any fans if you don't nail the stacks beneath too.

> [UI's] deals with a piece of diverse, non logical and unpredictable piece of meatware, instead of simple and predictable silicon.

Hardware is often anything but predictable. The fact that it seems that way is a testament to just how well written most operating systems are.

Re: Mercury OS

#135

Post by franga2000 »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #77
ilyt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It pretty much embodies everything I hate in modern OSes. I know what I want to do and I know how I want to do it, get out of my way. Meanwhile modern OSes can't even handle simple "maybe don't steal fucking focus from window I am currently writing something in just because some other app decided to make another windows."

God, the fact that stealing focus still exists in 2023 is maddening. Please just let me open windows and apps in the background while I continue to work uninterrupted in the main focus window in the foreground. Even web browsers let you open tabs in the background, why haven’t OS’s caught up to the yet. That said, I like the concept of this OS design. It reminds me a little of the theoretical concept behind Star Trek…

Focus stealing 100% has a place, just not on app launch and while you're typing. Since switching to Wayland, which doesn't allow focus stealing, I keep thinking apps have frozen when a popup shows up in the background.

Re: Mercury OS

#136

Post by kazinator »

franga2000 wrote: post #135
SkyMarshal wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, the fact that stealing focus still exists in 2023 is maddening. Please just let me open windows and apps in the background while I continue to work uninterrupted in the main focus window in the foreground. Even web browsers let you open tabs in the background, why haven’t OS’s caught up to the yet. That said, I like the concept of this OS design. It reminds me a little of the theoretical concept behind Star Trek…

Focus stealing 100% has a place, just not on app launch and while you're typing. Since switching to Wayland, which doesn't allow focus stealing, I keep thinking apps have frozen when a popup shows up in the background.

The window popping up anyway, but in the background and without focus, and in a way that freezes the foreground, isn't the answer to focus stealing.

It's more like a rebellion in a jail block doing time for focus stealing. :)

Re: Mercury OS

#137

Post by ehutch79 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #134
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thinking is why Linux failed as an OS for desktop. The UI part is harder than the hardware part, because it deals with a piece of diverse, non logical and unpredictable piece of meatware, instead of simple and predictable silicon.

You've shared quite a number of misconceptions there (not least of all your definition of "failed" -- Linux is used by millions of consumers every day so if that's a "failure" then you have some rather unrealistic expectations of what is considered a success. But ultimately "Linux" isn't an OS anyways so it isn't really fair comparing it as one). > That thinking is why What kind of thinking? Acknowledging that writin…

It definitely failed.

Having lived through 20+ “the year of the Linux desktop”s I can tell you the goal was clearly to become he dominant desktopOS that everyone used.

About that last part… the op was talking about people, it actual hardware, you seem to have missed that. Hardware is in fact predictable, unless it’s failing or just that poorly designed.

Re: Mercury OS

#138

Post by ehutch79 »

egypturnash wrote: post #34
ehutch79 wrote: post #15

I'm not sure how this works for more complex stuff? What about a PO in an ERP? Accounting functions? SOmeone adding records toa. general ledger? editing/viewing a 3d model? Editing a video? Multitrack audio?

I presume that if this got beyond some pretty sketches there would eventually be some kind of way to install new "verbs" and "nouns" and "modules", maybe even a place to go exchange money for interrelated collections of these things... How this would differ from "I downloaded Plunko 3D from the App Store" remains to be seen.

Sure, but what does that look like under this OS? The mock-ups don’t show anything more complicated Han messaging apps.

Other comments have stated that this is some student project of some sort. Like many other projects of this type it has failed to consider what most people actually do during the course of their jobs. Worse, it ignores what ‘nerds’ do on their computer while posting on a ‘nerd site’.

Re: Mercury OS

#139

Post by ehutch79 »

unethical_ban wrote: post #58
ehutch79 wrote: post #15

I'm not sure how this works for more complex stuff? What about a PO in an ERP? Accounting functions? SOmeone adding records toa. general ledger? editing/viewing a 3d model? Editing a video? Multitrack audio?

This is like seeing a new design for a custom forklift vehicle and asking what the 0-60 is.

No, it’s more like asking “sure it looks great, but how does it lift a pallet”

Re: Mercury OS

#140

Post by neilalexander »

kindawinda wrote: post #75

I think this isn't the crowd to demo this too. Majority of the people here would prefer a command line. Too bad this echo chamber can't understand what might be useful to a wider audience than their own monitor display.

On the whole I agree with you on this. I'm so often reminded how user-hostile computers really are by my father, who recently sent me a message to ask what Bing is and why his computer keeps asking him to use it. Despite several attempts to explain it, he doesn't really understand the difference between a web browser and a web site, he doesn't really understand that web sites and applications are different, he doesn't understand that Chrome and Edge are different but also the same, he doesn't really follow why a shortcut in the Start menu to a website is different to a shortcut to an application, or where things actually go when he saves or favourites or flags them, the list goes on.

Somewhere along the lines, we have built computer user experiences that bully people into trying to work how computers work, with tons of abstract concepts like "files" and "folders", applications that silo their data, difficult-to-understand application lifecycles and user interface paradigms and settings and so on. Worse is that power users and developers — the same people who have the power to do better — have come to believe that having to adapt to how computers work is an essential skill and not a failing of the computer itself.

The Mercury OS design linked is arguably a massive over-simplification of where computers need to be but some of the concepts really aren't far off what I would probably want to design myself: the idea that applications are really just exposing workflow elements and sane data APIs and not a concrete "thing" you have to interact with or care about directly, so that the user thinks about _what_ they are doing and not _how_ they have to do it.

Post reply on HN