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

What killed the Linux desktop

tirania.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 385 posts

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#331

Post by vacri »

nirvana wrote: post #209
icebraining wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Measured scientifically just means it's better for the majority of users; it doesn't necessarily mean it's better for me as a single individual. Not that I'm arguing against the bar on top; in fact, I'll use the keyboard shortcuts anyway, so I don't particularly care.

I submit that we are talking about a physiological issue, not a preference. Attempting to hit a target in the middle of the screen is more difficult for humans than hitting a target at the very top of the screen. When you overshoot the target in the middle of the screen, you have to come back around to click on it. When you overshoot the target at the top of the screen, the pointer is stopped by the border of the dis…

So you're saying that humans have laser-like accuracy in the horizontal dimension, and sloppy accuracy in the vertical? Your interpretation of the science is poor.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#332

Post by gizzlon »

batista wrote: post #125
flatline3 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Workspaces? You mean virtual desktops? Those date back 1986, implemented at Xerox PARC (and patented!). As for appstores, I assume you're talking about the packaging systems, which are similar only if viewed from 50,000 feet. The packaging systems were not stores. You couldn't buy packages. They didn't serve as an agent to sell other people's personally submitted packages. They had "apps" but no "store". The applicat…

Plus the dependencies. With app stores you (usually) get one program and that's it. It works. With package systems you have to install several dependencies for each, sometimes an absurd number (say, 100 packages to get Gnome). And then there's dependency problems (had my share in Debian at older times).

At the core, dependencies are a good thing, although there's downsides to that as well.

I have no experience with desktop app stores, but you wouldn't get Gnome and similar large and complex software from one, would you? Which makes your comparison pretty unfair.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#333

Post by gcjcvjcnsd »

nirvana wrote: post #201
diminish wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To stress out again; OS/X has the poorest hardware support for 3rd parties; even compared to Linux. Just "think different" and buy some hardware and you ll see what I mean..

I've been using OS X going back to the betas. I've never seen OS X have problems with third party hardware that conformed to standards. I have seen problems with third party hardware that required its own driver (poorly written generally) or that was half assed crap that was designed to work with windows but marketed as supporting standards like "USB". Meanwhile, Linux has trouble dealing with the computer itself, le…

>that was half assed crap that was designed to work with windows but marketed as supporting standards like "USB".

A device can follow the USB standards (and be labeled as such) while still requiring a special driver. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#334

Post by coffeeaddicted »

planckscnst wrote: post #220
nirvana wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using OS X going back to the betas. I've never seen OS X have problems with third party hardware that conformed to standards. I have seen problems with third party hardware that required its own driver (poorly written generally) or that was half assed crap that was designed to work with windows but marketed as supporting standards like "USB". Meanwhile, Linux has trouble dealing with the computer itself, le…

In my experience, Linux works great with standards-compliant hardware. Linux is typically the first platform with support for a new standard. The problem is there is so much hardware that is not standards-compliant. Your comment looks about as asinine to me as the as the parent comment does to you.

Being the first platform supporting it in the kernel - and then you have to wait for another few months (or years in case of Debian) until you finally have the driver in your distribution. The alternative is compiling kernel-modules yourself - which then get broken again by the distro whenever it updates the kernel without warning. And to even compile you have to follow hints on several websites until you figure out the way to compile a module just for that kernel-version you are having (this all is from experience trying to get a Wacom tablet running - I gave up on it when it broke again after a distro update and the compiling mechanism then also no longer worked for some reason. Now waiting for Debian Wheezy to save me).

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#335

Post by chalst »

lazerwalker wrote: post #304
_delirium wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among non-ultra-geeky Linux users I know (mostly part-time users), "Linux" does seem to be reasonably standardized as far as desktop components go, because by "Linux" they mean "Ubuntu". It's possible the Ubuntu desktop dominance came a bit too late, though, and still isn't entirely complete. My own experiences aren't great with Windows, though they're smoother on OSX than Linux. The problem I have with Windows is th…

I really haven't found that that be the case at all with package management on OS X. Homebrew is almost always a joy to use, and on the few occasions I've had build errors using it I've found the Homebrew community connected to the official GitHub repo issues page to be one of the most responsive, friendly, and genuinely helpful open-source communities I've ever encountered. I agree things were a lot rockier back whe…

Discovering Homebrew was wonderful after suffering the broken-by-design ports systems of Fink and Macports (a retrograde step from Darwin Ports). But it is not really strong competition for Debian's APT. For example, a day after first using Homebrew, I discovered that the Qt port simply didn't work. I fairly frequently have to install by hand software for OSX that has stable packages in Debian.

It's also true that Homebrew (and Macports, but not Fink) are doing something fundamentally less ambitious than the main Linux package managers: it offers a simple dependency system and scripting for compiling stuff, not directly installing the end product.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#336

Post by justincormack »

cooldeal wrote: post #230
justincormack wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is horrible to use, everything is poorly designed. Linux (Ubuntu in my case) and OSX just work sanely mostly, but OSX is a horrible dev environment, so I moved back to Linux.

>Windows is horrible to use, everything is poorly designed Without qualifiers, that statement is meaningless. Perhaps you mean it's horrible for some devs? (Millions of others are doing just fine with Visual Studio). For regular users, dropping them to Linux will be like replacing your mom's car's controls with the controls found in an airplane cockpit(command line) or playing "who moved my cheese ?" with the Linux d…

Wasn't talking about visual studio, I mean the UX as a whole. It is hugely inconsistent, slow, and hard to get sane information about whats going on. Once you are in an application, then generally its ok, its just up to that application, other than things like where new windows are created which are also broken. Oh and focus and switching, as things are always getting hidden.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#338

Post by ps2000 »

cletus wrote: post #97

This is the money quote: > The second dimension to the problem is that no two Linux distributions agreed on which core components the system should use. Linux on the desktop suffered from a lack of coherent, strategic vision, consistency and philosophy . Every engineer I know likes to do things a particular way. They also have a distorted view on the level of customization that people want and need. I like OSX. Out o…

Linux on the desktop suffered from weak developer and industry support. It was until some years ago, Linux sound system latency was as powerful as Windows 3.1's. Using proprietary drivers for X or even worse for the Kernel is a mess.

So obvious... Linus promised Linux on the desktop 2000 or so. The reality was different: influential groups just ignored the desktop. Now it's too late, web is becoming the predominant platform, Operating Systems are just commodity. For me it's no big difference whether I use Linux or OS X (with coreutils etc. installed). In fact I wouldn't even mind working on Windows, unfortunately I don't have the patience to setup a reasonable Unix-like dev environment.

The irony is: it has never been less painful to switch to Linux.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#339

Post by ps2000 »

eitland wrote: post #252
cooldeal wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Windows is horrible to use, everything is poorly designed Without qualifiers, that statement is meaningless. Perhaps you mean it's horrible for some devs? (Millions of others are doing just fine with Visual Studio). For regular users, dropping them to Linux will be like replacing your mom's car's controls with the controls found in an airplane cockpit(command line) or playing "who moved my cheese ?" with the Linux d…

Ubuntu works just fine for two kind of users: 1.) Grandmothers and the like who just want to read their mail and check the news. 2.) People like me who can and will use 4 + 2 + 1 + 0,5 hours to customize it over the course of 6-12 months to have an almost perfect working environment instead of living with a slower OS without virtual desktops. The only thing I can think of that needs tinkering is some online banks tha…

I think you mean Debian.

I know lots of people who successfully installed Ubuntu that don't know what a boot sector is but are still happy with it. (After all most people use web apps anyway.)

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#340

Post by rahoulb »

DeepDuh wrote: post #322
hollerith wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On other systems I would waste days after days of my life to set things up 'just the way I want' only to find that it's never gonna be quite that way. Macs just let me accept the things as they are and get back to work. This. It's almost as if Linux is a collection of parts and tools from which a sufficiently good designer can build a usable desktop whereas OS X is a usable desktop. That's an exaggeration, but for m…

OSX seems to have had this design paradigm: 'Make everything work in the most streamlined way possible for the default use case (80%). Give some limited options for a few more specific use cases (18%). Cover everything else with CLI integration / defaults system, such that the final 2% can get around with a bit of googling' This has been highly successful, only I'm afraid that the Unix people inside Apple are loosing…

I've actually switched to doing my work on Ubuntu (using xmonad - I can't stand unity) and iOS (iPad as SSH client) as OSX only cares about the 80% use case now.

Which is fine, it's Apple's decision to take, but it's no longer for me.

(As for Ubuntu - I'm using pretty standard hardware and never had a problem)

Post reply on HN