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My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

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Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#321

Post by kamjam »

cstross wrote: post #246

Microsoft's desktop supremacy hasn't been down to "it's got a nice, easy to use interface" for at least 20 years. Rather, Microsoft is (or was, in the pre-post-PC world) everywhere because of (a) licensing stitch-ups with hardware vendors and (b) network externalities: get into Corporate IT departments with Office, then people will want (or need) to use the same OS at home, and then you can strong-arm hardware vendor…

Microsoft's desktop supremacy hasn't been down to "it's got a nice, easy to use interface" for at least 20 years.

Whilst I generally agree with your statement, I don't think it's due to MS having a good interface as opposed to Linux having a not so polished interface. This was a deal breaker for a lot of people I know in the not-so-tech-savvy world. Things have changed a lot in the past few years, but a lot of damage was done by then.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#322

Post by GrinningFool »

jebblue wrote: post #298
astrobe_ wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDEs and Stockholm syndrome.

IDE's rock. Eclipse anyway, it runs wherever I need it, runs finr with ssh -X. Eclipse gives me the same solid user experience on Windows and any Linux I've ever tried it on. I can't remember arcane keystroke combinations and the refactoring in Eclipse can't be beat. How about Navigating to the Implementation for a method? Eclipse makes this easy. This isn't Stockholm syndrome it's programmer nirvana.

You can't remember arcane keystroke combinations and yet you like Eclipse? While I admit it's no emacs in the keystroke department, it is very inconsistent with pretty much every other UI tool out there in terms of keystrokes.

Powerful tool, but the "we'll go our own way despite commonly accepted UI standards" has always made me a little crazy.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#323

Post by dsleno »

I am stuck with windows for now because we develop Windows software. But I have Virtual Box image of Ubuntu on this machine, which I use for web surfing and al manner of other activities. I just prefer Ubuntu. After having reformatted my Windows machine last week because of a bad virus infection, I have decided to do all of my web surfing on Ubuntu..

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#324

Post by dwaltrip »

lttlrck wrote: post #317
dwaltrip wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I compose the large majority of my hacker news comments on my nexus 4 phone.

And what percentage of your total content creation output is that?

Well before I started posting code on github a few months ago, it was probably a pretty high percentage. But I see what you mean.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#325

Post by laumars »

pix64 wrote: post #219
laumars wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't try and pass off your personal preferences as fact. Beauty is just a matter of preference. Personally I've never cared for Microsoft's design. XP always looked chunky and gaudy to me - I hated it. Aero looks unfinished compared to Compiz (but part of that might be down to the fact that Linux has been doing desktop compositing for years before Windows finally caught up). And Windows 8 just looks like Micr…

I think you're confusing aesthetics with usability/experience.

No I'm not. The former commenter was on about aethetics because he was talking about people being drawn to pretty things. However I don't think Windows has better usability / experience either. If it did, I wouldn't be running Linux as my primary desktop. But again, usability is partly down to personal preference / workflow as well.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#326

Post by laumars »

_random_ wrote: post #232
laumars wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't try and pass off your personal preferences as fact. Beauty is just a matter of preference. Personally I've never cared for Microsoft's design. XP always looked chunky and gaudy to me - I hated it. Aero looks unfinished compared to Compiz (but part of that might be down to the fact that Linux has been doing desktop compositing for years before Windows finally caught up). And Windows 8 just looks like Micr…

Wow, you really don't understand what tiles and metro design are about? Have you considered the power fonts have? Have you thought of making content a first class citizen in GUI?

I'm talking purely about aethetics. I couldn't give a toss about what ever excuses you have for the massive usability fail of Metro (and it is seriously lacking as a desktop user interface) in a discussion about personal preferences with design aesthetics. But who cares about a level headed discussion when people like you can instead post condisending fanboy BS...

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#327

Post by nitrogen »

qb45 wrote: post #185
nitrogen wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny; ten years ago the explanation was exactly the opposite. "Maybe young people can pick up Linux, but there's no way my grandma could ever figure it out." I'm inclined to believe that both are post hoc rationalizations of a phenomenon whose true cause is entirely unrelated.

Because ten years ago you had to partition your HDD with fdisk and configure WiFi network by editing /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. I'm pretty sure none of the nontechnical users mentioned here would be willing to do that . Ubuntu moved lots of configuration to the GUI, making it easily discoverable and usable for people who don't already know where to look for things. Ubuntu may be sucky, buggy and inflexible, but it's m…

Not really. There were several consumer-friendly Linux distributions at that time that automated dual-boot and provided GUIs for configuration, including Mandrake/Mandriva, Lindows/Linspire, etc., and WPA didn't really exist.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#328

Post by jmspring »

ErikAugust wrote: post #302
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desktop is now irrelevant -- less than 10% of computing devices people use are desktops or laptops: it's all gone mobile frighteningly fast. It's ironic that you probably typed that with a desktop or laptop. Irrelevant? Hardly.

Laptops/desktops = producers. Mobile = consumers. It's that simple.

Seriously naive given the number of people using tablets for content creation. For me, most of my notes and writing are done on my iPad rather than my laptop. It is a more focused experience.

Programming/development it my MBP.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#329

Post by hexasquid »

frigg wrote: post #155
lawn wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to refute that statement in regards of Windows 8 on desktop. The amount of confusion in that UI, even for me, is a handful. If we ignore the metro side of things, I agree with you however.

>If we ignore the metro side of things Yes, absolutely. My start screen is an empty, blue wall with a large tile taking me to the desktop. Despite the start screen I like everything else about the system.

The new one has a setting that boots to desktop, if that helps any.

Re: My dad unexpectedly uses my Linux laptop to get real work done

#330

Post by octaveguin »

cstross wrote: post #246

Microsoft's desktop supremacy hasn't been down to "it's got a nice, easy to use interface" for at least 20 years. Rather, Microsoft is (or was, in the pre-post-PC world) everywhere because of (a) licensing stitch-ups with hardware vendors and (b) network externalities: get into Corporate IT departments with Office, then people will want (or need) to use the same OS at home, and then you can strong-arm hardware vendor…

I'd like some citation to the 'less than 10%'.

The best I can do is find some browser stats - in this case, mobile seems to be making up 17% of the browser user agents as of July.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

edit: interestingly, chrome appears to be growing faster than all mobile browsers combined.

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