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Myths about ElementaryOS

elementaryos.org

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Re: Myths about ElementaryOS

#31

Post by jjsz »

eOS has too much eye candy. Someone suggested in the comment section to install alucryd's PKGBUILDs to gain access to updated packages on Arch. If you're already thinking of Arch because of that comment, this should be enough eye candy: lightdm, cinnamon + CoverflowAltTab, plank + plank-themer, nautilus or spaceFM, themes like Numix + cinnamon-chronumix [1], awesomeWM, and reEFInd and a minimal theme [2]. Not sure why people opt in for a visual representation of applications when they need to browse to install applications...there's the list of applications in the wiki and /r/unixporn if you need visuals..

[1] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serdotlinecho/cinnamon-chr...

[2] https://camo.githubusercontent.com/32729998da4401a2aef674308...

Re: Myths about ElementaryOS

#32

Post by iancarroll »

Maskawanian wrote: post #24
JVIDEL wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open a terminal and enter this: cd ~ && mkdir -p ~/.temp-plank-themer && cd ~/.temp-plank-themer && wget https://github.com/rhoconlinux/plank-themer/archive/master.zip && unzip master.zip && cd plank-themer-master/ && rm -fR ~/.config/plank/dock1/theme_index; rm -fR ~/.config/plank/dock1/themes-repo; cp -a theme_index/ ~/.config/plank/dock1 && cp -a themes-repo/ ~/.config/plank/dock1 && cd ~ && rm -R ~/.temp-plank-th…

It goes without saying, it is ill advised to copy and paste terminal commands to the internet without knowing what they actually do...

You could read it.

Re: Myths about ElementaryOS

#33

Post by pohl »

opminion wrote: post #30
munchor wrote: post #2

As one of the people behind elementary OS, this blog posts pretty much summarises how hard of a time I have when reading online criticism on elementary OS. Feedback is good, we love it and realize how important it is. However, for the most part the complaints are not about the OS itself but instead on some of these myths (or worse even, how we're "just a blatant copy of OS X" when we have our own ideas and identity).…

Perhaps it could help make it easy for visitors of your site to know what elementaryOS is, even in broad strokes. I had to go to the main page and then scroll down a few screens until I found this sentence: "elementary OS is a free replacement for Windows on the PC and OS X on the Mac." Not having that at the top of the first screen, people do have to find this information elsewhere.

Indeed, they give how-the-sausage-is-made first and second billing, how-pretty-it-is third billing, and what-it-is in the fourth and final slot. It's almost exactly upside down.

Re: Myths about ElementaryOS

#34

Post by madprops »

elementary OS is one of the most promising Linux distributions. This for several reasons, like having a good installer and an overall clean desktop experience. But also because of the applications they are making themselves like Noise or Files.

That being said, I don't agree with some of the design decisions, which stop me from fully supporting the project.

For example I don't like the idea of having a top panel. It is constantly there wasting space only to show some tray icons a clock and a link to a launcher menu. Personally I prefer a single panel on the bottom, think Windows 7, there is enough horizontal space to show everything in a single row. Top panels just look bad in my opinion, for a normal maximized window you have the panel layer, then the titlebar layer, then the window. If you insist on having the notification bar on top at least, please, use wingpanel-slim (with the application launcher disabled and autohide).

Re: Myths about ElementaryOS

#35

Post by reitanqild »

munchor wrote: post #2

As one of the people behind elementary OS, this blog posts pretty much summarises how hard of a time I have when reading online criticism on elementary OS. Feedback is good, we love it and realize how important it is. However, for the most part the complaints are not about the OS itself but instead on some of these myths (or worse even, how we're "just a blatant copy of OS X" when we have our own ideas and identity).…

The thing about elementary and OS X is that elementary seems a whole lot better than OS X. This wouldn't count of course if I hadn't used OS X a few years. (Then again I mostly have used Linux whenever possible for the last 5-10 years and I also think Windows 8 is great.)

Things that are better (in my view) in elementary are for example: alt-tab, standard open source apps works nicely (no need to run in an extra x), no global menu.

Of course no Mac user should switch, but for anyone like me who almost like mac except for the:"stupid" parts elementary is great.

Re: Myths about ElementaryOS

#36

Post by reitanqild »

CJefferson wrote: post #29
munchor wrote: post #2

As one of the people behind elementary OS, this blog posts pretty much summarises how hard of a time I have when reading online criticism on elementary OS. Feedback is good, we love it and realize how important it is. However, for the most part the complaints are not about the OS itself but instead on some of these myths (or worse even, how we're "just a blatant copy of OS X" when we have our own ideas and identity).…

These replies do not help. For people who don't want to live on Ubuntu LTS versions (and such people probably don't want to install the first version of a new OS), Luna is "over 2 years old", and it was already seriously out of date when it came out. Elementary OS know what people mean when they say Luna is out of date (all the packages are over 2 years old), yet give an answer that completely ignores that issue.

I see your point about public perception.

For another viewpoint I'm running dev of a side project on an elementary laptop. Since bleeding edge of postgres and python doesn't matter much for me it is actually quite good. (relational database, no scaling problem for now and python packages are installed using virtualenv and pip. Sublime text also works nicely on two year old kernel )

Re: Myths about ElementaryOS

#38

Post by pavanky »

reitanqild wrote: post #36
CJefferson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These replies do not help. For people who don't want to live on Ubuntu LTS versions (and such people probably don't want to install the first version of a new OS), Luna is "over 2 years old", and it was already seriously out of date when it came out. Elementary OS know what people mean when they say Luna is out of date (all the packages are over 2 years old), yet give an answer that completely ignores that issue.

I see your point about public perception. For another viewpoint I'm running dev of a side project on an elementary laptop. Since bleeding edge of postgres and python doesn't matter much for me it is actually quite good. (relational database, no scaling problem for now and python packages are installed using virtualenv and pip. Sublime text also works nicely on two year old kernel )

Looking at it from the other side, if you have newer hardware Elementary OS may not work properly on your machine because it has an older kernel that may not have the drivers.

If the target audience is laptop users this is definitely going to be an issue.

Re: Myths about ElementaryOS

#39

Post by leorocky »

When it comes to problems with Linux as a personal desktop OS, the appearance of the GUI is among my lowest concerns. What prevents me from considering Linux as a desktop or laptop OS includes: horrible battery life times (worse than half for a friend's thinkpad when compared to it running Windows), how difficult it is to get Bluetooth and Wifi working, really bad multi-touch for trackpads.

The problems with Linux as a replacement for Windows or Mac are that the fundamentals are not there. Recent hardware support is non-existent as volunteers have to write drivers so you're likely stuck with old hardware. You'll get anecdotes of people who are happy with what they have, but any such person that I've known long enough I've seen them gripe on IRC about things that are completely trivial or just not even issues on Windows or a Mac.

Linux needs a hero with deep pockets that builds their own hardware and drivers. I thought Dell might have been that hero once, but it never became a priority for them.

If you could get elementary OS working on a nice slim, powerful Samsung or Thinkpad laptop, with good battery life and driver support then I'd think you'd really have something.

Re: Myths about ElementaryOS

#40

Post by throwaway9978 »

leorocky wrote: post #39

When it comes to problems with Linux as a personal desktop OS, the appearance of the GUI is among my lowest concerns. What prevents me from considering Linux as a desktop or laptop OS includes: horrible battery life times (worse than half for a friend's thinkpad when compared to it running Windows), how difficult it is to get Bluetooth and Wifi working, really bad multi-touch for trackpads. The problems with Linux as…

Linux has worked very well on the business-class thinkpad machines for more than 15 years. Look for the T or X series, for example. These days you need to avoid machines with nVidia graphics.

A T-series thinkpad with intel graphics will just work out of the box on any linux distribution.

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