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From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

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Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#11

Post by bdw5204 »

kjellsbells wrote: post #3

I wonder if there is a market for something that runs after first install, or via the Settings app, that "makes my install look like X", for X in (Win2k, MacOS, Win10) say. The point being that this very short list of options is extremely thoroughly-worked-out, which is a level simply not available today in a stock Ubuntu distro and its themes. I can choose elementary, or Mint, bitbthat is essentially an OS distro le…

I think this would be extremely useful in increasing Linux desktop adoption. There's an enormous number of Windows users who hate Microsoft's changes to the Windows GUI and wish they could still run XP or 7. There's also a need to make sure it is stable enough that users never have to resort to the command line and that it runs "non-free" software out of the box, especially software originally developed for Windows. The latter, of course, is a necessary compromise to get people who aren't FOSS purists to use the operating system. I think the focus should be on Windows rather than Mac because Mac users generally like Mac.

Linux adoption, in my view, is held back by the existing community's lack of desire to deliver what the average user wants. Things are obviously better on that front than they used to be but Ubuntu is still quite bad at doing what non-technical users want from a computer. Most Linux users seem perfectly fine with that.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#12

Post by andrewstuart »

I've tried desktop Linux every few years for many years and the result is always the same - the user experience is inconsistent and flaky. It has surely got better but there is always the feeling that it is a "Frankenstein GUI".

Windows is guilty of this too - what a mess of different user interface styles and a patchwork of stuff being stitched together.

MacOS by comparison is a beautifully consistent GUI well thought out and logical and things just work.

Every time I go back to Windows I am reminded of how broken the whole experience is - multitasking is not smooth, tasks don't end when asked, the system won't shut down, applications freeze.

And if you think I['m just an Apple fanboy, I'm not - I spent many many years as a hard core Windows fanboy and I love Linux and use it as a server OS daily.

The thing is - making a consistent, easy to use well thought out operating system experience is a gargantuan task and it must take gargantuan time money and effort to do it well.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#13

Post by jwells89 »

bdw5204 wrote: post #11
kjellsbells wrote: post #3

I wonder if there is a market for something that runs after first install, or via the Settings app, that "makes my install look like X", for X in (Win2k, MacOS, Win10) say. The point being that this very short list of options is extremely thoroughly-worked-out, which is a level simply not available today in a stock Ubuntu distro and its themes. I can choose elementary, or Mint, bitbthat is essentially an OS distro le…

I think this would be extremely useful in increasing Linux desktop adoption. There's an enormous number of Windows users who hate Microsoft's changes to the Windows GUI and wish they could still run XP or 7. There's also a need to make sure it is stable enough that users never have to resort to the command line and that it runs "non-free" software out of the box, especially software originally developed for Windows.…

> There's an enormous number of Windows users who hate Microsoft's changes to the Windows GUI and wish they could still run XP or 7.

The Windows 7 UI has aged pretty well too, even if the glossy visuals have become somewhat outdated (though personally I think they look better than modern flat stuff). I rigged up an old laptop of mine with 7 not too long ago and plugged into a modern monitor and it was striking how nice it was compared to 11.

High-fidelity 1-click reproductions of XP/7 for Linux would be very popular, I think. Bonus points if they can use the hundreds (thousands?) of XP and 7 msstyle themes on sites like DeviantArt.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#14

Post by sgc »

kjellsbells wrote: post #3

I wonder if there is a market for something that runs after first install, or via the Settings app, that "makes my install look like X", for X in (Win2k, MacOS, Win10) say. The point being that this very short list of options is extremely thoroughly-worked-out, which is a level simply not available today in a stock Ubuntu distro and its themes. I can choose elementary, or Mint, bitbthat is essentially an OS distro le…

Not for me, but the closest you can get is Zorin OS Pro, https://zorin.com/os/pro/

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#15

Post by jwells89 »

kjellsbells wrote: post #3

I wonder if there is a market for something that runs after first install, or via the Settings app, that "makes my install look like X", for X in (Win2k, MacOS, Win10) say. The point being that this very short list of options is extremely thoroughly-worked-out, which is a level simply not available today in a stock Ubuntu distro and its themes. I can choose elementary, or Mint, bitbthat is essentially an OS distro le…

I think this would be a great feature, though faithfully reproducing a Mac desktop will likely be difficult, between making Command/Meta-based key shortcuts consistent through the system and making sure the global menubar actually gets populated.

The latter of those is actually the more difficult of the two. Last I knew the GTK plugin that provides application menus through dbus was broken, and many GTK apps don't have a menubar anyway (anything that doesn't fit into a hamburger menu gets binned). Qt apps are better here but there's some bug under Wayland that prevents menus from being pulled from those.

There really ought to be an XDG standard for UI toolkits to provide their menubars to system bars, HUDs, accessibility utilities, etc with.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#16

Post by Dalewyn »

bdw5204 wrote: post #11
kjellsbells wrote: post #3

I wonder if there is a market for something that runs after first install, or via the Settings app, that "makes my install look like X", for X in (Win2k, MacOS, Win10) say. The point being that this very short list of options is extremely thoroughly-worked-out, which is a level simply not available today in a stock Ubuntu distro and its themes. I can choose elementary, or Mint, bitbthat is essentially an OS distro le…

I think this would be extremely useful in increasing Linux desktop adoption. There's an enormous number of Windows users who hate Microsoft's changes to the Windows GUI and wish they could still run XP or 7. There's also a need to make sure it is stable enough that users never have to resort to the command line and that it runs "non-free" software out of the box, especially software originally developed for Windows.…

To paraphrase Abe: Linux is an ecosystem of the community by the community for the community.

And I agree with you, the community (most of it) couldn't give a rat's arse what Joe Average wants. Heaven forbid you ask one of them how to do something that goes off of the One Linux Way(tm).

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#17

Post by jwells89 »

keyle wrote: post #2

I thought this was an interesting point. GNOME looks like macOS as KDE looks like Windows I'm not sure how much of this is true, has anyone run the 4 of them around the same recent period?

GNOME resembles macOS in that it's not yet another Win9X-like desktop, but that's about where it ends. Its closest commercial cousin is probably iPadOS, even though that's not what the GNOME devs were trying for. While it's obviously not as limiting as iPadOS is, much of the UI and interactions are strikingly similar, as is the overall ethos.

Where macOS has always been about progressive disclosure with tons of little power user affordances hidden in plain sight, GNOME is more about paring everything down to the bare essentials in a polished way.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#18

Post by Dalewyn »

andrewstuart wrote: post #12

I've tried desktop Linux every few years for many years and the result is always the same - the user experience is inconsistent and flaky. It has surely got better but there is always the feeling that it is a "Frankenstein GUI". Windows is guilty of this too - what a mess of different user interface styles and a patchwork of stuff being stitched together. MacOS by comparison is a beautifully consistent GUI well thoug…

>multitasking is not smooth, tasks don't end when asked, the system won't shut down, applications freeze.

I think you just need to stop crappifying your Windows installs.

A lot of what you said did happen in the days of Windows 9x, but all the Windows NT releases including Windows 11 have been rock solid.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#19

Post by nbk_2000 »

taeric wrote: post #6

Fun read. Is mind blowing that I haven't had a Windows machine in over 2 decades at this point. I have had some MacBooks, but mainly because that is what companies would buy for me. My personal machines have been Ubuntu or derivative for a long time now. To the point that I don't even know what I'm missing in alternatives, anymore. Used to be it was games, Steam has been a blessing there.

Just OOC, do you currently run a stock Ubuntu distro or a derivative? (and if so, may I ask which one?)
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