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What killed the Linux desktop

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Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#341

Post by demallien »

vacri wrote: post #331
nirvana wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know how you get that interpretation from the parent post. Only having to worry about one degree of freedom in your movement is much easier / faster than having to manage two.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#342

Post by buntar »

Miguels affection towards his iPhone is a bit unconsidered and superficial.

But anyway, a more interesting question could be: What does it take to bring an ex-linux user and now happy OSX user back to linux?

I used Windows for 3 years, then linux for 2 years. During that time I did a lot of installations (mostly ubuntu and debian) on a lot of different devices. During this time, while fighting with drivers, minor display problems, and spoiled windows users I lost my faith in linux as a desktop os and switched to OSX.

I can just speak for myself, but this few points would bring me back to linux in no time.

Presenting Distribution "Utopia"

1. No X11 based display stack, it is replaced with something conceptually simpler (like cocoa).

2. (Multiple) monitor recognition 100% accurate. (Probably connected to Pt. 1)

3. The audio setup is not much worse then the one of OSX.

4. Throwing Gnome and everything that is based on Glib out. It's 2012 there alternatives to faking oo with C. Qt isn't allowed either.

5. Throwing APT out. No more dependency management for a desktop OS please. Then kill Perl as requirement for running an os.

Ahhhhh, I feel better now :-). This is the opposite of what Miguel demanded, he cares for backward compatibility.

When I think about it. "Utopia" would be similar to Android. No fear to throw old stuff out.

Android as a foundation for a new desktop linux?

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#343

Post by vacri »

demallien wrote: post #341
vacri wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know how you get that interpretation from the parent post. Only having to worry about one degree of freedom in your movement is much easier / faster than having to manage two.

In the example, the user doesn't have to make a horizontal adjustment at all - the cursor conveniently stops right on target.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#344

Post by patrickaljord »

alpeb wrote: post #259
patrickaljord wrote: post #45

What killed it is that it didn't have a huge and multi-billion dollar company betting on it (on the desktop) like Microsoft and Apple had, even Apple with its billions is still around 5% market share worldwide so having 1% is still a great accomplishment when you think that it had no support from huge corporations. Now take the mobile world for example, Linux on mobile had been around for a decade but it never really…

Redhat and Canonical are big companies that did bet the house on Linux. A few years back I was confident Canonical was what desktop Linux needed to get its shit together. And today I'm typing this on a Zareason laptop that's supposed to provide 1st class support for Ubuntu (even has an Ubuntu key), and the mic doesn't work, Fn keys don't work, youtube videos appear in monochrome blue, and it likes to boot itself up r…

> Redhat and Canonical are big companies that did bet the house on Linux.

No, RedHat bet the house on server Linux, never on desktop. Canonical did bet the house on desktop linux bit it's a tiny company that has yet to turn a profit (or a significant one).

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#345

Post by fuzzix »

mbell wrote: post #239
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…

Coming from the perspective of a developer: I used linux as my only OS sans VMs from roughly 2008 till 2011. I finally gave up because it handled monitor switching, multiple monitors so poorly (using Nvidia GPU). I begrudgingly switched to windows because I owned the hardware already, and it was the only option. Windows sucks, the lack of a usable shell kills it, full stop, nothing else windows does matters. And no,…

"using Nvidia GPU"

Yup, still no xrandr support which makes any on-the-fly monitor config changes very difficult or impossible.

Sometimes, if you use twinview and nvidia-settings from the start and if the moon is aligned just right, you can dynamically configure monitors / video ports. Sometimes.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#346

Post by zwdr »

Thats just bullshit. The Linux desktop maybe isn't broadly accepted or mainstream, but I dont see the Problem in that- after all Linux remains a system for power users, even if some Distros want to change that. And there really is no better desktop environment for those people than the Linux desktop. Windows is shit incarnated, so lets not even begin to talk about it. What remains? Mac OS. Sure, it has a more accessible GUI, but not a more efficient one. I cant think of something more elegant than a tiling wm, be it awesome, wmii or xmonad. Everything based on moving a cursor just feels awkward in comparison to the simplicity of ~5-10 keyboard shortcuts. And tiling also means that I always have everything in front of me. Fumbling around to find some window is HORROR.

I think the Linux desktop simply has more options for experienced users. I simply see no way how I could be more productive with a GUI designed to cater to lusers.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#347

Post by coffeeaddicted »

alpeb wrote: post #259
patrickaljord wrote: post #45

What killed it is that it didn't have a huge and multi-billion dollar company betting on it (on the desktop) like Microsoft and Apple had, even Apple with its billions is still around 5% market share worldwide so having 1% is still a great accomplishment when you think that it had no support from huge corporations. Now take the mobile world for example, Linux on mobile had been around for a decade but it never really…

Redhat and Canonical are big companies that did bet the house on Linux. A few years back I was confident Canonical was what desktop Linux needed to get its shit together. And today I'm typing this on a Zareason laptop that's supposed to provide 1st class support for Ubuntu (even has an Ubuntu key), and the mic doesn't work, Fn keys don't work, youtube videos appear in monochrome blue, and it likes to boot itself up r…

To fix the blue youtube videos: Create a file /etc/adobe/mms.cfg and put the following 2 lines in it:

EnableLinuxHWVideoDecode=1

OverrideGPUValidation=true

Some people will probably tell you all kind of reasons why this is bad, but it works.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#348

Post by roblev »

_delirium wrote: post #104
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…

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…

One significant difference between linux and windows/mac is the planning around features and the outreach. I work for a large organisation. The number of times a linux group has come round to our office to discuss what features are up-and-coming, or should be developed? None. The number of times Microsoft staff have done the same? Some.

Now I don't really expect linux volunteers to do this, but equally I don't really expect any linux distro to provide a coherent business desktop because they are not talking to their "customers" in the same way that their competition is. And the business desktop is a large market, if a bit unsexy.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#349

Post by lazyjones »

ajross wrote: post #250
lazyjones wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no .fonts directory and this is a desktop machine - I want to install the font system-wide. Plus, the problem with half the running applications not seeing the font still exists. So I'm not a technical user for you because I insist that such things should not require no more attention than a double click on the font file? Technical users aren't by definition masochists who take the longest route just because…

Are you for real? In what universe is "mkdir ~/.fonts; mv .ttf ~/fonts" (or "sudo cp .ttf /usr/share/fonts" if you want them system wide) the "longest route"? So fine, you didn't know this trick. No shame there. But you're willing to click around trying to discover the feature in your GUI (and expect the desktop to hold your hand trying to do it!) yet won't take 30 seconds to google for "install linux fonts". (I just…

I get tired of repeating myself.

I found out what to do to install the fonts and it cost me precious time unnecessarily (~20 mins total until all issues were resolved - and by the way, Consolas with antialiasing still looks crap because Debian apparently ignores subpixel hinting [guessing]). That is the point.

Your proposed solution does not fix the (totally unnecessary) issue of running applications not seeing the new fonts. This is just broken.

My skills, memory, learning efforts are better spent developing stuff, not finding out what needs to be done in the current Linux FOTM's half-assed GUI to install fonts (KDE installs them on double-click e.g.). There is no "inability to learn" on my behalf involved, just unwillingness to spend time on things that can be and should be simple and straightforward and where the cumbersome Linux solutions are certainly no precious skill to have.

The rudeness and arrogance of you evangelists just drives away more users, by the way.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#350

Post by batista »

gizzlon wrote: post #332
batista wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, I got Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store, which is even bigger than Gnome (kernel + userland + stuff).
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