I still think the greatest innovation in Linux distros is package management.
On my computer, I believe that is called App $tore...
Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
71–80 of 94 posts
Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
#72I think it's really awesome that Linux is finally taking the lead with innovation on the desktop — Gnome-Shell and Unity are just the beginning. And, they are not "catch-up": they are released both before and with more interesting changes than Lion or (what we've seen of) Windows 8. However, what Cupertino and Redmond are up to isn't "nothing", it's just not the desktop. The Windows Phone "Metro" UI is downright amaz…
I own both a Galaxy S II (Android 2.3) and an iPhone 3GS. IMHO, Android has the lead on the user interface. Reuse of components and events provided by other apps is at the heart of Android, the system notifications are better, it has desktop widgets that are actually useful, keyboard interaction for writing text is better (I love copy/pasting or moving the text-cursor around on my Android) and you can use the back-bu…
But you are a bad user...
Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its true that the Unity UI was influenced by the Mac OS dock, but there have been a lot of UNIX UIs that were using docks all the way back into the 90s. Also, its not true that Compiz stole the Windows 7 snapping feature, that was in Beryl even before Windows Vista came out. They _did_ steal the Windows 7 auto-tiling and MacOS expose though - so you do have a point. Its sort of nice to see all the cross pollination b…
The first Windows had a dock in 1985. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2008/11/20/happy-annivers...
That's not a dock, that's a taskbar.
Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
before you got low UX, high customizability with Linux. now you get very comparable effects (customizable and evolving with 11.10 too) with all of the customizability and flexibility of Linux. I don't mind the UI/UX of my MBP, but I prefer both Unity and GNOME3 and my heavily customized GNOME2 installs. The app-indicators and control center in Ubuntu are actually easier to use than in OS X. ICS to my Xbox took 10 sec…
I too prefer a Linux desktop, but too many of the apps I rely on still aren't available. The day Photoshop and Ableton Live get ported is the day I switch back. I still haven't found a Linux distro that really behaves 100% reliably on a laptop either. Suspend/wake issues and flaky wireless behavior eventually became dealbreakers for me, even if the blame lies with the hardware vendors.
i like imagemagick, gimp, et al for 99% of my needs, but having ableton-like anything would be great, although the state of multimedia timing and the myriad combinations of audio subsystems, i hope someone can persevere.
Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
#75I think it's really awesome that Linux is finally taking the lead with innovation on the desktop — Gnome-Shell and Unity are just the beginning. And, they are not "catch-up": they are released both before and with more interesting changes than Lion or (what we've seen of) Windows 8. However, what Cupertino and Redmond are up to isn't "nothing", it's just not the desktop. The Windows Phone "Metro" UI is downright amaz…
I own both a Galaxy S II (Android 2.3) and an iPhone 3GS. IMHO, Android has the lead on the user interface. Reuse of components and events provided by other apps is at the heart of Android, the system notifications are better, it has desktop widgets that are actually useful, keyboard interaction for writing text is better (I love copy/pasting or moving the text-cursor around on my Android) and you can use the back-bu…
I actually don't understand this. Those are all features — good features — but that doesn't mean it has a good user experience. Android, when I use it, has lots of completely strange and unintuitive choices: a third of the OS in green/black, another third in orange/gray, and the last third in black/orange is the most obvious, but there are others: an unlock mechanism that acts before you lift your finger (unlike the rest of the OS); scrollbars in most apps that seem to "inchworm" along; over-used and confusingly-placed drop shadows in the Gmail app; gray, thin titlebars and thick "action bars" in other places; orange glows around the icons in the launcher but an orange, square backdrop in the home screen; unintuitive "glow" effect at the end of lists (after modeling physical motion for the list above, abruptly stopping is disconcerting: it feels like the list has not reached it's natural end, but smashed into something).
There's more, but while Android does have a lot of really awesome features, the interface and UX don't appear like anyone bothered to even try and design them.
Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
#76After using modern smartphones and tablet computers I'm starting to think that the last thing we need is more innovation in how to manage lots of little windows on a medium sized screen.
I don't want another window manager, even if it auto-tiles for me or has a really gosh-darn nifty way of hiding and revealing them. I want innovation in devices and apps that are designed to operate full-screen on all of them. It's as if I want a "tear off" function for windows that literally tears it right off the desktop monitor so I can put it in my pocket or shoulder-bag, or hang it on a wall, or prop it up next to a book. This is what the iPad and the iPhone have done to me.
Tabs, windows, task-bars, Expose, Spaces, ribbons and others are now making me feel like geeks are congratulating themselves on discovering a really nifty new way to organize their sock drawers and lunch-boxes.
The future of "the desktop" are cheap, wireless, mobile displays. Window managers should be replaced with pockets, wall hooks and stands.
Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
#77Sadly, the article completely fails to mention the amazingly useful innovations made by tiling window managers like wmii, ion3 and xmonad. Granted, they're not as new as Unity et al, but they offer a compelling, complete and fairly radical departure from tradition, and one that I really do miss on OS X.
Windows 1 used tiled windows (MS programmers didn't learn how to overlap windows until Windows 2) and Emacs has them since the 70's. I am not sure if tiling windows could be called innovation.
The first version (Windows 1.0) featured a tiling window manager, partly because of litigation by Apple claiming ownership of the overlapping window desktop metaphor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager#History
Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
#78Can we just get something simple like the ability to undo window changes? Undo: z-order, window activate/focus change, position, window moves, resizing. How many times did you bring a bunch of windows to the front and then accidentally click on window in the background? We could use an easy to remember shortcut key like Windows/Apple/Super + Z and + Y to redo.
Emacs have it. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/WinnerMode
Can we also get a way to move windows on the z axis or change its z-order? Windows/Apple/Super + scroll wheel. I want to push back or pull windows.
How about a way to multi-select windows (like Ctrl/Command + click with files/listboxes) and move or tile only selected windows?
Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
#79After using modern smartphones and tablet computers I'm starting to think that the last thing we need is more innovation in how to manage lots of little windows on a medium sized screen. I don't want another window manager, even if it auto-tiles for me or has a really gosh-darn nifty way of hiding and revealing them. I want innovation in devices and apps that are designed to operate full-screen on all of them. It's a…
That is all well and good if you are passive user but when it come time to do some work on a computer you will likely need to use more then one application at a time and some way to manage all these application easily so that you can keep task organized and easily switch between them.
Re: Linux: The Source of All Desktop Innovation
#80This article didn't really get into the part I most care about, the incredible range of custom window managers you can find that work for various *NIXes. The fact that the way X is set up allows you to roll your own window manager so easily has really allowed a froth of new ideas to be tried out - and the best ideas to be incorporated into the big desktop environments and Mac and Windows. I was sort of worried that t…
I agree that the incredible range of custom window managers (WMs) is a very interesting aspect of *NIXes and a source of innovation. I can't however agree with your initial worries about Wayland.
Wayland actually makes it easier to roll out your own window manager than X11. The Wayland protocol is a lot more straightforward and has fewer extensions. You no longer have to deal with XRender, XDamage, XComposite, etc. You also don't need to think about setups where some of these extensions are missing.
It also does away with network transparency and replaces the protocol with a simpler, more unified OpenGL ES based solution. You have more freedom to develop something original as you aren't stuck in X11's rendering system which is a glorified painters algorithm. You can use XComposite to obtain more freedom under X11 but so far few window managers use it (compiz, KWin, metacity). The default for Wayland is very similar to what you find in XComposite but is faster (given a decent video card driver) and simpler.
The only drawback to Wayland is that it is rather new and the protocol hasn't been finalized. As soon as it gains wider adoption and there are a few example Window Managers, expect to see some interesting and innovative WMs.