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What killed the Linux desktop

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Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#81

Post by acomar »

brigade wrote: post #29
jrockway wrote: post #9

I've used Linux for years and have never had these problems. I think the issue is that getting everything working requires a deep understanding of each component and the system as a whole. If you just follow advice on forums, you will make things worse because you're doing things you don't understand to a system that you don't understand. That's not going to lead to success. You need to be able to think critically ab…

So... one of his key problems is that when (not if) things break, you need to learn more than you ever wanted to know about the low-level internals of an OS to fix it. And you say you've never had that had that problem; you should have a deep understanding of each component and the system as a whole in order to be able to use Linux. But that's exactly one of the major problems he's complaining about!

It's a different philosophy. Some of us come at it from the perspective that we want to know how our machine works. And when something goes wrong, we want to dig into it and fix it ourselves. The monolithic and opaque OSs that "just work" aren't for us. Oddly, the only place I've seen this attitude described/explained is in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#82

Post by alberich »

batista wrote: post #46
nirvana wrote: post #25

I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. Before I go on, let me say that Design is NOT "making it look pretty". In fact, thinking that this is what design is, is what leads many linux advocates to reject the needs of design. Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to fu…

> I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. I'm not sure he is missing it, even if he doesn't name it explicitly on the post. For one, he was always pro good design (and trying to get the good design parts of other systems), but also, when he laments the anarchy and lack of long te…

> when he laments the anarchy and lack of long term planning on the Linux side

Maybe that is what really makes Linux struggle as a desktop. Fragmentation. It really sucks to have to install hundreds of libraries to run an app because you run Gnome but it was made for KDE. It's always unconfortable to change environments because it's not just different looks, it is different ways of doing things.

Some users and hackers do like choice, but most common users don't, because it is reduces the number of things to learn. You don't have to copy MS Win or OS X to be good, but consistency is good, and unless you select a subset of Linux desktop (and its related apps) you will be missing a more consistent user experience.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#83

Post by Derbasti »

untog wrote: post #36
nirvana wrote: post #25

I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. Before I go on, let me say that Design is NOT "making it look pretty". In fact, thinking that this is what design is, is what leads many linux advocates to reject the needs of design. Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to fu…

Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. [...] Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to function well. Actually, I'd say the same of Windows, if not more so. I far prefer the Windows 7 interface to OSX, it's just stuff like the terminal/command prompt that really lets Windows down.

I absolutely agree. I actually prefer the graphical shell of Windows 7 to the one of OSX Lion. But Windows does not have a Unix terminal.

And I think that is the main point here: Linux might lack design graphically, but the Linux command line is about the most beautiful thing out there. There is an abundance of elegance there is probably only rivaled by some Lisp machine.

Who knows, maybe, I will switch from OSX to Linux because of that at some point. It is certainly tempting.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#84

Post by nicholassmith »

freyrs3 wrote: post #62
nirvana wrote: post #25

I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. Before I go on, let me say that Design is NOT "making it look pretty". In fact, thinking that this is what design is, is what leads many linux advocates to reject the needs of design. Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to fu…

> Design is about usability and understanding the user Here's the point you're missing. The overwhelming majority Linux users don't give a flying hoot about the average user or mass adoption. They just want a system that gets out of their way and let's them do their technical tasks. Linux succeeds and excels at this because it is precisely designed for that niche and curated by its end-users. There are however people…

I actually ditched Linux as a primary OS as it didn't get out of my way, I had to spend way too much time burying into the system to get the results I needed. That can in a few cases be attributed to poor design, the thought process seems often to be "I get this piece of design fine, everyone else will".

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#85

Post by rufugee »

nirvana wrote: post #25

I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. Before I go on, let me say that Design is NOT "making it look pretty". In fact, thinking that this is what design is, is what leads many linux advocates to reject the needs of design. Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to fu…

I'm sorry..I strongly disagree. You have me on the video support...OS X does a much better job there. You even have a point on audio drivers...they can be a pain at times. But design? Gnome 3 and Unity to me are FAR superior to OS X in terms of UI experience. YMMV of course. I bought a Macbook, gave it a fair shot, and it ended up being a dust collector simply because the desktop experience was painful compared to Ubuntu or Fedora (well, that and the fact that I got maybe three hours of the supposed 7 hour battery, and the fact that I can't upgrade it past 4 GB of ram o.O). Perhaps I'm set in my ways, but the absolute insanse window switching behavior, the piss poor excuse for a terminal, the fact that apps continue to run in the background after you close the last window, and the general SLOW performance made my $2500 investment one I'll regret for very long time. Switching to a Lenovo running Ubuntu was a far better (and MUCH cheaper) experience.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#87

Post by antihero »

It's still very much alive if you don't give a shit about normal UX conventions or popularity, and there are hundreds of thousands of excellent 3rd party applications that run perfectly.

It's getting really irritating when someone who's jumped ship to OSX declares it "dead" because they have a shiny iDevice and an expensive laptop.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#88

Post by j-kidd »

stevencorona wrote: post #11

In like 2006 I switched from Windows XP to Linux. This was before Ubuntu was what it is today. I learned using Slackware and eventually switched to Gentoo. It was cool and gave me nerd cred when I went to college. I switched to OSX for exactly the reasons the author mentioned. The fact that I have an awesome UI + ability to use the shell all day is a huge win for me.

As someone who uses the shell all day, I found that there is no alternative for portage and Konsole.

And since most things are web-based now, a vanilla KDE setup + Icon-Only Task Manager is awesome enough for me.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#89

Post by zerostar07 »

Could it be that the main issue is the lack of leadership? We don't have many linux kernels yet we have dozens of incompatible desktop configurations and the list keeps growing. I think if there was a clear winner in the desktop wars, desktop apps would be of much higher quality.

And also the horrible aping of other environments and stupid UI eyecandy. Given that the majority of linux users and developers are technical, that's surprising.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#90

Post by slogdrat »

stevencorona wrote: post #11

In like 2006 I switched from Windows XP to Linux. This was before Ubuntu was what it is today. I learned using Slackware and eventually switched to Gentoo. It was cool and gave me nerd cred when I went to college. I switched to OSX for exactly the reasons the author mentioned. The fact that I have an awesome UI + ability to use the shell all day is a huge win for me.

The machine that ran Windows XP can run Linux (http://wiki.debian.org/Hardware). So you can switch to Linux any time.

However, people cannot switch to OSX. The machine that ran Windows XP and Linux WILL NOT run OSX. So, no, you didn't switch to OSX, you purchased new hardware that is strictly controlled (motherboard, video card, etc).

Then, in an incredible blunder, de Icaza said, "Many hackers moved to OSX... working audio, working video drivers, codecs for watching movies..."

Uhhhh, yeah, if Linux gave up on supporting scores of hardware platforms and hundreds or thousands of hardware components, OF COURSE it would have working audio, video drivers, and codecs.

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