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Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

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Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#91

Post by abdulhaq »

For a long time what I've wanted is to be free of devices altogether, instead displays and input mechanisms should be universally available. I should be able to walk up to a wall, sit at a desk, stand in the street, and summon up a display for me to work with, laid out appropriately according to what I am trying to do: listen to messages, paint a landscape, design a car. It should offer the same applications and data wherever I happen to be. Form factor and OS should become something invisible to 99.99% of users.

Until then, we can fully expect that 2021 will be the year of the linux desktop ;-)

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#92

Post by neilparikh »

donatj wrote: post #69

Back in the early 2000s I had the idea for a desktop OS where the local apps were all just http servers, and every OS “window” just a “browser”. My original idea involved a custom markup ui language akin to WPF because at the time HTML was not nearly as up to the task. HTML could probably handle it today. Between Electron, WebOS and ChromeOS some of the ideas have been tried but not to as high of a degree.

There's a library for this in Haskell: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/threepenny-gui

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#93

Post by nly »

For many years it's seemed pretty obvious to me that most people don't have a need for a laptop for 'real work', but could instead just drop their phones in to a slick little dock connected to a keyboard, mouse and a large touch screen. I believe this was the original vision behind Ubuntu Phone before it was pared-down and made boring.

Completely wireless pairing would be even better.

It seems like the hardware is good enough, the only thing really holding us back is that the software development environments on mobile platforms are primitive compared to anything on PC (Linux, macOS or Windows). It's hard to imagine developing anything like Photoshop on Android for example, and even office tools like Word are terrible on mobile.

Maybe Apple will make this happen someday.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#94

Post by fendy3002 »

ptidhomme wrote: post #86
ohazi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just try writing up a document on your phone! Just imagine what could be if they were on the level _desktops_? It's very, very difficult to beat a keyboard. Tablets and even phones become day vs. night more usable if you plug in a keyboard, even ignoring everything else that still sucks about them.

I used to write faster with my index finger + swype than with a keyboard (now I have an old iPhone) I find screen size to be a bigger advantage to desktop.

That's for sentences, but documents usually contains more than just sentences. Even document numbers have symbols and numbers which cannot take advantage of Swype tech

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#95

Post by Ygg2 »

ptidhomme wrote: post #86
ohazi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just try writing up a document on your phone! Just imagine what could be if they were on the level _desktops_? It's very, very difficult to beat a keyboard. Tablets and even phones become day vs. night more usable if you plug in a keyboard, even ignoring everything else that still sucks about them.

I used to write faster with my index finger + swype than with a keyboard (now I have an old iPhone) I find screen size to be a bigger advantage to desktop.

I tried writing non english words with those swipe keyboards (on Android, mind you). I had a horrible time.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#96

Post by fendy3002 »

nly wrote: post #93

For many years it's seemed pretty obvious to me that most people don't have a need for a laptop for 'real work', but could instead just drop their phones in to a slick little dock connected to a keyboard, mouse and a large touch screen. I believe this was the original vision behind Ubuntu Phone before it was pared-down and made boring. Completely wireless pairing would be even better. It seems like the hardware is go…

Umm, ms surface?

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#97

Post by neilparikh »

ggm wrote: post #4

If you can show me the invested COW cost of electron is low enough I can live in electron apps. If Microsoft re-works W10+ to be a thin shim over the kernel and Office works on Linux clean-port, not webapp, I'll be fine too. Mostly what people want is the plan9 plumber: the ability to point and select things, and have s/w contextually work out how to DTRT with it. This is ORM. Corba. whatever. Patents suck. If you de…

For those who haven't heard of plan9 plumber, here's a good video of it: https://vimeo.com/64487176

Pretty neat stuff.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#98

Post by nly »

fendy3002 wrote: post #96
nly wrote: post #93

For many years it's seemed pretty obvious to me that most people don't have a need for a laptop for 'real work', but could instead just drop their phones in to a slick little dock connected to a keyboard, mouse and a large touch screen. I believe this was the original vision behind Ubuntu Phone before it was pared-down and made boring. Completely wireless pairing would be even better. It seems like the hardware is go…

Umm, ms surface?

Surfaces are tablets with plug in keyboards. I'm talking about a cellular device that you can slip in your pocket

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#99

Post by rtpg »

wraptile wrote: post #65

Wow, I'm masively disappointed with this thread. We have so many different Desktop "OS's" already. There's hardly a need for a _revolution_; strong stability and support is needed but there's just no paying market for it by the looks of it. 4 biggest desktop environments are by mega corporations (apple, microsoft) and by big open-source collectives (Gnome, KDE). But is that it? No, there's also a bunch of tilling-win…

Here are some mobile concepts that I miss on OS:

- not thinking about files: I can open Notes/Drafts on my phone and get a textbox. I kinda get this with Joplin, barely.

- Real sandboxing, with a nice permission layer

- Extremely easy sharing of data between apps. Of course files are theoretically a great sharing mechanism, but the sharing mechanism in mobile OS's are the logical conclusion of the clipboard

- URIs that go deep into other apps. Lets you easily say "go over here to see details" from a completely separate system

The fact that lots of stuff are webapps lets you get pretty far on Desktop too but I think these metaphors are power user features that the desktop could learn from

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#100

Post by mastazi »

ptidhomme wrote: post #86
ohazi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just try writing up a document on your phone! Just imagine what could be if they were on the level _desktops_? It's very, very difficult to beat a keyboard. Tablets and even phones become day vs. night more usable if you plug in a keyboard, even ignoring everything else that still sucks about them.

I used to write faster with my index finger + swype than with a keyboard (now I have an old iPhone) I find screen size to be a bigger advantage to desktop.

If your typing speed on a keyboard is comparable to your typing speed on a phone, it sounds like you might have a lot to gain from learning touch typing, look it up. I was in your same situation not long ago
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