Posted on 04/10/2013 5:50:05 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Takeaway: Is the Linux desktop really a “mess” as some pundits call it? Jack Wallen takes issue with this claim and explains why he thinks the desktop is getting a bad rap.
It seems nearly every pundit, every mouthpiece on the planet has decided that the Linux desktop is a “mess.” This “downfall” of the Linux desktop started with GNOME 3 and seemed to gain more momentum with Ubuntu Unity. I have a theory — and an idea for a fix.
Linux is all about choice. It’s always been that way; from the earliest inception of the desktop, the Linux community has enjoyed CFE, AfterStep, FluxBox, XFCE, Enlightenment, KDE, LXDE, Cinnamon …
Oh, and GNOME and Ubuntu Unity.
Actually, the list goes on and on.
I’ve used almost every Linux desktop — some good, some not so good. To say that GNOME 3 and Unity are a “mess,” well, I’m not sure I get that. When KDE 4 first arrived — that was a mess (it has, since then, come a long, long way). Windows 8 — that is a mess. But both GNOME 3 and Ubuntu Unity? Both are solid, stable desktops that not only work well, but help to make the user focus on the work and the keyboard. Both desktops are efficient. But different and unique.
But wait, doesn’t the Linux community thrive on that?
My theory is simple (and it’s one I’ll probably get blasted for):
The whole “mess” centers on GNOME 3 and Unity. They are the two key players in the battle. If you think about it, it’s not that GNOME 3 and Unity are all that different — it’s that they took on one of the favorite desktops (what is now called Classic GNOME) and radically altered it. So users of GNOME 2.x are forced to use something new and change the way they work.
Different.
The majority of Linux users are, at the core, much like other users — they don’t like change. I was always one of those who jumped from desktop to desktop, just for the fun of it. I enjoyed trying new things and seeing what each interface had to offer. Even though Enlightenment still stands as one of my all time favorite interfaces, I use Unity — because it’s so different (and it has some features that I’ve grown reliant upon). I have fond memories of experiencing the Minimalism of FluxBox and the trickery that can be used with AfterStep. But that’s not the way of the average user. The average user (and I don’t mean this as if it’s a bad thing) gloms onto one idea (or, in this case, interface) and holds on for dear life.
When KDE 4 first came out, the KDE community was in an uproar — and the differences between KDE 3 and 4 are minimal — relatively speaking. Eventually KDE 4 won over the hearts of the community and the desktop just keeps getting better and better. When GNOME 3 arrived, it looked as if it could have been a huge success, but then politics came into play, and the users felt like the developers weren’t listening to them… and in the end, you have a desktop that is actually quite good, but no one wants to use.
Unity has the same issue — with the added bonus of being strapped down by the backlash of a community that feels like Canonical is doing whatever it wants to Ubuntu Linux without a care or concern about their users.
Everyone just wants to go back to Classic GNOME and be done with it. Well, not everyone. In comparison to what we have now, Classic GNOME would look and feel like a dinosaur (to me, at least). So, yes, I am saying it seems as if it would take a giant step backwards to appease the majority of the Linux community.
We cannot afford to take even the tiniest step backward.
So, what is the solution? Simple: Merge GNOME 3 and Ubuntu Unity. Take the best of both and code them into a single, wonder-filled desktop. Bring the minds and talents of the developers of both teams together and have at it. Maybe the layout of GNOME 3, Unity’s Dash, the GNOME 3 notification system and pager, the Unity HUD, the GNOME 3 compositor, and so on. Set aside the whole Wayland/Mir debacle, come up with a plan, and create a desktop every member of the Linux community would be proud to use.
I know, the politics of the idea would hit critical mass and it would be nightmare to maneuver. But if done properly, it could win back the masses and continue the forward motion started by both desktops.
There are a lot of Linux users out there holding onto grudges because one desktop or another slighted their project or their favorite tool. It’s time we let go of that grudge and start thinking of the future. Linux is on a major precipice that could see it winning over a huge amount of users. With Windows 8 continuing to fail (and Microsoft doing nothing about it), the Linux community needs to look upon the current stagnation at Microsoft and take advantage of it. Merge, work together, accept, move on — whatever you have to do to look into the future and help the Linux desktop to get back on track.
Well said. Especially the car example.
And let’s not forget the cell phones that want to make you think they are computers and are so jazzed up you can’t even make a dam call!
Or the computers that want to convince you they are movie theatres or recording studios!
The majority of people who use computers are not technical, AND THEY DON’T WANT TO BE!
They want their computer to be like the old TV’s.
Those TV’s had:
An on/off button
A rotary dial for the channels.
People these days still want much the same.
An on/off button.
One channel to get/send email
One channel to see pics of the grandkids
One channel to show them the weather
One channel to show highlights of last nights Lakers game
They don’t want to know about SUDO’s and program fixes and hacker attacks!!
And NO MATTER WHAT they do, when they turn their machine off and then turn it back on, it should GO BACK TO THE STATE IT WAS IN when they first turned it on.They can still see their emails (maybe out on the Cloud), but Javascript or Flash or some other bastid didn’t come along and wipe out their hard drive or hijack their internet connection.
It’s very poor design, whether it be Windows or Linux, to let some application tweak the registry or modify functionality without thorough testing and acceptance. Any decent SDLC (software development life cycle) person can tell you that.
Not possible.
The beauty of Linux, is that you can do things your way. One desktop may suit one way of working, while another suits something else.
i use XFCE at work because I need a more minimalist environment there, while at home I'm generally happy with KDE and like the way it works. I love KIOSlaves
I like the fact that you have at least 2, (some would argue 3 or more), major desktops that work in different ways. Competition is what works, and makes things better in the end.
Most companies do not, cannot, and never intended to try to make a profit with 99% of their workforce dinking around with the operating system kinks and barbs for 99% of their time.
Businesses need STABLE desktop and laptop operating systems and applications to conduct THEIR BUSINESS, to read and write business stuff, to send and receive email, to move files from one system to another (usually across multiple platforms), to design stuff, buy stuff, sell stuff, etc., etc.; none of which is enhanced by having everyone tinkering with the operating system all day, every day.
Many of us have wasted days, nights, and weekends playing techie since the days of DOS 0.00001, and it doesn't move the economy forward. It eventually puts us 17 Trillion in debt.
Believe it or not, I still have a faded, old 6 inch floppy that says... “IBM DOS 1.2” on the label. Single sided, 160KB.
>DEBUG
Them was the daze!!
I hardly think OSes put this country into debt.
PCLinuxOS LXDE version runs super fast on my ancient T40 laptop. The KDE version runs extremely well on my ten-year-old Dell desktop. And if I — a non-geek — can do Linux, anybody can do Linux. You don’t have to be a command-line guru anymore.
Well, that, plus jack-leg coders masquerading as programmers, analysts, DBAs, and managers.
Lets go back to when windows 3.0 was introduced ...I can remeber lots of folks that just could not handle.....IT,
If a user can handle the Firefox browser,....there is practically nothing to learn.
Now there were some real messes getting customers moved from one to the other.
Massive amount of planning and trouble shooting.
LuninuX also has it.
I really like how it works for me.
The Window Manager for Gnome3 is Mutter - is that your question?
I am not sure whether it is a window manager or a workspace manager.
But that might give me a clue.
Prior to trying Korora I was running Mint with the Compiz rotating cube and Mint was not interested in keeping it as a basic default,...so I went looking.
I will do some checking now that I have a name.
Good. I stand corrected, and pleased actually, since linux used to be tough to setup and deal with. It needs to be seamless to install and use for the average user, is all I’m saying.
Agreed; I always get the feeling that the operating system (and tools) are working against me when I use Linux.
You do not get productivity out of changing (or ENHANCING) user interfaces.
Windows 8 should be just another point proving that.
mainframe systems engineer since 1985!!!
Nice; I hear mainframes have extremely stable software-stacks, many using COBOL.. and having uptime for services measured in years. That's a world of difference from Desktop Application development... though it would be mitigated/alleviated somewhat if "the industry" were concerned with correctness [& maintainability].
They can’t maintain this kind of cross-platform workability.
Cell phones are schizophrenic, they don’t know if they are supposed to be phones, computers, Facebook interfaces, GPS devices, or toasters!
Same with much if not most of the new hardware coming out.
Hey, a single approach over all these types of devices is a great idea, but it’s just not going to work! They are functionally different.
And I don’t give a rats rear end if Java runs on all those things. Java has been junk since the word go. Another good idea that had bad implementation.
Partitioning is the most complex ( it seems to me ) but Ubuntu has it worked out pretty well....and a lot of Distros are using the same scheme.
Viewing the use of Linux as a 90% web browser.
Driving printers ( I haven't gotten my HP photosmart AIO printer to work for me.)But I have little use for it and I do have a windows laptop that handles it.
There is an interesting Beta project that may be a real answer when they get it further along.
Check out :
Qubes OS is a security-oriented, Fedora-based desktop Linux distribution whose main concept is "security by isolation" by using domains implemented as lightweight Xen virtual machines. It attempts to combine two contradictory goals: how to make the isolation between domains as strong as possible, mainly due to clever architecture that minimises the amount of trusted code, and how to make this isolation as seamless and easy as possible.
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To get it installed ,,,,it is not much different,....to really set up....well I am looking at it.
If you install it on a Hard Drive,...make sure that is the onld drive in your system,...
I think it messed up the mbr when I put it up on mine without disconnecting the other drives....
But it is a Beta.
Not yet ready ....although I fire it up to access my online banking with the included Firefox Browser.
The machines that run the web...the servers have a very high percentage of Linux as the operating systems and nearly all of the top 500 supercomputers run Linux or some Unix OS.
HP printer drivers are weird.
I went through the gates of hell trying to get my Officejet V40 running under Windows XP.
But it ran fine under Windows 2000 SP4!
Didn’t make sense to me then, and still doesn’t but it works and I got enough other stuff to wonder about so I ain’t gonna sweat it...
Nope.
Cell phones are schizophrenic, they don’t know if they are supposed to be phones, computers, Facebook interfaces, GPS devices, or toasters!
This is true; though I think there was similar situations w/ early PCs [and nonstandard-that-became-standard] hardware.
Interesting how some of the software was set-up for hardware that never became popular; example: DOS INT 10, AH = $04 VIDEO - READ LIGHT PEN POSITION
Same with much if not most of the new hardware coming out.
This is true; and what's kind of sad is there've been some very interesting hardware -- the Rekursiv processor (OOP in the chip, basically), the Symbolics LISP Machine (custom hardware, the OS in LISP, with the ability to do real-time patching of the OS while in-use), the R-1000 (a custom-built minicomputer for Ada programming)
Hey, a single approach over all these types of devices is a great idea, but it’s just not going to work! They are functionally different.
A single approach is feasible [in a sense] with something like Ada, which was designed for large software projects (packages/generics play nicely together for making SW components) and the language spec allows construction of compilers that reject the source-code if it is unable to compiler it (e.g. trying to use Type K is Range 0..2**32-1 on an 8-bit processor). [The formals of a generic package can require another package -- so if you made your photography subsystem dependent on the camera package (device driver) you could build a whole cell-phone framework.]
That level of design is, quite frankly, not really even considered in most SW development these days. (Unsurprising given how much is done on Desktop Applications or *shudder* javascript or PHP*.)
And I don’t give a rats rear end if Java runs on all those things. Java has been junk since the word go. Another good idea that had bad implementation.
I tend to agree... though the JVM is separate from the language which means you can have other languages compile to the JVM, so it might not be quite as bad as it would otherwise be -- though in-practice you'd be hardpressed to find a company using a non-Java language targeting the JVM {Much like C# & .NET}.
* How can you expect a program to work when you you're assigning "random-shit" to variables? -- John Carmack, QuakeCon 2011@~15:45
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