4 ms·

I like Apple's mobile devices but ever since the iPad turned out to be a giant iPhone instead of a true desktop/mobile hybrid, I'm scared as hell that they will

by nothis 10y ago

I like Apple's mobile devices but ever since the iPad turned out to be a giant iPhone instead of a true desktop/mobile hybrid, I'm scared as hell that they will lock down their desktop/laptop ecosystem the way they do with mobile. It's clear now that iOS is absorbing everything Mac. Now I'm trapped between MacOS, Windows 10 and maybe Google's Chrome environment. Linux, please take off. I wished the open source community had good interface/usability designers.

legodt 10y ago
Designer here. I and a lot of my colleagues love open source and what it stands for, but, the truth is, it is going to be very difficult to convert designers into hardcore open source advocates like coders/engineers can be when the tools we rely on every day are all closed source. Adobe creative suite, Rhino, proprietary render engines, and a bunch of other platforms designers use simply don't have open source alternatives competitive with market leaders, making conversion to open source very difficult for working professionals. The majority of the professional community for creating UX/UI do not have the tools to work in FOSS, so you aren't going to see many designers working for FOSS projects as result
- cyphar 10y ago
  > The majority of the professional community for creating UX/UI do not have the tools to work in FOSS, so you aren't going to see many designers working for FOSS projects as result Then put a call out for what tools you need replaced. Maybe even back GNU to hire people to do it. As a free software developer, I have no clue what you need in order to do good design work. From my perspective, inkscape works "good enough for me". But I'm not a designer. Free software communities require some give as well as take. The fact that there isn't a free software version of $tool is because nobody has given enough of an incentive to replace it (we're too busy replacing other proprietary tools or making our own tools better).
  - zepto 10y ago
    This sounds like a good encapsulation of the reason why Desktop Linux has died - it is good enough for engineering types who get satisfaction and value out of using it, but who have no idea how to make it useful for anyone outside of the programming community.
    - cyphar 10y ago
      That's not really a fair statement. Desktop GNU/Linux works for people who don't have incredibly specific requirements (like "Inkscape isn't enough, I have this $5000 software suite that nobody has replaced with free software yet"). LibreOffice + {Gnome,KDE} + {Chrome,Firefox} is enough for quite a few users "outside of the programming community". My girlfriend uses GNU/Linux (she has to use Windows now because my university requires some proprietary CAD software that I don't want to set up with WINE), several of my non-technical friends now use GNU/Linux. It's dishonest to claim that just because some professional designers aren't happy with the tools we have available right now on GNU/Linux that "Desktop Linux has died because programmers have no idea how to make it useful for anyone outside that community". I would downvote you if I could.
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        Yeah i think the problem for Linux on the desktop is not software but hardware. More specifically the issue of getting preinstalled Linux out on store shelves right next to Windows and OSX. In large part because there is no marketing machine to match Apple available, nor the deep pockets to get into a war of attrition with Microsoft. The closest we came was when Asus shipped their original EEEPC. And Microsoft wasted no time offering a specialized license for Windows XP so that OEMs could offer it instead. Keep in mind that MS had stopped offering XP, and was trying to sell Vista at the time. On top of that most stores have gotten damn used to the Apple MS duopoly. Thus anything thats not an Apple is a MS, with all the customer support problems that entails...
- ashitlerferad 10y ago
  FLOSS always has to start somewhere and there are definitely professional artists and designers that use the existing FLOSS tools. During the day, do your work with the tools you are used to. During the night, share a few design tips with open source folks and try out the FLOSS tools.
Analemma_ 10y ago
> Linux, please take off. Sorry, no can do. We have to complete the process of breaking everything with systemd, then as soon as that's done rewrite KDE and Gnome from scratch again.
- snuxoll 10y ago
  I swear, I must be the only person on the planet satisfied with the current state of systemd and GNOME 3. Fedora 23 is my main workstation OS and I have the least amount of friction getting my work done on it compared to either Windows or macOS these days. Then again, I mostly spend my day in IntelliJ, DataGrip, PyCharm, Firefox, a terminal, and a Windows VM for when I'm forced to open Visual Studio.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Well Fedora is basically systemd central, so no surprises there. Frankly if it continues the way it has, every distro becomes Fedora with the serial numbers filed off...
  - derefr 10y ago
    Count me in too. Among other reasons, because I administer both Linux and OSX systems—and the systemctl(8) utility is basically invocation-for-invocation identical to OSX's launchctl(8), so I never really have to context-switch.
  - noelsusman 10y ago
    You are not alone. I've been running Arch with GNOME as my main workhorse and I couldn't be happier. It just works.
  - AnonymousPlanet 10y ago
    Hmm, my impression of Gnome 3, so far, is that it's kind of a poster boy for ambitious design gone bad, visual as well as functional. On top of that, it seems to be very unstable (every minor update knocked out most of my plugins and I had to re-scramble to get a working desktop back together) and a security train wreck waiting to happen. Who thought it was a good idea to download plugins from a website that are basically JS code mashed into the existing code? Or has that changed recently? After approaching Gnome 3, Cinnamon, and Unity with an open mind, I'm a happy Unity user.
tylerflick 10y ago
There are some really great UI/UI designers out there for Linux distros. Check out https://numixproject.org/ https://numixproject.org/.
- groovy2shoes 10y ago
  Just because some UI looks pretty doesn't mean it's well-designed. I sat there staring at that page for like 2 minutes, trying to figure out where I was supposed to click to get more information, before I realized I had to scroll down. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I don't consider that good UI.
quadrangle 10y ago
try KDE 5 you might like it
SunShiranui 10y ago
It's not a solution to all of Linux's problems, but elementaryOS has good usability for me.
anonbanker 10y ago
Someone's never used KDE.

by nothis 10y ago

legodt 10y ago

Designer here. I and a lot of my colleagues love open source and what it stands for, but, the truth is, it is going to be very difficult to convert designers into hardcore open source advocates like coders/engineers can be when the tools we rely on every day are all closed source. Adobe creative suite, Rhino, proprietary render engines, and a bunch of other platforms designers use simply don't have open source alternatives competitive with market leaders, making conversion to open source very difficult for working professionals. The majority of the professional community for creating UX/UI do not have the tools to work in FOSS, so you aren't going to see many designers working for FOSS projects as result

cyphar 10y ago
> The majority of the professional community for creating UX/UI do not have the tools to work in FOSS, so you aren't going to see many designers working for FOSS projects as result Then put a call out for what tools you need replaced. Maybe even back GNU to hire people to do it. As a free software developer, I have no clue what you need in order to do good design work. From my perspective, inkscape works "good enough for me". But I'm not a designer. Free software communities require some give as well as take. The fact that there isn't a free software version of $tool is because nobody has given enough of an incentive to replace it (we're too busy replacing other proprietary tools or making our own tools better).
- zepto 10y ago
  This sounds like a good encapsulation of the reason why Desktop Linux has died - it is good enough for engineering types who get satisfaction and value out of using it, but who have no idea how to make it useful for anyone outside of the programming community.
  - cyphar 10y ago
    That's not really a fair statement. Desktop GNU/Linux works for people who don't have incredibly specific requirements (like "Inkscape isn't enough, I have this $5000 software suite that nobody has replaced with free software yet"). LibreOffice + {Gnome,KDE} + {Chrome,Firefox} is enough for quite a few users "outside of the programming community". My girlfriend uses GNU/Linux (she has to use Windows now because my university requires some proprietary CAD software that I don't want to set up with WINE), several of my non-technical friends now use GNU/Linux. It's dishonest to claim that just because some professional designers aren't happy with the tools we have available right now on GNU/Linux that "Desktop Linux has died because programmers have no idea how to make it useful for anyone outside that community". I would downvote you if I could.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Yeah i think the problem for Linux on the desktop is not software but hardware. More specifically the issue of getting preinstalled Linux out on store shelves right next to Windows and OSX. In large part because there is no marketing machine to match Apple available, nor the deep pockets to get into a war of attrition with Microsoft. The closest we came was when Asus shipped their original EEEPC. And Microsoft wasted no time offering a specialized license for Windows XP so that OEMs could offer it instead. Keep in mind that MS had stopped offering XP, and was trying to sell Vista at the time. On top of that most stores have gotten damn used to the Apple MS duopoly. Thus anything thats not an Apple is a MS, with all the customer support problems that entails...
ashitlerferad 10y ago
FLOSS always has to start somewhere and there are definitely professional artists and designers that use the existing FLOSS tools. During the day, do your work with the tools you are used to. During the night, share a few design tips with open source folks and try out the FLOSS tools.

Analemma_ 10y ago

> Linux, please take off. Sorry, no can do. We have to complete the process of breaking everything with systemd, then as soon as that's done rewrite KDE and Gnome from scratch again.

snuxoll 10y ago
I swear, I must be the only person on the planet satisfied with the current state of systemd and GNOME 3. Fedora 23 is my main workstation OS and I have the least amount of friction getting my work done on it compared to either Windows or macOS these days. Then again, I mostly spend my day in IntelliJ, DataGrip, PyCharm, Firefox, a terminal, and a Windows VM for when I'm forced to open Visual Studio.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Well Fedora is basically systemd central, so no surprises there. Frankly if it continues the way it has, every distro becomes Fedora with the serial numbers filed off...
- derefr 10y ago
  Count me in too. Among other reasons, because I administer both Linux and OSX systems—and the systemctl(8) utility is basically invocation-for-invocation identical to OSX's launchctl(8), so I never really have to context-switch.
- noelsusman 10y ago
  You are not alone. I've been running Arch with GNOME as my main workhorse and I couldn't be happier. It just works.
- AnonymousPlanet 10y ago
  Hmm, my impression of Gnome 3, so far, is that it's kind of a poster boy for ambitious design gone bad, visual as well as functional. On top of that, it seems to be very unstable (every minor update knocked out most of my plugins and I had to re-scramble to get a working desktop back together) and a security train wreck waiting to happen. Who thought it was a good idea to download plugins from a website that are basically JS code mashed into the existing code? Or has that changed recently? After approaching Gnome 3, Cinnamon, and Unity with an open mind, I'm a happy Unity user.

tylerflick 10y ago

There are some really great UI/UI designers out there for Linux distros. Check out https://numixproject.org/ https://numixproject.org/.

groovy2shoes 10y ago
Just because some UI looks pretty doesn't mean it's well-designed. I sat there staring at that page for like 2 minutes, trying to figure out where I was supposed to click to get more information, before I realized I had to scroll down. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I don't consider that good UI.

quadrangle 10y ago

try KDE 5 you might like it

SunShiranui 10y ago

It's not a solution to all of Linux's problems, but elementaryOS has good usability for me.

anonbanker 10y ago

Someone's never used KDE.