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> In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system In my view GNU/Linux distributions are still miles away from Windows 10 in

by wolfgke 10y ago

> In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system In my view GNU/Linux distributions are still miles away from Windows 10 in consistency across the entire system.

morganvachon 10y ago
One of the reasons I use Elementary OS despite my ambivalence towards systemd is the consistency. It's not your typical Linux desktop experience, it's much more cohesive than Windows or even macOS. I have my main workstation booting both Windows 10 (which I do enjoy) and Elementary, and I find myself only booting into Windows to play certain Steam games that won't install on Linux. Give Elementary a go, you may be surprised.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > One of the reasons I use Elementary OS despite my ambivalence towards systemd is the consistency. I wrote "consistency across the entire system". I immediately believe that they did a lot of GUI polish and polishing of the default apps. But polishing the GUI of a POSIX-like system does not deliver consistency (only GUI polish). There is still the whole UNIX-like subsurface (like it or not), which delivers completely different abstractions than the GUI does (this is clearly not consistent). For example rio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_(windowing_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_(windowing_system)) implements Windowing as private namespace (a central element of Plan 9) - very consistent. BeOS (for which currently under the name HaikuOS they try to reimplement it in an open source way) is another example of an OS which was designed from beginning on to have a GUI and is thus also very consistent.
  - morganvachon 10y ago
    Yep, I get it, and as I said I'm still not sold on systemd and therefore use Elementary with the knowledge that if it breaks and I have to fix it, I'll have to deal with that massive tumor. The great thing about Elementary is, if all you need is a ⁎nix system with a consistent GUI for something like web development but without buying Apple's premium hardware, it really shines. The Terminal app is the best I've used on any OS, and while the text editor isn't quite a full fledged programmer's editor, it's good enough for a lackey like me. I figured out that Geany is overkill for my needs, and Scratch handles all my use cases fine. I do think they try a bit too hard to look like macOS, but if you're going for the best desktop Linux experience, why not copy the best commercial ⁎nix desktop? I agree completely about BeOS/Haiku; BeOS was my daily driver for several years until the death of the company caused me to have to move on. I have yet to find a modern OS that even comes close to that kind of cohesive, sensible, practical approach to desktop computing. Haiku is coming along well, but it's still not stable enough for daily use beyond dogfooding for Haiku devs.
j_koreth 10y ago
In my experience, GNU/Linux distros do not usually include 3 seperate GUI settings windows with completely differing GUI's just to manage devices.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > In my experience, GNU/Linux distros do not usually include 3 seperate GUI settings I have never seen a GNU/Linux distribution where I didn't have to configure some things via modification of configuration files in a text editor. Even these two differences (GUI vs. text file editing) is much more different than a few different design styles in Windows' control panel. Also the way settings are set in configuration files is IMHO even more different among different GNU/Linux applications than the different design styles in Windows' control panel.
flukus 10y ago
How is windows 10 consistent? Half the apps are metro ones that fullscreen (pdf viewer) and half are still win32. Some work well on touch screen others horribly. Windows 10 is a frankenOS.
- TheNobleRobot 10y ago
  Hello, time traveler from 2012 who is actually describing Windows 8.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Nope, I skipped windows 8 almost entirely. I'm talking about windows 10 in 2016, it's still a kludged together mess of a touch based mobile OS and a full desktop OS.
    - kylealden 10y ago
      This is a bit confusing. Your comments are factually incorrect (there are no forced-full-screen apps in Windows 10, and the default PDF reader is Edge, which is windowed by default and was designed from the ground up for Windows 10, never for Windows 8 or "Metro"), or at least outdated. It's a bit of a blemish that there are two control panels, but almost no users are ever exposed to Win32. You can do virtually everything (from updates to domain join to adding/removing Windows components) from the modern Settings app. The legacy control panel is just that, and is irrelevant for most users. I'd love to see it modernized, but there are many much better uses of resources (security! performance! battery life!) than modernizing 90s-era utilities that few customers are ever exposed to.
  - mrweasel 10y ago
    Just look at the control panels, there's actually two of them in Windows 10, one Metro, and one win32. Some settings are only available in one, some only in the other.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > How is windows 10 consistent? Windows 10 isn't a good example of consistency, but every GNU/Linux distribution I have seen is much worse.

by wolfgke 10y ago

> In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system In my view GNU/Linux distributions are still miles away from Windows 10 in consistency across the entire system.

morganvachon 10y ago

One of the reasons I use Elementary OS despite my ambivalence towards systemd is the consistency. It's not your typical Linux desktop experience, it's much more cohesive than Windows or even macOS. I have my main workstation booting both Windows 10 (which I do enjoy) and Elementary, and I find myself only booting into Windows to play certain Steam games that won't install on Linux. Give Elementary a go, you may be surprised.

wolfgke 10y ago
> One of the reasons I use Elementary OS despite my ambivalence towards systemd is the consistency. I wrote "consistency across the entire system". I immediately believe that they did a lot of GUI polish and polishing of the default apps. But polishing the GUI of a POSIX-like system does not deliver consistency (only GUI polish). There is still the whole UNIX-like subsurface (like it or not), which delivers completely different abstractions than the GUI does (this is clearly not consistent). For example rio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_(windowing_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_(windowing_system)) implements Windowing as private namespace (a central element of Plan 9) - very consistent. BeOS (for which currently under the name HaikuOS they try to reimplement it in an open source way) is another example of an OS which was designed from beginning on to have a GUI and is thus also very consistent.
- morganvachon 10y ago
  Yep, I get it, and as I said I'm still not sold on systemd and therefore use Elementary with the knowledge that if it breaks and I have to fix it, I'll have to deal with that massive tumor. The great thing about Elementary is, if all you need is a ⁎nix system with a consistent GUI for something like web development but without buying Apple's premium hardware, it really shines. The Terminal app is the best I've used on any OS, and while the text editor isn't quite a full fledged programmer's editor, it's good enough for a lackey like me. I figured out that Geany is overkill for my needs, and Scratch handles all my use cases fine. I do think they try a bit too hard to look like macOS, but if you're going for the best desktop Linux experience, why not copy the best commercial ⁎nix desktop? I agree completely about BeOS/Haiku; BeOS was my daily driver for several years until the death of the company caused me to have to move on. I have yet to find a modern OS that even comes close to that kind of cohesive, sensible, practical approach to desktop computing. Haiku is coming along well, but it's still not stable enough for daily use beyond dogfooding for Haiku devs.

j_koreth 10y ago

In my experience, GNU/Linux distros do not usually include 3 seperate GUI settings windows with completely differing GUI's just to manage devices.

wolfgke 10y ago
> In my experience, GNU/Linux distros do not usually include 3 seperate GUI settings I have never seen a GNU/Linux distribution where I didn't have to configure some things via modification of configuration files in a text editor. Even these two differences (GUI vs. text file editing) is much more different than a few different design styles in Windows' control panel. Also the way settings are set in configuration files is IMHO even more different among different GNU/Linux applications than the different design styles in Windows' control panel.

flukus 10y ago

How is windows 10 consistent? Half the apps are metro ones that fullscreen (pdf viewer) and half are still win32. Some work well on touch screen others horribly. Windows 10 is a frankenOS.

TheNobleRobot 10y ago
Hello, time traveler from 2012 who is actually describing Windows 8.
- flukus 10y ago
  Nope, I skipped windows 8 almost entirely. I'm talking about windows 10 in 2016, it's still a kludged together mess of a touch based mobile OS and a full desktop OS.
  - kylealden 10y ago
    This is a bit confusing. Your comments are factually incorrect (there are no forced-full-screen apps in Windows 10, and the default PDF reader is Edge, which is windowed by default and was designed from the ground up for Windows 10, never for Windows 8 or "Metro"), or at least outdated. It's a bit of a blemish that there are two control panels, but almost no users are ever exposed to Win32. You can do virtually everything (from updates to domain join to adding/removing Windows components) from the modern Settings app. The legacy control panel is just that, and is irrelevant for most users. I'd love to see it modernized, but there are many much better uses of resources (security! performance! battery life!) than modernizing 90s-era utilities that few customers are ever exposed to.
- mrweasel 10y ago
  Just look at the control panels, there's actually two of them in Windows 10, one Metro, and one win32. Some settings are only available in one, some only in the other.
wolfgke 10y ago
> How is windows 10 consistent? Windows 10 isn't a good example of consistency, but every GNU/Linux distribution I have seen is much worse.