8 ms·

That's... About the opposite of what I expect to see when I hear people talk about Linux on the desktop. It's definitely interesting though. But... Where's the

by Ezhik 10y ago

That's... About the opposite of what I expect to see when I hear people talk about Linux on the desktop. It's definitely interesting though. But... Where's the GUI love? :( I know it's all about the terminal, but god damn it, I'm trying to drop OS X, and just because I can use bash doesn't mean I dislike having nice things like desktop transition effects or transparency or auto-mounting USB drives. I swear, if I have to read another Arch Linux forums post about how things Windows 98 could do out of the box are bloat...

tronje 10y ago
It's actually quite simple to get some (all?) of the things you mentioned on an i3 setup (and other DMs, I'm sure). All you need is a compositor, like compton. Arch-Wiki article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compton https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compton
- Ezhik 10y ago
  I am sitting on a pile of hacks of an Openbox setup right now, and it does most of these things (the one big thing missing at the moment is a language switcher, learned it the hard way), so I'm used to it. It's the attitude that annoys me, I guess. A lot of OSS stuff doesn't feel like it's made for "real" people - sane defaults and such. With i3wm specifically it's just more obvious because it's minimalist-to-a-fault, but there are little things I find counter-intuitive even in something like GNOME. And while I do appreciate modularity of a light WM, and being able to fine-tune things to my liking, I'd like to see more projects like elementaryOS, regardless of how many times people say it's all "bloat" or "botnet".
  - tronje 10y ago
    Yes, I see your point. I personally like this kind of stuff, tinkering with my setup and whatnot. But it's definitely not for everyone. Have you tried using a Desktop Environment under the hood of i3, like xfce? Might be closer to what you're looking for. There's also a subreddit called "unixporn" where people post their various setups, usually accompanied by their configs. Might be worth to take a look at. Other than that, there's really only waiting or going back to macOS, I suppose...
  - wtetzner 10y ago
    > but there are little things I find counter-intuitive even in something like GNOME. I find plenty of counter-intuitive things in OS X and Windows as well. Linux desktops aren't perfect by any means, but I don't find them to be far from Windows or OS X, and they're better in some ways. I think part of the issue is the number of choices on Linux. There's a wide range of desktop environments/window managers, and of course a wide range of quality too. And with such variety, there's sure to be plenty of options that are not made for "real" people, since many of them were just made for the author.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
noinsight 10y ago
You should try KDE then. It's pretty great, I think it's the best desktop environment on any platform.
- Ezhik 10y ago
  Messed with it very briefly while distro hopping, actually. Found that it did a lot of things UX-wise very nicely, but I ended up not keeping the distro for whatever reason, then just never came back to the DE. (I think it was the Kubuntu LTS not playing along with my laptop?)
  - rubberstamp 10y ago
    Try manjaro kde. It has pretty good auto detection and configuration for hardware. Looks like ubuntu messed up release 16 and it rears its ugly head on many ububtu based os. It feels so brittle. Debian based netrunner kde is also nice but I like manjaro better for its excellent ux.
- garaetjjte 10y ago
  Maybe if it wasn't such resource hog and not segfaulted every few minutes...
rebeccaskinner 10y ago
I don't think any of the mainstream Desktop Environments (Unity, KDE/Plasma, Gnome3) or even some of the second-tier DEs (MATE, xfce, lxde) on Linux these days are that far off. The GUI experience on Linux suffers mostly from inconsistency when using applications written with different toolkits, awful font rendering, and a general sense of being in the uncanny valley if you're used to other desktops environments. My first computer in the mid 90's was running Linux on the desktop, and aside from a smattering of Windows here and there for games throughout the years, I've mostly stuck with it. Using Windows and OSX isn't some revelation in usability these days. OSX is more aesthetically pleasing, and a bit more consistent I think, but otherwise I don't find it profoundly better than the Linux options. I don't think it's more discoverable, and certainly hasn't been more stable in my experience- and there are definitely features I miss going from Linux to OSX on the desktop.
- Loic 10y ago
  Two years ago, I bought a Macbook Air to my wife after she complained that she was not able to make nice photo books with the software available on Linux (Ubuntu). Since then, she considers that Gnome (she does not it is Gnome, for her it is Linux) is way more user friendly than the Mac. She has been annoyed many times by the way her Mac is running. One day she lost all her books because of a new version if iPhoto which suddenly requires you to have a kind of remote on Apple servers, the spreadsheet/writer tool is really bad at opening Excel and Word documents, the email client has very small fonts, etc... For basic day-to-day usage, we found that Windows/Gnome/Macos are basically at the same level of consistency/quality. You can complain against some stuff on each side, they have inconsistencies on each side, but at the end of the day, one is not any more really better than the other, but she hates the fact that she has no ideas why sometimes on the Mac it does not work.
  - bkor 10y ago
    Has she managed to make photo books on Linux? Which software?
    - Loic 10y ago
m45t3r 10y ago
> doesn't mean I dislike having nice things like desktop transition effects or transparency If you're using a DE (like Gnome) they bring it by default. If not, well, you can choice any of the multiple window compositors out there. However if you're using something lightweight enough to not bring a compositor by default, well, you probably asked for it. Compton is a lightweight alternative BTW. > or auto-mounting USB drives. This isn't really a problem since systemd-logind. Just make sure that you're starting X.org in the same TTY that you logged in, or at least make sure you're using a Display Manager. After that, any File Manager that supports auto mounting will work, even without running a DE like Gnome. Last time I setup my i3-wm workspace it was simply a matter of cloning my configuration from GitHub. Everything DBus related (including auto mounting) worked. Never more I needed to do insane things like: $ ck-launch-session dbus-launch i3 # or it was dbus-launch ck-launch-session?
- onli 10y ago
  > Compton is a lightweight alternative BTW. I think compton is the only choice, isn't it? As far as I know, xcompmgr and cairo both are not being developed anymore. And even compton is an unhealthy project, see https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues/352 https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues/352.
iSnow 10y ago
I find elementaryOS rather pleasant and consistent in its UI. I am currently trying to switch away from macOS and eOS seems the only Linux distro that does not make my eyes bleed.
- holtalanm 10y ago
  another option that I found to be similar in experience was Gnome3.
loup-vaillant 10y ago
> doesn't mean I dislike having nice things like desktop transition effects While transition effects are pretty, I personally do dislike them: if it's not instantaneous, it's too slow.
morganvachon 10y ago
If you're ok with Ubuntu as a base OS, Elementary OS may be what you're looking for. It has (in my experience) the most modern macOS-like interface that is still minimalist enough to not get in the user's way. It is clean, fast, and beautiful to look at. I've been using it as a daily driver for over six months now and I'm still finding things to love about it. I do wish it was based on a more sane (for my tastes) distro like Slackware or Gentoo, but that probably wouldn't work given how much it depends on the Ubuntu/Debian way of doing things under the hood. The fact that it has made me give up Slackware on the desktop still surprises me; I'd been using Slackware almost daily since about 2001 but the last few releases have felt trapped in the past while struggling to catch up to every other distro feature-wise. Maybe that's due to their insistence on remaining systemd-free (something I am proud of them for) but whatever the reason, I now only use Slackware on servers and really old hardware, and only use Elementary on the desktop. Anything else in either setting just doesn't compare.
- nawtacawp 10y ago
  Install the Elem OS DE on another distro? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon
  - morganvachon 10y ago
    I've tried that and it's just lipstick on a pig. There's so much of Elementary that is more than just the DE itself, that makes it feel so complete and cohesive.
    - daxelrod 10y ago
      Can you expand on what some of those things are, or link to something that does? It sounds like a great lesson for other distros.
      - morganvachon 10y ago
        You can read a lot about it on their blog, specifically this post: http://blog.elementary.io/post/153360513026/busting-major-myths-around-elementary-os http://blog.elementary.io/post/153360513026/busting-major-my...
kej 10y ago
Check out the poorly named /r/unixporn subreddit. It's screenshots of people's fancy GUI setups with explanations of what they're using to get things to look that way.
digler999 10y ago
times might have changed since I did this last, but go to youtube and look up "compiz linux" (added linux just in case compiz matches something else ). I used to run XFCE + compiz, which you configure using a program called ccsm. It's not hard, either use apt-get or click on the "software" icon from the start page. Install compiz (and maybe compiz-extras or whatever), and ccsm (again, times may have changed so it might be called something else). That will get you a 3D accelerated desktop. You can let your desktop be a rotatable cube, rubbery wobbly windows, real opacity/transparency, and an accelerated magnifying glass/zoom effect which I used quite a bit (hold down windows key and the mouse wheel zooms you in/out). It also supports inotify, so its windows-like when you put a USB in you'll get the little dialog box saying "USB stick inserted". Highly recommend you give it a spin. Over time, I got over the coolness of it, and just switched over to xmonad so I dont even need the mouse (much) anymore.
aeikenberry 10y ago
Checkout /r/unixporn
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
herbst 10y ago
> I know it's all about the terminal Thats only true if you want it to be. I would recommend to look into gnome shell. And maybe KDE

by Ezhik 10y ago

tronje 10y ago

It's actually quite simple to get some (all?) of the things you mentioned on an i3 setup (and other DMs, I'm sure). All you need is a compositor, like compton. Arch-Wiki article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compton https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compton

Ezhik 10y ago
I am sitting on a pile of hacks of an Openbox setup right now, and it does most of these things (the one big thing missing at the moment is a language switcher, learned it the hard way), so I'm used to it. It's the attitude that annoys me, I guess. A lot of OSS stuff doesn't feel like it's made for "real" people - sane defaults and such. With i3wm specifically it's just more obvious because it's minimalist-to-a-fault, but there are little things I find counter-intuitive even in something like GNOME. And while I do appreciate modularity of a light WM, and being able to fine-tune things to my liking, I'd like to see more projects like elementaryOS, regardless of how many times people say it's all "bloat" or "botnet".
- tronje 10y ago
  Yes, I see your point. I personally like this kind of stuff, tinkering with my setup and whatnot. But it's definitely not for everyone. Have you tried using a Desktop Environment under the hood of i3, like xfce? Might be closer to what you're looking for. There's also a subreddit called "unixporn" where people post their various setups, usually accompanied by their configs. Might be worth to take a look at. Other than that, there's really only waiting or going back to macOS, I suppose...
- wtetzner 10y ago
  > but there are little things I find counter-intuitive even in something like GNOME. I find plenty of counter-intuitive things in OS X and Windows as well. Linux desktops aren't perfect by any means, but I don't find them to be far from Windows or OS X, and they're better in some ways. I think part of the issue is the number of choices on Linux. There's a wide range of desktop environments/window managers, and of course a wide range of quality too. And with such variety, there's sure to be plenty of options that are not made for "real" people, since many of them were just made for the author.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

noinsight 10y ago

You should try KDE then. It's pretty great, I think it's the best desktop environment on any platform.

Ezhik 10y ago
Messed with it very briefly while distro hopping, actually. Found that it did a lot of things UX-wise very nicely, but I ended up not keeping the distro for whatever reason, then just never came back to the DE. (I think it was the Kubuntu LTS not playing along with my laptop?)
- rubberstamp 10y ago
  Try manjaro kde. It has pretty good auto detection and configuration for hardware. Looks like ubuntu messed up release 16 and it rears its ugly head on many ububtu based os. It feels so brittle. Debian based netrunner kde is also nice but I like manjaro better for its excellent ux.
garaetjjte 10y ago
Maybe if it wasn't such resource hog and not segfaulted every few minutes...

rebeccaskinner 10y ago

I don't think any of the mainstream Desktop Environments (Unity, KDE/Plasma, Gnome3) or even some of the second-tier DEs (MATE, xfce, lxde) on Linux these days are that far off. The GUI experience on Linux suffers mostly from inconsistency when using applications written with different toolkits, awful font rendering, and a general sense of being in the uncanny valley if you're used to other desktops environments. My first computer in the mid 90's was running Linux on the desktop, and aside from a smattering of Windows here and there for games throughout the years, I've mostly stuck with it. Using Windows and OSX isn't some revelation in usability these days. OSX is more aesthetically pleasing, and a bit more consistent I think, but otherwise I don't find it profoundly better than the Linux options. I don't think it's more discoverable, and certainly hasn't been more stable in my experience- and there are definitely features I miss going from Linux to OSX on the desktop.

Loic 10y ago
Two years ago, I bought a Macbook Air to my wife after she complained that she was not able to make nice photo books with the software available on Linux (Ubuntu). Since then, she considers that Gnome (she does not it is Gnome, for her it is Linux) is way more user friendly than the Mac. She has been annoyed many times by the way her Mac is running. One day she lost all her books because of a new version if iPhoto which suddenly requires you to have a kind of remote on Apple servers, the spreadsheet/writer tool is really bad at opening Excel and Word documents, the email client has very small fonts, etc... For basic day-to-day usage, we found that Windows/Gnome/Macos are basically at the same level of consistency/quality. You can complain against some stuff on each side, they have inconsistencies on each side, but at the end of the day, one is not any more really better than the other, but she hates the fact that she has no ideas why sometimes on the Mac it does not work.
- bkor 10y ago
  Has she managed to make photo books on Linux? Which software?
  - Loic 10y ago

m45t3r 10y ago

> doesn't mean I dislike having nice things like desktop transition effects or transparency If you're using a DE (like Gnome) they bring it by default. If not, well, you can choice any of the multiple window compositors out there. However if you're using something lightweight enough to not bring a compositor by default, well, you probably asked for it. Compton is a lightweight alternative BTW. > or auto-mounting USB drives. This isn't really a problem since systemd-logind. Just make sure that you're starting X.org in the same TTY that you logged in, or at least make sure you're using a Display Manager. After that, any File Manager that supports auto mounting will work, even without running a DE like Gnome. Last time I setup my i3-wm workspace it was simply a matter of cloning my configuration from GitHub. Everything DBus related (including auto mounting) worked. Never more I needed to do insane things like: $ ck-launch-session dbus-launch i3 # or it was dbus-launch ck-launch-session?

onli 10y ago
> Compton is a lightweight alternative BTW. I think compton is the only choice, isn't it? As far as I know, xcompmgr and cairo both are not being developed anymore. And even compton is an unhealthy project, see https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues/352 https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues/352.

iSnow 10y ago

I find elementaryOS rather pleasant and consistent in its UI. I am currently trying to switch away from macOS and eOS seems the only Linux distro that does not make my eyes bleed.

holtalanm 10y ago
another option that I found to be similar in experience was Gnome3.

loup-vaillant 10y ago

> doesn't mean I dislike having nice things like desktop transition effects While transition effects are pretty, I personally do dislike them: if it's not instantaneous, it's too slow.

morganvachon 10y ago

If you're ok with Ubuntu as a base OS, Elementary OS may be what you're looking for. It has (in my experience) the most modern macOS-like interface that is still minimalist enough to not get in the user's way. It is clean, fast, and beautiful to look at. I've been using it as a daily driver for over six months now and I'm still finding things to love about it. I do wish it was based on a more sane (for my tastes) distro like Slackware or Gentoo, but that probably wouldn't work given how much it depends on the Ubuntu/Debian way of doing things under the hood. The fact that it has made me give up Slackware on the desktop still surprises me; I'd been using Slackware almost daily since about 2001 but the last few releases have felt trapped in the past while struggling to catch up to every other distro feature-wise. Maybe that's due to their insistence on remaining systemd-free (something I am proud of them for) but whatever the reason, I now only use Slackware on servers and really old hardware, and only use Elementary on the desktop. Anything else in either setting just doesn't compare.

nawtacawp 10y ago
Install the Elem OS DE on another distro? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon
- morganvachon 10y ago
  I've tried that and it's just lipstick on a pig. There's so much of Elementary that is more than just the DE itself, that makes it feel so complete and cohesive.
  - daxelrod 10y ago
    Can you expand on what some of those things are, or link to something that does? It sounds like a great lesson for other distros.
    - morganvachon 10y ago
      You can read a lot about it on their blog, specifically this post: http://blog.elementary.io/post/153360513026/busting-major-myths-around-elementary-os http://blog.elementary.io/post/153360513026/busting-major-my...

kej 10y ago

Check out the poorly named /r/unixporn subreddit. It's screenshots of people's fancy GUI setups with explanations of what they're using to get things to look that way.

digler999 10y ago

times might have changed since I did this last, but go to youtube and look up "compiz linux" (added linux just in case compiz matches something else ). I used to run XFCE + compiz, which you configure using a program called ccsm. It's not hard, either use apt-get or click on the "software" icon from the start page. Install compiz (and maybe compiz-extras or whatever), and ccsm (again, times may have changed so it might be called something else). That will get you a 3D accelerated desktop. You can let your desktop be a rotatable cube, rubbery wobbly windows, real opacity/transparency, and an accelerated magnifying glass/zoom effect which I used quite a bit (hold down windows key and the mouse wheel zooms you in/out). It also supports inotify, so its windows-like when you put a USB in you'll get the little dialog box saying "USB stick inserted". Highly recommend you give it a spin. Over time, I got over the coolness of it, and just switched over to xmonad so I dont even need the mouse (much) anymore.

aeikenberry 10y ago

Checkout /r/unixporn

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

herbst 10y ago

> I know it's all about the terminal Thats only true if you want it to be. I would recommend to look into gnome shell. And maybe KDE