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>Linux usability has stayed abhorrent Linux usability is only abhorrent if you use Gnome (3). It's fine with KDE, Xfce, and others. I started using Xfce rece

by magduf 9y ago

>Linux usability has stayed abhorrent Linux usability is only abhorrent if you use Gnome (3). It's fine with KDE, Xfce, and others. I started using Xfce recently at work and it's great: usability is just what I expect (i.e. it doesn't do any weird UI experiments like Gnome3, Windows, etc.), it's stable and reliable, and discoverable since it was designed back when they thought discoverability was a good thing. KDE5 is pretty good too. Stop using UIs that have been taken over by people trying to "revolutionize" UIs and you won't have the problems you're seeing. Linux has plenty of such UIs, but for some odd reason they're not the default setting of the mainstream distros.

pasabagi 9y ago
I think it's because if you start using Linux, you want to feel like you're using something new and high-tech. So the super-chrome UIs tend to win out. I like my setup (i3wm), but it would be a horrible default. You have to read a manual to make it usable. Gnome is a kind of nice default - since everything looks modern and works out of the box.
jodrellblank 9y ago
I'm not even talking of GUIs, I'm talking of exchanges like this: root@server:~# ip route add 192.168.1.0/30 10.0.0.1 Error: either "to" is duplicate, or "10.0.0.1" is a garbage. The "help" is literally a dump of the grammar, which doesn't contain enough detail to add a route (the syntax of PREFIX is not described). The error message is bafflingly useless. Of all the options available relating to routing, the two I use most are "route a network via a gateway IP" and "remove a route" and I'm going to guess that those are the two most common operations for most people not doing any advanced networking. Note that this is the replacement to the old "route" command, which had a single line of help: "inet_route [-vF] add {-host|-net} Target[/prefix] [gw Gw]" which is way way more helpful for this use case! Of course it's possible to go into `man ip` and then find routing help is elsewere and go into `man ip-route` and at the bottom of a 400 line document there is /a single example/ of adding a default route which doesn't include a subnet definition, and then to decode that the error message about duplicate/garbage means "you didn't add the word "via"" and then to backtrack into the grammar dump and trace where that was mentioned. And of course this is but one tool. And of course it's better for many use cases that it be stable and performant than that it be frilly. But all over, it feels like this. Usability, quality error messages, making the common things easy and discoverable, are all afterthoughts with priorities somewhere between "caveat user" and "it's free so shut up" and "we refuse to change it because ~POSIX~" and "usability is for wimps, Linux is for clever people (where clever means 'able to edit a text file and willing to do everything the hard way')" and "we benefit from people buying RedHat Certifications so why should we make it any easier than we have to?". I'm not saying it's incapable or unstable or useless, but I am saying usability for common tools and overall experience is really, really, really, really poor. With possible exception "install Ubuntu/Mint/flavour-of-day and run FireFox to get to your Googles".

by magduf 9y ago

pasabagi 9y ago

I think it's because if you start using Linux, you want to feel like you're using something new and high-tech. So the super-chrome UIs tend to win out. I like my setup (i3wm), but it would be a horrible default. You have to read a manual to make it usable. Gnome is a kind of nice default - since everything looks modern and works out of the box.

jodrellblank 9y ago

I'm not even talking of GUIs, I'm talking of exchanges like this: root@server:~# ip route add 192.168.1.0/30 10.0.0.1 Error: either "to" is duplicate, or "10.0.0.1" is a garbage. The "help" is literally a dump of the grammar, which doesn't contain enough detail to add a route (the syntax of PREFIX is not described). The error message is bafflingly useless. Of all the options available relating to routing, the two I use most are "route a network via a gateway IP" and "remove a route" and I'm going to guess that those are the two most common operations for most people not doing any advanced networking. Note that this is the replacement to the old "route" command, which had a single line of help: "inet_route [-vF] add {-host|-net} Target[/prefix] [gw Gw]" which is way way more helpful for this use case! Of course it's possible to go into `man ip` and then find routing help is elsewere and go into `man ip-route` and at the bottom of a 400 line document there is /a single example/ of adding a default route which doesn't include a subnet definition, and then to decode that the error message about duplicate/garbage means "you didn't add the word "via"" and then to backtrack into the grammar dump and trace where that was mentioned. And of course this is but one tool. And of course it's better for many use cases that it be stable and performant than that it be frilly. But all over, it feels like this. Usability, quality error messages, making the common things easy and discoverable, are all afterthoughts with priorities somewhere between "caveat user" and "it's free so shut up" and "we refuse to change it because ~POSIX~" and "usability is for wimps, Linux is for clever people (where clever means 'able to edit a text file and willing to do everything the hard way')" and "we benefit from people buying RedHat Certifications so why should we make it any easier than we have to?". I'm not saying it's incapable or unstable or useless, but I am saying usability for common tools and overall experience is really, really, really, really poor. With possible exception "install Ubuntu/Mint/flavour-of-day and run FireFox to get to your Googles".