5 ms·

Very heavy headline for a very nuanced position by Linus. It's an open secret that the ideal of choice fragments the focus of creating a tight UX on the deskto

by chomp 8y ago

Very heavy headline for a very nuanced position by Linus. It's an open secret that the ideal of choice fragments the focus of creating a tight UX on the desktop. You have to understand when you watch this video though that all Linus and the kernel team can do is make the kernel itself. The community is what will end up driving the desktop UX, and they haven't done a great job creating something that can capture the average PC user. I am not sure if this is even a bad thing. My daily driver is a Dell laptop running Fedora and I don't think I'd change a thing aside from some minor UX gripes about Cinnamon. ChromeOS really is the best hope for mass Linux adoption, and I personally know people who hate the Linux desktop experience but use a Chromebook daily. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here other than my personal opinion that desktop Linux has found a local maximum and I think only the distros themselves can push DE volunteers to find something that has wider appeal (I'm not sure if that is even desirable, because again, I'm personally very happy with my experience).

wmf 8y ago
all Linus and the kernel team can do is make the kernel itself In some sense that's a self-imposed limitation. Linus could have chosen to create an OS (like BSD) instead of a kernel.
- chomp 8y ago
  Yeah, Linus is in a power position and could lean on teams to create his vision of Linux on the desktop. But he's a very tech oriented guy and that's ok. He has a tech vision of what the core of the OS should do, and I think the community needs that as much as a person who guides the frontend vision (which is absent for now).
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    Also... this is the guy who invented git. I'm not really sure we want him working on a desktop UX.
    - ivalm 8y ago
      I mean... I like git... Linux kernel and git are perhaps the two most constant aspects of my job. What is the problem?
      - RussianCow 8y ago
        The point is that inventing Git and designing a good UX require completely different skill sets.
      - chipperyman573 8y ago
        Git is easily (edit: one of) the best version-control software available, hands down. But, you can't deny that it's very difficult to use. There's an incredibly steep learning curve and the software is very unforgiving. This can be argued to be a good thing (git just gives you the tools to shoot your own foot), but for an average user, a DE needs to be easier to use than git. I guess what I'm trying to say is, git is great for experienced users, but most users don't want to have to be experienced just to use a computer.
        doubleunplussed 8y ago
        I wouldn't say easily. Mercurial has a credible claim to that title as well, if you ignore network effects that favour using git.
        chipperyman573 8y ago
        That's fair. I updated my post to reflect that.
        jnurmine 8y ago
        Git has a learning curve, yes. Everything has a learning curve. It helps to actually read the documentation, to go through a few tutorials and to generally play around with Git. Is it intuitive without prior experience? No. Nothing nontrivial is. As an example: I have not grokked Blender though I have tried a few times. But I have tried it fully intuitively, just exploring the UI without really reading documentation at all (when I have time I will study it more). Does the UX make sense? No, not to me. Does it mean Blender has a bad UX? No, I don't think so! It has a learning curve like everything else, and learning it is something I have to do if I want to be able to use it. I cannot expect someone else to learn it for me.
- tpush 8y ago
  > Linus could have chosen to create an OS (like BSD) instead of a kernel. The BSD people also don't make a GUI.
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    On the contrary, they have. Lumina, for starters. * https://lumina-desktop.org/ https://lumina-desktop.org/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14282349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14282349)
- cyphar 8y ago
  Not really, GNU existed for a while before Linux and Linus' kernel slotted into the missing hole in GNU (since Hurd _really_ wasn't ready and likely won't ever be). So I would argue that Linus chose to build an operating system, and ended up with focusing on a kernel because the rest of the system already existed. The BSDs (and Solaris) all branched from the original Unix tree, and thus have historically always just been a full OS. GNU was trying to do the same, but from scratch and as free software, but Linux came about just as GNU was getting very popular (people would replace the proprietary Unix utilities with the GNU ones). Also, the BSDs and Solaris all use GNOME or KDE -- which aren't developed solely by those people. I think this is quite reasonable actually, since desktop environments really shouldn't be tied to a single Unix-y OS.
vorticalbox 8y ago
> I personally know people who hate the Linux desktop experience but use a Chromebook daily. Google nailed that UI and everything just works. Settings are just bundled in with your browser settings, no cli anything to run.
- srcmap 8y ago
  I dream of seeing a web interface all existing Ubuntu apps. * a google docs Web GUI clone for replace OpenOffice. * all files store locally by default. * Goes to cloud only when users need to share. * Web base apt, dpkg system. * Web base app for view/manage all system logs, dmesg. * Web base interface for gdb * Web base python interface. * etc, etc, * Desktop is just Firefox with home page with a lot app icons. -- Now time to wake up, take the red pill and continue use vim, git, insmod, strace and cat /proc/.......
  - VvR-Ox 8y ago
    Open Office? Haven't heard about that in years! Now we use LibreOffice and there is already a Web UI :-) Here you are: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/ https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/ Just use NextCloud / Syncthing or a traditional NFS and you're good to go. For system logs you could use the ELK stack or something like that. Python Web UI = Jupyter Notebook (it's awesome you should check this out) APT / DPKG: why web based? Also I don't know why you see vim as the only alternative. There is NeoVim / SpaceVim and some fancy emacs stuff you can use as well. For git there is really good tools nowadays like GitKraken, SourceTree or this tool from the sublime creator. Also you have integration into good IDE's. When you want to use a web UI then I'd recommend you check out GitLab. Even the CE is awesome and much more I was hoping to see any time soon. I use SpaceVim and am totally happy as it has nearly all features of IntelliJ Idea that I use daily but runs on my shell (great for keeping your old thinpads battery on a decent level for some time).
- pjmlp 8y ago
  And eventually they will not even need the Linux kernel, the last standing GPL thingie on their stack.

by chomp 8y ago

wmf 8y ago

all Linus and the kernel team can do is make the kernel itself In some sense that's a self-imposed limitation. Linus could have chosen to create an OS (like BSD) instead of a kernel.

chomp 8y ago
Yeah, Linus is in a power position and could lean on teams to create his vision of Linux on the desktop. But he's a very tech oriented guy and that's ok. He has a tech vision of what the core of the OS should do, and I think the community needs that as much as a person who guides the frontend vision (which is absent for now).
- stickfigure 8y ago
  Also... this is the guy who invented git. I'm not really sure we want him working on a desktop UX.
  - ivalm 8y ago
    I mean... I like git... Linux kernel and git are perhaps the two most constant aspects of my job. What is the problem?
    - RussianCow 8y ago
      The point is that inventing Git and designing a good UX require completely different skill sets.
    - chipperyman573 8y ago
      Git is easily (edit: one of) the best version-control software available, hands down. But, you can't deny that it's very difficult to use. There's an incredibly steep learning curve and the software is very unforgiving. This can be argued to be a good thing (git just gives you the tools to shoot your own foot), but for an average user, a DE needs to be easier to use than git. I guess what I'm trying to say is, git is great for experienced users, but most users don't want to have to be experienced just to use a computer.
      - doubleunplussed 8y ago
        I wouldn't say easily. Mercurial has a credible claim to that title as well, if you ignore network effects that favour using git.
        chipperyman573 8y ago
        That's fair. I updated my post to reflect that.
      - jnurmine 8y ago
        Git has a learning curve, yes. Everything has a learning curve. It helps to actually read the documentation, to go through a few tutorials and to generally play around with Git. Is it intuitive without prior experience? No. Nothing nontrivial is. As an example: I have not grokked Blender though I have tried a few times. But I have tried it fully intuitively, just exploring the UI without really reading documentation at all (when I have time I will study it more). Does the UX make sense? No, not to me. Does it mean Blender has a bad UX? No, I don't think so! It has a learning curve like everything else, and learning it is something I have to do if I want to be able to use it. I cannot expect someone else to learn it for me.
tpush 8y ago
> Linus could have chosen to create an OS (like BSD) instead of a kernel. The BSD people also don't make a GUI.
- JdeBP 8y ago
  On the contrary, they have. Lumina, for starters. * https://lumina-desktop.org/ https://lumina-desktop.org/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14282349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14282349)
cyphar 8y ago
Not really, GNU existed for a while before Linux and Linus' kernel slotted into the missing hole in GNU (since Hurd _really_ wasn't ready and likely won't ever be). So I would argue that Linus chose to build an operating system, and ended up with focusing on a kernel because the rest of the system already existed. The BSDs (and Solaris) all branched from the original Unix tree, and thus have historically always just been a full OS. GNU was trying to do the same, but from scratch and as free software, but Linux came about just as GNU was getting very popular (people would replace the proprietary Unix utilities with the GNU ones). Also, the BSDs and Solaris all use GNOME or KDE -- which aren't developed solely by those people. I think this is quite reasonable actually, since desktop environments really shouldn't be tied to a single Unix-y OS.

vorticalbox 8y ago

> I personally know people who hate the Linux desktop experience but use a Chromebook daily. Google nailed that UI and everything just works. Settings are just bundled in with your browser settings, no cli anything to run.

srcmap 8y ago
I dream of seeing a web interface all existing Ubuntu apps. * a google docs Web GUI clone for replace OpenOffice. * all files store locally by default. * Goes to cloud only when users need to share. * Web base apt, dpkg system. * Web base app for view/manage all system logs, dmesg. * Web base interface for gdb * Web base python interface. * etc, etc, * Desktop is just Firefox with home page with a lot app icons. -- Now time to wake up, take the red pill and continue use vim, git, insmod, strace and cat /proc/.......
- VvR-Ox 8y ago
  Open Office? Haven't heard about that in years! Now we use LibreOffice and there is already a Web UI :-) Here you are: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/ https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/ Just use NextCloud / Syncthing or a traditional NFS and you're good to go. For system logs you could use the ELK stack or something like that. Python Web UI = Jupyter Notebook (it's awesome you should check this out) APT / DPKG: why web based? Also I don't know why you see vim as the only alternative. There is NeoVim / SpaceVim and some fancy emacs stuff you can use as well. For git there is really good tools nowadays like GitKraken, SourceTree or this tool from the sublime creator. Also you have integration into good IDE's. When you want to use a web UI then I'd recommend you check out GitLab. Even the CE is awesome and much more I was hoping to see any time soon. I use SpaceVim and am totally happy as it has nearly all features of IntelliJ Idea that I use daily but runs on my shell (great for keeping your old thinpads battery on a decent level for some time).
pjmlp 8y ago
And eventually they will not even need the Linux kernel, the last standing GPL thingie on their stack.