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Wait, you are confounding some things. A software design is good when it allows all of its parts to be elegant and meet the requirements. In no way does that sa

Wait, you are confounding some things. A software design is good when it allows all of its parts to be elegant and meet the requirements. In no way does that say that a desktop OS is required to be designed badly. Linux is powering servers and high performance computing because it is good at these things: mostly static hardware configuration, set up once during system installation high performance, modularity and the ability to inspect a deeply running system of you are an expert. It ticks all the boxes for these specidic environments. On the desktop, not so much. For example, the concept of device files is hindering use cases that should "just work". When I plug in USB headphones, a new audio device is created. Fine. But I need to enter the device file name or ALSA device string onto half a dozen programs to use it. All I would want is to have the audio rerouted automatically. Pulseaudio was touted as the solution to that problem, but ar what cost? We're now literally stacking audio systems on top of audio systems and sacrifice to arcane gods to have it work. When I plug in a USB drive, I now have to look up its device file name in order to mount it manually. The software stack required to automount it from a desktop environment is atrociously complex, because it requires root privileges to mount a device not listed in /etc/fstab with a user flag. And because any number of drives can be connected in any possible order, no entries in fstab can be made. This clash of UNIX-like concepts and modern user expectations is what is holding Linux back. The underpinnings are not bad. They were just designed for a different task. So, yes, you can build a user friendly OS. Yes, it can have a clean design. But it won't be called Linux anymore.

fatboy93 8y ago
Just curious, but I had the same issues, turns our I didn't install gvfs and associated handlers for mounting unmounting drives. Turns out installing it resolved most of my USB connection issues
- gmueckl 8y ago
  I know that there are solutions (I use KDE, so it works differently there). The point I am trying to make is that UNIX device files were never designed to deal with the dynamic hardware configuration we see today, especially on laptops with periphery gerting plugged in and yanked periodically. And some of the solutions, like gvfs, are overly complex user space workarounds. A system that accounts for these dynamic usage patterns would have to look differently. But it does by no means have to be ugly code. In fact, it would probably be much simpler and more elegant than the current Linux desktop user space.
koffiezet 8y ago
> This clash of UNIX-like concepts and modern user expectations is what is holding Linux back. It did not stop OSX from achieving exactly what you're talking about, and if you look closely, its core is very explicit about its Unix underpinnings. In my opinion it's not a "Unix" problem, but a bazaar/scale problem. In the bazaar world, ideally multiple competing solutions would pop up, ideas would be merged and which one or a few would end up top. The problem is that to implement even a single a good desktop system - and I mean top to bottom, not just a DE - would require a staggering amount of resources under a single unified goal and vision. The Linux desktop market is simply not big enough to support even one, never mind multiple competing systems. In the server space, Linux is absolutely massive, and doesn't have this problem.

fatboy93 8y ago

Just curious, but I had the same issues, turns our I didn't install gvfs and associated handlers for mounting unmounting drives. Turns out installing it resolved most of my USB connection issues

gmueckl 8y ago
I know that there are solutions (I use KDE, so it works differently there). The point I am trying to make is that UNIX device files were never designed to deal with the dynamic hardware configuration we see today, especially on laptops with periphery gerting plugged in and yanked periodically. And some of the solutions, like gvfs, are overly complex user space workarounds. A system that accounts for these dynamic usage patterns would have to look differently. But it does by no means have to be ugly code. In fact, it would probably be much simpler and more elegant than the current Linux desktop user space.

koffiezet 8y ago

> This clash of UNIX-like concepts and modern user expectations is what is holding Linux back. It did not stop OSX from achieving exactly what you're talking about, and if you look closely, its core is very explicit about its Unix underpinnings. In my opinion it's not a "Unix" problem, but a bazaar/scale problem. In the bazaar world, ideally multiple competing solutions would pop up, ideas would be merged and which one or a few would end up top. The problem is that to implement even a single a good desktop system - and I mean top to bottom, not just a DE - would require a staggering amount of resources under a single unified goal and vision. The Linux desktop market is simply not big enough to support even one, never mind multiple competing systems. In the server space, Linux is absolutely massive, and doesn't have this problem.