5 ms·

I remember when Compiz was released. It was mind-blowing, its sheer awesomeness was something out of this world. "ok, Windows is done" me and my friends thought

I remember when Compiz was released. It was mind-blowing, its sheer awesomeness was something out of this world. "ok, Windows is done" me and my friends thought, "prepare for linux dominating the desktops". Yet ~15 years later here we are.

marcodiego 5y ago
I miss that feeling. Desktop moves at a much slower pace today.
- tpmx 5y ago
  Me too. Desktop "progress" is now sadly now mostly done by Microsoft (geriatric at best) and Apple (mostly just implementing the new graphical design whims every year).
  - rapind 5y ago
    My god I wish companies would stop iterating on desktop “default” design. The only features on a Mac I use are Cmd+space and Cmd+tab. Beyond that it’s just a host. Every time they add crap I have to find and disable it all. By all means make cool stuff but also make it opt in.
    - ridethebike 5y ago
      So much this. Things I need my OS to do are: run my apps (office/browser/games), connect my devices (printers/game controllers/displays), basic file operations (copy/paste/delete) And while doing this be: secure, reliable, out of my way. All these adding people/chat/weather widgets "innovations" (looking at you, msft) make me throw my hand up in the air and ask "why", I wish they would spend that time and energy on security and reliability instead.
      - distances 5y ago
        Ahh that weather widget was so bad. I had to use Windows for one project, and one day that abomination just appeared there. It rendered very badly (text didn't look at all like other taskbar elements), it was in a wrong language (???) and unnecessarily hard to remove. Felt super unprofessional, something I'd expect from browser malware.
    - npteljes 5y ago
      I feel the same about the control panels. Windows 11 has like three or so? I can't keep up, thankfully they added a search function some time back and so, I only have to remember the keywords.
  - jraph 5y ago
    I don't miss desktop progress the way it was done on Linux between 2000 and 2015 (ish). It was exciting but now, I'm happy with what I have with Plasma 5. It is a fast, stable, solid desktop environment. Plasma 5 is great and ages like good wine. The interface does not change much, but receives big improvements each version that don't break habits. Focus is on fixing usability bugs. See the weekly posts at [1] for instance. It gets refined instead of changed. [1] https://pointieststick.com/ https://pointieststick.com/
  - herbst 5y ago
    That's not right. Gnome Shell overthrow the whole concept of a desktop in the past years, KDE never stopped to invent and there are hundreds of small WMs for every liking with hugely different concepts. Microsoft and Apple both are stuck comparingly both running the same Windows 95 approach for all their desktops since.
inDigiNeous 5y ago
I remember Compiz being cool looking, but resulting in mostly crashing my computer or freezing the GPU driver.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I never had any issues at all with it. I believe it was all tied in with how stable your graphics card driver was. I grew tired of it after a few months and went back to boring old xfce flat, square windows, but it was fun while it lasted and peopel were always impressed by it.

marcodiego 5y ago

I miss that feeling. Desktop moves at a much slower pace today.

tpmx 5y ago
Me too. Desktop "progress" is now sadly now mostly done by Microsoft (geriatric at best) and Apple (mostly just implementing the new graphical design whims every year).
- rapind 5y ago
  My god I wish companies would stop iterating on desktop “default” design. The only features on a Mac I use are Cmd+space and Cmd+tab. Beyond that it’s just a host. Every time they add crap I have to find and disable it all. By all means make cool stuff but also make it opt in.
  - ridethebike 5y ago
    So much this. Things I need my OS to do are: run my apps (office/browser/games), connect my devices (printers/game controllers/displays), basic file operations (copy/paste/delete) And while doing this be: secure, reliable, out of my way. All these adding people/chat/weather widgets "innovations" (looking at you, msft) make me throw my hand up in the air and ask "why", I wish they would spend that time and energy on security and reliability instead.
    - distances 5y ago
      Ahh that weather widget was so bad. I had to use Windows for one project, and one day that abomination just appeared there. It rendered very badly (text didn't look at all like other taskbar elements), it was in a wrong language (???) and unnecessarily hard to remove. Felt super unprofessional, something I'd expect from browser malware.
  - npteljes 5y ago
    I feel the same about the control panels. Windows 11 has like three or so? I can't keep up, thankfully they added a search function some time back and so, I only have to remember the keywords.
- jraph 5y ago
  I don't miss desktop progress the way it was done on Linux between 2000 and 2015 (ish). It was exciting but now, I'm happy with what I have with Plasma 5. It is a fast, stable, solid desktop environment. Plasma 5 is great and ages like good wine. The interface does not change much, but receives big improvements each version that don't break habits. Focus is on fixing usability bugs. See the weekly posts at [1] for instance. It gets refined instead of changed. [1] https://pointieststick.com/ https://pointieststick.com/
- herbst 5y ago
  That's not right. Gnome Shell overthrow the whole concept of a desktop in the past years, KDE never stopped to invent and there are hundreds of small WMs for every liking with hugely different concepts. Microsoft and Apple both are stuck comparingly both running the same Windows 95 approach for all their desktops since.

inDigiNeous 5y ago

I remember Compiz being cool looking, but resulting in mostly crashing my computer or freezing the GPU driver.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
I never had any issues at all with it. I believe it was all tied in with how stable your graphics card driver was. I grew tired of it after a few months and went back to boring old xfce flat, square windows, but it was fun while it lasted and peopel were always impressed by it.