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> An OS is much more than cool looking visualizations [...] At the time it was easy to hear people complaining about how ugly linux was. Compiz helped a lot in

> An OS is much more than cool looking visualizations [...] At the time it was easy to hear people complaining about how ugly linux was. Compiz helped a lot in that front. We were used to people saying "you can't do that on linux" and then things quickly changed to us saying "you can't do that on your OS". Let's not fake it: linux is still far from being a diamond of UI design or consistency, but well, competition has its own problems too. The point is: things improved a lot and that event at that time in history made things improve a bit faster. To the point that almost two decades later something like this gets to the front page of hacker news and is filled by comments of people with fond memories of the time. > This whole journey began during the Compiz era. Another evidence of the impact it had.

nebula8804 5y ago
I guess I can sort of agree with you. Although during that time was the height of GNOME2 and even today I find myself leaning towards Gnome2/MATE because it feels so much more stable than anything else(despite me always giving the main Ubuntu distro a chance every year as well because I feel it is the most looked at distro). >Another evidence of the impact it had. Well for me it wasn't Compiz that brought me into Linux, it was this idea of something different from WIndows but it may have had this impact for others. Compiz was a gimmick to me and after trying it once I put it aside to try and just make my regular Linux installs remain stable.
Phrodo_00 5y ago
> linux is still far from being a diamond of UI design or consistency While I'll agree those are important for usability, I'm not sure they're necessary for adoption. Windows 10 uses a mix of UIs ranging from win32 windows 95 legacy to MAUI and most popular programs implement their own UI frameworks and it's doing ok.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  A lot of people don't care about the experience of using a computer. If they did, there would be revolts and walk-outs against Outlook and Exchange, about SharePoint, and about every single version of Windows. I am an amateur font designer and even I find the font rendering on Windows (specially if you have mixed density screens) horrendous. It's like it has a dozen incompatible libraries using different font rendering methods that are inconsistent between screens. It's an old joke that one of the best ways to make someone perpetually unhappy is to teach them proper font kerning.
  - pklausler 5y ago
    In Outlook, on the vendor's own O/S, one can click on the "trash" icon of a message, and then watch in horror as a new message arrives, every message drops down a slot, and then the program recognizes the click on the trash icon of what used to be the message above, which is then deleted. I mean, come on.
  - javier2 5y ago
    I have used Linux since 2004, and the fonts were so horrid I read up on configuring FreeType to try make them less jarring.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  At this point Windows is largely running on inertia and the fact that, despite all its flaws, its competitors still somehow manage to have worse issues for most people. But at one time, it was actually a pretty damned consistent and user-focused OS.
rbanffy 5y ago
> linux is still far from being a diamond of UI design or consistency YMMV. I myself am very happy with Gnome and would say it's about as nice to use as a Mac. You can, of course, install ugly applications with horrendous UIs, that use Athena or Motif widgets, limited only to X bitmapped fonts or an ncurses UI that would work on a VT-52, and so on - but that's kind of a feature of Linux - it's Unix and it runs a lot of things originally built in ages long past. It can be consistent if you want, and it can embrace the past in ways no other OS can dream of. Except, maybe, IBM's z/OS, but that's a completely different beast.
- javier2 5y ago
  I think Gnome apps in Gnome are actually pretty alright. Not really jarring anymore with ok functionality between apps. I wish gnome-shell was more stable and shipped with a dock…
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    > I wish gnome-shell was more stable and shipped with a dock… It does. It's just that it's hidden now by default. What I really would like is a simple e-mail/messaging program to consolidate my mail, Slack and Teams inflows on a single threaded timeline.

nebula8804 5y ago

I guess I can sort of agree with you. Although during that time was the height of GNOME2 and even today I find myself leaning towards Gnome2/MATE because it feels so much more stable than anything else(despite me always giving the main Ubuntu distro a chance every year as well because I feel it is the most looked at distro). >Another evidence of the impact it had. Well for me it wasn't Compiz that brought me into Linux, it was this idea of something different from WIndows but it may have had this impact for others. Compiz was a gimmick to me and after trying it once I put it aside to try and just make my regular Linux installs remain stable.

Phrodo_00 5y ago

> linux is still far from being a diamond of UI design or consistency While I'll agree those are important for usability, I'm not sure they're necessary for adoption. Windows 10 uses a mix of UIs ranging from win32 windows 95 legacy to MAUI and most popular programs implement their own UI frameworks and it's doing ok.

rbanffy 5y ago
A lot of people don't care about the experience of using a computer. If they did, there would be revolts and walk-outs against Outlook and Exchange, about SharePoint, and about every single version of Windows. I am an amateur font designer and even I find the font rendering on Windows (specially if you have mixed density screens) horrendous. It's like it has a dozen incompatible libraries using different font rendering methods that are inconsistent between screens. It's an old joke that one of the best ways to make someone perpetually unhappy is to teach them proper font kerning.
- pklausler 5y ago
  In Outlook, on the vendor's own O/S, one can click on the "trash" icon of a message, and then watch in horror as a new message arrives, every message drops down a slot, and then the program recognizes the click on the trash icon of what used to be the message above, which is then deleted. I mean, come on.
- javier2 5y ago
  I have used Linux since 2004, and the fonts were so horrid I read up on configuring FreeType to try make them less jarring.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
At this point Windows is largely running on inertia and the fact that, despite all its flaws, its competitors still somehow manage to have worse issues for most people. But at one time, it was actually a pretty damned consistent and user-focused OS.

rbanffy 5y ago

> linux is still far from being a diamond of UI design or consistency YMMV. I myself am very happy with Gnome and would say it's about as nice to use as a Mac. You can, of course, install ugly applications with horrendous UIs, that use Athena or Motif widgets, limited only to X bitmapped fonts or an ncurses UI that would work on a VT-52, and so on - but that's kind of a feature of Linux - it's Unix and it runs a lot of things originally built in ages long past. It can be consistent if you want, and it can embrace the past in ways no other OS can dream of. Except, maybe, IBM's z/OS, but that's a completely different beast.

javier2 5y ago
I think Gnome apps in Gnome are actually pretty alright. Not really jarring anymore with ok functionality between apps. I wish gnome-shell was more stable and shipped with a dock…
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > I wish gnome-shell was more stable and shipped with a dock… It does. It's just that it's hidden now by default. What I really would like is a simple e-mail/messaging program to consolidate my mail, Slack and Teams inflows on a single threaded timeline.