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I don't agree with all of the design choices in Elementary OS, but I appreciate the sense of craft it has that largely vanished from mainstream software from 20

I don't agree with all of the design choices in Elementary OS, but I appreciate the sense of craft it has that largely vanished from mainstream software from 2012-2014 onward in favor of a dollar store version of IKEA minimalism. I hope it can continue to carry that torch until the industry finds its way back.

gradExMachina 4y ago
Perhaps you are thinking of Skewomorphism as opposed to Flat design?
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  That is maybe a facet of the change, but there's more to it. It's also a certain attention to detail with regard to things like use of whitespace, the layout and flow of widgets, the types of widgets used, and user experience in general. These things have become increasingly phoned-in, with little thought applied; just dump it all into a grid and apply copious padding and you're done. Things that don't fit get removed or buried in dialog tunnels and there is no effort to make anything clear to the user. There have been flat designs in the past that don't suffer these issues, like the earlier designs of Mac OS (System 1.0-7.5), which worked fine on 1-bit and grayscale displays but had a lot of thought and research put into their user experience. This all got thrown out in the transition to flat design. Not only was skeumorphism discarded, but so was care for UI/UX in general. The baby was thrown out with the bathwater.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
Elementary OS is the pinnacle of a nice-looking OS with questionable technical decisions under-the-hood. The biggest one? No upgrades. You literally can't go from 5 to 6, or 6 to 7, without a full reinstall. There's not a terminal command for the adventurous either. That, to me, is extremely nasty. You have to take everything out of your computer, and put it back, every year to get the latest features and make sure you are secure? That's so bad, it feels like false marketing to call it "Elementary OS." You might as well download a random customized Windows ISO from the internet and disable Windows Update forever. At least Microsoft Edge would still get updates for years but Elementary OS's browser won't for very long. Unless, of course, you enjoy taking personal responsibility for updating every PC of those non-technical folks you recommend it to or install it for. I'd happily install it for quite a few relatives who would otherwise use Chromebooks, but that's a big showstopper. I can read about how they've improved the Music app or made the App Center better for developers all day, but they have this massive hole in the ship that makes it fundamentally unsuitable for the intended purpose and they still haven't fixed it after 7 versions. Elementary users don't find pleasure in reinstalling their OS on weekends.
- 28304283409234 4y ago
  Upgrades? I just make a backup of my homedir to an external SSD. Flatpaks are recognized straight after reinstalling the (upgraded) OS, and the odd .deb package I install takes seconds. I like the freshness of a new install. Crispy!
- latexr 4y ago
  That does sound inconvenient, but is it so bad as to warrant three similar comments in the same short thread in the space of twenty minutes?
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    It's not just inconvenient, I've been personally burned by this issue and am livid that Elementary OS markets itself in this way without a warning. Imagine installing Elementary OS on a bunch of PCs for charity only to discover that those users are going to be completely insecure in 2 years because you weren't informed. You might never meet those people again, and who knows what will happen to them. It's reasonable to assume a user knows how to update their computer once in a while; it is not reasonable to assume an "elementary" user knows how to reinstall their OS. @pacifika: The Ubuntu LTS core will not help the built-in apps that won't receive updates (i.e. Mail, Web, Music, the Parthenon desktop environment), and the LTS core for version 6 (which was current until yesterday) is 20.04 LTS, so it will be obsolete in about 2 years. If you installed Elementary OS for a friend a week ago, that's not what you expected. So, you got 3 1/2 years on the long end of support and 2 years on the short end between releases.
    - hugs 4y ago
      I'd bet that money and humanpower would have fixed the problem, but they didn't have enough of either. The problem was that Elementary OS was a very ambitious project, but they didn't have the same people and money resources that an Ubuntu or Red Hat has. Has that's changed? (I don't know.) And maybe this is a communication issue on their part. They innovated with adding a payment button on their downloads page years ago, which ruffled a lot of feathers. Maybe they should have gone bolder and added larger payment tiers. "Want free upgrades? Click here to pay $600,000 to fund a team of 3 for two years!"
musha68k 4y ago
I'm definitely going to steal that phrase – that cheap perfumed / polymer smell – it's indeed about time we get rid of it!
6451937099 4y ago
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gradExMachina 4y ago

Perhaps you are thinking of Skewomorphism as opposed to Flat design?

kitsunesoba 4y ago
That is maybe a facet of the change, but there's more to it. It's also a certain attention to detail with regard to things like use of whitespace, the layout and flow of widgets, the types of widgets used, and user experience in general. These things have become increasingly phoned-in, with little thought applied; just dump it all into a grid and apply copious padding and you're done. Things that don't fit get removed or buried in dialog tunnels and there is no effort to make anything clear to the user. There have been flat designs in the past that don't suffer these issues, like the earlier designs of Mac OS (System 1.0-7.5), which worked fine on 1-bit and grayscale displays but had a lot of thought and research put into their user experience. This all got thrown out in the transition to flat design. Not only was skeumorphism discarded, but so was care for UI/UX in general. The baby was thrown out with the bathwater.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

Elementary OS is the pinnacle of a nice-looking OS with questionable technical decisions under-the-hood. The biggest one? No upgrades. You literally can't go from 5 to 6, or 6 to 7, without a full reinstall. There's not a terminal command for the adventurous either. That, to me, is extremely nasty. You have to take everything out of your computer, and put it back, every year to get the latest features and make sure you are secure? That's so bad, it feels like false marketing to call it "Elementary OS." You might as well download a random customized Windows ISO from the internet and disable Windows Update forever. At least Microsoft Edge would still get updates for years but Elementary OS's browser won't for very long. Unless, of course, you enjoy taking personal responsibility for updating every PC of those non-technical folks you recommend it to or install it for. I'd happily install it for quite a few relatives who would otherwise use Chromebooks, but that's a big showstopper. I can read about how they've improved the Music app or made the App Center better for developers all day, but they have this massive hole in the ship that makes it fundamentally unsuitable for the intended purpose and they still haven't fixed it after 7 versions. Elementary users don't find pleasure in reinstalling their OS on weekends.

28304283409234 4y ago
Upgrades? I just make a backup of my homedir to an external SSD. Flatpaks are recognized straight after reinstalling the (upgraded) OS, and the odd .deb package I install takes seconds. I like the freshness of a new install. Crispy!
latexr 4y ago
That does sound inconvenient, but is it so bad as to warrant three similar comments in the same short thread in the space of twenty minutes?
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  It's not just inconvenient, I've been personally burned by this issue and am livid that Elementary OS markets itself in this way without a warning. Imagine installing Elementary OS on a bunch of PCs for charity only to discover that those users are going to be completely insecure in 2 years because you weren't informed. You might never meet those people again, and who knows what will happen to them. It's reasonable to assume a user knows how to update their computer once in a while; it is not reasonable to assume an "elementary" user knows how to reinstall their OS. @pacifika: The Ubuntu LTS core will not help the built-in apps that won't receive updates (i.e. Mail, Web, Music, the Parthenon desktop environment), and the LTS core for version 6 (which was current until yesterday) is 20.04 LTS, so it will be obsolete in about 2 years. If you installed Elementary OS for a friend a week ago, that's not what you expected. So, you got 3 1/2 years on the long end of support and 2 years on the short end between releases.
  - hugs 4y ago
    I'd bet that money and humanpower would have fixed the problem, but they didn't have enough of either. The problem was that Elementary OS was a very ambitious project, but they didn't have the same people and money resources that an Ubuntu or Red Hat has. Has that's changed? (I don't know.) And maybe this is a communication issue on their part. They innovated with adding a payment button on their downloads page years ago, which ruffled a lot of feathers. Maybe they should have gone bolder and added larger payment tiers. "Want free upgrades? Click here to pay $600,000 to fund a team of 3 for two years!"

musha68k 4y ago

I'm definitely going to steal that phrase – that cheap perfumed / polymer smell – it's indeed about time we get rid of it!

6451937099 4y ago

[dead]