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Wayland has its issues to be sure, but the X Window System was no longer suitable for modern systems; the justification for replacing it was quite sound. GNOME

Wayland has its issues to be sure, but the X Window System was no longer suitable for modern systems; the justification for replacing it was quite sound. GNOME I'll heartily agree on. But I've never liked GNOME myself (v1 seemed OK though) and have always criticized that project. I've always been a KDE fan, though admittedly they've had some similar problems and have handled some major changes rather poorly (esp. 4.0). Really, the desktop environments are one place where FOSS hasn't really done that well, frequently re-inventing the wheel for questionable reasons, or adopting questionable new design philosophies. At least there's a fair amount of competition in the space, so if one project rubs you the wrong way, you can try another; this proliferation of competitors also shows just how much disagreement there is in the community on this particular matter. I really don't know enough about the audio stack changes; I can only guess that they found big problems with older solutions there which required major architectural changes, esp. for certain high-performance applications.

mavhc 2y ago
Desktop managers have never decided if they want to copy Windows or MacOS, both of which are terrible GUIs that we're now stuck with, using paradigms from 1983/1984
- 1propionyl 2y ago
  Honest question: what makes them both terrible?
  - mavhc 2y ago
    They're based on the 1984 technology of "we can barely run 1 application at once", you can barely drag objects between applications, mostly you can't use overlapping windows because of raise on click, which makes dragging anything pointless, they put the menus far from the pointer. Why when I have my file manager view of a directory open do I need to open it again inside the application to save a file there?
    - 1propionyl 2y ago
      > you can barely drag objects between applications This works fine on macOS in anything that supports it. For example I can drag assets in and layers out of Pixelmator without any issue, drag emails to the desktop or a Finder to save them, etc. > mostly you can't use overlapping windows because of raise on click Which can be disabled if it makes sense for that app. What use case are you thinking of here? > Why when I have my file manager view of a directory open do I need to open it again inside the application to save a file there? You can drag a directory into the save dialog to jump to it (Windows gets this wrong), and the title heading of an open Finder window is itself draggable, you don't have to exit the directory if you already have it open. Alternatively Opt-Cmd-C to copy current directory and then paste it into the save location dialog, or Cmd-Shift-G and paste in the location.
      - mavhc 2y ago
        True, MacOS is slightly better, still has raise on click, can't see a way to disable that. My use case is I have 2 applications that I want to drag something between, and the windows overlap Can you create a new document and then drag a proxy icon to the Finder on MacOS?
        tpmoney 2y ago
        > My use case is I have 2 applications that I want to drag something between, and the windows overlap This should work for most use cases. If you can see the window for the target app even if you can’t see the drop destination, holding on that window briefly while dragging should raise it to the front (my testing says about 2 seconds). Alternatively (or if you can’t see the target window), the various expose gestures and buttons work during a drag operation. For example on a MacBook you can start dragging from one window, swipe up with your other fingers to reveal all applications or swipe down to reveal just the windows from the current app, and you can drag to the window for your target. From there you can hover on the target and expose will switch to the chosen window after a moment, or you can perform the opposite swipe action while hovering over your target window to raise it to the front. As for the new document thing if you mean to save a document for the first time by dragging it to a finder window, as far as I can tell you can’t do that. You can drag the finder window to the save dialog but not the other way around.
pmontra 2y ago
> this proliferation of competitors also shows just how much disagreement there is in the community on this particular matter It is to be expected that there is a proliferation of different UIs if there is the possibility of making different UIs run on the same OS. The reason is that everybody has a different workflow, different aesthetic preferences, different ways of doing things (e.g.: leaning more toward keyboard, mouse, touchpad, touchscreen). The best thing I remember in this space were the dozen or so X11 windows managers of the 90s. The worst one is the single UIs for Windows and Macs. There are some ways to customize them but not as heavily as it is possible with Linux. Wayland seems to restrict what's possible to customize but I might be wrong because I have no direct experience. I'm still of X11 because of an old NVIDIA card and frankly I could stay on X11 forever. I know that I'll have to switch sooner or later because of software compatibility. I'd hate to have to buy a new laptop only to be able to run Wayland. It's still good enough to work with me for my customers.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  > The worst one is the single UIs for Windows and Macs. There are some ways to customize them but not as heavily as it is possible with Linux. Which is why Windows and Mac still get native UIs for many desktop products, while Linux if a product actually targets it, gets Electron.
  - vetinari 2y ago
    Do they? There's no lack of Electron UIs on Mac and Windows. What's even a native widget library on Mac and Windows today? Do Swift-UI and WinUI (v3 nowadays) count? It's not as clear cut as it was in 2000s.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Yes they do, that is why I clearly mentioned "still". Native widget libraries is whatever the OS vendor puts on the SDK, and ships on the installers for their compilers. The large majority of Electron apps that happen to land on Mac and Windows land, usually come from GNU/Linux shops, that also feel like targeting other operating systems, and since that is the solution for GNU/Linux, they dump it into everyone else. In the process they help Google take over the browser ecosystem, and then talk about how M$ used to be all over the place with IE.

mavhc 2y ago

Desktop managers have never decided if they want to copy Windows or MacOS, both of which are terrible GUIs that we're now stuck with, using paradigms from 1983/1984

1propionyl 2y ago
Honest question: what makes them both terrible?
- mavhc 2y ago
  They're based on the 1984 technology of "we can barely run 1 application at once", you can barely drag objects between applications, mostly you can't use overlapping windows because of raise on click, which makes dragging anything pointless, they put the menus far from the pointer. Why when I have my file manager view of a directory open do I need to open it again inside the application to save a file there?
  - 1propionyl 2y ago
    > you can barely drag objects between applications This works fine on macOS in anything that supports it. For example I can drag assets in and layers out of Pixelmator without any issue, drag emails to the desktop or a Finder to save them, etc. > mostly you can't use overlapping windows because of raise on click Which can be disabled if it makes sense for that app. What use case are you thinking of here? > Why when I have my file manager view of a directory open do I need to open it again inside the application to save a file there? You can drag a directory into the save dialog to jump to it (Windows gets this wrong), and the title heading of an open Finder window is itself draggable, you don't have to exit the directory if you already have it open. Alternatively Opt-Cmd-C to copy current directory and then paste it into the save location dialog, or Cmd-Shift-G and paste in the location.
    - mavhc 2y ago
      True, MacOS is slightly better, still has raise on click, can't see a way to disable that. My use case is I have 2 applications that I want to drag something between, and the windows overlap Can you create a new document and then drag a proxy icon to the Finder on MacOS?
      - tpmoney 2y ago
        > My use case is I have 2 applications that I want to drag something between, and the windows overlap This should work for most use cases. If you can see the window for the target app even if you can’t see the drop destination, holding on that window briefly while dragging should raise it to the front (my testing says about 2 seconds). Alternatively (or if you can’t see the target window), the various expose gestures and buttons work during a drag operation. For example on a MacBook you can start dragging from one window, swipe up with your other fingers to reveal all applications or swipe down to reveal just the windows from the current app, and you can drag to the window for your target. From there you can hover on the target and expose will switch to the chosen window after a moment, or you can perform the opposite swipe action while hovering over your target window to raise it to the front. As for the new document thing if you mean to save a document for the first time by dragging it to a finder window, as far as I can tell you can’t do that. You can drag the finder window to the save dialog but not the other way around.

pmontra 2y ago

> this proliferation of competitors also shows just how much disagreement there is in the community on this particular matter It is to be expected that there is a proliferation of different UIs if there is the possibility of making different UIs run on the same OS. The reason is that everybody has a different workflow, different aesthetic preferences, different ways of doing things (e.g.: leaning more toward keyboard, mouse, touchpad, touchscreen). The best thing I remember in this space were the dozen or so X11 windows managers of the 90s. The worst one is the single UIs for Windows and Macs. There are some ways to customize them but not as heavily as it is possible with Linux. Wayland seems to restrict what's possible to customize but I might be wrong because I have no direct experience. I'm still of X11 because of an old NVIDIA card and frankly I could stay on X11 forever. I know that I'll have to switch sooner or later because of software compatibility. I'd hate to have to buy a new laptop only to be able to run Wayland. It's still good enough to work with me for my customers.

pjmlp 2y ago
> The worst one is the single UIs for Windows and Macs. There are some ways to customize them but not as heavily as it is possible with Linux. Which is why Windows and Mac still get native UIs for many desktop products, while Linux if a product actually targets it, gets Electron.
- vetinari 2y ago
  Do they? There's no lack of Electron UIs on Mac and Windows. What's even a native widget library on Mac and Windows today? Do Swift-UI and WinUI (v3 nowadays) count? It's not as clear cut as it was in 2000s.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Yes they do, that is why I clearly mentioned "still". Native widget libraries is whatever the OS vendor puts on the SDK, and ships on the installers for their compilers. The large majority of Electron apps that happen to land on Mac and Windows land, usually come from GNU/Linux shops, that also feel like targeting other operating systems, and since that is the solution for GNU/Linux, they dump it into everyone else. In the process they help Google take over the browser ecosystem, and then talk about how M$ used to be all over the place with IE.