7 ms·

Until someone spends a good bucket of cash on hiring UI talent to clean up the abortion that is the linux desktop, they'll still be lagging way behind OSX and W

by jawngee 18y ago

Until someone spends a good bucket of cash on hiring UI talent to clean up the abortion that is the linux desktop, they'll still be lagging way behind OSX and Windows, both of which offer a superior and consistent experience. I love linux, btw, and know my way around the command prompt fairly well. And, of course, it is my first preference for most server scenarios. That said, my opinion is that it's a near failure as a desktop OS. I have Ubuntu installed on my Dell laptop and have had it on there for about a month. It's certainly usable, and I certainly get my work done in it, but it always feels like I'm using something that has been duct taped together. Everytime I climb back aboard my Mac Pro at work, it feels like I just took a shower. For starters, X has to go the way of Quartz. I still can't get this laptop to play full screen video at a decent frame rate. No problem when I dual boot into Windows. No problem when I had hackintosh installed on this laptop. Why is this so hard? It's not the decoding, it's the drawing. Basic shit like window ornamentation is always "almost there" and it frustrates me that it isn't "there". It's like the uncanny valley of UI, this linux desktop. Compviz is cool, but feels cheap and has all kinds of redraw issues. Most of the free replacements for professional tools feel like they're designed by people with severe visual disabilities. Froo, you are in for a rude awakening thinking you can replace photoshop with Gimp, even Gimp 3.0 is still a long shot away. Thankfully, I can get my work done in a full screen terminal for most of it, Eclipse for the rest. That's my opinion after using it for a month. So not ready for prime time.

jawngee 18y ago
Case in point, right after posting this, my f*cking audio stopped working just like that. Awesome.
- Herring 18y ago
  Sounds to me like you're having some personal problems, like maybe your graphics card isn't supported. Spend some time at ubuntuforums.com & see if they can help.
  - jawngee 18y ago
    This is a pretty common dell laptop. If we're talking about prime time, and I have to ask on forums for help with something basic like this, then is it really ready for prime time? I don't hate ubuntu, I just hate when people say it's ready for prime time when it's most certainly not. Ready for netbooks? Sure. But not for a full-on windows laptop replacement. No way.
    - Herring 18y ago
      That doesn't necessarily follow, eg lets assume it's a hardware problem. Have you ever tried installing XP from scratch? After you spend hours hunting for drivers, do you conclude windows isn't ready for the desktop? Or look at all the people having hardware problems on the OSx86 forums. Try buying something from dell if you want to convince yourself about readiness for prime time. I don't particularly care, I've been using it for years & I have no problems with window decorations.
      - deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
  - quantumhobbit 18y ago
    This has always annoyed the crap out of me when using Ubuntu. There is a ton of great info at ubuntuforums.com, but it is not well organized and questions don't always get answered. Sometimes a problem will get considered answered without really being answered. A simple issue shouldn't require going to the forums, which can be considerable time investment. Maybe community efforts could be focused on a wiki for more common issues and reserve the forums for problematic issues among those doing real development work. Then again I could just be too lazy for Linux.
    - Herring 18y ago
      Hmm, I usually find answers to all my simple questions on google. There's so many of them I think you'd also have to google on a wiki.
- tphyahoo 18y ago
  If you are on ubuntu hardy I feel your pain. It completely blows. Perhaps this will help, the result of many many painful hours combing the forums. It seems to do the trick for me, anyway. I programmed this as a bash shortcut so I wouldn't forget. I don't really know what the fix is when things crap out, I have just kind of tried things blindly. http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-968697.html (?) sudo alsa reload sudo alsa force-reload also: look for a dialog that pops up, possibly in task bar, if it asks if reload is ok, it is. beh. also related https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/294859 also suggested: sudo killall pulseaudio sudo alsa force-reload also: rm /var/lib/alsa/asound.state (don't include the rm if googling for this post) sudo force alsa-reload http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:faaeSQtYS4cJ:pennsylvania.ubuntuforums.com/showthread.php%3Fp%3D6242032+gvfs+alsa&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=pl
  - pg 18y ago
    Is there a new trick for making these wide comments not screw up the page width? The last trick users suggested stopped working in FF4, apparently. What is the latest?
    - sayrer 18y ago
      I think this page has nice technique, although it's a bit different than what your old CSS was going for: http://users.tkk.fi/tkarvine/pre-wrap-css3-mozilla-opera-ie.html http://users.tkk.fi/tkarvine/pre-wrap-css3-mozilla-opera-ie.... P.S. -- disclosure: I work for Mozilla P.P.S. -- I kinda hate CSS
      - lg 18y ago
        The "toggle word wrap" FF add-on just sticks this into whatever page you're looking at, I think. Works great.
  - Prrometheus 18y ago
    This is exactly the kind of maintenance issue that makes me occasionally hate using Ubuntu. Oh look! My flash player suddenly stopped working! I get to do six hours of forum combing and troubleshooting, whoppee!
dotcoma 18y ago
the Ubuntu UI is certainly better than Windows, and also imho easier to adapt to than OS X for Windows users who have had enough...
- gaius 18y ago
  But it isn't tho', not by any measure. Microsoft (and Apple) have something Linux never has and probably never will: HCI specialists who can't code themselves yet nevertheless, the programmers listen to them and do as they say.
gcv 18y ago
The Linux desktop also needs better fonts and better antialiasing. I can't think of a good way to describe it, but the fonts I see in GNOME are kind of fat and frumpy-looking. With the weak antialiasing, the whole picture looks hard on the eyes (this is in Ububtu 8.04 and FC10).
- gaius 18y ago
  Read this: http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.html#toc0007 http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.h...
- shimon 18y ago
  You might want to check your antialiasing settings (in Preferences -> Fonts I think). You can choose different levels of antialiasing, and if you're using an LCD monitor, you'll want to use sub-pixel rendering, which is equivalent to Microsoft's ClearType. It would be nice if that could be automatically turned on based on your monitor type.
  - Herring 18y ago
    System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Fonts. I just changed mine, it looks a lot better now
- illicium 18y ago
  There's a patch for cairo that greatly improves subpixel antialiasing (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cairo-lcd/cairo-lcd/lcd-filter.patch http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cairo-lcd/cairo-lcd/lcd-fi...), but it's not included in any official builds due to patent issues. Ubuntu has their own version of this patch, but it seems like it's disabled default -- there's instructions here on how to edit to appropriate config files: http://johan.kiviniemi.name/blag/ubuntu-fonts/ http://johan.kiviniemi.name/blag/ubuntu-fonts/ The available filter types are "lcdfilternone", "lcdfilterdefault", "lcdfilterlight", and "lcdfilterlegacy"
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
dcminter 18y ago
My experience of Linux these days, under Ubuntu, is that it's no more quirky than Windows or OS X. You're probably blind to many of OS X's deficiencies because you've become used to all but the most intrusive of them. Problems that you personally have with it are no doubt vexing, but I've had stuff just as annoying with Windows and OS X. My feeling is that Linux is finally there with Ubuntu. Yes, it lacks some core software, but on the other hand it has some unique features (ease of installation of free software packages particularly) that at last give it the chance for some competitive traction. I used OS X for a few months a couple of years back and came away hating it (in fact I sold the iBook and replaced it with a Thinkpad running Windows for a perceived performance gain at a lower price). Not all users are equivalent.
- fauigerzigerk 18y ago
  Neither Windows nor OS X dies when you close the lid, and when you install any of them on a new machine WIFI just works. Always. I install every new version of Ubuntu as soon as it's released. Once sleep/resume, WIFI, sound, the trackpad and power management all work without tweaking drivers, I might actually keep it. So far that hasn't been the case on any of the machines I tried. (I should add that I'm no big fan of any OS so far)
  - froo 18y ago
    Weird, my experience has been exactly the opposite. I reinstalled ubuntu 8.10 on my Asus notebook less than 2 days ago without any of these weird things happening, wifi, sound, trackpad, power management and sleep/resume all work perfectly without the need to tweak anything. Coincidentally, with Windows XP I've always had to tweak the power management so that my machine was "always on" as when I closed the lid, it would sleep and when it came back, things just did not work right.
  - anewaccountname 18y ago
    My experience installing OS X on a random machine is that wifi doesn't always work. But, installing it on a mac, it always works. The same thing can be said of installing linux on a random machine. But, installing linux on a mac, wifi always works.
petercooper 18y ago
I'm an OS X user by day but very pro Linux generally and have tried hard to use Ubuntu (in particular) as often as I can "on the side". And.. my biggest problem is there are niggling things that no-one seems to want to fix because they're cross disciplinary. For example, take window moving and resizing. Seamless in Windows and OS X, but on the default GNOME it's a hit and miss affair. Yes, you can press Ctrl and click and easily move windows, but if you try and clickdrag the title bar in the usual way, half the time you don't "grab" the window for some reason. Worse is resizing (see: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/8473/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/8473/ ). Only a 6 pixel wide or so region at the bottom right of a window is grabbable, which makes it a real job. It's not seamless like in OS X or Windows. They need to add a transparent grab zone for this. Yet, despite many complaints, metacity developers seem to think it's a theme problem, and themers think it's a metacity thing -- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/human-gtk-theme/+bug/160311 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/human-gtk-theme/+b... With too many disparate elements and tiny fiefdoms, it's hard to dictate good practices from the top down. Once they sort that out, a lot of the UI issues - including those you raise - could be solved, but the dictatorial technique probably isn't going to fly with this community.
- Herring 18y ago
  "For example, take window moving and resizing." Yeah, everyone uses compiz's resize window plugin. I think it's enabled by default, try holding down alt & dragging the scroll button.
  - petercooper 18y ago
    That's the thing - that method exists but.. it's not default, and something as simple as resizing a window should be seamless by default without the need for hacks. As a hacker, I love Linux to bits and it beats OS X and Windows in a crazy number of ways. As a user (and it's a hat I proudly wear quite often) I find the UI glitches infuriating, especially as it makes it so hard to recommend to other users I know (because I'll inevitably get the "why can't I resize windows properly?" question 100 times a year).
  - dhimes 18y ago
yef 18y ago
Let's get one thing out of the way, first: the simple fact that you can compare Ubuntu (cost: $0) with OSX ($120 + custom hardware) and Windows ($117) is utterly amazing. You make a valid point that certain things break and take coaxing and searching message boards to work. That's definitely bad. The point I would question is that of the UI. There are many aspects of OSX that are weird -- the mouse tracking, installing applications, setting a background color for your desktop, bringing up a terminal. Other issues exist for Windows. I can see how it's hard to detach yourself from something you're used to, though. Those are going to be the two main issues in getting Ubuntu off the ground with average users. Having shit not break, and being close enough to users' existing habits to make the switch easy. My hunch is that things are pretty close to where they'll end up. Linux will be an attractive alternative among techies, hobbyists, and average folks with spare/old machines. Microsoft and Apple will respond by cutting prices, and in the end, won't lose a substantial share of the market to Linux on the desktop, but suffer decreased margins. The user wins.
- parenthesis 18y ago
  What is exactly is weird with "the mouse tracking, installing applications, setting a background color for your desktop, bringing up a terminal" in OS X?
  - notauser 18y ago
    Mouse tracking - no focus on mouse, and the default track pad speed/sensitivity options are way too low. Installing application - no app store, basically. Being able to get 99.9% of everything you need for free with a single click is very nice.
  - yef 18y ago
    Mouse tracking: the acceleration is different than what I expect; slow moves don't seem to get me anywhere, quick ones make me overshoot. I've played with settings and downloaded third-party fixes, nothing seems to make it work the way it does in Ubuntu or Windows. Installing applications: they usually come on a disk image, which you mount, open, and then find the program. Natural inclination is to double click the program and run it. That's great until you unmount the disk image. What you really have to do is drag it to the applications folder. This is never explained, nor do average users know what a disk image is. Windows install wizards are pretty nice; Debian/Ubuntu's package manager is also super nice. Background color: try setting your OSX background to black. When I tried it, I found that I couldn't. I had to get a purely black image, and then stretch it. Not a problem with Ubuntu or with Windows. Terminal: by default, the terminal program is not part of the dock, it's buried in the Applications folder. Given that "it's BSD! you have a terminal!" was part of the hype around OSX, I was terribly confused the first time I went on an OSX machine to actually run it. Not a problem with Ubuntu. Moot in Windows, you download Cygwin if you have to.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
webwright 18y ago
"Until someone spends a good bucket of cash on hiring UI talent to clean up the abortion that is the linux desktop, they'll still be lagging way behind OSX and Windows, both of which offer a superior and consistent experience." I'm not sure it's just a matter of money. As a UI guy myself, I can tell you that participation on OSS is not very conducive to the way I like design. Many/most of the powerful stakeholders in OSS projects tend to be hackers and power users and there's a bit too much of an emphasis on consensus (gotta keep the volunteer army happy). Great article on "the dumbness of crowds" here: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/the_dumbness_of.html http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/0... I don't think they need to HIRE great UI talent. I think they need to put 'em in charge (a la Apple).

by jawngee 18y ago

jawngee 18y ago

Case in point, right after posting this, my f*cking audio stopped working just like that. Awesome.

Herring 18y ago
Sounds to me like you're having some personal problems, like maybe your graphics card isn't supported. Spend some time at ubuntuforums.com & see if they can help.
- jawngee 18y ago
  This is a pretty common dell laptop. If we're talking about prime time, and I have to ask on forums for help with something basic like this, then is it really ready for prime time? I don't hate ubuntu, I just hate when people say it's ready for prime time when it's most certainly not. Ready for netbooks? Sure. But not for a full-on windows laptop replacement. No way.
  - Herring 18y ago
    That doesn't necessarily follow, eg lets assume it's a hardware problem. Have you ever tried installing XP from scratch? After you spend hours hunting for drivers, do you conclude windows isn't ready for the desktop? Or look at all the people having hardware problems on the OSx86 forums. Try buying something from dell if you want to convince yourself about readiness for prime time. I don't particularly care, I've been using it for years & I have no problems with window decorations.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
- quantumhobbit 18y ago
  This has always annoyed the crap out of me when using Ubuntu. There is a ton of great info at ubuntuforums.com, but it is not well organized and questions don't always get answered. Sometimes a problem will get considered answered without really being answered. A simple issue shouldn't require going to the forums, which can be considerable time investment. Maybe community efforts could be focused on a wiki for more common issues and reserve the forums for problematic issues among those doing real development work. Then again I could just be too lazy for Linux.
  - Herring 18y ago
    Hmm, I usually find answers to all my simple questions on google. There's so many of them I think you'd also have to google on a wiki.
tphyahoo 18y ago
If you are on ubuntu hardy I feel your pain. It completely blows. Perhaps this will help, the result of many many painful hours combing the forums. It seems to do the trick for me, anyway. I programmed this as a bash shortcut so I wouldn't forget. I don't really know what the fix is when things crap out, I have just kind of tried things blindly. http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-968697.html (?) sudo alsa reload sudo alsa force-reload also: look for a dialog that pops up, possibly in task bar, if it asks if reload is ok, it is. beh. also related https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/294859 also suggested: sudo killall pulseaudio sudo alsa force-reload also: rm /var/lib/alsa/asound.state (don't include the rm if googling for this post) sudo force alsa-reload http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:faaeSQtYS4cJ:pennsylvania.ubuntuforums.com/showthread.php%3Fp%3D6242032+gvfs+alsa&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=pl
- pg 18y ago
  Is there a new trick for making these wide comments not screw up the page width? The last trick users suggested stopped working in FF4, apparently. What is the latest?
  - sayrer 18y ago
    I think this page has nice technique, although it's a bit different than what your old CSS was going for: http://users.tkk.fi/tkarvine/pre-wrap-css3-mozilla-opera-ie.html http://users.tkk.fi/tkarvine/pre-wrap-css3-mozilla-opera-ie.... P.S. -- disclosure: I work for Mozilla P.P.S. -- I kinda hate CSS
    - lg 18y ago
      The "toggle word wrap" FF add-on just sticks this into whatever page you're looking at, I think. Works great.
- Prrometheus 18y ago
  This is exactly the kind of maintenance issue that makes me occasionally hate using Ubuntu. Oh look! My flash player suddenly stopped working! I get to do six hours of forum combing and troubleshooting, whoppee!

dotcoma 18y ago

the Ubuntu UI is certainly better than Windows, and also imho easier to adapt to than OS X for Windows users who have had enough...

gaius 18y ago
But it isn't tho', not by any measure. Microsoft (and Apple) have something Linux never has and probably never will: HCI specialists who can't code themselves yet nevertheless, the programmers listen to them and do as they say.

gcv 18y ago

The Linux desktop also needs better fonts and better antialiasing. I can't think of a good way to describe it, but the fonts I see in GNOME are kind of fat and frumpy-looking. With the weak antialiasing, the whole picture looks hard on the eyes (this is in Ububtu 8.04 and FC10).

gaius 18y ago
Read this: http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.html#toc0007 http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.h...
shimon 18y ago
You might want to check your antialiasing settings (in Preferences -> Fonts I think). You can choose different levels of antialiasing, and if you're using an LCD monitor, you'll want to use sub-pixel rendering, which is equivalent to Microsoft's ClearType. It would be nice if that could be automatically turned on based on your monitor type.
- Herring 18y ago
  System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Fonts. I just changed mine, it looks a lot better now
illicium 18y ago
There's a patch for cairo that greatly improves subpixel antialiasing (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cairo-lcd/cairo-lcd/lcd-filter.patch http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cairo-lcd/cairo-lcd/lcd-fi...), but it's not included in any official builds due to patent issues. Ubuntu has their own version of this patch, but it seems like it's disabled default -- there's instructions here on how to edit to appropriate config files: http://johan.kiviniemi.name/blag/ubuntu-fonts/ http://johan.kiviniemi.name/blag/ubuntu-fonts/ The available filter types are "lcdfilternone", "lcdfilterdefault", "lcdfilterlight", and "lcdfilterlegacy"
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

dcminter 18y ago

My experience of Linux these days, under Ubuntu, is that it's no more quirky than Windows or OS X. You're probably blind to many of OS X's deficiencies because you've become used to all but the most intrusive of them. Problems that you personally have with it are no doubt vexing, but I've had stuff just as annoying with Windows and OS X. My feeling is that Linux is finally there with Ubuntu. Yes, it lacks some core software, but on the other hand it has some unique features (ease of installation of free software packages particularly) that at last give it the chance for some competitive traction. I used OS X for a few months a couple of years back and came away hating it (in fact I sold the iBook and replaced it with a Thinkpad running Windows for a perceived performance gain at a lower price). Not all users are equivalent.

fauigerzigerk 18y ago
Neither Windows nor OS X dies when you close the lid, and when you install any of them on a new machine WIFI just works. Always. I install every new version of Ubuntu as soon as it's released. Once sleep/resume, WIFI, sound, the trackpad and power management all work without tweaking drivers, I might actually keep it. So far that hasn't been the case on any of the machines I tried. (I should add that I'm no big fan of any OS so far)
- froo 18y ago
  Weird, my experience has been exactly the opposite. I reinstalled ubuntu 8.10 on my Asus notebook less than 2 days ago without any of these weird things happening, wifi, sound, trackpad, power management and sleep/resume all work perfectly without the need to tweak anything. Coincidentally, with Windows XP I've always had to tweak the power management so that my machine was "always on" as when I closed the lid, it would sleep and when it came back, things just did not work right.
- anewaccountname 18y ago
  My experience installing OS X on a random machine is that wifi doesn't always work. But, installing it on a mac, it always works. The same thing can be said of installing linux on a random machine. But, installing linux on a mac, wifi always works.

petercooper 18y ago

I'm an OS X user by day but very pro Linux generally and have tried hard to use Ubuntu (in particular) as often as I can "on the side". And.. my biggest problem is there are niggling things that no-one seems to want to fix because they're cross disciplinary. For example, take window moving and resizing. Seamless in Windows and OS X, but on the default GNOME it's a hit and miss affair. Yes, you can press Ctrl and click and easily move windows, but if you try and clickdrag the title bar in the usual way, half the time you don't "grab" the window for some reason. Worse is resizing (see: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/8473/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/8473/ ). Only a 6 pixel wide or so region at the bottom right of a window is grabbable, which makes it a real job. It's not seamless like in OS X or Windows. They need to add a transparent grab zone for this. Yet, despite many complaints, metacity developers seem to think it's a theme problem, and themers think it's a metacity thing -- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/human-gtk-theme/+bug/160311 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/human-gtk-theme/+b... With too many disparate elements and tiny fiefdoms, it's hard to dictate good practices from the top down. Once they sort that out, a lot of the UI issues - including those you raise - could be solved, but the dictatorial technique probably isn't going to fly with this community.

Herring 18y ago
"For example, take window moving and resizing." Yeah, everyone uses compiz's resize window plugin. I think it's enabled by default, try holding down alt & dragging the scroll button.
- petercooper 18y ago
  That's the thing - that method exists but.. it's not default, and something as simple as resizing a window should be seamless by default without the need for hacks. As a hacker, I love Linux to bits and it beats OS X and Windows in a crazy number of ways. As a user (and it's a hat I proudly wear quite often) I find the UI glitches infuriating, especially as it makes it so hard to recommend to other users I know (because I'll inevitably get the "why can't I resize windows properly?" question 100 times a year).
- dhimes 18y ago

yef 18y ago

Let's get one thing out of the way, first: the simple fact that you can compare Ubuntu (cost: $0) with OSX ($120 + custom hardware) and Windows ($117) is utterly amazing. You make a valid point that certain things break and take coaxing and searching message boards to work. That's definitely bad. The point I would question is that of the UI. There are many aspects of OSX that are weird -- the mouse tracking, installing applications, setting a background color for your desktop, bringing up a terminal. Other issues exist for Windows. I can see how it's hard to detach yourself from something you're used to, though. Those are going to be the two main issues in getting Ubuntu off the ground with average users. Having shit not break, and being close enough to users' existing habits to make the switch easy. My hunch is that things are pretty close to where they'll end up. Linux will be an attractive alternative among techies, hobbyists, and average folks with spare/old machines. Microsoft and Apple will respond by cutting prices, and in the end, won't lose a substantial share of the market to Linux on the desktop, but suffer decreased margins. The user wins.

parenthesis 18y ago
What is exactly is weird with "the mouse tracking, installing applications, setting a background color for your desktop, bringing up a terminal" in OS X?
- notauser 18y ago
  Mouse tracking - no focus on mouse, and the default track pad speed/sensitivity options are way too low. Installing application - no app store, basically. Being able to get 99.9% of everything you need for free with a single click is very nice.
- yef 18y ago
  Mouse tracking: the acceleration is different than what I expect; slow moves don't seem to get me anywhere, quick ones make me overshoot. I've played with settings and downloaded third-party fixes, nothing seems to make it work the way it does in Ubuntu or Windows. Installing applications: they usually come on a disk image, which you mount, open, and then find the program. Natural inclination is to double click the program and run it. That's great until you unmount the disk image. What you really have to do is drag it to the applications folder. This is never explained, nor do average users know what a disk image is. Windows install wizards are pretty nice; Debian/Ubuntu's package manager is also super nice. Background color: try setting your OSX background to black. When I tried it, I found that I couldn't. I had to get a purely black image, and then stretch it. Not a problem with Ubuntu or with Windows. Terminal: by default, the terminal program is not part of the dock, it's buried in the Applications folder. Given that "it's BSD! you have a terminal!" was part of the hype around OSX, I was terribly confused the first time I went on an OSX machine to actually run it. Not a problem with Ubuntu. Moot in Windows, you download Cygwin if you have to.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

webwright 18y ago

"Until someone spends a good bucket of cash on hiring UI talent to clean up the abortion that is the linux desktop, they'll still be lagging way behind OSX and Windows, both of which offer a superior and consistent experience." I'm not sure it's just a matter of money. As a UI guy myself, I can tell you that participation on OSS is not very conducive to the way I like design. Many/most of the powerful stakeholders in OSS projects tend to be hackers and power users and there's a bit too much of an emphasis on consensus (gotta keep the volunteer army happy). Great article on "the dumbness of crowds" here: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/the_dumbness_of.html http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/0... I don't think they need to HIRE great UI talent. I think they need to put 'em in charge (a la Apple).