6 ms·

Wobbly Compiz

12 points by critic 18y ago

Tichy 18y ago
Yawn - wasn't there another article on HN recently that explained how hate articles always get 100 times the traffic as love articles? Don't fall for this troll...
- unalone 18y ago
  I wouldn't call this a troll. It's spitting mad, it's definitely a hate article, but it's constructive criticism. It's rude, but it's constructive.
  - Tichy 18y ago
    What is his point, that there are useless open source projects? There are countless open source developers, no wonder some of them are doing useless stuff. I don't see why that should diminish the work of the ones doing useful stuff.
    - unalone 18y ago
      No. His point is that Linux users tout Compiz as the big thing. I've had Linux users tell me that OS X is ugly compared to Compiz, like it's some magic bullet. Linux users tell people to convert so they can get Compiz. A friend of mine in high school would preach it all over. And it's worthless technology that just lost its lead. The point of his blog is to try and get the people working on Linux to make useful stuff. He criticizes the bad stuff. Especially the bad stuff that gets lots of attention. I think that's worth having a link to here. It makes an important point, and it was an entertaining read besides.
      - Tichy 18y ago
        I am a Linux user and I never cared for compiz, so I consider your point refuted.
        unalone 18y ago
        Sigh. His point isn't that Compiz is the only thing Linux has to offer. His point is that it's brought up as a major feature of open source, and that it's bad. Look, I don't care that you disagree. You're allowed to disagree. My initial point was that he wasn't trolling, he was making good points that just happened to be coated in vitriol. Hacker News-worthy, in other words. I think the fact that we're arguing about this shows that there was at least a hint of truth to what he said.
      - yters 18y ago
        You don't think it's possible to find loads of other people saying the same thing? Go on slashdot, and you'll see his points every time some kind of linux fanboyism pops up. Maybe there is something constructive in mixing it up with gems like "freetard" and random expletives, though. I also checked a number of his other posts, and they are pretty similar.
        unalone 18y ago
        I'm pretty tolerant of random expletives. And you find good comments in a lot of places. I'm certain I've seen Reddit comments linked as stories here before. But his blog is pretty consistently worth reading, he's got a very good mind for technical details, and he knows what he's talking about (look at his post about registries, for instance).
        yters 18y ago
        Ok, I'll give him a bit more rope. Personally, I'm just really turned off by this article, though. It's like someone constantly telling someone they'll fail until they get discouraged and do fail, and then congratulating themselves on their insight. But, I know you have a different perspective on such caustic communication, which perhaps I should adopt.
marksutherland 18y ago
Sigh. Why submit this pointless troll of an article when the LWN article it cites has actual information, content and details?
- unalone 18y ago
  Because it makes good points. This is one of my favorite blogs to get articles from. The guy is a ranter, absolutely, but he isn't just trolling. He's almost certainly a long-time Linux user with experience developing. His blog isn't so much Linux hatred as it is hatred for a lot of the stupid stuff that gets thrown about in its name. I used to use Linux, but left because it really wasn't stable. It messed up repeatedly, I couldn't get sound to work after a week's trying to fix it, and in the end I decided that Vista was worth keeping around. The Compiz argument is one of the ones that I most hate: the people who like Compiz are the people who think that people use other operating systems for flashy effects. Not true. The best effects are only minimally flashy, but the real flash comes from doing something meaningful. (Case in point, the way OS X has a search bar in Help that will take you directly to menu commands. It wows friends that I show, but it's not graphic-intensive at all.) Sometimes it's good to have open hostility in a blog post, especially if it does cite its sources. This isn't about the news of Compiz closing. This is about how awful a lot of core Linux groups are, and how the Linux masses preach stupid, wasteful things instead of the parts of Linux that really matter. That's a message the community needs.
  - rbanffy 18y ago
    "I used to use Linux, but left because it really wasn't stable. It messed up repeatedly" I have to ask: have you really ever used Linux after, say, 1998? I ask that because in my experience (I moved to Linux by 2000) it is a rock-solid OS. It won't work with every hardware I throw at it, of course, because not all hardware is documented enough for people to write drivers for it. I have had my troubles with cheap sound cards and cheap motherboards, but, all in all, the system never, ever, gave me any headache.
    - unalone 18y ago
decode 18y ago
I know it's stupid to respond seriously to a comedy troll piece, but I can't resist: Were there people that thought Compiz would make lots of people adopt Linux? That's kinda silly. I like Compiz. It makes my desktop look nicer than Windows or OSX. But that's not why it's cool. Compiz has two different kinds of plugins: pure eye-candy toys, and useful stuff. The wobbly windows, rain effect, and fire plugins are toys and are fun for about 5 minutes. You enable them to see what clever people can do to your desktop on modern hardware. Then you disable them. In the second category are actual useful plugins. Virtual desktops are fantastic, but I've found it hard to explain the concept to non-technical people. Show them the Cube plugin for 10 seconds and it makes complete sense. The Zoom plugin is great for people with bad eyesight. Also, if you come across a flash video you can't fullscreen, just zoom in so it fills the screen. I do this with Pandora when I'm not using the computer so I can read the song and artist information from across the room. The Scale plugin is better than Exposé. The Group and Tab Windows plugin introduces new and useful ideas to window management. Compiz is cool because the developers can be creative and experimental with new UI ideas. Maybe some of them don't end up working out (e.g. writing on the backs of windows seems like it might be really useful, but I've never found a good use for it), but some of them have changed how I've thought about the desktop interface.
- unalone 18y ago
  Some of that made a lot of sense - I didn't know Compiz added zoom, I thought that was built-in, and I agree that the default Linux multiple-desktops system lacks a good visual metaphor. Out of curiosity: how does Scale work? What does it do that's better than Expose? And what is the Group and Tab Windows plugin? Is there a site that I could read up on all this in one convenient place that includes screenshots?
  - decode 18y ago
    The wiki at compiz-fusion.org has good descriptions of many of the plugins. Check out the Window Title Filter addon to the Scale plugin: http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Scale#head-d1eafdeb1408a0c789843e7e99e8bb3ff7951937 http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Scale#head-d1eafdeb140... Group and Tab Windows plugin: http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Group http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Group

12 points by critic 18y ago

Tichy 18y ago

Yawn - wasn't there another article on HN recently that explained how hate articles always get 100 times the traffic as love articles? Don't fall for this troll...

unalone 18y ago
I wouldn't call this a troll. It's spitting mad, it's definitely a hate article, but it's constructive criticism. It's rude, but it's constructive.
- Tichy 18y ago
  What is his point, that there are useless open source projects? There are countless open source developers, no wonder some of them are doing useless stuff. I don't see why that should diminish the work of the ones doing useful stuff.
  - unalone 18y ago
    No. His point is that Linux users tout Compiz as the big thing. I've had Linux users tell me that OS X is ugly compared to Compiz, like it's some magic bullet. Linux users tell people to convert so they can get Compiz. A friend of mine in high school would preach it all over. And it's worthless technology that just lost its lead. The point of his blog is to try and get the people working on Linux to make useful stuff. He criticizes the bad stuff. Especially the bad stuff that gets lots of attention. I think that's worth having a link to here. It makes an important point, and it was an entertaining read besides.
    - Tichy 18y ago
      I am a Linux user and I never cared for compiz, so I consider your point refuted.
      - unalone 18y ago
        Sigh. His point isn't that Compiz is the only thing Linux has to offer. His point is that it's brought up as a major feature of open source, and that it's bad. Look, I don't care that you disagree. You're allowed to disagree. My initial point was that he wasn't trolling, he was making good points that just happened to be coated in vitriol. Hacker News-worthy, in other words. I think the fact that we're arguing about this shows that there was at least a hint of truth to what he said.
    - yters 18y ago
      You don't think it's possible to find loads of other people saying the same thing? Go on slashdot, and you'll see his points every time some kind of linux fanboyism pops up. Maybe there is something constructive in mixing it up with gems like "freetard" and random expletives, though. I also checked a number of his other posts, and they are pretty similar.
      - unalone 18y ago
        I'm pretty tolerant of random expletives. And you find good comments in a lot of places. I'm certain I've seen Reddit comments linked as stories here before. But his blog is pretty consistently worth reading, he's got a very good mind for technical details, and he knows what he's talking about (look at his post about registries, for instance).
        yters 18y ago
        Ok, I'll give him a bit more rope. Personally, I'm just really turned off by this article, though. It's like someone constantly telling someone they'll fail until they get discouraged and do fail, and then congratulating themselves on their insight. But, I know you have a different perspective on such caustic communication, which perhaps I should adopt.

marksutherland 18y ago

Sigh. Why submit this pointless troll of an article when the LWN article it cites has actual information, content and details?

unalone 18y ago
Because it makes good points. This is one of my favorite blogs to get articles from. The guy is a ranter, absolutely, but he isn't just trolling. He's almost certainly a long-time Linux user with experience developing. His blog isn't so much Linux hatred as it is hatred for a lot of the stupid stuff that gets thrown about in its name. I used to use Linux, but left because it really wasn't stable. It messed up repeatedly, I couldn't get sound to work after a week's trying to fix it, and in the end I decided that Vista was worth keeping around. The Compiz argument is one of the ones that I most hate: the people who like Compiz are the people who think that people use other operating systems for flashy effects. Not true. The best effects are only minimally flashy, but the real flash comes from doing something meaningful. (Case in point, the way OS X has a search bar in Help that will take you directly to menu commands. It wows friends that I show, but it's not graphic-intensive at all.) Sometimes it's good to have open hostility in a blog post, especially if it does cite its sources. This isn't about the news of Compiz closing. This is about how awful a lot of core Linux groups are, and how the Linux masses preach stupid, wasteful things instead of the parts of Linux that really matter. That's a message the community needs.
- rbanffy 18y ago
  "I used to use Linux, but left because it really wasn't stable. It messed up repeatedly" I have to ask: have you really ever used Linux after, say, 1998? I ask that because in my experience (I moved to Linux by 2000) it is a rock-solid OS. It won't work with every hardware I throw at it, of course, because not all hardware is documented enough for people to write drivers for it. I have had my troubles with cheap sound cards and cheap motherboards, but, all in all, the system never, ever, gave me any headache.
  - unalone 18y ago

decode 18y ago

I know it's stupid to respond seriously to a comedy troll piece, but I can't resist: Were there people that thought Compiz would make lots of people adopt Linux? That's kinda silly. I like Compiz. It makes my desktop look nicer than Windows or OSX. But that's not why it's cool. Compiz has two different kinds of plugins: pure eye-candy toys, and useful stuff. The wobbly windows, rain effect, and fire plugins are toys and are fun for about 5 minutes. You enable them to see what clever people can do to your desktop on modern hardware. Then you disable them. In the second category are actual useful plugins. Virtual desktops are fantastic, but I've found it hard to explain the concept to non-technical people. Show them the Cube plugin for 10 seconds and it makes complete sense. The Zoom plugin is great for people with bad eyesight. Also, if you come across a flash video you can't fullscreen, just zoom in so it fills the screen. I do this with Pandora when I'm not using the computer so I can read the song and artist information from across the room. The Scale plugin is better than Exposé. The Group and Tab Windows plugin introduces new and useful ideas to window management. Compiz is cool because the developers can be creative and experimental with new UI ideas. Maybe some of them don't end up working out (e.g. writing on the backs of windows seems like it might be really useful, but I've never found a good use for it), but some of them have changed how I've thought about the desktop interface.

unalone 18y ago
Some of that made a lot of sense - I didn't know Compiz added zoom, I thought that was built-in, and I agree that the default Linux multiple-desktops system lacks a good visual metaphor. Out of curiosity: how does Scale work? What does it do that's better than Expose? And what is the Group and Tab Windows plugin? Is there a site that I could read up on all this in one convenient place that includes screenshots?
- decode 18y ago
  The wiki at compiz-fusion.org has good descriptions of many of the plugins. Check out the Window Title Filter addon to the Scale plugin: http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Scale#head-d1eafdeb1408a0c789843e7e99e8bb3ff7951937 http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Scale#head-d1eafdeb140... Group and Tab Windows plugin: http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Group http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Group