4 ms·

Is it me or linux desktop was better 5 years ago? The ui was always inconsistent and ugly (e.g. Gnome icons are a joke), but it was fast and had some cool feat

by ultim8k 13y ago

Is it me or linux desktop was better 5 years ago? The ui was always inconsistent and ugly (e.g. Gnome icons are a joke), but it was fast and had some cool features the competition implemented years later. Now its behind the competition, terribly slow and still inconsistent and ugly. Sorry devs, I don't mean to understate your work, but sometimes criticism is needed to help evolution and improvement.

jamesbritt 13y ago
"[L]inux desktop" is not a single thing. There are many different desktop options. What ships with the default Ubuntu is but one of them. For example, I'm using the Trinity version of KDE 3.5. Works great for me.
kunai 13y ago
I agree that current UIs are inconsistent and ugly, but I would argue against that ~2005-2008 UIs were inconsistent and ugly. The Gnome icons were cartoonish, yes, but they were consistent AND informative. If you remember using Ubuntu 8.04 (perhaps the greatest Ubuntu release of all time), you'll remember it being VERY consistent, fast, and excellent all-around. I loved it so much, that out of nostalgia I had to VirtualBox it just to bring back the memories. Really, it was OS perfection. No other operating system comes close to the intuition, the pure ease that 8.04 had.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  Oddly enough, I still have the Hardy Heron wallpaper on my current Debian Wheezy xfce4 based desktop. CentOS 5.9 is a close analogue and CentOS 6.4 can be themed appropriately. Interface Design Reflection: Go and watch a string quartet playing. Reflect on the 'usability' of a couple of violins, a viola and a cello. Heidegger may have had a point.
- arjie 13y ago
  I agree. The Tron-esque modern UIs look like they come from some Android theme from XDA. Earlier Gnome revisions were good looking, with colour cues, and a sort of homogeneity.
Nursie 13y ago
"The linux desktop" is not a meaningful phrase. There are many and Gnome is no longer as widespread a default as it used to be. "The competition" have just screwed the pooch with Win 8 as well. I'm not an Apple user so you'll have to tell me how they're doing. So... no. I personally use XFCE, which is fast, pretty, fairly lightweight and doesn't seem to want to force me to change how I work. In Xubuntu, or on debian with a bit of effort and a couple of themes installed, it's a good looking, slick interface. If you want a decent linux desktop experience it's worth a try.
- mratzloff 13y ago
  > "The linux desktop" is not a meaningful phrase. Sure it is. It's an umbrella term for Gnome, KDE, etc. > "The competition" have just screwed the pooch with Win 8 as well. Nah. Not enough that people are leaving it in great numbers. People who want a Windows 7 experience download Pokki or Start8. > I'm not an Apple user so you'll have to tell me how they're doing. As a Mac user, I'm perfectly happy with Mac OS X, out of the box. Haven't upgraded to Mountain Lion yet, though.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    On the Win 8 subject - needing 3rd party downloads to fix the borked desktop is very much screwing the pooch, especially when the vast majority of your users are entry level and have no idea what a desktop extension even is. The 8.1 climbdown is further evidence of cockup. Not to mention the serious analysis in the mainstream press suggesting that win 8 has actually depressed the pc market. So yeah. The point is there is no single linux desktop and the OP seemed only to be talking about gnome.
    - eropple 13y ago
      On the Win 8 subject - needing 3rd party downloads to fix the borked desktop is very much screwing the pooch Sure, but who cares? Apparently not enough people, because nobody is leaving. While their position is certainly precarious in other areas, Microsoft's dominance on the desktop is pretty hard to excuse away; it seems to me that they could have another three or four missteps of this magnitude and few people would consider leaving even then. Their primary competition is their own operating system, and that's a great place to be. The point is there is no single linux desktop and the OP seemed only to be talking about gnome. There's no "single Windows desktop", either; stuff like LiteStep has existed forever. But when people say "Windows", they don't mean LiteStep. Which isn't to say the usage numbers for non-GNOME/Unity DEs are that dire--from what I can see, they're fairly dire but not that dire--but for a majority of Linux users, GNOME and GNOME-y things are the Linux desktop. Or, put another way: You knew what he meant. He knew what he meant. Does being That Guy help anything?
oinksoft 13y ago
I agree regarding the trajectory of the KDE and GNOME projects, but XFCE has made huge strides in the past five years and stands as a great model of evolutionary rather than revolutionary development (to borrow from Nimzowitsch's vocabulary). It is a very usable, attractive desktop environment. It even has a QuickSilver-like tool built-in these days (Alt-F3).
dlitz 13y ago
I don't know about 'better', but I remember it being a lot more fun to use various Linux desktops 5 years ago.
joosters 13y ago
Part of the problem, I think, is that projects like Gnome don't seem to have clear goals, targets or ambitions. In the beginning, Linux desktops were incomplete, but they were thriving, developers all keen to add new stuff and catch up with Windows/Mac. And naturally, most of it ended up as almost-copies of other OS's functionality, but with plenty of unique stuff in there too. But then, the desktops slowly became closer and closer to 'feature complete'. So where do you go from there? It seems to me that Gnome has become a 'change for the sake of change' project. Maintaining and making incremental improvements to a desktop isn't that interesting for developers, I guess. So they strike out in all different directions, at the expense of existing users. But there doesn't seem to be any goal any longer in what they are doing. Certainly I can't find anything obvious on their website!
swatkat 13y ago
I personally feel all this "usability nightmare" started with Ubuntu Unity and GNOME 3. I'd suggest you to check out MATE (a fork of GNOME 2) and Cinnamon desktop environments.

by ultim8k 13y ago

jamesbritt 13y ago

"[L]inux desktop" is not a single thing. There are many different desktop options. What ships with the default Ubuntu is but one of them. For example, I'm using the Trinity version of KDE 3.5. Works great for me.

kunai 13y ago

I agree that current UIs are inconsistent and ugly, but I would argue against that ~2005-2008 UIs were inconsistent and ugly. The Gnome icons were cartoonish, yes, but they were consistent AND informative. If you remember using Ubuntu 8.04 (perhaps the greatest Ubuntu release of all time), you'll remember it being VERY consistent, fast, and excellent all-around. I loved it so much, that out of nostalgia I had to VirtualBox it just to bring back the memories. Really, it was OS perfection. No other operating system comes close to the intuition, the pure ease that 8.04 had.

keithpeter 13y ago
Oddly enough, I still have the Hardy Heron wallpaper on my current Debian Wheezy xfce4 based desktop. CentOS 5.9 is a close analogue and CentOS 6.4 can be themed appropriately. Interface Design Reflection: Go and watch a string quartet playing. Reflect on the 'usability' of a couple of violins, a viola and a cello. Heidegger may have had a point.
arjie 13y ago
I agree. The Tron-esque modern UIs look like they come from some Android theme from XDA. Earlier Gnome revisions were good looking, with colour cues, and a sort of homogeneity.

Nursie 13y ago

"The linux desktop" is not a meaningful phrase. There are many and Gnome is no longer as widespread a default as it used to be. "The competition" have just screwed the pooch with Win 8 as well. I'm not an Apple user so you'll have to tell me how they're doing. So... no. I personally use XFCE, which is fast, pretty, fairly lightweight and doesn't seem to want to force me to change how I work. In Xubuntu, or on debian with a bit of effort and a couple of themes installed, it's a good looking, slick interface. If you want a decent linux desktop experience it's worth a try.

mratzloff 13y ago
> "The linux desktop" is not a meaningful phrase. Sure it is. It's an umbrella term for Gnome, KDE, etc. > "The competition" have just screwed the pooch with Win 8 as well. Nah. Not enough that people are leaving it in great numbers. People who want a Windows 7 experience download Pokki or Start8. > I'm not an Apple user so you'll have to tell me how they're doing. As a Mac user, I'm perfectly happy with Mac OS X, out of the box. Haven't upgraded to Mountain Lion yet, though.
- Nursie 13y ago
  On the Win 8 subject - needing 3rd party downloads to fix the borked desktop is very much screwing the pooch, especially when the vast majority of your users are entry level and have no idea what a desktop extension even is. The 8.1 climbdown is further evidence of cockup. Not to mention the serious analysis in the mainstream press suggesting that win 8 has actually depressed the pc market. So yeah. The point is there is no single linux desktop and the OP seemed only to be talking about gnome.
  - eropple 13y ago
    On the Win 8 subject - needing 3rd party downloads to fix the borked desktop is very much screwing the pooch Sure, but who cares? Apparently not enough people, because nobody is leaving. While their position is certainly precarious in other areas, Microsoft's dominance on the desktop is pretty hard to excuse away; it seems to me that they could have another three or four missteps of this magnitude and few people would consider leaving even then. Their primary competition is their own operating system, and that's a great place to be. The point is there is no single linux desktop and the OP seemed only to be talking about gnome. There's no "single Windows desktop", either; stuff like LiteStep has existed forever. But when people say "Windows", they don't mean LiteStep. Which isn't to say the usage numbers for non-GNOME/Unity DEs are that dire--from what I can see, they're fairly dire but not that dire--but for a majority of Linux users, GNOME and GNOME-y things are the Linux desktop. Or, put another way: You knew what he meant. He knew what he meant. Does being That Guy help anything?

oinksoft 13y ago

I agree regarding the trajectory of the KDE and GNOME projects, but XFCE has made huge strides in the past five years and stands as a great model of evolutionary rather than revolutionary development (to borrow from Nimzowitsch's vocabulary). It is a very usable, attractive desktop environment. It even has a QuickSilver-like tool built-in these days (Alt-F3).

dlitz 13y ago

I don't know about 'better', but I remember it being a lot more fun to use various Linux desktops 5 years ago.

joosters 13y ago

Part of the problem, I think, is that projects like Gnome don't seem to have clear goals, targets or ambitions. In the beginning, Linux desktops were incomplete, but they were thriving, developers all keen to add new stuff and catch up with Windows/Mac. And naturally, most of it ended up as almost-copies of other OS's functionality, but with plenty of unique stuff in there too. But then, the desktops slowly became closer and closer to 'feature complete'. So where do you go from there? It seems to me that Gnome has become a 'change for the sake of change' project. Maintaining and making incremental improvements to a desktop isn't that interesting for developers, I guess. So they strike out in all different directions, at the expense of existing users. But there doesn't seem to be any goal any longer in what they are doing. Certainly I can't find anything obvious on their website!

swatkat 13y ago

I personally feel all this "usability nightmare" started with Ubuntu Unity and GNOME 3. I'd suggest you to check out MATE (a fork of GNOME 2) and Cinnamon desktop environments.