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Dvorak: Linux too much like Windows
inode_buddha was among a handful of folks who submitted linkage to Dvorak's latest column where he talks about Linux being to much like Windows. It's not really a slam, just a challange to be more innovative and look beyond feature creep and UI concepts that are old and tired. Hard to disagree with most of it.
a familiar looking UI will help people move from 'doze to Linux
"just a challange to be more innovative and look beyond feature creap and UI concepts that are old and tired."
Well, before Mr. Dvorak challegened the developers, maybe he should have come up with some UI concepts that are new and exciting.
2D UI has become pretty much perfected, there is almost no way to improve upon it.
Dvorak too much like crotchety columnist trolling for publicity
He slams the Mac constantly for not being enough like Windows. It's innovating in a different direction, and that's an issue. Now Linux is copying Windows too much, and that's an issue.
I think this guy just bashes everything to get people riled up and to have people read his articles.
I've never agreed with anything he's ever said. I think he takes these extreme opinions just to piss people off.
Didn't he create that screwed up version of the keyboard as an alternative to the qwerty keyboard?
Connectix is pretty badass.
But in the larger sense, the issue with Linux on the desktop is not whether it is or isn't too much like Windows, but how attractive it is to mainstream users. If Linux can become more attractive to that crowd by copying some Windows features, but ignoring others and inventing new solutions, then fine, and that's what developers should be doing. Users don't care about who gets ego points for inventing something first; they just want the system that best meets their needs.
Its not really a slam, just a challange to be more innovative and look beyond feature creap and UI concepts that are old and tired.
In other news, Taco fails third grade english. Show at eleven.
...Linux is too much like YOU!
My counter to Dvorak's argument is that is that if linux really wants to conquer the desktop, it needs to be EXACTLY like windows(sans all the security flaws). It's much too late in the game to try and woo new users with being 'different'. We must use Bill's own tactics against him. Embrace and extend, baby. Then once you have people scratching their heads and saying "hrmm, this linux thing....you mean it's exactly like windows but it's free? What the hell, I'm gonna use that!" At that point linux can begin to forge a new path in the desktop environment; It's just a matter of getting Joe User's attention right now and the almighty buck, I think, is the biggest factor.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
IAWTP
Linux CLI to much like MS-Dos.
This article strikes me as odd. We've evolved a user interface which most people are comfortable with (or at least are FAMILIAR with). This was not Microsoft's invention. Why should Linux suddenly break with something that works? Linux is not trying to be Windows, it's just building on generally accepted methods for working with computers.
I don't find most of his article hard to disagree with. Actually, I find some of it to be blatantly wrong.
Personally, I find my linux desktop to be nothing like windows; ok, granted, it's got a mouse, a pointer, and windows, but that's about it. I've always thought that the beauty of linux was that you could make the decision yourself as to how much like Windows/Mac you wanted things to be. I run WindowMaker: nut much like either. Sure, a lot of people make their system look like Windows -- I don't use them, they don't have to use mine. Besides, people are trying to market to Windows users.
for zombie lover!
I used to read PC Magazine all the time and didn't actually mind Dvoraks columns as they were a bit edgy. This article is so edgy that I think it was almost done as a parody of his other articles. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry about this article :) He makes one or two points that make you think "Ok, he's kind of got a point" but in the end I was left thinking the guy has lost his mind lately. And I'm not even a big Linux zealot!
I used to read his columns way back. They imho are nothing but hype to generate page views. It's a pity Slashdot put this up.
(preface, this is not flamebait)
Long ago, Microsoft recognized that features sell software--not code size, efficiency, or even a pretty interface.
This statement is 100% wrong. Most users never touch all the 'features' that windows ships with, they just use it for 4 things- IM, email, internet, and games. The reason microsoft is in such a good position is that their OS has a very intuitive interface, and linux has nothing even close to what windows has.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
... Believe me, buddy. I wouldn't be using linux right now if it wasn't quite as good as Windows. Windows came with this computer, and I'm not using it. That isn't because I'm some kind of linux religious freak. It's because I'm more productive on a linux box.
The same old command line? Somebody go tell this guy that linux (or any unix variant) doesn't have the same old command line as Windows. It's so obvious that they are different that I'm not going to type about it anymore
I'm getting the feeling that linux and windows are the same because they both run on computers. So they must be the same, right?
Sex - Find It
My X sessions don't look anything like Windows. They don't have icons. They don't have a taskbar. Hell, I do most of my things through xterms.
I don't see this whole thing as relevant. It makes my eyes roll whenever I see people discussing it.
Yeah, GNOME and KDE suck... But those are just 2 choices. I'm not too into using a GUI for things like file management. But there are cleaner, less bloated ways to do even that.
With Linux, it's all about what you want, not what someone else wants you to have.
guess what fucktard.
SCROLL DOWN
SCROLL DOWN
SCROLL DOWN
SCROLL DOWN
SCROLL DOWN
SCROLL
SCROLL
SCROLL
SCROLL
The dock is about 10 years old, and animations are about 5 years old.
I'm sure he greatly appreciates being linked from slashdot. He'll surely make his quota for the year.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Saying Linux is becoming a lot like windows is pretty imprecise. What exactly does he think is becoming more like Windows? He says: "all the flavors of Linux and the open-source software that runs on it". That's an overly broad statement, if you ask me.
And he complains of featurism. Isn't featurism the great part of Linux? There's a tool for everything you could want in Linux, and that's _always_ been part of Linux. What's different about Linux is that you're usually not forced to pay a penalty (stability, performance, etc) for features you don't need, wheras with a Windows distribution, you're often forced to run silly programs/features that you don't want.
There are so many linux variations and configurations... I think he could easily find a setup that meets his needs. And the other people that (for whatever reason) want a windows like setup can have it too.
Features don't sell software for me. Getting from point A to point B as easiest as possible is what sells to me. That's why I choose Windows over Linux. Innovation, bells and whistles, "well our open source software isn't sold by the super evil MS" don't sell to me. Make it easy, and I would use Linux because it is free (and marginally more secure).
I've said this for years but I only ever get flamed for it... I remeber a time when linux was cool cos it was small.. now.. linux comes on several cd's.. installs tons and tons and tons of junk ..and ends up 5 times as big as a full installation of WindowsXP..
so.. screw linux..and QNX.. here I come!
Don't get me wrong, KDE is not a bad piece of software.
But I'm still a gnome and window maker user. I think that KDE is just a crappy copy of the MS Windows desktop for Linux. It doesn't give a different approch to the computing experience. I use linux because it is a great OS and also because I want something different, a different desktop, a different approach. So I prefer to support projects that invent and create something different.
I like my WindowMaker. It's not a Win95/XP clone like KDE and Gnome tried to be. But they aren't fully Win95/XP clone that they tried for either, they all moved on. Gnome has multiple panels, as does KDE(ok, they keep up with each other instead of diverting, to me that is kind of pointless), as does Windows. But with Gnome and KDE is makes more sense to use the multiple panels, with Windows there really isn't a reason except to make it look better.
I do agree with Dvorak that WIMPs is a bad idea, but I do think that it is one of the best concepts out there. Although I don't have icons except when I minimize a window. What I would like is a scrolling desktop(and a CPU that could even support it if I coded it). I want to watch my MPlayer Window _over_ the Mozilla Window, but if I move the mouse towards the scrollbar(where MPlayer is covering), the Moz window would move over or the Mplayer window would dynamically shrink, to transparency would occur allowing me to use the scrollbar without having to move the mplayer window.
Everyone thinks that 3-D Window Managers are next. I say 3-d accelerated Window Managers, but having a box with windows on each side _really_ doesn't cut it in my book. It's neat. It's neat to program. It's neat to play with. Gotta get back to work now, good-bye. Just because 3-d is a big gaming thing and not used for regular Windows does not make it "The Next Big Thing(tm)" in my book.
What I would like to see, and this is off-topic, is XML menu specification. So you can download, install a program, and then install a menu item for it with whatever Window Manager you are using. It just needs a few fields. If someone wants to go with this idea and wants me to help(put my money where my mouth is) just e-mail me and I've got no problem.
What I also want to see is the death of X-Windows. It's served it's term, but it isn't getting any better. I want to see DirectFB succeed, but it needs to be multi-platform. I'm on FreeBSD so I can only run it under SDL ontop of X-Windows. But FreeBSD has something similar in the works set for probably 6.0 or whenever the person finishes it.
Communication and features between other type of hardware, specialized, would be great. And the framework to support it. Example, FingerWorks has some great products and great concepts. Once I get the money I'm going for their keyboard. I'd like to see a framework to make it work with any GTK, Gnome, KDE, GNUStep, and a generic library to add support for it to any program. That way have a custom gesture(when it is created) that will allow you to launch a program. I want to be able to hit numlock twice(Example) and type in 0805040206 and launch a program of my choice. For me, memorize 5 numbers, adding a '0' before it, and typing that in is much faster than moving the mouse, opening the menu, finding it, and clicking it. The generic framework, standardized would be best, would add the ability for, say, Mozilla to receive the two numlocks, to realize that it is a registered event handler, and to pass it off to the framework and do what is asked. Say, even passing it off to the 'server' so to speak to figure out what to do, although I think if it was implemented on a window manager level it would be best. That way you have a generic framework to work with as far as developers go, possibly a generic XML exporter of all your functions that you've specific(scanning the bar code, with your CueCat, of your favorite foot powder say, brings up userfriendly), and a generic XML importer to bring into the Window Manager. But having it Window Manager based, so that it fits in with Accessibility theory(I believe?). It _is_ a part of KDE Control Panel, it _is_ a part of Gnome Control Panel, it _is_ a part of that little WindowMaker configuration program. Easy for developers, easy for users, easy to switch between.
Sorry for the long post.
So far, the majority of the posts seem to be attacking the author. I'm sorry, but he has a good point. Microsoft is like a slow moving glacier. It takes them time to get there, but when they do they plow over everything in their path. In order to survive and thrive, Linux needs to be agile and always keep two steps ahead of Microsoft. The Linux platform has the advantage in that the GUI is not intertwined into the core OS so changing switching the interface isn't that big of a deal. Rather than taking everything as a personal attack on Linux, why doesn't the community realise that some people are trying to help by giving ideas. The argument that Microsoft is evil and everything they do sucks just helps them because while everyone is standing around talking about how great Linux is, Microsoft is moving further and further ahead. For example, from what I've read the next version of windows will be video (as in movie video) based. Where as bitmaps replaced the text based systems of DOS, the VUI will replace static bitmaps with interactive movies and the like. Look at what you can do with flash. Imagine interfaces that are not static window blocks, but dynamic, living experiences. And Microsoft IS ALREAYD WORKING ON THIS. So if MS comes out with something like this and the best the Linux community can do is copy it after a year or two the question remains, why switch if it's just the same thing?
This guy has a point. Whenever I look at the linux 'revolution', I see a crowd of zealots running and everytime trying to cope-up with M$ runners.
Most of the new 'features' are copy of windows or Mac... WTF ? Can't you innovate something new ?
As for the people who think that they can lure more users just by giving similar look and feel, ponder-
Price isn't the only consideration for many many people out there. What you're doing here is trying to provide a cheap xerox copy of an original... would you like one ? No! If a person can shell out $99 for the original, he WILL ! A COPY is still an *imitaion*, no matter how thick a paper its printed on. You've got a good OS, invent new things... why lug around the same legacy ?
For example see BeOS, Amiga or even Mac... windows compatibility or windows look-n-feel was never their selling point (hell, not even the last point)!! Yet people loved them. By following windows, you're implicitely stating that 'Yes windows is "the rule", and we're trying to catch up'. Why don't you realise that windows/Mac don't the best UI/interface/architecture possible... there's always something better!
- mritunjai
If I want an intuitive interface I'll use Fluxbox.
What--am I the only one who thought this was funny??
yep.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
The fact is, any window environment must be similar to windows or users will get confused. New entrants must cater to the existing standard. Try building a new car with a different interface or maybe publish a book that reads up -> down. These items will fail. Look at the new BMW 7 series, all they did was add a dial that has extra functionality instead of a normal automatic shifter. Even though the traditional pedal acceleration and stop system remained. many buyers were completely put off by the idea.
Keeping Linux like windows is a good idea, getting rid of point and click makes no sense right now, but that doesn't mean in can't be done. With Linux people can write all types of crazy interfaces and environments, test them on a wide scale, and receive feedback. Apple and Microsoft can't afford to research 100 different window managers, but with Linux this is possible. The only problem with Linux is the developers, usually make decisions on the UI and look and feel. There needs to be a system in place where artists can make significant contributions to the DESIGN of open source software.
...that Mr. Dvorak used a stock install of Red Hat 8, fiddled about with GNOME2, and drew his conclusions from there. If the guy had played with Window Maker or Fluxbox or Ion or my girlfriend's arse he wouldn't be so fucking biased.
"challenge", not "challange", for crying out loud.
I'm not even a native English speaker and I know it.
The drive to completely emulate the Windows GUI and APPS(!) completely hollows all of the arguments about superiority of alternative OS's. If all we can do is copy what is out there, we will never look or BE any better.
Not only are we unoriginal, but many of these "knock off" apps (for instance spreadsheets with all of the same menu options in all of the same places as Echsmell) would seem to me to be lawyer-bait to the N'th degree!
For those wanting ideas - what ever happened to pie menus ? Enlightenment (quite an original piece of work in its day) had a theme with them at one point...
Personaly, I think apps from 5 years ago were at least more original than the bulk of those floating around today! We are so caught up in trying to imitate Mr.Bill to provide a migration path from Windows that there really isn't anywhere to migrate TO...everything is the same. (unless you count the command line, of course)
I'm still running the Gnome 1 panel and Enlightenment because I can reconfigure it to look completely UNLIKE the stupid windows task bar/start button which I am forced to see at work every day!
Lurking in the desert
Windows is great, when everything works perfectly well and nobody actually tries to 'use' the system. Once you start tinkering with it, it will eventually blow up and puke all over you.
My personal feeling is that if the best Linux can ever do is to 'be like Windows', then it's a pile of shit just getting shittier every minute.
If you are already an engineer, should you aim to be more like a janitor? I'm sorry, this just doesn't seem right to me.
Linux needs to do one hell of a lot better than Windows. If it can manage the glitzy, "I'm a dumbass and don't want to know anything" part
of computing without sacrificing the positives it already has, then maybe there's a shot. But that sure as hell does not qualify as "be like Windows".
Hardware support is something that is going to take mindshare. And until *every* company that puts out consumer hardware takes it seriously, it's not going to happen. Blaming Linux for that is like blaming Windows when you buy a Mac and can't load Win2K on it.
Linux needs to gain a few things that Windows 'apparently' has, but it does not need to 'be like Windows'. It needs to be like Linux, only more accessible.
And another thing. Why the hell do people think they should be able to use a computer with absolutely zero computer knowledge? Would you want someone driving a car that had never seen one before? I'm sorry if that hurts people's feelings, but computers, at least in the PC sense, are not, nor are they ever going to be, appliances (obscure toaster references are coming to mind). If they want an appliance, there are some currently available that allow internet access, but all of them still require people to have *some* computer knowledge at the moment.
It's just not a domain of knowledge at the moment that allows for *willfull ignorance*. If you are ignorant of it altogether, you need to learn *something* in order to use a computer. And that whole, "They use Windows at work so they already know it" argument is lame. 10-20 years ago they all used mainframes and you didn't see them running out to buy them now did you?
Sorry, but the more often I see "Linux needs to be like Windows" the more disturbed I become over it. If enough people scream this loud enough they may convince the wrong people, and we'll all end up with some Mandrake-like version of Linux that no-one will like. It won't be "Windows enough" for those that were screaming, and it will be far too "Windows like" for those that like Linux the way it is. Please, just think about it. We don't need another Windows. If people want Windows, let them fricken use it. God knows it's still what I recomend to my more computer illiterate friends. If they want to experiment, then they can on their own, or I will help them. But I'm not going to force something on them just because it's 'kewl'.
I'm starting to get sick of this 'Linux needs to focus on the typical dumbass' perspective I'm seeing. Maybe I should finally just dump Linux
and start using FreeBSD full time. God knows there are far less people clamouring for FreeBSD to be 'more like Windows'. And that is *not* a
bad thing.
Seriously, it's not Windows. And it doesn't need to be. There's already one company doing that, and look what a mess they've made of it.
I don't think it's a bad thing to push linux devolopers to be more inovative in the UI department. I don't think that linux even comes close to scratching the surface of it's future potential. It's awesome as it is, but it's not without it's problems. I hope that the linux community will embrace the challange and become the market leaders in inovation.
Like a mainstream political party, Microsoft has firmly occupied the center, as that is way to maximize the allegiance of customers. John wants Linux to go off and be totally experimental and new - presumably so he can recapture that excitement of the early years of the PC revolution - but what happens is, as soon as you move away from center you lose appeal to those who don't like the direction you moved in. So John's recipe for Linux's success is really just a recipe for marginalization.
Another point he's missed so far is that Linux doesn't just move in one direction, it moves in many directions at once, so that you have a number of complete, well-developed environments each of which caters to certain tastes, all the way from text mode consoles to kde, which is more-or-less Linux for windows refugees, to experimental 3D environments. I suppose he would come back with the usual argument about how it doesn't make sense to divide effort across all those different projects, but then he'd just be ignoring one of Linux's great strengths, which is the sheer number of coders involved. In fact, trying to get them working obediently all on the same project at the same time would be shear insanity.
John, if you're reading this, and I guess you will, what you have to realize is that you do get to escape your boring old desktop metaphor and try something different, like a Tivo, which doesn't look like a desktop at all, plus you get to keep working the same way you always did, if that's what you want. It's about choice, and that's what Linux has. How's that for something new?
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Dvorak brings up an interesting point, that interfaces are designed by coders and not artists, but oddly in the same article he says that linux shouldn't be going for a pretty look or features, merely to be different.
What is hands down most interesting about this is that for those of us who know his work, it seems to be a reversal of position. In the past Dvorak has ruthlessly bashed the macintosh operating system which stands for being different and had the original interface designed by artist.
There is some truth to the idea that an artist would make a better interface, but there are some guidelines which tend for better interfaces, and in general, a platform standard works well.
Apple provides the Aqua Human Interface Guidelines on their website for developers. This unification of interfaces on all application provices a unity over the system. In the MacOS a button in one application that is simmilar to another button should do basically the same thing. There are layout guidelines and notes for when to use different interface features, so a seasoned user will know what to expect when he or she does something.
The problem with impliemting something like this in the linux community is that there are many people working on any given thing, and too much varitation in X to do it well. Yes, it could be done but it isn't likely to happen.
Furthermore as far a putting features into the operating system, as someone above stated, that is what makes it easier to switch from Windows to Linux, and to that I say all the more power to us. Also Dvorak over looks the fact that any feature can be turned off, if the person dosen't feel like using it and wants more control over the system.
The point of Linux isn't to be difficult. It's to be open, free, and customizable. It is for those who don't want specific software shoved down their throats, and want to make their own software, edit someone else's or contribute to the greater good of their OS experiance.
Modular Redundancy--Because 4 out of 5 Nodes agree
Stop jerking it Taco. Go fuck your wife before someone else does.
Methinks that Dvorak has been reading Slashdot too much and is starting to let the Soviet Russia jokes get to him.
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
I think Linux developers have many things to learn from it. Especially GUI. (Besides this GUI was designed not by Microsoft) Because Windows has what ordinary user wants: handy GUI. And most features needed by user are easy to tune. And extreme stability is unecessary if you turn on/off your PC several times a day. Honestly, It think that windows is much more convenient for desktops than Linux. Linux has much to offer to people too: open and free sources, stability etc. But this features are not for ordinary users. They are for scientists, programmers and so on. Linux distributors just have to think about it and beat Microsoft on those expanding parts of market. And Linux on home PC... I think it is still nonsence.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
my WinXP desktop operate like my Kde desktop. Like many, I have a nice machine, good for games, so I do dual boot. Most of the time I'm not really feeling like rebooting, so I haven't rebooted in 2 weeks, but when I do, I've tried to make WinXP like my Linux desktop. I have kde set up so that I can be productive, and I have access to all sorts of info with out much effort.
Short of posting a screenshot, I have my panel at the bottom center, not fully expanded like OS X, and at "Huge". Apps can overlap it, and if it slam the cursor to the bottom edge, the panel reappears. There I have my Konsole, Konqueror Web, Konq FileMan, Kmail, and show desktop buttons. Then, I have my pager, my CPU/Mem load applet, Logout/Lock, then systray: klipper, kmix, KSim(Ethernet/Temp/Mem monitor), and Knotes, for writing little post-its. Finally my clock. All big and easy to access with one click. At the top, I have my Taskbar, all running apps where I can minimize them. In the top right corner I have the main window for KSim, set to be always on top. Now, I've TRIED to make XP like this desktop, and its not possible. The apps don't exist, or they operate very different from the linux equivs and don't have the options that the Kde apps do. I checked out MS's little virtual desktop powertoy, and when it doesn't cause the machine to lock, it still makes it more of a pain in the ass or harder to change desktops than the Kde pager. I'm stuck with the Start menu in the corner (oooh I can move to to some OTHER corner!), I can't make the Quick Launch icons any bigger without making the whole bar bigger, I can't separate the tasklist from the main bar, there is no CPU/Mem monitor that embeds visually in the bar, and I can't find a Knotes like app whose UI is as good as KNotes. I could go on, but I don't feel like wasting the time. In short, Linux may have some of the UI concepts from Windows, but its been enhanced past the XP UI. Besides, who the fuck said MS came up with the "WIMP" UI anyway? They copied it from Apple to begin with.
C Pungent
I've been reading Dvorak for at least 15 years, although in the last few years very little. He loves to challenge people by pissing them off and has pissed me off many times, yet I still read his columns.
Dvorak is much better informed than the average techno columnist and clearly actually uses technology. He is arrogant but speaks his mind and can be very insightful (sort of like Jerry Pournelle with sharp teeth and a mean attitude). The biggest problem with Dvorak is that while you love to hate him (I do) and he is often wrong, he is also often right.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Linux needs to become more innovative. The multiple, somewhat overlapping projects are a source of strength. If linux has 7 projects, which all look like the windows version, then we are wasting our time.
One thing I always think about is a multiple desktop based window manager. And no, I'm not talking about different 'screens ' of information. What I would like is new way of organizing projects. Right now, people create a new folder for each project, with all of the relevent files stored in that project 's folder. What wuld be better is a new desktop per project. Then the project files are saved in directories with the same type of files.
For example. a project might have files for project descriptions and sceduling, some coding files, emails, results, and so on. All of these files are on the project desktop, easily acessible, with a status file which summarizes your changes. A different project would have its own separate desktop. But similar files would be stored in a common directory. So all of your project result documents would be in one place, easy to find and review. Finally, you would have a way to switch from desktop to desktop.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
It seems to me that over the last year or two, there has been a flood of commentary focusing on what Linux should become in order to be useful, helpful, nice, good value, etc. etc. etc.
And all the while, each time I read one of these stories, I am secretly thinking to myself that I am quite satisfied with Linux as it is now. Linux+KDE3+OpenOffice+Mozilla+GIMP gives me the most enjoyable, productive computing environment I've ever had -- and I've had a lot of computers over the years (I was a 128k Mac owner, $3500 for a tiny monochrome scren and a 400k floppy!)
I sometimes wonder if there isn't a silent majority of Linux users who aren't at all interested in Linux-chases-Windows or Linux-chases-MacOS or Linux-needs-XYZ and who instead are just using Linux on a day to day basis and being glad it's the system that it is.
I'd hate to see this silent majority gradually lose the system they love as Linux is transformed into a Windows clone by vendors and project leaders who give too much credence to the voices of pundits (many of whom probably don't use Linux as their primary desktop anyway).
My $0.02.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I love how people always say "the WIMP metaphor for a GUI environment is old. Can't we try something new?" yet they never offer any new concepts themselves.
if linux really wants to conquer the desktop, it needs to be EXACTLY like windows
My experience from the last ten years is that the Linux community consists of those who do and those who talk. Those who talk are usually the ones who want linux to oust Windows and conquer the desktop. Unfortunately, in the last five years we have attracted an unhealty number of those who just talk.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Comment removed based on user account deletion
PARC|Mac|Windows to correct someone about the history of the gui. Someone will throw in BeOs somewhere too no doubt.
For me I think CDE is the culmination of all that is good on the desktop.
"never met a Microsoft zealot"
sorry, but this was basically 68k of text going on and on to finally make the point that the open source movement must try and revolutionise the desktop using some new paradigm of user interface; the desktop is dead.
/. community.
i would much prefer to hear some suggestions from mr dvorak, or indeed the
how about sub factions within the open source community that help purely with the UI aspects of various other products?
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/screenshot.ht ml
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Allright, that - in essence - what the article is all about. Yet, we know that the desktop metaphor is really the MINIMAL thing to implement before you can go on to other things. Because
1) users that were running Win/Max before don't want to change their way of working that profoundly
2) I for one think that the desktop metaphor will EVOLVE instead of just being killed and replaced completely
So, clearly with X/KDE/GNOME we are behind of MS/Apple by a more or less far shot. But I agree with the author, that - as some of us still are working on perfecting the desktop - we could work on possible "evolutions" and advancements.
One thing, for example, which will definitely be coming along in the not too far away future, is the "one-program" paradigm. The general idea behind is to
a) essentially have one "framework" interface for more or less all applications
b) really driving application-to-application interaction and data-transfer to a new level
c) employ new ways of browsing through data and software
d) making it possible to access the same data with multiple software modules while they are interacting with one another in a meaningful way
e) further degrade of the data-software boundary
So I guess we COULD put a lot of things together, if only OSS would focus more on the user side...
But this article, coming from a guy who's had quite a bit of linux experience (using and reporting on) just seems to me to express very little understanding of what Linux is and, even more, about the nature of open-source.
The idea that one cannot innovate if one is tied to closely with the look of windows is just patently false. I think everyone'd agree that M$ has done a lot of interface things right with windows, even if they stole them from Apple. There is a reason that they built up this user-base, and it doesn't have completely to do with feature-creep. The UI is, for many users, intuitive, and, what's more important, it's familiar after all these years. So, if Linux uses the windows UI-base (though they really don't... not even close), what's the harm? As long as it's done without the security flaws, if it's intuitive and useful, who gives a damn?
Second, the idea that the aim of Linux is to replace M$ is also wrong. Linux is here, and always has been here, as a platform for more advanced users, as an experiment in open-source. Now, there are some companies who are beginning to shift toward replacing windows (see lindows), but the aim of the open-source movement is just to make a good product in the spirit of freedom. If we gain users because of that, which we should, fine. But if we don't it's not like the linux crowd is going to consider their OS a failure and return to M$. And linux will never become windows, even if it does borrow some nifty UI ideas, much as it does with Apple as well. We exist apart, maybe not completely, but for the most part.
"We must still have chaos within in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star." --Friedrich Nietzsche
Well, If you take a close look, you will see many Windows improvements that reminds Linux technologies. Windows Update and Theme support are examples.
I could sit here and list a thousand of other features. Automaticaly clock adjust over Internet. How did if first? You know it was Linux.
The "problem" is that we, developers, became satisfied with a command line tool.
But now time has changed. And if we want to proove the World who powerfull Linux/Unix are, we have to provide an GUI for every program/feature we known in our lovely OS, because the Authors out there dont know to use command-line tools.
here's a couple ideas:
(1) there are new 3D monitors out there and more coming. why be stuck with a "flat" picture when a "new" GUI can be programmed to look behind or show icons, pictures, text, or other objects like our eyes see them...?
(2) spoken text recognition and playback machinery and code are in place -- why not make them part of a real intereactive "new" GUI...?
(3) man has always been subjected to the limitations of papyrus, quills, pens, paper, and on up to mice and stylii. why not make (in conjunction with 3D monitors) our manual or voice input actually do 3 dimensional things...?
(4) right now all man's senses are divided into computer processes: video and audio are well developed even into virtual realities, touch is limited to tactile interfaces, smell and taste are -- well, maybe not yet. what's wrong with an "object" that incorporates as many aspects of these senses as possible for us to use computer processes and data better...?
here's the bottom line -- as long as we have to translate back and forth the ordinary things we do as "things" the computer can use computers are useful but limited tools.
change it so computers operate with "objects" like we see and touch and hear (and taste and smell, etc.) in their dealins with us, then we become real masters of our tools.
"The Innovator's Dilemma" by Claton Christensen suggests that Linux might win precisely by matching features. The main point of the book is that companies add features faster than customers demand them. Eventually, less expensive upstart technologies add features fast enough that the market switches en masse to the new technology, because the price/performace gets "good enough"
;-)
The quote "not quite as good but much cheaper" strongly suggests that Linux may be able to do this, even to Microsoft. Their weakness is that adding more features doesn't necessarilly help them against the Open Source community, who can add them as well. Unless a proprietary (patented) technology becomes indispensible to the user population as a whole, Microsoft seems vulnerable to attacks from low cost/no cost alternatives.
The interesting part about Christensen's book is his assertion that the disruptive technology needs to find a niche to take over, from which it can "attack upwards". The niche must be people who are not currently served by the market leader(s), who have lower requirements in key areas, and who resonate to the lower price point. Kind of sounds like the Open Source community:
1. Don't care if it's harder to use.
2. Admire the ability to tweak, instead of having everythig dumbed-down and hidden behind a GUI.
3. Did we mention it's free?
There's certainly a long way to go to displace Microsoft on the Desktop, but it's by no means obvious that Microsoft can defend itself by adding more features. Maybe Dvorak is right, but he hasn't addressed the disruptive technology issue at all.
Neither did Harrison Ford ever make a car.
http://web.mit.edu/jcb/www/Dvorak/
http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/dvorak.html
KFG
you can easily setup the latest newfangled $350 video card in Windows, but to do so on Linux requires (1)decent drivers and (2) knowledge of the XFree86 conf file. ATI has the opportunity to really push Nvidia out of the arena by offering a ncurses-based and X-based config tool for owners of their graphics cards, since the closest thing on the Nvidia side is NVOption, which works, but is currently in it's infancy as it can't help you setup an X config file from scratch for a new configuration. Again, you don't have this problem on Windows, even though the Windows video card config tool can be quirky sometimes.
Becoming like Windows? We can't have that. Linux might then become popular or something
Table-ized A.I.
This is what I have been saying all along. I wish we could get a window manager more like Mac OS X and less like Windows 95.
Are there any projects out there that are really working on innovations in the GUI area? I know that RedHat 8.0 's BlueCurve is a nice start.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Seriously, how much is Linux really like Windows when you get down to it? A highly user-configurable kernel? Not in Windows. A strong UNIX-like set of userland apps? Not in Windows. A powerful and flexible network-transparent windowing system? Not in windows. Exceptional package handling for every piece of software on a system a la' apt-get? Not in windows.
There are plenty of things that Windows has that Linux doesn't as well. There's a full-featured API for just about everything, and it's all standardized. There's a consistent UI. And there's things like market share and a single dominating power behind it.
If you look at this list, about the only thing on it that most people are interested in is more market share, and the folks in Debian (as one example) don't particularly seem to care a whole lot about that. They, along with the likes of Slack and Gentoo, aren't trying for a single unifying API or UI. Some people want to unify the UI but most of us wouldn't actually want to see it happen, and for good reason. I'd be pissed if someone took away my pwm in the name of everyone else.
And as for innovation, well that's a tired argument. John, like everyone else who brings it up, can sit around and whine whine whine that they don't have their new vague super UI right now, but it's a load of crap. Innovation is constantly happening on the linux side, it's just not so apparent. John can bitch about wanting a new paradigm, but unless he's willing to put up some code then it's just not going to happen. You want a MacOSX type UI? Go contribute to GNUStep and get the fundamental groundwork down. You think X sucks? Go contribute to Fresco. Ultimately, if you're going to do something in free software, in order to attract attention these days of a million and one sourceforge projects you're going to have to do something good. You can moan about how windows-like KDE is, but if that's what people want then that's what is going to get the lion's share of coder and media attention. If you want something better then no one, including the KDE team, is stopping you from making it.
Ultimately, linux innovation happens in slow stages over many years, rather than in quick bursts. It's just the nature of the beast. Gnome and KDE are racing to outdo one another in every possible area, and the users are all the beneficiaries. You can't say that these projects haven't done well for themselves. They might not have come up with the most innovative stuff, but they do each have unique ideas that aren't found in Windows, Mac, or anywhere else. Innovation also happens under the hood. I'm a Debian user, and other Debian users probably know what I'm talking about. There's things like porting all of Debian to different kernels (the HURD, NetBSD, etc.) There's incremental improvements to dpkg and apt-get, including new frontends and the like. There's the debconf system which makes a good interface for dealing with package configuration. There's things like the alternatives system and apt-src. There's other examples, but you get the picture. I know other distros also have plenty of innovations that I'm not familiar with as well and this is the entire point. Projects compete because they can coexist (as can not happen in windows) so innovation comes from the ground up rather than descending from on high every two years as Windows releases anew. Innovation does happen, but just like watching a tree grow, it's not as impressive to see in real time.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
I have a feeling that, the MS "Security" response is a warm fuzzy blanket to Linuxites much like the Blue Screen of Death used to be.
Time to grow up and move on. This is not PS2 vs. Xbox and your not 12 years olds with a emotional attachment to some piece of hardware and code..or are you??
The UI in linux shouldnt be made for the sole purpose of making it easier to move from windwos to linux. Windows is not the role model i want since to much in it is backwards and messy.
What do we want from a UI is the question we should ask ourselves. We want a way to start applications, to switch between them and to arrange them. An effort from scratch in defining how we human work and then project that onto linux UI would give us a good start. Computers really need to get closer to human, thats a fact. MS Windows is getting more and more away from that and linux has the chance to take the ball and run.
HTTP/1.1 400
There are other ways to do things. Mass storage could be managed entirely as a relational DBMS. This makes it easy to find stuff. But it makes it hard to enter data; such systems are very bureaucratic. It makes sense to have a system where sending an E-mail, writing a letter, making a phone call, and sending a package all use the same contact manager entry. But the implication is that whenever you talk to somebody new, you have to put them in the contact manager database.
Another obvious idea is "it just works". The problem is that Microsoft will do something to make it stop working. Remember the i-Opener, the standalone web browsing terminal that ran QNX and Voyager? If we had standards-based web browing, a device like that would be in every hotel room in the developed world. But it's not.
Don't confuse the title with the inventor of the Dvorak keyboard layout, August Dvorak. He created it in 1930s and is, most likely, dead by now.
Just a 'lil informing tidbit and learning experience.
--I mean really, how is it possible to have a GUI based system that doesn't look at least similar? function will determine form, look at cars, semi streamlined boxes on wheels. Minor differences but basically "car" shaped.
Reality is, 99% of most people think in "pictures", they DON'T think in terms of lines of text/symbols in a console, ergo, you'll get a windowish looking system as the most functional and easiest to understand and use for the most people. I mean what are the options? You have a choice of a box to type in or various boxes with buttons to mash. Use circles or parabolas or some free form weird drawn "border" to delineate the outside boundaries of the app on the desktop? Have your CLI console be round instead of rectangular?
Sure, pure voice control a la star drek computer would be neat, it's still a way's away for the time being.
ate. It's too arcane. It's too like Windows. It's too arcane. It's too like Windows.
Arrragh!
Linux can be damn near all things to all men. In some ways this seems to mean that everyone finds one thing about Linux they *don't* like and bitch about it, while ignoring everything about it they might well find they love.
Certainly, in this particular case, John is having to ignore virtually all of Linux to say what he's said here.
Hey John, KDE and Gnome aren't Linux. They're the most Windows like of Linux GUI's because they are the only one's that overtly set out to be so. Of course that means they get the most attention because *that's what most people want.* Duh!
Why not go out and try all the other available interfaces? But If you bitch, *even once*, about some other GUI not doing something the way Windows does while you're doing it you'll deserve a bitch slapping.
How's this for innovation John? No windows at all and a dozens of small "tools," rather than large "apps," that allow you to use them in various combinations that the makers couldn't even imagine, polished to perfection by three generations of geeks until they shine like pearls in the cyber sunlight?
I might also point out that "Linux" doesn't do anything. Literally. It just sits there. The *users* of Linux do things. Since it isn't a propriatary product it has no existence outside what people *do* with it.
One of the things that Linux users do is dick around with interfaces. In fact, Linux is probably the most used OS for such activities because of its price, availability and license, but primarily because of the inate flexibility of the OS. Some of this "dicking around" is going on with academic enviroments to which everyone is not privy.
But most of all John, 5 months, or a year from now, when you write a column on how Linux isn't being picked up because it's too arcane and unlike Windows, I'm going to remember.
For God's sake, pick a position or talk about something else.
KFG
Yes, the whole article is an ignorant slam. It's so stupid, that a starting point of constructive criticism is hard to find. He describes the whole free software world as a windoze deriviative born on x86 by "boring coders" and other uncreative types that lacks "features" of the only true software, Microsoft. That's the kind of insight you might expect from someone who's only experience with the free software world comes from having popped a CD into his machine for five minutes or so. Of course not one word is correct. True to the pure troll, he offers no useful alternatives to the things he does not like, except to stick with the M$ word of undefined features.
For those of you who might not be aware of this, the millions of free and open software coders of the world are much better researched than Dvorac. GNU/Linux has taken the best sofware concepts from all operating systems. It takes it's multi user security model from the Unix world. WIMPs came from Bell and Xerox Park, and many different GUI systems are available as free software. The most prominant and one of the most powerful is XFree86, a network aware base for many fine Window managers. Window managers of all descriptions and sources are available to run on top of X. You can get Virtual Reality and 3D desktops if you want them. Yes, it's true that you can make these window managers act just like M$ junk, but you can change that with a press of a theme button. Some prominant window managers come with a default that looks like M$ junk so new users can learn how to make the thing work at their own pace. You see, choice is what free software is all about. Developers and users are free to follow any fancy they have and it all works together. Most free software has been ported to other hardware and even different software platforms. I have not even mentioned the Berkely Software Distribution universe and it's derivatives in use by many including the very artsy Apple. Free software is also being adopted by the opposite end of the computer using specturm as well - the dull likes of IBM and Wall Street Bankers. You can take it and make it what you want, so anyone and everyone is now doing just that. They are are generally happy and wonder in time how they ever managed to get along in the coiceless and ever more rapicious propriatory software world.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
give me a break.
if mr dvorak has some ideas on how to make linux better on the desktop, then he should suggest them, rather than complain about a lack of innovation or whatever.
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
He says that all the window managers are trying to imitate windows with the windows, icons, etc. I assure you there is quite a bit of innovation occuring in the field. The window manager I use is ION, and it's completely different from anything I have seen before.
It is far from complete, but still quite usable, IMO.
Why is the gas petal on the right, brake in the middle and the clutch on the right in your car? Why is the hot water handle on the left, and the cold on the right? Why don't we try to change these things?
Because they don't need to be changed. Personally, I don't have a problem with the way we interface with computers either. Until we get away from monitors, keyboards and mice, is there really a need to make some grand innovation? The command line is good, type in a command and the computer does something. A GUI is good, click on a button or an icon and the computer does something. What's the problem?
The first reason is because PC magazine is absolutely windows-centric. That said, the main reason is because of Dvorak idiotic columns. I don't know why anyone would pay the least attention to his nonsensical articles.
it is structured around the file system rather than hiding the file system like windows.
rox.sf.net
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
In the first place. Linux has a great UI. It's called a command line.
Now X, on the other hand, and the windowmanagers are a bit too windowsy.
I'd say that the current mindset is a result of a fermenting idea of using a "Window" to access different applications on the machine. If someone comes up with a better way of accessing applications, the all power to them. The problem is that when you decide to use a "Window," you have a limited number of options in how to implement it (menus, a button to make big, a button to make disappear, etc...).
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
What is it with people and their seemingly insatiable need to reinvent the wheel? The irony is that Microsoft's OS's caught on as well as they did not because Bill Gates is an Evil Genius *chuckle* but because Gates was dumb enough to write operating systems for the lousy x86 hardware paradigm when it began--the historical fact is nobody else wanted to. (The fact is that the guy IBM originally picked to do their OS decided to play golf instead of meet with IBM representatives as scheduled by appointment, and Gates was second on their list and he was in at the time.) Literally, no one else wanted the job.
Flash forward to the mid-late 80's. No one who was "anything" in the personal computer scene at the time would be caught dead using an x86 clone or DOS--they used Macs and Amigas which were brilliant concepts at the time, the Amiga especially literally being ten years ahead of Gates and Windows and x86.
Ironically, especially in light of the recent DOJ hearings, the reason the Amiga died and the Mac became a butt for jokes and received permanent niche status had absolutely nothing to do with Gates and Microsoft and IBM. The reason for those events was internal--for Apple it was a short-sighted and greedy Steve Jobs who did not want to license Mac clones; with Commodore it was a greedy and short-sighted Mehdi Ali who did not want to license Amiga clones (I recall at the time hearing from a source I trusted who informed me that Commodore had actually gotten a cloning agreement penned with Tandy and Radio Shack, where the company would have sold its machines in its thousands of retail stores under a clone name, but that Commodore pulled out at the last minute.) Both Apple and Commodore felt they could make more money by being the sole distributors of their hardware--neither company foresaw the incredible boom that would hit the personal computer industry in the 90's.
So it just so happened that Gates was the guy who grew up writing OS's for the one, single hardware standard which was open to tons of competition within--the IBM-PC clone hardware marketplace. In it you had dozens of companies all competing with each other to sell systems and peripherals--today there are hundreds of such companies all devoted to a single standard--the one that allowed clones--x86. Some people to this day do not understand that it was the hardware engine that drove x86 to vast supremacy--certainly not Gate's software--which back in the late 80's absolutely sucked compared to other OS's at the time. But because so many companies were selling x86 hardware so much cheaper than companies like Apple or Commodore, it was the x86 clones that were bought (most of the time Apple and Commodore could not meet demand for their hardware, which is exactly why they should've liscensed clones early on.)
And everywhere an IBM-PC clone went, a Microsoft OS was sure to follow. It's pretty simple to understand how Microsoft got to where it is today even though it was selling one of the worst OS's in existence for several years. Gates has never made a secret of it--there's the famous Gates-Jobs memos in which Jobs asks Gates what he needs to do to get the Mac into the mainstream and Gates writes back "License clones." It was advice which Jobs declined (which he now admits he should've taken.)
That's why I think Dvorak's bored...he wants something "new"...yet the only thing *he* can think of is some *old* crap nobody ever really pursued years ago *chuckle*...;) There's some inkling in his opinion that an OS should not be "functional" but "something else"--whatever the "else" is, Dvorak doesn't say....
It seems to me that Dvorak is forgetting that most if not all of the "new" ideas as to what an OS should be and do have all been tried and the GUI is the best that anybody's been able to come up with. Maybe when the hardware gets here we can have 3D holograms on the desktop that will work in fundamentally different ways, but for right now and the foreseeable future we're stuck with a 2D display (even our "3D" is just simulated in a 2D display.) And the GUI seems to be everybody's consensus of "what's best" for an operating system interface (of course some people still prefer the command line, but that's not what Dvorak is talking about.)
Dvorak talks about "wintel roots" without realising that "Wintel roots" had roots of their own which came out of earlier computing projects--and accusing one company of "copying" another simply because it chose to adopt something as fundamental as a GUI is pretty ridiculous. It's like saying GM and Ford "copy each other" because they make cars with four wheels and rubber tires. Is it really that they "copied" each other, or more like the fact that these things are as fundamental to the design of a car (or computer OS) as doors are to houses? Of course, that I agree with the latter should come as no surprise.
The trend in Linux today toward workable GUIs that happen to "look like" Windows was not intentional, nor was it subconscious as Dvorak contends. Rather, Linux advocates and developers have always worked toward creating a better OS than Windows and a different OS than Windows. But the fact is there are only so many ways you can skin the GUI cat--only so many ways to make a GUI which is intelligible. Dvorak's "look and feel" arguments are pretty funny--I thought we'd gotten past that bit of nonsense years ago. It's like saying Goodyear should sue Firestone (or vice-versa) because the tires the other company makes "look and feel" the same *chuckle* The whole "look and feel" argument was atrocious from the beginning and it's gratifying to see it never got anywhere.
Here's the thing Dvorak forgets: so what if Linux versions "look and feel" somewhat like Windows? Who cares? The fact is it *isn't* Windows regardless of what it looks and feels like. If anything such superficial similarities might actually help spread the acceptance of Linux (if the community can ever get over the factional splintering of distributions--which is the one thing that could doom its ultimate success as a competitor to Windows--but that's another story.)
I guess Dvorak forgot the simple admonition that contains worlds of truth: don't judge a book by its cover.
I disagree with this comment. WIMP is just fine and still has quite a bit of life left in it. What needs to change is the way information is organized, stored and retrieved on computers. Microsoft, if they can pull it off, is on the right track with their new SQL server based file system. The concept of partitions and drives needs to go. I'd even go as far as saying that the concept of the computer in relation to the network needs to go. At least this needs to go as far as the user is concerned. The guts can be as ugly as they need to be but the front end needs to be transparent.
I don't give a rat's ass where I stored last month's sales figures, I just want to be able to tell my computer that I want the sales figures for last month and it will be smart enough to retrieve, based on metadata I gave the file when I saved it last, the file I want.
You want to see all the music files you have from a particular artist that are less than 3:00 so you can make a quick CD compilation of short songs? Why can't the system do this leg work for you?
WIMP works. The way we work with WIMPs doesn't.
Dvorak raises a point i've tried rather ungracefully to make over the past four years. There are very serious inherent flaws in how the open-source community approaches GUI development. Here's a brief rundown.
1) Everyone assumes the basic Windows 95 GUI design is good. No one stopped to ask whether replicating a WIndows 95 look and feel was a good thing or not. As anyone who used a computer other than a PC prior to 1995 can tell you, Windows 95 is among the worst desktop designs ever concieved. Nonetheless, both GNOME and KDE continue to strive to mimic its basic function and appearance.
2) By copying someone else's design, youre relegating your work to a "second place" not-quite-as-good-as-the-original monicker. Programmers are pragmatists. For every hundred of them, only one will be interested in building something new, and even then, they'll probably lose interest within a few days. Since programmers are pragmatists, they want to build something they know already works. By continually playing catchup to OS X, Win95/98/XP and others (and refusing to jump ahead of them) you're effectively resigning yourself to 2nd place instead of using your talents and intelligence to take the lead.
3) Bad designs make for bad habits. Its _extremely_ difficult to break people of their habits. You could recieve the blueprints for a new GUI from God himself, and people would still complain that it doesnt work like Win95. Not because Win95 is good (its not) but simply because they're used to it. Too many people are terrified of confronting users with a new idea. Everyone wants to swim in the pool, but no ones willing to jump in first. Its this sort of thinking that causes development to stagnate, as we continually paint ourselves into a corner where nothing short of revolution will fix it. The stagnation covers everything, from the users to the coders themselves. Users are just as hesitant to embrace new ideas as programmers are in implementing them.
The ideas are THERE. There are tons of them waiting to be picked up and looked at, and their merits talked about. The biggest hurdle to moving things forward is simply getting people to believe in the possibility that there may actually be something undiscovered which if it were actually made, could change everything.
The way things are right now, its just not working for us. Its as simple as that. By pointing out these things, i'm not taking a crap on the efforts of KDE and GNOME, and other efforts. All i'm saying is, we need to take what we know and move in new directions with it. We need to be open to building new things, and building new ideas. We all have to be willing to listen, but we have to be willing to do something about it as well.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Dvorak made the association a couple times when referring to the relationship between the user of the x86 PC and the OS they're using. There're enough artists in the
Some things that Linux could do with the liberal development environment is improve on some of the existing applications out there. Perhaps a Pro-Tools for Linux / FreeBSD. Or making SoundStudio work with it's graphical surroundings in a way that makes it as useful as SoundForge on Windoze. Most importantly, make sure that when you click on some pixels that represent a graphic object in a drawing or a sound wave, it's getting the correct range of the object you're trying to select. If you can do that, the window manager is just a matter of style preference. If that can't happen with the existing group of x86 GUI programmers in the OSS development world, I'll just keep saving up for a G4.
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
One day he tells us that Linux will fail because it won't run Windows applications. The next day it will fail because it's too hard to understand. Now he thinks Linux will fail because it's too much like Windows.
Too much like Windows??? Dvorak is sounding more and more like an MS-pimp. Not only are the Linux developers supposed to produce an OS that is more stable, more secure, and more versatile than Windows, they have to make it do everything completely different to boot.
And guess what... if that happened yjrm he'd tell us that Linux will fail because it's not like Windows.
I compare Dvorak to my ex-mother-in-law who never forgave me for marrying her daughter and taking her away from home. Then, when I divorced her daughter and sent her home she never forgave me for that either. There's just no pleasing some people.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
It's easy to install and i've yet to get my system to lock up on me; Linux appears to be missing the two most prevailant features of Windoze.
Linux is nothing like Windows, KDE might be a bit to much like windows but Linux is a Unix, Windows is erm a thing :)
Spout off if you want, reference the difficulty most car reviewers had with iDrive, perhaps it did scare away some potential customers...
BUT
BMW 7 sales are up about 12% over the previous years' sales. Perhaps BMW's bet worked in their favor (though, I should note, I hate the thing).
Whether this would work on lower level cars (3s or 5s) might be a different debate.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
On the technical side:
Not having your UI Multi threded, the lack of objects assined to each particular window and for the love of what ever god you believe in not debugging you UI is dumb
Your widgets should each of a superthread, each subthread assigned to like icon, and picture types would improve ones programs ALOT
On the practicalside
Windows has at least one thing right:Uniform predictable widget UI interaction
Linux does not, KDE pops up a UI bug when I init the print_demon
And who in their right mind cant take an extra day to remove some simple bugs?
and for the love of humanity:
Use import java.lang.(os here).swing.native
and javac --asm
Your source will compile and act as a native application no interperter no nothing the asembeler option will further optimise it for that computer config
but you linux neanderthals don't get it
Get out of my gene pool.
but I've spent nights with dominatrices that were less painful.
...YOU get to the joke!
I have a relative who detests Windows because it demands too much of his time and attention, makes simple tasks difficult and distracts from his job objective, which is to develop digital hardware. He wants an O/S that is reliable and passive and that fixes problems in new releases rather than adding useless features. Yet he works with Windows every day. He would switch O/S's in a millisecond if there was another good one that ran the specific tools that he needs to do his work. He often asks me when Linux will be able to run applications developed for Windows (NT/2K/XP). Windows is the only platform for which the applications that he needs to do his job are available.
I'm sure that there are millions of people who would drop Windows tomorrow, if they could run their applications under Linux. They care about the underlying O/S in the same way that people care about their cars, i.e., they want them to run reliably, go where they want and to be able to perform minimal maintenance. But they don't want to spend endless hours buggering around with the O/S - they just want to run their applications.
Etc, etc.
There is often talk about Linux and how it should be more like Windows to succeed, only a lot of people think that it shouldn't be anything like Windows. Who's right? Well, both are, of course. What's success for Linux? It depends on whom you talk to. If nothing else, Linux is about choice an flexibility. Where Microsoft has a single focussed objective (profit), and pursue that relentlessly, the Linux community has many different (and laudable) objectives. Many in the Linux community couldn't give a monkey's bum about Windows compatibility etc. and that's fine. Those that do care need to band together and define a single focussed objective (and not try to do everything at once) which IMO should be what you suggest:
be EXACTLY like windows(sans all the security flaws) , but would add but be more reliable and more dedicated to the sole purpose of running and supporting applications, rather than being an end unto itself like Windows .
OK, marshal the army. But who's going to lead the charge? Linus has stated that head-on competition with Windows is not his goal and that's fine. It would take absolute focus, the declaration of a single unified purpose and the obsessive dictatorial leadership abilities of the type that Bill Gates possesses. And egos will get bruised. Who's up to the challenge?
Sigs are bad for your health.
It looks just like Windows 9x, and it's fucking horrible! IceWM also apes the Windows look, but doesn't have all those stupid icons.
wouldn't it be 48?
Most of the responses I've seen here are simply proving Dvorak's point that most (not all) Linux coders and users simply do not have the ability to think outside the box. Linux is not like Windows because it has a customizable kernel? PLEASE. Do you think this is actually a selling point to all but three people on the planet? Yeah, I can just see my mom going out and buying a Linux-based computer for this reason - "umm, excuse me Mr. computer salesman, can you tell me which of these computers features an OS with a customizable kernel?"
A lot of you have missed the point of the article entirely. Dvorak wants Linux to succeed. He's no fan of Windows, and in fact bashed the hell out of Windows XP when it nearly fried several of his machines on install shortly after its release. The fact that many of you are failing to embrace his fundamental point that Linux needs to be more (or different) than a poor-man's Windows clone to succeed is basically what's ensuring the OS's defeat in all but the server marketplace. He's not bashing Linux, he's telling you all what needs to be done to fix it.
And he's absolutely right that Linux's main problem is that the geeks are in charge. Apple's OSX works because Apple's primary focus has always been interface design, not the underlying code. It took them 12-13 years to finally catch up to the rest of the world in the underlying technology of their OS but you know what? Nobody much cared because the end-user experience on an Apple computer has always been great, even when the system was stuck on a 16-bit unprotected OS. It's the end-user experience that matters, and that's just as much the realm of designers as it is programmers. And Apple still has the best interface designers around... with Microsoft a distant second. Hell, the pay's good. It's not the quantity of people you've got working for you (ie. the Linux dev community), it's the quality. One really, really amazing designer/coder to lead the interface design department is better than 100,000 mediocre designers/coders who can't even think for themselves.
Linux will never catch up to either Windows or the Mac OS in the desktop metaphor interface. It just won't happen - it's not as if Apple and MS are just sitting around as Linux makes huge advancements. Apple and MS continue to improve their interfaces just as the designers working on KDE and Gnome do, so the Linux interface - and the end user experience - will continue to be a step behind. Which means really, what's the point? Dvorak suggests trying something different, something unique. Put all your brains together and come up with something better; the desktop metaphor's gone about as far as it can anyway.
What's so hard to understand about that? And how can you argue with it?
Unless a proprietary (patented) technology becomes indispensible to the user population as a whole, Microsoft seems vulnerable to attacks from low cost/no cost alternatives.
If the CBDTPA bill passes, Microsoft will have a monopoly on operating systems for new personal computers sold in the United States of America. The wording of the CBDTPA seems to require general purpose computers to come with an operating system that can enforce digital restrictions management. Microsoft holds the essential patent on such operating systems, and Intertrust holds other patents in the area. This is yet another reason to oppose the CBDTPA bill.
If the CBDTPA bill passes, expect Canada and Mexico to tighten their immigration policies as thousands of disgruntled Americans flow across their borders.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Whats that hack doing here?!?
The old saying "You become what you criticize" is ringing loud and clear. Linux is trying to beat Windows by criticizing it while at the same time emulating it to attract Windows users.
John also nailed a MAJOR problem in open source, developers are designing applications. Developers only see things from their perspective, but their view is 180 degrees away from the typical computer user. I ran into this as a Product Manager trying to convince developers to add some features. I had user surveys requesting all asking for a couple specific features and developers say we don't do it that way, so real users don't do it that way. Major mistake, you need to listen to the users your applications (or OS) is targeted for. This is what Linux advocates don't understand. Microsoft product technically are just good enough, but for users they are intuitive and easy to use.
That brings up another problem with open source, intuitive interfaces. Just because you look like Mac or Windows, doesn't mean you are as intuitive or easy to use. Apple and Microsoft spend millions on interface research. Testing ease of use and intuitiveness. Who in open source going to spend the money for that research?
Last thing Dvorak forget to mention is QA and QE. This is an area that only get token effort. It is boring specialized work and few volunteer to do it. Anyone who know anything about real software development know just having a lot of people banging on software isn't real testing. It is also the scary part of open source. They brag about how fast bugs are fixed, but who did all the testing to ensure the fix isn't creating new bugs of its own. Again having lots of people banging on software isn't going to find all the side effects lurking in code.
Linux is nothing like Windows: its kernel, its system administration, its core software, its graphics and GUI, are all of a completely different design from Windows.
The Windows kernel is an all-singing all-dancing behemoth, while the Linux kernel APIs still mostly stick to the minimalism of the original UNIX design. Windows uses object-orientation extensively throughout its kernel, while Linux sticks with the relative paucity of APIs, again from the traditional UNIX kernel design.
In userland, things look rather different, too. The core set of applications on Linux are text-based, command-line oriented programs that are combined via pipes and files and store their data in text files. Few programs use threads. Servers can be run from the command line. Alsmot can be scripted from the shell. This is in sharp contrast to Windows, where the core sets of applications are GUI-based, component-oriented programs talking to each other via various shared memory and object embeddings, use threads extensively, and use databases for a lot of their data. The Windows design a CS major's wet dream, implementing every software feature and ad-hoc idea under the sun, while core Linux programs stick, again, to the simple principles of the traditional UNIX design.
Only when it comes to desktop software, like Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, and Mozilla, has the Linux world copied liberally from Windows. The resulting desktop software is very non-UNIX like and has many of the same limitations as its Windows counterparts. Still, the strategy of cloning Windows features is a necessity, because people coming to Linux from Windows want a more familiar environment. Fortunately, no matter how many kludgy ideas something like Mozilla inherits from Windows, the underlying modularity and simplicity of Linux and X11 mean that those Windows-applications-clones can live peacefully side-by-side with implementations of new ideas in GUI software and user interaction.
Now, let's get to the meat of it:
So what needs to happen? First of all, the desktop-window metaphor has had a good run and has its place, but can't we try something different?
Yes, and Linux is the best place for this to happen right now. Because, unlike Windows and Macintosh, where assumptions about the GUI are coded throughout the system, Linux and X11 are highly layered: you can build an entirely different user environment on top of Linux and X11 and still take advantage of a vast amount of existing Linux and UNIX software out there. People on UNIX and Linux have made "software components" and "software reuse" work in a way none of the mega-platform-projects at Microsoft, Apple, IBM, or NeXT ever have (remember Pink?).
Linux can and does successfully imitate Windows in some of its distributions. But it also makes it easy to build completely different systems. And that is why I think Linux will be the platform where the next true innovations in human computer interaction will be delivered.
but Linux has the best potential to appeal to all audiences. Windows and OS X offer a narrow vision. Linux's open flexibility is not hindered by a monopoly. You can choose from multiple window managers and desktops. I use several of them because I like variety.
After years of people complaining that Linux is too difficult to learn because it is not enough like Windows, we now have people complaining it is too much like Windows. Some people just like to complain, especially when they don't really know what they are talking about. Can't beat Microsoft on features? Please. When was the last time they added a useful feature? When was the last time they added a feature that they did not "acquire" from someone else? Have they ever? Dvorak probably loves that Windows XP lets you use little pictures of yourself to identify your account when you login without realizing that GDM, KDM, and OS X did that before Microsoft. ( I don't even know who was first. I seem to recall GDM having it back around '99. ) Does he even know about Enlightenment? He would probably complain it is not enough like Windows.
Personally, I love KDE3, and I don't find it to be that much like Windows. I have always felt KDE is more productive and more aesthetically pleasing that Winodws, Mac OS 9, or OS X.
"Linux is too much like windows"
Someone needs to learn that KDE and Gnome are -NOT LINUX- and that there are quite a few people out there (myself included) who dont' use either.
This sig intentionally left blank.
ive always found it kinda interesting that there
...and maybe the distrustful view of technology
has never been an "art" section on slashdot.
even though there is so much electronic and new
media art and a lot of it even deals with issues
familiar to its readers.
slashdot readers and the geek community in general
seem to be mostly ignorant of art, while artists
in my community are generally pretty ignorant
about technology.
meanwhile, there are many common threads between
the objectives of both groups. it doesnt make any sense to me... maybe its a product of some kind of
cultural, dichotomous view of art and science... but one that has not been present throughout history as we still have the "renaissance master"
archetype.
that many artists have, but many fail to realize
the opportunity that an open source and free program presents to combat the tyrannical
corporate body-machine.
I'd hate to see this silent majority gradually lose the system they love as Linux is transformed into a Windows clone by vendors and project leaders who give too much credence to the voices of pundits
Erm, have you been using any Windows recently?
I am made to use Windows at work, and the interface is just plain freaking backwards.
STILL no virtual desktop, making it awkward to develop with an IDE in full screen mode while keeping some documentation open at the same time.
STILL no way to control, resize, or move a window at ALL if the app is busy (or frozen, for that matter)! I mean, it's, what, almost year 2003? On what is supposed to be a friendly OS?!
In terms of GUI convenience, KDE is a fucking order of magnitude ahead of Windows, man. Still much lagging behind MacOS X, but then, what isn't.
I don't know for Gnome, but KDE is freaking NOT being turned into a Windows clone. Take a look at the KDE framework, one day. That thing is fucking brilliant. Want to make it look and behave like Windows (without such retarded 'features' as the windows unmovable when busy)? Sure, you can. That's how my mother's account on my box works. And guess what, she can find her way around it out of the box. Want to make it completely different in the way YOU need it? Sure, you can. Want to lock features to make an easy to use but impossible to corrupt kiosk? Sure, you can!
What is it with people bleating that we shouldn't keep running after the Windows world? We've passed them MONTHS ago, people!
Now Linux as an OS still has some serious usability issues (primarily, there's no global software installation system that Just Works[*], that's the biggest showstopper right now), but in terms of GUI, the Windows world is severely lagging behind. I switched to Linux out of laziness, for crying out loud!
[*] I've tried to stir up discussion about that a couple time, but most of the Linux community seems to have an inertia you wouldn't believe. The answers were basically, "Shut up and use apt-get", "Shut up and use RPM", or "shut up and use configure; make; make install". Erm, hello? I can and do use any of those. But my mom and my (now ex, sigh) girlfriend can't. Now, why should it matter? Well, we want people to port their software to Linux, and that implies, giving them a way to make it easy to distribute their software in a global way. I've spent a while thinking about possible solutions to that most hairy problem, but I guess that's food for another thread. This post is long and ranty enough as it is.
Anyway. Rant over. Flame with moderation, thanks.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Its a dirty word (well actually a phrase). Still, features *do* sell software. Take any full featured commercial application. Only a few users use every feature in that app. However, of the rest of the users that may only use a fraction of the features, there is lots of overlap. User A may use features X and Y but not Z, user B uses features X and Z but not Y, and so on.
Add site licensing and this is how you get lock-in. An organization may have hundreds or thousands of users, none of whom use every single feature, but they all use different features. For the organization to replace that site licensed app with something different, the replacement would need to match all the features that they do use.
The alternative is to convince them that they don't need those features and should do without. Thats a perfectly reasonable claim, but you can understand why its more of an uphill battle.
So while Dvorak is right, software does get more bloated over time, I can assure you, no one would bother with the effort of implementing a feature if literally no one would use it. Someone somewhere finds that feature useful. Journalists love to criticize feature creep, but what they don't seem to get is that just because they don't find a particular feature to be useful in their own work doesn't mean nobody does.
Features creap on you!
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
The Dvorak guy should really have tried Enlightenment instead of Gnome or KDE (which are clones of Windows).
moderate this guy up!!
The multi-user security model employed by GNU/Linux is an old, tired model. If you want something useful, try looking at the Windows NT line. No, seriously -- look at its multi-user security model. It's a hell of a lot more useful than anything GNU/Linux is using right now. And it's not even from NT originally; it has its roots in older Unix-type OSes.
GNU/Linux has taken some great concepts from lots of different places, but the best? I think not. Isn't this the central complaint in Dvorak's article?
I agree with much of what he says. But to tear the rest apart..
"Linux has become a pale imitation of the evil OS it intends to replace." False. Linux doesn't intend to replace anything. Foaming lunatic zealots may think Linux exists to bring them freedom from sort of imaginary oppression, but they also think Natalie Portman exists to pour hot grits down their pants. Neither of those things are truths.
"It's no coincidence that Apple, which dominates the creative-artist scene, manages to be creative." Thanks, but no thanks. I don't want a Mac, which is why I use Linux. I have a choice in how non-ugly/non-glittery I want my desktop to look. Besides, OS X still can't defeat the sheer beauty of Enlightenment in its heyday. Continuing with that, "There is a synergy between the customers and the company." - yes, just as there's a synergy between crack addicts and dealers. No one knows why people use Macs, and you'll be damned before you can get a Mac user to stop.
Despite those minor points of difference, he's right. People insist, "But KDE and Gnome aren't Linux!" So what do you use? The command line? Or some other window manager that requires you to go menu diving?
Anyway, I'd love to see some innovation when it comes to GUIs. It isn't going to happen from any of the current contenders, though. Linux *is* chasing Microsoft's tail, while Microsoft is chasing Apple's tail, while Apple is busy chasing its own tail, trying to make itself look prettier with no real increase in user goodness.
You know what I want?
A single user interface, be it a window manager or whatever else you want to call it, that I can *easily* configure to appear however the hell I want it. This means if I want it to look like a Mac clone, it can do it, no problem. If I want an MS clone, blammo, we're there with a few clicks. If I want something completely different, here we go!
I want programs to be responsive to that desktop. If I want "file, edit, etc." at the top of the program, so be it. If I want buttons instead, I should have buttons there. Again, all with ease.
I want absolute control over *everything*, with the ability to exercise that control *easily*. Give me (and everyone else) that, and you'll have people leaping to your fledgeling window manager/GUI/desktop environment/blah di blah.
Part of the dilemma is also due to the fact that programmers--not artists--are running the show.
Thank $diety these "artists" aren't running the show - there's nothing I hate worse than firing up a new program and having to spend 20 minutes figuring out how the hell the damn thing works, after the "artists" have re-arranged everything.
So yes, it appears Linux has a long way to go to catch up to FreeBSD.
Bowie, this is totally unrelated the article, but I applaud your recent efforts to try to bring fresh ideas to the GNOME lists (which have been largely devoid of such things in the last several years).
Really, in the sad day and age, people with usability backgrounds who want to improve user interfaces have to arm themselves with knowledge of how to code. It sucks that the time spent learning algorithms or API's could be better spent doing user testing or reading the latest issue of interactions.But that's how things are.
Perhaps it's time that the people who give a damn about the next generation form their own damn lists where such idiots like the ones on the GNOME list don't have any say.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Did anyone that modded KFG as a troll actually read the other comments? The article?
The article is clearly trolling. Any comment that responds to that, the reasons why that might be, and offers up a very clear reason, in plain english, why the author of the article is attacking a thing that doesn't even really exist as an entity or direction, is clearly on-topic.
KFG, you made sense. Maybe a bit too harsh for the mods, but fuck them. Some of us actually are reading comments to find insight and explore the topic.
People using Lycoris and Lindows most likely cannot tell the difference.
Let those two OS's use the Windows style GUI, but lets innovate now because we already have things as Windows like as possible.
I think its time to innovate. I've given many ideas to the mailing lists, maybe they will use a few.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Dvorak is an Idiot. He wouldnt know innovation if it ran him over. This is the man who once said "There is no use for the User Interface that Apple Has, and The Mouse is a waste of Space on the Desk" (This is from a 1984 PC Mag Article) The man is a nerd, who thinks he knows evertying, but only knows what comes out of Redmond (And I am not talking about Lycoris) Is linux looking too much like Windows? No but when we start ripping of Microsoft or Apple Code to make our UI look better I will let you know!
---
I used to believe that too, but then one day I went out and acutally looked for a different WM/DE. I found several 3d interfaces for X which didn't even remotely look like Microsofts experiemental one, and I also saw Enlightenment, which isn't at all like windows. I was really impressed by the way that Enlightenment managed to be completely useable while only superficially looking like windows.
BlackBox is another different design, but not really an improvement in usability, IMHO.
It's been a long time.
"Though the Linux community does not want to admit this, Linux has become a pale imitation of the evil OS it intends to replace"
Anyone with half a wit knows that as you continually copy a copy, the quality degrades. Since the Linux crowd is so quick to point out that MS copied Apple, what does it mean when the copier copies the copy?
Linux/Unix/Open source/Free software have many more faces than Dvorak sees.
Just one example : TeX. It's a completely different paradigm to say MSWord or OpenOffice. Lots of people use it.
The *nix community has been busy adding GUI features to Linux, but they haven't been killing off other great programs such as TeX, they've been extending the reach instead.
Lots of people over the years have claimed *nix should be creating a new way of doing things, without realising there was already a new way of doing things...
I don't watch TV or read newspapers for this very reason. They pander to the people who lap up sensationalism.
Most people would rather read, "I hate it" than "It's fine", or "I love it". Noone is going to get excited if Dvorak writes an article on what's right about macs, linux, dogs, the weather, love and peace... you get the idea.
People already know what they want to think, and they're just looking for a pat on the back. "See? Dvorak hates it too! I'm right! He invented a keyboard layou, so he knows what he's talking about!"
So then the question is, is it really so bad? I hate it because I think it's a waste of resources, a sham, and encourages general stupidity. But who am I to say so? I don't read it or watch it, so it's not affecting me.
And if the GUIs weren't Windows-like, he'd complain about that too. Folks, Dvorak is a shill. Nothing to see here, move along.
As a wise man once said: The only intuitive interface is the nipple. All else is learned.
By the way, here's some research about that quote. Apparently some babies don't know what to do with a nipple. Maybe they tried to right-click it?
The only reason Dvorak thinks Linux is too much like Windows is because he really doesn't know what an operating system is.
I run Slackware and FreeBSD. No one in their right minds would consider these two systems to be similar to Windows. But this is Dvorak. His purpose in life is to troll for fish using inanities as bait.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
One word: Enlightenment
John C. Dvorak has been a professional troll in the computer industry for 20 years. Rarely have his predictions come true. Rarely has his 'advice' been useful. This is the same drivel he churned out at MacUser for years. Please pay this man no mind; he certainly has none.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The LACK OF quality of most Linux GUI software it quite astonishing.
It looks like a bunch of ten year olds cobbled it together. It is far better than a CLI but its got a ways to go still before it becomes a standard platform.
START by stealing copies of Apple's GUI guide lines. And then FOLLOW them.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
First, what he slams is not Linux, nor even GNU/Linux, but Gnome and KDE, that run on any reasonable clone of the C library and X Window System. That means GNU/Linux and Hurd, BSDs, even HP-UX and Solaris. And even so, guess what, you have choices. Command line, GNUStep, FLTk, I forget others.
Second, he compares to MS Windows. Should compare to Mac OS X and OS/2, perhaps Amiga.
Third, what he means by different? Appearance or functionality? In either case, it is more up to the particular distribution than a function of how Unix is. The key here, as so often, is simplicity and modularity. Unix and its clones are both. As simple as you may want it, able to run even on 80206s (ELKS), but one can add and configure modules to be as functional and as eye dazzling as anything.
The catch is, as always, in policy: getting developers and SysAdmins to code and configure consistently their UIs. Until the DWII (Desktop Wars II) settles down, and all of Gnome, KDE, and probably one or two others get stable and fully functional, including UI designer guidelines, this will not happen.
But it does not stop at development. There is distribution -- Red Hat nullifying is a step in the right direction, like taking Debian policies one step further; if and when Debian does the same it would be heaven, Debian currently does all the plumbing OK but fails miserably at the UI.
And there is SysAdministration, which begins at the distro but takes all the system life. Something along the original Homebrew Computer Club would be nice: a nice little server farm with two or three fat, multiprocessed servers in some basement in the building, block or neighborhood and people with cheap, silent, cool, visually dazzling, maintenance-free X terminals in each room. Only gamers and developers need their own systems, and perhaps not. With the Hurd, perhaps not even kernel (system) developers would need their own systems.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
The one and only feature that linux has that windows will never have. This single feature is what we just love about linux.
THE SOURCE!
Got Code?
John Dvorak... Jon Katz...
Coincidence? I think not!
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Sorry, but is Mr. Dvorak supposed to be a professional voice on these matters? This article really was piss poor.
"Linux is teh sux bcuz it looks like windows, omg.". That's about the size of it. Just because you are using nice long sentences and proper grammar does not mean that you are any more enlightened than somebody who might have written the above pseudo-quote.
Here's some news for you: LINUX DOES NOT HAVE A GUI. Any Linux GUI is just a damn program accessing the graphic card's framebuffer as a user program. Again, NO WINDOWING SYSTEM IS PART OF LINUX. If you want plasmoid-circles, bloaty buttons, extensively large apps just for the sake of being different and having a pretty desktop, then by all means WRITE IT. Just stop bitching about stuff which any computer enthusiast who can think for his or her self has already dealt with.
If you want to campaign for the good of Linux, try standing up for small, efficient utilities, stand against the upsizing of code bases just to support the coder's favourite GUI toolkit, or just concentrate on standing on your own two feet. I'm sorry for all of the anger, but when will people learn that media views and opinions really have no place in the progression of an operating system? If I find that I can't run an essential utility because it's been 'upgraded' to use some toolkit which I don't want to install, I'm going to be really pissed off.
So, I guess the advice here is to consider the source--consider it, then ignore it.
I wonder how much you've used the M$ CLI. The nomenclature may be different, but the similarities surprised me - I expect that lots of it was actually copied from unix, given the time frame it was created in. I can't think of anything I can do with a Bourne shell (admittedly a limited example) that I can't do with M$.
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
I dunno, where would you take it?
Should the UI be a big Wheel
Perhaps a Microsoft Bob ('scuse me... *wretch*
Maybe a blending of 2D, 3D and abstraction like Kai Krause used to do (where did he go?).
Maybe a highly modified version of Apple's Hotsauce?.
This seems to be like the weather, everyone complains about but no one seeks to boldly change it (ok , well the Chinese are working on the weather...)
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
perhaps on his mush filled head...
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
As much as I respected his work in the 80's, it has been a decade since he has had anything really valuable to say.
Back in 199[34], he wrote an article slamming Ray Norda of Novell for backing Linux. At that time, he had Unix, but he was not getting anywhere. Ray than created Caldera to start down the Linux path. John just ripped Norda, and esp. Caldera. He felt that Linux could not compete against Unix, ever. Interesting that John felt that Linux was too much like Unix.
I would guess that John's comparing Linux to MS is the signal that Linux is winning big.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I guess what we disagree upon is whether the OS should be application(program) centric or task centric.
Application vs Task Centric OS. (Points #3,#5,#5) (rebuttal)
In my opinion, the OS should be task centric (based around the user's current project) but currently it is application centric. (for the most part). The individual applications are not aware of what you are working on NOW. Yes, they do sometimes store cached histories of work done in the past, however, there's no authoritarian central command to tell the individual apps that I (the user) am working on my thesis now, put all that information at my fingertips. One extension is to use multiple desktops, but that still ideally would require each desktop to be assigned a project by the OS. That really hasn't been offered in a major OS, AFAIK.
(Point #4,) You can't just open a project where you left off. There is a whole ritual of closing and opening windows to move from one project to the next and back. You should be able to click one icon: World Domination and have all your rantings and calculations/CAD drawings for your doomsday device open all together. Do a Google search on the history of the OpenDOC project to get an idea of the concept I'm talking about.
(Point #5) I'm saying that the user shouldn't see ANY application binary/system files or directories in the file explorer. They should be inaccessible under normal means. (unix does this moderately well) Separate application code from user data and make it hard to mix the two.
Windowing is inefficient. Points (#1,#2) rebuttal
The other point I was trying to make (points #1,#2) is that the whole concept of the windowing OS using resizable/overlapping windows may be flawed. If a window is hard to see by being covered up by other things, maybe it shouldn't be a window at all? Seriously, an overlapped window is worthless other than to serve as a reminder that it is there this takes up unnecessary screen area. That's why I suggested the idea of a smart frame based system. I'm arguing for a more efficient use of screen space.
The mouse should be used for cutting and pasting, not for having to deal with arranging the softwares' interface dialogs around the screen. Most computer use involves a data source(web-browser/e-book/calculator) and a data output (word processor). Most people would like to see both at the same time. That's what tiling and multiple monitors are for, but why? Wouldn't it be nice if when working between two documents, the OS should display content from both documents simultaneously without a bunch of unnecessary manipulation? I want the window manager to manage my windows for me! (Yes, I'm a lazy person!)
solution. Seriously, this is not the first time people have turned and said "we need a different paradigm", but I have never seen any of these authors suggest somthing better.
... "inspiration"
I would love to see some truely innovative UI work, but we really need some
proxy
It is not a mistake that Linux and windows look alike. Cars look alike because they all have to move things (people) through the same environment (roads).
One of the biggest challenges facing the Open Source movement that has not been faced (yet) is for someone to develop hardware that is not supported by Windows. Until then do not be surprised that the two areas will converge.
Gnome and KDE are like windows. And what's the point of doing the R&D, and systems development for a new user interface with the existing Microsoft preditory monopoly?
I want to be alone with the sandwich
I'm not talking about developers, I'm talking about artists who wouldn't know the first thing about programming and are unfamiliar with the term "source code." A developer's idea of a good interface may differ greatly with the opinion of a UI designer or artist. One of the reasons why Apple has been successful with interface design is they hired lots of creative non-technical people. There plenty of "Starving artists" out there who could make great contributions to OSS but don't know anything about coding/cvs/dev lists.
There are enough window managers that are highly configurable and extensible out there that you can surely make yourself a desktop that works as much or as little like Windows as you want.
Yes, KDE and GNOME mimic the Windows interface to some extent but you can reconfigure their look and feel. For instance I have no task bar or icons on the desktop, I bring up a task list by clicking on the desktop background, (or root window to give it its real name). I get the start menu equivalent by clicking the middle button.
Anyway, the Windows look and feel isn't a bad choice of ones to imitate, after all many people are happy with it, and I think KDE in particular has made a few improvements that MS would do well to take a look at.
Dvorak has a long and rich history of being hired to write "provocative" columns. He's the closest thing there is to a professional troll. I remember him writing (for MacWorld) about how the Mac should have an Alt key instead of an Option key. Christ.
Examples:
Rotten roots. You'd hope that the open-source movement would have made a wild leap that would get it off the treadmill of featurism and onto something entirely new. After all, we are told that millions of coders on the Web can match and beat Microsoft and its mere 20,000 to 30,000 drones.
Okay, managed to insult both MS ("drones", "rotten roots") and Linux coders "treadmill of featurism".
After all, Linux was designed for the x86.
Fair enough, but then he concludes:
This is the simple but overlooked fact of the Linux revolution: Its roots are in Wintel.
Huh? Dvorak's loved the term "Wintel" for ever and ever (probably coined it and trying to ensure that everyone uses it), but it's totally inappropriate here. He's trying to use the fact that both Linux and Windows have as their primary target the most common personal computing platform to show that Linux is derivative of Windows?
Linux has become a pale imitation of the evil OS it intends to replace
Oooh, good. Managed to piss off Windows and Linux users.
It's no coincidence that Apple, which dominates the creative-artist scene, manages to be creative.
Ummm...*what*? Apple's most famous and impressive creative moments were in the 80s and 70s, when it was designing computers originally intended for *managers*, not *artists*.
If the open-source folks just want to copy what's already out there, why not look around more? Surely they can find something more interesting than a copy of a copy of a copy.
Dvorak's such an idiot. He uses, say, GNOME because it comes with his prebuilt, idiot-proof consumer Linux box. It's crafted by RH to be accessable to Windows users. Then he complains that Linux isn't *different* enough. Wake up, Dvorak! There are Linux boxes with voice input, with 3d file managers, with only a console, hell, inside your PDA! You can use *any* of these interfaces!
May we never see th
I could go on, but the point is: the fact that X runs transparantly over network is one of it's greatest features. I consider it a case of sound design that an X server acts as a canvas on which programs can display themselves, regardless of where this canvas is.
If you have a really fast network, this usually works -- but nobody said a successor to X couldn't do this, too. Something like NeWS or Berlin could do everything you describe, with much lower bandwidth than sending pictures of your editor over the wire after every key you press -- I would not describe that as a "sound design"!
Besides, if you'd read the Unix Hater's Handbook, you'd know many things that are wrong with the network architecture of X.
(This reminds me of the "CVS rules!" posts a couple days ago from people who have never used anything better.)
Why doesn't the author list any examples? WTF is an essay with no cited examples/references?
Crap.
If you are going to run any software on your Linux PC that is capable of playing DVDs then you're doing somthing a little bit illegal...
Now isn't that stupid?
Dvorak used to be a woman.
That's right! There was an 'incident' in the girls shower at his/her gym. He always was a 'burly' gal who never had much luck with the boys. That is, unless he let himself be used by those geeky *nix boys (which happened all too often). Well, long story short, a manly type woman at his gym (who enjoyed the company of other manly women, wink, wink) cornered him in the shower and
Anyway, after the incident (and after she was fully healed), she swore never to shower with girls, and, never to be taken advantage of again. So, instead of just getting a home gym (as would be sensible), he, whoops, she, took the plunge and became (at least physically) a man.
This had two advantages; he could make good on his 'showering' pledge, and, he could look at the *nix boys in the mens shower after racquetball.
Coincidentally, he stopped writing about Macs around the same time.
And no, it's not functional.
I've been using it ever since I got into Linux back in 1999, and I've never had a problem with configuring or using it. X gets the job done, so why fuck with it?
That ovalish face... those full lips... DAMN those surgeons!
I tend to think that X Windows is pretty damn good - it consists of a small kernel that will run pretty well on the most minimal machines and extensions to, well, extend itself. And networkability is important and essential - does "directfb" provide such a thing?
And, just to mention yet another bit of sadly forgotten software, GWM had a module that provided for a scrolling, essentially infinite desktop. The biggest problem with GWM was that configuring it was a major pain until you'd spent lots of time understanding it - but then it was immensely powerful and quite wonderful. (The last time I tried to compile gwm on linux it didn't. Sigh.)
NeWS (the Sun window system designed by Gosling) also provided for ways for the window system to define a set of menu handlers (though an application could work around it when needed). I suspect many, many more of us would be using NeWS as a window system if Sun had only opened the source.
I keep thinking about a window manager/ui framework similar to Pad++ or the Self ui - which I believe provide both an "infinite" desktop and a "zoom in" capability. Indeed, I keep thinking Self or Smalltalk could be used as a basis for both a window manager and a CLI with shared data (and options for non-shared data).
he apparently read a different article than anyone else. You may disagree with Dvorak's view of the available GUIs for Linux as simplistic to the point of having missed the boat, but when Dvorak stated that Linux had its roots in x86 and wintel, it was Linux he mentioned, not the whole free software movement. What he said was true in so far as Linux was developed to run on an x86. Also, the more recent GUI development has borrowed some ideas - and not necessarily the best ones - from Windows. Dvorak may even have a point in criticizing the drift toward immitation windows functionality. Immitating the windows GUI might help steal away some desktop users, but it isn't new and it isn't interesting. Enlightenment and Windowmaker are two GUIs, both interesting and different, that Dvorak apparently did not look at.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
DirectFB is the wrong direction to go in, as it kills that 3-D accelerated windowing that you go on about. I'd rather see us go towards incrementally replacing the X11 drawing engine with GLX and the new OpenGL 2.0 specs set out.
Unfortunately, the masses don't agree.
For example: When I was working with the Gnome interface guideline team, I was arguing at length against using a clone of the "Start" button/menu - the only argument for it was "it's like windos". Nevertheless, both Gnome and KDE have this single feature that was slammed even by M$'s _own_ interface designers.
Take NeXT or Apple in contrast: Innovation that windos is still trying to copy 10+ years later.
It's not that Linux doesn't have it. It's that there are too many people that think "it's like windos" is a good thing.
Newflash: It's not. In fact, total newbies (your mom) will, given a fair comparison, almost always prefer a NeXT or Apple interface. I know my mom did. In fact, her opinion about the windos interface wasn't exactly positive.
"It's like windos" is _not_ a good thing. I'm using Linux because it's _better_ than windos, because it is _not_ "like" that sorry excuse for an operating system. If you want windos, go and use windos and stop dumbing down the better alternatives.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Nice going. FYI, an alternative proposal is not a necessary component of a valid criticism. That response is a red herring.
I have never considered myself to have an unhealthy bias favoring Windows or opposing Linux. I have used Windows since 3.1, and I have used Linux (though significantly less) since Slackware 3.5.
While there are certainly many advantages that each has over the other, the biggest advantage that Windows offers to me is insanely greater practical interoperability -- the type of interoperability that connects me with the people I want to be connected with. People I know use Microsoft Internet-ware. My school and place of employment use Microsoft Office. Everywhere I need to be on my computer, Microsoft can get me there. I'm not operating a server, nor will I from a cable modem.
Certainly, Windows is the most popular. Just as certainly, Linux is gaining ground in the home desktop market. But I think Linux/UNIX systems are and will remain dominant in the server market, and Windows systems will remain dominant in the home market. And as long as I am not operating a business that needs 24/7 secure operation, Windows does everything I need it to do, and then some.
And I can't underestimate the bias generated by familiarity with scores of Windows-based applications....
this is the first one of these fucking things that was actually funny.
flamebait
A good feature of Unix, and clones like Linux, is the powerful command line, simple yet powerful modular tools, and easy to use and parse text files. Even the GUI should be this way, such as a simple GUI like pwm that gives you simple menus, configurable from a very easy to read text file, and stays out of your way. Of course, pwm is probably not for everyone; so you can pick another window manager - another feature of Unix, customization, that commercial Linux distros are trying to reduce with controversial and often buggy results.
At this time, Linux does not push hardware innovations that Windows users want Microsoft to follow. It also does not have any software that anyone is craving for, especially now with Cygwin and many open source packages compilable for Win platforms. There are no Linux games that Windows users are slaving after, nor is there any Tux-box lining people up at stores for Christmas. There are no killer embedded-Linux devices being sold that are not already being sold as embedded Windows-2000/XP devices. Linux PDAs are not doing anything different than Palm or PalmPCs.
Linux and all other platforms are still playing catch-up to *everything* Microsoft. Once Linux creates its own blazing trail for Microsoft and others to follow after, only then will the real competition from Linux have begun. When will the pengiun teach a new trick?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
for your insightful and descriptive comment.
showing no examples it's obvious what you're talking about.
This is one of the most insightful comments ever made about UI on /.
won't give a rats ass
oohhh, animation!
fuck off, I want an OS, not Geocities
I think that you misunderstand. Linux isn't the GUI. Linux is the OS underneath.
To a user who doesn't care about the OS underneath, other than it working, Linux *is* the GUI. Bad GUI on Linux = Bad user impression of Linux.
But you don't seem to understand that people want Windows/Mac-like UIs. They are comfortable with these.
You don't have to make it the opposite of what exists, just improve on it. There are many cool GUI features in both Mac and Windows that are not used in the other. Use all of them! Look up all those UI features that have been discontinued, and see if any of them are useful, or if they were dropped for a good reason.
Autocad has command line. It has had one you could draw in 2D OR 3D with.
I hardly think you can say Macs are designed to look like Windows.
and you do not have to command+click the object.
if you'd ever used a Mac, maybe you'd know.
One cannot lead the marketplace when one follows in the marketplace.
Linux Geeks have to give up the me-too catch up to Windows attitude and figure out how to make Linux stand on it's own other than being free.
I don't use KDE or Gnome anymore because they suck just like Windows does. We need something better.
How about Home Theater PC's?
-- Mean People Suck
* allow rampant piracy across the globe, encourage it, make it easy, this will increase your market share dramatically.
* slowly make it harder for people to pirate your software.
* stop making versions of your software that runs on other OSs
* start threatening people you'll sue them if they don't have a software license.
* actually start doing that.
* put spyware into your OS, so you can police more license infringements, after all, it's up to the user to prove they own it, even if they have lost their receipt.
He is right on.
Linux is more uxer friendly, except that it is no longer linux. It's practically Windows. Now, I switched to Linux 8 years ago, because of Windows being too limited.
Now:
- Mozilla cannot run under one account on two remote displays
- Some programs have settings in unreadable "Registery" (Thanks, Penington for this Havoc).
- Gnome and KDE are hopelesly bloated.
- If you select white font color, you will have half of your text invisible, as ti is hard to have find and install Gnome black background theme.
- Many function do not have keyboard shortcut, forconm me to move hand all the way to the mouse!
- The KDE/Linux feels now twice as slow on 2.4GHz machine than on 90MHz pentium 8 years ago.
- and hundred other complaints.
- Good applications are continually discontinued. I'll never have such a packager GUI as was Redhat Tcl/Tk Glint, browser as was Motif Based Mozaic ( and early mozillas) and such an office suite as was Applix.
Perhaps I'll have to switch to SCO or Solaris.
Yours
Petrus
First he says we need more features:
Um, what features is he talking about? Currently linux could take on windows regarding features and flexibility, for the most part except a few key programs, except for the ease of use segment.
Does anyone seriously believe that feature bloat is what we are missing? Do you want an animated paper clip? Features that users never use in 90% of the cases? Features that put you on the upgrad treadmill for years on end and cost money.
Second part - we need to be less like windows. Need an innovative metaphor instead of the desktop blah blah blah.
Um, no. There are enough metaphors, what we could use is some consistency among interfaces, but please keep the metaphors under lock. Unless a holograpchic 3d screen becomes standard, I like the desktop example just fine.
Be less like windows, well we have a CLI that actually use. And why be less like Windows? Familiarity breeds fondness, why make people relearn everything, lets adjust to them a little bit and make small logical fixes and steps to something better over time.
While he could be complaining about the exact opposite next week, I do tend to agree with the basic conclusion. KDE is pretty much a windows clone, right down to those annoying verification messages. A lot of linux distributions corrupt Unix standards and alias rm, cp, et al to ,etc. (to please newbies perhaps?). I'm not aware of ANY window manager that allows you to lock focus (ever have Mozilla change your focus to it when it his some timeout/error and feels the need to re-focus you to Mozilla - it even changes your workspace if you're in a different one than it is!). Or a slow opening program that steals focus when it finally decides to come up. A lot of why I left MS Windows still shows up in Linux, unfortunately.
rm -i, cp -i
That article seems without merit and unecesarily inflamatory. I'm surprised it was posted on slashdot. It's as if the poster didn't both to read the article or wanted to start a silly debate about why linux should be nothing at all like windows. Right?
I mean, when it comes down to it, what linux really needs is to be _more_ like windows. Linux needs to emulate the aspecs of windows that work -- snapy user interface, vast software (game) support, stability (ever try windows 2k or XP?) AND ease of use -- ALL while retaining the aspecs that make linux superior. Right?
Doh! Look, I fell for the bait. Damn. Atleast we could have found a respecable article to center a debate on what makes windows and linux work so well. : P
I have to say that when I read "Dvorak" in the subject heading and then finished reading the rest of the subject line I immediately did a search for "idiot". Then I came across your post (that is not insulting-please read on).
I agree completely with you. I stopped purchasing magazines that publish his rampant stupidity as you did many years ago but I am still faced with it all too often.
Dvorak latches on to some current topic he believes will gain him some spotlight but writes his article so that he is not seen in some horrible light, one way or another.
Anyway...That is the pattern I recognize.
-Bytor and the Snowman
I think it is.
If Dvorak is so bored, which I suspect he is too, then maybe he should get off his ass and learn to do something productive and rewarding, like design software and/or write code. There's no more boring a place to be than the middle of the peanut gallery.
and in another article dvorak critisizes Dell for immitating compaq by designing computers with the same interfaces (monitor, mouse, keyboard)
"At home (using Linux) I'm running: an enterprise-level web server (with support for Java, PHP, Perl, CGI, SSL, you name it), an internal DNS server, a caching DNS server, a highly-configurable router / firewall, an SSH daemon, a mail server (one which serves as both a primary for some domains and a secondary forwarding server for others), two different database servers, a print server (usable by Linux, UNIX, Windoze, OS X), a networked file share (available via NFS and Samba), a networked scanner server, a modem pool, a fax server, a VPN server, a jabber instant messaging server, an add-filtering HTTP proxy, an OGG/MP3 networked jukebox, a tape backup system, an LDAP user directory (with integrated logins for my Windoze/OS X boxes and support for redundant mirrors on other machines), an internal DHCP server, and encrypted file systems."
yes... but it's not the cost in dollars. it's the cost in effort. getting most of this stuff to run in linux is like pulling teeth from a rabid monkey trying to fuck a rotten watermelon. people have a hard time taking linux seriously when they have to wait 5 minutes for the damn thing to boot when a comparable windows box boots in seconds. oh, that's right... you never turn your computer off, either. my bad.
As someone who has been working with older Apple hardware quite a bit recently, I have to say that Apple has only *now* gotten their UI to a respectable level with OSX.
In all the previous verisons of MacOS, I just don't see where all the "user-friendliness" really was?
First and foremost, the older MacOS UI had the really nasty issue of making it too hard to tell which apps were still running. (EG. User double-clicks on a document to read it. SimpleText launches and shows them said document. User closes the document itself, but doesn't realize SimpleText is still running with 0 documents open. Since very little visual indication is given to user that it is indeed running, he/she can easily go about doing other things on the Mac for hours and not notice it's still wasting memory and resources.)
MacOS also made it too confusing to select the proper folder to save/download/install files in. (EG. If you have multiple hard drives and want to save on the one that didn't come up by default, you had to get there in 2 steps. First, select "Desktop", and *then* select the drive you wanted from the dialog box.)
On top of all of this, they never had the foresight to offer an actual file manager. MacOS sorely needed some sort of built-in utility that would show "tree" style folder lists and easily allow copying/moving/deleting groups of files.
Therefore, I'm not sure Linux wants to copy Apple's way of building GUIs. It seems to me it took Apple *far* too long to provide obviously needed functionality and features.
So the author of the article is irritated and instead of searching and finding the real source of his irritation he turns around and kicks the dog (Linux in this case.)
The GUI interface as it exists now is result of, what, 30+ years of research, experimentation and implementation? Why can't it get better? Here's a clue: the interface "bottleneck" is between the hardware and the wetware.
We'll get better/different user level interfaces when we get better better/different connectivity between the human and the machine.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
X-Windows doesn't have a monopoly on network transparent UIs. Fresco, one project working on a high-quality UI, is also network transparent.
It's ridiculous because all the claims made are bogus. He links us to Windows because he sees a parellel between DLLs and shared libraries. This is nonsense. We have so many to choose from in comparision with it, and let me just blast him fourthright: where DID he get the whole idea we're somehow employing such a totally revolutionary/radical operating system with impunity from all the requirements of modern application development? Linux is an operating system with lots of unique features and advantages -- and it's not going for the revolutionary sort of flair a la OSX.
I installed and loaded gtk-gnutella today in less than 10 seconds and instantly was downloading MP3's I'd been wanting to hear for months. I think Dvorak might be looking too much at the "big picture" to really see how different things are on this side.
I think Dvorak's article was interesting, but more and add for Connectix than anything else. It does make a good point of those who package OSs using linux.
The thing that is often forgotten is that linux is a kernel, and the Window Manager is something else. So what WM is Dvorak using? Red Hat? SUSE? Mandrake?
I personally like Blackbox because it doesn't have all kinds of features - only what I need.
The question I've always wondered, why doesn't Microsoft make a window manager for X environments? Would they choke on the GPL?
Ultimately, I think the solution is Mac OS X - too bad I can only get my hands on this x86 crap.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
then zip it. You say:
"No one stopped to ask whether replicating a WIndows 95 look and feel was a good thing or not."
Are you kidding ? Have you even read any book on the subject ? Do you have any idea of what goes on within usability communities ?
How about you take a break from listening to yourself talk and open up your ears one of these days. I have heard enough of your whining, and I thought it would time to chime in.
My points:
1) Usability takes precendence into consideration. There's a reason why microwave ovens looked like oven consoles when they were first designed. It's because that is what people's brains where used to. Unless you want to target the people who have never used a computer before, then you MUST improve on the design of what people are used to. You can't just invent a new interface and say "Trust me, it's better...use it." when they are used to something else. For some real-world proof of this, ask any veteran Mac person to use a PC for a week.
2.) Dvorak has infinitely more experience and knowledge on the subject than you do, as does just about everyone on the KDE and/or GNOME teams, and therefore more qualified to write brief "rundowns". Can you see what sorts of excellent improvements the opensource community HAS made on the M$/Mac interfaces ? Can you list ANY ? Or is it all bad, in your oh-so-vague-and-generalizing opinion ? I understand that you'd like to really enter into a career in UI design, but no one's going to want to work with someone who does nothing but badmouth what's been tried.
Human Factors engineering has been around a lot longer than both computers and you, son. And after having spent over 20 years evaluating cockpit design (i.e. UI for airplanes) for the US government, I can tell you, with experience behind me, that although you make some valid points, you still have a lot to learn.
So before you start with the heavy-handed stone throwing, watch what sort of house you live in, mister microblogger.
is looking like OSX a bad thing? Windows I can understand though.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
"They come in as newspaper men, trained to get the news and eager to get it; they end as tin-horn statesmen, full of dark secrets and unable to write the truth if they tried."
--H.L. Mencken
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Linux is matching Windoze feature for feature till they are identical. It must do this to be a viable alternative to Windoze, which is what Linux's developers appear to want.
Once the two are equal, Linux will begin the second stage of Extending...
Linux just might beat Windoze at Microsoft's favorite game.
We are making Linux "more like windows" for 1 simple reason: the most significant cost per seat in any computer installation is not the cost of the software or the hardware, it's the cost of the user training. If Linux looks and feels like the interface almost everybody is already used to, then retraining costs are smaller, and more people are likely to adopt it. That Dvorak doesn't see this only proves what I've been saying for years: "Dvorak is an idiot!"
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
-- "It's roots are in Wintel" --
Linux's roots are in UNIX, not in Windows. Linux does well on Alphas, Macs, IBM mainframes, etc. Intel's platform was a circumstance, it was never the first choice.
-- "The Linux community copies the inventions of Microsoft out of necessity..." --
Inventions? Microsoft has but a few inventions, one of the more prominent ones being the talking paper clip. Microsoft buys out other companies and manipulates its OS in ways that steal other people's products. Microsoft hasn't invented anything of any significance; they just take the credit for other people's inventions.
-- "Programs such as GIMP are compared with Windows programs" --
GIMP runs on Windows, although not as well as it does on *NIX machines; are we comparing GIMP to itself now? GIMP gets compared to Photoshop; the consensus seems to be that you should really have both GIMP and Photoshop to have a well-rounded arsenal of image editing software. What is this guy talking about?
-- "Linux has become a pale imitation of the evil OS it intends to replace" --
Of course there are people who hate UNIX, but Linux was never designed to replace Windows! There are many Linuxes out there. Some may very well intend to replace Windows; but if you look at Linux carefully, you will see that there is a great variety of strategies and concepts from one distribution to another. You shouldn't knock Linux as a whole because of something a particular distribution (or distributions) is / are doing.
-- "Not quite as good but a little cheaper" --
Not quite as good for what? Use the right tool for the right job. If you don't like Linux, don't use it! Buy an SGI or something. Noone is forcing you to use Linux.
I think it makes a lot more sense to write about the facts, not manipulate the facts to fit the title of the article you decided it would look good for you to write.
This is a shining example of very poor journalism.
I've been thinking about this at great length for the past year or so. The W.I.M.P. interface is going to be with us for a while no matter what we think of it. It will evolve and get enhanced by other developments in input devices (eye tracking, speech recognition, humanoid virtual androids, etc..), but will probably largely remain the same. The real "innovations" (for lack of a less used word) are to be had in new approaches to using the computer to actually get work done.
:) But, the only input devices we have are still limiting. The closest thing I've seen to something useful for text input is "Dasher". Combine this with eye tracking and I think you have a great solution for portable computing with no need for KB, twiddler, or the like. The other thing I think we should be looking at is the possibility of CLIs actually learning what we do most and creating aliases based on those actions with notification that we have a new alias that we can use for those actions. The other possibility is textual access to that same DB that the normal users would have in the GUI. This DB would allow us to use our machines in CLI mode with automatic suggestions for related commands, data, services appearing in a "scratch" location on the CLI for the machine's "stream of consiousness". It would become symbiotic. As we learn about our machines, and our machines learn about us, we augment each other. And THAT is what we should be working towards: computers that augment us as individuals while being as transparent or intrusive as the user desires.
Unfortunately, I think Microsoft has us in a bad spot right now. I've heard rumours for a while that one of their big projects is some kind of storage/document management system. When you think about it, this makes sense for the business world as the "next big thing" because the suits don't care about data formats and don't WANT to learn about what type of data is compatible with other data. If my hunch is correct (based on the info I've seen in various spots on the net) they are planning to make a transparent, centralized (within an enterprise) mass data storage system that completely abstracts data from file formats. More then likely, the end result will be based on that DB centered filesystem we've been hearing about. So when a user creates data, whether it's graphic, text, audio, etc... it all goes into this DB with approapriate links drawn automatically between the different data. The user never has to think about file formats. They just create their data (which they will likely think of as "documents" with no type) and save it to their published "Folder". The filesystem/OS will take care of all the data type matching. Exchange and Windows XP for Pen Computing are the first glimpses at this kind of thing.
If we really want to get something new happening, we really have to start thinking about a few items:
1. Computers (even with W.I.M.P.) force people to interact in non-human ways.
2. To be truly efficient, every task that a computer could be used for requires different UI approaches to be "optmized" for that use. (Witness the turnkey systems out there for the button pushing monkeys to use)
3. You either have maximum flexibility and number of features at the cost of true ease of use, or you limit your user to make things easier to use. There is no compromise.
To tackle the first point: People have been working for so long on trying to make computers "user friendly" that they've added so many things that actually cripple the user. As Neal Stephenson pointed out in his essay, "In the Beginning There Was Command Line", many metaphors actually prevent the new device from being used to it's full potential. He had an example of a steam powered car that used reigns for steering because it was something people were familiar with. However, it's obvious to us now that the steering wheel (while a new concept) was actually the better interface. I think we need to question whether we really need to hold onto a lot of the metaphors in use today. Should we try and meet our machines halfway, especially since their eventual role will probably be to augment us in many ways? Or maybe we should come up with new, less limiting metaphors? I think it will all come down to how each individual uses their computer.
I know that I feel very limited by GUIs these days. It doesn't matter if it's Windows, Linux or MacOS. I've used them all and can easily move between all of them since they really aren't different at all anymore. However, I do get a lot more usability and flexibility from the CLI for the way I use my machines. Still... the CLI is limiting too. The time to integrate CLI and GUI into something more cohesive than just running an xterm in X, or CMD in Explorer has come. Why don't we have a CLI that has modern text editing facilities. There are many times when I wish I could do a text search through the text in my scrollback buffer. Or how about being able to "drag and drop" filenames to directories in a CLI window, instead of having both a GUI file manager and a CLI open? Or dragging a console command line out of a script you're editing to the desktop and having a new CLI window (or maybe a new tab if you have an MDI capable CLI) pop up with the line ready to execute by pressing enter. Or maybe a way to use the command history to create new scripts easily? Just arrow up to the commands you just used and tag them in the order you want them and have them output to a new script in your home dir. These are basically shortcuts that could make CLI life a lot easier. However, this still barely touches the real issue.
The real problem is that the computers (with ANY UI) still force users into limited ways of interacting and thinking. To manage your files, you have to think in hierarchical fashion even if that ISN'T the way that you work with real paper/books/printouts, etc... File management should be approached in a much different way than it is currently. (Most users I know never even touch their file managers unless they are going to read a floppy.) The "search" tools that many GUIs provide this to some extent, but it's only ephemeral. A search is not a permanent record of a state. The only "views" that we currently have in a GUI are limited to the way that a computer "tech" thinks, not a user. In fact, the very use of the word "file" may be an impediment to using a computer in the most efficient way.
If we take a more object based view. The data would make a slight transformation from "graphic image file" to simply; "Picture" regardless of the format. Text data would no longer be the mish-mash of formats that it currently is (ASCII text, "DOC", RTF, PDF). It would instead become "Letters", "Articles", "Recipes", "Source Code" "Personal Photos", "Promotional Pictures", etc...
Instead of the user arranging folders that contain all of these categories, the OS would already have a pre-ordered layout of filing by these categories. However, this would not be the normal folder structure that a filesystem uses, but it would be a database that manages the underlying filesystem. As new applications get installed, more categories for those apps get added if they don't already exist. When the user opens their personal information store, they would be presented with a list of the categories (with a bias towards the most often used types) to scan through. Once they select the ONE category they are interested in, all other categories dissapear from the list and a new interface is presented with the option to search for a specific document or select a "view". The "view" could be chronological, alphabetical, or relational. If they pick chronological, their choices can be Today, Yesterday, Within the Past Week/Month/Year, Specific Date. If they pick alphabetical, they get the options for Forward/Reverse order, or Specific Letter - Forward Reverse (Ablilities, Accidental, Actionable...). It they pick relational, they can select a specific document and it will present them with a "web" of all related documents on their system, network, or corporate enterprise. This is just a simple illustration of "what could be" for the typical end user. Let's take a look now at what could be for the advanced user.
A lot of times, I find myself with a strong desire to have access to my machines, but being limited by the other things I need to do in daily life. The concept of the wearable computer appeals more and more.
My second point is that depending on how you use your machine, certain UI/input device combos may be more efficient than a "one size fits all" approach. For instance a musician may want to use a computer with a KB, Mouse and a real mixing board input device for virtual studio work. Or an artist might want to use a tablet interface that allows them to draw on screen just as on paper. One of the things that Linux has going for it in this way is that you really could make dedicated distros for different types of work. This would be a great way to usurp Windows from certain arenas since MS would likely never take this appraoch as it would cost too much. But it needen't cost as much for Linux. The freedom it would allow for in UI design would be incredible. Imagine the new kinds of tools and approaches that could be created without being fettered by a "desktop" metaphor. This is where I think some extra specialized work needs to be done: hardware input devices. If we can get Linux to support as many input devices as possible, and combine that with very specific task focused distros (or a distro with "task plug-ins"), we could gain more acceptance in specialized fields.
The third factor is how much power to actually give the user. As we've all seen with the various W.I.M.P. interfaces out there, having more than one way to do something is great, but it gets in the way of user friendliness. I've seen plenty of people get EXTREMELY confused by seeing that they could minimize a window by clicking on the _ widget OR by left clicking on the application's window menu on the left side and selecting "Minimize", or by right clicking on the application's listing in the task menu and right clicking to select "Minimize", or... you get the picture. While it's nice to have all those options (especially as the user becomes more adept, it's likely to confuse the user). I still wonder why no one has taken notice of Nautilus' old (weak, but clueful) approach of having different modes: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. Someone need's to sit down and figure out what the easiest GUI thing for most users to do is and pick that ONE approach for a function. Then all of those simple approaches would become the "Beginner" settings. The "Intermediate" settings could incorporate other GUI based approaches that are less commonly used but might be preferred by a more intermeidate user. And the KB shortcuts (there should be one for every function in the GUI) are left to the "Advanced" user mode.
Instead of completely removing features to try and avoid confusing the user, the features should be categorized thoughout all apps and the OS environment into categories of some kind to limit what a beginning user is exposed to. Some people will never break past that, and that is fine. Others will want to explore and learn more. Either way... the real goal needs to be more humanization of the UIs, and more machination of the humans.
Un-news
I agree with Dvorak i'm not a coder I don't claim to be but I use both linux and windows on two seperate computers and the only diff is the name of the applications I use
it's not death if you refuse it, only if you accept it
you can never go wrong with a post that compares operating systems to cars...
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Mac users think the male rectum is the correct place to stuff their lubed cocks. They need more help than simply abandoning the gay apple interface.
Check out my ghey articles and linux pseudo-contributions!!
Well, admitting there isn't anything better, and admitting YOU CANNOT IMAGINE anything better are quite different things.
I feel many people here, unfortunate though it is, fall in the latter.
Since when was the 2D GUI "perfect"? Since when was the WIMP interface officially the only possible interface?
Look around and you will see innovations everywhere. But to admit nothing is possible not only will blind you, but will also prevent you from being a part of such innovation.
If you have an imagination, and if you are pragmatic, ie, work and judge by results, then innovation will follow naturally.
If you feel you do not have an imagination, then absorb information and familiarize yourself with the cutting edge. Once you are familiar enough, you will start seeing possibilities that weren't explicitly presented to you, beyond the edge. And that is what we often refer to as...
imagination.
Code it and present it, and people will call it...
an innovation.
Repeat that a few times, and before you know it, people will start referring to you as...
a visionary.
Dvorak knows something about computers, specifically desktops. Apparently he knows nothing about the rest of it, or he would have discussed the thousands of creative uses of Linux, in server clusters, network appliances, embedded devices of all shapes and sizes, incredible server clusters, renderfarms, the list goes on and on. He also ignores the numerous interface projects, both 2D WIMP enhancements, and the 3D interfaces that Windows does not have.
Dvorak is a fool, a pundit, he is the computer industry's Rush Limbaugh. Fortunately for the computer industry, Dvorak does not have millions of moron listeners who fail to look through his fallacies.
Sorry to get a little "Jerry Seinfeld", but, what is the deal with all these so-called pundits making completely retarded assertions. Yet the ploy works, again and again, as shown in the posting of articles and replies to the articles, jesus christ, my brain wants to explode reading some of this drivel, such as, "Linux is too much like Windows" where is this article published like Dumbass Digest or something? As someone who has used both Windows and Linux, I can tell you, Linux is almost nothing like windows, what, both run on hardware, wow, ooh big similarity, STFU. Next week I am going to submit an article to /. entitled "How a ball of yarn is too similar to a bowl of Campbell's reduced sodium tomato soup" God damnit, like the article a few months ago about how software development is dead, shut up no it isn't is how my summation of the article would read, and that would be even on a slow news day. If my post sounds ranty and disconnected, forgive me, it is like four in the morning. But my position remains the same.
I hate sigs.
Cruise on over to NooFace to check out some news on UI design. This guy started this Slashdot cloned space so that we could discuss alternate user interfaces. It looks pretty promising, just needs a few more users.
One thing I am interested in is getting rid of WIMP. I don't know what to replace it with (if I did, I would probably be a rich/famous man!), but I tend to like the zooming interface concept. This is where everything is all laid out in a single plane and you just zoom in and out on different areas to get where your going.
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
Yeah, youre right. They wanted Multimedia, the community gave it to them. They wanted more Officesuite, there are many good ones by now. Then they wanted an integrated Desktop. Hey, we got at least two. And now they complain about. Ok, let me say this: If you dont want to use Linux you dont have to. I personally belive that OS has come a long way in the last few years. And if its not suitable for someone they might as well stick with Windows.
Merry xmas,
Lispy
Multitasking preemptive of Windows XXX is an ass :DDD because:
* program must to do looping!!! hehehe, another ass
* there are many bugs with the syncronization of multithreads or multiprocesses, and Windows XXX fails the paradigm of concurrent programming, the guilty isn't the programmer, the guilty is Windows XXX.
* programming at Windows XXX is very complicated! programming at Linux is very easy! (e.g. to put a button at Windows is to create a windows with many unuseful parameters = code very big and more buggier)
JCPM (copyright)
I guess I may not be like other users but typically I just write the 2 minutes worth of script and add that to whatever menu's applicable config(root menu left-click in fvwm, kde's bar, or whatever); I'd say that most commandline progs are _extremely_ intuitive, because on standards (ie posix, UNIX, etc) typing '-v' or '-q' is fairly likely to increase verbosity or decrease (quiet) output respectively; usually one can even guess at what arguments a prog would require (ie PROGNAME infile [outfile] --able to guess an optional second argument is name of outfile). '-' or '-c' for stdin unless it makes sense for this to be the default; many many more. I find it _extremely_ rare being within a gui on any prog on any OS and not being able to figure out how some task is to be done. When things get really bad a quick trip to the help button usually helps matters along (ironically enough). And I agree that for others like myself who do some pretty squirrelly things, windows help can prove futile and Kde's help while being a rather large system, covers only elementary issues (I used in version 2.0 may be drastically different now). Are there others who feel that most gui's are pretty self explanatory?
Multitasking preemptive of Linux is an ass :DDD because:
* program must to do looping!!! hehehe, another ass
* there are many bugs with the syncronization of multithreads or multiprocesses, and Linux fails the paradigm of concurrent programming, the guilty isn't the programmer, the guilty is Linux.
* programming at Linux is very complicated! programming at Windows XXX is very easy! (e.g. to put a button at Linux is to create a windows with many unuseful parameters = code very big and more buggier)
JCPM (copyright)
I don't understand where he's coming up with that the roots of linux are in wintel. It has been Unix, and always will be. Everything is a file; you can administer with vi from across the world; the OS is extremely modular; etc etc. I also think his point is completely undercut by OS X, which is true Unix derivative but maintains a feature set impressively close to Windows. Just because Linux isn't there now doesn't mean it can't be there eventually.
Obviousely the writer never experimented with
all the different window managers that Linux
can display, like Enlightenment, for instance.
Linux is far different than windows. Just try
to get rid of the 'index.dat' file in the
directory called X:\windows\cookies. You will
not do it. You do not have the rights to access
it within windows. All users of windows are
client users and not superusers no matter what
flavor of windows or 'NT' they are running. All
IT Administrators of nt systems are also really
just 'super-clients' and can be gotten around
by master servers from micro$$$$ any time they
want. Ashcroft and company really want to snoop
American computers running windows, just go to
Redmond and the keys to the windows world is there
and wherever they sold the master keys, like maybe
MPAA or RIAA member oligarchs. Try that on any
good Linux box and the average government hacker
would lose so much hair tearing it out from frustration that he would end up looking like the Vice President.
GM's use of round wheels on cars is nothing more than a copy of a copy of a copy of a ...
Eat at Joe's.
In Soviet Russia Windows looks too much like Linux
I hate Grammar Nazi's
Dvorak is just ranting here. he has no good ideas or suggestions for improvement. just complaints.
sure Linux GUIs are alot like Windows and Mac. the Mac interface was a good idea, and still is. that's why windows tries so hard to be like it.
if improvements need to be made, let's make them without throwing out good ideas with the bad.
not that a whole different approach would be unwelcome, assuming it makes as much sense as going from command line to GUI, but Linux isn't trying to do that. they wanted an alternative way to do what they already do, and do some of it better. i think they've done that nicely.
i guess Apple wasn't doing anything that got under his skin this week.
hey John, how about an article about all the innovations Microsoft is making? nothing? oh well.
i always like to mention when responding to an article by Dvorak that he used to be a MacUser columnist, and a Mac User. he left during the dark times and can't seem to get over the fact that they were able to go on without him.
i see these slams against linux as his way of avoiding change, just like slamming Apple is his way of justifying his decision to leave the platform.
he just seems a little too venomous to be simply reviewing those topics.
Evil is the money of all root....
It's always nice when Pcmag or Zdnet do one of their specials on latest Linux progress. It's always crafted to be absurt enough so that people would read and discuss it, yet never credible enough to be educational or usefull. As long as the dill's look at the pretty adds.
Since when is pcmag a credible source on Linux GUI asthetics any way? Bet the writter gave it a good 5 min run, yah around the website screen shots f...er. Id be surprized if he had enough IQ to pop the shrink wrap of his Linux CD.
Don't we have 1 mill customized looks / interfaces for GDE/GNOME/Enlightenment, and isn't that the main selling point of the above managers, i.e. your ability to customize the pimp sh.t out of them.
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.
In his article "When good interfaces go crufty", Matthew Thomas from New Zealand gives some good ideas how interfaces for Linux could be improved, how Linux has the chance to be much more innovative. I found his article very enlightening, because he breaks out of some deeply entrenched tracks of thought.
'nuff said.
are you going to admit it when someone wants to give you a job and asks how you work with other people ?
are you going to show your Mom the messages where you resort to calling people names like a 4th grader ? where you show that your only strength is being condescending to people when your ideas meet resistance ? or will you wait to admit it at some technical conference to someone's face ?
here's a hint: get off your high horse, little girl, and go buy yourself a clue with the money you've saved from getting off the sauce.
Hmm... Well, here's the thing. Right now, I'm working with a group of folks who are trying to refurbish old Macs for use in daycare/childcare facilities.
What I've observed is that both the kids (who have no real previous computer experience at all) and the teachers/faculty (who may or may not be "computer literate" at all) are struggling with the MacOS UI problems I pointed out.
They often run into low-memory situations where the machines freeze up and have to be rebooted, all because of shareware games (such as Mackman - a PacMan clone) that get launched, and then are believed not to have run because they didn't notice the menu bar at the top changing to offer "Play new game" options and the like.
The Windows method of encapsulating apps within panes makes it more obvious that the user has run the app. To me, that's more important for beginners than someone's theory of operation that says it's best to keep things on the edge of the work-surface.
Sure, anyone with some knowledge of the UI can learn the MacOS hot-keys (aka. Command-D). That's great - but it doesn't come naturally to the absolute beginner - and that's who Apple claimed their systems were designed for.
In all fairness, I can think of a few Windows-isms that would be equally confusing to the newb. The great thing about Mac OS 8-9 is the ability to enable native "At Ease" in every build. It's an ultra-simplified UI that can prevent a user from running too many apps concurrently if administered properly. Different levels of user can be administered with various accounting bundles such as MacAdmin and Apple's own tools built in to OS X Server.
I've seen simmilar "lockdown" packages for MSWindows that would make me want to chisel my eyeballs out with an ice-pick if I was subjected to them as a total n00b, but I'm sure there are at least a couple that cover enough bases...
I hate Grammar Nazi's
This is a logical analogy too... anyone who's been around, knows the world is
run by paenguins. Always a paenguin behind the curtain, really getting things
done. And paenguins in politics--who can deny it?
-- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo
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