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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.
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'm sure there is room for improvement. Simplicity and a quick learning curve should always be goals. From a seasoned users perspective I would like to see speed and ease of customization. I think there is still a little ways to go for Gnome, KDE and M$Windows.
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
he notes this. His point is that we are trying to move people away from Windows by making Linux more like Windows.
... 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
Not to mention the fact that any differences from Windows are likely to get slammed by the users (and by pundits such as Dvorak) as being incompatible. Good, bad, or indifferent if Linux is going to take over the desktop it is going to have to be easy for the current group of Windows users to understand.
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.
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.
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?
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
The interaction sucks. Users have to perform many unnecessary actions. Why do I have to press "OK", read the "field value missing" dialog box, close it, fill the damn field and repeat the whole thing? Don't tell me that graying out the "OK" button untill all the required fields (which should be clearly marked as such) are filled is "dumbing down". It's a shame that document editors still need the "Save" button (this is an old example), when the edited file could easily and transparently get saved in the background. Irreversible changes? Why should they be irreversible? The disk space taken by saving the whole undo buffer is microscopic compared to modern disk sizes. Well, perhaps "label version" should get there instead of the "save" button, so that i can conveniently roll back to an old version without hitting "undo" 100 times. These are just a general examples that can be found in almost every application. Specific application have even more inconvieniences.
We got used to this so much that we don't even notice how crappy the UI is, but it is crappy and it can get better.
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes...indeed. I remember one of the major critcisms of the linux desktop in '97-98 (think Redhat 3.0.3) was that "I can't find anything", and "Where's the start button? This thing is broken!"
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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...
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.
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."
Damn you are the funniest troll ever.
The problem with hyper simplicity is lack of functionality/custimization.
The problem with custimization is that it adds incosistency and complexity.
There is no way for a single consistent desktop to appease all power users and noobs alike.
You can go like Windows and force 3rd parties to make custimizations, or you can go like Linux and allow any user to access them. Probably they idea way is have a beginner/expert setting in the custimizations to keep people that don't feel they are experts away from obscure things (to them) like windows focus.
Also, was the Grandparent trying to imply that OSX was perfected? Because lots of unnessacery animation (zoom on mouse over of something plenty big to see already) is hardly what I would call a feature of a perfected UI.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
--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.
familiar features. One reason M$ Office is so bloated that 80 percent of users use only 20 percent of the features-- but each user has a different 20%! Only the goofiest things can get cut. And while OpenOffice is up to 90-95%, that leaves a huge number of people's favorite features.
a foot in the door. This will be the easiest to fix, though, since Linux has already found its way into many a back office. The hard part will be getting major PC vendors to support it, what with M$'s still-present powers of retribution. Personally, though, my biggest problem with the way Linux GUIs are going is that it gets harder with every new distribution to find a way to keep the close button in the top left corner of the window where it's been for me since 1984 and where it belongs! :-)
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.
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.
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
The best user interface that I have yet found is still a command line.
When you figure out how to draw a picture with the command line, or edit a video, or make a 3D model, or even play checkers, let me know. Until then, graphical interfaces are here to stay.
I write in my journal
Didn't he create that screwed up version of the keyboard as an alternative to the qwerty keyboard?
No.
He didn't write the symphony called "From the New World" either.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Because Linux is free and Windows cost money?
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.
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
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.
Yeah, like there's no right-click context-sensitive menu, which IMHO is one of the best UI features since GUIs have been around.
(Getting OT here, but...)
I don't mean to troll against macs here (although I will ;-) ), but MacOS X is (IMHO) the most counter-intuitive UI ever designed.
We've had an iMac (one of the flatscreen with DVD-writer) in the office for a while - it's the only CD-writer there is, and it's hilarious watching people use it...
"Hmmm, pretty"
"Now, how do I burn a CD?"
"Let's try putting the blank CD in first."
"Where's the eject button???"
(someone walks past and points out the eject key on the keyboard)
"OK, name the CD....'untitled' will do"
"Hey, the icon appeared on the desktop! Neat!"
"Now all I do is right-click on the CD icon and..."
"How do I right-click with this thing????"
(much later)
"OK, there's 500MB left on the CD so I can just add another session..."
"What do you mean 'read-only'? What happened to multi-session?"
"What do you mean, I have to be administrator to erase a CD-RW???? It's meant to be rewritable, isn't it???"
"SO, there's a mere 100K of data on this CD-RW but there's no logical way I can write ANY more data on it?"
(user walks away in digust and finds someone with winblows on their laptop)
Seen it happen many times... I'm not joking
There is no way for a single consistent desktop to appease all power users and noobs alike.
There is: sensible defaults with varying levels of customization, and a clear but informative interface by which to perform that customization. I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about (yes, it does exist):
For those of you who have used ximian's gnome distro with the sawfish window manager, you may have already experienced this. Ximian goes to great lengths to make desktop look & feel -- by which I mean the file browser (nautilus) and window manager (sawfish) -- a pretty simple experience for those just getting into it. The first time you log in, you're presented with a few choiced about what you want things to look like (sawfish & gnome themes), but behaviorally, you're given the defaults (reasonable and simple behaviors).
After that, most (at least everything even an advanced user would care about) of the behavioral / visual modifications can be done using one common interface: the gnome control center (please ignore KDE for the point of this discussion for a moment).
If you've ever used this interface to change the behavior of sawfish, you know what I'm talking about. Sawfish has several different screens (for different areas of its behavior & appearance) in the control center. In its "Meta" screen, one can even set the level of complexity regarding the other sawfish configuration screens. If I'm a novice (the default), I am only presented with a few options. More complex options are presented when I choose intermediate or expert.
To me, this is an outstanding way to provide simplicity as the default behavior with the configurability that power users demand. I hate window managers that don't allow me to remap modifier + mouse buttons to different behaviors. I've found a combination which I believe is much more efficient (and intuitive) for three-button mouse users as far as moving, resizing, etc. goes. If I'm not allowed to set this up, then that particular window manager (to me) is bunk.
This is one of the reasons I hate the RedHat 8.0 UI so much. The user interface is one of imposed simplicity. It's really difficult to find out how you can change metacity (if that's even possible). RedHat's new preferences interface is just as lobotomized. What's worse is that if you switch back to sawfish, all kinds of functionality (like logging out of an xession?!) breaks (thanks guys, real slick).
The problem is that power users are in the minority of desktop computer users. This is an unfortunate reality with which I still have not yet come to terms. The problem? Baby-boomers. There are so many people like my parents who are not technically proficient, who "just want the damn thing to work", but "don't want to have to understand or think about it". These are the people with the money, and these are the people to whom companies must market their products.
This is the reason why usability (real usability from the sense of the power user) takes second seat: FFM (Focus Follows Money). I hope sawfish continues to be integrated into the major distros (properly). I hope the technically proficient of the world will continue to donate their time and write free software that is usable by more than the common idiot. I hope that Windows will not define what is included and what is not in the desktop just because most of the desktop users are used to it.
But I'm not holding my breath, and I hate it.
moto411.com
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
That's true, but the average user probably considers Windows to be "free" anyway. When he/she bought a new PC, the odds are extremely high that it was shipped with some version of Windows. The average user buys a PC with Windows, never reinstalls his OS, and uses it to get things done. They rarely have to contact their hardware vendor, let alone Microsoft, so support and support costs are immaterial to them. They just want a machine that works and does so in a way that they understand.
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
The biggest usability mistake ever made (as I see it) is the idea that wizards make things easier to use. They make it easier to use the wizard and produce pat results from a known good starting point, but as soon as you have to do something outside the wizard, you'll find that your previous use of the wizard has made it harder to do what you want. It's the whole give fish, eat for day; teach to fish, eat for life story with windows and scroll bars instead of fish.
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
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.
I think you made my point in reverse. If a wizard can simplify only simple tasks, why have a wizard? Why not just let the user do it?
I think, though, that wizards are a symptom of the problem. If it's that bloody hard to do something, then putting a big button on top to mash all of the little buttons at once is a problem.
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
Then there's the real applications. Burning a CD from the command line isn't possible on Windows where with *nix most GUI cd burning programs don't actually know anything about burning cds. They just call cdrecord and it does all the work for it.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
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."
Because:
- with some practice most people can type faster that they can talk
- everyone can read much faster than talking speed
- you can't skim through the bullshit and get to the point
- you can't search through an archive of voicemail (not easily yet)
Voicemail has been around longer than email, but it has hardly ever been used for more than "This is Jack, call me when you're back".The Windows NT Command Shell.
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
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.
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.