Slashdot Mirror
Everaldo and Jimmac On Linux Art and Usability
Eugenia writes "Metin Amiroff of OSNews interviewed the well known artists of KDE and GNOME, Everaldo and Jimmac. They discuss their first steps into Linux, the applicationss they use and why Linux still doesn't have all the professional applications and support they need for their day to day work, their inspiration, the state of the Linux desktop visually and usability-wise, the SVG factor and their future plans for KDE and GNOME."
Even though the art in an OS is far from vital, it makes the experience easier. Un like some OS's with bad graphics, its like watching surgery.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
A test for a self sufficient OS is for it to be self hosted, or able to compile itself on itself.
A good test of desktop self-sufficiency could be if an OS can make it's own high quality SVG icons.
Linux is getting there, but not quite yet.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
You bring up a good point, but recognize that Gnome is working on that with their interface policies. Free software tends to take a "make it work first, then make it look good" approach. What the community could really use is a few good artists that volunteer to make some of the ugly projects look good.
One of my beefs is that some applications ship with ugly "basic" interfaces and expect users to look for skins to make it look better. In my mind, it should look good out of the box, and the skins should just make it look better.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
There are many, many talented graphics artists in the world, but almost no one is asking for their help on these projects. Nor does the average programmer know where to go to find artists who are willing to help out.
We need an Open Graphics Art Project to connect together open source programmers with open art artists.
Same thing to a lesser extent with other professions like information architects (often found in the same person as a graphic artists, but not identical), usability/ergonomics, writing, game playability tuning, etc.
Perhaps all it would take is the right web site to help these people find each other.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
While in terms of absolute best visual quality, I have to say that OS X beats any linux theme i've seen (although a number of the aqua themes are really nice), I think linux wins for customizability. ,Gnome2 is also looking really nice, though in a different way.
While others may disagree, I think that Windows XP has perhaps the absolute worst graphical style of any modern OS.
Aqua is really slick, but eventually it gets old, wheras there are dozens of really nice looking themes for KDE.
Even though I have a personal preference for KDE,
I think the biggest advantage Linux has over other OS's is that, while there may not be as many artist using Linux, any artist who wishes has the option of adding artwork or making any other changes to any given program, and the best of those can be incorperated into the program.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Second: Dell currently does not even ship computers with AMD processors yet, and you expect them to ship preinstalled Linux machines? I don't think so.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
Like hell it is an improved interface of NeXTStep. It's a bastardization of NeXTStep without the Power of NeXTStep--no WindowServer.app--not to mention NeXTStep is a UI Design Paradigm still unequaled today in its consistency, productivity and ease-of-use. And MECCA (Openstep 4.0 Release Candidate 1) with the TabbedView Shelf that still hasn't resurfaced in OS X (hopefully one day) was an improvement over NeXTStep/Openstep but never saw the light of day, unless of course you happened to have worked at NeXT and/or you worked after the merger at Apple and either worked or hung out in Engineering.
GNUstep is nowhere as elegant as NeXTStep and they know it, but you can't fault the developers since Steve hasn't ever nor will he ever open source any of that code.
The moment KDE adds native Objective-C support by working with GNUstep folks than just maybe then we'll actually see Linux and Apple really bring a one-two punch to the Enterprise. How come? If both platforms support Cocoa's Portable Distributed Objects you can leverage existing PC hardware running Linux while bringing in PowerPC Hardware with OS X/X Server and suddenly any "holes" that the Windows World claims become even more fantastical, if not just blatantly bitter sweet moans of frustration.
But no. We have people maddenly working on C# in hopes to make sure everyone can connect to .NET Services. I'm sure Microsoft doesn't mind since you still have to pay the piper, one way or another.
I'll bite.....
"but for crying out loud those people are our girlfriends and/or Wives"
It's actually my BOYFIEND who's blindly addicted to OSX. I'm the one who put Yellowdog on our old iBook to make it usefull. I had to show him how to use tab-autocomplete in the terminal and how to use man pages when he couldn't remember what flags to use, for crying out loud. And I'm just a girl. Maybe it's this prejudice against the opposite sex which results in "geeks" always complaining about how they don't get the girls.