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Windows and Linux User Interfaces
Anonymous Coward writes "Greg Raiz, Boston based interface designer and former Microsftie takes a look at Linux and outlines key shortcomings and strengths of an OS that could take on a giant."
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Great job, studying the user-interface of a kernel. Very insightful and such.
Make upgrading from windows as easy as possible, Standardize on your widgets, and Make Installing Software Easy and secure.
I tend to agree with most of the articles comments except for 1 random jab at Apple for choosing the lower ground of loosing functionality for better interface, where I believe that Apples interface is middle ground like windows but it is just better designed so it is easer. But I digress.
For Installing why can't Most Linux distributions support Loopback files, So they can install Linux on top of a Windows partition and if they don't like linux just delete the ISO file. Also a Non-destructive partition system like Partition-Magic.
More effort should be put into WINE, and MONO projects. It should be easy to run Windows programs. Just like the migration from Apple OS 9 to OS 10 or from DOS to Windows or Windows 3.1 to 95. People prefer "Optimized" to their OS applications, and will ask for them, but if they can't get it they want to run the old ones. These projects will not make developers think "Well Linux emulates it so we don't need to port it." they will think wow we have xx% of our customers using our product in linux, Perhaps we should make a Linux Version before our competitor does so we don't loose them.
Standardizing on the User Interface is extremely important. I can't even count the times I have to go to a newbe who is using KDE or GNOME and opens an Application build with the other tool kit or worse a different one like X11 and explain to them that they may have some trouble Copying and Pasting, and oh this is a x application you need to do it this way instead. And your files are by default saved here except for there. It is confusing and they do not comprehend why things are so diverse.
Installing, I really don't see why Linux can't take a lesson from Apple and improve on it. To install an application drag the folder to where you want to run the application. Have all its files that it needs to run self contained inside itself and uninstalling it is just deleting the directory. And try as much as possible to make the application statically built With Drive space below $1 per gigabyte the extra space lest be a little wasteful to make installation easy. Only spread the files across the OS when you Really-Really Need to.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The logical question to ask is: why should Linux (or the Linux community) care if it's more and more widespread? What's wrong with the way it is now? This is not a flame, I'm asking because I'm looking for a good answer, believe it or not.
Guys, we need to have an attractive desktop by default in order to make the user experience at least more appealing. In one installation of Ubuntu, I had to tweak the X.org conf file in order to have it display these fonts correctly! And believe me...it took more than 4 hours to get right! Who would have that time in the "real" world?
My operating system (Debian) has just such a system (dpkg).
There is an opportunity for the open source community to create a VB compatible IDE that could compile applications for both to Windows and Linux.
It is a good commercial idea. But will any FOSS programmers bother implementing VB under Linux? On a more inflamatory note do we even want those VB programmers to develop for Linux?
Didn't look at dtlinux or rio from plan9port .
Shame, he could have seen the future =)
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Actually, Linux can run from FAT32 - sort of. With clever use of a initrd and loopback devices, it's possible to boot Linux from a EXT2 (say) filesystem that actually lives in a file on your Windows partition. (This should also work with NTFS, as long as you create the file from within Windows to start off with.)
Some of the older Mandrake versions even had a tool to automate the process of setting one up - you just told it what size you wanted, and it created one and rebooted into the installer (via DOS) to install a working Linux system on it. It even added a desktop icon to reboot into Windows (required Win9x, alas). If Linux broke, you could just delete the files from Windows.
WPA support seems to very between distributions - for example, Mandrake didn't support it at all when I was using it! I currently use Gentoo, which means I don't get given a GUI for this sort of thing, but I do get reasonably decent documentation.
Oh, and unfortunately getting ndiswrapper working seems to be a matter of luck (it worked for me with the Netgear WG111, quite reliably, but YMMV). Apparently, it doesn't like certain experimental kernel patches, among other things. It's really a bit of a hack anyway; native drivers are better if you can get them (not too often, sadly).
First off, Linux, or rather GNU/Linux, is an operating system KERNEL.
That's not even what the "GNU/Linux" people think. If you're going to advocate something like that, you should at least get your facts straight.
Linux is the operating system KERNEL.
GNU/Linux is the kernel plus the collection of (almost entirely GNU) applications and libraries that make up the OPERATING SYSTEM.
But, as noted above, even though Linux technically only refers to the kernel, the colloquial usage of the word has long been understood to refer to either the kernel or the operating system, depending on context.
Ndiswrapper is unfortunately a way to work around what is to all intents and purposes broken hardware. You were cheated when you bought that thing. It's always going to be an administration pain in the ass until the manufacturer co-operates with the developers by providing specs. I know you probably don't want to hear that having spent your money (and time) on whatever that card is, but my advice would be to sell it and get a fully supported one. (I actually had to do exactly the same thing).
W.r.t. NetworkManager in FedoraCore4 the developer (Christopher Aillon) says himself that the current incarnation sucks and he's released a new, better version that you might be interested in trying out. It's working like a champ for me, and I had resorted to doing all my wireless configuration on the commandline in FC4.
Hope you get your situation sorted out. I feel your pain, but if you spend another $40 on a card that's supported, use OpenVPN on the Linksys router (flash the router with OpenWRT, it's simple and gives you real encryption as opposed to the lame-ass WPA which is crackable), then you'll be in clover.
If you look at the article being linked to on LXer it says:
...
"The Linux desktop has gone way past the excellent product Sun released in December 2003. That desktop offered the Gnome 2.2 desktop and some very nice engineering. Most Linux desktops now offer Gnome 2.12 which has incorporated the nice engineering found in the original Sun project Madhatter. So, no one wants Sun's throwback desktop today.
Don't get your hopes up about the JDS desktop for Linux. They need to prove that they can follow through on something first. So far, the jury remains out. We don't know who would want their desktop anyway: It's old, they changed the look and feel and who will support it?
"
Basically, they realized that their Java Desktop has been obsoleted by GNOME and they no longer want to maintain their fork which few people wanted.
Perhaps you're interested in autopackage? We're working very hard on multi-distribution compatibility.
Coming from the Linux world, Windows is so obviously the OS that has dumbed itself down for the novice, whereas the Mac is so obviously the OS that has invested effort into productivity for advanced users on the desktop. But "ease of productivity" for professionals is not the same as "ease of learning how to use a computer" for a novice. Windows has the novice market locked down tight, from the infamous start button, to the desktop populated with application launcher icons, to monolithic applications that want to work in full-screen mode; everything caters to the naive user. The Mac, on the other hand seems to presume that you are working on a large display, with numerous tool and working windows placed where they are convenient to you, and drag-and-drop interoperability between these windows that is reminiscent of using pipes to connect apps on a CLI. That's not novice stuff, and it takes a while to learn to use it. Once you've got the hang of it, though, it's really hard to go back. That's the real reason Mac users are fanatical and loyal, I've concluded, and it has nothing to do with novices. Indeed the whole idea of a fanatic novice is a bit of an oxymoron.
And that's why I'm looking forward to being able to do smart --install package in the not too distant future. Sure, some distros use RPM and yum databases, some use RPM and apt-rpm, some use DEB and apt databases, and then there's tgz formats... except smart, as a dependency resolver and installation system has pluggable backends. Not only is its dependency resolution system better than apt or yum, it can run against yum-rpm, or apt-rpm, or apt-deb, or even slackware tgz databases, so while different distros can use different packaging and repository systems, the user can have the same installation frontend regardless of what distro she uses.
Of course some distros will still want to go their own way (I'm sure Gentoo will continue to be what it is), but I think it is reasonable to hope and ask the major distros to, regardless of how they want to package and store, make smart available as the client to install software. Hopefully that will be the result in the not too distant future. It helps if more people know about and advocate smart of course...
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Won't happen. Graphic design software on Linux isn't quite ready for primetime. The GIMP (horrible name) has steadily been getting better and better, but there are still issues with CMYK printing and the layout. Inkscape is looking pretty good, but it still has a ways to go before it can catch up with Illustrator. Before graphic design on Linux can take off in the professional world, there need to be some changes. You need corporate sponsorship. You need someone who is going to provide guaranteed technical support. Linux has made awesome inroads in this area when it comes to enterprise applications, but there hasn't been a company that has stepped up to become the equivalent of Adobe in the Linux world. You need a company that is going to hire a full time staff to support and extend the programs. You can't rely on the kindness of some random stranger on a discussion forum providing you with a work-around for whatever technical issue you might be having. You need good documentation. You need nice, big, easily to read manuals for the individual programs. Most graphic artists are not going to spend their valuable time pouring over discussion boards trying to figure out how to do something in GIMP, when they can just open up their Photoshop manual get the answer right away. That's fine if you're making some graphics for your hobby web page and you don't have the money for Photoshop, but time is money in the professional world. Also, while the usability of Linux has become much better, but it doesn't hold a candle to OS X. In OS X, you drag the application into the Applications folder. Done. No problems with dependencies, no conflicts because each application is a self-contained application directory. Great approach. Granted, it uses a bit more space, but hard drive space is not at a premium these days. I've been following PC-BSD with much interest as they use they same method of installing applications, while leaving in the traditional FreeBSD ports system. Linux's day as a viable platform for graphic design may come, but it's still at least a few years away.