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Moving Toward a Single Linux UI?
Anonymous writes "With the releases of Fedora 9, Hardy Heron and OpenSuSE 11 so close together, it's looking more than ever like an evolution to a common interface for major Linux distributions. Here's a compilation of screen shots and descriptions that make it appear to be the case. Would this be a good thing or a bad thing?" There are plenty of other options out there, of course, even considering only Linux distros that are based on Gnome and KDE, and plenty of wilder (or at least less common) desktops to choose from besides.
80x25 white on black bash, baby.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
Ouch, Slackware, never gettin' no respect. Slackware 12.1 was recently released as well.
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
I guess that if we're keen on getting more people into Linux, then some commonality across the major distros might be a good thing. On the other hand, it's not so great for the smaller distros if we get a kind of monolithic Linux which dominates the market and means that people are less willing to try something different.
Still, there'll always be enough of us who want to use things because they're different - and because they are better at doing exactly what we want rather than being more generic, suit-everyone tools.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
I'm all for choice. True, that can make it a challenge for Linux adoption, but we all know what happens when a product becomes a defacto monopoly.
I'm convinced that 'competition' between KDE and Gnome has only help to improve the quality of both interfaces. Furthermore, having Xfce, KDE, Gnome, etc, gives the user choices not just in the colour, but in the actual design and philosophy behind the UI. In other words, there is plenty of room to try out new and exiting idea that would be difficult would there be a single, monopolistic desktop UI.
My $0.02 CAD.
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
The Gnome and KDE desktops are fantastic for mid-to-high-end machines, particularly when used with enhancements such as Beryl or Compiz/Fusion. For those still on Pentium I boxes or those who just want a more responsive experience, "flat" window managers such as Icewm or fvwm(?) do the job just lovely. They all have their own quirks and other ways of doing things (such as rclick application menus or Darwinian "docks" or even NT-like interfaces, but it's that kind of choice that draws me to Linux for pretty much everything. The simpler interfaces also make it easy for Grandma to use (ever tried administrating Vista? NIGHTMARE!) but there is always room for improvement. Come to think of it, you don't even need a GUI. The ultimate speedfreaks among us can use the command line for even more speed and not only that, even more control over applications.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I think the best thing that could happen for Linux on the desktop is for one of the two major environments (I don't care which) to become THE standard, supported Linux X desktop standard.
I know, choice is good. So is focusing your efforts on making one usable product that people can standardize on. Don't even think of it as a product, think of it as a protocol. HTTP won out over Gopher, and the first is everywhere and makes all kinds of apps able to talk to each other; the second is a (fondly, for me) remembered also ran. And that's a good thing.
Because that's my first thought when someone mentions that they use xfce or CDE -- "wow, that desktop environment sure is WILD!"
I think the opposite goal is more desirable - a platform standard which allows you to run your GUI on any machine.
Why should I learn Gnome or KDE if I already know Aqua, or vice versa?
The best solution would be an interface definition standard that lets you use KDE on Windows, Mac or Linux with no installation or configuration necessary - just download your profile from a server or USB key.
Oh, yeah, and I'd like a pony too, as long as I'm wishing on pipe dreams...
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
No, I don't think so really. The problem is a Mac is considered to be a Mac, it has its own interface that people are willing to use because it is a Mac, not a PC but a Mac. When someone installs Linux, they expect it to be like Windows because it is on a machine that had Windows on it, when it isn't the cheap copy of Windows they were looking for they don't bother to learn it and dismiss Linux as having a horrible UI because they won't learn it. The concept of an operating system that runs on most computers has been lost and is replaced with Windows running on X86 based computers (PCs) and OS X running on Macs, so often it seems that in order to explain what Linux really is you have to compare it to Windows, from there people get the wrong idea that the interface is just like Windows and see it as a free copy, when they see GNOME/KDE/XFCE they are confused as it isn't Windows.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Not only will it be year of the linux desktop.. but hell will freeze over.
Lets face it, linux users love choice. And since they're more likely than not to be fanboys (c'mon, everyone knows a linux convert is preachy about his newfound OS), then they're probably also fanboys about UI.
are also popular Linux distros and both also had recent major releases which the article neatly ignores. Oh well. Lots of choices.
In any case, let's place bets if the thread degenerates into KDE vs. Gnome... ug!
Well, KDE 3 can be configured to look and act very much like OS X -- right down to the menu bar at the top. (KDE 4 has some of the newer desktop effects toys, but it also has about half the features of GNOME, which has less than half the features of KDE 3.)
But actually, we do have something like that -- it's called X. The problem is, of course, that Windows and OS X both threw away decades of work and started from scratch, so you can't just write an X window manager and expect it to work anywhere but Linux. (Or BSD. Or OpenDarwin. Or Plan9. Or Solaris. Or Cygwin. Or...)
Personally, I think the better solution would be a common runtime -- either high level (think Java, or the Web/AJAX) or low level (think x86_64 + Linux + X.org) -- so that I can customize my environment as much as I want, and then run the apps I want in that environment. Much more flexible when I can actually write brand-new window-managing software than try to create a common spec for configuring existing window managers.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I am an atypical user for sure. Check my Slashdot ID, I've been around a while. I'm 35 and have used the SAME X11 configuration since I was a 19 year old sophomore at CMU in 1991. That's 17 years of twm goodness. I have no window decorations of any kind - no titlebars, resize grab areas, etc, etc. Moving, resizing, iconifying, etc, are all accomplished by either keystrokes or keystroke/mouse button combos.
I would not recommend my environment for anyone but myself. I've been with my wife since 1996 and she has NEVER been able to figure out how to do anything when sitting down at my Linux desktop. If I open a mozilla window for her she can just stay in there and be fine. But anything else, forget it.
The first thing I do when I install a modern Linux distribution is turn off all of the services that support Gnome and KDE programs. D-Bus, avahi, etc, etc, there are tons of them and they all just choke up the system when you are not running Gnome or KDE (and even if you do, but at that point they are a necessary evil). It's getting harder and harder to install new Linux distributions and manage to clean out all of the desktop related stuff that they install and run. All I want is X11, twm, mozilla/firefox, emacs, xterm, and a few other odds and ends. It annoys me when I install programs like ImageMagick and they require libgnome. Why? I don't run Gnome, why should the program require it? But I am being pretty curmudgeonly here. Aside from the minor annoyance of having to have libraries on my system that I "shouldn't need" (to continue to live in the early 1990's), there's really no harm in it.
I keep telling myself that someday I will have to suck it up and start using Gnome or KDE. But that day never seems to come because I don't *need* those things, and they never work seamlessly enough anyway to make them worth my while. I know that eventually I will *have to* because no Linux distribution will support my ancient way of working someday. But until that time comes I am unlikely to change.
If you're using Ubuntu, Fedora or Suse, then there's a possibility that you're an average Joe and you use your computer for general things like web surfing, email, word processing, perhaps even movies or managing your music collection. Or, you use it at work and only care about its general productivity applications. If you're this person, then a uniform interface across distros isn't a big deal. If you can point, click, and drag, then you probably won't ask for much more than that.
If you're a "power user" on any *nix distro (be it the three above or any others) and you like to customize every aspect of your kernel, desktop environment, and everything in between, then you'll already know which environment is your favorite and you're going to set it up the way you want it, anyway. So it doesn't really matter what the distro has by default.
So whatever a distro has by default really shouldn't matter, be it varied or vanilla.
/* No Comment */
What matters far more is standardising the way the distros handle other things so that HowTos, installation scripts/instructions for printers etc can be written once without a whole lot of "On Ubuntu do this, on Fedora do that" stuff. Things that would help a lot:
*Pick one printer handling mechanism.
*Pick one package manager.
*Standardise one one usb/udev/pam.
*Pick one wireless management policy. Hide madwifi/ndiswrapper etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"Here's a compilation of screen shots and descriptions that make it appear to be the case" I honestly don't get it. Those screenshots and descriptions do not have no connection to the summary. The summary makes no sense. What's the point of this story really?
The problem is though, what I find is easy might not be what you find is easy. What a lifetime Mac user finds is easy isn't what a lifetime Windows user thinks is easy. There are interfaces that are "easy" already out there, the problem is, to many, easy is simply little customization available. A common interface though, isn't what every computer needs though. For my aging Pentium III, JWM might be great for it, for someone with a quad core CPU and a fast graphics card Compiz-Fusion might be great for it. My aging Dell with a Pentium 4-era Celeron is great when using Xubuntu, however regular Ubuntu or Kubuntu is too slow for it. Different situations need different solutions. Different people need different solutions. Myself I find that Ubuntu is by far the easiest to give to a new computer user, for the long-term Windows user though, Kubuntu seems to be better. The thing that makes Linux great is there is no one thing that a Linux distro is, and thats part of the reason it is growing.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Second: Does Mandriva use them as the default, "integrated" or not?
Ubuntu is big, and popular, and distributed by Dell. What does Mandriva have that Ubuntu doesn't?
But more importantly, I think it is quicker and cleaner to simply talk about a distro, without mentioning Linux. It won't piss off RMS quite as much, as we are clearly talking about a distribution and a derivative work -- it's Ubuntu, not Ubuntu/Gnu/Linux. And it'll avoid people making embarrassing mistakes by mentioning a feature that "Linux" has, but might only be present in KDE, or only in GNOME -- or only in proprietary software, or, in fact, only a particular distro.
Ubuntu has them. Mandriva also has them. Both of these statements are correct.
"Linux has them" is actually less correct, as Linux is just a kernel, and you can have a working Linux systems in all kinds of places which physically don't support a GUI, let alone desktop effects.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I know, choice is good. So is focusing your efforts on making one usable product that people can standardize on. People keep bringing this up, but it just isn't going to happen. FOSS developers will work on whatever they want to work on, and as long as there are different philosophies involved different projects will attract the interest of different developers. And there are very different philosophies driving the different desktop environments: GNOME is pitching for something simple and elegant above all else; KDE is far more interested in being configurable and cohesive; Xfce has efficiency as one of their primary goals; and the list goes on. With such divergent focus you are not going to get people (neither developers nor users) to all agree on one philosophy.
What you can do, however, is work on standards and interoperability of protocols that underly the environments. You know, like Freedesktop do. That means common standards for inter-application communication (from cut and paste to DBUS), standards for how applications expose themselves to menus, standards for syustem trays, and so on. This effort is still ongoing, but the end result is that GNOME, KDE and Xfce can share application menus, system trays, clipboards, icon themes, and more. With other things like the GTK-Qt theme and the QtGTK Style, we're steadily heading toward the point where applications will be able to slot in seamlessly competing desktops.
So in some sense what you want is being done, but it is not going to involve one desktop to rule them all. For that you need dictatorial control from on high to simply say what is "right". You won't get that in FOSS; it's just not how it works. If you want that you need something like Apple or Microsoft, and the consequences that come with such choices (although, to be honest, I'm not sure they offer models of perfect consistency either).
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
The more all these distros converge and provide nearly identical desktops, the clearer it will be that most of them don't actually need to exist in the first place.
This is temporary, and is a common complaint about KDE 4.0. The idea with KDE 4.0 was to ship what they had to encourage further application development. There are lots of changes to KDE, including using a new version of QT (the underlying toolkit).
The basics are there, but customizeability, as you noted, is lacking. From what I understand, that flexibility (especially in terms of the main panel) will return with KDE 4.1, to be released this July.
KDE 4.0 isn't for everybody. After reading about some of these limitations, I decided to wait until KDE 4.1 before upgrading my Kubuntu laptop's KDE version. As I understand it, KDE 4.1 will bring applications like the PIM framework up to speed, and I should be able to make my desktop look and work like I'm used to with KDE 3.5 (a substantial alteration from the default).
KDE hasn't abandoned the philosophy of a very flexible user interface, it's just taking time to re-implement the features in the serious overhaul that is KDE 4. I can wait.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
It's "easy" to throw away pretty much all legacy technology (like MacOS 10 did) and write something totally new (Aqua/etc) in a "proprietary" system that makes it "stand out", as you say. But you have to respect that Linux distros can do what they do and still remain with the very flexible and well-known X, all the while remaining completely open.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the tools and UI available in Linux distros when compared to MacOS. It is just a matter of the lack of a centralized company that strongly enforces consistency and a single set of tools. Also, development effort is split between competing UI's under Linux. Is that a good thing or a bad? You decide... good arguments can be made on both sides of the table.
Anyway, if you run a KDE environment and use ONLY KDE applications (or Gnome and used ONLY Gnome applications), things look, feel, react very consistently and pretty seamlessly and with a modern look and feel.
Well, X is a standard. So is dbus. Gstreamer will be supported by Phonon, so KDE4 will natively support it the way Gnome apps do.
Various pieces are often turned into libraries which are intended to work on both. Wrappers are often written so that you don't have to think about it -- I can check one little checkbox and all my gtk apps will use a qt theme, so if I wasn't a tech, I wouldn't even know Firefox wasn't a KDE app.
In order to do this, though, you have to understand just what it is you want to standardize.
Tell me one thing: Which problem are you trying to solve?
Are you trying to solve the problem of apps working on one system or the other? Completely solved. I use KDE, but I often use Firefox, and occasionally VLC -- both use gtk+, and were likely written for GNOME.
Seriously, I can type "sudo apt-get install foo", and I'll get an entry "foo" somewhere in my launch menu. Hell, even Wine can do that now -- I can double-click on an EXE and Wine will run the installer, drop menus in my Launch Menu under "Wine", and place shortcuts on the desktop. Yes, the desktop -- a folder called (surprise!) "Desktop", and shared between GNOME and KDE.
Are you trying to solve the problem of users having to choose at install time? (Oh no, a choice! Woe is me!) That's easy, too -- give them Ubuntu. It makes the choice for them -- they get GNOME. Those who later learn enough to care might switch to Kubuntu and KDE -- that doesn't even require a reinstall.
Are you trying to solve the problem of wasted effort within the projects? Don't bother. The GNOME people aren't ever going to provide as much configurability as KDE (I can choose what happens when I middle-click on a title bar!). But GNOME is the default choice for Ubuntu, so it gets a lot of polish -- it won't ever completely die.
Besides, competition is good. Each project does things the other won't. Each project is often improved in an effort to compete with the other.
And again, the big, important stuff often ends up being shared.
Are you trying to solve the problem of RAM usage? If that's a problem, in a day when often the minimum you'll get is 2 gigs, you've got bigger problems. And if you really do have those bigger problems, you can probably use a slimmed-down KDE or XFCE -- you'll probably be choosing apps specifically for low RAM usage (ruling out Firefox, maybe?) so all this means is you have to consider toolkit, also.
Or you just install Xubuntu and be done with it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
But what about X11? Well, these days, if you're using GNOME, or KDE, or Xfce, and applications written for those environments (which is to say most modern applications for X11 desktops) then you only have two toolkits, which can be themed so they render using the theme of the other (using either GTK-Qt theme, or QtGTK Style), and has consistent cut and paste that works across (and between) them all. Yes, you can get some Xlib applications if you hunt around, but then you can get ugly Tk applications on Windows if you hunt around (or X11 applications on the Mac). The reality is that, these days, the Linux desktop really isn't that much more inconsistent that Apple or Microsoft. Actually, I would go so far as to say that it is actually more consistent than what MS is currently producing.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Think about what it would be like if the command "ls" was named something different in every linux distribution. Part of Microsoft's success is that there are GUI contracts that are very rarely broken so you almost always know how to do basic tasks with a new program.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Oh please, give us a break.
Rather than potentially BREAKING the GUI on a significant number of machines, the last SEVERAL releases of Mandriva have it ready to use and integrated with one click on "3-D desktop". Having it as the "default" isn't necessarily a good thing, nor does it make it the sole domain of Ubuntu.
Mandriva has been around before there was an Ubuntu. It is just as or more pretty, powerful, flexible, stable, easy to use, and polished. It was distributed on HP's and several other hardware vendors long before Ubuntu was offered on Dell. Unlike Ubuntu, a single Mandriva DVD can install a default KDE or Gnome or combined (or other) system... they don't seem to have the need to have separate Gnomedriva and KDEdriva distro versions. Of the people I know that use both (*untu and Mandriva) regularly, they all tend to like Mandriva better. That doesn't mean that Ubuntu isn't wildly popular nor deserving of praise. But people should not feed it credit and sole spotlight for things common to other if not many distros.
Every time I see ANY article/posting refering to something that applies to all Linux distros under a single distro name, it is almost always Ubuntu users who do it. It is tiring, arrogant, and insulting to users and developers of other distros.
Keep in mind that you are the one trying to turn this thread into an Ubuntu vs. Mandriva thread. My point was that you should not use the term "Ubuntu" instead of "Linux distros" when it is something that really refers to many, most, or all distros.
My main bone of contention with X11 is that it's not being developed seriously as a GUI interface for modern machines. It seems that most of the development is going into code cleanups (important), bugfixes (important) and other maintenance functions. But that's just it - this is all maintenance stuff. The tree needed the reorganization, the code needed to be more modular, etc - nobody is disputing that. On the other hand, threading is overdue and secure X11 channels are insanely overdue. The configuration file changes make things simpler, but it makes it harder to maximise the use of the monitor and graphics cards, even though it's easier (and safer) for the "standard" modes. Simplification is good, but any loss of capability is a regression.
The console is good - and fast - for many tasks, and with the introduction of framebuffers some time back, is capable of many of the tasks people had to use GUIs for in the past. To make the best use of it, though, you really need GNU Screen, and Screen just isn't being maintained that much any more. Really, with framebuffer support and other graphics features for consoles being considered, some of the features of Screen might have to be moved into the kernel in order to function correctly.
I don't use the option of serial-port consoles, so I'm not sure how capable those are these days. PCs are not in the same league as minicomputers or mainframes, so I doubt anybody is looking to hook up a couple of hundred VT220 terminals any time soon, but it is an interface and the underlying code for a terminal is independent of where that terminal is physically located. It should make no difference to Linux whether you are using the local keyboard/screen, a terminal on the end of a serial cable, or indeed a terminal on the end of a USB line.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
One problem causing lack of a unified UI is that *nix is less about the UI and more about what underlies it, always has been. UI is secondary. While *nix works forward to a UI, Windows is working backwards to having better innards. It's very interesting.
If there was a clear favourite in terms of Linux desktop environments then maybe you would have a point, but this big split between KDE and GNOME seriously undermines the credibility of this solution. Having some group of bigwigs who have provided themselves with a mandate to make one DE a standard by decree would be an incredibly destructive move. Relations between KDE and GNOME would be damaged, which would in turn cause harm to interoperability efforts. Users (especially users of free as in freedom software!) would become defiant in the face of this attempt to push them towards the One True DE, which would also cause problems.
I agree that standards and interoperability between DEs are important, but I think that trying to corral people into the DE of someone-or-other's choice is self-defeating, trying as it does to work directly against human nature. I favour the encouragement of collaboration between the DEs seen in projects like freedesktop.org. Nobody can make this desktop divide go away, so instead of undertaking mad social engineering projects I think that we should embrace diversity in a pragmatic way, trying to smooth over the bumps where possible but also reap the benefits (and there are some!) where we can.
You could even configure a Windows box and a Linux box to look similar, but they are not, and shouldn't be.
Having standards is good when implemented well. They should not limit what people want to do with stuff an any way, and should only serve to help interoperability.
Standards should also not discourage development of non-standard ways of doing things. For instance. Standard keyboard layout is good. Forcing every interface to a computer to be the exact same, and a keyboard... bad.
Standard method of fixing a windows box being to switch to Linux, good. Forcing all XP users to move to Vista... bad.
Common method of selecting which interface to use... good. Forcing the use of only one user interface onto many computers with huge variety of purposes and priorities.... BAD.
A common UI for Linux would suck, because not everyone wants the same thing. If there's a common UI, then that means a bunch of people are going to lose something.
A common UI for "major Linux distributions" is probably a good thing, since even though not everyone wants the same thing, a vast majority are happy to settle for the same thing even if it doesn't fit them well (ever heard of "Windows"?). Those people are the most likely to use "major Linux distributions" and those same people are probably the ones you're most likely to end up having to talk to on the phone. "Click on the foot or gear icon, and then..." Talking grandma through an UI that you know (because you're used to talking people through that one, even if you don't use it daily yourself) is easier than talking her through one of a hundred UIs that you vaguely remember having tried out for a couple days two years ago.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Seriously, I have been a Linux user since 1995 and all I can say now is it is about time. I honestly don't care anymore about this cry for choice and freedom... no one is taking anything away, just simply standardizing the base distro on one vision.
Unification of the UI throughout all apps and windows is a must. You just simply cannot hit a moving target. Get a solid base foundation built and then have at all of the niche and one-off app and distros you want.
My personal dream day is when a major distro finally comes out with one look, one of each type of app which is as polished and unified as possible, and one window manager. No more ridiculous things in the kernel like IBM PS2 micro channel controller drivers or similar outdated garbage (yes I know they are modularized but still). Give me streamlined, solid, stable, fast, and straightforward.
My only hope right now is that a company like ASUS will continue on their way and accomplish it that way. Which is something I never thought I would say. Lets stop playing games and stupid idealistic crap and make Linux a true contender. Right now as sad as it is to say OS X has matched my wishlist for Linux in a few years as apposed to the past 13 I've spent with Linux.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Well one thing the distro's seem to have agreed upon - foistering bloated slow software on their users.
I tried to install Fedora and Ubuntu on an old laptop last weekend and had no end of frustration, and even after considerable tweaking the experience is far from perfect. This is a machine on which I easily developed 1000's of lines of code running emacs and netscape and gdb and evolution (ok it struggled a bit with all that at once, but only then).
The main problems are:
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
OS X has built in X11 support as well. Although it doesn't 'feel' integrated, it does exist.
Now there's one hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is!
I use XFCE and don't really have a reason to switch to gnome or KDE. I mean I can't really imagine what I'm missing, except that I'm sure those two are slightly prettier than XFCE. It bothers me not having an idea of what my computer is actually doing.
This is why I went to OSX when the first 64 bit Macbook Pro's came out. I got sick and tired of things breaking in Linux, radical changes in how you set your configs with every point upgrade, sound breaking, etc., with every kernel update. I used Linux for longer than i can remember (since it was experimental in the early '90's), and just couldn't take the time wasted anymore. I still have fond memories of AfterStep on Red Hat 4.2 on a computer that seems stone age now - the simple austerity of it was cleansing compared to the current GUI's, and except for having a nice background image on my Mac I keep things fairly austere there too. Yeah, there was a hassle moving from 10.4 to 10.5, but unlike the monthly hassles I have with my Linux box when some weekly upgrade breaks something visible even with my low current level of Linux useage. Eye catching buzz in the GUI is for kids, and after you get over the thrill of creating their own look I bet most of the kids will grow into something more useable later on. Coming up from a VT-100, I was enormously conscious of how most of the bells and whistles genuinely detracted from the actual user experience and diminished the usability of the computer overall.
... name your favorite) that have come to Linux and the world at large. I just had to leave Linux to quit wasting too much time fixing things that shouldn't have broken from an upgrade, wallowing in download hell to get some some latest and greatest tool to run (and sometimes dealing with things that broke too). I've never tried RHEL, and suspect their longer term view with that distro may set it apart, but I've had it with Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSe, Knoppix, etc., etc. The OSX GUI is a class act, and if you want to act like a juvenile you can, and likewise you can have a more austere grown up interface, things work, I can download Open Office (actually NeoOffice) and not pay a dime to let M$ undo my Unix security model, etc. If I want to change a config I can usually do it very simply (rarely do you have to go down into the bowels to set a config), I have 40+ GB of my own CD's ripped to a lossless codec, and life is sweet. The only thing I missed was the Tea Timer in KDE Toys (honestly).
The good side of all the cruft is that with the large community there are a lot of tools (Eclipse, Netbeans,
4.0.4 adding support for multiple panels, I believe. Also, each release has added some more configuration options (though most are going into 4.1).
I believe having 2 major environments is best. People always have disagreements on how things should be done, with two major environments it's easier to try your different options, and often times one will win (like DBUS being based on DCOP), or things where people don't really disagree on anything a single standard is formed (icon theme naming). A major rearchitecturing like KDE4 probably wouldn't have been easy to convince people to attempt if everything relied on it. During KDE4.0's development KDE 3.5 was still being developed in a mostly bugfix mode, but it'd likely have caused a fork with a single environment which might have taken years to end (look how long GTK 1 apps have stuck around... XMMS was only recently killed off).
Now that it's starting to appear like the major rearchitecturing of KDE4 is paying off, the Gnome/GTK camp have begun discussing a GTK3 that breaks binary compatibility. The Gnome camp and the KDE camp are constantly competing with each other, yet at the same time working together (generally under the banner of FreeDesktop.Org). It's really the best of both worlds, as they try to one-up each other, but there's no problem for a dev from one camp to go up to a dev in the other and ask about how they implemented something, or how they worked around certain problems with the implementation. A monopoly is a bad thing, regardless of whether it's a giant corporation behind it, or a free software project (this is one of my criticisms with Mozilla... they've mostly had a monopoly on the Linux desktop so have been prone to neglect it... now with WebKit becoming very popular people have a choice and Mozilla has proper motivation to improve Gecko's modularity and Firefox's integration and performance).
You're using the wrong distribution if what you've got is too slow for your hardware.
Look at something lighter like Puppy or Damn Small Linux.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Well there you have it - you *cannot* have a quick, streamlined system that also has a modern, good looking desktop. That means no matter what you do, todays modern Linux distribution won't work as it was meant to work on a Pentium II.
Contrary to what early Linux supporters were bragging about, once you add the bling that makes the system easy to use and attractive to new users (and you *have* to add it to attract new and novice users so there's no escaping it), all that work invested in having a top-notch kernel just melts aways, and it all comes down to drivers and user interface.
Consider that Windows XP is now a *very* old operating system, but whose GUI is still the golden standard, and you'll see why geeking out on consoles with ridiculous number of columns and rows is so childish.
-- Sig down
* ducks * What's funny about ducks?
Please don't let this become a slashdot meme. Please don't let this become a slashdot meme. Please don't let this become a slashdot meme.
There, I said it.
Life is rarely fair. Cherish the moments when there is a right answer.
But a number of important things stay the same. For example, in any document-based application, Alt,F,S and Ctrl-S both give you Save. Always. Everywhere. Now, I've never used IE7 (I'm currently using Opera on Ubuntu...), and from your screenshot it doesn't seem to have a menubar. I don't know whether it just doesn't have a menubar, or whether it's hidden by default. But somehow I can be pretty certain that, whichever the answer is, pressing Alt,F,S will still give me save.
To be fair, Gnome now does this just as well as Windows. All the standard Gnome apps conform to the same guidelines. So let's look at a related area: well-defined boundaries in keyboard shortcuts. For example: in Evolution, check mail is F9; but Compiz uses F9 for its widget-gadget-dashboard thing by default. Problem: if you turn on 'extra effects' in Compiz, every time you check mail, you get your screen taken over by a moded widget overly
Now, why does this happen? F9 is check mail in Evolution because that's what Windows uses; and F9 is Dashboard in Compiz because that's what Mac OS uses. In Windows, F? keys on their own are per-application shortcuts. On a mac, F? keys on their own are system-wide shortcuts. On Linux, there is no one dictated standard, so everyone picks whichever convention they prefer, and you get conflicts.
Having well-defined app/system keyboard chord boundaries is a lot less sexy that mandating the colour of all applications toolbars, to be sure. But, as a UI contract, it's the more important of the two.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
void karmakiller(int depth) {
// I win, but you have to read it bottom up :P
for (int i = 0; i < depth; i++) printf("| ");
printf("What's funny about this?\n");
karmakiller(depth+1);
}
int main() {
karmakiller(0);
}
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
... But you have to respect that Linux distros can do what they do and still remain with the very flexible and well-known X, all the while remaining completely open.There is nothing inherently wrong with the tools and UI available in Linux distros when compared to MacOS.
(If your answer to that is "Yes, and it was relatively easy, because it was within the last year and so since XRandr 1.2 was released, and I have xrandr-supporting drivers", then I'll raise the problem to getting three monitors to work, at all, somehow, ever. Considering that xrandr only supports two monitors and any drivers which support xrandr don't work with xinerama in any non-pathalogical way, good luck! (Maybe, in a few more years, xrandr will be able to handle more than two screens, and X will be where Windows Mac OS were... 10 years ago...). ).
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
If we use a single UI for all Linux PCs everyone will have to share one monitor! I don't think that's very convenient.
Maybe we can work out a compromise - like one UI every 100 square kilometers. The monitors could then be made really big and attached to blimps. Would that be acceptable?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I for one welcome our "What's funny about this" repeating overlords but in Soviet Russia overlord welcomes you.
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
Gopher, obviously.
There is no such implication. What's implied by the world "evolution" is that progression occurs in bits and pieces over time.
You're aware that Charles Darwin didn't invent the word, right?
Most things that evolve do so by design.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
In Soviet Korea "What's funny about this" repeating overlords welcome only old people.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
"The problem is, of course, that Windows and OS X both threw away decades of work and started from scratch"
MS released the first version of Windows in 1986, and previews of NexStep (which is the foundation for OS X) began in 1986 too, so development work on both was pretty much concurrent with the original MIT version of X (1984, with X11 appearing in 1987). It's not therefore correct to say that either threw away decades of work.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
http://stoploudness.org/
It can, but not everything plays nicely. As on major example, Firefox won't put its menu bar at the top of the screen. An inconsistency with a major application like that renders putting the menu bar at the top of the screen pretty futile. Hopefully Firefox 3 fixes that. KDE also by default puts a border on maximised windows, which puts the scroll bar a couple of pixels away from the edge of the screen, which is just plain stupid. At least it actually can maximise windows, unlike OS X.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Older people, and those who aren't familiar with, or interested in computers often get really confused is things aren't consistent from pc to pc. Having spent a number of years working tech support for a major ISP (thank god that's over...) I have to say that a standard UI can be great.
I've noticed that a lot of Slashdotters seem to think that everyone should be able to do all the techie things they do if they just sat down and tried, but if you've ever spent 45 minutes on the phone with some old woman crying on the other end that this is far too complicated for her, and why can't we just send someone out there to do this for her, and you're still on "Step 1: Plug in telephone line to wall jack." (I am NOT exageratting) then you'll probably realize that it's a good thing if these people's UIs are laid out in roughly the same manner.
If you feel comfortable doing so, then you should be free to tweak and customize all you want, but a lot of people can only handle step by step instructions.
A certain amount of consistency out of the box is a good thing if you want Linux to have mass appeal. Although personally, I'd want to be able to maintain the same amount of variety and customability. I just think that making it so that there's a default UI that is consistant between distros.
Who cares about having a single UI? Do you want the exact same room as everyone else with the exact same paint - that black bar at the bottom, those mountains in the background, and the news/weather to the right? It may seem silly, but it's the screen we spend a good portion of the day staring at, it's practically another room.
You're going to have a hard time convincing those working on FVWM, XFCE, Fluxbox, and all the other non-KDE/GNOME desktop environments that a universal paint color has been decided upon and that they should all just roll over and accept it.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
right now I get a different file manager
opening up for every application I run -
no consistency whatsoever - browser,
print screen saver, general file manager,
etc. all bring up different applications
with different saved state
there needs to be a common file manager
with common saved state (most recent
folders visited, default folder, favorites,
etc. etc. etc.)
I spend my time redrilling down from top
level folders everytime I want to save-as
or open or create new files.
it's a joke
Here's an idea: create one UI that is flexible enough to be customized however you like--even customized to have fewer settings to customize ;-o (lots of programs have a choice between "basic" and "advanced" settings anyway). That way you not only have choice, but you can have a "best of both worlds" interface with your favorite features from one together with your favorite features from the other.
I get really frustrated every time I read something about 'the battle for the desktop environment' and stuff. Do that many people really believe there is some contest over which DE is to be the mainstream?
There's no need to throw all the DEs into a melting pot and try to make one thing, people have their own preferences. All that's really getting done at that point is another DE is being made for people to argue over about which is better.
Maybe it's better that way, though... I just feel like a lot of 'uncool kids who just don't get it' jump into the scene and start arguments that don't need to be there.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"