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Linux Desktop Summit Program Announced
jrepin writes with this excerpt from an announcement by KDE:
"The Desktop Summit is a joint conference organized by the GNOME and KDE communities, the two dominant forces behind modern graphical software on free platforms. Over a thousand international participants are expected to attend. The main conference takes place from 6-8 August. The annual membership meetings of GNOME and KDE are scheduled for 9 August, followed by workshops and coding sessions on 10-12 August."
My problem is Gnome / KDE / UNITY all seem to be obsessed with being progressive and messing up common sense schemes that have worked well for years. IMO they should be jailed in the Museum of Contemporary Art and clubbed to death with hardcover copies of Ulysses.
Gnome 2.0 seems to be the epitome of quality design... the menus are all simple and straight forward, good for getting work done.
KDE4: sucks Gnome3 shell: sucks Unity: sucks KDE3.5: good, but dead Gnome2:good, but dead I guess I'll use XFCE just like in old times, and maybe LXDE or fluxbox
Wow, you mean they're going to replace Unix pipes with some new system based on javascript? Good riddance to old rubbish! What have Unix pipes ever done for anyone?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
what happened to enlightenment, xfce, fvwm, python-plwm and all the others? i hate to mention EvilWM (1000 lines of c), or XMonad (1200 lines of haskell i believe) as it's hard to have any kind of meaningful discussion around 1200 lines of haskell, but, seriously, why weren't all the other window managers more seriously represented? oh wait - there's _one_ talk (an overview) on the EFL classes: https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/quick-overview-enlightenment-foundation-libraries-and-e17
I think I must be a desktop Luddite, because none of the new developments you mention appeal to me at all, with the possible exception of Wayland. I'm now running Debian 6 with XFCE after years of running Ubuntu (since it started in fact - I was running Debian Unstable before then and this new Ubuntu was just that with some bugs ironed out and some polish).
If a man empties his purse into his head no man can take it from him. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
(NOTE: another AC here: just can't bother with the cookies crap needed to login)
Look -- formally you are right. Still I think the "innovators" have some responsibility to tread with some care and try to be inclusive. As just an example, I watch in disgust and fear the firestorm systemd is causing. Granted, nobody loves SystemV, all that rat's nest of scripts with 90 per cent boilerplate and that. Still, replacing that by an intransparent piece of compiled code mechanism and policy all in one big mess: what is that doing to the hackability of the system?
Other examples: NetworkManager, PulseAudio, *Kit (many of those examples are CamelCased -- is this a CoInciDence?). I'd hope innovators in the realm of Free Software would take care of interested users, leaving for them a path into hacking the system, starting by little config options, through some shell scripting into hacking C. This means cherishing simplicity at all levels. The opposite tendency seems to be in fashion nowadays. The "user experience" of the absolute novice is paramount -- sacrificing the simplicity and hackability of the system by the slightly more advanced user (all novice users will reach that stage eventually, remember!).
This reminds me of a pattern often seen in proprietary software, especially that kind of software where the ones to make the business decision of buying the package won't be those who will have to use it: it tends to be shiny and easy to use for fitst-timers, but far from the optimum long-term.
WTF happened to this idea of the 1970ies that giving the user a chance to improve her understanding of the system should be part of what's called ergonomy?
So: "It's open source. Do it yourself if you don't like it. And now go away" is almost always the wrong answer.
They should be clubbed with hardcover copies of The Art of Unix Programming by Eric Raymond -- http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/index.html -- particularly the chapter "Basics of the Unix Philosophy"...
Rule of Modularity: Write simple parts connected by clean interfaces.
Rule of Clarity: Clarity is better than cleverness.
Rule of Composition: Design programs to be connected with other programs.
Rule of Separation: Separate policy from mechanism; separate interfaces from engines.
Rule of Simplicity: Design for simplicity; add complexity only where you must.
Rule of Parsimony: Write a big program only when it is clear by demonstration that nothing else will do.
Rule of Transparency: Design for visibility to make inspection and debugging easier.
Rule of Robustness: Robustness is the child of transparency and simplicity.
Rule of Representation: Fold knowledge into data, so program logic can be stupid and robust.
Rule of Least Surprise: In interface design, always do the least surprising thing.
Rule of Silence: When a program has nothing surprising to say, it should say nothing.
Rule of Repair: Repair what you can — but when you must fail, fail noisily and as soon as possible.
Rule of Economy: Programmer time is expensive; conserve it in preference to machine time.
Rule of Generation: Avoid hand-hacking; write programs to write programs when you can.
Rule of Optimization: Prototype before polishing. Get it working before you optimize it.
Rule of Diversity: Distrust all claims for one true way.
Rule of Extensibility: Design for the future, because it will be here sooner than you think.
GNOME: Stop your "War On Users" by hiding user configurations or ripping them out! /Rant off
KDE: Let up with the eye candy for once! Simple is beautiful.
CANONICAL: Admit Unity is a total failure, ask for our forgiveness and never, ever do it again!
"Don't like it? Fork it."
Can people PLEASE stop with this bullshit "don't like it? Then fix it yourself!" argument? Like it or not, linux is about communities, ideals, and shared tools now, just like your nation is. You might as well be saying "Don't like the new laws? Then start your own country!". In either case, it's disenfranchising, and wrong-headed.
between what the devs want to do, and what the users want. In a commercial company, this conflict is handled by management weighing in on the side of users/customers. In OSS projects, the devs have free reins to play with new concepts, technologies, paradigms... whether anyone else is interested at all, or not. My take is that Gnome, KDE and Unity have evolved into cool geek research labs. 5-10 years from now, we might be using some ideas that originated there. Right now, most users want and need a simple interface that Just Works and emulates the Windows they know, not some buggy half-finished avant-garde stuff.
The main quality of an OS is to let me use my hardware and apps with minimum fuss.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
The biggest problem I see isn't the radical design change of Gnome 3 or Unit, but the lack of customization. We once criticized Windows for being fairly rigid in that matter, but Windows now looks in comparison to these new desktop a tweaker's dream. Someting I thought I would never say.
So, in a way I would have to agree they suck at the moment, but I hope the project leaders will come to their senses and realize people like to be able to customize their desktops to some degree.
"Thbbft!" - Bill the Cat
If it is a nation, start paying taxes and do military service. Then you can have your say.
42.
Your parent is merely pointing out that KDE and Gnome have both headed down the toilet, and Unity is STARTING OUT in the toilet. This is obvious to anyone. The bloody desktop developers have turned into wankers chasing stupid directions that are NOT user driven, ruining perfectly good products. They could use an injection of reality. They are screwing up big time. Not in terms of technical quality, but in terms of basic direction. A lot of users care about that. The process is broken. If developers don't care what users want, then to hell with them.
It's not up to users to fork software and develop it themselves in a more sane direction. It's up to developers to get a grip on the real world.