You're contradicting yourself. If Linux-based OS is for "31337" only, how would Windows fade away? What are 97% of people using computers going to switch to? MacBooks? Something else that hasn't been invented yet? Please, enlighten me.
Who among us has not dropped our phone while trying to turn off the alarm in the morning?
Except for me? Probably quite a few other people. I never had a protector for any of my phones. My HTC Desire S got its paint scratched on a corner because I kept it in my pocket at all times, wear-and-tear, but I don't sell my old phones, I just keep them stored somewhere.
GUI? A sysadmin is expected to know how to edit text files and use the console.
Have you read this?: "There are so many little things daily that cause the OS to be hard to use for regular people." "regular people" "REGULAR PEOPLE" I guess you haven't. Why am I not surprised?
Auto-running executables by accidental click is a very bad idea. No, YOU THINK it's a very bad idea. For a regular user it's expected behavior. If anything, just add a pop-up saying "are you sure you want to execute this script?" but it would be useless anyway.
How do you know someone wants to mount an iso? Maybe they want to record it on an optical disc? Or maybe they want to use it for a virtual machine? Contextual menu with choices to pick. Hardly a novelty.
Windows shortcuts are absolutely retarded My oh my. See, the smug "mommy knows best" attitude that keeps Linux flavors at 2-3% overall.
You do not understand the Unix philosophy The "philosophy" you talk about is bullshit for Average Joe and will keep Linux Desktop in the gutter indefinitely if its makers will resist understanding their potential customers.
Take Elementary OS, for example. I installed it in a VirtualBox VM at home. All went well except it was showing a shitty 640x480 resolution, so I wanted to install the Additions. Mounted the item, couldn't get it to run from the GUI. It was "forbidden". I had to drop to terminal and do it as root within 3 minutes of installing a "GUI-friendly" operating system. Sorry, but this behavior is anything BUT GUI-friendly.
The reverse is true as well. As a Linux user, you might want the same functionality (from a perception perspective) if you decide to switch or try out Windows-based operating systems. Sadly, Windows is even less configurable (GUI-wise) than Linux.
That's the point, as a standard, Average Joe desktop user, I don't know (I really don't know) and shouldn't care. The OS should ideally detect a new file was created and add it to the index, problem solved.
You're telling me that one can't change a config file through a GUI interface? Config files are structured well enough to be... hmm, GUI-able, if that makes any sense. Even programatically, by parsing the config file and dynamically building GUI-based forms around the parsed contents.
It's amazing how people just don't get it. Say I build a piece of software (or GUI, or operating system, game, whatever). My aim is to penetrate a market which is dominated by the 800 pounds gorilla, the big-ba-da-boom product which 95% of the market uses. That dominating product has certain features, one of them being a certain functionality the market is used to. My product is faster and more secure and also has some extra functionality, so I know it's better in some ways, and in others is different.
My goal would be to smooth out the perceived differences and offer prospective customers a transition which is as seamless as possible. If, for example, they're used to having a basic commands toolbar on the left, I'd put mine on the left too. If the default "save" hotkey is Ctrl+S, I'd implement the same functionality. If maximizing a window is done in the dominant application by pressing Win+Up, I'd implement that hotkey for my product as well. The key component of taking market share is "better", not "different".
This is where, in my opinion, Linux developers failed to accomplish the task. They want to penetrate the Windows Desktop market but they insist on implementing GUI changes that are not needed or short-circuiting users' expectations (the infamous "let's move the window buttons to the left" being a very good example).
Windows 7's Aero was an improvement compared to XP's look-n-feel. The Ribbon (loathed by many!) was, to me, a huge productivity increase, but I'm not going to comment on that, let's just say that many people didn't like it, but they had to adjust, simply because the 800-pound gorilla could afford to bully them into that corner. Linux can't afford to do the same, and from a GUI perspective, we have KDE, Gnome, Unity, X-Windows and some more, each being sufficiently different in terms of behavior from every other to mandate re-learning to some extent. Granted, Metro was a huge fail, the 800-pound gorilla pushed too hard and in the wrong direction (read: they wanted something that was stupid to begin with).
So yeah, replicate what the vast majority of people are used to and offer further GUI-based configuration, e.g. "your window behavior buttons are on the top right but you could move them around to be on the top left if you wish to". That is perfectly fine, I'm a sucker for infinite configurability and I commend such an initiative. But don't make "different for the sake of different" a default, that'll frustrate and antagonize me to no avail.
You're saying " there are two operating systems, both of which try, intelligently, to provide the best and most productive user experience." I'd add ", each following their own, incompatible and divergent visions" and that's the problem. Now, if the market would have been split 50-50, yeah, by all means, be different and maybe you'd attract some 5% who would feel that re-training their memory muscles is worth it. Which is totally not the case.
It was there, I said before I manually browsed folders until I found it. Maybe it wasn't indexed, I don't know. Fact of the matter was: a file existed on the HDD and the search function couldn't find it.
I admit I'm looking at this from a migration perspective: Windows user trying to switch to Linux. It's only normal that I'd wish to have a smooth transition, rather than re-train myself into using all the different shortcuts and automations that make me more proficient.
However, you could just as well argue that on Windows, you invariably need to open the registry editor to configure this and that.
WHAT??? The last time I had to go and alter the Registry was more then a year ago, when I used a registry-hacking workaround to trick a corporate application into using an older version of JDK. I actually double-clicked a pre-existing.reg file but I'll count it as registry hacking. Before that... I don't even remember. Maybe I edited the registry 5 times in more than 14 years. Maybe.
I want an OS that also looks and works like Windows, essentially taking the best of both worlds. The inability to understand the power behind such a concept gives Linux its insignificant desktop market share.
Not sure about OS-X but under Windows I can alter that behavior (asking for a password, prompting for an accept) with a drag of a slider. Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\User Accounts - Change User Account Control settings. Click-click-click-drag a slider, OK.
Thank you for confirming my GP statements. As a desktop user, I don't have to log a root shell, I don't have to read man sudo's man pages. I need a GUI with point-and-click and embedded help. Because I am a fucking desktop user, yeah, the "idiot" who is referred to as "luser" and has to work on those boring spreadsheets and webapps that the mighty developer doesn't give a fuck about.
With most of my work taking place in web-based applications I struggled to switched to Linux for no compelling reason. Nobody's forcing me to do so.
you forgot Git and Gimp. That's the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard... must be what people call "ad nominem" attack
Might be ridiculous to you, but I am comparing to Android application names. Opening my Tools folder, I see Calculator, Clock, ES File Explorer, Flash Alerts, GPS Essentials, My Files, Settings, Speech Synthesis, Speedtest, Translate, Voice Recorder and Wifi Analyzer. Guess what each does? The problem is not the "chosen name". "Gimp" would be fine if it would be called "Gimp Image Editor". So, okay, it's an image editor which is called "Gimp". But it's a matter of subjective perception.
ubuntu does just that again: double-click on *.iso, it opens as a folder. Which doesn't help me a bit. I want it to mount as a drive. As for browsing a network, I usually found it painful to mount a network drive which is still there after a restart. Speed comes secondary.
why ? is Windows suddenly going to implement all the awesome shortcut we have in Linux (copy-paste with mouse selection for one) ? See, that't the problem. Windows doesn't want to replace some of Linux Desktop's market share, it doesn't need to implement Linux shortcuts. It's the other way around. Linux's market share is tiny. If it needs to expand, it would have to become attractive and "dress" like its "foe". It's fine if it doesn't do that, but how hard would it be to implement an install-time configuration window saying "enable Windows-like shortcuts?"?
But many of your others opinions seem based on +4-year old issues I admit I haven't got that far as to testing some of them as of late, but I did install Ubuntu 14.04 recently as well as CentOS 7, and although better than their predecessors, they're simply not quite there.
"Actually, no, that is really annoying, because you end up with a computer that does stuff behind your back, and is using bandwidth/processor power when I need it. I will choose when my computer can have those resources. For me, the way Ubuntu / Linux Mint does its updates is by far superior to any other method I have seen."
1. Using the lowest CPU priority and network QoS ensures you have all the bandwidth/power you need, when you need it. 2. I maybe WANT an OS that does some things behind my back. I'm not a control freak, and I see some automation as empowering me to focus on my tasks rather than the operating system's maintenance.
"As opposed to your document viewer called "Acrobat Reader", your browser called "Firefox", and your video player called "VLC"? Please..."
Acrobat Reader actually says in the app name that is's a "Reader". It reads files. Firefox and VLC are both F/OSS which might be the root cause for the funky naming conventions. I didn't say Linux is responsible for funky names. Maybe F/OSS is, and Linux being part of it inherits the funkiness:)
"But I don't mind to have to enter my password to allow my computer to do something."
Me neither, but when that happens every 5 minutes it adds up to a lot of interruptions. I like staying focused for more than 5 minutes at a time, and asking for a password too often is like the stewardess asking you to show her your plane ticket every 5 minutes for the duration of an 8-hour trip.
Slashdot Mirror
One would have to catch them first. If you read the actual article, you would have realized that chances to do so are slim.
Good God, man, I just told you why it's NOT easier to use and you keep going in circles.
I rest my case.
You're contradicting yourself.
If Linux-based OS is for "31337" only, how would Windows fade away? What are 97% of people using computers going to switch to? MacBooks? Something else that hasn't been invented yet?
Please, enlighten me.
Who among us has not dropped our phone while trying to turn off the alarm in the morning?
Except for me? Probably quite a few other people.
I never had a protector for any of my phones. My HTC Desire S got its paint scratched on a corner because I kept it in my pocket at all times, wear-and-tear, but I don't sell my old phones, I just keep them stored somewhere.
GUI? A sysadmin is expected to know how to edit text files and use the console.
Have you read this?: "There are so many little things daily that cause the OS to be hard to use for regular people."
"regular people"
"REGULAR PEOPLE"
I guess you haven't. Why am I not surprised?
Auto-running executables by accidental click is a very bad idea.
No, YOU THINK it's a very bad idea. For a regular user it's expected behavior. If anything, just add a pop-up saying "are you sure you want to execute this script?" but it would be useless anyway.
How do you know someone wants to mount an iso? Maybe they want to record it on an optical disc? Or maybe they want to use it for a virtual machine?
Contextual menu with choices to pick. Hardly a novelty.
Windows shortcuts are absolutely retarded
My oh my. See, the smug "mommy knows best" attitude that keeps Linux flavors at 2-3% overall.
You do not understand the Unix philosophy
The "philosophy" you talk about is bullshit for Average Joe and will keep Linux Desktop in the gutter indefinitely if its makers will resist understanding their potential customers.
Take Elementary OS, for example. I installed it in a VirtualBox VM at home. All went well except it was showing a shitty 640x480 resolution, so I wanted to install the Additions. Mounted the item, couldn't get it to run from the GUI. It was "forbidden". I had to drop to terminal and do it as root within 3 minutes of installing a "GUI-friendly" operating system. Sorry, but this behavior is anything BUT GUI-friendly.
iPhone 5C also comes in Yellow, and black iPhones existed since day 1.
Great tip!
So link the checkboxes to appropriate man pages which would display in a GUI pop-up. not saying it's easy but it's damn useful.
The reverse is true as well. As a Linux user, you might want the same functionality (from a perception perspective) if you decide to switch or try out Windows-based operating systems. Sadly, Windows is even less configurable (GUI-wise) than Linux.
That's the point, as a standard, Average Joe desktop user, I don't know (I really don't know) and shouldn't care. The OS should ideally detect a new file was created and add it to the index, problem solved.
You're telling me that one can't change a config file through a GUI interface?
Config files are structured well enough to be... hmm, GUI-able, if that makes any sense. Even programatically, by parsing the config file and dynamically building GUI-based forms around the parsed contents.
It's amazing how people just don't get it.
Say I build a piece of software (or GUI, or operating system, game, whatever). My aim is to penetrate a market which is dominated by the 800 pounds gorilla, the big-ba-da-boom product which 95% of the market uses. That dominating product has certain features, one of them being a certain functionality the market is used to. My product is faster and more secure and also has some extra functionality, so I know it's better in some ways, and in others is different.
My goal would be to smooth out the perceived differences and offer prospective customers a transition which is as seamless as possible. If, for example, they're used to having a basic commands toolbar on the left, I'd put mine on the left too. If the default "save" hotkey is Ctrl+S, I'd implement the same functionality. If maximizing a window is done in the dominant application by pressing Win+Up, I'd implement that hotkey for my product as well. The key component of taking market share is "better", not "different".
This is where, in my opinion, Linux developers failed to accomplish the task. They want to penetrate the Windows Desktop market but they insist on implementing GUI changes that are not needed or short-circuiting users' expectations (the infamous "let's move the window buttons to the left" being a very good example).
Windows 7's Aero was an improvement compared to XP's look-n-feel. The Ribbon (loathed by many!) was, to me, a huge productivity increase, but I'm not going to comment on that, let's just say that many people didn't like it, but they had to adjust, simply because the 800-pound gorilla could afford to bully them into that corner. Linux can't afford to do the same, and from a GUI perspective, we have KDE, Gnome, Unity, X-Windows and some more, each being sufficiently different in terms of behavior from every other to mandate re-learning to some extent. Granted, Metro was a huge fail, the 800-pound gorilla pushed too hard and in the wrong direction (read: they wanted something that was stupid to begin with).
So yeah, replicate what the vast majority of people are used to and offer further GUI-based configuration, e.g. "your window behavior buttons are on the top right but you could move them around to be on the top left if you wish to". That is perfectly fine, I'm a sucker for infinite configurability and I commend such an initiative. But don't make "different for the sake of different" a default, that'll frustrate and antagonize me to no avail.
You're saying " there are two operating systems, both of which try, intelligently, to provide the best and most productive user experience." I'd add ", each following their own, incompatible and divergent visions" and that's the problem. Now, if the market would have been split 50-50, yeah, by all means, be different and maybe you'd attract some 5% who would feel that re-training their memory muscles is worth it. Which is totally not the case.
It was there, I said before I manually browsed folders until I found it.
Maybe it wasn't indexed, I don't know. Fact of the matter was: a file existed on the HDD and the search function couldn't find it.
Good, I like that.
Done years ago. Y U NO click 'Search for files...'?
I... did. Few days ago. Search came out empty, after a LONG time.
I admit I'm looking at this from a migration perspective: Windows user trying to switch to Linux. It's only normal that I'd wish to have a smooth transition, rather than re-train myself into using all the different shortcuts and automations that make me more proficient.
However, you could just as well argue that on Windows, you invariably need to open the registry editor to configure this and that.
WHAT??? .reg file but I'll count it as registry hacking. Before that... I don't even remember. Maybe I edited the registry 5 times in more than 14 years. Maybe.
The last time I had to go and alter the Registry was more then a year ago, when I used a registry-hacking workaround to trick a corporate application into using an older version of JDK. I actually double-clicked a pre-existing
I want an OS that also looks and works like Windows, essentially taking the best of both worlds.
The inability to understand the power behind such a concept gives Linux its insignificant desktop market share.
I was talking about me. I am not unfamiliar to computers. But fine. I am crazy :)
if you work in a terminal all the time then this topic branch is not for you.
Not sure about OS-X but under Windows I can alter that behavior (asking for a password, prompting for an accept) with a drag of a slider.
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\User Accounts - Change User Account Control settings. Click-click-click-drag a slider, OK.
Thank you for confirming my GP statements.
As a desktop user, I don't have to log a root shell, I don't have to read man sudo's man pages. I need a GUI with point-and-click and embedded help. Because I am a fucking desktop user, yeah, the "idiot" who is referred to as "luser" and has to work on those boring spreadsheets and webapps that the mighty developer doesn't give a fuck about.
With most of my work taking place in web-based applications I struggled to switched to Linux for no compelling reason. Nobody's forcing me to do so.
I actually AM using Windows and would like Linux to succeed. I'm trying to do Linux good, and it's saddening how you fail to comprehend that.
you forgot Git and Gimp. That's the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard ... must be what people call "ad nominem" attack
Might be ridiculous to you, but I am comparing to Android application names.
Opening my Tools folder, I see Calculator, Clock, ES File Explorer, Flash Alerts, GPS Essentials, My Files, Settings, Speech Synthesis, Speedtest, Translate, Voice Recorder and Wifi Analyzer. Guess what each does?
The problem is not the "chosen name". "Gimp" would be fine if it would be called "Gimp Image Editor". So, okay, it's an image editor which is called "Gimp".
But it's a matter of subjective perception.
ubuntu does just that again: double-click on *.iso, it opens as a folder.
Which doesn't help me a bit. I want it to mount as a drive. As for browsing a network, I usually found it painful to mount a network drive which is still there after a restart. Speed comes secondary.
why ? is Windows suddenly going to implement all the awesome shortcut we have in Linux (copy-paste with mouse selection for one) ?
See, that't the problem. Windows doesn't want to replace some of Linux Desktop's market share, it doesn't need to implement Linux shortcuts. It's the other way around.
Linux's market share is tiny. If it needs to expand, it would have to become attractive and "dress" like its "foe". It's fine if it doesn't do that, but how hard would it be to implement an install-time configuration window saying "enable Windows-like shortcuts?"?
But many of your others opinions seem based on +4-year old issues
I admit I haven't got that far as to testing some of them as of late, but I did install Ubuntu 14.04 recently as well as CentOS 7, and although better than their predecessors, they're simply not quite there.
"Actually, no, that is really annoying, because you end up with a computer that does stuff behind your back, and is using bandwidth/processor power when I need it. I will choose when my computer can have those resources. For me, the way Ubuntu / Linux Mint does its updates is by far superior to any other method I have seen."
1. Using the lowest CPU priority and network QoS ensures you have all the bandwidth/power you need, when you need it.
2. I maybe WANT an OS that does some things behind my back. I'm not a control freak, and I see some automation as empowering me to focus on my tasks rather than the operating system's maintenance.
"As opposed to your document viewer called "Acrobat Reader", your browser called "Firefox", and your video player called "VLC"? Please..."
Acrobat Reader actually says in the app name that is's a "Reader". It reads files. Firefox and VLC are both F/OSS which might be the root cause for the funky naming conventions. I didn't say Linux is responsible for funky names. Maybe F/OSS is, and Linux being part of it inherits the funkiness :)
"But I don't mind to have to enter my password to allow my computer to do something."
Me neither, but when that happens every 5 minutes it adds up to a lot of interruptions. I like staying focused for more than 5 minutes at a time, and asking for a password too often is like the stewardess asking you to show her your plane ticket every 5 minutes for the duration of an 8-hour trip.