BeOS is a much more polished product than Linux in many ways - you could say BeOS is to Linux what MacOS is to Windows. It has different design goals, and it achieves them well. Its very sad that it has been scuttled by corporate vandalism.
The purpose of a GUI is to make the functionality of the computer accessible to people whose primary interest is not "muckin' about with computers".
There's a limit to how 'intuitive' a GUI can be, but a good GUI has a sophisticated enough paradigm that once the basics are learnt they can be successfully applied to unforeseen applications.
The desktop paradigm is perfectly workable, although it is generally implemented sloppily. The main problems are inconsistency and lack of feedback. For example, try explaining to a new user when to double click something and when to single click it, especially when often there is no feedback for 5 - 10 seconds even when an application is successfully launched.
Frustrating to me, although probably less important for most average users is the huge resources required to make Windows, Mac and Linux GUIs responsive.
It is also frustrating that applications seem to always forget settings. Users shouldn't have to resize and move their windows every time they load up, open/save dialogs should always remember where they are usually pointing to.
GUIs have certain limitations, so there should always be access to a well designed CLI for power users.
As far as consistency goes, Windows (all versions) cannot even maintain consistency in the plain OS, let alone amongst 3rd party applications. Linux is even worse. Macs do a much better job at this.
My favourite GUI is BeOS. It is very sad that this excellent OS is all but dead. It is responsive, efficient, consistent and has a Unix CLI - even though its early in its development cycle. I am hoping that Moore's law, and open-source enthusiasm will lead to a truly user friendly Linux distribution. Red Hat 8.0 has made a lot of progress with attractive fonts and icons, and a moderate level of consistency. Unfortunately there is far to much copying of MS paradigms, warts and all, as well as more unixy drawbacks like the potential problems installing applications. Its definately getting there tho' - and other distributions like FreeBSD and Gentoo have good points that could be incorporated.
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BeOS is a much more polished product than Linux in many ways - you could say BeOS is to Linux what MacOS is to Windows. It has different design goals, and it achieves them well. Its very sad that it has been scuttled by corporate vandalism.
There's a limit to how 'intuitive' a GUI can be, but a good GUI has a sophisticated enough paradigm that once the basics are learnt they can be successfully applied to unforeseen applications.
The desktop paradigm is perfectly workable, although it is generally implemented sloppily. The main problems are inconsistency and lack of feedback. For example, try explaining to a new user when to double click something and when to single click it, especially when often there is no feedback for 5 - 10 seconds even when an application is successfully launched.
Frustrating to me, although probably less important for most average users is the huge resources required to make Windows, Mac and Linux GUIs responsive.
It is also frustrating that applications seem to always forget settings. Users shouldn't have to resize and move their windows every time they load up, open/save dialogs should always remember where they are usually pointing to.
GUIs have certain limitations, so there should always be access to a well designed CLI for power users.
As far as consistency goes, Windows (all versions) cannot even maintain consistency in the plain OS, let alone amongst 3rd party applications. Linux is even worse. Macs do a much better job at this.
My favourite GUI is BeOS. It is very sad that this excellent OS is all but dead. It is responsive, efficient, consistent and has a Unix CLI - even though its early in its development cycle. I am hoping that Moore's law, and open-source enthusiasm will lead to a truly user friendly Linux distribution. Red Hat 8.0 has made a lot of progress with attractive fonts and icons, and a moderate level of consistency. Unfortunately there is far to much copying of MS paradigms, warts and all, as well as more unixy drawbacks like the potential problems installing applications. Its definately getting there tho' - and other distributions like FreeBSD and Gentoo have good points that could be incorporated.