A fine and thorough article!
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| albinard Jun 06, 2011 12:01 PM EDT |
This is the approach that is needed to calm the uproar long enough to hear the voice of reason, a clear statement of the current status, to be followed by (I suspect!) a pungent statement of position. You said: "I think that Gnome, KDE4, and Canonical are confusing what they think makes a cool visual appearance with real usability." It's not just those three: Windows 8 is doing the same ("one GUI fits all"). It's clear that in the desktop world, consuming material beats producing it by orders of magnitude. |
| Scott_Ruecker Jun 06, 2011 1:02 PM EDT |
Quoting:..Progress is made by forging ahead and building new things, and building on the works of others. Which is what FOSS is expressly designed to foster. This is at the heart of why I was originally drawn too, and am now in my own way as an Editor for LXer participating in FOSS. Open Source, and working on a FOSS project is by its design a collaborative endeavor. It forces people to work together for a common cause i.e., greater good. The FOSS model can effectively implement contributions both big and small no matter the size of or how divergent the community may be. Quoting:Fostering a community and providing a space for noobs to learn and grow is a special skill set and a lot of work. But for Linux and FOSS to continue to grow it's the most important job of all.. Huzzah! You are spot on, especially in regards to noobs who are long-time passive Windows users. One of FOSS's defining characteristics (and fundamental differences from MS) is that it fosters active participation in the management of your own computer, the ability to choose from many different programs to suit your need and an avenue by which you can improve the software you use if you so wish. For most people using Windows their whole life does not prepare them for any of this. And I have seen first-hand the culture shock it can have on new users. We need to find a way to ease people in who need it, which most do..;-) |
| dinotrac Jun 06, 2011 1:17 PM EDT |
Absolutely --- and fun, too. I spent Friday Night and Saturday helping out at a workshop introducing women to Ruby on Rails. Very cool indeed, and really highlighted to me why free software types shoot themselves (repeatedly) in the foot when they fail to reach outside the community. Unlike the geek-laden crowds I see at many tech meetups, these women were all over the place. We had former schoolteachers, advertising types, and a little posse of Northwestern students looking for The Next Big Thing to go all entrepreneurial on. These were people who actually know how to talk to the world, ie, how to translate "My way or the highway" into "You know, your way is great, but I think you'll be really happy with my way". |
| skelband Jun 06, 2011 1:35 PM EDT |
Nice article and I agree with every word. |
| caitlyn Jun 06, 2011 4:55 PM EDT |
One minor quibble: My HP Mini 110 netbook did not and does not stink. With the preinstalled Ubuntu everything just worked the way it should. Unfortunately it came out a relatively short time before HP ditched Linux in favor of Windows 7, after creating their own desktop UI no less. Pity, because it really is a nice machine. |
| dinotrac Jun 06, 2011 5:00 PM EDT |
@caitlyn -- Agree on HP Mini. I've got one, too, and it's a nice Linux machine. Got mine for the cost ($38) of a hard drive. The hard drive in it gave out, and getting it fixed with Windows/etc would have cost nearly as much as the box itself. No such problem with Linux. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 06, 2011 11:39 PM EDT |
A fine article, Carla. However much we (or just I) criticize Ubuntu, especially over the past few releases, there's no denyin its value in offering a polished-up, Debian-based distro during a time when Debian couldn't get a stable release out the door, and adding a welcoming, newbie-friendly community besides. In my view, Ubuntu's success had many positive effects on Debian (and Linux and FOSS in general). "Advanced" users often give Debian a try, and that success has helped make Debian (and most other Linux distributions) better (some a little, some a lot) on the desktop. |
| helios Jun 07, 2011 9:52 AM EDT |
While I agree with My Esteemed Colleague, I believe we've witnessed the perfect storm of user revolt. As much of a PITA as it will be, HeliOS will be moving back to Mint for the foreseeable future. The remastering tool UCK does not work on Mint and the others like RemasterSys have been a dismal failure in regard to Mint, as has Reconstructor. Both Canonical and Gnome have bullet-ridden feet over their UI decisions as of late, and I want to thank Carla for acknowledging the fact. I think these decisions AKA Unity and Gnome 3 will have far reaching effects for quite some time. That being said, each of those environments are in the infancy stage and we have yet to see what they will become as adults. Unfortunately, I have added my own little temper tantrums concerning these changes so me using the word "adult" may be a bit hypocritical. Here's hoping that this huge step back on the parts of both parties eventually lead to giant leaps forward.... Although I personally don't think we're gonna see that for many releases. I'm just sayin'. |
| mortenalver Jun 07, 2011 12:36 PM EDT |
I'm definitely dropping Ubuntu unless things improve (a lot). We're using Ubuntu on a netbook at home, and I tried to move the (Unity) dock away from the left edge, because it tends to pop out unexpectedly when you try to click the Close button on a maximised window, and generally causes a lot of annoyance. The first thing I discovered is that I can't find anything in Unity - things like the various settings windows that Ubuntu earlier has kept in its "System" menu. I must be doing something wrong, since just searching for things isn't going to help unless I know what they are called. So I googled the problem instead, and found this quote from Mark Shuttleworth (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/12/ubuntu-unity-launcher-won...): Quoting:I’m afraid the location of the Unity launcher is fixed by design. We want the launcher always close to the Ubuntu button. Ok.... so I can't decide for myself anymore where I want my panel. At the same time, I found a blog post about how the Gnome 3 developers have decided that laptops should suspend when the lid is closed, and that this shouldn't be configurable (unless you dig up the option in gconf or gsettings or whatever). They choose to ignore that many users (including beginners that won't be able to google for the solution if it isn't available in the GUI) will want the computer to keep running even with the lid closed. Have they gone insane? |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 07, 2011 3:04 PM EDT |
Quoting:I think these decisions AKA Unity and Gnome 3 will have far reaching effects for quite some time. That being said, each of those environments are in the infancy stage and we have yet to see what they will become as adults. Either it's a Catch-22, or developers hate us (or both). By Catch-22, I mean they can't really develop a new UI quickly enough without a whole lot of users hammering away on it, all the while an unformed UI drives away more users than it attracts. As I've written before, it's a logical move for Ubuntu to switch to a desktop environment it controls in a way it never could control GNOME. Apple and Microsoft control their DEs, and Ubuntu clearly wants to play in that pool, so they need the same measure of control. But does Canonical/Ubuntu have the resources to go it alone? |
| jdixon Jun 07, 2011 3:17 PM EDT |
> They choose to ignore that many users (including beginners that won't be able to google for the solution if it isn't available in the GUI) will want the computer to keep running even with the lid closed. They choose to ignore the fact that many users hook a laptop/notebook up to an external monitor/keyboard/mouse on occasion, and may want to close the lid when they do so. |
| mortenalver Jun 07, 2011 3:27 PM EDT |
Quoting:They choose to ignore the fact that many users hook a laptop/notebook up to an external monitor/keyboard/mouse on occasion, and may want to close the lid when they do so. Actually, to their credit, connecting an external display is supposed to disable the suspension behaviour. On the other hand, that may only add to the confusion for users. |
| BernardSwiss Jun 07, 2011 6:29 PM EDT |
I seem to recall some explanation (I'm not qualified to judge its merits) to the effect that unfortunately, many notebook computers are not properly designed to dispose of exess heat trapped when the lid is closed. So rather than try to guess which hardware can be trusted to take the strain, the default is "closed lid -- suspend". Apparently (IIRC, and I may not) there are ways for "expert users" to over-ride this behaviour -- but responsibility for the consequences of course rests with aforesaid "experts". I wasn't really paying attention, and don't recall where I came across this discussion, so feel free to correct me. |
| gus3 Jun 07, 2011 7:10 PM EDT |
On my netbook (EeePC 901), building a kernel can cause the CPU temp to reach 150 deg F in a matter of seconds. You do not want to hold it on your lap while doing this! |
| mortenalver Jun 08, 2011 2:21 AM EDT |
BernandSwiss: in the discussion of the Gnome 3 decision, there was some concern about Macbooks and overheating, apparently. Since Gnome 3 should not suspend if an external display is connected, this doesn't really address that problem at all. In what I saw of the discussion, the main reasoning seemed to be that settings are bad, and that people should want their laptop to suspend. The overheating problem was mentioned merely as a potential problem with the new decision (when external display is connected). |
| hkwint Jun 08, 2011 5:13 AM EDT |
I think it's all about wakeup-calls. Ubuntu served as a wakeup-call for the "slow moving not professionaly managed" Debian. XFCE & co and revolting users provided a wake-up call for KDE (4). Unity did it for Gnome. Wayland (maybe?) for Xorg. Nice thing is, there's always a "way out" while staying on Linux. Because when on Windows, there's no easy way out without ditching whole Windows. BTW I think ARM served as a wakeup-call to Intels x86 lap-heaters. There's no reason CPU's should reach such temperatures - ARM's Cortex has clearly shown. |
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