
What's missing from desktop Linux - hasenj
http://tech.hasenj.org/post/976212208
======
schmichael
As a Linux user I _wish_ what was missing from Linux was elegance. What's
really missing is drivers. Or at least non-buggy ones. I, and I'm sure many
other hackers and "normal" consumers, could live with a slight lack of
elegance if sound, 3D graphics, and WiFi all consistently worked without hours
of fiddling while reading wikis and obscure forum posts.

I quake in fear every time I approach a projector for a presentation because I
know the chances of it Just Working with my Ubuntu laptop are slim to none.
Few people are willing to tolerate a UX like that.

------
GiraffeNecktie
I read this article and couldn't figure out what the author thinks is missing
from desktop Linux except some vague idea of elegance.

~~~
bni
I think the article was spot on. This vague idea of elegance you mention is
the "magic" that Steve Jobs refers to.

To make that happen on the Linux desktop, a really talented developer with
good design skills, have to start over from scratch. Leave the legacy
toolkits.

He will have to be a dictator, uncompromising in the design vision. Good user
experiences cannot come out of a committee, or the "open source development
model". GNOME and KDE is great, I use them, but they sure do lack the "magic".

------
GeneralMaximus
You have to _buy_ all your OS X apps? Where is that coming from? The only paid
app I have on my Mac is TextMate. Everything else is FOSS.

I have no idea what the OP is trying to say here.

~~~
rodion_89
I can't agree with you more. I have Logic Pro because I do a bit of audio
work, but other than that it's all FOSS. (BTW, I use TextWrangler instead of
TextMate. It's a reasonable free replacement although not as good.)

~~~
powrtoch
And it's not as though there's an open-source alternative to Logic (or Final
Cut etc) anyway.

~~~
nailer
Audacity? (I'm not a musician but know musicians who use Linux)

~~~
powrtoch
Audacity (cool program though it is) is to Logic as Notepad is to Office.
Which is to say, a tiny, tiny subset of the other's functionality.

Edit: I just checked up on Wikipedia. Audacity has made a good deal of
progress since I last used it. It's still not Logic caliber, but my analogy is
definitely an exaggeration.

------
pragmatic
The best desktop linux is Android. Wait a few years. I can already hook my
phone to a tv via HDMI.

It's just a few steps to full desktop love. It's got most of the features I
need, now I just want a bigger screen.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> I can already hook my phone to a tv via HDMI. [...] now I just want a bigger
> screen.

Bigger than your TV? What are you planning on doing?

~~~
winthrowe
I would presume he has in mind more pixels, regardless of area. see
<http://xkcd.com/732/>

------
Juha
Here is where you see that open-source doesn't really attract ux experts or
designers. I also miss the final touch on my linux that would make it truly
enjoyable experience.

~~~
rodion_89
I think you hit the nail on the head by saying that Linux doesn't attract UX
guys. To ne feels like open source projects are always about getting good code
that runs well and the user-interface is very secondary (if even that). Apple
(and now Microsoft [finally]) have enough resources to throw around to invest
in the user interface, where as open source projects tend to only have enough
resourses to get the actual program running. Investing in a better GTK is less
of a priority. Apple clearly makes one of their main priority. Even if the
prgram sucks / buggy / whatever, they will make sure that it looks beautiful
because it's important to the average customer.

------
urlwolf
Well, trying to make linux more like OSX or win (which is what xfce, KDE and
GNOME do) is bounded to fail. I think there are qualities on linux that are
both unique and elegant, for example tiling window managers. This is where
most research in UX should go. Users of others OSs are not stupid, they long
for enhanced productivity. If they see it in say a tiling WM, they may want
it, and currently the only way to get it is in linux (more or less).

~~~
rodion_89
Um if I remember correctly, Windows 1.0 had a tiling window manager. In fact
even now if you right click the taskbar you have the option of tiling windows.

~~~
tome
That's not what "tiling window manager" means in this context. See for example
<http://xmonad.org/>

------
NickPollard
Running Ubuntu 10.04, I have a desktop that I feel is simple, elegant and
beautiful. I used to envy my brother's nice looking desktop on his MacBook,
but now when I look at it I think Ubuntu actually looks better.

Ubuntu runs smoothly, with simple but nice effects, clean windows and (since
10.04) some very nice themes. Perfect? No, but definitely in the same league
as OS X.

~~~
acon
I'd say all the things you mention – nice effects, clean windows and nice
themes – are examples of where Ubuntu is beautiful. I agree that Ubuntu is
quite beautiful, and it is getting better and better.

I'd say what is lacking most in Ubuntu is elegance, which I define as it
having strong vision about how things should look and behave. On a Mac you can
quite clearly see when an application does not fit, for example Google Earth
and Firefox. I think this is in large part due to the elegance of the
platform.

Ubuntu is also somewhat lacking in simplicity. I think in large due to their
attempts to hide accidental complexity instead of working to fix it. This has
gotten a lot better, but as an example, Ubuntu still spews files for
applications all over the place instead of having them as an application
bundle as on a Mac. Then you get desktop files to give you a single icon to
click, but they hide the complexity instead of removing it.

Reading what I wrote I realize that there is quite a bit of overlap between
simplicity and elegance. App bundles are both simpler and more elegant than
spewing files for an application all over the place.

------
eogas
It sounds like he's trying to solve the problem that desktop Linux, in its
current state, is used almost exclusively by hackers, and not at all by
'normal people'.

While 'normal people' may desire a clean look and fancy animations, there is a
more fundamental problem. Linux is not easy. It's not easy to set up, it's not
easy to use, and it's not easy to maintain.

A normal person can go into a store today, buy a computer with Windows on it,
start it up, and be on their way. You can't do that with Linux. And if a
normal person somehow discovers how to download and burn a disk image, once
they get it on their machine, they will be presented with the inevitable task
of getting everything to work. I have never installed a Linux distro that had
functioning drivers for all of my hardware. I usually have to spend a few
hours just configuring everything to work properly. It is ridiculous to expect
that a nontechnical person is going to be able to do this.

------
Hovertruck
"if you’re a consumer, you are, by definition, not a hacker."

Does this not make sense to anyone else?

~~~
jrockway
It makes perfect sense. Consumers consume. Hackers create.

See also: iPad vs. Netbook. iPads are strictly for consuming other people's
creations. Netbooks are open-ended.

~~~
jasonlotito
Consumers are to Hackers =/= iPads are to Netbooks.

Hackers can still be consumers. In fact, I challenge you to find a single
Hacker who doesn't also consume.

Consumers can be hackers. Hackers are consumers.

~~~
jrockway
Hackers also read everything way too literally. A consumer is someone who
_mostly_ consumes and _mostly_ doesn't create.

Everyone creates, be it an email to their friend, or a picture for their photo
album. Everyone consumes, perhaps reading a book from time to time or watching
a movie.

But some devices push you in one direction, and others push you in the other.
Log into a Linux box with xmonad, emacs, and rxvt-unicode, and you have no
choice but to create. That makes you a hacker.

Get an iPad, and with easily-available movie downloads and an infinite supply
of blogs and no way to enter text efficiently, and you aren't going to be
doing much creating. That makes you a consumer.

~~~
LaGrange
"Log into a Linux box with xmonad, emacs, and rxvt-unicode, and you have no
choice but to create. That makes you a hacker." And, assuming you're the same
beginner who doesn't know what to do with a Mac (the comparison was with a
mac), stare at the display with no clue about how to start an app.

Log into a Mac, with iLife with Garage Band (what? Creation != programming),
easily installable XCode and cheap, good graphic programs and you _can_ create
whatever you want.

By forcing people to code you're not creating "hacker" nor "creators". You're
replacing musicians, graphic artists, designers and other creatives with
frustrated code monkeys.

"Get an iPad, and with easily-available movie downloads and an infinite supply
of blogs and no way to enter text efficiently, and you aren't going to be
doing much creating. That makes you a consumer." Also, with graphic software,
many ways to relax, and a Mac or PC that you sync to.

And a system that gets out of your way so that you can do what you want,
possibly something more interesting that 10kline .vimrc.

I'm going to go the other way - for most people Linux is counter-creative.
Instead of either making that (possibly stupid) clip, they have to configure
the damn thing and somehow get the network drivers and the touchpad work at
the same time. Effectively, they are consuming forum posts. Instead of
relaxing by consumption they get frustrated, the only skill that's really
developed is hard-core toner replacement and desktop computer troubleshooting.

In contrast, MacOS (usually) gets out of their way, even brings some fun,
creative software OOTB. And the iPad is all about relaxing and finding fun
stuff. You know, _inspiration_.

Linux is good for people who actually know what they want to do with it. So is
an Arduino, a guitar and a large block of marble.

~~~
jrockway
Whoa there! My post was not some slight against non-programmers or Mac users.

To make help make my argument clear, I picked two extremes of creation and
consumption -- you aren't going to be buying anything from iTMS on that Emacs
machine, and you aren't going to be reprogramming your OS on the fly on your
iPad. The idea was to show contrast.

I also wasn't making a value judgement.

(Also, nice description of Linux from 15 years ago. Do Macs have non-
cooperative multitasking yet?)

------
Ben65
I have to wonder if the Linux desktop would benefit from giving up the ghost
that is X Windows. I don't think you'll ever have that elegance that you see
on OS X and Windows 7 sitting on top of X Windows. I tried Ubuntu last year,
well I'm still using it, and I had some of the same feelings described in this
article. I was impressed with how far along the Linux desktop had come, but
still sad that it just isn't quite as good as OS X or windows. I think some of
that quirkiness comes from X Windows.

------
lhnz
What is missing from Linux:

* Auto-configuration that can avoid requiring the users to manually fix rough edges.

* Innovative or at-least consensus following UX designers.

------
agentultra
There's nothing "missing." Anything you want can be installed.

Other proprietary OS's provide you with a desktop environment that is more
about fashion than usability.

Linux has choice. That's a good thing.

------
jsz0
_"it’s effectively a locked, proprietary database"_

Nope. It's XML.

------
hevets
Photoshop, Starcraft 2, I'd switch yesterday

