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And you people LIKE linux!?!?!?!
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Gimps UI is WAY better than Photoshops IMO, two monitors, tools and palettes on one, image on the other. The clipboard system of X? Don't like how X handles it? Use klipper from KDE then. Your favourite terminal won't let you do it? Ok, then find yourself a terminal that will, you have the choice to use one that will let you do it.
I think the GIMP is a nice substitute for Photoshop and friends for amateurs. Those of us that don't need a $700 or whatever program to mess around with photos. I do think the UI needs a bit of work, but over all I like it.
The clipboard situation on the other hand is horrible. I cannot highlight text in FF and paste it in an xterm with a middle click. _THAT_ is how X is supposed to work. Ok, so I couldn't before, but it's working today for some reason... Anyhow, I consider not being able to do the usual middle click thing to copy and paste a bug. 😛
The clipboard situation on the other hand is horrible. I cannot highlight text in FF and paste it in an xterm with a middle click. _THAT_ is how X is supposed to work. Ok, so I couldn't before, but it's working today for some reason... Anyhow, I consider not being able to do the usual middle click thing to copy and paste a bug. 😛
If you want everything to be exactly the same between all the windows, then just use KDE apps.
Lots of people do, I don't though.
As far as gimps UI goes, its more of a matter of personal taste. As I remember it learning how to use Photoshop it isn't the slickest UI in existance, but people treat it like it's its a god-like application, untouchable by mortal hands.
Personally I find it amazing how many people can afford a 300-400 dollar program just for occastional hobbyist stuff on their computer. You'd think that the price of a program would be a barrier to it's acceptance. But what do I know?
Linux != Windows.
Linux makes a realy crappy Windows. It's not a replacement desktop for Windows, it's not a free Windows and it never will be.
If you hold it to the same standards as what was designed into Windows it's going to fail miserably. Because it's not what it was designed to be.
The people who designed and created Linux, BSD and other free software hated being in Windows, and other commercial OSes. They disliked the statis quo so much that they decided the only solution was to sit down and write a entire OS from pretty much scratch.
Windows is dominated by large monolithic programs. Linux is dominated by a numerious small tools and utilities to can string together to be more powerfull then the monolithic programs.
Windows is designed around it's GUI. Everything is tied together with the GUI and the OS is unoperable without it. Linux the GUI is optional.
Windows is designed to isolate you from your computer. Many times it is even illegal to go around and modify the OS in fundamental ways, which is normally impossible anywyas because it's kept a big secret on how the OS functions anyways. Linux is designed to let you delve thru the layers of abstraction and fundamentally modify the behavior of the OS, it encoreges openness, documents even the most minute operations of the software and wants it's users to go in and screw around with stuff. Plus the code is freely aviable.
Windows assumes that programmers and developers are professional, and most of the OS is designed to deal with the lowest common dominator among it's customers. Linux it is a development platform first and a desktop second. The actual most effective way of interacting with it is thru the command line, the language is BASH and each line you type out is as part of a computer language, and bash itself is used to program and design the OS. By the simple act of using your computer, you are brought a deeper understanding of how it works. Check out the runlevel scripts for the most blatent example. Learn howto use the bash shell, then learn the basics of bash scripting and then you have automaticly obtained the mental tools needed to understand and modify the OS and develop it to your specific needs.
Another example of this is how Windows developement tools are add ons, and monolythic tools themselves. With Linux you have stuff like "vi", almost all desktop installations will include the GCC compiler and tools needed to make and build applications. In fact many Linux users have the intense need to build ALL applications they use from scratch. Just to get the extra yard or so out of them. Whatever.
Windows it's a single unified interface. Linux it is a fractured and highly customizable setup. For example Gnome uses Metacity by default, which is all nice and dandy, but it is intentionally restrictive. But it's still worlds above the Explorer shell in terms of customizability. But then the standards for the desktop is that you can set it up to use OpenBOX + Gnome, or Enlightenment, or Icewm, or Window Maker, or Wiamea, or FVWM, or Afterstep, or dozens of others that are compliant with a KDE or Gnome enviroement. And on top of that you have hundreds of other WM to select from.
So that makes for a fractured UI, but it also makes it extremely flexible.
If you hold Linux to Window's standards, then it sucks. But if you hold Window's to Linux standards, then guess what? Windows sucks too.
In fact all OSes suck, but what OSes suck in a way that you can find palatable? Some people will gravitate towards Windows, other Linux. The only sucky part is that MS designs it's OS in such a way that it intentionally makes it difficult to play with others. (work with other enviroments in a meaningfull ways)
Lots of people do, I don't though.
As far as gimps UI goes, its more of a matter of personal taste. As I remember it learning how to use Photoshop it isn't the slickest UI in existance, but people treat it like it's its a god-like application, untouchable by mortal hands.
Personally I find it amazing how many people can afford a 300-400 dollar program just for occastional hobbyist stuff on their computer. You'd think that the price of a program would be a barrier to it's acceptance. But what do I know?
Linux != Windows.
Linux makes a realy crappy Windows. It's not a replacement desktop for Windows, it's not a free Windows and it never will be.
If you hold it to the same standards as what was designed into Windows it's going to fail miserably. Because it's not what it was designed to be.
The people who designed and created Linux, BSD and other free software hated being in Windows, and other commercial OSes. They disliked the statis quo so much that they decided the only solution was to sit down and write a entire OS from pretty much scratch.
Windows is dominated by large monolithic programs. Linux is dominated by a numerious small tools and utilities to can string together to be more powerfull then the monolithic programs.
Windows is designed around it's GUI. Everything is tied together with the GUI and the OS is unoperable without it. Linux the GUI is optional.
Windows is designed to isolate you from your computer. Many times it is even illegal to go around and modify the OS in fundamental ways, which is normally impossible anywyas because it's kept a big secret on how the OS functions anyways. Linux is designed to let you delve thru the layers of abstraction and fundamentally modify the behavior of the OS, it encoreges openness, documents even the most minute operations of the software and wants it's users to go in and screw around with stuff. Plus the code is freely aviable.
Windows assumes that programmers and developers are professional, and most of the OS is designed to deal with the lowest common dominator among it's customers. Linux it is a development platform first and a desktop second. The actual most effective way of interacting with it is thru the command line, the language is BASH and each line you type out is as part of a computer language, and bash itself is used to program and design the OS. By the simple act of using your computer, you are brought a deeper understanding of how it works. Check out the runlevel scripts for the most blatent example. Learn howto use the bash shell, then learn the basics of bash scripting and then you have automaticly obtained the mental tools needed to understand and modify the OS and develop it to your specific needs.
Another example of this is how Windows developement tools are add ons, and monolythic tools themselves. With Linux you have stuff like "vi", almost all desktop installations will include the GCC compiler and tools needed to make and build applications. In fact many Linux users have the intense need to build ALL applications they use from scratch. Just to get the extra yard or so out of them. Whatever.
Windows it's a single unified interface. Linux it is a fractured and highly customizable setup. For example Gnome uses Metacity by default, which is all nice and dandy, but it is intentionally restrictive. But it's still worlds above the Explorer shell in terms of customizability. But then the standards for the desktop is that you can set it up to use OpenBOX + Gnome, or Enlightenment, or Icewm, or Window Maker, or Wiamea, or FVWM, or Afterstep, or dozens of others that are compliant with a KDE or Gnome enviroement. And on top of that you have hundreds of other WM to select from.
So that makes for a fractured UI, but it also makes it extremely flexible.
If you hold Linux to Window's standards, then it sucks. But if you hold Window's to Linux standards, then guess what? Windows sucks too.
In fact all OSes suck, but what OSes suck in a way that you can find palatable? Some people will gravitate towards Windows, other Linux. The only sucky part is that MS designs it's OS in such a way that it intentionally makes it difficult to play with others. (work with other enviroments in a meaningfull ways)
Yes, if you ignore the insane number of right-click menu options and the depths of those menus.
WTF can't they just set it up right to begin with? How do you think people would like windows if copy/pasting between apps required that you leave some random third part app running? Or had 3 command prompts, each of which were half-broken in different ways?
JetBlack69
Diamond Member
Why isn't drag elite yet? 😕
Spencer278
Diamond Member
Unless of course you want to replace some text like say the address. Then you have to switch to mozzila delete the address switch back to the terminial and then you can copy and paste. The copy and paste in unix has to be one of the worst User intereface mistakes I've seen.
pitupepito2000
Golden Member
Just because something is hard or takes some work and tries to educated through the process doesn't mean is not ready for the "average" desktop. For example an average linux newbie is more likely to learn more stuff in 5 years than a windows newbie 😉
pitupepito2000
Golden Member
What's your OS? 🙂
pitupepito2000
Golden Member
He certainly should be. What's the hierarchy of member types?
pitupepito2000
Golden Member
do you get this by the # of posts or by how long you've been around or what?
Yes, but the point is, the "average" desktop belongs to one of those windows newbies, and until they can get around at least as well in linux as in windows, it's not ready. Even if you use KDE, toss a KDE newb in front of a GNOME box and it's as foreign again as the Windows->Linux transition.
It's not ready because GNOME -> KDE is about as different as Windows -> GNOME. Pick ONE and make people learn it - don't expect normal people to want to learn how to drive both American and British cars (probably easier than gnome->kde), when the "competition" offers only one of the two. All the tools change, everything looks different...
Enough posting at 3am for today.
I don't think it would be as much of a problem as you might think. If they use RedHat at work, they might want RedHat at home. Chances are if you're using whatever commercial distribution in a work environment, you're not going to be changing the default Desktop Environment. So the ignorant can use whatever DE without even knowing about the other.
Geeks can learn whatever they're put in front of, so it shouldn't matter much to us at all. 😉
What would be the point of having KDE and Gnome if they were the same?
99 times out of a hundred programs that you like in one enviroment will run well in the other (as long as you have the extra 16megs or so of ram for the extra KDE libs in Gnome or visa versa).
Linux will be ready when OEMS start selling it to their customers. And not before. It's very easy to make a unified desktop enviroment for normal users while using Linux. Something that most people will pick up quickly.
People have done it before and people will do it again, and are doing it now. Ximian desktop for instance, or Xandros. Designed and setup for a specific purpose. Stuff like Fedora or Debian are desgined for a general audiance. A sort of do all, everything for everybody, and tries not to make any assumptions on what you want it to do.
Now if your a vendor and set up a Linux install for a specific purpose (say business productivity) and have it pre-configured, pre-installed, and running on tested configurations, then you can see how Windows has very little advantage over Linux in those situations.
Right now people (average folk) don't care about the OS they are running. They run Windows because that's what you run. Thats what everybody runs. There is no technical superiority or feature set that makes Windows dominate. Nothing to do with it's browser, nothing to do with it's UI, or any other aspect of the OS. It is the only choice for the vast majority of people.
If people have a reason to run linux, like they use it at work, then they will.
99 times out of a hundred programs that you like in one enviroment will run well in the other (as long as you have the extra 16megs or so of ram for the extra KDE libs in Gnome or visa versa).
Linux will be ready when OEMS start selling it to their customers. And not before. It's very easy to make a unified desktop enviroment for normal users while using Linux. Something that most people will pick up quickly.
People have done it before and people will do it again, and are doing it now. Ximian desktop for instance, or Xandros. Designed and setup for a specific purpose. Stuff like Fedora or Debian are desgined for a general audiance. A sort of do all, everything for everybody, and tries not to make any assumptions on what you want it to do.
Now if your a vendor and set up a Linux install for a specific purpose (say business productivity) and have it pre-configured, pre-installed, and running on tested configurations, then you can see how Windows has very little advantage over Linux in those situations.
Right now people (average folk) don't care about the OS they are running. They run Windows because that's what you run. Thats what everybody runs. There is no technical superiority or feature set that makes Windows dominate. Nothing to do with it's browser, nothing to do with it's UI, or any other aspect of the OS. It is the only choice for the vast majority of people.
If people have a reason to run linux, like they use it at work, then they will.
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