Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) [LWN.net]

Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 15:54 UTC (Mon) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104)
In reply to: Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) by X-Nc
Parent article: Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)

I disagree. I think that the WinXP desktop is pretty well designed and is usually a pleasure to use for most normal desktop tasks. Granted I don't have to use it all that often, since I use Kubuntu or SuSE most of the time, but when I do I am always pleasantly surprised. It is snappy, well-integrated and easy-to-use. I wouldn't like to support it, but I don't mind using it for simple tasks like reading mail, writing documents, listening to music or surfing the web.

Not directed specifically at the parent poster, but even if you don't agree, that doesn't make those who do trolls or minions of the evil empire. The way to react to this is to continually produce a better desktop, which is exactly what KDE, Gnome and friends are doing.

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Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 17:20 UTC (Mon) by X-Nc (guest, #1661) [Link]

XP is the best they've done so far but if you read any books on human interface design you'll see that the whole bottom-up design of the Start menu is counter intuitive. There are a number of other things that aren't well done in the design (and I'm sad that GNOME & KDE had to continue the prevalence of them). The only reason it feels "normal" is because for almost two decades it has been the standard. Like the QWERTY keyboard, it's all anyone knows so it's the "easiest" to use. Doesn't matter that there are many layouts that are much better and faster.

And as for trolls, I agree with you and the others. Disagreement does not a troll make.

Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)

Posted Jan 10, 2006 8:41 UTC (Tue) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link]

"XP is the best they've done so far but if you read any books on human interface design you'll see that the whole bottom-up design of the Start menu is counter intuitive."

A logical fallacy called "appeal to authority". I personally do not see what is wrong with having the task bar at the bottom of the screen, I prefer it actually.