I don't use GNOME, but...

Posted Jan 27, 2010 19:00 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Include man pages for all applications.

So far Microsoft has done a much better job of doing this (providing documentation) for the desktop then anything I've seen come out of a Unix tradition.

Make programs that involve editing large amounts of text capable of calling an external editor. IBM got this right in the early 1960's with System-360, for crying out loud!

Well the 360 is not really Unix is it? Then again it does not really use the concept of files and directories either... In fact it's completely a alien OS to Unix in every way imaginable.

Use standard terminology that's been around since the early 1970's instead of introducing inconsistent terminology.

Like what? MiBs?

Use human-readable configuration files under the hood. (You can use whatever flashy GUI configuration editor you like for neophytes.)

A flat directory system containing hundreds of files, each using different formats and different naming conventions is not 'human readable'. Individually; yes, but collectively; no. It's inhuman, actually.

Gconf is better then most things I've seen. Directory trees containing individual text files with keyword-value pairs is standardized and easily editable. Editing gconf by hand using Vi is a hell of a lot easier then trying to figure out most rc files. Too bad about that lack of documentation, of course. It's what kills it.

These have all successfully been built on top of a UNIX-like base without abandoning the UNIX philosophy of small, cooperating programs that each do one thing well.

Really? Why is nobody using these systems then? Got any real examples?

Because while it's entirely possible you have something in mind that I am unaware of, I have no clue what it is and I have not seen a Unix system that is successful at it.

I'm fairly happy with Thunderbird. The It's All Text plugin integrates it with my favorite text editor... a perfect example of the UNIX philosophy.

Thats funny because Thunderbird comes almost completely from a Windows/DOS- based tradition. Also it's a monolythic application with it's own widget set and rendering system and shares very little functionality or code with other applications in your system, except Firefox. Very un-Unixy. Also plugin systems and extensions to applications probably existed in Windows/DOS desktop applications first.

Except maybe Emacs. I suppose emacs had the same sort of functionality. Except that comes from a LISP machine background and not Unix.

There are lots of reasonable file managers. Take your pick. I happen to hate all file managers anyway, so whichever one GNOME picks for that task doesn't matter to me.

Not in any Unix system I've ever seen. The closest to 'traditional' you can get is 'Midnight Commander' 2-pane-style managers (there are a whole group of applications similar to that that were popular) and that is a unabashed clone of a popular proprietary DOS application.

You are confusing the term UNIX-like with similar to previous UNIX desktops. That's not at all what I meant.

I think that your just confused about the situation. Not trying to be offensive so don't take it the wrong way... it just seems to be a normal thread of thought with discussions around Linux desktops.

There is no UNIX-like anything with pretty much everything you've talked about and shown examples of liking. I think that besides some general system design and programming approaches there is nothing in the Unix tradition that really helps out in making a quality desktop experience. There are just features that you want that sound actually nice to have. Especially the documentation thing.