Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions) [LWN.net]

Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 4, 2012 3:35 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
In reply to: Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions) by dlang
Parent article: Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

My quick take on it is that GNOME 3 was a much better engineered release than KDE 4 was, peoples complaints are mostly that they don't like the intended behavior, not that it's crashy or buggy or horribly broken (except for those who snarkilly state that any behavior they dislike is "broken"). I was kind of surprised on how many technical people were using stock GNOME 2 rather than the crazy, tricked out environments that Linux used to be known for. Maybe some of those users will come back in a couple of years or maybe they'll stay with their preferred environment but a lot of them have already moved. Now that GNOME 3 is released its back on the path of slow steady improvement

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Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 4, 2012 3:52 UTC (Wed) by horen (guest, #2514) [Link]

As with KDE4, Gnome3 suffers from "one step forward, two steps back". Given the already years-long existence and development of Gnome, I was horrified (but not surprised) that -- once again -- a major component (if not the major component) of a user's desktop was released (yes!) "broken".

It could -- and should -- have been otherwise.

Further Gnome3 improvement might well be "slow [and] steady", but if nothing else, providing a consistent (read: across distributions/versions) UI is no less important than kernel functions, etc., and many Gnome2 users will seek solace elsewhere.

I predict that Linux Mint's "Cinnamon" UI will become a welcome and worthy rival for Gnome3.

Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 4, 2012 11:22 UTC (Wed) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (2 responses)

I was kind of surprised on how many technical people were using stock GNOME 2 rather than the crazy, tricked out environments that Linux used to be known for.

Same reason I stopped rolling my own kernels: that stuff looks less appealing at 30-35 than it did at 20-25.

Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 4, 2012 14:18 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

And there is much less need to then in the past.

Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 7, 2012 20:15 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

true. I dont play with styles or backgrounds anymore. but I still DO optimize my desktop for my usepatterns and as I'm far to busy to be willing to wwork around an unflexible interface all the time I find myself using my slow and cramped laptop with KDE more than my big, fast desktop with GNOME. unless something gets better soon I face a choice between learning to write Javascript code or go back to KDE. and I won't learn to code.

Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 4, 2012 11:29 UTC (Wed) by fb (guest, #53265) [Link]

> I was kind of surprised on how many technical people were using stock GNOME 2 rather than the crazy, tricked out environments that Linux used to be known for.

Most 'technical people' I know are busy doing technical work of their own ;-) and would rather have a simple desktop that is good enough and that gets out of the way.

AFAICT people will only bother with 'crazy & tricked stuff' when the mainstream offerings are not good enough for their own individual requirements.

Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 4, 2012 16:38 UTC (Wed) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (3 responses)

I was kind of surprised on how many technical people were using stock GNOME 2 rather than the crazy, tricked out environments that Linux used to be known for.

Maybe that's a sign that GNOME's approach of providing sensible defaults that shouldn't require as much customization was the right one. Once you stop needing to customize every detail to get to a working configuration, bothering to do it just to make things look perfect loses its attractiveness. And when everyone's configurations start converging on the defaults, you get the added advantage that you can use somebody else's desktop, or a newly set-up account that you haven't spend hours tweaking, and still get the behaviour you've come to expect.

Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 4, 2012 16:57 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (2 responses)

Agreed, that was certainly true for me. Little wonder then that capriciously changing those defaults might cause great waves of displeasure.

Also, the ability to comfortably use someone else's desktop only works if the features of that desktop are relatively stable from release to release. (Gnome3 and Unity, I'm looking at you...)

Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 5, 2012 1:06 UTC (Thu) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

Little wonder then that capriciously changing those defaults might cause great waves of displeasure.

I'm sure the coders would tell you to s/capriciously/carefully and after extensive study/, no matter how you feel about the changes. I remember the massive storms of protest with default spatial Nautilus, for example, where the UI people told us that spatial was better and we were all wrong to want browser-style, and they had the studies to back it up. On the other hand, I've been generally impressed by some of the intrusive changes I thought I would find most annoying switching from GNOME 2 to GNOME 3.

For example, I expected to hate the full screen activities menu. Instead, I've found that I use it for tasks that are inherently disruptive, so taking over the whole screen isn't as annoying as I expected. Meanwhile, it makes good use of the full-screen space, so it really is easier to use than a launcher menu, task bar, or workspace switcher. And it goes away completely when I'm done with it, so I have less clutter and more space on my desktop the rest of the time. Maybe the guys who said it was a better way of doing things and wouldn't let me use my old setup actually had a clue of what they were talking about.

Also, the ability to comfortably use someone else's desktop only works if the features of that desktop are relatively stable from release to release.

Now here you're getting into to some murky waters. A new major version of a big project is going to have some big changes in it, and not all of those are going to get it right on the .0 release. Fixing your design mistakes means changing user visible behavior, while leaving them means allowing the mistakes to go uncorrected. Neither one is a perfect choice, but I'm inclined to accept that fixing the mistakes is the better course, especially for something that is intended to serve as a stable platform for a long time.

Linux at the end of the world (our 2012 predictions)

Posted Jan 12, 2012 13:27 UTC (Thu) by renox (guest, #23785) [Link]

>> I'm sure the coders would tell you to s/capriciously/carefully and after extensive study/, no matter how you feel about the changes. I remember the massive storms of protest with default spatial Nautilus, for example, where the UI people told us that spatial was better and we were all wrong to want browser-style, and they had the studies to back it up. <<

Yet they had to finally revert the spatial mode, so what's the value of those studies?

>> A new major version of a big project is going to have some big changes in it <<

Not necessarily in the UI.. And users would be perfectly happy with only minor versions, it's developers who get bored not users!