A Week with Elementary OS
adam.merrifield.ca
adam.merrifield.ca
1. With what's built-in, it was non-obvious how to access most of the apps available to Ubuntu/Debian. The large rectangles in that app menu are horrid compared to the rest of the macOS-looking (nice) interface.
2. It claims that there is no need for terminal, and yet with very little searching, I was finding posts online with "how to make ElementaryOS better" that all involved use of the terminal. I don't mind opening a terminal shell and doing this, but it seems like there would be another way that is easier for the casual user.
3. It can't just be the desktop that looks like macOS; one of the big things in macOS is how intuitive every user task is. For example, in ElementaryOS, you can't right click on the desktop to change the background. But, there are many other things as well.
It's very nice, and probably the best install and desktop I've experienced in Linux thus far. That says a lot since I've been using Linux and installing it for a few decades. However, it is not ready yet. It is getting very close, though. The things I miss from macOS are:
1. Spotlight
2. The intuitiveness of the macOS control panel
3. The macOS activity monitor
4. Easily stylable terminal with options
5. Dock/OS notifications (number and bubbles)
When I use any of the major Linux file managers, it feels like I've gone back in time 20 years. Why is OSX still the only OS which lets me easily preview the content of my files without having to open them first?
Yes, but unfortunately there are only half a dozen or so Elementary native apps... and they're pretty much all just "viewers" (in some sense of the word) for existing content. If you want to actually do any work, you'll have to install something from the Ubuntu repos —at which point, bang goes your visually consistent OS.
The screenshot of Elementary's App Store is also a bit disingenuous. Again, it looks nice, but there's nothing in it, apart from what came with the default install.
I do like the notion behind Elementary and was excited to come across it a couple of years back. But the lack of progress on the app front killed it for me and I went back to Ubuntu (Mate). With each new release of Elementary, my interest is momentarily piqued again —until I read the release notes and see that (tweaks aside) there is nothing new here.
Elementary is an (admittedly very pretty) desktop environment, with some well designed alerts and preference panes, but it's a long way short of what I'd consider qualifies as a complete Linux distro.