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Comment by RandyRanderson | Hacker News Reader

Using Ubuntu 16* again after maybe a decade of not using Linux has not left me impressed at the desktop progress.

By it's nature, the Open Source (OS) community doesn't have the man-hours or leadership structure in place to make a coordinated desktop system.

I would argue that it is at least the rare combination of technical know-how, leadership structure, man-hours and perseverance that makes a system successful. An example would be Linus Torvalds with Linux but there are many others.

Further to this, I believe a commercial structure in conjunction with an open-source component/ecosystem has a much greater chance for success, by it's nature.

So in this respect I think RemixOS/Android on Linux is a better path to a successful Linux desktop as Android today allows 95%+ of users to do everything they need while also allowing the rest of us the use of all the great facets of the Linux/GNU components.

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Linus uses KDE, IIRC ;-) I don't really know anybody who liked Unity (what's shipped by default on Ubuntu) out of the box. I know people who have learned to like it, so I suppose it's an acquired taste.

I actually like Gnome 3 because it is highly configurable for a programmer (plugins are really, really easy to write). But, in the end, I don't like all the Gnome infrastructure -- especially they really broke internationalised input for a long time and pretty much forced me to change.

My wife uses KDE and absolutely loves it. I had previously introduced her to Gnome 3, which she didn't like and Cinnamon, which she was pretty neutral about. She was originally a non-computer user -- she had only ever used a cell phone for her whole life if you can believe it.

I eventually migrated to XMonad and I don't think I will ever change to a more integrated desktop environment.

Free software is about freedom. It's freedom to use your computer how you see fit. It's freedom to write whatever software you want, or to tweak it, or to fix bugs. It's freedom to help other people by writing software, or tweaking it or fixing bugs.

The idea of having some coordinated effort that makes decisions for everybody and provides a lowest common denominator is appealing for a lot of reasons. Probably that's what it takes to compete with the vendors who see the computer as an integrated consumer good -- a black box that is highly targeted to a particular market.

As a user of free software who enjoys his freedom, penetrating the mass market, but removing choice is not something I look forward to. I think some people have this idea that Linux needs to have mass market appeal to be successful. I am not one of those. I'm happy if more people want to enjoy software freedom, but I could care less about Linux market penetration on the desktop.

But anyway, if you are interested, I would give KDE a shot. Personally, I find it over complicated, but it has some really compelling features if you're into that kind of thing.

   > I suppose it's an acquired taste.

I think it is true, and there has always been desktops that are a small taste variation away from Windows and desktops that are a small taste variation away from MacOS X, and desktops that are a small taste variation away from CDE/Motif.

I have always felt that this was the single largest impediment to Linux as a desktop, not because there were several different tastes but that the APIs used to provide the UX were different across all of them as well. GtK2, GtK3, Qt4, Qt5, XMotif, Etc. Some FOSS apps try to 'adapt' depending on which desktop you are using, many just punt and look like what ever their 'birth' desktop looked like, and many suck in that other desktop as a function of being installed. My Ubuntu 16 deskop has XFCE on it (Xubuntu) but other apps have sucked in both versions of GTK, and all of Qt and the KDE libs.

While it lets people complain if you force a single desktop metaphor down their virtual throats, at least it has a good shot of the Apps all working, in a general way, the same way. And that is what separates (in my opinion) more general adoption of the Linux desktop from the specialize adoption we have now.

> I don't really know anybody who liked Unity (what's shipped by default on Ubuntu) out of the box. I know people who have learned to like it, so I suppose it's an acquired taste.

Everything's acquired taste. FTR, I quite like Unity.

> By it's nature, the Open Source (OS) community doesn't have the man-hours or leadership structure in place to make a coordinated desktop system.

That's wrong. KDE and Gnome are coordinated desktop systems. Why do all people cry out for a single desktop? GNU/Linux (Unix also) and the desktop had always been separated, and I consider this a very good design choice. Right now the Linux community is slowly moving towards Wayland. Thanks to the design of Linux it's no problem to add a new series of desktops to Wayland until the best ones will get obvious, likely two or three again (as KDE and Gnome).

There shouldn't be a debate about the desktop effectiveness of Android* on one hand and KDE, Gnome, etc one the other for casual users.

I definitely did not mean to imply there should be a single dt. I would however, like there to be at least one good one. ;>

Ubuntu - Canonical in general - is not a good representative of "Open Source". They don't contribute back to Debian, don't cooperate with the Gnome project (Unity?), and there are other options out there. They are good at marketing, though. Ubuntu feels like a wonky OSX clone..

What really annoys me is that they have made people in general think of Linux as "Ubuntu". There are other options. :)

I am a happy Debian KDE/lxQt user not using *untu. :)

> By it's nature, the Open Source (OS) community doesn't have the man-hours or leadership structure in place to make a coordinated desktop system.

More precisely, man-hours that can be directed by leadership at a specific goal. FOSS is great at creating things that programmers want, like text editors, terminals, and web frameworks, because programmers will do those things for themselves. It's pretty bad at creating things that non-programmers want, like WYSIWYG text editors, spreadsheets, desktops, and web browsers, because programmers will only do those things for money, and there isn't enough money in FOSS.

> Further to this, I believe a commercial structure in conjunction with an open-source component/ecosystem has a much greater chance for success, by it's nature.

For all its other faults, Apple got this right with Mac OS X: Apple pays people to write a coherent desktop system, but it's still Unix under the hood for people who use and develop FOSS. Android and Google Play have sort of done this for phones. I think there is a market for someone to make a paid, non-FOSS desktop based on Linux, since there are plenty of coders who don't want to hack on hairy desktop stuff.

"WYSIWYG text editors, spreadsheets, desktops, and web browsers" are all more than serviceable in Linux. I seldom find Firefox less useful on Linux than any other platform. For the rest the problem is that they are moving targets whose spec is dictated by others.

You want Excel to act like Excel and you also want Libre Office Calc to act like Excel, but Libre Office can never really be Excel, so it's Excel 97.

I've used Linux for the decade you didn't.

We don't want a coordinated anything. The Linux community practices "fork it for fun", at the drop of a Red Hat. That's one of its core values and it is antithetical to the desires of the vast majority of users.

Canonical's Unity Desktop is ok. I mean, I don't really care about it. Its not interesting. Its idea of a sandboxed, polished, branded experience gets in the way of interesting. I don't use it. I don't even install it.

That's my definition of Windows and OS X too.

Anyone with "leadership skills" and a business know-how realises that the Linux community is like a herd of cats, and there will be no marshalling us into contributing towards a cohesive and coordinated anything.

If we wanted to be corporate citizens, we would be happy with Windows and OS X. But we had that and thew it away. A proper corporate effort will be distrusted, cracked, forked, and rewritten if need be. Look at Android: we fight for our right to root it.

Gentlemen such as yourself may be happy with a corporate Linux presentation, but it ranges from uninteresting to offensive to many long term Linux users.

Who is this 'we' you so authoritatively speak for ? i also used linux for the same decade you did, and i do not recognize myself in any of what you are saying. We wanted technical superiority and good software. Torvald himself is quite clear on it, opensource is simply a way to build great software...That's what we sign up for.

This idea that coordinated anything is antithetical to the linux community is nonsense. Opensource is almost by definition a way to draw more contribution in , to allow more people to actively engage, collaborate and improve a given software. The fact that you can fork a code base is something that we tolerate...

Try something other than Ubuntu (Linux Mint w/ Cinnamon is what I use).

Ubuntu (and Gnome) have taken some steps in a direction that very many find unappealing.

Reading 50 Shades of Grey after maybe a decade of not reading books has not left me impressed at the progress of literature.

Try other desktops, Unity is almost universally recognized as pretty awful. Maybe try Linux Mint or Kubuntu.

This would be a good point if Ubuntu wasn't approx 60%+ of Linux desktops. [0]

Sure, not all those are desktops or running the stock experience but I expect most are.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...

Wow, 60%. That 40% that runs on everything else really pales in comparison.

Unity isn't even the most popular DE today, and not the best one either. So judging the whole Linux desktop by Unity's shortcomings isn't fair.

I think in an ideal world you're right.

Unfortunately what most experience is the important thing. I constantly hear ppl praising how much better a 1000USD iPhone is than a 150 android phone that the manufacturer has barely finished the firmware on.

It's frustrating but they do have a point.

> Unfortunately what most experience is the important thing. I constantly hear ppl praising how much better a 1000USD iPhone is than a 150 android phone that the manufacturer has barely finished the firmware on.

Now that you mention it, I wonder if this has the same root cause too, manufacturers/distros trying to differentiate themselves. In both cases they spend a lot of extra money to make "their OS" worse.

I don't think Unity is what most experience. As I said, it's not the most popular DE today. Different polls suggest it's KDE.

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