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Comment by bni | Hacker News Reader

What is needed is a "dictator", like Linus is for the Kernel, or Apple is for macOS, Google (to a lesser degree, but still) for Android.

This need to be someone that truly cares about a desktop experience, and backwards compability, like Linus cares for the ABI for Linux.

The only people doing anything remotely like this is Elementary, but it is very far from reaching any kind of critical mass. Also that its perceived as macOS clone hurts it.

I think if this ever happens it will be a company doing this, and it won't contain any kind of Qt, GTK, GNOME, KDE. Perhaps one of the big ones that currently lack a desktop platform. Lets hope is is free software.

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Wasn't Mark Shuttleworth fulfilling this role for Ubuntu as the Benevolent Dictator For Life?

Ubuntu made great strides towards mainstream usability on the Linux desktop.

I think the GNOME project has a strong focus on design, with its Human Interface Guidelines going back many years.

Like Red-Hat before it, Canonical has given up the idea that GNU/Linux desktops would ever be profitable and like everyone else turned into the server and IoT space.

Fair point.

I think the market doesn't have room for another desktop OS beyond niche uses.

As in, why would a mainstream user go with Linux over MacOS or Windows?

Same deal with Android and iOS. Insufficient room or need for #3.

Also, apps/software. Devs don't want to support 3 OSs. Users don't want to switch to an OS missing software.

If Microsoft couldn't do it with Windows phone, I don't see why anyone else could.

(Although, I just recalled, Chromebooks exist, found a niche (education, grandparents) and found a monetization method (vampiring on user's privacy.))

Makes me wonder if Ubuntu could do a ChromeOS-like strategy. But without the data-sucking.

> As in, why would a mainstream user go with Linux over MacOS or Windows?

How are you defining "mainstream"? Because in the context of the Linux Desktop, my experience is that people always define it to mean "someone who is exactly uninterested or stupid enough to win me this argument". Resist the urge to target some nebulous "mainstream" user because you'll just end up with another internet kiosk.

What should be being targeted are the kinds of people who use desktop computers for work and hobbies and actually like computers. Some will claim that that's what Linux Desktop does, but the evidence says otherwise. If you aren't a webdev or OSS zealot, chances are you aren't using Linux Desktop. Personal computing is a hobby I grew up with since the 80s and I don't use the Linux Desktop. There are people who've been in personal computing since before that who are outspoken critics of the Linux Desktop.

I think I get what you're saying.

Wouldn't a computer enthusiast be happy and comfortable with desktop Linux though? It's still hackable as you like and you can install a more.... I mean a less simplified desktop environment.

(I assume by "targeting the mainstream" you mean simplification of the UI, mostly)

I don't like any OS that oversimplifies, such as by removing advanced options (why not put them on another screen?) But I am a strong supporter of proper usability, including in Linux - just that things should be intuitive and simple at first glance, and aesthetically pleasing. As in I don't want the Linux UIs of ~2000 to return.

I think you're confusing "simple" and "easy".

I'm a personal computing enthusiast and have been ever since I was hacking away on an old (even at the time) IBM XT in my bedroom as a school kid. I can use Linux Desktop just fine, I manage Linux servers as part of my day job, hell, I was once president of a LUG. Frankly I think the Linux Desktop is even worse for people like me than it is for the "mainstream" user, because the way Linux is duct-taped together from disparately developed components makes it difficult to reason about how it works, and modifying it in any meaningful way can often mean hours buried in documentation that may or may not be up to date (or correct, or even applying to your distro), or possibly even writing some C.

I could go on for hours about how Linux Desktop's "design" philosophy is in direct opposition to simplicity. It isn't about removing advanced options, or making things aesthetically pleasing, it's about having a system that functions in obvious ways, with few surprises and as little magic as possible, where the abstractions are shallow and consistent. Linux Desktop, though, is a hodgepodge at best and at worst a paper-thin wrapper attempting to hide a Rube Goldberg machine made of garbage.

Interesting take.

I agree about consistency and intuitiveness.

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