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Comment by jonpalmisc | Hacker News Reader

At the risk of sounding too negative/critical, I honestly just don’t like the design language here.

Everything seems overly rounded, and more importantly, the screenshots even show very weird/inconsistent alignment and padding in the UI.

Why is it that so many Linux GUIs — between apps and desktop environments — suffer from a lack of attention to detail?

Once again, it’s early, I’m sure they are aware of some of these issues, but I can’t say I’m excited for this based on what I just saw.

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It's early enough that I'm giving the benefit of the doubt on the spacing issues. They're obvious enough that I would hope System76 (who seem to care about design in most respects) are aware and will get it eventually.

I think it's because designing good user interfaces is hard and very time consuming (at least for me it certainly is). And generally Linux users are more contempt to put up with inconsistencies and annoyances because many probably don't care and leave most things in a default state, or customize stuff to their heart's desire.

I'm not saying this is exclusive to Linux distros, I sometimes find the UI in Windows 10 to be confusing, having to jump between the settings and control panel application to find some niche option. It's apparent that parts of that UI were made 20 years ago while others are made with modern toolkits.

I hope that System 76, being more consumer oriented than other companies that mainly develop for Linux, listens to feedback from a wide range of users and manages to develop an ecosystem to be the "MacOS of Linux workstations" in the sense that everything is polished and working out of the box and everyone from regular home users to advanced professionals and enthusiasts can pick up and use without major inconveniences.

> I'm not saying this is exclusive to Linux distros, I sometimes find the UI in Windows 10 to be confusing, having to jump between the settings and control panel application to find some niche option. It's apparent that parts of that UI were made 20 years ago while others are made with modern toolkits.

They're rewriting all of that but it's a pain in the neck to do it.

My guess is that they'll finish in 10 years :-))

If you want compatibility worries, check their Windows Terminal blog.

Or Raymond Chen's blog for some real compatibility howlers.

> Why is it that so many Linux GUIs — between apps and desktop environments — suffer from a lack of attention to detail?

The software you're looking at hasn't been released yet— at all. Not even an alpha. There are literally no tags on the libcosmic git repo.

You mention that it's early, but I'm not sure you appreciate how early.

  > Why is it that so many Linux GUIs — between apps and desktop environments — suffer from a lack of attention to detail?

Because nobody who notices files issues. Open source projects do not have the UI teams of Apple and MS. Please, find the bugtracker and file the issues that you've noticed. Thank you!

It's still very early and there's no way that the people making this can't see the alignment and spacing problems. I would assume they will get to it when they can.

The other stuff (like rounding everything) is a deliberate choice.

Rounded is good so it doesn't poke you in the eyes. There's some strange choices of ligatures in their UI font, though. Or just poor kerning.

https://blog.edfloreshz.dev/images/articles/linux/system76/r...

I'm not sure why this desktop UI looks like an iPad either.

There is no evidence that round vs square makes any difference in perception of a UI, it's purely a preference.

Fortunately it's not a gnome project, so there's a good chance you will be able to just change the theme to something you prefer.

It's open source. You sound like 1) you're knowledgable about what makes "good UX" and 2) you care enough to post about it.

Instead of complaining, why not contribute to making it better?

It’s this pervasive mentality that continues to hold the open source community back, even still in 2022.

How is that the case? Open source software only thrives when there is a community around it that is dedicated to making it better. Many people seem to think that only programmers can do this, but there's always a need for designers and documentation writers to step in and help as well. Admittedly, some programmers have trouble accepting advice and criticism from non-programmers contributors, but I do believe this has been getting better over time.

What is the alternative, if not for people who notice problems and care about them to step in and contribute?

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