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Comment by pingsl | Hacker News Reader

I use Windows/MacOS/Linux(Ubuntu) on a regular base.

As a ordinary end user, I feel

1. Windows software are usually good at product function design.

2. Mac has a better enforcement on overall UX. The visual across different software (from different vendors) are much consistent.

3. Linux desktop is unfortunately still missing above 2 points.

Some Linux distro provides really good visual, but it only applies to its built–in programs. If you'd like to switch to the external programs, the system visual might be fragmented.

I really hope in this new wave people could make some consensus on the visual of Linux desktop.

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> make some consensus on the visual

That's really too bad, IMO Linux and FOSS desktops really shine in the subjective-fit zone, not this consensus area.

Once you start having to please..._waves hand at group of people_...first the fun goes out the window, and then you're playing to an entrenched userbase who are bringing most of their expectations from their subjective past experiences anyway.

Personally when I started using desktop Linux purely for me, and not "as someone who speaks for a professional userbase" I was able to finally appreciate it and become more of the OS-native power-user that my Windows & Mac experiences wouldn't let me be when I tried to force them along on the ride.

The problem with your line of reasoning is that Linux is not an OS. It's a broad ecosystem of components that get assembled into distributions. I have used the word ecosystem deliberately, because it's very similar to any of its biological counterparts.

Things evolve in a pretty organic way. The advantage of this is the lack of a central authority and much more resilience. It's a bit like the Internet. But obviously, there's some room for improvement in terms of user experience.

Ideally, I think this should happen through some loose standards and RFCs, pretty much like it occurred for the Internet.

With that said, the overall user experience is very good if you stick to a pure GNOME desktop. KDE and Xfce are also pretty good. Personally, I prefer running just X and three applications (Firefox, Emacs and XTerm). This way simpler, and there's almost no common UX at all. Just three very different platforms with very well known conventions (hypertext, Emacs applications and text, respectively).

> the overall user experience is very good if you stick to a pure GNOME desktop. KDE and Xfce are also pretty good.

Yes, exactly users have to stick to one single environment. But when you want to use Gtk application on KDE, then ...

> Some Linux distro provides really good visual, but it only applies to its built–in programs. If you'd like to switch to the external programs, the system visual might be fragmented.

I've noticed that this has improved considerably when using KDE; on both Slackware and openSUSE, KDE and non-KDE applications both seem to look and work equivalently great. There are of course some applications I use that don't match the overall system's look and feel (Steam, Ardour, and SolveSpace all come to mind), but they're squarely in the minority at this point.

Agreed, KDE is great. I like Kubuntu and KDE Neon. A little bit frustrated when I have to use a Gtk application; it's sometimes not working well in a KDE environment.

I tried kubuntu but it felt a bit wonky with some broken stuff, etc KDE neon i never tried but looking into it heard it doesn't have a lot of users behind it and it's mostly a bleeding edge testing ground.

My best experience so far has been manjaro KDE. The defaults seem fine and work. Pacman is so nice. The AUR, snaps, flatpaks, appimages... Tick some checkboxes and they're all there. I don't feel troubled trying to find software anymore. My GTK and QT apps look fairly consistent by picking matching themes for both.

I love it so far.

> I really hope in this new wave people could make some consensus on the visual of Linux desktop.

Consensus over the whole scope of open source?? That's never going to happen.

I mean the consensus about the visual/UX style like we have on Windows or Android.

It's not that hard, I believe.

On windows and android was consensus reached between all interested parties or was consensus reached within microsoft/google?

> On windows and android was consensus reached between all interested parties or was consensus reached within microsoft/google?

This is exactly the number 1 challenge for Linux Desktops: hard to coordinate with each party, then we end up hundreds of different distros.

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