1. Common tasks. These should be simple because you do them a lot. Browsing the file system, launching applications, using a password manager, sharing data over networks, and making backups - these are all tasks that should be common and should be simple for anyone to do.
2. Important tasks. These should be simple because they are necessary, even if they're not common. Installing software, connecting to new networks, adjusting displays, enabling full-disk encryption, running system updates - these should be simple so that anyone can do them when needed, with as little difficulty or friction as possible. (Admin privileges may come in to play for some of these, of course.)
If any of these tasks are not simple, there are a lot of users who simply won't do them. And that's bad for all of us.
> designing so that complexity is only exposed if you really need it.
Yeah this is the right way to do things. But again, often stuff is just ripped out rather than sensibly managed. Another example: most of the useful WiFi settings in Linux are not accessible in Gnome by default. You have to install the third party `nm-connection-editor` tool. Why? All that stuff should be accessible from Settings.
I haven’t used a Mac with a mouse in ages. I feel the trackpad interface is so much better (and consistent between laptop and desktop) that I think a move away from mice is a deliberate choice by Apple.
> Now I use a vertical mouse (by Logitech).
Ugh I tried that when I had RSI. Absolutely awful. The fundamental flaw is that you click sideways which always moves the pointer a little unless you strain to avoid it, which kind of defeats the point.
Get a better chair and desk. That solved the RSI for me - no weird ergonomic input devices made any difference.
You're wrong regarding mice being always superior. Mice have their place, and I am not the only person who has benefited from vertical mice (there is a learning curve, btw). Mice have a severe drawback: they need more physical, flat, clean space than the other pointer solutions. Try a mouse with a cyberdeck and tell me how that worked out. I've done pentesting tasks with a small laptop the size of two mice. I would not be able to do that outside on the go with a mouse. I also had situations where back in the days I had no space for a mouse, so I used my trackpoint.
Though probably not counting the DEs as an important part of the system (and maybe they have other DEs or WMs in the repositories), one may argue that the non-GNU userland is simpler in a sense. But then again, it is presented here as a simplified desktop, while GNOME-based and KDE-based systems are on the images it provides. And it lists GNOME as its primary DE [1].
This seems to be the main argument of the article. Along with some stuff about systemD.
> In service of that goal, the project is based on BSD tools. Chimera's frequently asked questions page explains that unlike other projects that use those tools for licensing reasons, project picked BSD tools for their smaller code size and reduced complexity.
> But then again, it is presented here as a simplified desktop, while GNOME-based and KDE-based systems are on the images it provides.
Yeah, when I read the title here, I thought it would be about a simplified desktop environment. But they seem to just be using the standard stuff. So, I don’t think this is what they meant to say.
Simple does not have to mean basic.
Take Systemd for example. Chimera Linux was to implement the same functionality and be full featured. It wants to do this with a simpler, more modular, more understandable, and more maintainable design.
So you're saying they should be simple?
>unless you are a very simple person who always only does very simple things and lead a uniquely simple life
Considering the massive popularity of MacOS and iOS which all mandate the same reliable and predictable user experience on every Apple device, most people are "very simple" persons who "do very simple things and lead a uniquely simple life".
The power user paradigm of old that expose all the knobs and dials and levers there are to pleasure us simply does not appeal to the commons.
And typing 5 letters is clearly not infinitely harder than right-click and rummaging through 20 item menu to find the right action. The difference is actually infinitesimally small.
Key property of these was that they had command line, so you could easily navigate and execute arbitrary commands on what you see, by typing them in.
The major reason people don't use command line interface on windows or smartphones and other appliances, is because it does not have anything remotely comparable pre-installed, so they're forced to use the inferior interface.
> The major reason people don't use command line interface on windows or smartphones and other appliances, is because it does not have anything remotely comparable pre-installed, so they're forced to use the inferior interface.
If you say so, but you'll have to forgive me if I don't hold my breath waiting for the CLI-smartphone revolution.
I feel that I wasted years of my life changing UI themes and colors since Windows 3 and MacOS 7, and, frankly, I have never felt tempted to do anything like that since Gnome Desktop. On the more vanilla Gnomes I don’t even change the wallpaper.
If anything, their biggest criticism is that they're not capable enough for many productivity workflows.
Desktop environments and user workflows are insanely personal things, not unlike clothing, diet, and music preferences but for some reason many in the tech sphere refuse to acknowledge this and try to position their preferred environment as objectively more correct/superior/etc. It’s really tiring.