It's interesting to me how all the major next-gen UIs (GNOME Shell, OS X Lion, Windows 8) are all getting huge pushback from users.
In the absence of justification for refining the desktop UI, UI vendors have developed another excuse to change shit on people: the mistaken impression that more tablety UIs are more progressive and easier to use on the desktop. Which is false on its face, given the different ergonomic constraints between a desktop PC and a tablet.
What keeps holding me back are dumb things like video driver support, peripheral support for things I use, and general awkwardness with the whole plug/unplug state of affairs that is de rigueur in the laptop space.
Has any of this changed?
Why isn't there a top-tier platform company (or nimble upstart) out there taking the lead and making a machine that has 100% driver support under Linux?
I am holding out hope that the Piston might get us there, but I'm not holding my breath.
I haven't used it or other laptops enough to say how good it really is (but hibernate etc. works, the screen and keyboard are nice compared to other ultrabooks I tried; it's light and clean). The trackpad is annoying though but I think I'll always prefer a mouse.
How about a Chromebook? They run Linux, and pointedly don't run Windows, so you know the hardware will work under Linux.
Providing you stick to Intel (eg no Nvidia graphics) then the Thinkpad T series (and probably most others) work very well under Linux. Occasionally there are issues but Lenovo do fix them (eg BIOS updates). Of course Lenovo won't sell you one without Windows!
The only thing that hasn't been supported in my last two Thinkpads (T430s and T61) has been the fingerprint reader. More accurately it is supported in dumb mode, but not in smart mode as it is under Windows. That is largely the fault of the company that makes the reader, although they have been bought by Apple so who knows what happens next.
Battery life is good, the price is great, and the support has always been amazing.
The biggest problem IMO is the graphics. On my laptop (a Dell XPS I purchased in 2011) the OSs I installed (Fedora and Ubuntu) couldn't render anything serious. If I wanted to watch a TV-HD release, the screen would flicker; if I wanted to make a 3D plot in Mathematica, it wouldn't show; if I wanted to play a simple, lightweight game like Teeworlds, it wouldn't run. I had to use Bumblebee to get around it, but graphics still lagged.
Some of these problems are common enough that you can just google up a solution, but you shouldn't have to do that in the first place. I really like the idea of a Linux desktop, but it's just not going to happen anytime in the near future.
check: http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/h...
( after installing bumblebee and primus, please remember to add your user to 'bumblebee' and 'video' groups, before reboot)
KDE is still a messy shit but doesn't crash much any more ;). It can display a wicked Mandelbrot as background but can't auto add wallpapers in ~/Pictures. Reports about v4.10 desktop indexing being 'sane' and 'reasonable' are wholly untrue.
sound works over HDMI cable but occasionally goes quiet (relogin). flicker is an xorg feature which is not going away :( Sound is still subpar compared to maxx drivers under windows. So much for 'Open-source Desktop'
While I'm on the topic, I love the way Unity consolidates system bar, app title bar, and app menu bar. This single screen real estate saving technique is what keeps me using Unity. Every time I switch into Gnome, *box, etc., open Firefox, and see 3 bars all taking up screen real estate, I go back to Unity.
Are there any other shells/window managers/whatever that do this same bar consolidation???
For Firefox, try this extension to hide the title bar when maximized: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/htitle/
While you're at it, if you're on Gnome, try the excellent Gnome 3 theme: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/adwaita/
Unity really shines on the relatively low 1366x768 resolution and increases usability tremendously. Every vertical pixel counts, and it's surprisingly good at optimizing screen real estate. Now if they could only make it crash less... it's been abysmal in the stability department. GNOME has been pretty stable since about two releases ago.
Except now it is, driven largely by innovation in device UIs that are not desktop PCs. I think there's a real and valid question as to whether trying to unify a desktop and "tablet" UI makes sense.
That said, I will say that of the recent attempts to come up with a new UI paradigm, I like Gnome 3 the best and it's what I use daily.
I suspect I couldn't use iOS in its current iteration, but a Google Chrome Pixel Book thing with android is pretty close to perfect for me.
Now that's a great idea. If you think about it, current file systems are OLD. No transactions (I'm aware of the exceptions, but even those filesystems capable of transactions don't always expose that to the user), we rely on the file name to determine its type, no-or-severely-restricted access to metadata, possible infinite link loops.... I'm sure that the filesystems are implemented excellently, but I really hope we rethink the way we store data. I would much prefer a "flat" filesystem jailed by app and organizable by labels. Or whatever.
It must be said, however, Cinnamon is really nice.