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Comment by robin_reala | Hacker News Reader

I’m typing this on an Macbook in a house with just Macs and iDevices after getting back from work where everyone uses Macs, but honestly what’s wrong with just going down the Linux road? It’s politically better, hardware is as good as you want to buy and there’s no app store vetting (unless you install Steam).

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There may be no app store vetting but is their developer fascism? (No offence meant). I only ask because I have seen the decline (in my opinion) of the desktop from GNOME2 to GNOME3 as they bin the traditional and usable desktop paradigm in favour of writing a WM for my mum to use, where desktop interaction is designed around "joy" and making window management "fun and refreshing" instead of flexible. Anything outside of this paradigm and simplification appears to be vehemently rejected (perhaps the CADT development model?), so isn't it just the same?

(Of course, I may be subject to downvotes for this, but it is just an observation and not meant as a "flame"; from a developer perspective, aren't we just subject to the same bunch of rules but from different overlords?)

And BTW, I was a happy Linux app developer until last week when I retired my crusty old VM, and have been using Linux since RedHat Apollo, so it's not a whimsical motion. I love Linux for my servers, just not desktop anymore.

Sure, GNOME may have changed direction. The difference in Linux is (as you're probably aware) there are many, many usable alternatives. If Microsoft or Apple introduced some bad behaviour to their desktop environment, you'd be looking at changing your whole OS (and even hardware?) to find something new; not just `apt-get install kde`.

Ah yes very true.

For the major projects that 80% of Linux users actually use though, there are strict guidelines. A regular viewing of planet.gnome.org shows the sweeping interface changes taking shape. And that's not to mention the underlying Linux dependencies that GNOME seems to be embracing due to Lennart Poettering's time at the helm. Arguments against sweeping changes appear to be trampled on, from what I can see? Unless I am misunderstanding it a bit?

Of course, WindowMaker probably doesn't have the same problem!

Agreed, I actually don't have anything against Linux other than the phobia and FUD of one who has never used it. It's on my todo list of weekend projects.

I've been doing debian on server for years.

I decided to go ubuntu 14.whatever on a laptop that had XP on it (Acer One) and keep it as-is, as a new user.

I was pleasantly surprised. install was smooth, all hardware works, and I just installed firefox, and it all works (99% of flash works).

I use it for gmail, facebook, twitter, ello, surfing, etc. The machine is underpowered for full-motion video, but oh well, it was $349 6 years ago.

I use terminal to ssh into remote servers, and I've done no configuration at all on the machine. it works fine.

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