From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux
blog.myli.pageIn uni, I ran Ubuntu 7.04 for a summer on a Thinkpad R21. Similar to the author, I was obsessed in customizing in and making it look like OS X but without any direct experience with using a Mac. I even had a ding sound for completed downloads in Transmission-GTK and some form of grass wallpaper (but not the REAL grass wallpaper).
I then had the realization that what I really wanted was a Mac. I was fortunate enough for my family to purchase me one which, with an AppleCare exchange for a unibody model, lasted me a whopping 11 years (Tiger to Mojave). I also still have that iPod nano from the back-to-school promo they used to have.
Heh, I did the opposite - I did my best to copy OS X, until eventually I realized that what I really wanted was just GNU/Linux (ish), at which point I mostly stopped the theming and used the system for itself. And having since used real macOS for work... it does some nice things (the command key, mostly) but I'd take Debian over Darwin any day. To each their own:)
Fun read. Is mind blowing that I haven't had a Windows machine in over 2 decades at this point. I have had some MacBooks, but mainly because that is what companies would buy for me.
My personal machines have been Ubuntu or derivative for a long time now. To the point that I don't even know what I'm missing in alternatives, anymore. Used to be it was games, Steam has been a blessing there.
^ my exact history too.
I've had a couple dual boot windows and I couldn't even figure out how to code on it effectively. (web dev js stuff)
To this day I don't understand if I am meant to have git bash, command prompt or powershell, or all of them or what.
Mac's are reliable, but I personally find them clunky for standard development.
Ubuntu is my safe place, the UX/DX makes the most sense to me.
Just OOC, do you currently run a stock Ubuntu distro or a derivative? (and if so, may I ask which one?)
I bought a System76 machine a while back. So, their distro has been fine by me.
I wonder if there is a market for something that runs after first install, or via the Settings app, that "makes my install look like X", for X in (Win2k, MacOS, Win10) say.
The point being that this very short list of options is extremely thoroughly-worked-out, which is a level simply not available today in a stock Ubuntu distro and its themes. I can choose elementary, or Mint, bitbthat is essentially an OS distro level decision. I can download some themes, but its not interchangeable at will, and the depth of implementation of gnome or kde themes is very shallow.
I expect that to truly do this would require not just graphical styling but also switching lots of packages around (eg a file manager). Maybe the path there looks like a giant Nix config to capture all the dependencies?
I think this would be extremely useful in increasing Linux desktop adoption. There's an enormous number of Windows users who hate Microsoft's changes to the Windows GUI and wish they could still run XP or 7. There's also a need to make sure it is stable enough that users never have to resort to the command line and that it runs "non-free" software out of the box, especially software originally developed for Windows. The latter, of course, is a necessary compromise to get people who aren't FOSS purists to use the operating system. I think the focus should be on Windows rather than Mac because Mac users generally like Mac.
Linux adoption, in my view, is held back by the existing community's lack of desire to deliver what the average user wants. Things are obviously better on that front than they used to be but Ubuntu is still quite bad at doing what non-technical users want from a computer. Most Linux users seem perfectly fine with that.
To paraphrase Abe: Linux is an ecosystem of the community by the community for the community.
And I agree with you, the community (most of it) couldn't give a rat's arse what Joe Average wants. Heaven forbid you ask one of them how to do something that goes off of the One Linux Way(tm).
There is no One Linux Way: that's why there's so many different DEs and other various competing projects.
GNOME itself is an attempt to give Joe Average what he wants: the whole idea of modern GNOME is to take a tablet-oriented UI and put it on a desktop computer.
The problem is that the people behind projects like GNOME think they're the next Henry Ford, who famously said that what people really wanted was a faster horse, and instead made what he wanted people to have (i.e., motor cars that are in any color you like, as long as you like black).
> There's an enormous number of Windows users who hate Microsoft's changes to the Windows GUI and wish they could still run XP or 7.
The Windows 7 UI has aged pretty well too, even if the glossy visuals have become somewhat outdated (though personally I think they look better than modern flat stuff). I rigged up an old laptop of mine with 7 not too long ago and plugged into a modern monitor and it was striking how nice it was compared to 11.
High-fidelity 1-click reproductions of XP/7 for Linux would be very popular, I think. Bonus points if they can use the hundreds (thousands?) of XP and 7 msstyle themes on sites like DeviantArt.
I think the "Aero" UI in Windows Vista was the high point for Windows UI. The OS ran poorly and its fundamentals (like all Windows versions) was junk, but the UI looked really nice. This modern flat stuff is crap.
Aero was still used in Windows 7, with some additional nice features. But I agree, it was the high point of Windows for me - jump lists, Aero Peek, window snapping. It was all transformative.
Then they threw the baby out with the bath water in Windows 8.
I never really used Vista, only 7, but it seemed like 7's UI look was watered down compared to Vista: Vista looked prettier to me from what I saw of it.
It all depends when you started using computers. To me, Win95 was the high point for Windows UI.
I started in the mid-90s, and though I didn’t use 95 much I did use 98SE (which is aesthetically very similar to 95) and 2000 plenty.
For releases with the classic Windows look, I think 2000 is best. It makes a few refinements to the theme that at least to me make it more pleasant to use than 95/98.
I started well before Win95. I can still see that Aero was MS's peak UI, even though I never seriously used the OS myself (my workplaces all seemed to skip Vista).
I think this would be a great feature, though faithfully reproducing a Mac desktop will likely be difficult, between making Command/Meta-based key shortcuts consistent through the system and making sure the global menubar actually gets populated.
The latter of those is actually the more difficult of the two. Last I knew the GTK plugin that provides application menus through dbus was broken, and many GTK apps don't have a menubar anyway (anything that doesn't fit into a hamburger menu gets binned). Qt apps are better here but there's some bug under Wayland that prevents menus from being pulled from those.
There really ought to be an XDG standard for UI toolkits to provide their menubars to system bars, HUDs, accessibility utilities, etc with.
Not for me, but the closest you can get is Zorin OS Pro, https://zorin.com/os/pro/
I really appreciate hearing the story that weaves all these computing choices together! Somehow that human element contains more actionable information than a dense data sheet, and I now I know I'll give Gnome and some of the apps mentioned a try!
Perhaps I'll try it in a VM on a M1 MacBook Pro, with Nix, to really have fun! I think personal computer software can be improved a lot with lessons from the Infrastructure as Code world, notably the ability to create reproducible, version controlled computing environments!
I roughly follow the same path Windows - Linux - macOS - Linux. But nowadays my Linux was mainly using VSCode as a frontend via a MacBook.
However, I spent significant amounts of time using Arch Linux. Compared to stable released Ubuntu etc., I like opportunity to jump on bugs in open source packages and fix them, they have taught me a lot. Using open source software but not its bleeding edge version is a missing opportunity I would say.
I've run Ubuntu on my home computer since I was about 16. Now I'm 40. It has been great. Some frustrations. But a good experience. I'm surprised that more people don't take the leap and run Ubuntu.
I thought this was an interesting point.
GNOME looks like macOS as KDE looks like Windows
KDE is the only desktop environment that I've used on Linux that successfully lets me mimic macOS, not in style, but in the top menu bar and app menu placement, the dock, window decorations/button placement, hot corners etc. The overview feature is also very macOS-esque.
I'm not using a macOS theme, but all of the buttons are in the same places and it works great with my macOS muscle memory. Same thing with key shortcuts, KDE has a customizable shortcut system for practically anything you'd want to do.
I tried doing the same in GNOME and it seems that they want you doing things the GNOME way, which is just different enough to be an annoying experience, personally.
GNOME resembles macOS in that it's not yet another Win9X-like desktop, but that's about where it ends. Its closest commercial cousin is probably iPadOS, even though that's not what the GNOME devs were trying for. While it's obviously not as limiting as iPadOS is, much of the UI and interactions are strikingly similar, as is the overall ethos.
Where macOS has always been about progressive disclosure with tons of little power user affordances hidden in plain sight, GNOME is more about paring everything down to the bare essentials in a polished way.
That's actually a fairly common discription of both DEs.
While it's been a couple years since I last used a Mac and I thankfully haven't had to use Windows 11 (only 10, sparsely), I've used all four platforms within the past 3/4-ish years and I'd say it's a pretty accurate blanket statement.
KDE is really intuitive to use as a previous windows-user, and gnome... well certainly feels like they're _trying_ to be MacOS, not sure how familiar it'd actually feel to a recent MacOS convert though.
It's definitely true with KDE Plasma. If you squint at a KDE Plasma desktop, you see a Windows Start menu and System Tray.
The similarity is more vague with GNOME (3) and Mac OS, IMO.
I've tried desktop Linux every few years for many years and the result is always the same - the user experience is inconsistent and flaky. It has surely got better but there is always the feeling that it is a "Frankenstein GUI".
Windows is guilty of this too - what a mess of different user interface styles and a patchwork of stuff being stitched together.
MacOS by comparison is a beautifully consistent GUI well thought out and logical and things just work.
Every time I go back to Windows I am reminded of how broken the whole experience is - multitasking is not smooth, tasks don't end when asked, the system won't shut down, applications freeze.
And if you think I['m just an Apple fanboy, I'm not - I spent many many years as a hard core Windows fanboy and I love Linux and use it as a server OS daily.
The thing is - making a consistent, easy to use well thought out operating system experience is a gargantuan task and it must take gargantuan time money and effort to do it well.
>The thing is - making a consistent, easy to use well thought out operating system experience is a gargantuan task and it must take gargantuan time money and effort to do it well.
Not really: Apple did it long before they were as large and rich as they are now. The key is forcing limitations on everyone, including independent software vendors, and mostly ignoring backwards compatibility. Apple has always controlled their environments to a large extent, and used that to push their vision of how a UI should work. And having a highly centralized company with a dictatorial and perfectionist CEO contributed to this. MS, by contrast, seems to have long been a company that more closely resembled an organized crime syndicate, with different factions constantly fighting or backstabbing each other, and the central leadership not strong enough (or perhaps not caring enough) to enforce a single vision unless it was about monopolizing the market and putting competitors out of business.
>mostly ignoring backwards compatibility
>MS, by contrast, seems to have long been a company that more closely resembled an organized crime syndicate
I think we all need to give more credit to Microsoft for being the only one who cares about backwards compatibility, and to an insane extent at that.
We take for granted the sheer convenience of running something written 30+ years ago today almost seamlessly.
From what I've read, you can't actually run a 30-year-old Windows program natively on Windows today: when you do, it actually runs in "WOW" (Windows On Windows), which is basically an emulator built into Windows to handle old programs. It's not really much different than running that same program on Linux with WINE, which many people claim works even better than running it on modern Windows.
WoW64 is practically native because Windows keeps 32-bit copies of all system libraries for 32-bit binaries to refer to. There is a very minor performance hit when Windows thunks calls to SysWOW64 behind the curtains, but it's impossible to notice.
You can see it for yourself, the 32-bit libraries are stored at C:\Windows\SysWOW64; the 64-bit libraries are stored at C:\Windows\System32.
Yes, the naming dissonance is not missed. The glory of backwards compatibility. :V
You're probably using WoW64 right now and not realized it because it's so seamless; there are still plenty of new/current 32-bit programs including Steam and many games.
As for running a 30 year old program, it's not exactly 30 years old (yet!) but I run stuff like Winamp and Paint Shop Pro 5 daily without fuss to this day in Windows 11 thanks to Microsoft's devotion to backwards compatibility.
The older WoW which was based around NTVDM (NT Virtual DOS Machine) for running 16-bit programs on 32-bit Windows was actual emulation, as evidenced by the name.
>You're probably using WoW64 right now and not realized it because it's so seamless
That's very unlikely, since I'm typing this on a Debian system.
:V
>multitasking is not smooth, tasks don't end when asked, the system won't shut down, applications freeze.
I think you just need to stop crappifying your Windows installs.
A lot of what you said did happen in the days of Windows 9x, but all the Windows NT releases including Windows 11 have been rock solid.
I’d like to see someone copy macOS accessibility features on Linux, then I might come around to using it again.