Comments on: Cargo Cult Usability

By: ilaiho

ilaiho — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 05:51:30 +0000

@Declination:

It is about keeping window behaviour consistent and giving users ability to customize the using experience by replaceable window managers. I, for example, use Ion3(1) and I *don’t* want strangely shaped windows or any other such crap to ruin my using experience.

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_(window_manager)

Fortunately, those idiotic Oomboomboo fanboys and ”developers” haven’t been able to turn X11 completely into a cheapish Windows/OS X look-alike. Yet.

By: Joe Hallenbeck

Joe Hallenbeck — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:42:40 +0000

Most of them use Linux because they want to be “free” and/or because it makes them think they’re smarter than anyone else.

In truth, they’re not that many. It’s just that they make an awful lot of noise. The bastards.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:02:07 +0000

If I’m using an old computer, putting Linux on it won’t make a difference because the computer would still be unable to do many of the required tasks due to sheer lack of resources anyways. In fact, it’ll do less because of worse software and hardware support.

On the other hand, if I buy a new computer that is powerful enough, using Linux would make no meaningful positive effect in performance because the new computer has more than enough resources compared to what the operating system needs. In fact putting Linux on it would again cripple the computer in numerous ways.

I recently installed EeeBuntu 3.0 on my netbook. It lost 1½ hours of usable battery time and became slower and the user interface is buggy with notifications doing weird things. That’s not what I call improvement.

I’m still baffled to why people use Linux other than for the curiosity.

By: Jon Monreal

Jon Monreal — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:41:10 +0000

I would say that “the Frankenstein monster” is not Linux’s downfall, at least looking a the server space. There’s a reason Linux is so popular as a server; look at the competition and how heavily integrated components that might not be the best of breed/cause security concerns/are superfluous for the application are sometimes impossible to remove from the base installation. There’s a reason Microsoft is exploring more modularity with projects like MinWin. Til’s comment about how Ubuntu might concentrate more and more on the server and corporate space is an interesting one, and I think we will see more of this in the future.

The real problem is when things come down to getting “the Frankenstein monster” to play nice with hardware that might only have closed-source drivers and not requiring users to use the command line. And since there is such a lack of standards (and I’m not even talking about package managers, but instead things like version numbers, UI elements looking right across different window managers, etc), things can go wrong pretty quickly if things don’t come together correctly in a horrible cascade failure that has the potential to leave the user wondering what s/he did wrong. And things going wrong can send people back to Windows or OS X pretty quickly.

I think that another problem here is that people underestimate UI. This is desktop Linux, and I think UX is right up there with hardware compatibility and software availability. If it isn’t easy to use and transition to and doesn’t look good, people aren’t going to use it.

That said, I don’t see this GUI change in particular as that big of a deal. If things go really badly, we’ll probably see a switch back. If not, the new location of the buttons is convenient being next to the file menu and main menu. The only thing that really bothers me are how close to OS X the new icons for NetworkManager and battery on the Indicator Applet are. I think something truly original could be done with some of these UI elements.

By: Joe Hallenbeck

Joe Hallenbeck — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:24:40 +0000

Judging by the results, the Frankenstein monster is proving to be Linux biggest downfall. Beating Apple and MS? That’s pure delusion.

By: Joe Burmeister

Joe Burmeister — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:01:24 +0000

What ever dude. The nature of free software is that it’s a ecosystem of interchangeable parts. It runs on a ecosystem of interchangeable hardware. It’s Frankenstein’s monster all the way down by it’s very nature. This is it’s greatest strength. The OS UI taken as a whole reflects this. If a simple changes makes the UI better, most programmers will do it, if there isn’t something more important pressing. Most humans fundamentally like to help others. However, for revolution, few will do it without help (patches) or reward (money). If Ubuntu spent as much money as Apple or MS, they could have a consistent OS UI, but they don’t have as much money, they are using the free ecosystem which is matching or beating Apple and MS on many fronts. Yet Ubuntu really isn’t that hard to use and you can still swap out what you like. I use it quite happy on hardware that other modern OSs would be unusable on.

By: Til

Til — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:57:19 +0000

“MS comes out with a new OS that needed a lot more punch just to run. That is why I, and many others tried out Linux and it is the reason that I have stayed with it. ”

Every Linux desktop that I’ve tried runs like an absolute dog. Graphical performance under Linux is just terrible, period.

Now, if you mean that the X server and a bunch of xterms require little memory nowadays, then we agree.

By: Til

Til — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:39:54 +0000

Honestly, I don’t think Mr. Shuttleworth is so stupid as to believe that Linux or Ubuntu can ever become a decent desktop operating system. I think he’s only saying that because he is supposed to, while slowly and silently concentrating on the enterprise and on the server space more and more.

By: Mahmud

Mahmud — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:51:41 +0000

@Kommenter:

Everything you just said in no way changes the fact the theming is one of Canonical’s way to experiment with Ubuntu.

Give it a break. Canonical creating new themes like that means they like to experiment but they don’t lock users in their experiment, *unlike* Apple.

I admit I’m not a very big fan of the colours either, but having the option to change it, I don’t mind. Their decision may deserve official criticisms or a blog post or two, but not these kinds of relentless vitriol.

By: Kommenter

Kommenter — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:04:35 +0000

@Mahmud
Everything you just said in no way changes the fact that the theme is horrible in both usability and appearance.
It doesn’t matter that you can change it, you shouldn’t have to.
Even more so considering how big a feature the theme is for the ubuntu developers (still waiting for some semblance of stability guys).
It takes a few seconds for someone to go to gnome-look, download the best theme, and change the colors to brown.
Just how much does it say about canonical if the best they can do is an half assed mac clone with a horrible palette choice?
Oh and before you claim I’m just ranting (when it’s about windows/mac it’s criticism, about linux it’s ranting huh?), I’ll provide a very simple solution to canocial:

1 – Stop thinking you know better than your customers.
2 – Purple and Brown don’t mix.
3 – Put the window buttons in the right order (the close button should be at the edge, interface design 101)
4 – Any jackass on gnome-look can do a better job than you on a theme apparently, hire him.
5 – Stop trying to copy Apple, find your own style.