06.01
So, the buttons again. It’s been a few months since this change was made and, inevitably, you’ve got the Ubuntu fanboys saying ‘I actually prefer it this way around now’. So I thought I’d throw this fact out there:
The Left Hand Side (LHS) button position is worse. This is not an opinion, this is cast iron, concrete, fact. “But it’s easier for me” is not a valid statement in this debate any more than me declaring “I prefer the Hotdog Stand theme” has any weight.
The statement “It’s easy to change it” is also void as 99.9% of users are unaware that the layout is sub-optimal, let alone realise that they are able to change it. The job as a developer is to make things out-of-the-box as easy to use as possible. The movement of the button position to the left represents a step backwards usability wise.
In truth the position of window controls don’t really matter at all. Ubuntu, as a desktop, got ever so slightly worse but I really don’t think anyone who uses is will stop, and I really doubt it’ll pick up any new converts. It’s not important. What is important though is the implications this change has. But first, here’s why it is bad.
1. The Minefield
As you can see the close button is now on the left, not the right. Now let me ask you this – have you ever walked along a painted line? It’s fairly easy as long as you’re not (too) drunk. Have you ever tried to walk across a 5″ wide beam? Drunk? Much harder, despite being exactly the same task.
What’s been introduced here is a button you really don’t want to press, surrounded by buttons you need to press often. Above, below, to the side – overshoot and you’re going to be fairly unhappy. While in theory it’s just as easy to press as it’s always been it will slow users down subconsciously (see the balance beam) as much more care and attention will be taken using any control surrounding it.
It also discriminates against those with poor motor control of poor vision. Before the destructive close button was safely off in a corner, now it’s grouped up with commonly used controls.
2. Convention
It doesn’t fit the convention people are used to, either on Linux or Windows. And here’s the kicker – it doesn’t even fit the Ubuntu convention. Top right is ‘get me out of here’ in Ubuntu – the top right button on the screen is shut down. The top right controls on windows were close. There was a pattern there. Destructive buttons away from the main buttons and at the top right. Menus on the left. No more.
The thing is this change is far from universal. Any programs not using the default Ubuntu theme is going to have close on the top right, tabbed interfaces will also commonly have it on the top right. Remote desktop or virtual machines? Top right. You can no longer rely on muscle memory. Speaking as a Mac user this does get irritating but OSX has always been this way. What Ubuntu has done is introduced inconsistencies for no reason*.
3. Visually
Lets face it – it looks unbalanced. You have this big clutter of stuff on the left side of the window – even the title is left justified. On the right you have … nothing. It just looks ‘off’. Visual balance is important. Composition is important. Things are much easier to identify and digest if they are separate from their surroundings. It’s why you have new paragraphs, it’s why you have headings, bulletpoints and those little dotted separator things on menu icons. Packing everything together fundamentally makes it harder to see and use.
4. Change for it’s own sake.
People say there is nothing wrong with change for it’s own sake – I say there is. Window controls on the right is the de-facto standard in Linux. Close buttons on the windows outer corner is the de-facto standard just about everywhere. If I built a house and installed the light switches upside down you can bet whoever bought it would be pissed. “It’s not wrong, it’s just different” and “You can fix it in 60 seconds with a screwdriver” simply wouldn’t fly. People expect things to look and act in a certain way based on what they are dealing with. Doing it a different way simply for the sake of it makes things harder for no gain – it’s a net loss no matter how you argue it.
5. Usability
As a general rule people seem to drag windows out the left side of the screen to make space as it still leaves the scrollbars exposed. The clumping of all the window controls on the left means this is no longer really possible as you can no longer close the program without dragging it back in again. On Windows you can close a window with the Right side buttons, or File->Exit on the left side file menu of the same window. On OSX although it has the buttons on the left the file menu is always at the top so you can just go File->Quit. Ubuntu, not so much.
So What’s My Point?
To understand this you have to understand the Dunning Kruger effect. Essentially nobody thinks they are stupid, incompetent or mistaken. If you hope to actually be good at anything (and improve) humility and debate are essential. Failing to recognise this will doom you to a life of being marginalized by your peers. Even now you still see the ‘Tables or Death’ web developers who refuse to move beyond 1998, convinced in their own methods and superiority. And they are convinced they are right.
Usability and UI design is a science and is no more part of programming or design than programming is a part of maths. Being an amazing mathematician will not make you qualified to make programming decisions. Being an amazing designer (or programmer) also does not qualify you to make UI decisions. Being a builder does not make you an architect. Yet it’s all too easy to marginalize what you don’t understand. The less you understand something the easier you think it is, as evidenced by the multiplication rule of quoting in programming – you make an estimate, multiply by three and give that to the client, because things are always more complicated than you think. Same goes with usability – if you don’t understand the subject you wont see why moving things about is important ‘it’s a button, you click on it’, yet it is important. Moving something 2px to the left is a big deal. Just about every developer has seen a Visual-Basic-and-Access monstrosity yet everyone involved – from the management to the users – never really see the issue with it “hey, it works”, sure, but it should never have been allowed to occur in the first place. Which is my point on Linux’ usability – we shouldn’t even be having this discussion – it should have been fixed a decade ago!
Do any of the people involved in this decision, which was made behind closed doors, which was submitted 1 day before the interface freeze, which is imposed unilaterally without discussion on the whole community, actually have any experience or credentials in UI design? Judging by the fact they did it in the first place – and have yet to provide any actual reason for it I seriously doubt it. It’s like watching someone who has just discovered the font controls in their email client – everything is now 16pt dark blue, centred and in Comic Sans. Sure they think it looks wonderful. I am almost reluctant to joke about them making the default font Comic Sans because they may just do it. And anyone who says ‘what’s wrong with Comic Sans’ simply proves my point – there is such a thing as not being qualified to make decisions about things you don’t understand.
Quite a few people were surprised by this behaviour, and especially Mark Shuttleworths condescending:
This is a difference between Ubuntu and several other community distributions. It may feel less democratic, but it’s more meritocratic, and most importantly it means (a) we should have the best people making any given decision, and (b) it’s worth investing your time to become the best person to make certain decisions, because you should have that competence recognised and rewarded with the freedom to make hard decisions and not get second-guessed all the time.
It’s been made painfully clear that the people who are making these decisions are not the best people to make them** – or this decision would never have been made. It is also clear that he thinks he shouldn’t have to put up with plebians moaning about it. As I said many people who felt like they were contributors to the one big happy Ubuntu family were taken aback when they were essentially told to shut up. And as I pointed out nobody is really going to say that they, personally, are not the best person for the job.
But this is Linux all over, and what several people are now realizing. It’s not some happy ‘everyone helps out’ commune, it’s a game of politics, infighting and power. Decisions are not being made by those that are most competent to make them, and things are not being discussed in an open and forthright manner. Decisions are instead made by those that have managed to get in to positions of power and as has been proven people only get in power based on their desire for it – it has very little to do with any actual abilities. If your talent is in UI design then the chances of you ever getting in a position where you can affect change is astronomically low – after all it’s a meritocracy and if you haven’t coded anything you have no right to demand changes to the UI.
I have tried for literally years to get involved, but the necessary discussions simply don’t happen. If Canonical (and other distro’s) actually gave a crap about usability they would pose decisions like this to the community and get feedback. If they felt there was an UI issue they would be open discussions about what it is and how to fix it. Yet we get this random change dropped on us out of nowhere. Same with Gnome Shell and virtually everything else. Developed by a small clique of people who are only willing to listen to ‘bug reports’. If you are not into playing the politics game, or don’t have a lot of time (which is just about everybody) then you are essentially forbidden from contributing – you ain’t paid your dues.
If you don’t believe me check out the official Gnome usability mailing list. This blog gets more comments than it does and the reason for this is because they don’t use it. Sure I may be mistaken but I regularly challenge people to provide where these honest and open discussions on usability are taking place and nobody has ever furnished me with a decent answer. If this was a community contributed project there would be vibrant debate and hundreds of posts a day, instead it is a doomed backwater where people occasionally discuss minor things that will never be changed.
Essentially, my point Linux, and Ubuntu especially is no more ‘Community Developed’ than Windows or OSX is – the only difference is that if you do want to sink your time into improving Windows then Microsoft will at least pay you a decent wage for your efforts.
* The whole ‘Windicator’ thing is nothing but vapourware. If you are going to move them for UI reasons do it. Doing it because you may, in the future, move them for UI reasons is stupid.
** I fail to believe that Mark Shuttleworth is the best person to be making UI decisions and that the fact that he is the billionaire owner of Ubuntu is just coincidental.
“Lets face it – it looks unbalanced.”
Well, one thing going for it is that Shuttleworth plans to put other stuff on the right side, eventually:
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/333
This even seems like it might be a good idea. If an application has its own volume control, for instance, it makes sense to attach that control to the application window, instead of disembodying it in another app that you can’t see or discover easily.
Of course, this doesn’t actually require moving all the control buttons to the left. The new indicators could just be put to the left of the normal button placement, and that’s probably exactly what they’ll do if you change the theme.
“4. Change for it’s own sake.”
This isn’t change for its own sake. This is change to look more like OS X.
“As a general rule people seem to drag windows out the left side of the screen to make space as it still leaves the scrollbars exposed.”
There should be a way to drag windows against the edge of the screen which forces them to resize in the process, so the scrollbars are *always* exposed. When you move it back into the middle of the screen, it re-expands to its original size.
Don’t expect this in Ubuntu any time soon, though. Apple has to do it first.
“There should be a way to drag windows against the edge of the screen which forces them to resize in the process”
Windows 7 does this – drag to the left it does 50% width, same with the right and drag to the top for full screen, which is fairly useful for multiple documents on a large monitor.
As far as the ‘windicators’ go, it sounds like he is just reinventing the status bar … but at the top. All the things the windicators seem to be doing is something already done by the status bar (the name says it all), only now reliant on external system API’s rather than as an integrated developer controlled item. Per app volume control is nice but Windows 7 already does this as well with it’s main volume control, presenting a control for each app in the main mixer.
Not that there is a lack of progress to be made but it looks like a one-man plaything rather than an actual serious OS.
Well, that’s precisely what it is: a toy. Linux fanboys are gonna keep using no matter what, and the rest are not going to give a shit anyway, so the whole thing is pretty irrelevant anyway.
“There should be a way to drag windows against the edge of the screen which forces them to resize in the process
Windows 7 does this – drag to the left it does 50% width, same with the right and drag to the top for full screen, which is fairly useful for multiple documents on a large monitor.”
Even freaking KDE does it.
Google is dropping the stinking mess that is windows. M$ has already been beaten out of their position as the largest tech company. Windows is dieing.
A lot of people seem to have forgotten that you can still close windows in Windows by double clicking on the app icon in the top left. It’s there to use if a window is off to the right of the screen but is basically impossible to set off accidentally.
“A lot of people seem to have forgotten that you can still close windows in Windows by double clicking on the app icon in the top left.”
Ha! I haven’t done that since 3.1 and entirely forgot.
“Windows is dieing.”
It’s ‘dying’, not ‘dieing’ and if anything the market is simply becoming slightly more balanced, which isn’t a bad thing provided you are not emotionally attached to any particular brand.
Google is dropping the stinking mess that is windows. M$ has already been beaten out of their position as the largest tech company. Windows is dieing.
And replacing them with Macs that are even more expensive. What’s your point? You’re the only one here with a Microsoft fixation.
A lot of people seem to have forgotten that you can still close windows in Windows by double clicking on the app icon in the top left.
This is the only way I usually close windows these days. I consider it a sanity check; Two clicks versus one.
Pfft! Screw buttons. As a Linux user I found this more laughable. I was looking to buy a netbook, or laptop, same thing to me but when I looked at the hardware page to see if anything was supported I was surprised.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Netbooks#Tier%201
Their “tier 1″ netbooks have…sound issues, touchpad issues, etc; and these are the ones that “mostly work”. I’ll still use Linux, I like it for programming and servers. As a desktop, not without a windows partition.
Mark/Ubuntu team does not want to make an instant Mac OS X UI clone so they decided to do it over a period of time in order to reduce criticism.
“First, lets move the window buttons to the right, then we will add universal menus, get rid of the window menu, good thing we already changed the theme to purple, we are almost there.”
Maybe this will be the next default wallpaper wallpaper
I can see the “innovation” Mark/Ubuntards were talking about. Cloning Mac is a very great innovation. Way to go lads.
@TM Repository
You should add RSS Feed support to Fud Tracker (and maybe some other bits too). Would make checking it for updates easier!
@Teddy X
The cloning of OSX is exactly what I was talking about in ‘Cargo Cult Usability’. In truth, and from using for many months, OSX is simply not as good as Windows 7 usability wise. Vista and XP, yes, Windows 7 no.
He has an opportunity to do something new, different and better than what is currently available but is instead just copying OSX and throwing some half-baked ideas onto the old rather than questioning all assumptions and making something great and (most importantly) original.
“Windows just stole from Mac!” is one of the most frequent criticisms of Microsoft. When “m$” does it, it’s theft, but when Linux does it, it’s innovation. Go figure.
But the really shocking thing about this is not even the questionable design. It’s the fact that Shuttleworth and co. call cosmetic changes innovation, and make a gigantic announcement about it. Imagine if MS released a new version of Windows and they held a press conference announcing that the biggest highlight was a new wallpaper, colour scheme and redesigned buttons?
They have to something that they can label as “new”. Otherwise, it’s just the same shit repackaged again.
I agree the left placement is inconvenient. That’s why I did a 20 second google search and changed it to the right. It even taught me that I could do more to the buttons very easily.
I honestly think these rants should have as one of the first paragraphs instructions to move the buttons back.
Here are these instructions:
Open gconf-editor (Alt+F2, type gconf-editor)
The navigate to app/metacity/general
Change button_layout to menu:minimize,maximize,close
the colon defines the left:right side of the title bar, that is, everything to the right of the colon end to right side, everything to left of the colon end to the left side.
If it bothers you that much, use another distro or move them to the right as per Jim Beam’s instructions. Long inane rants like this are useless, especially months after the decision has been made.
It’s not my job to document usability failings in Linux, only to point them out.
@dirtdigger – Why are you Linux people who are so focused on ‘freedom’ yet so keen to tell anyone who expresses dissatisfaction with Linux to shut up? If nobody ever complained about anything, how would anything ever get done? Vista was a disaster and was universally slammed by near everyone and what happened? MS upped their game and brought out Windows 7, which is great. If anyone is damaging Linux it’s you, by failing to contribute and actively trying to stop discussions of it’s failings.
Shuttleworth is an idiot, and the Ubuntu “meritocracy” is just another example of people that don’t know what the hell they are doing being made authority for OS design decisions.
As I said before Ubuntu is a garbage salad. Every subsequent release of the distribution just further proves this opinion as fact.
I have since moved to Fedora, and Windows 7 and it amazes me that in 2010 Windows is a better operating system than Ubuntu. I don’t miss Ubuntu even a little. All of my hardware works, it suspends; resumes, plays games, allows me to get work done and I don’t have to spend any time messing with kernel parameters, or hacking and compiling custom modules and packages just to get things working.
Fedora 13 is REALLY very good too, I recommend giving it a shot.
The best part is that you don’t have some moron changing the way you use your PC just because he can.
His decision to move the notification tray to the titlebar is probably the dumbest thing ever, and *I* will never write a single line of code to support it.
I’ve been hearing rumblings that FC3 is kinda decent – I may just give it a look.
Speaking as an Ubuntu Community leader, and developer, there are a few reasons for the change.
The biggest being that the right side ( where the icons used to be ) will be re-purposed. You can read more about that if you follow the development threads. This was an intentional change with a lot of debate and discussion. It was not some arbitrary move.
Of course, if you disagree with Ubuntu is running, please fork your own project, or patch it. It’s F/OSS. No sense in bitching when you can just fix it.
Also, key bindings stay consistent. Ctrl + Space, [ c | n | x ] help a lot.
“Speaking as an Ubuntu Community leader, and developer” .. “if you disagree with Ubuntu is running, please fork your own project, or patch it. It’s F/OSS. No sense in bitching when you can just fix it.”
Implying that one can just patch or otherwise fix it means that it is broken. If it’s broken, isn’t it your responsibility as a community leader, and developer to fix it?
There is your meritocracy in action, when someone proves that an Ubuntu decision is terrible rather than admitting and fixing it, lets just claim they are “bitching” and pretend all is well in the world.
“Google is dropping the stinking mess that is windows. M$ has already been beaten out of their position as the largest tech company. Windows is dieing.”
Funny, considering how they got hacked by an IE6 security hole (IE7/8 were affected, but not exploitable). The only way for this happening is them having used IE6 as actual internet browser…. Wow, “M$” really gotta suck when you get hacked by a security hole in a 9-year old browser, which they even recommend to drop and upgrade finally. ( actually I think this is rather for promotional reasons, i.e. http://blogs.computerworld.com/16229/is_googles_windows_ban_a_way_to_hype_its_chrome_os?source=rss_gralla )
Also they’re mainly moving to OSX and still not Linux. And the Linux they use is Goobuntu, a non-public distro.
I have great reservations about the windicators also. At the moment though they appear to be just a concept that is not even fully fleshed out (or thought through). It seems a bit silly to make a change for the obvious worse because something may be using that space in the future. Who is to say that the windicators do not change direction entirely, requiring yet another button move?
Anyway I just feel there simply isn’t enough discussion and involvement in the community, except for token efforts (which are largely ignored), rather the whole thing seems to be done by fiat and to be perfectly honest I doubt the credentials of those in charge. Anyway the only thing criticism will ever hurt is peoples ego’s. Again Vista was a black eye for MS and if hadn’t got as slated as it did then Windows 7 would never have been as good as it was.
I think part of the problem is that, if you ask the current Linux-using community what they want, they’ll tell you that the system as it is is fine and don’t want anything to change. The thing is, we’re not just trying to appeal to the CURRENT Linux users, we’re trying to appeal to people OUTSIDE the Linux community, people that simply wouldn’t be included in these discussions. Sometimes, someone has to say, “This takes the biscuit” and re-write the rules. Whether that applies here, with this button re-ordering, is a different matter, and I’m not uncertain Mark had a good idea of why he wanted to move the buttons but only wanted to inform people when he decided the time was right.
To demonstrate, in terms of usability and configuration, KDE 3 was a mess and scared off all but the most power-hungry tinkerers in terms of users. Ask any of the KDE users, and they would have told you that it was perfect: that it made them feel like they had the most choices and the most options, the most room to breath in. They’re the people that, after KDE 4.4, are still complaining that KDE 3 was perfect and that the KDE team shouldn’t have changed anything. However, the KDE team wanted KDE SC to be more approachable without sacrificing these features: they wanted many features to remain, and in some cases to add even more features, but to be implemented in a way that was more usable and less intimidating. KDE 4.0 didn’t do that and the developers were well-aware that it didn’t. It wasn’t until KDE 4.3 that most KDE 3.5 features that were decidedly going to stay were implemented, but now KDE SC has more users and a steadily increasing number of contributors than it did with 3.5. It wouldn’t have happened if they’d asked their users about their new direction and taken their input.
The issue is, sometimes the people using the software can’t see the problems and can’t see that something could – and indeed should – be done differently. Someone has to step in and say, “This is a serious problem”, tell people how it should be fixed and fix it. Most of the time, we can’t tell whether it is appropriate and whether it will be beneficial in the future, and very often we’re quite wrong in the outcome of these decisions, but at the same time, sometimes these decisions can be wrong in themselves. Having the foresight to recognise what choices will be better in the long run will lead to an improved system and greater appeal.
@Kerberos I didn’t say anything about “shut up” did I? You’re putting words in my mouth. All I said is that it is a bit late to be writing a three page rant when the decision for Lucid has already been made and offered two options to fix the problem.
Your assumption that I don’t contribute to the Ubuntu community is uninformed. I happily voiced my preference to Canonical through the appropriate channels when the time was appropriate and left well enough alone after applying the gconf fix.
If your rant was based on Maverick, then I’d be more than willing to agree with you, as that topic is still open for healthy discussion _for Maverick_. Canonical has made the decision for Lucid and, just as we had to wait for Windows 7 after Vista, it appears we’ll have to wait for Maverick for this to be dealt with.
You should add RSS Feed support to Fud Tracker (and maybe some other bits too). Would make checking it for updates easier!
GRR! Stop telling me how to dress my baby!!! I’m abandoning the project now!
I’ve got a backlog of feature updates that I’m considering, I’ll add this to the list.
He has an opportunity to do something new, different and better than what is currently available but is instead just copying OSX and throwing some half-baked ideas onto the old rather than questioning all assumptions and making something great and (most importantly) original.
Agreed. Probably the most innovation in desktop Linux is coming from the netbook distros like Moblin and friends. They’re actually addressing a problem with their design, not just wearing the same clothes as the big boys.
Dressing like a rock start does not magically make you a rockstar.
*sigh*
paultag, I’m sure you think you really told Piestar a thing or three, but you’ve done THE EXACT THING THAT’S HE’S BEEN SAYING EVER SINCE HE STARTED THIS BLOG! Imagine if Microsoft responded to Vista criticism by saying, “hey, you don’t like it? Write your own OS and stop bitching!”
We’ll repeat (for the 100th time and counting):
1) Linux isn’t ready to be a fully-featured desktop OS.
2) The Linux crowd refuses to accept criticism, either by dismissing critics as uninformed, promoting an agenda or telling critics they need to fix it themselves.
Read the second point. Read it again. Print it out. Stick it on your bathroom mirror. Have it tattooed on your forehead. It’s exactly what we’ve been saying over and over and over again, and you just came and proved us right once more.
@dirtdigger – so what you are saying is that if you do not voice your complaints through the proper channels within the limited time allotted then you should not say anything at all, ever? It’s too late? Or are you disqualifying everything I have said because I didn’t write ‘in Maverick’ before it? And should I again wait for this limited window you speak of?
Also where is this ‘proper channel’? Is it the comments on Mark Shuttleworths blog? Is it his personal phone number? As I said as far as I know this change was dropped in 1 day before the interface freeze, meaning you would not have been able to voice your concerns for Lucid no matter what you did.
If, in fact, you were not telling me to shut up then what exactly was the point of your post? Is it ironic that you manage to post an utterly pointless post complaining about my slightly pointless post? The very fact that I have engaged people in debate about this issue means I have achieved my goal, what did you set out to do and did you succeed?
Read the second point. Read it again. Print it out. Stick it on your bathroom mirror. Have it tattooed on your forehead. It’s exactly what we’ve been saying over and over and over again, and you just came and proved us right once more.
Amen. So many TMs apply.
ItsFreeYouCantComplain(TM)
IfIDontLikeItYouCantHaveIt(TM)
UbuntuPlusOneWillSolveEverything(TM)
YesButLookAtWindows(TM)
Implying that one can just patch or otherwise fix it means that it is broken. If it’s broken, isn’t it your responsibility as a community leader, and developer to fix it?
Pfft. Didn’t you get the memo? This is FOSS, it’s YOUR job as a user to fix broken things.
YouCanMakeItWhateverYouWant
Well I’m happy for application bar change it proves that freetards are not capable of making usable software even if they are payed by a company to do so. There goes the best programmers in the world myth down the drain.
@john STAMOS – This is a company supported product, it isn’t my job to fix it. In case you missed it, I told Mark directly what I thought about his change though so I did do my part.
‘Speaking as an Ubuntu Community leader, and developer, there are a few reasons for the change.
[...]
Of course, if you disagree with Ubuntu is running, please fork your own project, or patch it. It’s F/OSS. No sense in bitching when you can just fix it.’
Are you employed by Canonical? Because if you are you should get at least a verbal warning for this awful attitude. You’re a risk to your company, mate.
Imagine the shitstorm that would ensue if a company like Microsoft or Apple treated their customers like this.
Learn The Truth! about Barak Hussein Obama! That the government doesn’t want you to know! Why he turned in his law license! Why he’s being backed by the agents of radical Islam! Why he intends to enslave the inherently superior white race and make Christianity illegal! Learn the truth!
Why he intends to enslave the inherently superior white race and make Christianity illegal! Learn the truth!
LOL! “inherently superior” in the same sense that Linux is “inherently secure”? Outlawing Christianity would be a nice change though. Go all Rome on them.
I find this whole button on argument laughably pointless. Throughout the history of Linux (or more correctly X-Windows) buttons have been placed on either side depending on the particular theme being used. If you didn’t like it you used another theme; something you can still do.
Oh and one more thing please do not confuse Ubuntu with Linux. Ubuntu is a distribution, Linux is the kernel. It is quite a significant distinction.
“I find this whole button on argument laughably pointless.”
Good for you. I do too, as it happens, but probably for different reasons.
“Throughout the history of Linux (or more correctly X-Windows) buttons have been placed on either side depending on the particular theme being used. If you didn’t like it you used another theme; something you can still do.”
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-tradition.html
Meanwhile, while you Linux advocates are busy shutting down all criticism on the Internets, the market share figures show Linux is stagnant at less than one percent. All that hard work you idiots put in over the last year — shitting on anyone who points out the problems in your platform — was for nothing.
I find this whole button on argument laughably pointless.
Could you play into what the article was talking about any more? You and the rest of the Linux faithful are unwilling to think critically about things like this. Meanwhile, Apple is, and their desktop is flourishing. This isn’t because they make it look pretty, it’s because they don’t gloss over details like this. Just because you consider them unimportant doesn’t mean they don’t have an impact.
For filterfish: http://www.tmrepository.com/trademarks/ubuntuisnotlinux and http://www.tmrepository.com/trademarks/blametheubuntufanboys
We’ve heard it all before. Really.
Oops! How could I forget http://www.tmrepository.com/trademarks/justakernel/ ?
I love how he practically quoted the TM word for word. What can I say, their itemized talking points, arguments and counter-arguments helped to write the trademarks in the first place.
Pat yourself on the back filterfish, you helped build my site. Consider yourself a contributor.
“Go all Rome on them”
Throw the freetards to the lions, not the Christians, throwing them is pointless.
Troll! u don’t even deserve to be on reddit top
on reddit top??? Gratz’ goes to Piestar.
Cool! Go team me!
So xpto, you use Windows 7, obviously, judging by your browser string. Why, since Linux is better? Or is it not actually better? Maybe you should talk about that, you know contribute so there will be more chance of it being improved in the next version. Or are you more concerned with silencing criticism of a platform that isn’t even good enough for you to use.
Criticism should always be silenced no matter the cost. Those who criticize perfection are only looking to advance their own monopolistic adjenda.
Criticism should always be silenced no matter the cost.
With due respect, that is the most stupid statement i have heard this year.
Those who criticize perfection are only looking to advance their own monopolistic adjenda.
“Perfection”? Were you refering to Ubuntu? Queefer, is that the reason there is no difference between Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04, 9.10 and 10.04? The only thing that changed between those version is default theme and nothing else. Same bugs are transferred from one to the other plus newer bugs. You must really have a weird definition of perfection.
>Criticism should always be silenced no matter the cost.
Somebody is losing their sanity!
This blog services the interests of the illegal monopoly m$ that seeks to force everyone to use windows.
@ Adam King, you’re trying to troll people who don’t give a shit and are likely to reply to you just for the lulz; trolling us isn’t really an achievement is it?
Or are you just trying to get traffic for your shitty blog?
Queefer has gone Blackbelt_jones/Ohio Ham.
They all end up losing it sooner or later.
oh, and @fewt, it’s called sarcasm.
nah it’s better this way, and you zealots will forget about it soon (or gconf it back to the old way) so it really doesn’t matter
@john – DOH I missed the /sarcasm tag.
“Criticism should always be silenced no matter the cost.”
To quote GNU on this:
““Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” ”
Hmmmmmmmm…..
“This blog services the interests of the illegal monopoly m$ that seeks to force everyone to use windows.”
Tip: Open the Ubuntu Software Manager and install Aspell. I sure hope it helps!
Excuse me for threadjacking, but could kharkalash please post one of his great posts? and preferably under the “kharkalash” (… or whatever. :/ ) name.
i’d kinda like to see if we could get Oiahohm (.. again: or whatever) back in the game, and he has a funny way of resurfacing whenever khark* posts anything.
At least one, if not both, of these Adam Kings is an impersonator. One put “www” in his link and the other didn’t. If it was the same person I’d imagine they’d just let autocomplete do the job.
Either way, I don’t know why you guys still take even the real Adam so seriously (even a little bit is too much).
I don’t know why you guys still take even the real Adam so seriously (even a little bit is too much).
True, I suspect it’s because he’s the only one left who bothers to even try defending Linux, everyone else was beaten off a long time ago (in the comments on the LH’s blog).
The reason no-one bothers arguing anymore is, of course, that Linux Hater and all the others have got it right, Linux aint that great and is particularly being held back by the ‘community’ of dunderheaded fuckwits who insist — very loudly — that it’s perfect.
I checked out the Gnome usability link. I’m thinking the old Compuserve bulletin boards were easier to use.
If this is the Web interface to discussions about usability, what does that say about Gnome’s commitment to the issue?
It’s horribly reminiscent of the old Dilbert cartoon where the PHB admits that employees aren’t, after all, the most important asset of the company. They’re at number 11 — just below paperclips.
This blog services the interests of the illegal monopoly m$ that seeks to force everyone to use windows.
Real Adam King or not, this statement is pretty false since the author of this blog writes it from a mac.
“Windows 7 does this – drag to the left it does 50% width, same with the right and drag to the top for full screen, which is fairly useful for multiple documents on a large monitor.”
That’s a nice feature, but not what I mean. I mean when you drag a window to the lower-left corner of the screen, the left and bottom boundaries of the window should stop when they hit the edge, so you can quickly push a window out of the way, and it will resize so that the entire window is still on-screen and all scrollbars and content are still visible.
“As far as the ‘windicators’ go, it sounds like he is just reinventing the status bar … but at the top.”
True.
“Per app volume control is nice but Windows 7 already does this as well with it’s main volume control, presenting a control for each app in the main mixer.”
Well Ubuntu does that, too, putting a control for each app inside the PulseAudio preferences. The reason I like the Windicators volume control idea is that the controls are attached to the Window they control, instead of disembodied in another invisible place. The title bar seems like the ideal place for stuff that applies to individual apps, but isn’t controlled by those apps, like window management and volume controls.
“Imagine if MS released a new version of Windows and they held a press conference announcing that the biggest highlight was a new wallpaper, colour scheme and redesigned buttons?”
Isn’t that pretty much what they did with Windows 7? Regular people don’t understand improvements to the underlying system, so Microsoft just stresses their new Aero theme and the ability to do tiling of windows, etc.
But this is Linux all over, and what several people are now realizing. It’s not some happy ‘everyone helps out’ commune, it’s a game of politics, infighting and power.
Really, I congratulate you. I always wondered if Linux distributions were made by human beings.
You answer so clearly to my final question:
Yes, they are men, theses peoples who had created and worked to produce these wtff distros.
They are ambitious, cynical and, above all, drunk on power.
Thank you very much!
May I ask you a question?
Obviously, you work hard to criticize rightly all these annoying defects in linux distros. Don’t you take the risk to be listen and your critics finally give a good help to improve their mess?
Actually aren’t you a linux fan?
Whoah.. what?
i mean.. What?
are you FOR og AGAINST linux?
[...] spot, but that’s only because they are copying Tiger rather than Snow Leopard. Add in the recent pointless change of moving the window decorations to the left. It’s all very [...]