- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
I wanted to take a moment and talk about Linux UX because, let’s face it… it sucks.
Actually, it’s worse than that. Much of Linux’s UX is technically correct and that makes it objectively wrong.
No. I don’t want Linux to be more Windows-like. But I do want the most common Linux desktops to behave in a way that PC-literate folks can wrap their mind around — and do so from minute zero
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When on God’s green earth would someone want to delete the partition table and not immediately create a new partition?
counterpoint: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Btrfs#Partitionless_Btrfs_disk
Btrfs can occupy an entire data storage device, replacing the MBR or GPT partitioning schemes,
I have run into weird issues when installing GTK apps in KDE, it’s annoying but I did enough research to know that if you use KDE you should avoid GTK apps.
What is this guy on about? Windows has TWO places for settings and neither are to parity of each other. Linux does not have that. Gnome and KDE actually provide really nice settings.
I’m on Manjaro, and it actually does have two places for settings. The KDE settings menu is usually the place to go, but Manjaro’s settings menu is where you can do a few obscure things like installing different kernel versions.
This might just be a Manjaro thing though as I haven’t seen this on other distros, and Control Panel does way more than it should really on Windows with how long the Settings app has been around.
At least on Linux if you dont want it that way you can remove it, depending on the distro. Control Panel and Settings are there seemingly forever in Windows.
Everything in the article seems misplaced or mispoken. GNOME Nautilus, click on network, if a server exists it shows up, you click it and login to the share (same as Windows except you don’t have to assign a drive letter), and options asks of you want to remember user name and password. Done. Or you type smb://host/share.
Seems easier than Windows non GUI of: net use D: \host\share /USER:username password.
And when I was new to Linux GNOME Disks just made perfect sense to me. Select a drive, format it, partition it, add a relevant filesystem.
The whole article is a guy complaint it doesn’t work like he thinks it should because he knew windows way first.
Thats kind of his point though.
New users, are coming from Windows. They know “the windows way”.
Hell I had to dump all my mapped network shares on my laptop because when I wasn’t at home, the whole thing just stalls out constantly, looking for them, instead of just saying “Oh, its not there” and moving on, or just ignoring it until I actively click on it.
Like it or not, Windows is the dominant operating system. And it’s not even close. That means when we’re having a conversation about designing a User Experience on Linux-based operating systems, that conversation must be bookended by “how do Windows users expect this to work?” And we need to design for that or else everything falls apart.
Yeah the basis of the whole logic is bullshit.
This guy is doing the OS equivalent of the left parties trying to be less on the left, to appeal to the far right. It doesn’t work and just ends up with the shit propagating and everyone getting used to it and lowering their standards.
Hey guys, Windows is dominant so we need things to be designed more like Windows!
If we wanted a Windows experience we’d use Windows am I right? It’s painful enough I have to use it for work, at least let me have a better time at home.
I have to agree. I think there’s something to be said for making the transition easier, but the idea that Linux needs to copy windows to that extent is very restrictive.
All he’s really saying is that it is important for things to be easy for people to figure out how to do, and for that you need to be aware of what mental models they already have and design interfaces with the goal that the largest number of users can succeed in using the software. A better analogy might be that if you’re trying to run a political campaign, you should probably be speaking the language the majority of voters speak, and caring whether they understand you.
The examples the article gives seem like good ones. The starting point is a video of people new to linux trying to use software and failing to figure it out, acknowledging that as a problem to be solved. The proposed solutions are basically to have wizard guis that can walk users through the most common tasks for disk management and network drives. Usability matters and none of that should be very controversial.
If you had a video of people new to Windows you’d find the same issues or worse.
My wife was struggling so badly to run her windows laptop (she was used to a cellphone only), partly because windows does quirky things we just get used to when running Windows; so we swapped the OS to linux and she’s much happier, its the same everyday and doesn’t get in her way.
The problem with that philosophy is that all the fundamental problems reinforce themselves, generation after generation after generation. Assuming familiarity with Windows as your baseline guarantees that you will be stuck in a rut of horrible UI design “because that’s the way it’s always been”. The lowest-friction choice will always be to carry forward all the bullshit.
I don’t think you can truly call someone “computer literate” if they can’t tolerate moderate friction and learn new things quickly.
This is also why apple’s UI sucks so bad now. They used to have fantastic UI design because they made software with the fewest possible assumptions about the user. Now they design software assuming you are ass-deep in their previous software. It is the design equivalent of inbreeding.
Are the specific suggestions made in the article “horrible UI design”? IMO it is good UI design to have a basic goal of people being able to use it without consulting with external resources, and not requiring them to know much more than is strictly necessary for the given task. The real fundamental problem is the marketshare of proprietary operating systems, not using them needs to be accessible, not a badge of computer literacy. The author is absolutely right that you should be able to format a disk and set up a network drive by just clicking through and selecting basic options about what you are trying to do.
The specific examples seem reasonable, but do not support the overall thesis.
I really dislike dumb and entitled takes like this. First he somehow complains about both GNOME and KDE when literally none of the complaint apply to KDE, second switching between different operating systems will break the way you are doing things anyway, and third - who cares.
It didn’t even apply to GNOME. Samba servers just show up in the network section of nautilus.
I don’t have a problem with his take other than saying people who disagree with him are “objectively wrong”. There’s nothing objective about it, and feel like this is the new “literally” where its used improperly so often that it just becomes meaningless.
Imitating the Windows UI makes things easier and more intuitive for people switching from Windows, which, let’s face it, is virtually everyone.
But its not necessarily the way everyone should be doing it, because the Windows way is sometimes not the best way.
There are lots of DEs with their own opinionated way of doing things and none of them are “wrong”.
I really like this take on it: https://forgejo.org/docs/latest/user/actions/github-actions/#familiarity-instead-of-compatibility
For all of these reasons, Forgejo Actions strives for familiarity instead of compatibility. We want users of GitHub actions to feel familiar using Forgejo Actions, even if there are some small changes here and there. Workflows should work with some minimal changes.
I think the same thing applies to Linux DE’s. Linux is not and never will be a 1 for 1 to windows workflows. If we chase perfect compatibility, we will be perpetually behind on a wild goose chase.
But, doing things like what KDE does, where most of the common keyboard shortcuts are the same, and things like virtual desktops allow for similar workflows with very little adaptation, is very reasonable.
