[Discuss] The next Linux desktop

[Richard Pieri]

On 2/10/2012 3:09 PM, Bill Bogstad wrote:
> If all of that stuff worked as poorly in MacOS as it (sometimes) does
> in Linux systems, I'm not sure that people would care as much about
> the consistent look and feel of Apple's GUI.

Point taken.  This is much of the reason why Macintosh has been 
relatively closed as far as supported hardware.  That closed environment 
lets Apple test all of the possible hardware combinations.

That hasn't been an option in the x86 world.

> app.  Just think about the number of GUI variants that Windows has
> gone through in the last decade and a half.    Sure they had
> "monopoly" status, but people still managed to adapt.   There are many

Actually, the Windows UI didn't change that much between Windows 95 and 
Windows XP.  It underwent some refinements to the chrome, the desktop 
icons were prettied up, but otherwise it's been the same for over a 
decade.  Windows Vista marked the most significant change, and that's 
because Microsoft finally hired some UI specialists to draft a proper 
set of UI guidelines, and then the company started implementing them in 
the OS and its own applications.


> reason why, but Windows "just works" for many users when compared to
> Linux.  Efforts like freedesktop.org have tried to deal with this, but
> from the outside it seems like they haven't been able to make much
> headway on this.

As I alluded to earlier, freedesktop.org's efforts are often ignored 
because it isn't a standards body like the Linux Foundation or The Open 
Group.  Realistically, FDO has no say in how the various desktops work. 
  The bulk of their effort is ensuring that various toolkit interactions 
don't break.  To wit, copy from GTK+ will paste into Qt or vice-versa 
and ICCCM.

What the Linux desktop needs is a body like the Linux Foundation. 
Create a real standards body, not a technical forum like FDO, that can 
lay down a specification for what constitutes a basic desktop environment.

-- 
Rich P.