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Posted by signa11 15 hours ago

Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop(lwn.net)
321 points | 395 commentspage 7
Flow 11 hours ago|
I want something like Os/2 Warp. Something with a design principle other than “make it look slick and hide stuff”. Look up CUA too.
metchio 5 hours ago||
I just want someone to put the same concepts and ideas of Windows Phone OS (Lumia era) into desktop computer. That's all I desire. A beautiful type-oriented experience. I feels like with the rise of LLMs and Agents could be even bigger than 20 years ago
dzonga 3 hours ago||
just for context -- watch the video which expresses the ideas really well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7AfAcQwLW0
sam_lowry_ 6 hours ago||
My desktop is already perfect and has been for the last 25 years.

The only problem remaining is Chromium not using the PRIMARY selection, so I have to do a weird Ctrl-Shift-C and Shift-V to it but on the way from Chromium, it's 2 Ctrl-C and Shift-V, because Ctrl-Shift-C inside Chromium opens the Developer Tools.

dachworker 8 hours ago||
I have recently installed Fedora Sway Spin and it's so nice. I did change the configs since I have been using i3/sway for a long time. But otherwise, the default setup is just very sensible.

I guess, the only thing it's missing is an AI agent component, but for now I don't know how to integrate one and trust it that it won't leak my personal data, so I prefer not to mess with that stuff.

wezell 4 hours ago||
I love reading about how to modernize the open source desktop from a bunch of graybeards on a site that was designed in 1995.
dkarl 3 hours ago||
I don't like the idea of a big, widely used project with stable and polished UI concepts "pushing forward" design innovation. It risks falling victim to overconfident UX folks who think their ideas will succeed and be loved if people are just forced to use them for a while, and for me, it's a red flag that the article doesn't discuss where this innovation should happen. There are plenty of neophiles among open source users who would love to experience new UI ideas as they're being developed. But the focus seems to be on targeting people who don't want to be guinea pigs:

> The final, particularly strong, objection from the tech community is "don't touch my stuff". People get angry when they have worked hard to get their desktop environment just as they like it and something changes to disrupt that. "And I get that. As I said before, I don't want to change everything." But the world is changing, "and we need to grow our way gently into some new things."

Unproven innovation shouldn't be forced on people who don't want it. It should start by proving itself with people who have an appetite for novelty and opt into experimentation. Winning their interest will be a lower bar anyway, generating better constructive feedback on half-baked ideas, with less risk of backlash. Then, as ideas are improved and vetted, they can work their way into the mainstream.

The fact that they're not describing any such process, and instead announcing that they're coming straight for the "don't touch my stuff" crowd, makes me very wary that they think the hardest part of UI innovation is forcing people to use it against their will until they accept it.

potato-peeler 11 hours ago||
What I found interesting is desktop ui hasn’t changed much from either a windows layout or Mac layout. Isn’t there any other ui which is as useful as those two? Is there no ongoing research on os ui?
nakedneuron 10 hours ago||
no mention of Arcan yet, so I'll throw that in the ring..

https://arcan-fe.com/about/

personally I think we need to shift from the 'file location' paradigm to tagging (thinking xattr).. that will solve many problems with UI (also raise some for sure).

iamcalledrob 9 hours ago||
Something I learnt from doing research in this space is that spatial memory is quite powerful, and a hierarchical filesystem taps into that.

Whereas tagging doesn't align as naturally with the human brain in the same way.

nakedneuron 44 minutes ago||
But episodic memory (the timeline so to speak) is powerful too. Consider "list all pictures I watched in the last two days". Both are important. Combine it by saying "distribute them on the screen from left to right sorted by how long I looked at it in ascending order".

I think local AI would come in quite handy to tag files and keep the tagging consistent..

realusername 11 hours ago||
They only superficially look similar but have nothing to do with Windows or MacOS on the feeling
potato-peeler 10 hours ago||
I am not talking about the UX, I am talking about the layout.
deathbyzen 5 hours ago||
Yo just make Overwatch playable without having to do anything except install the Blizzard app and I'll move over. that simple.
bronlund 12 hours ago|
When I first met Linux desktop in the nineties, I was blown away - and I was completely convinced that Linux would overtake Windows as the preferred desktop within a few years. Little did I know that what we would end up with was a thousand mediocre variants of it, instead of a few awesome ones.

My own Linux desktop experience peaked with Compiz, and I have been on macOS ever since.

eddythompson80 11 hours ago|
I don’t know man, Linux desktop in the 90s was extremely rough. It wasn’t until the 2000s with KDE 2 (though really 3 IMO) and GNOME 2 that Linux desktop started showing promise. It was then subsequently dragged down with many alternatives and infighting. Personally I think only KDE kept slowly progressing better. I didn’t even like KDE until GNOME 3 pushed me to it. Every now and then I try GNOME 3 to see where it’s at, and just get baffled by the choices they make. Both Windows and Mac also had baffling choices along the way (in terms of desktop UX). Windows more so obviously, but they both would course correct every now and then. GNOME seems laser focused on some desktop UX vision I can’t even begin to understand.
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