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[Discuss] an "Enterprise" Linux for desktop



On Nov 27, 2011, at 11:28 AM, markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:
> 
> Vista is an example of how a Monopoly even has to listen.

It's interesting that you bring this up.  I picked up a little netbook a few months ago and I tried several Linux distributions on it.  Linux has offered me a choice of desktops.  Ironically, I've chosen not to use any of them.

I've reverted the netbook to Windows 7 for one simple reason: it's more usable than any of of the Linux desktops.  Microsoft is finally getting what Apple has been telling the world for the past 25 years.  Microsoft has dedicated UI people on staff now.  They've tackled the most commonly used UI elements in Windows and made vast improvements, to the point where some of them are better than Macintosh.

On the Linux desktop, however, things are just pathetic.  Both Gnome and KDE fell into the trap of trying to be a "better" Windows 95/98/2K/XP, but the Windows 95 and on UIs are a horrid mess.  All that Gnome and KDE have done is made a differently messy mess of it.  Both are riddled with "features" that were implemented without any consideration for usability, and both have incomplete or inconsistent implementation across UI elements.  Case in point: on the Gnome 2 desktop, move the bottom panel to the right or left side of the screen and watch how applet text rotates to fit the new aspect ratio -- except for the task applet text which remains horizontal and thus unreadable.  This exemplifies my gripes with the Gnome developers: they spend more time retooling everything than they do fixing usability issues like this.

--Rich P.




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