[HN Gopher] Burn My Windows
___________________________________________________________________
Burn My Windows
Author : marcodiego
Score : 512 points
Date : 2022-01-04 15:05 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I love Linux because it creates a space for stuff like this to
| take place. That said, i3 is enough glitz for me (and it's pretty
| much none).
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Somewhat ironically, now hosted on a Microsoft-owned closed
| platform.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Fortunately, Git itself is "open" and the source code can be
| migrated to another host without much difficulty. Migrating
| bug/issue tracking, PR management, and CI will be more
| difficult, but not impossible.
|
| That said, I don't quite understand why no viable alternative
| has arisen.
|
| Gitlab was a good attempt, but its interface turned out to be
| kind of clunky and more "team-oriented" than makes sense for
| general open source projects. I strongly believe that if it
| had a "slick" interface like Github, it'd be more popular.
|
| Sourcehut is fantastic, but lacks the same "issues" and "pull
| requests" system.
|
| Mailing lists honestly kind of suck, if only because there's
| zero semantic markup in email (excluding HTML-in-email which
| is a clusterfuck that nobody should use), making it difficult
| to track comment replies, embed code blocks, etc. And
| submitting patches over email is a chore compared to making a
| PR, viewing diffs, etc. on a platform like Github.
|
| Also the social networking features of Github are unobtrusive
| and fun. Following other users has introduced me to a variety
| of interesting projects, starring projects is a fun way to
| show support, and the ability to watch a repo for releases is
| useful (although I wish it were an RSS feed instead).
| dopeboy wrote:
| We all go through phases. I was on Cinnamon for the past six
| years and see myself returning to GNOME. I find myself wanting
| less cruft out of a DE as I get older. And more keyboard
| friendly too.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Also on Gnome for the minimalistic experience, but wobbly
| windows have a physicality that just clicks.
| designium wrote:
| I need this for MacOS.
| pengaru wrote:
| Anyone happen to know what gnome shell version added the ability
| for extensions to run arbitrary glsl shaders like this?
| StillBored wrote:
| This is cool, but the fact that its written in JS tells me just
| about everything I need to know about gnome...
|
| JS has its place, using it for systems programming isn't one of
| them IMHO, since I prefer to have the core of my computation
| stack slim and fast. I can almost forgive the electron apps their
| piggyness given the desire to build cross platform, but gnome?
| Yah, no thanks.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| I don't care what language is used, my problem with Gnome
| extensions is that after I install them, one of these things
| will happen:
|
| a) after a minor apt-get update the extension will stop working
|
| b) the extension will leak memory and after a few days of
| uptime my desktop will be unusable
|
| That's why I'm still running Cinnamon. Gnome extensions are a
| thing created to deflect the biggest criticisms towards Gnome's
| questionable direction, yet they are a second-class citizen and
| never really work well enough to be acceptable.
| jeff_vader wrote:
| I find it interesting since JavaScript in this case is only
| "glue" language. Actual effects are hardware (?) shaders:
| https://github.com/Schneegans/Burn-My-Windows/blob/main/src/...
| .. Had no idea this is possible.
| StillBored wrote:
| IMHO, its less about where the work is done (and yes i'm
| aware that gjs tends to be used mostly as glue, and the same
| with KDE) and more the fact that I don't want a big
| heavyweight garbage collected language deciding to garbage
| collect and glitch some part of the system, or JIT pass
| recompiling a bunch of code when I first click it. I despise
| latency in human computer interactions and everyone whines
| about how its worse on pretty much every common PC/etc vs
| older devices, yet they go an install hooks written in
| JITed/garbage collected languages all over the system.
|
| Having those hooks written in compiled languages/etc is bad
| enough, I found myself regularly cleaning the runas & windows
| explorer context menus of loads of cruft because the click
| latency was noticeable, and now not only can one plug in a
| ton of stuff but it needs to thunk though to JS to do it (and
| not picking particularly on JS, because it would be just as
| bad in java or python or whatever other scripting language
| one chooses).
|
| Its just a waste of cycles, and for projects I work on,
| engineering time is "cheap". That applies to most system
| programming if one spends 1/2 a second considering that the
| code forms the foundation for hundreds of millions of devices
| all burning energy and the time of their users.
| ratboy666 wrote:
| Ah ha!
|
| Thank you the detail. The philosophy is that Gnome is NOT
| configurable, really, just does a VERY limited and
| consistent desktop thing. It doesn't even have icons on the
| desktop (by default).
|
| I find that it is "easy" for most users -- there is really
| nothing there! If you want icons on the desktop, add an
| extension for that. And, the idea of extensions is that
| they are small programs that are easy to manage. It is
| possible to turn them all off with a click! (if they are
| getting in the way).
|
| I just counted -- I have 36 extensions on my Gnome 41. Note
| that icons on the desktop = extension, start menu for
| programs = extension. You can certainly start programs
| without a start menu -- that is the default "Gnome Way".
|
| On the other hand -- being able to consistently customize
| is very nice (I particularly like "argos" extension, which
| makes it delightfully easy to add buttons, gather and
| display information and more -- _and_ as a bonus, is fully
| compatible with the MacOS bitbar plugin.
|
| Yes, I use a lot of extensions, but I do have 4 or 8GB of
| RAM is my laptops, and i3 or better processors, so this
| becomes a reasonable fit for me.
| nerdponx wrote:
| The JS usage in this case isn't any different from Python or
| Ruby or Perl or Tcl.
| ratboy666 wrote:
| Javascript for desktop extensions. Makes sense -- doesn't
| matter what processor you are running! Sure, depends on the
| version of the desktop environment - and each extension
| declares what version(s) it is operable for. The major problem
| is that I may be running (just for example) Gnome 40 on one
| machine and then Gnome 30 on another, and I really can't share
| the same home directory! That would be lovely if it could be
| worked out! Would also slightly simplify my backup strategies.
|
| I don't see desktop extensions as the "core of the computation
| stack". Can you expand on that idea, please?
| DonHopkins wrote:
| I love Simon's work and artistic sensibility! I posted this
| earlier about his amazing work with pie menus for Gnome.
|
| Here's done even more amazing pie menu stuff since then,
| including Fly-Pie -- why don't all web browsers and window
| managers support this yet??? This stuff is extremely useful,
| practical, easy to use, and deeply customizable, not just
| beautiful window dressing, eye candy, and fancy effects.
|
| More Fly-Pie Updates!
|
| https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10
|
| Fly-Pie 8: New default dark theme and support for GNOME 3.36,
| 3.38, 40, and 41!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w
|
| Fly-Pie 10: A new Clipboard Menu, proper touch support & much
| more!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk
|
| Pie Menus: A 30 Year Retrospective
|
| https://donhopkins.medium.com/pie-menus-936fed383ff1#ed08
|
| >Spectacular Example: Simon Schneegans' Gnome-Pie, the slick
| application launcher for Linux
|
| >I can't understate how much I like Simon Schneegans' Gnome-Pie,
| as well as his bachelor thesis work on the Coral-Menu and the
| Trace-Menu. Not only is it all slick, beautiful, and elegantly
| animated, but it's properly well designed in all the important
| ways that make it Fitts's Law Friendly and easy to use, and
| totally deeply customizable by normal users! It's a spectacularly
| useful tour-de-force that Linux desktop users can personalize to
| their heart's content.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17098179
|
| Pie Menus: A 30-Year Retrospective: Take a Look and Feel Free
| (medium.com/donhopkins)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17106453
|
| DonHopkins on May 19, 2018 | parent | context | favorite | on:
| Pie Menus: A 30-Year Retrospective: Take a Look an...
|
| I'm very impressed by Simon Schneegans' work on Gnome-Pie:
|
| http://simmesimme.github.io/gnome-pie.html
|
| And especially his delightful thesis work:
|
| Trace-Menu:
|
| https://vimeo.com/51073078
|
| I really love how the little nubs preview the structure of the
| sub-menus, and how you can roll back to the parent menu because
| it reserves a slice in the sub-menu to go back, so you don't need
| to use another mouse button or shift key to browse the menus.
|
| Coral-Menu:
|
| https://vimeo.com/51072812
|
| That looks like a nice visual representation with a way to easily
| browse all around the tree, into and out of the submenus without
| clicking! I can't tell from the video if it's based on a click or
| a timeout. But it looks like it supports browsing and reselection
| and correcting errors pretty well! (That would be something
| interesting to measure!)
|
| There's another useful law related to Fitts's law that applies to
| situations like this, called Steering Law:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering_law
|
| The steering law in human-computer interaction and ergonomics is
| a predictive model of human movement that describes the time
| required to navigate, or steer, through a 2-dimensional tunnel.
| The tunnel can be thought of as a path or trajectory on a plane
| that has an associated thickness or width, where the width can
| vary along the tunnel. The goal of a steering task is to navigate
| from one end of the tunnel to the other as quickly as possible,
| without touching the boundaries of the tunnel. A real-world
| example that approximates this task is driving a car down a road
| that may have twists and turns, where the car must navigate the
| road as quickly as possible without touching the sides of the
| road. The steering law predicts both the instantaneous speed at
| which we may navigate the tunnel, and the total time required to
| navigate the entire tunnel.
|
| The steering law has been independently discovered and studied
| three times (Rashevsky, 1959; Drury, 1971; Accot and Zhai, 1997).
| Its most recent discovery has been within the human-computer
| interaction community, which has resulted in the most general
| mathematical formulation of the law.
|
| Also here's some interesting stuff about incompatibility with
| Wayland, and rewriting Gnome-Pie as an extension to the Gnome
| shell:
|
| http://simmesimme.github.io/news/2017/07/09/gnome-pie-071
| marcodiego wrote:
| Compiz was probably the single most impactful event for desktop
| linux of the mid 2000's. Not that it itself made much of a
| difference, but the ripples affect many areas we take for granted
| today. A few reasons: - it put linux ahead of
| windows and mac in terms of appearance; - it brought
| many new users and most were a good mix technical and
| enthusiasts; - it showed the advantages of modular
| software; - many plugins were useful and these useful
| plugins influenced desktops to this day; - it was
| fast, stable and cool enough; - it brought many new
| developers; - it was an incentive for vendors to
| improve 3d linux drivers; - it made X.Org developers
| improve redirection, - it came by default on the most
| popular distro from 2006 to 2012.
|
| Yes, most of the effects were useless but even they helped
| developers and designers to decide what not to include or do in
| the future. It pioneered useful things like selecting an area of
| the screen and saving it directly to a file, useful zoom and
| quick visualization of non-visible windows. It also showed how
| important compositing was on the desktop. Although probably not
| in direct influence, there is a reason android, wayland and
| whatever comes with ChromeOS all have compositing features.
|
| At the time, there was some interesting developments and
| experimentation: metisse, sun's looking glass, bumptop,
| deskgallery... none of them was as successful as compiz. I'm
| proud I was myself part of it
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X9bcrJ3TjY) and have my name
| written in some of its source files to this day, even if almost
| nobody use it anymore.
| leephillips wrote:
| What does "mid 2000's" mean? I don't mean to be dense, I just
| can't figure it out.
| timemct wrote:
| Years 2003(ish) to 2008(ish).
| leephillips wrote:
| Thanks. I was being dense. The first thing I though was,
| "around 2500?", which is silly.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| The English-speaking world still hasn't really agreed upon a
| term for that decade, especially in America, where "aught"
| and "nought" are rarely used words. (We tend to use "zero"
| instead, and "the zeroes" doesn't exactly roll off the
| tongue.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aughts
| hudson_hiring wrote:
| Yeah, at best we have the-turn-of-the-century
| (millennium?). Though mid-turn doesn't seem quite right
| either.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Mid '00s if you prefer.
|
| Referencing decades in two-digit form fell out of favour with
| the Y2K issue. Perhaps it should be resurrected.
|
| At the turn of the 20th century, fashion was to refer to "oh-
| eight" and such, IIRC. I don't know that the decade had a
| common nomenclature. I suspect there's a Wikipedia article on
| that somewhere....
|
| Hrm ... not really, or at least not readily.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decade
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I've heard it referred to as the aughts. (or in the UK the
| naughties) Useful way of distinguishing it from the other
| decades of the 2000's
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Lol was thinking this yesterday when I was explain school
| years to my grade schoolers. You know, 2nd grade was from
| 2020-2021 and third is 2021-2022.
|
| Half way through I was thinking, we could probably go back
| to 2 digit years now. . ..
| zeven7 wrote:
| We're just starting the 20s. I don't think I ever heard
| of the decade from 1910 to 1919 being referred to as the
| 10s, but I definitely heard of the 20s. Maybe the first
| 20 years of a century are kind of hard to name, so, yeah
| it's about time.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| Can we now go back to storing year as 2 digits? /s
| anarazel wrote:
| Random, low confidence and trollish, theory: Compiz et al had
| the opposite effect. The number of different compositor /
| effect projects increased the already substantial fragmentation
| of the linux desktop world, and put a large amount of developer
| energy into things that didn't end up having influence over the
| long haul.
| sedatk wrote:
| I think it also frontiered GPU acceleration in user interfaces
| too.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Bunch of rose-tinted hogwash, this.
|
| > _It pioneered useful things like selecting an area of the
| screen and saving it directly to a file_
|
| Pioneered? This was a standard feature on Macs since January
| 1997.
|
| > _It also showed how important compositing was on the
| desktop._
|
| No, that would be the Quartz and Quartz Extreme compositors
| released with Mac OSX 10.0-10.2 years prior.
|
| Compiz in the mid 2000s was a mixture of catching up to
| established ideas and a bunch of cute but useless visual wastes
| of time. It didn't pioneer anything except novelty display
| plugins and was quickly made obsolete when people realized that
| wobbly transition effects got very old very fast.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Maybe for the people that could afford to own a mac. Compiz
| was something _I_ , a student could use though. And for free.
|
| Maybe it's more accurate to say it brought it into the reach
| of everyone with a bit of willingness to learn how to install
| an obscure OS (as opposed to having a ton of money)?
| tomxor wrote:
| Being first isn't everything, for instance Mac's "System" was
| not the first desktop GUI, but it was the most significant
| first for most users.
|
| Similarly compiz was important for the world beyond MacOS,
| while being utterly useless it attracted the attention of
| lots of kids like myself while also producing useful side-
| effects in the Linux ecosystem, and no doubt pushing
| desktop's outside of Linux.
|
| Compiz was indeed a pioneer, and also explored far more
| effects compared to MacOS X for better and worse - In fact
| I'm pretty sure Apple copied the 3D rotating desktop from
| compiz for a short time... not that it's a particularly
| imaginative effect, compiz just stumbled upon it first.
|
| ... so how about we stop being petty.
| laumars wrote:
| Quartz looked nothing like Compiz. Comparing the two and
| saying Quartz was better massively misses the point of what
| Compiz was and what the OP discussed.
|
| If you want to argue that most of Compiz effects were
| overused and tacky then that's a different issue; also an
| entirely subjective one.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I'll have to agree with this. Compiz was great at drawing
| curious people in but I'd argue that Compiz helped many
| people write off Linux. It definitely made Windows XP look
| outdated but after you scratch the surface and adopt Linux,
| you discover a world of hurt whether it be bad drivers that
| break your desktop and throw you to a different run level,
| poor interoperability between the different components or
| just the general loss of trust when something catastrophic
| happens like the stupid USB stack corrupting your drive when
| you copy a simple file (yes this happened to me a few times
| over the years).
|
| Compiz resulted in tons of Youtube videos showing how cool it
| is but it was a gimmick. An OS is much more than cool looking
| visualizations and to that end during the time it was
| introduced, Linux was less stable and so people come for the
| looks and then left because its Linux.
|
| I still want to believe that Linux will become the king
| because we have lost so many freedoms over the years. As a
| result, every year I install a clean copy of Ubuntu on to my
| PC, start using it and then stop when I discover some serious
| bug. After that I put it back on the shelf and wait until
| next year. Maybe next year it will be better. This whole
| journey began during the Compiz era.
| laumars wrote:
| I switched to Linux full time before Compiz took off and
| did so for exactly the reasons you cited the other
| platforms were superior: Linux was more stable, easier to
| reason with (as it was doing less magic behind the scenes),
| components worked better with each other since POSIX is
| designed for interoperability.
|
| Driver support was patchy at times, but then it wasn't
| exactly easy on OSX (Apple: "if we don't support you then
| you're shit out of luck") nor Windows (Microsoft: "we
| support everything. Albeit you'd have to manually find
| those drivers yourself so if your system doesn't boot or
| network access fails then you're shit out of luck") either.
| At least Linux shipped 99% of what you needed on the
| install CD.
|
| For that reason, I'd almost always switch to Linux if ever
| I needed to debug a hardware problem in Windows or OSX.
| Though that's less of an issue these days because I haven't
| run Windows in ~15yrs and if you have a hardware problem on
| a modern MBP then you're shit out of luck so there's little
| point trying to debug it yourself.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >I switched to Linux full time before Compiz took off and
| did so for exactly the reasons you cited the other
| platforms were superior: Linux was more stable, easier to
| reason with (as it was doing less magic behind the
| scenes), components worked better with each other since
| POSIX is designed for interoperability.
|
| Good for you that you had this experience but this is the
| standard talking point I have been hearing for 15 years.
| Yes if you are willing to put in the work Linux is more
| powerful than a closed source OS. However you forget that
| the primary job of the OS is to provide a stable platform
| to enable you to run applications. Instead you are
| ignoring this and praising other aspects of the OS that
| do not directly correlate to improvements for regular non
| IT end users. If I do not want to spend time fixing a
| broken config caused but a bug, I am out of luck. If I do
| not want to deal with poorly made system utilities that
| do not correlate to what the config files do then I am
| out of luck. If I want different components of the OS to
| have a unified design language so they work together I am
| out of luck(ex. Even today GNOME bundles a bunch of old
| garbage tools and expect them to be equivalent to their
| Windows/Mac counterparts, no thought is put into the
| usability and uniformity of these tools).
| laumars wrote:
| > Good for you that you had this experience but this is
| the standard talking point I have been hearing for 15
| years.
|
| Which is entirely anecdotal.
|
| I've done a considerable amount of research on this topic
| over the last 20 years and for the at least 10 years of
| it the actual main reason Windows users don't like Linux
| is simply because it's not like Windows. It doesn't
| matter how much better Linux might be or how crappy
| Windows might get, if people are comfortable in one thing
| then they generally don't like switching to another thing
| that behaves differently. And Linux behaves very
| differently.
|
| This is the reason Microsoft practically gives Microsoft
| products away at schools. Get them comfortable at a young
| age and most of them will stick with you for life.
|
| Just look at how successful Android, ChromeOS, Linux
| netbooks (before Microsoft subsidised XP on them)
| are/were. If a compelling platform comes with Linux pre-
| installed people manage just fine. But if you ask them to
| take a Windows machine, wipe it and install something
| alien the of course a lot of people with struggle. It's
| no different to how few people install 3rd party firmware
| on smart TVs, routers or other consumer devices.
|
| But I'm fine with that. I used to get wound up with
| tactics like MS subsidies 20 years ago but these days I'm
| very much more live and let live. As long as people don't
| impose their preferences on me, I won't be an arse about
| my preferences to them. Just don't try to fob me off with
| pseudo-technical rubbish when it's clearly just a
| subjective bias.
|
| > Yes if you are willing to put in the work Linux is more
| powerful than a closed source OS.
|
| Open source is only part of the equation. It's that the
| whole OS is modular and easy to interface with. Whether
| it's CLI components, common APIs or even just hot
| swappable services like desktop managers.
|
| Windows has elements of this too but frankly Linux just
| does it better. And I say this as someone who use to
| author a competitor to Windows Blinds. I've done my fair
| amount of low level hacking on Windows, I'd even go as
| far as to say that Win32 APIs are fun. But Linux is just
| easier to mould into whatever vision you have. But that's
| not a criticism of Windows, Windows caters for a
| different audience.
|
| And it honestly doesn't take any more effort to learn
| Linux than Windows. People just get a head start with
| Windows given that's what you grow up with. However
| having taught computer literacy to old people, I can tell
| you that Windows can be just as alien if you haven't
| already had that head start. Equally my wife has bought
| Linux laptops before (because they were cheap) and had
| zero issues with them. So the stories of Linux being
| anti-user are far overblown.
|
| > However you forget that the primary job of the OS is to
| provide a stable platform to enable you to run
| applications.
|
| I haven't forgotten that. You just wrongly assume that
| only Windows can do that.
|
| > Instead you are ignoring this and praising other
| aspects of the OS that do not directly correlate to
| improvements for regular non IT end users.
|
| I did actually give examples. :) eg Linux being easier to
| install because there's no googling around to find the
| correct drivers. They just get picked up by default from
| your install media.
|
| Admittedly Windows has improved vastly in that area too
| but I think Microsoft had to borrow a lot of ideas from
| Apple and Linux to get there.
|
| > If I do not want to spend time fixing a broken config
| caused but a bug, I am out of luck. If I do not want to
| deal with poorly made system utilities that do not
| correlate to what the config files do then I am out of
| luck.
|
| That's just as big a problem on Windows and macOS as it
| is any other operating system, Linux includes. Software
| breaks on any platform. Heck, I've had far more instances
| of Windows Server failing after a broken update than I
| have on Linux despite running 2 orders of magnitude more
| Linux servers. And we are talking severs! Never mind all
| the junk that slows desktop Windows down from a thousand
| different independent update managers to printer
| bloatware that isn't an issue on Linux. And Windows
| itself isn't exactly big free itself either.
|
| > If I want different components of the OS to have a
| unified design language so they work together I am out of
| luck(ex. Even today GNOME bundles a bunch of old garbage
| tools and expect them to be equivalent to their
| Windows/Mac counterparts, no thought is put into the
| usability and uniformity of these tools).
|
| That's not really a fair comment when Windows has
| multiple different control panels (has the Font applet
| even been updated from Win 3.x yet?) that were designed
| for entirely different desktop paradigms. Each with
| slightly different functionality and thus finding the
| right option usually requires clicking around a dozen
| hyperlinks in different applications for 10 minutes
| until, by chance, you happen upon the right applet.
|
| Honestly mate, I've got nothing against other peoples
| preferences. Maybe you should relax your outlook on
| others too. Or at least stop pretending your preferences
| are technical in nature because for the vast majority of
| peoples that's really not the case. For most people, it's
| far more down to familiarity than it is down to which
| platform is objectively better (not that a vague term
| like "better" can ever be an objective metric anyway)
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Here we go...down the same rabbit hole that these Linux
| vs whatever else conversations always go down.
|
| Just to reiterate: Every OS has problems but in MY
| experience Linux has broken on me in fundamental ways. MY
| experience is that Linux cannot be trusted for day to day
| usage even though I have been giving it chances for 15
| years now. I'm glad that you have the fortune of having a
| better experience but I am not going to ignore what I
| have experienced with the OS just because you said it was
| good.
|
| I'm not going to waste my time with this anymore so I bid
| you good day.
| aflag wrote:
| You gave no examples supporting your claims, though. What
| was your experience? What has broken on you in
| fundamental ways? When was that? What distribution were
| you using? Anecdotally, there is no shortage of examples
| of people formatting their windows installation which
| would corroborate to the idea that windows is not safe
| from fundamentally breaking on you.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I have given examples in another thread here [1]:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29798725
| laumars wrote:
| > Here we go...down the same rabbit hole that these Linux
| vs whatever else conversations always go down.
|
| At risk of sounding like a school child: you literally
| started it.
|
| My point was initially just to say that other people get
| on fine with Linux. Then you took us down the rabbit hole
| conflating preference with technical fact.
|
| > Just to reiterate: Every OS has problems but...
|
| Exactly my point. You try to sound impartial but then
| drift into anecdote and bias. Like what you like, I'm
| really not here to argue you into using another operating
| system.
|
| > I am not going to ignore what I have experienced with
| the OS just because you said it was good.
|
| I feel like I've said this a dozen times already...but:
| I'm all for people having preferences and I'd never dare
| try to change someone's opinion. But you're conflating
| preference as technical fact. Maybe you should relax a
| little and appreciate other peoples preferences too
| instead of assuming you're right :)
|
| If you read back what I've posted you'll see I'm not here
| to argue with you that you're experiences don't matter to
| you. I'm just saying it's all subjective.
|
| Having done as much research as I have on this topic over
| the years (had to for work) it's funny how much of what
| we believe is fact is actually just down to preferences
| and those preferences are usually just down to comfort
| (like an old friend) rather than technical capabilities.
|
| But I'll happily end the topic here if that's you're
| desire. :)
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > At risk of sounding like a school child: you literally
| started it.
|
| No. When someone relates their negative experience with
| an OS you happen to use, that is not a personal attack or
| invitation to expound upon your own contradictory
| experience. This happens every single time anyone _ever_
| says anything even remotely negative about the Linux
| Desktop. Can you honestly say the same happens with
| anywhere near the same frequency when discussing Windows
| or MacOS problems?
| laumars wrote:
| > No. When someone relates their negative experience with
| an OS you happen to use, that is not a personal attack
|
| What personal attacks are these? All I've seen thus far
| are adults having a mature conversation.
|
| > or invitation to expound upon your own contradictory
| experience
|
| That's literally the point of social platforms. You
| cannot post an opinion on a public forum and then declare
| that other people are forbidden to rely. If that's your
| bag then you're better off writing your thoughts and then
| popping them in a glass bottle and casting that out to
| sea :P
|
| > Can you honestly say the same happens with anywhere
| near the same frequency when discussing Windows or MacOS
| problems?
|
| Yes. Happens all the time and on any topic. This is a
| message board, opinions will differ and people will want
| to discuss them. I don't see what the issue is there (as
| long as it's civil).
|
| Eg this started out a positive thread talking about Linux
| composing managers and there wasn't any need for anyone
| to start arguing about how much better Windows was but
| that happened. And I'm fine with that. Weird you should
| think I'm not allowed to reply when that does happen
| though.
|
| Anyway, this has gotten meta and in my experience that's
| usually the point when the quality of conversations
| deteriorate so I'll duck out of the chat now :)
| watwut wrote:
| Nah. I am not the only one who used both and ended up
| using only windows.
|
| Because, it was less work to use windows. I like
| programming, I even like configuring, but I want to do
| them when I want and not because I need to do something
| third and computer is failing.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Calm down... Let's not turn this thread into an ugly
| flamewar.
| laumars wrote:
| I am calm. What in my post suggested otherwise?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > I've done a considerable amount of research on this
| topic over the last 20 years and for the at least 10
| years of it the actual main reason Windows users don't
| like Linux is simply because it's not like Windows. It
| doesn't matter how much better Linux might be or how
| crappy Windows might get, if people are comfortable in
| one thing then they generally don't like switching to
| another thing that behaves differently. And Linux behaves
| very differently.
|
| There is a difference between just liking the way things
| behave because you're comfortable with it and preferring
| the way it behaves because it is _better_.
|
| To this day there is a good chance that if I want to run
| the latest version of any piece of Linux software I will
| have to compile it from source like it's the 1970s in
| order to do so. That is a problem that Windows and MacOS
| have _never_ had, and the Linux Desktop community has
| been very slow and reluctant to do anything about.
|
| Hell, even today as Flatpak beings to emerge as the
| dominant cross-distro application packaging format, it is
| _still_ lacking basic features of 1980s Desktop software
| management and gets a lot of flak from the community for
| existing at all.
| laumars wrote:
| > There is a difference between just liking the way
| things behave because you're comfortable with it and
| preferring the way it behaves because it is better.
|
| indeed there is. However the vast majority of people fall
| into the former category while assuming theyre the latter
| category.
|
| Or to put it another way, everyone cannot be right that
| their preference is technically superior. Ergo our
| preferences must be subjective.
|
| > To this day there is a good chance that if I want to
| run the latest version of any piece of Linux software I
| will have to compile it from source like it's the 1970s
| in order to do so. That is a problem that Windows and
| MacOS have never had, and the Linux Desktop community has
| been very slow and reluctant to do anything about.
|
| That's a huuuuge generalisation there. The truth is it
| depends on the Linux distribution (Arch and Fedora are
| bleeding edge, Debian and CentOS are not) what repos you
| have enabled (stable, testing, etc) and even what
| software you're running. Eg some niche cross platform
| thing on GitHub might require compiling for all OSs never
| mind just Linux.
|
| Linux will see more regular platform updates than Windows
| and macOS where you're limited to service packs and new
| OS releases. You also don't have to wait until "patch
| Thursday" for patches on Linux. They get released as soon
| as they've passed build and test pipelines.
|
| So there are definitely plenty of examples where the
| generalisation is a way off. But for the sake of
| impartiality I do agree that some niche software and some
| distros will make you compile from source. However its
| definitely not the norm for common software and hasn't
| been for 20 years.
|
| > Hell, even today as Flatpak beings to emerge as the
| dominant cross-distro application packaging format, it is
| still lacking basic features of 1980s Desktop software
| distribution and gets a lot of flak from the community
| for existing at all.
|
| Yeah cross platform package management is broken in
| Linux. Snap, flatpak, etc. all have problems. Personally
| I think the real issue is that Linux is trying to emulate
| Windows and Mac with portable installers. If you want a
| platform where the responsibility is on the user to
| download and install applications manually then there are
| already mature options available for that (Windows and
| macOS). So there's no point trying to compete there.
| Where Linux excels is with its package management taking
| the risk of application installation away from the
| operator.
|
| This won't be to everyone's preference but that's fine
| because not every platform should behave the same. Just
| because a specific paradigm makes sense for one platform
| doesn't mean it makes sense for every platform.
|
| Just look at how fundamentally different remote
| management on Windows vs Linux is. Windows is based
| around RPCs while Linux is based around scripting.
| Neither is wrong or right. Both work effectively despite
| being completely different approaches.
|
| I'm here lies the problem with people who say one is
| better than another: they look at the differences and say
| "I don't like it" but think it's a technical decision
| when in fact it's just an emotive response based on what
| they're comfort zone is.
| marcodiego wrote:
| > An OS is much more than cool looking visualizations [...]
|
| At the time it was easy to hear people complaining about
| how ugly linux was. Compiz helped a lot in that front. We
| were used to people saying "you can't do that on linux" and
| then things quickly changed to us saying "you can't do that
| on your OS".
|
| Let's not fake it: linux is still far from being a diamond
| of UI design or consistency, but well, competition has its
| own problems too. The point is: things improved a lot and
| that event at that time in history made things improve a
| bit faster. To the point that almost two decades later
| something like this gets to the front page of hacker news
| and is filled by comments of people with fond memories of
| the time.
|
| > This whole journey began during the Compiz era.
|
| Another evidence of the impact it had.
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| > linux is still far from being a diamond of UI design or
| consistency
|
| While I'll agree those are important for usability, I'm
| not sure they're necessary for adoption. Windows 10 uses
| a mix of UIs ranging from win32 windows 95 legacy to MAUI
| and most popular programs implement their own UI
| frameworks and it's doing ok.
| rbanffy wrote:
| A lot of people don't care about the experience of using
| a computer. If they did, there would be revolts and walk-
| outs against Outlook and Exchange, about SharePoint, and
| about every single version of Windows. I am an amateur
| font designer and even I find the font rendering on
| Windows (specially if you have mixed density screens)
| horrendous. It's like it has a dozen incompatible
| libraries using different font rendering methods that are
| inconsistent between screens.
|
| It's an old joke that one of the best ways to make
| someone perpetually unhappy is to teach them proper font
| kerning.
| pklausler wrote:
| In Outlook, on the vendor's own O/S, one can click on the
| "trash" icon of a message, and then watch in horror as a
| new message arrives, every message drops down a slot, and
| then the program recognizes the click on the trash icon
| of what used to be the message above, which is then
| deleted. I mean, come on.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| At this point Windows is largely running on inertia and
| the fact that, despite all its flaws, its competitors
| still somehow manage to have worse issues for most
| people. But at one time, it was actually a pretty damned
| consistent and user-focused OS.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I guess I can sort of agree with you. Although during
| that time was the height of GNOME2 and even today I find
| myself leaning towards Gnome2/MATE because it feels so
| much more stable than anything else(despite me always
| giving the main Ubuntu distro a chance every year as well
| because I feel it is the most looked at distro).
|
| >Another evidence of the impact it had.
|
| Well for me it wasn't Compiz that brought me into Linux,
| it was this idea of something different from WIndows but
| it may have had this impact for others. Compiz was a
| gimmick to me and after trying it once I put it aside to
| try and just make my regular Linux installs remain
| stable.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > linux is still far from being a diamond of UI design or
| consistency
|
| YMMV. I myself am very happy with Gnome and would say
| it's about as nice to use as a Mac. You can, of course,
| install ugly applications with horrendous UIs, that use
| Athena or Motif widgets, limited only to X bitmapped
| fonts or an ncurses UI that would work on a VT-52, and so
| on - but that's kind of a feature of Linux - it's Unix
| and it runs a lot of things originally built in ages long
| past. It can be consistent if you want, and it can
| embrace the past in ways no other OS can dream of.
|
| Except, maybe, IBM's z/OS, but that's a completely
| different beast.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It's a real shame, but unfortunately it seems endemic to
| the FOSS development ecosystem: people will work on things
| they think are cool; and stable, consistent, functional
| software is hard work and not very cool. Consequently we
| get a lot of opinionated little fiefdoms ruling over
| collections of frankensteined software and then the
| evangelical wonder why it isn't The Year of the Linux
| Desktop yet.
| marcodiego wrote:
| No.
|
| FLOSS is well positioned in compilers, HPC, servers,
| programming languages, codecs, databases, shells,
| kernels, systems tools... exactly because some people
| were willing to work on what was not "cool" and made a
| lot of effort to make it "stable, consistent,
| functional".
|
| Linux being small on the desktop is due to a lot of
| reasons, many of them can be blamed on the "community"
| yes, but inertia, efforts and (possibly) billions
| invested in coward campaigns to bar its progress were
| relatively successful too.
| Zak wrote:
| > _I install a clean copy of Ubuntu on to my PC, start
| using it and then stop when I discover some serious bug_
|
| What do you do when you encounter a serious bug in your OS
| of choice?
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >What do you do when you encounter a serious bug in your
| OS of choice?
|
| When I say serious bug I typically mean serious OS
| breaking bugs.
|
| Some examples from these past years(these all happened
| different years):
|
| 1) After clean install, desktop crashes after first
| reboot and I am thrown into terminal. Result: Stop usage
| and move on.
|
| 2) After Clean install, I wish to copy some files to an
| fat32 USB drive(Sandisk purchased directly from them). I
| get some error while the file is being copied, the drive
| is unmounted and then when I go to another system running
| Windows to check if my file was copied, the drive is
| corrupted causing all my files to be lost. Result: Stop
| usage and move on.
|
| 3) After clean install, I go ahead and connect a second
| monitor. Now my desktop becomes a garbled mess on both
| screens. I disconnect screen and the desktop remains a
| garbled mess on the main screen. I force reboot and upon
| reboot now I have been dropped to the terminal. Result:
| Stop usage and move on.
|
| These issues don't happen on Windows and Mac in my
| experience. Don't get me wrong, Windows is degrading in
| usability and Mac is as well (at a much slower pace) but
| they are not falling apart in these fundamental ways. The
| very foundations of Linux seem to be built on sand and
| that does not convey trust when you expect your system to
| be more than just a toy. This is a machine to get work
| done on and I depend on it. I cannot be dealing with
| silly issues like this.
| dang wrote:
| " _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be
| shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| MarkSweep wrote:
| Also the composited desktop Aero shipped in Windows Vista in
| late 2006, the same year as the initial release of Compiz.
| Aero was originally demoed at WinHEC 2003, for whatever that
| is worth.
|
| I don't know how much these different compositing window
| managers inspired each other. To me it seems like there is
| some convergent evolution. Compositing window managers are
| obviously superior (no redrawing when moving windows). In the
| mid 2000s memory and graphics cards became cheap and powerful
| enough to make compositing viable.
| laumars wrote:
| > Also the composited desktop Aero shipped in Windows Vista
| in late 2006, the same year as the initial release of
| Compiz.
|
| Opposite end of the year though since Compiz was released
| at the start of 2006. Compiz had seen significant
| development over that year (unlike Windows that only ships
| big graphical updates in new OS releases). So much so that
| by the time Vista was out it had already forked a mature
| competitor: Beryl.
|
| Plus Compiz wasn't the first compositing Window on Linux
| either. Just arguably the best in that era.
|
| > I don't know how much these different compositing window
| managers inspired each other. To me it seems like there is
| some convergent evolution.
|
| Technology almost always works that way. But it's fair to
| note that Compiz did feel miles ahead of the competition at
| the time. Which I think is entirely down to its module
| system. Meaning anyone could build their own effects and
| not just wait for their OS developers to release a new
| service pack.
| Symmetry wrote:
| I always thought it was neat that the three main
| competitors in use then were Beryl, Aqua, and Aero -
| solid, liquid, and gas. Not sure if that was intentional
| or not.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| https://github.com/Schneegans/Burn-My-Windows/commit/b5f9118...
| // This effect is a homage to the good old Compiz days.
| However, it is implemented // // quite
| differently. While Compiz used a particle system, this effect
| uses a noise // // shader. The noise is moved
| vertically over time and mapped to a configurable color //
| // gradient. It is faded to transparency towards the edges of
| the window. In addition, // // there are a couple of
| moving gradients which fade-in or fade-out the fire effect.
| //
|
| https://github.com/Schneegans/Burn-My-Windows/blob/main/src/...
| [deleted]
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| I instinctively expected to hear the notes of "Here Comes the
| Hotstepper" when I clicked on that video. I was expecting
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ; which was somewhat
| popular to send around to show comparisons of how Compiz was so
| far ahead it could not just replicate Vista's interface, but
| could also better it in some aspects like the famous 3D cube.
|
| Thanks to you and others for working on it! Looking at the
| video almost 15 years later, I feel wistful for the joy that
| accompanied some of these desktop effects, and wonder where it
| has gone today.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Shocking to see what passed as acceptable video quality back
| in 2007.
| echelon wrote:
| I was already dabbling in Linux with shared hosting for my
| hobbyist website, but Compiz made me lean into Linux and
| development full tilt.
|
| Showing friends the crazy 3D desktop, the wobbling, burning
| windows, and all of the other crazy customization and effects
| it provided gave me a kind of unique confidence and excitedness
| in my explorations. It was like jet fuel for learning. Bash,
| vim, Unix philosophy, Python - all things I got sucked into
| because I liked the aesthetics and promise of Linux. Lessons
| that outlived the window manager and paved the way for my
| career.
|
| Compiz couldn't have done a better job.
| Izkata wrote:
| The way I remember it, I never managed to get the original
| Compiz to work right, the Beryl fork worked out-of-the-box with
| no hacking around, and then Compiz Fusion (when Beryl was
| merged back into Compiz) lost like 95%+ of what Beryl could do.
| nitrogen wrote:
| The physicality that Compiz and wobbly windows brought to the
| desktop was a huge boon to my productivity. Everything was low
| latency, high framerate, and just felt _real_. I could rotate
| my virtual desktops around and they felt like actual spatial
| locations for organization. I could drag windows and they felt
| like quasi-tangible objects, not just abstract rigid platonic
| rectangles.
|
| It was far more than just a gimmick, and I really miss the
| effects today.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I have to say the same. It makes the computer "feel" better.
|
| It reminds me of discussions around Mac vs PC in the early
| days. The experience of using a Mac was more "fluid" than
| Windows. The Mac would draw windows faster, move the mouse
| faster (as in more refreshes of the cursor position per
| second) and that made it more comfortable to use. At the same
| time I also used Sun and SGI boxes regularly and the stark
| difference between the jerky mouse movement of the Sun and
| the fluid, Mac-like, movement of the SGI made the former an
| inferior experience (even though I liked OpenWindows over
| SGI's window manager whose name I forgot).
|
| I'd love to have wobbly windows back.
| ISV_Damocles wrote:
| If you use KDE wobbly windows are built in to its KWin
| compositor. :) I forget the exact details of how to get to
| it since I don't use KDE anymore (long-ish story), but even
| most of the silly things Compiz did are a configuration
| checkbox away in KDE.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| It's under Desktop Effects.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| >...SGI's window manager whose name I forgot
|
| 4Sight!
|
| https://wiki.preterhuman.net/4Sight_Window_System
|
| http://www.vintagecomputers.info/pitechrep.html
|
| http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sgi/iris4d/007-2001-030_4Sight
| _...
|
| 4Sight Programmer's Guide: GL/DGL Interfaces. NeWS. Window
| Manager.
| hansjorg wrote:
| Yes, it's a strange effect. I initially dismissed wobbly
| windows and the desktop cube as very gimmicky bling, but it
| really did make a huge difference to the feeling of the
| desktop.
| Nition wrote:
| You might well be right. I was at university during that time,
| and people would legitimately see that someone else had wobbly
| windows and cool effects and end up getting Linux because of
| it.
|
| Just _looking_ at all the options in the Compiz window was
| exciting. I can have _fish_ inside my desktop cube?
| hammock wrote:
| I dont know what Compiz is (not a linux user), but I seem to
| remember something like this mod existed for Windows in the
| 90s/00s
| jchw wrote:
| WindowBlinds had some similar features, but I'm pretty sure
| Compiz almost immediately did far more. The state of the art
| third party software on Windows in the 2000s tended to try to
| emulate Vista Aero on XP, or skin Vista/7 differently but
| with similar functionality. The Molten theme from
| WindowBlinds 6 is somewhat reminiscent of burning windows,
| but I don't think it _actually_ did that. Maybe at some point
| you could burn the start menu down, I can't remember.
|
| Some stuff, like the desktop cube, could be emulated, but not
| too well. On Compiz, everything was drawing during the
| animation, showing off the modular compositing that it
| enabled, whereas most desktop cube toys didn't update the
| screen while rotating, making it less impressive.
| hammock wrote:
| Yes I think that was it! I never used it for Windows XP but
| I definitely used it for earlier versions of Windows.
| nicoburns wrote:
| WindowBlinds was ok, but the performance was pretty bad and
| I don't think it could live-update the windows in the
| expose like view. It just displayed screenshots. Compiz on
| the other hand was silky smooth.
| mr_cyborg wrote:
| Are you remembering Desktop Destroyer[0] perhaps?
|
| 0: http://stressreliefpig.com/games/downloadable-
| desktop/deskto...
| jmspring wrote:
| I thought compiz was interesting and it did have an impact.
|
| That said, In the mid 2000s, Linux was better but still had
| issues getting video/etc configured properly (depending on what
| you wanted to do/your hardware). I specifically moved to OS X
| because video just worked.
| oraphalous wrote:
| Also - it was just fun... I don't know why that can't be more
| of a consideration in modern UX.
| godot wrote:
| I clicked on the youtube link expecting to see Compiz examples,
| and was extremely pleasantly surprised to hear the music of Top
| Racer on SNES (I believe the game might've been called Top Gear
| 1 in America. In Asia Top Gear was the sequel to the first Top
| Racer game). One of my favorite SNES sound tracks of all time.
| fartcannon wrote:
| It also taught me the value of enthusiast built software. A
| nearly blind friend of mine was able to use Linux for music
| recording in Ardour (thanks again Ardour/Paul, you rock) with
| the ezoom function in compiz! The only problem was that it had
| a limit of something reasonable like 8x, but my friend often
| required a bit more than that. I emailed the maintainer and he
| added it within an hour! We were both so used to dealing with
| the various exploitative zoom software providers on Windows
| that charged an arm and a leg for support, and new features
| were only added in future expensive upgrades that our minds
| were totally blown. Thanks again, Kristian! If you ever read
| this, you really made our year.
| jdoliner wrote:
| I got into Linux largely because of how cool compiz was. Wobbly
| windows legit created my entire career.
| ridethebike wrote:
| I remember when Compiz was released. It was mind-blowing, its
| sheer awesomeness was something out of this world. "ok, Windows
| is done" me and my friends thought, "prepare for linux
| dominating the desktops".
|
| Yet ~15 years later here we are.
| marcodiego wrote:
| I miss that feeling. Desktop moves at a much slower pace
| today.
| tpmx wrote:
| Me too.
|
| Desktop "progress" is now sadly now mostly done by
| Microsoft (geriatric at best) and Apple (mostly just
| implementing the new graphical design whims every year).
| rapind wrote:
| My god I wish companies would stop iterating on desktop
| "default" design. The only features on a Mac I use are
| Cmd+space and Cmd+tab. Beyond that it's just a host.
| Every time they add crap I have to find and disable it
| all.
|
| By all means make cool stuff but also make it opt in.
| ridethebike wrote:
| So much this.
|
| Things I need my OS to do are: - run my apps (office,
| browser, games) - connect my devices (printers, game
| controllers, displays) - some basic operations with files
| (copy/paste/delete)
|
| And while doing this be: 1. secure 2. reliable 3. out of
| my way
|
| All these adding people/chat/weather widgets
| "innovations" (looking at you, msft) make me throw my
| hand up in the air and ask "why", I wish they would spend
| that time and energy on security and reliability instead.
| inDigiNeous wrote:
| I remember Compiz being cool looking, but resulting in mostly
| crashing my computer or freezing the GPU driver.
| brnt wrote:
| It was just plain fun! Nowadays, the only thing to look forward
| to is what functionality the Gnome devs ripped out this time...
| de6u99er wrote:
| Wow, that's really cool. I think I am going to use the Matrix
| shader on my private workstation. Will do a code check before I
| install it on my work laptop tho.
|
| TIL: Gnome Extensions can be written in JavaScript.
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| The Gnome desktop shell is written in javascript. (or at least
| it was in 3.0, although I don't expect it to have changed)
| tcit wrote:
| Only small parts of it.
| andrew_ wrote:
| The emoji-commit-message spec absolutely drives me batty. Why.
| Just why.
| chungy wrote:
| Youth maybe?
|
| Worse though is the dependence on the plain ASCII codes,
| limiting their utility (if you even call them that) to GitHub's
| display. On a terminal (at least where I'm likely to use "git
| log"), it's just a bunch of dumb ASCII codes taking up line
| space.
|
| I don't really get it. Why not just use the real emoji? At
| least it'll display properly outside of GitHub.
| aflag wrote:
| I liked the idea, but I agree with you that they should just
| have used emojis.
| throwaway889900 wrote:
| >You should also start your commit message with one applicable
| emoji
|
| I don't think many people will contribute with a rule like that.
| Project is neat though.
| GaylordTuring wrote:
| I was thinking the exact opposite actually. I like how easy you
| can get a feel for the latest commits just by seeing the emoji,
| which is excellent! More people should enforce rules like this.
| lobstrosity420 wrote:
| >I don't think many people will contribute with a rule like
| that
|
| Why do you think that is?
| vultour wrote:
| I don't even know how to type an emoji on my computer
| Wilem82 wrote:
| On Windows just press Win+; .
| JonathonW wrote:
| They're not actually emoji; they're shortcodes that get
| rendered out to emoji in the Github interface. (Which, IMO,
| is worse than actually using emoji, but easier to type, I
| suppose.) 935e922 (HEAD -> main,
| origin/main, origin/HEAD) :tada: Bump version number
| aeec220 (tag: v7) Merge branch 'feature/3d-noise'
| 17fae26 :lipstick: Tweak labels a331736
| :twisted_rightwards_arrows: Merge pull request #21 from
| Schneegans/feature/3d-noise
| ruined wrote:
| there's lessons on coursera and edx
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Because emoji are tacky. You want to use them in your commit
| message? Fine. But if I were ever contribute to a project
| that enforces such a rule I would start every commit with the
| middle finger emoji.
| excalibur wrote:
| > But if I were ever contribute to a project that enforces
| such a rule I would start every commit with the middle
| finger emoji.
|
| Ah yes, the Kid Rock aesthetic. Much less tacky.
| reaperducer wrote:
| It's his project. He can be tacky, if he wants to. If you
| don't like it, fork it.
|
| I don't like emojis, but I have even less regard for how
| boring the internet has become.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Isn't tackiness heavily context, culture, and timeframe
| dependent? Besides, computing is far too serious these days
| . I see no reason for my computing to be a little bit
| whimsical (especially if it's a hobby project), provided
| it's also self-consistent.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Isn't tackiness heavily context, culture, and timeframe
| dependent?
|
| All the more reason to not _require_ them?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I believe the opposite: that there is sometimes the right
| place, the right project/people, and the right time to be
| whimsical. So not always, but also not never (as an
| abolitionist stance would see it).
| udbhavs wrote:
| I don't think it's out of place on a project about cool
| window effects which many would also consider tacky.
| scrollaway wrote:
| It increases barrier of entry with something that is really
| arbitrary and not easy to remember unless you have a cheat-
| sheet in front of you.
|
| I have lots of commit rules in all my projects but they're
| simple, straightforward, and easy to remember because they're
| useful and commonplace. eg "Short one-line commit message,
| more details in the paragraph beneath it, atomic commits with
| single change per commit, no individual commit breaks the
| tests".
| Firehawke wrote:
| If you can't remember that the "silly" project has a "silly
| rule" in place, and you won't remember any time you look at
| "git log" results, then I really don't know what to tell
| you.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| That's simple enough: have a text file with the emoji saved
| somewhere handy, or use a text macro expander to replace
| :colon_style_markup: with real emoji. If you don't already
| have an emoji input widget on hand, that is.
| matsemann wrote:
| Gitmoji - Yay or Nay? 2019, 220 comments,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21760021
|
| If you'd like more thoughts on the matter.
|
| (and the original article now lives here:
| https://www.bekk.christmas/post/2019/11/gitmoji-yay-or-nay )
| billpg wrote:
| I may start doing that for my own projects.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Simon's a top notch interactive graphical user interface
| designer and programmer. Not just static pictures, not just
| fixed animations, not just functional code, but rich
| interactive animated feedback that's actually useful and helps
| you complete your task while it's also beautiful. When you can
| design and program stuff like this all on your own and give it
| away for free, then you can make up any rules you want about
| commit messages. Look what else he can do with icons and
| emojis:
|
| https://schneegans.github.io/news/2021/12/02/flypie10
|
| >More Fly-Pie Updates!
|
| >In the last couple of months several new versions of Fly-Pie
| have been released. In this post, I want to highlight the major
| new feature.
|
| >New features were added in version 8 and version 10. The
| versions 9 and 11 were released as well, but they contain bug
| fixes only. Here are two trailers to celebrate the respective
| releases:
|
| Fly-Pie 8: New default dark theme and support for GNOME 3.36,
| 3.38, 40, and 41!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9t7hfkE_5w
|
| Fly-Pie 10: A new Clipboard Menu, proper touch support & much
| more!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXtckqhEIk
| torquemodwanted wrote:
| Interestingly, this diverges from the more common gitmoji
| rules: https://gitmoji.dev/
| pmarreck wrote:
| Is there anything like this that works in KDE Plasma?
| bogwog wrote:
| VR desktops apps nowadays let you place windows around your head
| in VR, so that you feel fully immersed in whatever you're doing.
|
| Back in the Compiz days, my virtual desktop switcher was a 3D
| cylinder. Holding the middle mouse button would _zoom out_ my
| current desktop, placing me in the center of a giant 3D cylinder
| which I could rotate by moving the mouse to switch to a different
| desktop. _And_ it worked with my dual monitor setup!
|
| That was immersive as hell, and I felt so freaking productive
| having that spatial awareness of my other desktops. Back then I
| was doing Android development with Eclipse, and I would have one
| desktop for code, another desktop for logcat and an ADB terminal,
| and another desktop for documentation/music/etc.
|
| And of course, all of my windows were wobbly.
|
| Today I don't use anything fancy like that anymore, and I barely
| ever use virtual desktops for anything, even though switching
| between them with a keybinding is much easier/faster than that
| old setup I had. ALT+TAB takes about as much effort as
| CTRL+ALT+ARROW, but one is muscle memory and the other is not. If
| I ain't getting a fancy 3D cylinder, why bother?
| luke2m wrote:
| And here I am today, with Compiz Alike windows and magic lamp
| effect, Burn My Windows, Blur My Shell, Desktop Cube, and of
| course, Useless Gaps on GNOME. I love it.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Hmm nice work but I always hated the way Compiz had so many
| effects just for the sake of it :) The wobbly windows, the fire..
| It was cool for 2 minutes and then annoying. At least to me. I'm
| surprised so many people thought the wobbly windows added a real
| feel to the desktop. I never really had that experience. But it's
| good that it's an option.
|
| I preferred Apple's animations which like the 'genie' one have a
| functional purpose too: they show where a minimised window is
| going.
|
| For me, the perfect animation is extremely quick so it doesn't
| make the desktop feel slower, but still just noticeable enough to
| make it feel sophisticated. And it should have a function, not
| just for show.
| mro_name wrote:
| they've got emojiquette!
| the_only_law wrote:
| I actually kind of want to use GNOME just for this now.
|
| Call me crazy but little novelties like this are part of what
| make computers fun.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| FWIW, KWin is easily extensible with effects like that and some
| of them are even available by default.
| IceWreck wrote:
| KDE has crazy effects too. They're buried deep in the settings,
| but all the 2000s effects are still there.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Feels like GNOME Plus!
| Firehawke wrote:
| That's really it-- it's a waste of resources, but it's such a
| tiny amount that all these effects are almost free. There's no
| point in not having a little fluff that makes the experience a
| bit more fun.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I don't consider it a waste. These features provide
| enjoyment, which has value. As far as software goes, they are
| no more wasteful than video games or media players.
|
| Units of energy expended per unit of "enjoyment" is certainly
| a factor to consider, but in this case the extra energy
| consumed is very minimal.
| Legion wrote:
| > it's a waste of resources
|
| I always laugh at the people that take this notion way too
| seriously. If their CPU is only 98% idle, it's a travesty. I
| imagine the same people driving around in cars stripped of
| all paneling and upholstery, because every little bit of
| unnecessary weight hurts performance!
|
| > There's no point in not having a little fluff that makes
| the experience a bit more fun.
|
| Well put. Considering how much time we spend staring at these
| stupid little number boxes, things that makes the experience
| a little more enjoyable are worthwhile, even if they're dumb
| and frivolous.
| silisili wrote:
| Excellent. Longtime Gnome desktop user, former Compiz user...I
| had no idea this even existed. You better believe I now have
| burning windows :), despite how childish it may seem.
| gedw99 wrote:
| have to add this to my wides pc ...
| jopsen wrote:
| Recall working on an highschool assignment in MathCad on my
| Windows XP virtualbox, and having my work fall apart in front of
| my eyes...
|
| It was the VM crashing and the window destruction effect was
| quite appropriate as my work wasn't saved :/
|
| Maybe we should only burn windows when the application crashed
| non-zero :D
| nvr219 wrote:
| I use Mate with all the animations turned off and this kind of
| stuff makes me realize I am an elderly, soulless fuck
| kleer001 wrote:
| Same, but KDE fwiw. Yuck. I don't need it, I don't want it, get
| it away from me. But I'll be the last to yuck someone's yum.
| Have at it y'all. It's just not for me.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Yeah KDE's configurability is exactly what I want. 5.23 was
| again a great release.
|
| This is really the power of Linux... You can make it what you
| want it to be.
| schmookeeg wrote:
| Wow did this ever take me back. Arguably my first "public code
| release" was a plugin ("mod" back then I think) for the WWIV BBS
| system -- a screensaver called "Bubbles" that would draw random
| circles on the idle screen instead of the dead blinky cursor at
| top left. BBS owners would basically need to code it as a diff in
| their own system and recompile the thing.
|
| I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. It was probably 50ish lines of C
| code, and I made some serious assumptions about what video card
| and modes were present.
|
| I really really loved computers and coding back then.
|
| Reading the comment below about being elderly and soulless also
| resonates for me at the moment.
|
| I miss the romance of it all. :) I've been married to computers
| for nearly 40 years now, and all of the spice is gone. It's just
| comfortable and regular and routine.
|
| Oh well, on to another 2-hour interminable sprint planning sesh
| (sigh) -- "yes dear, I'll be right there"
| rd07 wrote:
| I am interested on how did you learn programming and even
| create a functional program when you were that young. I was 14
| years old when I write my first "hello world" program, and
| after that, for the next 5 years I basically just fiddling with
| Visual Basic 6 UI builder and programming. Most of my script
| come from books or the internet, and I don't understand the
| complicated stuff at that time, especially where the program
| interacted with Windows API. Maybe the lack of teacher and
| access to materials also has a role for my lack of
| understanding back then. So, I am interested on how did you
| learn programming on such a young age?
| benbristow wrote:
| I was expecting this to be some tool that deleted
| C:\Windows\System32 or something, but I came out pleasantly
| surprised with a hint of nostalgia.
| intrasight wrote:
| Or moving to a warmer climate - and burning my windows
| dthul wrote:
| Love the flashback to the old Compiz days! The only thing missing
| now is wobbly windows.
| moses-palmer wrote:
| it is not missing:
| https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3210/compiz-
| windows-e.... My eldest son has it running on his account, and
| I predict that later today those wobbly windows will also
| burn... EDIT: correct extension
| [deleted]
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I miss the fad of Compiz effects. Sure they were silly but it
| added a little fun to the desktop. I never really got into
| desktop themes preferring something plainer and smaller
| (because screen real-estate was still a commodity back then)
| but wobbly windows and closing effects largely didn't take much
| away from usability while still adding a little personality.
| anotheryou wrote:
| wanted to make the same comment :). they were so good
| canbus wrote:
| haha, ditto, wobbly windows were awesome, and the geared cube
| pintxo wrote:
| You mean [1]?
|
| [1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2950/compiz-alike-
| win...
| rbanffy wrote:
| The GNOME Foundation needs to adopt this.
| legrande wrote:
| This would be great when doing live demos during a talk at some
| conference. People would be entertained by these effects, even if
| they are just for show and 'purely for aesthetic purposes'.
| dhosek wrote:
| I wonder if it's possible to do things like this with Windows or
| MacOS. I love the idea of cool effects like this (even if the
| first thing I did after OSX introduced the genie effect was to
| turn it off--nowadays the hardware is fast enough for it to not
| be annoying and the split second of the window shrinking away is
| a nice visual cue as to what's happened especially if one
| accidentally hides the window via cmd-H).
| rbanffy wrote:
| Windows Terminal has a neat shader thing that you can use to
| add things like noise and scanlines to your terminals.
|
| I wish all desktop windows could have shaders applied.
|
| I'm trying to convince myself to write one for a curved CRT
| look and one for phosphor persistence.
|
| https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/blob/main/samples/Pixe...
|
| The Windows Terminal team has a lot more fun than the others,
| it seems.
| bogwog wrote:
| > The Windows Terminal team has a lot more fun than the
| others, it seems.
|
| Instead of having fun, they should be performing doctoral
| research to improve performance. (https://github.com/microsof
| t/terminal/issues/10362#issuecomm...)
| rbanffy wrote:
| If the person thinks it's that simple, they could offer a
| patch. I don't think it's simple and I won't.
| noitsnot wrote:
| Went down the comments looking for a Windows version. No luck.
| :(
| csilverman wrote:
| macOS has gotten a _lot_ less fun, starting with X. I remember
| no end of UI-customization utilities for pre-X Macs, some of
| which were really powerful, like Kaleidoscope. I loved being
| able to make the system look like an NeXT box (there was even
| an Irix theme) or design my own UI entirely. Even Apple briefly
| considered the idea of building theme support right into the
| OS.
|
| But they didn't, and the few quirky things that OS X did, like
| the puff-of-smoke effect, have been quietly removed. I hate how
| sterile Apple's products have gotten. Sure, they're beautiful,
| but they don't have the kind of character the old ones did.
|
| I wish something like Kaleidoscope (or Burn My Windows) existed
| for Macs.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I remember one, "Out of Context Menus" that allowed things
| like adjusting the vertical and horizontal settings of
| windows, as well as applying a gaussian blur to them.
|
| You can read more about Eric Trout's extension here:
|
| https://tidbits.com/1999/07/12/the-machack-hack-
| contest-1999...
| aleffert wrote:
| A while back I made a goofy app called Appstagram that applied
| Instagram-like filters to the windows of your desktop
| applications (https://github.com/aleffert/appstagram), but
| Apple continually made it more difficult to inject code into
| every process (even after having been granted permissions by
| the user) and I eventually gave up.
| harles wrote:
| So many neat things going on with Linux desktops. It's
| unfortunate high DPI/mixed DPI support lags so far behind Windows
| and Mac. This has essentially killed Linux as a daily driver for
| me.
| canbus wrote:
| compiz effects are probably one of the main reasons why Linux
| interested me so much growing up, and why I now work in tech!
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Very neat. Works perfectly so far.
| mediocregopher wrote:
| Compiz was one of those things I could show off to friends to
| prove that linux was actually way cooler than any of _their_
| operating systems, but since then seems to have been completely
| forgotten about (at least by me). This was a nice blast from the
| past.
| canbus wrote:
| Bragging about wobbly windows was the best thing ever. I'm glad
| I'm not alone!
| silisili wrote:
| Just found this! This thread has really let me compiz out my
| Gnome, between the flames and wobbly windows!
|
| https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3210/compiz-
| windows-e...
| ravenstine wrote:
| And that multiple-desktop cube thing!
| rastapasta42 wrote:
| What about the fire effect?
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Multiple desktops on a rotating cube tho. Shit was straight
| fire
| istjohn wrote:
| It wasn't just a gimmick either. Mapping workspaces on to a
| physical cube makes navigating between workspaces more
| intuitive and natural. It provides a useful spatial
| metaphor to latch onto.
| boondaburrah wrote:
| the cube was straight up useful as a visual cue since you
| can animate it faster and still know what's going on - I
| find the slide more confusing at speed.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I don't see why Apple couldn't introduce this to its
| desktop switching routine. The cube animation already
| exists for switching users. It would be nice to have the
| option when switching desktops.
| massysett wrote:
| That's just it. Apple would rather provide One True Way
| to do it. On Mac, cube = switch user, and slide = switch
| desktop.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Apple hates options of any kind. Their core ideology is
| "opinionated software". Meaning the software does things
| one single way, the way they intended, and it does that
| really well.
|
| It sucks though if you really want things another way.
| Then you have to mess around with third-party addons that
| break every time there's a major upgrade. It's the main
| reason I moved back to KDE (and the OS being closed off
| more).
|
| I would never choose to use Gnome for this reason because
| it does the same thing. But at least on FOSS we have many
| options available, to each their own!
| rbanffy wrote:
| Apple is about the minimum amount of features. It's
| approach is minimalistic to the extreme and that's also
| good.
|
| It's more or less the same reason why I like Gnome's
| minimalistic approach.
|
| I have ADHD and everything I DON'T need is an OS that
| distracts me. FFS, I'd work from a VT-100 (even though
| I'd prefer a 3278-2 or 3279) if that was possible.
| Fatnino wrote:
| Then there was this one screensaver that made the cube
| slowly rotate while all your windows from all the faces
| blew around like leaves in a gentle whirlwind in the
| middle.
|
| I really really want to see this come back. Even back then
| it was never released to stable and I got it from a script
| that grabbed and compiled all the bleeding edge stuff. It
| worked for a few weeks and then an update somewhere broke
| it and I never saw it work again :(
| excalibur wrote:
| For the pro level you had to make the cube transparent so
| you could see it all the time.
| stevepike wrote:
| I still use wobbly windows on KDE and it fills me with warm
| nostalgia.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I'm almost ashamed to admit how large of a reason wobbly
| windows working out of the box is for my continued
| preference for KDE in most cases. Does anyone know what the
| status of '00s desktop effects is on other common DEs? I'd
| guess it'd be easier to achieve on MATE than Cinnamon for
| example, though I've always liked Cinnamon.
| nicoburns wrote:
| There's a comment above saying that wobbly-windows is
| available as a gnome-shell extension.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Almost every foray into linux on the desktop (when I was
| younger) for me started with seeing a cool video online with
| window effects (Compiz being the one I remember), installing
| linux on a new partition, spend the day getting most of my
| hardware working and playing with Compiz and other cool
| visualization utils (I can't remember the name of a tool that
| would add computers stats and whatnot to your desktop
| background, "nerd"/"geek"-something maybe?). Then after I spent
| a day getting it all working I'd be staring at my computer and
| it wouldn't take more than an hour or two to think "Ok, that's
| cool but I want to play a game" or something else that I
| couldn't do in linux.
| spacemanjack wrote:
| You are likely thinking of conky. It was included on some
| distros with a basic layout, but you could spend hours just
| adding other stats to it and changing colors.
| dopeboy wrote:
| I still remember the hundred page thread started by the
| author of conky on ubuntuforums.org. Back when I'd
| volunteer time on that site to help new ubuntu users. Blast
| from the past.
| joshstrange wrote:
| That sounds familiar, maybe the name I'm thinking of was
| the windows version/copy/port or something. All of those
| were neat and I'd spend countless hours (this was back in
| HS so I had tons of free time) configuring it and looking
| at screenshots that people posted to see what parts I want
| to recreate and then in the end I'd realize I never see my
| desktop background, like ever lol. Even now with 4 monitors
| you can't see my desktop background anywhere, I'm sure it's
| still the default macOS desktop because I never see it.
| shadowoflight wrote:
| > Then after I spent a day getting it all working I'd be
| staring at my computer and it wouldn't take more than an hour
| or two to think "Ok, that's cool but I want to play a game"
| or something else that I couldn't do in linux.
|
| Hah, for me, this was when I started getting deep into WINE
| and also some of the games available for Linux (SuperTux,
| that one game where you shoot a ball and it sticks to other
| balls and if enough of them are the same color they
| disappear, and some DOOM port).
| joshstrange wrote:
| I did the same for sure, played every native linux game
| there was but at the time most of the game I played were
| rough under wine. CS: Source, TF2, L4D, and WoW were all
| pretty hard to get reliably running especially compared to
| their windows performance (note, this was 2007-2009 range).
| I still remember a youtube video showing WoW running on
| Wine and they had Compiz so you could see WoW running then
| they switched (using the rotating cube transition) to
| another desktop. The video claimed it was getting higher
| FPS on Linux+Wine vs Windows so I of course dropped
| everything to try it.... I did not have similar results.
| shadowoflight wrote:
| Heh, my time with Linux was before then, I think - but
| only by a couple of years. I do recall having some fun
| experimenting with StarCraft and NFS: Hot Pursuit (the og
| 1998 version, not the 2010 remake) under Wine, though.
| marcodiego wrote:
| > that one game where you shoot a ball and it sticks to
| other balls and if enough of them are the same color they
| disappear
|
| Frozen bubble.
| shadowoflight wrote:
| Thank you! I knew the name had something to do with ice,
| but the name eluded me.
| indymike wrote:
| This is really cool!
|
| Typed from my KDE desktop, with wobbly windows and desktop cube
| effects. Desktop computing should be fun.
| ogogmad wrote:
| Some of these effects might be useful in a presentation. For
| instance, if your windows break apart into small shards of shiny
| glass (making a slight noise when doing so) and then disappear,
| it might be engaging. This sort of thing is common in films like
| Minority Report.
| andai wrote:
| Ahh, you've brought back fond memories of grade school
| powerpoint presentations :)
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| I remember I have to do a presentation for a country that I
| picked to present for my 9/10th grade history class. My first
| slide have that blue flaming text as a title that I generated
| from the flaming text generator website back then.
| ogogmad wrote:
| I was thinking more like a Youtube walkthrough of something
| that involves clicking around a desktop.
|
| But even in a PowerPoint presentation, if it's done in good
| taste, it can be quite stylish.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| The matrix one is nice; maybe a star trek teleporter effect would
| be a nice addition?
| gbrindisi wrote:
| I still remember the feeling when I managed to run the cube
| desktop with compiz on ubuntu 06.
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