Star Is the Linux Desktop Too Much Like Windows, Mac OS X?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 27th Aug 2009 19:08 UTC
Linux A complaint you hear quite often is that the Linux desktop environments, which mostly refers to KDE and GNOME, are trying too hard to be like Windows and Mac OS X. Now, even James Bottomley, Distinguished Engineer at Novell, Director of the Linux Foundation, and Chair of its Technical Advisory Board (put that on your business card) states in an interview that he believes the Linux desktop is too much like Windows and Mac.
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RE[3]: Yeah...
by Peter Besenbruch on Thu 27th Aug 2009 21:25 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Yeah..."
Peter Besenbruch
Member since:
2006-03-13

People like car analogies, and I do like this one. But, allow me to mention this, people expect cars to follow some specific rules, even if they never drove one. For example, where is the steering wheel, how do you use it, where are brakes, where to shift gears, where to honk.


The worst experience I ever had driving was when I rented a Ford Mondeo in England this Summer. The rental company gave me a manual diesel. Not only was it a struggle to drive such a hulking car with poor visibility on the wrong side of the too narrow road, I was also expected to shift the blasted thing left handed.

If only the English would give us a proper driving interface. ;)

In order to operate a car, a phone or a PC, you need some basic knowledge. Without this knowledge, you will run into problems, sooner or later. All OSes and DEs seem to have this in common.


There is a fair bit in common when using a point and click interface, partly because it wasn't developed by anyone who is still a player today. The point and click interface was developed by Xerox in the late 70s. Each later implementation shares certain basic assumptions. It's almost a language of movement. Hence, I can use Windows, the various Linux/Unix desktop environments, or Macs. I may not always use them gracefully, but I can get by.

"A radically different OS can be, if designed right, easier than Windows. Nobody has found the universal formula that scales properly though.


We can still wait (or hope) for it. "

I'm still waiting for Apple to improve its interface some more. The underlying OS isn't bad, but Apple could sure improve OS X's interface by making it more like KDE 3.5, or something. Using Apple is as bad a driving in England. ;)

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