Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 18th May 2009 19:06 UTC
We all know them. We all hate them. They are generally overdone, completely biased, or so vague they border on the edge of pointlessness (or toppled over said edge). Yes, I'm talking about those "Is Linux ready for the desktop" articles. Still, this one is different.
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RE[3]: Linux is for uber-geeks or uber-basic users.
by DavidSan on Wed 20th May 2009 13:39
in reply to "RE[2]: Linux is for uber-geeks or uber-basic users."
Member since:2008-11-18
An you have not talked about the Fonts in Gnome.. Do you want RGB, BGR, antialiased (heavy, soft medium), hinting (soft, medium, easy)... What combination? Try to explain that to a normal user... Not even die hard Linux users know sometimes. And it is on the user interface.
Eh? The choice of RGB/BGR/etc and the hinting levels are only shown in the 'Advanced' dialog of the font customization panel. The main panel just gives you a simple choice of "not antialiased", "smooth antialiasing", "best contrast antialiasing" and "LCD antialising" (not sure I got the exact wording right, I'm not on GNOME right now). Or are you suggesting removing the 'Advanced' button altogether and piss off the people who do want to customize that stuff?
Your argument sounds a lot like "Windows isn't ready for the desktop because I launched regedit.exe and everything is confusing!"
Eh? The choice of RGB/BGR/etc and the hinting levels are only shown in the 'Advanced' dialog of the font customization panel. The main panel just gives you a simple choice of "not antialiased", "smooth antialiasing", "best contrast antialiasing" and "LCD antialising" (not sure I got the exact wording right, I'm not on GNOME right now). Or are you suggesting removing the 'Advanced' button altogether and piss off the people who do want to customize that stuff?
Your argument sounds a lot like "Windows isn't ready for the desktop because I launched regedit.exe and everything is confusing!"
Again... Not all Window Manager have the same way, and not all distributions have the same way... Can you see a patter here? The big mess.
Xubuntu, for example, takes you directly to it. And Xubuntu is aimed to cheap hardware, to the things that GNome cannot run on.
RE[4]: Linux is for uber-geeks or uber-basic users.
by FooBarWidget on Wed 20th May 2009 14:44
in reply to "RE[3]: Linux is for uber-geeks or uber-basic users."
Member since:2005-11-11
Again... Not all Window Manager have the same way, and not all distributions have the same way... Can you see a patter here? The big mess.
Actually, no.
The font customization dialog you're talking about is part of GNOME, which is a desktop environment, not a window manager. There are only two major desktop environments, GNOME and KDE. Xfce has too little market share to matter - people who use Xfce are already tech savvy and don't have to be considered in this discussion, which only focuses on people who might find Linux confusing and will only use GNOME or KDE.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you actually mean "desktop environment" when you say "window manager".
As far as I know there are no distributions that change the look of the GNOME font customization panel or the KDE font customization panel. This only leaves 2 possible font customization user interfaces, GNOME's and KDE's, on all Linux distributions.
I've already said that GNOME's hides the details in an Advanced button. Is KDE's any more complex? http://www.novell.com/documentation/nld/userguide_kde/graphics/cc_f...
Nope, doesn't seem so.
Xubuntu, for example, takes you directly to it. And Xubuntu is aimed to cheap hardware, to the things that GNome cannot run on.
No Linux newbie would or should use Xubuntu (see Xfce argument). If you recommend a newbie to use Xubuntu then that's asking for problems. If the user's a newbie, point him to GNOME or KDE. Nothing else.
Blaming Linux for Xfce's usability problems is like blaming Windows for being unusable by putting a Windows newbie behind a customized Windows installation that runs LiteStep (a shell which replaces explorer.exe). Just because the choice of LiteStep exists doesn't mean that its existence makes Windows less user friendly.
Edited 2009-05-20 14:45 UTC
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Member since:
2005-11-11
Eh? The choice of RGB/BGR/etc and the hinting levels are only shown in the 'Advanced' dialog of the font customization panel. The main panel just gives you a simple choice of "not antialiased", "smooth antialiasing", "best contrast antialiasing" and "LCD antialising" (not sure I got the exact wording right, I'm not on GNOME right now). Or are you suggesting removing the 'Advanced' button altogether and piss off the people who do want to customize that stuff?
Your argument sounds a lot like "Windows isn't ready for the desktop because I launched regedit.exe and everything is confusing!"