Linux vs. Windows: Choice vs. Usability 1083
ThaReetLad writes "In this article at DevX, Executive Editor A. Russell Jones makes the case for a standardised GUI for Linux. He argues that the promotion of choice of GUI as a positive feature of using Linux is detrimental to its chances of attacking Microsoft's home user monopoly. From the article: '...the open source community must recognize that its primary goals: freedom of choice, freedom of source code, and freedom to alter applications, are not the goals of the average user.' In particular he argues that the choice of desktop between KDE, Gnome, IceWM etc, is not one that a former windows user, even a fairly technically competent one, is going to able to make an informed choice on, and that they should not be forced to make that choice in order to get good use out of any applications they might want to use."
Great one. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's wise to have everyone rally behind one operating system. That makes it more appealing to the masses. Most PCs have Windows, Macs have OS X, and it's worked superb for both areas.
I run OS X on my iBook, and it is great. However, being an advanced user of THAT, I would definitely be open to installing any other OS on it if I was given the choice.
Give the newbies one operating system, and leave it up to the advanced users to install their own choice of operating systems. Much like Old Navy/Gap/Banana Republic run on a scale of price, run RedHat/Gnome/KDe on a scale of usability, learning curve, and availability of advanced options.
Consumers do not want choices... (Score:5, Interesting)
People don't like making choices, it takes away time, energy, and they risk being wrong. That's one thing Windows (and Apple) does well, all choices are made for you.
The problem I have with the post is that it does NOT have to be a zero-sum game. If someone wants to make a distro of linux that provides limited choices, what's stopping them? Why does every distro have to be limited in choices. That mentality makes no sense.
Quick few points (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Talking head moron (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can't tell from this why someone who doesn't like geeky things (aka average computer user) is put off by linux...
On a side note I think would be rather nice of distros of *nix and gui's and etc. would specify what they think they should be used for. A given windows distro explicitly states what it is for: Small business, server, home use, hand held, etc. On linux? You've get twenty distros all trying to do everything. Give these people something to grasp!
Re:Oxymoron... (Score:3, Interesting)
My struggle with Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Then once I got everything working I'd have to figure out which GUI(s) were installed on it. Sometimes they'd work and sometimes they wouldn't. Mostly due to video card issues I'm sure.
Then if I got the GUI to work I couldn't figure out head from tails how to get programs installed. Most everything that I downloaded it felt like I had to build or download from CVS or some weird junk like that.
Eventually I gave up on wasting my time and went back into Windows. Then my Windows machine bombed out (CPU overheated I think) so I scrapped it for parts and now am over joyously running Mac OS X. Yeah it's more expensive, yeah I *used* to have a one button mouse, yeah it looks like a lamp... whatever. I know I have a good and solid OS underneath all those fancy widgets (which is why I wanted to install Linux in the first place) and I have those fancy widgets (which is why I always went back to Windows). Everything works and to get applications installed I just copy them into a directory and voila! Yes on occassion some random freeware/shareware program doesn't work for some reason or another. But overall I think it's a good middle ground between Linux and Windows.
I'm not by any means knocking Linux. I know most a good 25% of the people here probably can get it to run in their sleep and I applaud you for it. But I just don't have the patience I suppose. It's not that I'm afraid of breaking something. It's just that after a weeks worth of trial and error it sorta makes you discouraged.
What about Windows ? (Score:2, Interesting)
The average windows user doesn't even know which *windows* desktop they should use, so it's a bit of a stretch to ask Linux distro vendors to solve a problem that Microsoft hasn't been able to solve - if it's even really a problem at all.
Benefits of Usability Testing (Score:2, Interesting)
While the underpinnings of KDE and Gnome continue to advance, I doubt a great deal is being spent along the lines of usability for the GUI. Whatever your feelings may be towards M$, one thing that can't be argued is the amount of research & testing they put into the design of their UI.
Maybe the next logical step for one of these platforms would be to have a build that focuses on UI design for the non-technical users that makeup the majority of the Windows clientel. Until that happens, I fear these products will fall into the realm of "techie stuff", as my father puts it, for the less sophisticated users.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
At the end of the day, most people don't give a toss what the name of the thing running their desktop is, or why KDE is better than GNOME or vice versa. They just want a consistent desktop and a consistent set of apps running on top of it.
Of the distributions so far, Red Hat has clearly gotten the message. The RH9 desktop with bluecurve theme throughout is a wonderfully put together desktop. It's only when you contrast it with the slapdash Mandrake desktop for example that you appreciate the difference that consistency makes.
"Attacking Microsoft's home user monopoly" (Score:3, Interesting)
Granted, there are huge gains to be seen when Linux-based systems do compete with Microsoft for the home user. The price-point of RedHat, Debian, and even LindowsOS, systems are certainly going to have a positive impact in the market vis-a-vis the pricing and licensing models for MSFT. And the relative security of Linux-based systems vs. Microsoft systems will ultimately force a shift in MSFT's strategy of preferencing convenience and feature-set over security and reliability for the home user.
But we shouldn't overlook that Linux, as an open-source, community driven project, isn't interested directly in competing with anything. We've seen various products, such as Gnome, KDE, etc., emerge to provide capabilities on top of Linux that do directly compete with MSFT, but it is important to remember that those are not core Linux values, but rather a fortunate by-product of a environment that is legitimately tired of a marketplace almost fully co-opted by a corporation that leverages it's (near) monopoly position to the utmost.
What a load of ROLLOCKS! (Score:3, Interesting)
The open source community must do this, the Free Software community must do that, Slashdot users always say this, blah blah blah..
I'm sick and tired of people trying to tell everyone what "NEEDS!!!" to be done so that morons using windows will deem our desktops worty enough of them to use.
Re:A thought (Score:5, Interesting)
I think having a majority of desktops running Linux would be a huge boon! No more searching to see if ALSA supports your latest/greatest sound card, no more searching to see if the latest/greatest graphics card is supported and has full hardware acceleration in 2D and 3D. When you "own" the desktop, suddenly device manufacturers find it prudent to write the drivers for you.
No more Wine/what-have-you to run some of those fantastic commercial apps under Linux (and spottily at best for some). The manufacturers will find it in their best interest to do a straight port to Linux to get to the most users.
So, IMO, yes, we do want to own the desktop
If we have to become like Microsoft to defeat Microsoft, then what's the point?
If by "become like Microsoft" you mean suddenly having questionable business practices, then obviously you don't. If you mean writing easily breakable software, you don't have to do that either. Why would we have to become like Microsoft??
lifestyle gumdrops (Score:3, Interesting)
There are two things I hate about this article. The first is that it is a straw man attack. The second is his premise that no one think too hard. The users won't think hard, he won't think hard, so why should anyone else? I can agree with the first two, but I don't think it follows for the third group, those of us who conduct the development process.
I've never had any patience for the "take over the desktop" mantra. Satisfying the general public is the most difficult task in programming. Where this does this notion come from that importance is measured in eyeballs? I thought we ditched that one after the dotcom implosion.
The general population is not a fixed target. What was "obvious" to a non technical person in 1985 is far different than what is "obvious" to such a person now. Even if we all agreed that "one size fits all" would improve the landscape (over my dead body) "one size" is a moving target.
Finally, uniformity is a marketing process, not a development process. Leave the developers alone. For once, Apple had the right idea when they packaged FreeBSD in a translucent gumdrop (the gumdrop stands for the amalgam of two incompatible user interfaces, one nested inside the other).
Let's get down to brass tackies: there is a large segment of the population which is relatively careless about where they double click (beer goggles, teenage pregnancy, reality TV). These people are well served by Outlook and Explorer. There is another group that is more fastidious about how they conduct themselves. These people are better served by any other mail client and Opera/Mozilla.
The choice is not about windows managers, it's about lifestyle, and that choice doesn't go away no matter how you package the underlying technology.
minor but important correction... (Score:3, Interesting)
Please note my minor but very important corrections to your statements:
Would it be fair to say then, that Red Hat has a right idea trying to make a standardised GUI using the bets bits of (predominantly) GNOME and KDE? Having used Bluecurve'd GNOME over other versions of GNOME, it really is a superb piece of work.. definately one way forward imho, and a huge improvement over the standard.
Choice is one of the critical strengths of Linux. Standardizing the GUI (if that were even possible) for everyone would weaken it. No matter how you standardized it, someone would lose out. I have thought at times that Gnome and KDE should merge and work together. But that would kill off parts of each one of them.
I personally don't like RedHat's Bluecurve, but I do appreciate what they are trying to do with it. Hey, if it takes off, then maybe RedHat would become the "average-user-friendly" distro because of it. But talking about standardizing the GUI for all of the Linux world is just crazy talk. I found Bluecurve more confusing because I can tell the difference between KDE and Gnome. You put the same front-end on both, and it would be harder to explain to a non-computer user what the differences are. At least if they are separate, they can see the differences.
From the article header:
the open source community must recognize that its primary goals: freedom of choice, freedom of source code, and freedom to alter applications, are not the goals of the average user.
I think it is very important that the open source community recognize this too - but I don't think they have to do anything about it. Why compromize the primary goals and strengths to simply appease the average user? Linux didn't get to where it is by appeasing the average user, why start now? I am not being elitest, I just think that there is no reason to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator. You want to make a dumbed-down distro - go for it. Challenge Microsoft's desktop, take it over. Win over the average computer user. Just make sure you don't stomp on those primary goals in the process. Having installed older distros, I can absolutely appreciate the advances that have taken place in newer distros. There are still things that can be improved upon as well. But none of these have or will compromize the strengths of Linux.
As OJ says, that would be ludacrisp. :-)
Re:Windows suffers same problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Every single time a new KDE or Gnome version is released, a *lot* of things change, especially configuration utilities (Control Panels.)
target newer users (Score:3, Interesting)
Fundamental differences (Score:3, Interesting)
Gtk (GNOME) is free and open. It has a "safe" feeling. However, it's not really cross-platform* and is not very polished (the C API sucks and the gtkmm interface is still rough around the edges). It is a valid choice because of it's freeness. Hence the reason why we have GNOME.
QT (KDE) is not free and in fact it is way too expensive for most normal uses*. Not everyone wants to release their stuff as GPL. However, it's the best cross-platform GUI toolkit available and feels polished. The applications made with QT are typically more professional feeling than Gtk applications. It is a valid choice because it works really well (better than Gtk).
So those are the two sides. You have "rough and free" versus "polished and expensive". Because both are equally valid this is why we have the split.
And I agree with you. If I had to pick who will win the GUI war I would say KDE. But only if Trolltech lowers their prices will KDE survive in the commercial market. As I've mentioned many times, Microsoft's developer prices are way lower (for more stuff) and that's part of the reason why they rule the desktop.
* Gtk has always run like crap on Windows and on OSX it has to run in the X11 layer.
* Come on Trolltech, give us a sub-$1000 cross-platform QT.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, a Windows user is capable of making a choice. Do not consider a windows user to be a moron by definition as he/she aint.
I have several ex-windows users around me which are by all means linux users now. When I say by all means they are using it. They are not administering it, configuring it, tweaking it or in any other way wasting their time. They actually use the machine for work.
And guess what they use - good ole Windowmaker with the standard brushsteel Debian theme (yes they have tried Gnome, Kde, XFCe, whateverE and they hated every moment of it). After all, people severely understimate the extent to which people like their machine being fast (even when it is a PIV at 2.4) with half a gig of RAM.
Re:Good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
true but. (Score:3, Interesting)
First, there are serious efforts being made to interoperate between the major desktop - e.g. freedesktop.org [freedesktop.org].
Second, Linux's first desktop target, according to industry analysts, is very large corporate desktops - where Linux's security, the ability to have defaults set by a sysadmin, and low TCO are winners. In this space, Linux doesn't have to be perfect - nor does it have to allow users to install "any old application". It just has to be good enough.
I suspect that as Linux desktop developers' experience grows from these initial big installs, they will develop the capabilities to move into the mainstream home market - which is much more picky, has user demand for much more varied apps, and also doesn't make much cash. But even if this doesn't happen, I don't mind if Windows maintains market share here. So long as its total monopoly is broken, that is the main thing.
Getting tired of this comparison (Score:3, Interesting)
From the beginning, Linux has been about choice. That is one of the main, major features of the free software movement. I hate it when people constantly say, "well, we need to make it easier for people who use Windows to switch to Linux..." No we don't. I used to use Windows. I got sick of it. I switched. I wasn't all that tech-savvy... I didn't even know about the different desktops. I just picked one, tried it, look at another, tried it... went back to the first one. Along the way, I've learned about all of this stuff, but at the beginning it was the idea that something was out there that did things *differently* from Windows that was appealing.
Linux, the whole free software movement, has come this far on the merits of stability, cost, scalability, and user *choice*. We don't have to bribe people from Windows by making Linux look and feel the same way--I hate how Windows looks and feels. This community just has to keep on with what got it here in the first place, and people will continue to switch.
And if they don't, well, fine. Because it's a choice. And, frankly, I couldn't care less if your grandma can use Linux or not. Same with Joe Sixpack, whoever that moron is.
Stop with the articles that try to tell the free software community that it's better to be like Windows, that it's better to unify this and unify that and make everything all even-keeled and solidified. The antithesis of a single answer, the opposite track of Windows is what started it off on the road upon which it has come so far.
B
Re: What 'interesting things'? (Score:3, Interesting)
The panel was most annoying. Can I make my GNOME panel look like this [chemlab.org]?
In general, GNOME's UI is just barren compared to KDE's. When you view the properties of KDE components, there are generally lots of configurables. In my experience with GNOME, I found the opposite to be true. Walk through KDE's control center, and then through GNOME's. I hope you'll see what I mean.
Another issue was how badly Konqueror kicks the crap out of Mozilla when it comes to speed and responsiveness. I'm not knocking one or the other, I like them both and I realize Mozilla's design as a cross-platform application framework contributes to this. But Mozilla has tangible performance problems, and GNOME integrates Mozilla. This is a problem for me.
> When was the last time you used it?
I used it about a week ago and went back to KDE after a few hours. I was pretty disappointed because, as I said, I really want to like GNOME.
-Nick
Re:Good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
But in my expirience, users will choose a window manager that suits them and then stay with that. Your argument would be valid if you were not talking about a feature that is consistant throughout a given windowing environment, but is reduiculous if you are claiming that the choice of windowmanager makes using Linux (more accurately, X11) more difficult.
If you had used the example of menus in applications, then perhaps you would have a valid argument, but only if MacIntosh were your standard. Among Microsoft applications (AFAIK, the most widely used apps) there ios little GUI standardization between different programs and different versions of the same program. Similar features are in different menus depending upon if you are using Publisher, Word, or Frontpage (yes, I know that these programs are for different purposes, but the argument still holds). Upgrading to a new vesion of Word leaves users searching for the new locations of commonly used functions and configurations.
Different software publishers are successful on the windows platform even though thier interfaces differ from Microsoft's (example: Adobe).
The argument that Linux needs some kind of standardization on this front flies in the face of the history of the software business and has no real grounding in reason.
Pick a reasonable default, let the users customize thier environments, choose thier WM, and allow them their choice of apps (as long as the file formats are transparently compatible) and let the Linux programmers program as they see fit.
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Interesting)
Many companies actually choose GNOME for exactly that reason - it's NOT like Win32. KDE looks too similar to Windows, and users expect it to behave in exactly the same manner (which, of course, is impossible). GNOME keeps a clean, consistant interface with far fewer options and commands than KDE, as well as easier to spell and pronounce names (Konquerer? Kontour?). GNOME doesn't look like windows, and it doesn't act like windows - so users expect it to behave differently and are forced to learn instead of being confused by the small differences.
Or, at least that's what UI professionals tell me.
Re:"Most" tasks is highly inaccurate... (Score:3, Interesting)
Dudes full of shit -- already done (Score:1, Interesting)
Sorry to be so blunt but I'm sick to death of this crap. And if he had half a brain-cell he would be able to recognize this as such.
Why am I being such a prick? Becuase I've seen what is happening to RedHat and ESPECIALLY SuSE and can only say that what he is suggesting is already happening.
Take a look as SuSE, they are an excellent example. They have an entire distribution, packaged and ready to go, that is very heavily, if not totally, based upon KDE. They do offer alternatives, but precious few, they don't work as well, and they don't integrate with what SuSE has chosen to provide in the software distribution
Because of the decisions that SuSE has made, the user is presented with a form of Linux which is:
My point being this. If you are going to make the choice of a Linux Distribution which is geared to the Corporate User or a user who is not interested tweaking Linux then the very moment that you make the choice, be it RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, you have defined and confined yourself into a default window manager with will provide a common, universal GUI interface for as long as you use that distribution. In a Corporation, if they choose one distribution then every desk will appear to be the same insofar as that user chooses to go with the defaults. This is not any different from Windows today.
It is only in the more varied and more interesting distributions that you have the variety and choice to make the GUI a complexity of life. But even those like Debian and Gentoo, which are less trivial to configure yet provide infinite variety, have basic default options which, within their own space of being Debian or Gentoo is universally common with everyone else and probably common with many of the rest.
What I have seen is that the people who do not care to learn the interface and want things brain-dead simple will always choose KDE. People who want things to be different for their own reasons: speed, resources, appearance, features, will choose one that best suits them beit Gnome, WindowMaker, or whatever.
But to think that Linux will become better by having only one WindowManager available to everyone is just Corporate DumbAss thinking. This variety is what is required for Linux to remain a viable entity, to EVOLVE there must be variety and not all of them will survive the next generation.
Not again... (Score:3, Interesting)
Freedesktop really is the way to go (Score:2, Interesting)
It's kind of sad that so many people rant on about problems of the Linux desktop without knowing about Freedesktop.
It's true: The biggest problem Linux has on the desktop is one of interoperability. There are still some applications that don't get Copy&Paste right (it's gotten a *lot* better though), and Drag&Drop across toolkits is mostly a disaster (but there are already numerous cases where it works).
Some people want to magically fix that by removing all toolkits except for one. Newsflash: This is never going to work. Even if you were to remove all toolkits except for one today, somebody would start writing a completely new one tomorrow.
The real problem is that there were no (or unclear) inter-application communication standards. That's what the Freedesktop project tries to fix - and it does so successfully.
The nice thing is that Freedesktop works through evolution, rather than revolution.
The Market Will Decide (Score:1, Interesting)
If a gaggle of commercial developers start using KDE because they can write one app for Linux, Mac OS X and Winblows then the users wont have any choice. They will be running the KDE/QT libraries even if they are running some other window manager such as WindowMaker (my reigning non-kde-gnome fave).
Having said that, I prefer the KDE environment. Sometimes I even use Konqueror under Windowmaker. At some point the great majority of applications will decide on KDE or Gnome. The others will fade and it's possible that the importance of X itself will fade from history. Quite soon there may be non-X versions of KDE running on Linux. The big roadblock is video card drivers (could they be converted?).
Having been a developer in C and C++ and GUI's for about 20+ years now I'll have to say that KDE is by far the better architecture. No serious developer will ever start a new, large application/GUI project in C anymore. I know GNOME/GTK has a C++ interface, but its not well supported if not actually deprecated. The whole move by the Gnome chief towards cloning
The only real concern in my book is that the Canopy group has a minority share in Trolltech. Of course, after IBM and RedHat scatter SCO and Canopy to the four winds they would no doubt own, not just the SysV source code, but the Canopy's interest in TrollTech. That would work out nicely considering IBM is a big proponent of KDE and the cross-platform capability of KDE would help IBM's partner in Mac OS X hardware, Apple. It would also help Apple since they use Konqueror in Safari.
End game: IBM buys the rest of Trolltech and removes cross-platform license fees. Commercial use of KDE/QT would be under LGPL or maybe just the GPL. IBM slices off a chunk of money and creates the QT foundation. They pay QT developers to develop it forever and the original Trolltech developers are rich because they got bought out. Excellent all around.
Until then we have Mac OS X, which is the best damn graphic environment around bar none. Of course, there is a little bit of evil over at Apple with MS being a part owner.
In the end, some form of PDF-like environment will be worked out on the KDE side and even Mac OS will fade from view.
Re:MacOS X has solved the Unix GUI problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MacOS X has solved the Unix GUI problem (Score:3, Interesting)