So, I got a Raspberry Pi 500+ and a 4Tb SSD to play with. And I have just been playing with it.
And I have to say that I'm unimpressed in the extreme with the modern Linux UX, onboarding, and documentation.
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@cstross for folks thinking about switching to Linux, be aware that there are lots of distributions of Linux. It's not like MacOS or Windows. The Raspberry has its own spin as do other mostly hardware specific releases.
If you're looking for a desktop/laptop distro there are many to choose from. Personally, I suggest folks start with Linux Mint. I like the Cinnamon edition. I've been using Linux for decades and use Mint/Cinnamon because it generally just works and has a UI I like.
#Linux
@allpoints Dude, I was Computer Shopper UK's Linux columnist from 1999 for five years. First reviewed Slackware in that magazine in 1994. Worked at a UNIX VAR from 1991. (I have a CS degree too.)
Please don't interrupt my old-man-shouts-at-clouds kvetching with 21st century linuxsplaining, m'kay? It's all been downhill since 2002!
@cstross LOL i'm the last one to interrupt a good cloud yell (see my profile) and I'll defer to your superior experience. I started toying with Linux in the early 90s and the first serious distro used was Slackware 96 on CD, so you're definitely ahead of me.
In my defense, that wasn't directed at you, just something for the newbies as I expect there are about to be a lot of Windows 10 refugees.
Apologies for interrupting. I'll get off of your lawn now.
@cstross As I understand it, the Pi (at least in its default Pixel desktop) is the polar opposite of modern linux. It was conceived as the cheapest possible way to get a linux box into the hands of young people so they could learn programming. Fit and finish are just not priorities for them. It's possible to install alternate desktops (GNOME, KDE) if that's what you're after.
@cstross Yeah. It's annoying.
@cstross ha! Knew you would
@cstross Modern Linux is the result of attempting to be "more like Windows". Some devs had never seen any OS other than that, and took misfeatures as "good design", then ported them to Linux.
Mac had "forked" files, with a property bag holding things like "creator". The open action would look in that bag and open the program which created it. MS "duplicated" that with a "file association table", which was lame. Now Linux has that, because the Children never knew what the magic file was for.
@cstross Linux on ARM board tends to be kinda sucky.
First let me say I love Linux especially with KDE. I am a techie so I can easily support myself. As a matter of fact I like Linux because I have to use my brain to solve problems. I find it relaxing after working all day supporting MS systems where the answer is to just wait until MS decides to fix it
To illustrate how Linux shoots itself in the foot try to answer the following question: How do you update your system and apps?
I'll be surprised if someone can provide an easy answer
@cstross how do you like the new keyboard on the 500+?
@cstross It is ever thus. I started with UNIX Version 6 in the 70s, and my main OSes all these years have been UNIX and then Linux. My servers are all Linux. All but one of my desktops are Linux. But I would never, ever, recommend a Linux desktop to anyone who isn't either a dedicated techie or someone with full-time support available (either officially or a masochistic relative, etc.) That's the reality.
@lauren @cstross The closest I would recommend to anyone to using a Linux device would be a ChromeOS or ChromeOS Flex device. Of course, the death of that seems near, with Android taking over soon. I will be sad, unless they release a Flex version of that too! I have a lot of old laptops that I run CrOS Flex on for simple use cases (dashboards, testing logging in as many users on various websites)
@lauren @cstross I am in much the same boat as you.
Although I yell and curse at MacOS, especially that abysmal thing called "the Finder", overall I find it less user-hateful than some of the desktops on Linux. (I haven't used Windoz in several years.)
That said, I find the KDE environment on my Fedora Linux boxes to be pretty good. It has its weird corners. We've had non-tech users use KDE/LibreOffice in our office.
We use XFCE on some of our products because it is very lightweight. But the users of that are techies.
I don't like desktops like GNOME - I find them simply weird.
As for some of the applications - I use LibreOffice fairly often, and it elicits many groans and curses often of the form "why do they make this so hard?" Sometimes I'm almost driven to think about buying MS Word/Office/whatever-they-call-it-now.
@karlauerbach @lauren @cstross Seconding KDE on Fedora (although I use the Fedora-derived Ultramarine). I occasionally try the other destktops, to be aware of what's been updated, but nothing compares to the elegance of KDE.
These days I have to do battle with a Mac at college, and it always reminds me that I don't hate myself enough to use Apple products.
@carturo222 @karlauerbach @lauren I loved KDE 3.5; could never wrap my head around KDE 4, newer versions are ... well, I still think it peaked with 3.5.
@cstross @carturo222 @karlauerbach @lauren They are, I gotta say as a fellow 3.5-was-the-peak bloke, a lot less 4 than 4 was though. And KDE's easy customization has remained, so it's pretty simple to get most things to look and act like 3.5 with relatively few clicks and without having to install anything extra that might break upon an update to the core (something really, really not true of Gnome unfortunately).
@keithzg @carturo222 @karlauerbach @lauren Back in the day when I installed KDE 4 I couldn't figure out how on earth to get *anything* on what passed for a desktop. Where the menus were, how to find anything. It used a whole different interaction paradigm and seemed to assume prior familiarity, with no onboarding. Break the UX and expect users to sink or swim: way to go!
@karlauerbach @lauren @cstross
Stability.
I used to use Star Office, which was almost exactly the same UI. I'm sure there have been some improvements, but all too often, "improvement" meant "change", and was forbidden.
A former customer had an unofficial rule of "use what you've got". Their software system slowly degraded, as did revenue. Bummer.
@karlauerbach @lauren When I need an office suite on macOS these days, LibreOffice is my daily driver—far less annoying than Office365 (which I yeeted for good some months ago). But I mostly work in Markdown in a text editor (neovim), or in Scrivener. Office apps are quaintly oriented towards the workflow of a user base that is being systematically liquidated by neoliberal policies.
@cstross @karlauerbach @lauren Whew, that last part is a heck of a sentence. 💯
@lauren I *used to* run Linux as my daily driver for most of a decade (after SVR3 for much of a decade before that), but I'm horribly out of practice (Mac OS X, from back when it was visibly a fork of NeXTStep).
@cstross @lauren MacOS is probably a good choice, all the GUI and ease-of-use that Windows claims when you want to do normal stuff, yet a zsh/bash command line and full Unix system is one terminal app away if/when you need it. And Homebrew/etc. are there if you need Linux utilities. My dev machine at work, and what I recommend to new devs, is a MacBook Pro.
@cstross "The" modern Linux ux, as experienced from whatever came with a raspberry pi? I mean, I'm sure it's not whatever you are expecting, but this is like forswearing all fruits on the basis of trying one apple from a random food cart.
@cstross Which is not to say that you are likely to be wrong in you generalization. Polish is not generally something at which anything in the Linux ecosystem excels.
On that basis, cornucopia or not, I'm fairly confident it will always fail to meet expectations.
@ulexus Oh, I didn't stop at RPi's own interface! I also poked at current actually-existing Ubuntu. Which doesn't seem to have any affordances for the partially-sighted at install time, or any way to start bluetooth mouse discovery without a wired mouse ...
@cstross Oh, I see what you mean. I just use bluetoothctl, which is a pretty delightful experience, to my mind. It is a very nice interactive CLI.
@ulexus See, that's "deep" knowledge. Web search won't help a newb or a returning oldb find it these days. (Even DDG is filling up with AI slopvertising.)
@cstross @ulexus have you ever gave a look at ArchLinux's wiki? i haven't been on it for almost a decade now --back to windows, then fedora, now mint-debian-- but even when not using Arch, i find their wiki to be a treasure trove of deep knowledge that i'm --usually-- able to translate to whatever other distribution i'm trying at the moment.
i still haven't found a home yet 😅
@cstross This is a problem I really struggle with, with my colleagues. Search had become useless slop, and no one can seem to find out even think to look for original sources. (Not implying this is applicable here: I have no recollection when or where I found bluetoothctl)
@ulexus Also the IMMENSE damage done to our ability to rapidly find useful information by the rise of video—both Zuckerberg and YouTube are to blame. 500 word short HOW-TOs have been driven into extinction by 15 minute mumbling monologue videos bookended by 10 minute advertisements for double-glazing, with the information you need buried exactly 7 minutes and 14 seconds in (it's a 5 second aside).
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@cstross Alas, accessibility has taken a huge hit in recent years. It was never good, but the migration to Wayland has been extremely detrimental to visual assistance tools.
I'm surprised by the Bluetooth mouse problem, though.
@ulexus Not-so-oddly, the RPi OS was relatively good at Bt mice (except for zero easy way to control tracking speed or zoom in on the pointer). Unsurprising. But I expected far better of Ubuntu. (I've been poking at KDE on a laptop, too, but that's a bit less out there than an Rpi 500+.)
@cstross I'm pretty sure cursor zoom was a feature lost in the transition. At least, I've not seen it in the new world. OTOH, the new generation of dpi-aware terminals greatly reduce the need for such, for me. Anyone with real visual impediments likely finds this far from sufficient, though
@ulexus Cursor zoom is present in ubuntu once you have it installed (it's in the accessibility settings, I think). It's *not* available during setup.
(I've currently only got one semi-functional eye.)
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I really want to get one, but I have absolutely no real use case for it.. at least a normal Pi I could use as a home server or something like that, the all-in-one keyboard form doesn't really lend it's self to that.
@cstross hehe, using Linux but wanting unix documentation 😀
Sadly, FOSS really doesn’t seem to attract technical writers.
What was your opinion of the UX? I'm aware documentation is quite not good.
I just want to know what a Mac guy thinks of the Linux gui.
@cstross I am grabbing some popcorn. 🍿
@root42 I am too tired and jaded to toot about it. At least, for now.
Let's just say that in the 20 years since I stopped writing about Linux every month in the computer press, things seem to have gone *backward*.
@cstross not sure about “backward”, but the old joke about “the year of linux on the desktop is next year, every year” is everfresh
@cstross @root42 FWIW, I'm pretty happy with how XFCE4 has NOT evolved. It has quietly gotten a few new features here and there, and getting more refined, but ...
Look. I have been okay with the Windows 98 UI since the 1990s. XFCE4 gives me that, with a couple big improvements (multiple workspaces, and vertical toolbar with rotated text). I don't remember exactly when XFCE4 added those features, but I want to say 2010-ish.
All I want is a Win98 style UI, and I can get that with few headaches
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