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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: May 22nd, 2024

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  • And that’s just bizarre. That Windows needs 4GB of RAM and can’t have a low idle processor is trivial to you, but the app launcher icon being in a slightly different place in a Linux DE provokes your bewilderment is actually just lunacy.

    Again in trying to make your point, you’re giving your reaction to examples you don’t provide. I get that you find Linux irritating, but you’re not really attempting to qualify why that is. When I provided examples of how Windows wastes my time, you just dismissed them as trivial. So all I can conclude is that the problems you’re coming up with Linux’s design are so trivial that you can’t even think of them.

    I actually move the taskbar to the side of the screen in any OS that will let me. Why? Because screens are wide and documents are vertical. Makes sense to me. Just because you can’t fathom a design reason for it, doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Does it being on the left really necessitate research or a learning process on your part? No, so why are you pretending it does?

    A unified position for every program toolbar doesn’t objectively increase functionality, but it has the downside of forcing the user to focus the window before they can access the toolbar. In my opinion it’s a slight net decrease in UX. It seems like it’s mostly done to be different.


  • It just really isn’t an example that ‘will do’, though. I’m not saying it’s a trivial problem; I’m saying it’s not a problem by any stretch of the imagination. If the app launcher being on a different fixed part of the screen is a problem to you, then you should just stay away from computing in general. I know, however, that it’s not a problem, which is why I’m calling out your example.

    Okay and on the note of different for the sake of being different: back to the MacOS examples I provided: why do MacOS dock the program toolbar at the top of the screen and only show it for one focused program at a time? Is this not in contrast to how everyone else does it? It doesn’t offer any meaningful improvement and is slightly less functional (when multiple windows are open simultaneously). Why is this the best desktop OS and not just ‘hipster design’?

    Random mandatory updates which steal my computer’s focus, force reboots and often reset user settings aren’t trivial to me. They waste time and they happen with predictable regularity. Any given workaround might be randomly undone at the next update. Using a tonne of RAM and processing power in system idle is also not trivial. Encrypting my hdd and locking me out over minor occurrences as designed implementation is not trivial. Whatever is coming in copilot is not trivial.

    These are just examples off the top of my head. KDE could programme their app launcher to dodge my cursor every time I tried to click on it, and I’d still take it over Windows for ease of use.


  • That’s it? It’s not any easier to use, but is it any harder to use? The app launcher is to the right instead of the left? Or the bottom instead of the top?

    Sorry for the follow up question but what makes that such a difficult obstacle to surmount for new users? It’s not like it’s hidden away behind other menus, it’s literally just on a different part of the screen.

    That seems like such a minor difference that I’m genuinely baffled you brought it up. Are you similarly bewildered by the minimise/maximise/close buttons being on the other side of a window in MacOS? Or how MacOS docks the program toolbar at the top of the screen instead of in the program window?

    Why not just use a KDE distro? Then MacOS would be the outlier for weird design decisions against Windows and Linux.


  • I still don’t really know what you’re talking about and you haven’t really given any examples. Why talk about fictional triangle tablets when you could ideally just give a concrete example that makes your point?

    The fact is that I use Linux as a daily driver and it doesn’t eat up a lot of my time. It eats up far less time than Windows did. That’s why I’m using it. Several of my less tech-literate friends and family use it too.

    I agree with you on many of the MacOS points. I wish others would take lessons from their level of integration, but the flipside is that their ecosystem sometimes walls other things out (the need for expensive proprietary hardware, lack of games, etc). If it works for you, it works for you, but it doesn’t work for a lot of people.