Elementary OS 6.1(blog.elementary.io)
blog.elementary.io
Elementary OS 6.1
https://blog.elementary.io/elementary-os-6-1-available-now/
147 comments
It’s really hard to beat chrome OS for this use case.
Options from $200-$1000+, with good options around $400 on sale.
Issues? Power wash it.
Really broken? Go buy another one.
Lost or stolen? Buy another one and log in.
Need office? Google’s products work well. Need more? O365 subscription.
Want more security? Two factor auth with a Yubikey.
I recognize that this relies on Google and Microsoft and is not FOSS and has privacy issues and everything else. But I do not have enough time to spend managing my extended family’s IT beyond giving them chromebooks that achieve 99% of what they need to do with very little input on my part. If they want to invest time in learning about Linux and get away from Google and MSFT, that’s fine, but they can do it on their own time with a test machine and keep Chrome OS as their daily driver until they are confident on their own.
Options from $200-$1000+, with good options around $400 on sale.
Issues? Power wash it.
Really broken? Go buy another one.
Lost or stolen? Buy another one and log in.
Need office? Google’s products work well. Need more? O365 subscription.
Want more security? Two factor auth with a Yubikey.
I recognize that this relies on Google and Microsoft and is not FOSS and has privacy issues and everything else. But I do not have enough time to spend managing my extended family’s IT beyond giving them chromebooks that achieve 99% of what they need to do with very little input on my part. If they want to invest time in learning about Linux and get away from Google and MSFT, that’s fine, but they can do it on their own time with a test machine and keep Chrome OS as their daily driver until they are confident on their own.
Chrome OS devices have a fixed "kill" date when they will stop getting updates. Google Chrome OS devices do not have an AUE date beyond 5-6 years. I will not recommend Chrome devices to friends until they change this wasteful practice.
https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9367166?hl=en
https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?#zippy=%2...
https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9367166?hl=en
https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?#zippy=%2...
I agree it's wasteful and the trend is getting worse, but 5+ years of reduced tech support calls from family for such inexpensively performant devices is an incredible value. I'd wager more Windows machines were tossed into landfills simply because they were compromised within 3 years.
Most Intel-based ChromeOS devices from before 2017 are still easily recyclable into capable machines if you can flash the firmware and install Linux. I use several for for DNS/DHCP/media/file servers and test machines. Some of them have batteries that outlast my newest laptops, so a UPS is unnecessary.
It stinks that recycling unsupported devices is getting more difficult, but it's happening across the board regardless of platform. I'd still recommend a ChromeOS device to nontechnical users for a worry-free experience.
Most Intel-based ChromeOS devices from before 2017 are still easily recyclable into capable machines if you can flash the firmware and install Linux. I use several for for DNS/DHCP/media/file servers and test machines. Some of them have batteries that outlast my newest laptops, so a UPS is unnecessary.
It stinks that recycling unsupported devices is getting more difficult, but it's happening across the board regardless of platform. I'd still recommend a ChromeOS device to nontechnical users for a worry-free experience.
You do have to be careful on this and check the cost/year and look at the charts before you buy.
I put my mom on Ubuntu 3 or 4 years ago. It has been absolutely uneventful since then. This wasn't the case when she was on Windows.
The only time I tried such stunt my parents eventually got a local IT shop to re-install Windows, because the issues they were facing sharing stuff with their friends.
Naturally they didn't want to hurt my feelings and I only discovered their undo action several months later.
For them Windows just works, and there are plenty of shops around that can go to in case it doesn't, which wasn't the case with anything Linux.
Naturally they didn't want to hurt my feelings and I only discovered their undo action several months later.
For them Windows just works, and there are plenty of shops around that can go to in case it doesn't, which wasn't the case with anything Linux.
Same for mine but with Fedora. I enabled auto updates and haven't needed to provide any tech support since.
I was introduced to Ubuntu by a then 50 or so old electrician about 15 years ago.
He had bought a second hand machine from a school or something and the sysadmin there refused pirate licenses and pre-installed Ubuntu for them.
When the disk broke (or something, it wasn't software related IIRC) he asked me to get back the brown system because he liked it.
And that my intro to Ubuntu. I had used Linux for a couple of years already but Gnome before Ubuntu wasn't something I used voluntarily so it was a reql surprise to me that someone had made Gnome great.
Anyways, since then I have said that Linux is for people who don't know about computers - and for people who know what they are doing.
The people it doesn't seem to work for is people who have used Windows or Mac before and have picked up a few tricks and refuse to learn anything new.
He had bought a second hand machine from a school or something and the sysadmin there refused pirate licenses and pre-installed Ubuntu for them.
When the disk broke (or something, it wasn't software related IIRC) he asked me to get back the brown system because he liked it.
And that my intro to Ubuntu. I had used Linux for a couple of years already but Gnome before Ubuntu wasn't something I used voluntarily so it was a reql surprise to me that someone had made Gnome great.
Anyways, since then I have said that Linux is for people who don't know about computers - and for people who know what they are doing.
The people it doesn't seem to work for is people who have used Windows or Mac before and have picked up a few tricks and refuse to learn anything new.
I had my in-laws on Ubuntu around 2011-2012 and they used it well enough, and I agree it was much less eventful than Windows.
But that was a home build Frankenstein desktop that eventually had a part fail. By then, chromebooks were available for $200. I got one and they used it until the wheels fell off (screen issues, battery life <10 minutes, charger would only work in certain location) two years ago when I got a free chromebook through a promotion to replace it.
I think we got one in 2012, 2015, 2019 (to replace the 2013), and 2021 (to replace the 2015). They are laptops and used daily.
But that was a home build Frankenstein desktop that eventually had a part fail. By then, chromebooks were available for $200. I got one and they used it until the wheels fell off (screen issues, battery life <10 minutes, charger would only work in certain location) two years ago when I got a free chromebook through a promotion to replace it.
I think we got one in 2012, 2015, 2019 (to replace the 2013), and 2021 (to replace the 2015). They are laptops and used daily.
The chromebook i bought my mother in law announced back in September it’s getting no more updates.
Other chromebooks with comparable hardware are still getting updates. There’s nothing wrong with the hardware. It’s still snappy to use. Battery life is still north of 4 hours. Just no more updates suddenly from Google.
Other chromebooks with comparable hardware are still getting updates. There’s nothing wrong with the hardware. It’s still snappy to use. Battery life is still north of 4 hours. Just no more updates suddenly from Google.
I just went through this. I decided to install GalliumOS. It works well, mostly. The only issue I have is the trackpad scrolling (two finger) is a little jumpy for both Firefox and Chrome. Otherwise, it works well.
Until Google stop you from doing what you want because they don't like your content:
https://reclaimthenet.org/google-docs-policy-is-updated-hate...
https://reclaimthenet.org/google-docs-policy-is-updated-hate...
A few years ago, I used elementary OS for my workstation at work. As part of an upgrade, I ran their backup program to make a backup to a removable disk. It went through the full backup process. Apparently, there was a 'bug' in the software where if you click on it, and then hit select in the folder dialog, instead of double click the destination, (it might have been the other way around, it was a few years ago). the backup would essentially write an empty file. How much fun it is to rebuild all your data from other sources!
I submitted a bug report and essentially got a DM from someeone that it was still on their todo list, and had been that way for a while. That was the last time I used them.
For easy to use, I really miss CrunchBang Linux.
I submitted a bug report and essentially got a DM from someeone that it was still on their todo list, and had been that way for a while. That was the last time I used them.
For easy to use, I really miss CrunchBang Linux.
I haven't used a Linux desktop in quite a while, but Crunchbang was pretty great. No desktop (as far as I remember), right-click menu as the one source find everything, a minimalist taskbar, and a better terminal than what shipped with any Debian distro. It was a sad day when the author abandoned it, although it's really not hard to just download Debian and replace the DE with Openbox and the other things that came with Crunchbang.
Crunchbang has 2 successor distros:
BunsenLabs (very conservative, basically just updated CB). CrunchBang++ (modernised a little, with some new features and shiny).
AIUI:
The BunsenLabs community are aggrieved because they respected Corenomial's rights over it and so didn't use the original name.
The CB++ people are bolder: they asked him, got permission, and were a bit more radical.
TBH I wish they would either settle their differences and re-unify, or the BunsenLabs folks be a little more radical and (for instance) move to Devuan instead.
BunsenLabs (very conservative, basically just updated CB). CrunchBang++ (modernised a little, with some new features and shiny).
AIUI:
The BunsenLabs community are aggrieved because they respected Corenomial's rights over it and so didn't use the original name.
The CB++ people are bolder: they asked him, got permission, and were a bit more radical.
TBH I wish they would either settle their differences and re-unify, or the BunsenLabs folks be a little more radical and (for instance) move to Devuan instead.
> I really miss CrunchBang Linux.
There's a name i haven't heard in a while :) Look up Archcraft, the OpenBox variant might scratch the same itch as CBL.
There's a name i haven't heard in a while :) Look up Archcraft, the OpenBox variant might scratch the same itch as CBL.
[deleted]
Do you remember which program that was? Afaik elementary does not have any official backup application or function so I wouldn't put the blame on them here.
I often think that Linux needs to divorce itself from the notion of distributions and instead we need to find a better way to deliver these all-inclusive experiences in some alternate way. Specifically in this case I love everything that Elementary is doing but wish you could "bring your own OS"
This is the issue with Linux Desktop - every time you want to try something new you need to effectively reinvent the wheel for yourself. Most things end up being the same though, my browser is my browser, my data is my data. I can compartmentalize some of that to make it portable between distributions but I feel like that is solving the problem from the wrong direction.
At some point I would hope this becomes a DE like Gnome or KDE. Inventing your own programming language, app marketplace etc... is admirable but seems like it is being done in vein.
This is the issue with Linux Desktop - every time you want to try something new you need to effectively reinvent the wheel for yourself. Most things end up being the same though, my browser is my browser, my data is my data. I can compartmentalize some of that to make it portable between distributions but I feel like that is solving the problem from the wrong direction.
At some point I would hope this becomes a DE like Gnome or KDE. Inventing your own programming language, app marketplace etc... is admirable but seems like it is being done in vein.
Well, if you ask the folk over at Red Hat, they agree. And they're doing it within their code, which is both working and simultaneously making the old-timers very, very angry.
They've been sponsoring GNOME, which has been pushing the simplified, mobile-friendly look for almost a decade now. They've also (I believe) been behind the scenes in GNOME's push to kill theming on the behalf of developers who hate their apps getting themed, which of course distributions hate because that hurts the ability to stand out. If GNOME looks the same on every distribution, your distribution sticks out less.
Red Hat has also been behind sponsoring SystemD, which for better or worse brought every distribution kicking and screaming into a more consistent "low level" layout. Again though, this makes management across Linux systems somewhat easier, while making distribution-specific differences smaller.
Red Hat has been behind Flatpak, which compartmentalizes applications and means that they can run on any distribution when built against a common runtime. For app developers and new people, this is great as a "Linux app" just runs on any "Linux" distribution, easy. For old-timers and technical folk (even on here)... again it's with kicking and screaming. And if you are a distribution author, every distribution now runs the same apps, so what's so special about your distro again?
Red Hat has also been behind PulseAudio and PipeWire, which changed how audio worked on Linux... again with kicking and screaming.
The point is, Red Hat keeps working on technology that, I would argue, makes Linux more consistent and approachable to newcomers, but massively changes how it works which angers old-timers and also happens to reduce diversity within distributions as to how things are done. This makes things easier for programmers, but erodes away the proliferation of distributions because the differences between them get smaller and smaller.
Because, if Red Hat gets their way, consider: Every desktop that uses GNOME looks the same because there isn't as much theming. Every desktop runs the same apps using Flatpak. Every desktop has similar low-level internals with SystemD. If you are a distribution maker, not much left to stand out now, is there? Again, app developers love this, but if you are a distribution maker, Red Hat is trying to kill your edge.
They've been sponsoring GNOME, which has been pushing the simplified, mobile-friendly look for almost a decade now. They've also (I believe) been behind the scenes in GNOME's push to kill theming on the behalf of developers who hate their apps getting themed, which of course distributions hate because that hurts the ability to stand out. If GNOME looks the same on every distribution, your distribution sticks out less.
Red Hat has also been behind sponsoring SystemD, which for better or worse brought every distribution kicking and screaming into a more consistent "low level" layout. Again though, this makes management across Linux systems somewhat easier, while making distribution-specific differences smaller.
Red Hat has been behind Flatpak, which compartmentalizes applications and means that they can run on any distribution when built against a common runtime. For app developers and new people, this is great as a "Linux app" just runs on any "Linux" distribution, easy. For old-timers and technical folk (even on here)... again it's with kicking and screaming. And if you are a distribution author, every distribution now runs the same apps, so what's so special about your distro again?
Red Hat has also been behind PulseAudio and PipeWire, which changed how audio worked on Linux... again with kicking and screaming.
The point is, Red Hat keeps working on technology that, I would argue, makes Linux more consistent and approachable to newcomers, but massively changes how it works which angers old-timers and also happens to reduce diversity within distributions as to how things are done. This makes things easier for programmers, but erodes away the proliferation of distributions because the differences between them get smaller and smaller.
Because, if Red Hat gets their way, consider: Every desktop that uses GNOME looks the same because there isn't as much theming. Every desktop runs the same apps using Flatpak. Every desktop has similar low-level internals with SystemD. If you are a distribution maker, not much left to stand out now, is there? Again, app developers love this, but if you are a distribution maker, Red Hat is trying to kill your edge.
As a side question, who is kicking and screaming about PipeWire? PulseAudio had contention because of compromises and sacrifices in various places, but PipeWire is really quite great for basically every use case, professional and casual alike, and effectively unifies the long PA/JACK split. I couldn't imagine anybody who has had to fight with Linux audio being anything less than ecstatic for PipeWire.
I just finally switched over to PipeWire last week. I enabled PulseAudio and ALSA emulation, since that's what my apps expect.
I never would have noticed the change except that detecting and setting audio profiles/codecs on my bluetooth devices from my sound control GUIs works much better than before!
It seems to be damn good.
I never would have noticed the change except that detecting and setting audio profiles/codecs on my bluetooth devices from my sound control GUIs works much better than before!
It seems to be damn good.
> It seems to be damn good.
It is. PipeWire is good. PulseAudio was bad. End of the story for me.
It is. PipeWire is good. PulseAudio was bad. End of the story for me.
It's bad wording on my part. PipeWire has been well-received, but that's partly because the kicking and screaming over PulseAudio (which PipeWire implements) already happened. Though if PipeWire had been introduced before PulseAudio occurred, it would have no doubt gone through the hate phase.
> Though if PipeWire had been introduced before PulseAudio occurred, it would have no doubt gone through the hate phase.
PulseAudio's hate phase was caused by it breaking everything. If PipeWire had been introduced and worked, out of the box, correctly, then I doubt that it would have been poorly received.
PulseAudio's hate phase was caused by it breaking everything. If PipeWire had been introduced and worked, out of the box, correctly, then I doubt that it would have been poorly received.
The claim is that stuff was broken, and PA just exposed the bugs; and PW benefits from all the fixes done for PA.
I have no way to evaluate the claim, and don't really care what the real story is.
PA mostly works, now, and PW mostly works, now. But PW does have bugs, and is, inexplicably, coded in C, for which there can be no excuse at this late date. It could be switched over to build in C++ in probably under a day, and then begin to be modernized, anytime, as was done with Gcc and Gdb with unalloyed success.
PW is written by the main guy from Gstreamer, which used to crash all the damn time back when PA went silent a lot. But he is older now and has lots of help.
I have no way to evaluate the claim, and don't really care what the real story is.
PA mostly works, now, and PW mostly works, now. But PW does have bugs, and is, inexplicably, coded in C, for which there can be no excuse at this late date. It could be switched over to build in C++ in probably under a day, and then begin to be modernized, anytime, as was done with Gcc and Gdb with unalloyed success.
PW is written by the main guy from Gstreamer, which used to crash all the damn time back when PA went silent a lot. But he is older now and has lots of help.
I don't use Pulseaudio, so I only know it from "I've heard..." and that's all been negative, that it doesn't work or is annoying. For Pipewire, I've only actually heard good things. Maybe I'm talking to a specific set of people, but I still might try it.
PA mostly works, nowadays. It still spontaneously gets muted, once in a long while, but if I pop up enough different volume controls, I have always found a button to unmute it.
I have continually heard the assertion that Linux desktop folks just hate change much at odds with the actual community of users who by and large willingly changed from what comes on 99% of computers learning not just one new thing but in fact many over time. Anyone who has stuck with the Linux desktop for any substantial portion of the 20+ years its been a thing has had to change plenty. Indeed the Linux community has adopted many things eagerly over time.
Most of the biggest communities are around distributions that have releases every 6 months - 1 year and proudly proclaim all the things that they have improved and changed.
It's an entirely bad faith argument.
Audio prior to pulseaudio on the Linux desktop was hot garbage primarily for lack of hardware support for various built into the motherboard sound chips. The only viable solution was to buy supported sound cards which of course was only easy on desktops. With the launch of pulse even those machines experienced curious problems with a crashy, confusing, poorly engineered face to the already bad audio situation on desktop Linux. It ended up with both the credit for its own bad engineering and for the underlying shoddiness of the substrate it operated on by being the thing that visibly failed to produce sound when a user clicked on a video. The cases wherein audio was magically fixed by disabling it using alsa alone created loud and persistent critics whose criticism persisted even when both pulse and the underlying audio problems decreased.
This is indeed how things work. If I put syrup and lots of salt in a glass and float a radish in it and proudly plaster my brand across the cup I shall never sell you another cup no matter how much I improve the formula for my "soda".
Labeling people who came by their criticism honestly thoughtless Luddites doesn't help. You might notice that most products don't go through a "hate phase" and new software often does. It's not just because people don't like change its because as a species we are remarkably bad at making software and new software is often garbage unfit for purpose. If much software were a toaster you should have girded your foot with a steel toed boot and kicked a field goal out your back door with the disgraceful junk you were tricked into buying.
Most of the biggest communities are around distributions that have releases every 6 months - 1 year and proudly proclaim all the things that they have improved and changed.
It's an entirely bad faith argument.
Audio prior to pulseaudio on the Linux desktop was hot garbage primarily for lack of hardware support for various built into the motherboard sound chips. The only viable solution was to buy supported sound cards which of course was only easy on desktops. With the launch of pulse even those machines experienced curious problems with a crashy, confusing, poorly engineered face to the already bad audio situation on desktop Linux. It ended up with both the credit for its own bad engineering and for the underlying shoddiness of the substrate it operated on by being the thing that visibly failed to produce sound when a user clicked on a video. The cases wherein audio was magically fixed by disabling it using alsa alone created loud and persistent critics whose criticism persisted even when both pulse and the underlying audio problems decreased.
This is indeed how things work. If I put syrup and lots of salt in a glass and float a radish in it and proudly plaster my brand across the cup I shall never sell you another cup no matter how much I improve the formula for my "soda".
Labeling people who came by their criticism honestly thoughtless Luddites doesn't help. You might notice that most products don't go through a "hate phase" and new software often does. It's not just because people don't like change its because as a species we are remarkably bad at making software and new software is often garbage unfit for purpose. If much software were a toaster you should have girded your foot with a steel toed boot and kicked a field goal out your back door with the disgraceful junk you were tricked into buying.
Precisely, thank you for saying this.
I don't hate change; in the case of PipeWire, I absolutely welcomed it. The alternative was obviously broken and couldn't be iterated on in any meaningful way, so replacing it with a higher-level interface made all the sense in the world. I loved a lot of the iterations GTK3 made over GTK2 so the interfaces would be equally at home on a tablet as they are on a desktop. I appreciated the work that went into writing GUI package managers even though I'd never really use them, and while I don't agree with them, I'm happy that people are experimenting with containerized packaging.
Linux users don't hate change, we just hate regression. A lot of people's workflows rely on exploiting extensibility and niche features, much as others do on Windows and MacOS. When people pull the plug on old systems, or limit the interoperability of their application, they shouldn't wonder why their reception is negative; people want to take your project to the next level, all you have to do is let them. PipeWire was beloved because it did let people extend pre-existing features. It was a powerful tool for managing audio cart-blanche, and it released in a fairly feature-complete state. It's an example of the perfect Linux software overhaul in my opinion.
There's a lot of generalizations in the grandparent comment about how distributions 'hate' the lack of theming and whatnot, and all I can say is that those kinds of opinions are almost entirely founded on a premise of not understanding the majority of Linux users. Extensibility is king, and it makes a lot more sense for them to build a flexible toolkit that allows for both theming and accessibility options instead of locking it into a one-track design philosophy that just-so-happens to benefit a small handful of users. That's what people are mad about.
I don't hate change; in the case of PipeWire, I absolutely welcomed it. The alternative was obviously broken and couldn't be iterated on in any meaningful way, so replacing it with a higher-level interface made all the sense in the world. I loved a lot of the iterations GTK3 made over GTK2 so the interfaces would be equally at home on a tablet as they are on a desktop. I appreciated the work that went into writing GUI package managers even though I'd never really use them, and while I don't agree with them, I'm happy that people are experimenting with containerized packaging.
Linux users don't hate change, we just hate regression. A lot of people's workflows rely on exploiting extensibility and niche features, much as others do on Windows and MacOS. When people pull the plug on old systems, or limit the interoperability of their application, they shouldn't wonder why their reception is negative; people want to take your project to the next level, all you have to do is let them. PipeWire was beloved because it did let people extend pre-existing features. It was a powerful tool for managing audio cart-blanche, and it released in a fairly feature-complete state. It's an example of the perfect Linux software overhaul in my opinion.
There's a lot of generalizations in the grandparent comment about how distributions 'hate' the lack of theming and whatnot, and all I can say is that those kinds of opinions are almost entirely founded on a premise of not understanding the majority of Linux users. Extensibility is king, and it makes a lot more sense for them to build a flexible toolkit that allows for both theming and accessibility options instead of locking it into a one-track design philosophy that just-so-happens to benefit a small handful of users. That's what people are mad about.
That's an intersting take. My only argument is with your assertion that "app developers love this".
The 'stop theming my app' crowd is pretty small. The number of apps on Flatpak is pretty small compared to say Snap and tiny compared to 'traditional' package managers on distributions.
The 'stop theming my app' crowd is pretty small. The number of apps on Flatpak is pretty small compared to say Snap and tiny compared to 'traditional' package managers on distributions.
I wouldn't call it just app theming. App developers in general love how there's now a "right way of doing things" now, but in particular, the future.
You don't have to worry how each distro handles booting or services - it's SystemD.
You won't have to worry how each distro handles audio with Jack, PulseAudio, or ALSA - it's PipeWire.
You don't have to worry about the libraries the distro provides for your app - just use Flatpak.
You don't have to worry where to host your app for every distro - just use Flathub.
You don't have to worry what toolkit to use - just use GTK. You can use Qt if you really care, but GTK is clearly the "one true road" (if that analogy makes sense).
And so on.
You don't have to worry how each distro handles booting or services - it's SystemD.
You won't have to worry how each distro handles audio with Jack, PulseAudio, or ALSA - it's PipeWire.
You don't have to worry about the libraries the distro provides for your app - just use Flatpak.
You don't have to worry where to host your app for every distro - just use Flathub.
You don't have to worry what toolkit to use - just use GTK. You can use Qt if you really care, but GTK is clearly the "one true road" (if that analogy makes sense).
And so on.
All that is true, except the last point about GTK. Most developers that want their apps running everywhere picks Qt. GTK is just dead in this game and any developer picking GTK is restraining theirselves to GNU/Linux. Don't use GTK
The way I see it, using GTK reminds me of "native" Mac apps (like the ones written in Swift), but on Linux. GTK sure looks a hell of a lot better than Qt on a GNOME desktop: more modern, polished, and clean. So that's why I'd imagine some people choose GTK.
Ironically GTK apps look better on a QT based desktop than vice versa because KDE/QT devs unlike GTK devs actually make an effort on that front.
You can with minimal effort theme both similarly by installing a theme and icon theme that has versions for both gtk qt but your gnome desktop wont provide a built in gui to configure such, again their choice, their limitation not a limitation of QT. A given app QT app isn't going to pull in a particular theme because that would be the tail wagging the dog.
You can with minimal effort theme both similarly by installing a theme and icon theme that has versions for both gtk qt but your gnome desktop wont provide a built in gui to configure such, again their choice, their limitation not a limitation of QT. A given app QT app isn't going to pull in a particular theme because that would be the tail wagging the dog.
You don't have to worry about systems getting old, because you are forced to update continuosly because of all the bloat. I'm looking at PipeWire especially, and the not so flat things also. Won't open the other can of worms, not at all.
kthx baiiiii
kthx baiiiii
I would agree with Gtk, if it wasn't the way they always break everything, now including Glade, because writing GtkBuilder XML files by hand is sooo much fun, everyone should embrace it.
> The number of apps on Flatpak is pretty small compared to say Snap
Citation needed, and number of users is more important than number of apps. Snaps are pushed strongly by Canonical and they actually pay people to port apps to their store, which is pretty much used by Ubuntu users only, while every other distro uses Flatpak.
Snaps are not gonna last long, like many other Canonical-only efforts. Nobody is interested in adopting them, for good reasons. Flatpak, with their shortcomings, are more flexible, actively developed by multiple entities and adopted by more people.
Citation needed, and number of users is more important than number of apps. Snaps are pushed strongly by Canonical and they actually pay people to port apps to their store, which is pretty much used by Ubuntu users only, while every other distro uses Flatpak.
Snaps are not gonna last long, like many other Canonical-only efforts. Nobody is interested in adopting them, for good reasons. Flatpak, with their shortcomings, are more flexible, actively developed by multiple entities and adopted by more people.
I will not miss either one, when they are both replaced by some other thing.
You might as well replace app developers with gnome developers except then it wouldn't be a revelation because the project has always felt that way.
> The number of apps on Flatpak is pretty small compared to say Snap and tiny compared to 'traditional' package managers on distributions.
While the raw number of apps on Flatpak may be less, it's more often the apps people care about.
I say this as someone who prefers native packages, except for in some specific exceptions.
While the raw number of apps on Flatpak may be less, it's more often the apps people care about.
I say this as someone who prefers native packages, except for in some specific exceptions.
As a long time Linux user, theming was always a sore point. It never was point and click, some programs would theme partially, or none at all. I'd welcome theme abolishing in Gnome, to offer a boring but predictable experience to casual users.
I currently used KDE btw, because I like customization, but I would install a boring but predictable Gnome for casual users that want to try Linux.
I currently used KDE btw, because I like customization, but I would install a boring but predictable Gnome for casual users that want to try Linux.
I agree, but that's still not an excuse for GNOME developers to make their apps un-themable. If they want to target a specific stylesheet or design language, they're more than welcome to do so; but their efforts to kneecap everyone else who wants native-looking apps is frankly immature.
As a long time Linux enthusiast, everything listed in your comment is a _fantastic_ idea. I applaud the effort and I can't see anything wrong with this direction. But I really do not understand those that complain about GNOME and Red Hat building a, quote, walled garden. So what? Give me the open source walled garden!
Why does every Linux desktop have to accomodate all the whims of every user? Why does GNOME have to be compatible with your homegrown DE? Do you also expect emacs to ship features that are compatible with vim?
I want a consistent experience, that is open source. I want a libre Apple experience. There should be nothing shameful in having a group of people pushing towards that goal.
Why does every Linux desktop have to accomodate all the whims of every user? Why does GNOME have to be compatible with your homegrown DE? Do you also expect emacs to ship features that are compatible with vim?
I want a consistent experience, that is open source. I want a libre Apple experience. There should be nothing shameful in having a group of people pushing towards that goal.
If we consider the canonical walled garden IOS its not the garden anyone disagrees with its the walls. Such construction always always serves the builders interests not the users. IOS is a walled garden insofar as being open to only Apple approved software so Apple can extract maximum revenue not to enhance the users experience. Comparatively Red Hat's garden is quite the opposite. For example flatpak in contrast to Snap allows one to run and use third party repos much like traditional package managers.
Red Hat isn't a walled garden and its not clear that there would be anything virtuous about it if it were. It certainly wouldn't provide you with an Apple experience on Linux. Apple makes i think about 9 billion per quarter on Macs. Red Hat on the other hand makes 1.25B and virtually zero from the desktop. Caring about desktop experience and having a pile of money to pay people to work on it gets you an Apple experience not limiting user choice nor abandoning the idea of building an ecosystem of interchangeable parts. Let me turn your question on its head.
> Why does GNOME have to be compatible with your homegrown DE?
Why instead would one desktop environment be in any fashion incompatible with any other desktop environment? If standards it depends on need to evolve logically they ought to evolve in such a fashion as other applications can non trivially evolve with new and improved standards.
> Do you also expect emacs to ship features that are compatible with vim?
Actually yes. The most prominent example would be evil mode but there is also viper and several newer implementations of modal editing and features first dreamed up for vim.
Red Hat isn't a walled garden and its not clear that there would be anything virtuous about it if it were. It certainly wouldn't provide you with an Apple experience on Linux. Apple makes i think about 9 billion per quarter on Macs. Red Hat on the other hand makes 1.25B and virtually zero from the desktop. Caring about desktop experience and having a pile of money to pay people to work on it gets you an Apple experience not limiting user choice nor abandoning the idea of building an ecosystem of interchangeable parts. Let me turn your question on its head.
> Why does GNOME have to be compatible with your homegrown DE?
Why instead would one desktop environment be in any fashion incompatible with any other desktop environment? If standards it depends on need to evolve logically they ought to evolve in such a fashion as other applications can non trivially evolve with new and improved standards.
> Do you also expect emacs to ship features that are compatible with vim?
Actually yes. The most prominent example would be evil mode but there is also viper and several newer implementations of modal editing and features first dreamed up for vim.
> The most prominent example would be evil mode but there is also viper and several newer implementations of modal editing and features first dreamed up for vim.
Similar to != compatible. Evil-mode is inspired by vim, but you can't use it on vim. Elisp isn't written to be as compatible as vimscript as possible. They are two distinct projects.
GNOME wants to become its own distinct project, not because of superiority or dislike about other DEs, but because they want to go for strict conventions and exotic ideas which are often at odds with other DEs philosophies. I am still waiting to hear why this is so bad. I don't hear anyone hating ElementaryOS for trying to do the same.
Similar to != compatible. Evil-mode is inspired by vim, but you can't use it on vim. Elisp isn't written to be as compatible as vimscript as possible. They are two distinct projects.
GNOME wants to become its own distinct project, not because of superiority or dislike about other DEs, but because they want to go for strict conventions and exotic ideas which are often at odds with other DEs philosophies. I am still waiting to hear why this is so bad. I don't hear anyone hating ElementaryOS for trying to do the same.
There have always been many distinctly different graphical environments for Linux. Being incompatible doesn't serve this goal which is why you don't need something like wine to run gnome apps because they are executing in the same environment as say KDE apps. This ceasing to be would have to be regarded as extraordinary and undesirable.
It's hard enough to get people to support Linux.
It's hard enough to get people to support Linux.
I've been a Plasma user for what feels like forever now, but I think this
> Why does every Linux desktop have to accomodate all the whims of every user?
is exactly right.
I think having strongly opinionated desktops to choose from is a good thing, and that that kind of pluralism is more likely to lead to the development of new ideas and execute them well than pluralism within desktops.
I wish that XDG standards ran deeper (for example, that there was just a single, well-supported VFS implementation for all DEs, and that drag-and-drop could be handled in a universally compatible way). But in terms of experiences, I think differences between DEs is a good thing, and that some DEs should have a narrower focus than others so that they can execute their visions better.
> Why does every Linux desktop have to accomodate all the whims of every user?
is exactly right.
I think having strongly opinionated desktops to choose from is a good thing, and that that kind of pluralism is more likely to lead to the development of new ideas and execute them well than pluralism within desktops.
I wish that XDG standards ran deeper (for example, that there was just a single, well-supported VFS implementation for all DEs, and that drag-and-drop could be handled in a universally compatible way). But in terms of experiences, I think differences between DEs is a good thing, and that some DEs should have a narrower focus than others so that they can execute their visions better.
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> At some point I would hope this becomes a DE like Gnome or KDE.
you can install Pantheon, the desktop from Elementary OS, on some other distros
you can install Pantheon, the desktop from Elementary OS, on some other distros
Yea, even just something simple like backing up your home directory, and being able to store the packages you've installed via a package manager. I've done this sort of thing myself, but it's a manual process, and you need to know how to write some bash.
> Also, I've made the tragic mistake of installing previous Elementary OS versions for non-techie friends I rarely see. Not anymore! What am I supposed to do Elementary? Inform my friends I've got to basically rebuild their computer the next time I see them at Thanksgiving to keep them safe?
You're not supposed to do anything at all!
https://blog.elementary.io/updates-for-june-2020/
> elementary OS 5 will continue to receive security and stability updates to its underlying libraries until April of 2028.
You're not supposed to do anything at all!
https://blog.elementary.io/updates-for-june-2020/
> elementary OS 5 will continue to receive security and stability updates to its underlying libraries until April of 2028.
Surprising enough (expectations set by decades of Debian/Ubuntu) that I had to look it up, but it's true https://github.com/elementary/os/wiki/Release-Upgrades#perfo...
This is a totally valid complaint given the target market, but for me personally there are few pleasures greater than a fresh OS install. It’s like a blank white page, full of hope and opportunity… soon to be ink-stained and dog eared and with a broken X config, in need of replacing.
> You heard me right: The official explanation on how to upgrade to Elementary OS 6 is to back up your stuff and do a full reinstall.
You're acting as if this is some kind of massive and unprecedented inconvenience, but this is Linux, where users routinely recommend to one another that they try a different distro to solve application problems. By comparison, what you brought up is pretty tame.
You're acting as if this is some kind of massive and unprecedented inconvenience, but this is Linux, where users routinely recommend to one another that they try a different distro to solve application problems. By comparison, what you brought up is pretty tame.
I recently put my Dad on Linux. Elementary was a disaster- compatibility and app issues did us in. I'm so happy we moved on because I did not realize that we would have had upgrade issues too.
What did you move on to?
Manjaro, which was another mistake. I'm going to move him to Pop!_OS when I see him over the holidays and hopefully be done with this. He's very competent, but there are small issues with these distros that need extra care that I think should not require so much effort. Pop should be fine.
Hmmm I did not know this, but I am also not very surprised really. There are so many customizations they've made in post versions though that I imagine this probably isn't the first time they did not offer an upgrade path.
They are also very slow in supporting the latest LTS builds. I think people should move on to something like Ubuntu Budgie when they want a simple and clean experience for themselves or others.
Ubuntu Budgie keeps their LTS and interim builds in sync very well with upstream Ubuntu and upstream Budgie & I have never seen fossfreedom shoot down a PR that makes sense. He's often encouraged others to contribute to the distro in very healthy and normal ways.
They are also very slow in supporting the latest LTS builds. I think people should move on to something like Ubuntu Budgie when they want a simple and clean experience for themselves or others.
Ubuntu Budgie keeps their LTS and interim builds in sync very well with upstream Ubuntu and upstream Budgie & I have never seen fossfreedom shoot down a PR that makes sense. He's often encouraged others to contribute to the distro in very healthy and normal ways.
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Maybe i'm not up to par, but I was under the impression that even ubuntu wasn't mature to upgrade between major versions. I never dabbled much but upgrade failure are not unheard of.
Ubuntu has offered distributions upgrades for years in the Software Updater. It just tells you, you click Install, it takes a while and a few reboots, and then you're updated. I've done it on servers, I've done it on desktops, works fine most of the time. However, I've only hopped one version at a time (16.04 -> 18.04, 18.04 -> 20.04), never multiple at once (16.04 -> 20.04).
Of course, sometimes failures do occur, but that happens whenever you do a major OS upgrade. I've had Windows fail on upgrade more than I've had Ubuntu fail on upgrade, but that's just my experience.
This in comparison to, well, Elementary OS saying scrap it all and reinstall. That wouldn't be so bad if they were, like, a technically-minded distribution - but for their primary market who hardly knows anything about updates, completely unacceptable.
Of course, sometimes failures do occur, but that happens whenever you do a major OS upgrade. I've had Windows fail on upgrade more than I've had Ubuntu fail on upgrade, but that's just my experience.
This in comparison to, well, Elementary OS saying scrap it all and reinstall. That wouldn't be so bad if they were, like, a technically-minded distribution - but for their primary market who hardly knows anything about updates, completely unacceptable.
I think the logic goes backward. Normal people are probably more at ease with backup + from scratch reinstall than update process + failure mitigation.
ps: I agree with your point about EOS trying to make things invisible for the user and not addressing this well though.
ps: I agree with your point about EOS trying to make things invisible for the user and not addressing this well though.
I've upgraded Debian based systems between versions for literally over two decades, and Fedora for half a decade. I can't recall one issue, excluding a few weird things that I managed to fix in Slink to Potato Debian, and that was two decades ago.
Ubuntu/Debian tests upgrades and they support it, the issues you will see are caused because in our circles people will install extra stuff outside from the main repos.
You most definitely can. do-release-upgrade handles all of it but you can change sources and do it the old school way. It's always preferable to reinstall using automation but if it's just a hobbyist server then there's no issue.
https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-upgrade-from-ubuntu-18-04-lts...
https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-upgrade-from-ubuntu-18-04-lts...
If you know what you're doing, the upgrade process is the same for any Debian-based distribution, and I've never had it fail in an unresolvable way. I assume the same is true for Elementary, though I've never used it.
Distros like Ubuntu make upgrade failures harder to work through because they go to some lengths to wrap the dist upgrade process in some software that reverts everything if anything goes wrong.
But if you just move all your apt sources forward to the next distro and read any specific error messages you get, you can generally work through them.
Distros other than Debian itself don't typically recommend that you do things this way, and instead have some extra software for going through the process. But the Debian way still works on them.
Distros like Ubuntu make upgrade failures harder to work through because they go to some lengths to wrap the dist upgrade process in some software that reverts everything if anything goes wrong.
But if you just move all your apt sources forward to the next distro and read any specific error messages you get, you can generally work through them.
Distros other than Debian itself don't typically recommend that you do things this way, and instead have some extra software for going through the process. But the Debian way still works on them.
I did 16.04 to 20.04 through 18.04 and it was a nightmare, it would've been faster to do fresh install.
Did you stabilize 18.04 over a couple days to make sure you had caught all the reconfig required? It should be no different than 18.04 > 20.04 with that step I would think. I am currently at this phase ;).
Well, update process taking couple of days is it's own kind of nightmare.
And it wasn't my personal machine so it would've been unreasonable for me to do so.
And it wasn't my personal machine so it would've been unreasonable for me to do so.
Not always possible, of course. It's also understandable that you can't just jump through 4 years of updates in one go without some sort of work to catch up to current configs involved. I had to change 2 lines of config from 16.04 to 18.04 (due to my own tweaks to defaults), so it's been pretty pain free so far. And the few days as a precaution are on me, not Ubuntu. I should have updated years ago.
I've been upgrading Ubuntu as long as doing so has been supported. Could be 15 years?
Well is just anecdotic, but I just went from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04 without trouble
Are there other (Elementary like distro¹) Linux distros that does it better? Iirc this was the case for Ubuntu as well.
1. One that looks nice and comes with bells and whistles and is closer in UX and functionality to Mac than Windows
1. One that looks nice and comes with bells and whistles and is closer in UX and functionality to Mac than Windows
This is not the case for Ubuntu -- it's always supported upgrading from one release to the next, and that is the normal and expected thing to do.
The same is true for Debian, Fedora, and... well, every Linux distro I've ever known people using on their desktops/laptops. For good reason, because it is a pretty essential feature in that context.
The same is true for Debian, Fedora, and... well, every Linux distro I've ever known people using on their desktops/laptops. For good reason, because it is a pretty essential feature in that context.
Elementary OS is anything but suitable for elderly or non-techie folks.
I agree now, fully, but that's not what their marketing would say. It's literally called "Elementary OS"!
It's DoA for this reason. :)
I love elementary, although I couldn't make 6.0 work on my Nvidia-based machine (something has changed about the driver installation?).
What annoys me is that AppCenter takes up so much space in their blog posts and sponsoring campaigns, because I feel it's the worst of their apps. The navigation model never made sense to me (why is search disabled when I'm on "Installed"?). It also doesn't look good, because there are way more tiny utility apps than there are good icon designers, and often the icons are just shown on a giant, colored rectangle because apps have no banner images.
I wish they'd do it more "magazine-like" as Apple does, just with more unsplash images instead of Apple's terrible Corporate Memphis illustrations.
What annoys me is that AppCenter takes up so much space in their blog posts and sponsoring campaigns, because I feel it's the worst of their apps. The navigation model never made sense to me (why is search disabled when I'm on "Installed"?). It also doesn't look good, because there are way more tiny utility apps than there are good icon designers, and often the icons are just shown on a giant, colored rectangle because apps have no banner images.
I wish they'd do it more "magazine-like" as Apple does, just with more unsplash images instead of Apple's terrible Corporate Memphis illustrations.
I love elementary a lot, so it hurts for me to admit that I agree.
I'm stuck on an older kernel because the nvidia drivers are borked, but worst of all the AppCenter is truly horrid.
For a distro that does such a good job at making sure that there is a GUI alternative in addition to all the normal things you'd do in a CLI, the AppCenter is really crummy.
Ubuntu actually does a better job of making sure you can sort out your drivers through the GUI.
I'm stuck on an older kernel because the nvidia drivers are borked, but worst of all the AppCenter is truly horrid.
For a distro that does such a good job at making sure that there is a GUI alternative in addition to all the normal things you'd do in a CLI, the AppCenter is really crummy.
Ubuntu actually does a better job of making sure you can sort out your drivers through the GUI.
I haven’t experienced issues with Nvidia drivers, but I did face this with AMD drivers which can be oddly specific in terms of Linux distro support [1]. I was forced to abandon Elementary and instead tried Ubuntu Budgie [2].
[1]: https://www.amd.com/en/support/professional-graphics/radeon-...
[2]: https://ubuntubudgie.org/
[1]: https://www.amd.com/en/support/professional-graphics/radeon-...
[2]: https://ubuntubudgie.org/
Same with the System Settings: Here search is disabled as well when you are not on the index page. So quickly going from display to drivers or similar is not possible.
My problem with Elementary OS is that, it comes with a selection of apps that look beautiful but are just... really bad.
For example, the Music app. Comes built-in, looks great, only works with your local music library if you copy it over and reorganize it the way the Music app wants. No online music streaming of any kind.
The Videos app? Again, only your local library, and that's it except (IIRC) it has videos from The Guardian newspaper of all places as one of its four online sources? What's up with that?
The Maps app? Looks beautiful, again, but the last time I tried it, it could hardly handle directions. Maybe Directions work well now, but it's just... not good.
Every app is like this - barely functional.
For example, the Music app. Comes built-in, looks great, only works with your local music library if you copy it over and reorganize it the way the Music app wants. No online music streaming of any kind.
The Videos app? Again, only your local library, and that's it except (IIRC) it has videos from The Guardian newspaper of all places as one of its four online sources? What's up with that?
The Maps app? Looks beautiful, again, but the last time I tried it, it could hardly handle directions. Maybe Directions work well now, but it's just... not good.
Every app is like this - barely functional.
To play devil's advocate, the apps being simple to the point of pain for power users is almost the point of the distro. If you want a distro that you can wrangle into exactly what your vision is, you'll love arch. If you want the simplest possible mostly-functional option where you don't need to change anything to get it to work, elementary isn't too bad. That said I hate using it and generally dislike their entire philosophy of taking an open program, stripping out three quarters of the code, and then calling it their own and begging for money to keep doing that. Feels gross.
None of the issues you mentioned are really fixable. Online streaming is a bit of a pipe dream for linux, legal(ish?) solutions are going to be hacky and break constantly since nobody has the negotiating power to work out deals with labels. Same with videos, alphabet is not going to just allow random apps to bypass the entire point of youtube (serving ads to eyeballs and tracking said eyeballs to serve more ads). Maps does suck, and that's mostly and openstreetmap issue. You could integrate google maps but those API keys are not cheap.
None of the issues you mentioned are really fixable. Online streaming is a bit of a pipe dream for linux, legal(ish?) solutions are going to be hacky and break constantly since nobody has the negotiating power to work out deals with labels. Same with videos, alphabet is not going to just allow random apps to bypass the entire point of youtube (serving ads to eyeballs and tracking said eyeballs to serve more ads). Maps does suck, and that's mostly and openstreetmap issue. You could integrate google maps but those API keys are not cheap.
Arch user here who's slapped the Pantheon desktop on top of it; I don't use it often, mostly an i3 guy, but when I do it's beautiful and I love the work Elementary OS has put into it. All I need to add are those dancing icons from Cairo-Dock and I can get back to embarrassing my apple friends with how riced my desktop is.
It has a really weird feedback loop problem. I've spoken to some developers of the most popular elementaryOS apps and the amount they get from donations is extremely small, which limits how much time they want to spend making an app specific to such a small userbase. At some point they usually consider that the monetization of the app on elementaryOS isn't worth anything and they just re-work the app to be for Gnome systems overall and push it to Flathub.
IMHO it's a lost cause trying to make money with apps, especially on Linux. Of course there are a few well known exceptions, but I'm not sure it's a worthwhile endeavor in 2022 to say "hey I'm gonna build an app and live of it".
The Music app does what it's supposed to: play your music. Their stance is that arbitrary streaming platforms should be their own app, which makes sense.
The Videos app likewise plays your videos. No idea where you're getting that bit about The Guardian, but that's just flat out false.
There is no first-party Maps app, so again, that's not something that the elementary team provides...
Constructive criticism is helpful, but only when it's informed.
The Videos app likewise plays your videos. No idea where you're getting that bit about The Guardian, but that's just flat out false.
There is no first-party Maps app, so again, that's not something that the elementary team provides...
Constructive criticism is helpful, but only when it's informed.
I agree about multimedia apps, I always replace Music and Videos with something else. But on the other hand dev-focused apps (primarily Code and Terminal) are so stable and good that I never have to install an alternative to them. Calendar and Mail are also pretty awesome.
I feel like the more internal team relies on them, the better they are. And, well, I guess they don't use multimedia apps a lot.
I feel like the more internal team relies on them, the better they are. And, well, I guess they don't use multimedia apps a lot.
I run elementary on my desktop and I really like it. This looks like a welcomed minor release, but here are some things that are currently on my wish list:
- Calendar support for Exchange so I don't need to log into DavMail all the time
- A Mail app that lets me view emails in plain text first, or some kind of option to avoid downloading images and trackers in HTML mode.
- The Music app has a hard time with my library which is on a network drive. It keeps trying to reload all the songs.
- A better UI for choosing my graphics drivers (the Ubuntu one works fine)
A list of qualms should probably be followed by the things I love about elementary:
- It looks fantastic.
- The terminal, code, and files apps are where I live and they are great. Code isn't a replacement for VS Code, but it's quick and light and fantastic when I don't need e.g.: a linter.
- Back in the earlier versions, I had a lot of small graphical glitches, but things are extremely solid and reliable.
- The OS truly feels unified; not some hodgepodge of poorly conceived UI elements and metaphors.
- Calendar support for Exchange so I don't need to log into DavMail all the time
- A Mail app that lets me view emails in plain text first, or some kind of option to avoid downloading images and trackers in HTML mode.
- The Music app has a hard time with my library which is on a network drive. It keeps trying to reload all the songs.
- A better UI for choosing my graphics drivers (the Ubuntu one works fine)
A list of qualms should probably be followed by the things I love about elementary:
- It looks fantastic.
- The terminal, code, and files apps are where I live and they are great. Code isn't a replacement for VS Code, but it's quick and light and fantastic when I don't need e.g.: a linter.
- Back in the earlier versions, I had a lot of small graphical glitches, but things are extremely solid and reliable.
- The OS truly feels unified; not some hodgepodge of poorly conceived UI elements and metaphors.
I love the unified feel too, and i wonder if linux can reconcile it's bazaar nature with the ergonomic/mental need for simple systemic parts
> You can currently find over 90 curated apps in AppCenter, [...]
I don't think this is as impressive as they think it is. On the contrary, this seems to be a very very small number that I wonder why it's mentioned in the first place. I don't use these GUI frontends, but if we ever want any Linux distro to be more user-friendly. Almost everything should be available.
Also I noticed that Elementary is taking a 30% cut (with a 50c minimum) which I find obnoxiously high. We have been complaining about Apple and Google, yet "we"(?) cannot seem to be doing better ourselves. It's a bit disappointing.
I don't think this is as impressive as they think it is. On the contrary, this seems to be a very very small number that I wonder why it's mentioned in the first place. I don't use these GUI frontends, but if we ever want any Linux distro to be more user-friendly. Almost everything should be available.
Also I noticed that Elementary is taking a 30% cut (with a 50c minimum) which I find obnoxiously high. We have been complaining about Apple and Google, yet "we"(?) cannot seem to be doing better ourselves. It's a bit disappointing.
I just tried elementaryOS and the selection of apps is terrible. There is almost nothing there that you actually need and of the apps that were there I found either unusable or so lacking in functionality compared to other apps it wasn't worth trying to compromise.
> Also I noticed that Elementary is taking a 30% cut (with a 50c minimum) which I find obnoxiously high
It does seem really high considering they are just taking from one Stripe account to another.
> Also I noticed that Elementary is taking a 30% cut (with a 50c minimum) which I find obnoxiously high
It does seem really high considering they are just taking from one Stripe account to another.
I tried Elementary for a week recently but just couldn't make it stick.
The Calendar app doesn't work with Google Calendar as a backend; or, at least not with a ton of hacks, which is what one chooses Elementary to avoid.
Overall the Pantheon WM feels rather sluggish, even on modern hardware. Managing windows just feels so clunky compared to KDE or even Windows. To be fair, macOS is their direct competitor.
I paid a bug bounty ages ago to get streaming audio to work in their Music app but I don't think that went anywhere.
I think they might be able to get something solid in the next few years.
The Calendar app doesn't work with Google Calendar as a backend; or, at least not with a ton of hacks, which is what one chooses Elementary to avoid.
Overall the Pantheon WM feels rather sluggish, even on modern hardware. Managing windows just feels so clunky compared to KDE or even Windows. To be fair, macOS is their direct competitor.
I paid a bug bounty ages ago to get streaming audio to work in their Music app but I don't think that went anywhere.
I think they might be able to get something solid in the next few years.
I used Elementary on my desktop for a little bit, and while it's definitely better than modern GNOME in many respects, the developers are similarly stuck in a pearls-before-swine mindset. The more you ask from it, the quicker you start to find it's edges; if you're just browsing the web and listening to Spotify, you're not likely to find any issues. Turning it into a proper development machine has more rough edges than it has any right to though, and while I generally like their approach to customization and tweaking better than GNOME, it's still a pretty barren little desktop. You'll end up replacing most of the out-of-the-box software within a few hours.
So, good luck Elementary folks. I really hope you don't succumb to the ever-progressing "flatpak the world" mentality.
So, good luck Elementary folks. I really hope you don't succumb to the ever-progressing "flatpak the world" mentality.
From the link:
"AppCenter continues to fill out with apps from developers—and since the move to Flatpak, all apps that have been released for OS 6 will continue to be available on OS 6.1 and beyond!"
"AppCenter continues to fill out with apps from developers—and since the move to Flatpak, all apps that have been released for OS 6 will continue to be available on OS 6.1 and beyond!"
As someone that has used Elementary on my x200s for a number of years, at least since the 4.x days, I was disappointed to find the lack of support for the 11th gen/Iris Xe combo in my new laptop and was pushed back to traditional Ubuntu 21.04 with wayland.
I may give it a shot again.
I especially liked the ability to customize the key combos so that it acted reasonably close to a tiling Wm (I had moved to it from awesomeWM) which was very handy on an Thinkpad x200s with only a track point and no touchpad, but with the added perks of a fully baked DE. And that was in addition to the very nice aesthetics, rather than in spite of.
I may give it a shot again.
I especially liked the ability to customize the key combos so that it acted reasonably close to a tiling Wm (I had moved to it from awesomeWM) which was very handy on an Thinkpad x200s with only a track point and no touchpad, but with the added perks of a fully baked DE. And that was in addition to the very nice aesthetics, rather than in spite of.
Unfortunately Elementary's devs are too busy finding the right shades for the dark theme so there is no time left for your marginal features. These problems and bugs are not tackled for years.
Good looking design is something people tend take for granted until it's gone.
If I'm going to be staring at something for many hours every day, those details really do matter to me. I tend to be able to fix everything else on my own.
If I'm going to be staring at something for many hours every day, those details really do matter to me. I tend to be able to fix everything else on my own.
>If I'm going to be staring at something for many hours every day,
Most people would stare at an IDE and browser many hours and not at the DE control's panel or File Manager, and IMO this core apps should have had the UI fixed years ago and not have stuff still changed at each updated.
Most people would stare at an IDE and browser many hours and not at the DE control's panel or File Manager, and IMO this core apps should have had the UI fixed years ago and not have stuff still changed at each updated.
> IMO this core apps should have had the UI fixed years ago and not have stuff still changed at each updated.
I don't think elementaryOS's visuals have changed all that much? Certainly nothing like macOS, which has gone from Mavericks → Yosemite/Catalina → Big Sur in the same time frame.
I don't think elementaryOS's visuals have changed all that much? Certainly nothing like macOS, which has gone from Mavericks → Yosemite/Catalina → Big Sur in the same time frame.
I'm just arguing because I feel like talking to someone.
But perhaps it's okay for this one distro to have an obsession with visual design? Maybe your anger should be at the distros that do all the things you want but are too ugly to use?
But perhaps it's okay for this one distro to have an obsession with visual design? Maybe your anger should be at the distros that do all the things you want but are too ugly to use?
My DE, browser and IDE are themable and configurable so I set them up with whatever I think is usable
>Maybe your anger should
What wording in my comment can be interpreted as anger ? I did not intended that so I would like to understand and express myself better next time.
>Maybe your anger should
What wording in my comment can be interpreted as anger ? I did not intended that so I would like to understand and express myself better next time.
> But perhaps it's okay for this one distro to have an obsession with visual design?
The linux desktop is a house on fire, and elementaryos is standing in the living room holding up paint to a smoldering wall.
The linux desktop is a house on fire, and elementaryos is standing in the living room holding up paint to a smoldering wall.
Shouldn’t take took too long to find given everything is more/less derivative from macOS.
It's not.
This is regularly claimed but I can only presume it's by people who have never ever used a Mac, just looked at screenshots.
It does not work in any way like a Mac.
This is regularly claimed but I can only presume it's by people who have never ever used a Mac, just looked at screenshots.
It does not work in any way like a Mac.
I work for Apple. I’ve definitely used a Mac. I’ve also used Elementary. Of course there are differences but overall the design is extremely derivative.
I thought so until I gave the thing a mini-review recently.
Sure, it has a dock at the bottom and a panel at the top, but so do dozens of desktops now. It's the default layout of XFCE. That tells us nothing useful.
It doesn't have a menu bar. It doesn't have a repositionable dock. It doesn't have Miller columns. It doesn't have a folder structure anything even vaguely like macOS'. It doesn't have app folder bundles, or drag-and-drop installation. There are no desktop icons, not even as an option.
Apps don't have menus at all except a hamburger in some. Windows don't have title bars, they have something like CSD.
It's a Linux. It's a slightly weird Linux but it's way less Mac-like than, say, GoboLinux is under the hood.
Just because the desktop is quite clean and minimal, and there's a GNOME-like panel at the top, it has a passing cosmetic resemblance, no more.
You could make Budgie, LXDE or LXQt, or MATE look much more like the macOS desktop than Pantheon is or could be.
If anything it's more like iOS with overlapping windows than anything Mac-like.
Sure, it has a dock at the bottom and a panel at the top, but so do dozens of desktops now. It's the default layout of XFCE. That tells us nothing useful.
It doesn't have a menu bar. It doesn't have a repositionable dock. It doesn't have Miller columns. It doesn't have a folder structure anything even vaguely like macOS'. It doesn't have app folder bundles, or drag-and-drop installation. There are no desktop icons, not even as an option.
Apps don't have menus at all except a hamburger in some. Windows don't have title bars, they have something like CSD.
It's a Linux. It's a slightly weird Linux but it's way less Mac-like than, say, GoboLinux is under the hood.
Just because the desktop is quite clean and minimal, and there's a GNOME-like panel at the top, it has a passing cosmetic resemblance, no more.
You could make Budgie, LXDE or LXQt, or MATE look much more like the macOS desktop than Pantheon is or could be.
If anything it's more like iOS with overlapping windows than anything Mac-like.
Components that are easily derivative:
- Dock
- Files aka Finder
- Code aka Xcode
- Global status bar icons
- PiP
- DND
- App Store
- Screen Time
- Mail
- Calendar
- Camera
- System Settings
- The folders inside your Home folder, which absolutely resembles macOS
Is everything a pixel for pixel rip? No. Does it use the same technology? No. But the UI/UX is more than just “inspired by” Apple. “Cosmetic resemblance” seems to suggest these things are coincidence, but when it’s clearly not.
- Dock
- Files aka Finder
- Code aka Xcode
- Global status bar icons
- PiP
- DND
- App Store
- Screen Time
- Calendar
- Camera
- System Settings
- The folders inside your Home folder, which absolutely resembles macOS
Is everything a pixel for pixel rip? No. Does it use the same technology? No. But the UI/UX is more than just “inspired by” Apple. “Cosmetic resemblance” seems to suggest these things are coincidence, but when it’s clearly not.
OK, fine, let's do this point by point.
> Dock
Also used by default in XFCE, Unity, GNOME 3, Budgie; optional in LXDE, LXQT, KDE, MATE. Also used in Windows 10 and 11. Rejected.
> Files aka Finder
Not significantly more Mac-like than Nautilus, Nemo, etc. Rejected.
- Code aka Xcode
XCode is an IDE. Elementary Code is a text editor. Every desktop GUI has a text editor. Rejected.
- Global status bar icons
As also used in XFCE, GNOME, MATE, Unity, LXDE, LXQt, & every version of Windows since 1995. Can't be customised; ordinary Linux apps can't add new ones. Rejected.
> PiP > DND > Screen Time
Since I am not sure what you mean by them, no comment.
If "DND" means Do Not Disturb, GNOME 3 has this too.
> App Store
As used in every modern distro/OS. GNOME has one, Ubuntu has one, Windows has had one since 2012. Rejected.
> Mail
Again, every GUI OS has this. Rejected.
> Calendar
Again, every modern OS has one. Click the clock in XFCE, for instance. Rejected.
- Camera
Ever seen "Cheese"? Rejected.
- System Settings
Every OS has this, and most call them Settings because Microsoft uses "Control Panel". macOS calls them "System Preferences". Rejected.
> The folders inside your Home folder, which absolutely resembles macOS
100% standard Linux layout, and share the same names as the defaults in Windows as well. I remove the Linux ones and symlink the ones on my Windows partition so they stay in sync, and even the icons automatically reappear because the names are 100% identical.
It is not only unreasonable to claim that a list of features that basically _every modern OS_ has mean that one OS in particular is a copy of OS X, it is laughably ridiculous.
On this basis, I could also list a set of features that OS X copied from Windows which were missing in Classic MacOS and NeXTstep (Alt-tab app switching, keyboard dialog box navigation, Safe Boot Mode, Fast User Switching, etc. etc.) to claim that OS X is a copy of Windows.
No. This is completely weak and bogus.
> Dock
Also used by default in XFCE, Unity, GNOME 3, Budgie; optional in LXDE, LXQT, KDE, MATE. Also used in Windows 10 and 11. Rejected.
> Files aka Finder
Not significantly more Mac-like than Nautilus, Nemo, etc. Rejected.
- Code aka Xcode
XCode is an IDE. Elementary Code is a text editor. Every desktop GUI has a text editor. Rejected.
- Global status bar icons
As also used in XFCE, GNOME, MATE, Unity, LXDE, LXQt, & every version of Windows since 1995. Can't be customised; ordinary Linux apps can't add new ones. Rejected.
> PiP > DND > Screen Time
Since I am not sure what you mean by them, no comment.
If "DND" means Do Not Disturb, GNOME 3 has this too.
> App Store
As used in every modern distro/OS. GNOME has one, Ubuntu has one, Windows has had one since 2012. Rejected.
Again, every GUI OS has this. Rejected.
> Calendar
Again, every modern OS has one. Click the clock in XFCE, for instance. Rejected.
- Camera
Ever seen "Cheese"? Rejected.
- System Settings
Every OS has this, and most call them Settings because Microsoft uses "Control Panel". macOS calls them "System Preferences". Rejected.
> The folders inside your Home folder, which absolutely resembles macOS
100% standard Linux layout, and share the same names as the defaults in Windows as well. I remove the Linux ones and symlink the ones on my Windows partition so they stay in sync, and even the icons automatically reappear because the names are 100% identical.
It is not only unreasonable to claim that a list of features that basically _every modern OS_ has mean that one OS in particular is a copy of OS X, it is laughably ridiculous.
On this basis, I could also list a set of features that OS X copied from Windows which were missing in Classic MacOS and NeXTstep (Alt-tab app switching, keyboard dialog box navigation, Safe Boot Mode, Fast User Switching, etc. etc.) to claim that OS X is a copy of Windows.
No. This is completely weak and bogus.
“Rejected”?
Ok I’m not going to go point by point as it seems you’ve completely missed mine. I’m not suggesting a Mail client coming with the OS is unique to macOS. I’m suggesting the UI/UX is, or in this one case, actually comes from NeXT which became macOS. If you can’t look at these and understand where it comes from, regardless if it’s in other Linux DEs (look at its history evolution), or tell the difference between a taskbar and a Dock (and know their history), then I don’t know what else to say.
Lastly, telling me that my argument is weak and bogus makes me want to engage negative percent. It’s not a nice way to interact, and is frustrating when you don’t even get my point when I clearly said “ But the UI/UX is more than just “inspired by” Apple”
Ok I’m not going to go point by point as it seems you’ve completely missed mine. I’m not suggesting a Mail client coming with the OS is unique to macOS. I’m suggesting the UI/UX is, or in this one case, actually comes from NeXT which became macOS. If you can’t look at these and understand where it comes from, regardless if it’s in other Linux DEs (look at its history evolution), or tell the difference between a taskbar and a Dock (and know their history), then I don’t know what else to say.
Lastly, telling me that my argument is weak and bogus makes me want to engage negative percent. It’s not a nice way to interact, and is frustrating when you don’t even get my point when I clearly said “ But the UI/UX is more than just “inspired by” Apple”
I am very sorry. I did not want to come across as being nothing but negative.
I will have to try Elementary's new email client – it replaced Geary with its own home-grown one in recent releases. I did not give it more than a cursory look. I have used Mail.app in several OS X releases, but these days, I use Thunderbird instead. I am know the GNUstep Mail client a little bit.
For me, the menu tree is a big part of an app's UI. I favour older versions of MS Office that still have menus rather than the horrible Ribbon UI of Office since the 2007 release.
Since Elementary and its apps have no menu bar and no menus, I don't really feel that their UI can be like macOS apps' since a core element of the UI is missing.
Regarding the difference between a taskbar and a dock – well, ISTM a lot of Linux distros don't, frankly. I think there's a big difference. But saying that, the Windows taskbar (that is, the original of the species) has been getting increasingly Dock-like in recent releases. Windows 8 even dropped the Start button and Start menu. 8.1 put it back starting a full-screen app launcher not unlike Launchpad in recent macOS releases; Win10 and 11 have made it more and more Mac-like, so that in Win11 it's centred by default and can no longer even be arranged vertically at the side of the screen.
(Personally, I hate the new version.)
So I'd say that the company that invented the taskbar is trying very hard to make it more like a dock. And of course imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
I had a quick play with an older version of Elementary 3-4 releases ago. I didn't like it much. Last week I spent a few days getting to know it better. It's a very "opinionated" distro. I like macOS a lot – I'm typing on it now – and if Elementary was more Mac-like, I would like it more. As it was, I was impressed with the clean, integrated design, but actually using it, no, I don't find it Mac-like at all. Not really in any way.
You can, if you wish, read my thoughts on it here: https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/21/elementary_os_61/
It is clean, it works well, its programmers have *views* on how to do stuff and they've found a model that pays and they're working on it. Good for them. I do not think I will be using it myself.
I will have to try Elementary's new email client – it replaced Geary with its own home-grown one in recent releases. I did not give it more than a cursory look. I have used Mail.app in several OS X releases, but these days, I use Thunderbird instead. I am know the GNUstep Mail client a little bit.
For me, the menu tree is a big part of an app's UI. I favour older versions of MS Office that still have menus rather than the horrible Ribbon UI of Office since the 2007 release.
Since Elementary and its apps have no menu bar and no menus, I don't really feel that their UI can be like macOS apps' since a core element of the UI is missing.
Regarding the difference between a taskbar and a dock – well, ISTM a lot of Linux distros don't, frankly. I think there's a big difference. But saying that, the Windows taskbar (that is, the original of the species) has been getting increasingly Dock-like in recent releases. Windows 8 even dropped the Start button and Start menu. 8.1 put it back starting a full-screen app launcher not unlike Launchpad in recent macOS releases; Win10 and 11 have made it more and more Mac-like, so that in Win11 it's centred by default and can no longer even be arranged vertically at the side of the screen.
(Personally, I hate the new version.)
So I'd say that the company that invented the taskbar is trying very hard to make it more like a dock. And of course imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
I had a quick play with an older version of Elementary 3-4 releases ago. I didn't like it much. Last week I spent a few days getting to know it better. It's a very "opinionated" distro. I like macOS a lot – I'm typing on it now – and if Elementary was more Mac-like, I would like it more. As it was, I was impressed with the clean, integrated design, but actually using it, no, I don't find it Mac-like at all. Not really in any way.
You can, if you wish, read my thoughts on it here: https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/21/elementary_os_61/
It is clean, it works well, its programmers have *views* on how to do stuff and they've found a model that pays and they're working on it. Good for them. I do not think I will be using it myself.
If you want a tiling WM backed by a full DE ( with sleep, volume buttons, media buttons, working automagically ) you should try Regolith[0]
[0] https://regolith-linux.org/
[0] https://regolith-linux.org/
After rotating i3, bspwm and qtile for a while - never managing to make it "just work" as expected on every single machine I own - I gave up and went with Pop OS. Their Pop Shell extension is basically what I wanted all along - tiling without giving up the DE.
I would recommend you give Regolith a try. I was also looking for a "just works" tiling window manager solution and Regolith gives you the best of gnome, and i3.
Or if you want a truly full-featured desktop, try KDE + the Bismuth KWin extension. ;)
Oh nice! I'd been living with krohnkite's bugs - glad somebody picked it up.
Would be good to get it out of the PPA and into official ubuntu repos.
Would be good to get it out of the PPA and into official ubuntu repos.
[deleted]
As shown in Windows 10 and now 11, tiling can be achieved easily by:
- having windows automatically start at "empty" coordinates if available,
- having sufficient shortcuts to position them on specific square coordinates.
Since I have a wide screen, I have configured win-[, win-] and win-\ to go to the left third, middle third, right third.
On a thinkpad, I complement that by having win-left to the left half (50%), win-right go to the right half (50%), win-pgup toggle half size top and win-pgdown toggle half-size bottom.
Then I can assemble the windows very precisely with just the keyboard (full screen, half screen, quarter screen, one-third of a screen, one-sixth of a screen) both on the laptop display and the external wide screen, while keeping the full convenience of normal titlebars and mouse operations to reposition windows by hand if needed.
Add to that some custom scripting to make win-left and win-right move between physical screen, and you get a tiling solution that do not require any specific window manager.
Of course, space taken by the title bars might be a problem, but with Mica and the like (more generally, titlebar moving from "full of wasted empty spaces to "where tabs are shown", like Edge now does), I think tiling WM are quickly becoming a thing of the past.
- having windows automatically start at "empty" coordinates if available,
- having sufficient shortcuts to position them on specific square coordinates.
Since I have a wide screen, I have configured win-[, win-] and win-\ to go to the left third, middle third, right third.
On a thinkpad, I complement that by having win-left to the left half (50%), win-right go to the right half (50%), win-pgup toggle half size top and win-pgdown toggle half-size bottom.
Then I can assemble the windows very precisely with just the keyboard (full screen, half screen, quarter screen, one-third of a screen, one-sixth of a screen) both on the laptop display and the external wide screen, while keeping the full convenience of normal titlebars and mouse operations to reposition windows by hand if needed.
Add to that some custom scripting to make win-left and win-right move between physical screen, and you get a tiling solution that do not require any specific window manager.
Of course, space taken by the title bars might be a problem, but with Mica and the like (more generally, titlebar moving from "full of wasted empty spaces to "where tabs are shown", like Edge now does), I think tiling WM are quickly becoming a thing of the past.
I just want something like this but with Arch.
https://github.com/regolith-linux/regolith-i3-config
All distros are basically the same but with different default packages and package managers.
Fortunately, regolith is open source and has repos for their default configs. Get the right packages installed on Arch and copy the regolith configs for those packages. and you have yourself an arch regolith clone.
All distros are basically the same but with different default packages and package managers.
Fortunately, regolith is open source and has repos for their default configs. Get the right packages installed on Arch and copy the regolith configs for those packages. and you have yourself an arch regolith clone.
Why not take the ten minutes to set it up yourself? It's pretty trivial to get everything Naac described working.
Yes I mean that is my current set up, I am not that fast though!
But it would just be nice to have the full DE backing behind i3 as a distribution. Yes I know you can do everything here with list of tools, but I just want a configuration that I know has been thought out, with best practices, and easy to modify in a reproducible way. The list of dotfiles and little adjustments alone you need to marry i3 with a power manager, menu bar, network manager, is a lot! I just want the work done for me (a DE).
But it would just be nice to have the full DE backing behind i3 as a distribution. Yes I know you can do everything here with list of tools, but I just want a configuration that I know has been thought out, with best practices, and easy to modify in a reproducible way. The list of dotfiles and little adjustments alone you need to marry i3 with a power manager, menu bar, network manager, is a lot! I just want the work done for me (a DE).
But why i3 if you can do that with the existing window manager and shortcuts?
It seems to me you are introducing complexity for complexity sake, with nothing to be gained - except maybe nerd credential points for using i3?
It seems to me you are introducing complexity for complexity sake, with nothing to be gained - except maybe nerd credential points for using i3?
Yes, you are right... I guess just need the tiling shortcuts and the AUR. and I guess I want gnome-control-center, and that can be that.
I may not be fancy, but it will get you where you want to be faster, easier, and in a more maintainable way.
Honestly, the whole support of Iris Xe in modern linux is terrible painful. You have to carefully pick right kernel number and always use "disable Panel Self Refresh". And after that you have to stick to this exact kernel because "don't touch it while it works" even for Ubuntu now.
Intel gets credit for their drivers being open-source but IME their drivers are also plain bad. WiFi drivers disconnect you to scan, graphics drivers seem very poorly tested so depending on what acceleration profile you use, you get weird artifacts and other stability problems... I strongly prefer Atheros for WiFi and AMD for graphics, wherever possible.
I've tried Elementary a few times, but the hardware support has never been good enough for me to install it because the base is always ancient as all hell for some reason.
Elementary OS is ok but I have issues with the stability of its window manager, lock screen, and other core UI replacements that often lock up (on 5.x and now on 6.x) and require a hard reset (or killing X).
On my laptop and even w/ proprietary drivers installed, I cannot get eOS to hardware accelerate videos with either my embedded Intel graphics card or my discrete nVidia card in Firefox or Chromium.
The UI is full of really weird inconsistencies and is extremely opinionated without any way of changing some basic things (previously adjustable via `gsettings` but it seems that has been intentionally deprecated). For example, the elementary File Manager forces single-click-to-open ("web-style") behavior for any folders, but then switches to double-click-to-open for any files within those folders, so you can select a file but not open it but you cannot do the same with a folder. If it weren't for elementary tweaks (neutered as it has become for eOS 6), elementary would be completely unusable.
The decision to not even have an official upgrade path besides "nuke everything and reinstall" makes me question the clarity of vision of elementary OS developers/decision makers. You want to be the macOS of the Linux world but you have a worse upgrade experience than any other Linux distro bar none? You purposely advertise to "less techy" users that are exactly the kind of users that won't be able to handle a "back up your files, wipe everything, and clean install" upgrade path?
They added multitouch gesture support... but the only gestures available are for interacting with the desktop window manager (show all windows, move to prev/next virtual desktop)? Fortunately my `syngestures` that I wrote for elementary OS 5 works just fine alongside eOS 6's so-called "multitouch support" but for something that was going to be their killer feature, you'd think they would integrate some of the TouchEgg configuration into their touchpad gestures control panel UI, wouldn't you?
On my laptop and even w/ proprietary drivers installed, I cannot get eOS to hardware accelerate videos with either my embedded Intel graphics card or my discrete nVidia card in Firefox or Chromium.
The UI is full of really weird inconsistencies and is extremely opinionated without any way of changing some basic things (previously adjustable via `gsettings` but it seems that has been intentionally deprecated). For example, the elementary File Manager forces single-click-to-open ("web-style") behavior for any folders, but then switches to double-click-to-open for any files within those folders, so you can select a file but not open it but you cannot do the same with a folder. If it weren't for elementary tweaks (neutered as it has become for eOS 6), elementary would be completely unusable.
The decision to not even have an official upgrade path besides "nuke everything and reinstall" makes me question the clarity of vision of elementary OS developers/decision makers. You want to be the macOS of the Linux world but you have a worse upgrade experience than any other Linux distro bar none? You purposely advertise to "less techy" users that are exactly the kind of users that won't be able to handle a "back up your files, wipe everything, and clean install" upgrade path?
They added multitouch gesture support... but the only gestures available are for interacting with the desktop window manager (show all windows, move to prev/next virtual desktop)? Fortunately my `syngestures` that I wrote for elementary OS 5 works just fine alongside eOS 6's so-called "multitouch support" but for something that was going to be their killer feature, you'd think they would integrate some of the TouchEgg configuration into their touchpad gestures control panel UI, wouldn't you?
Heh, it's funny (to me) that their new 'Quick Window Switcher' is just... A window switcher that's been used forever and works well.
Why did they bother trying to redesign a window switcher of all things?
Why did they bother trying to redesign a window switcher of all things?
I just can't get used to that search field in the title bar (you can see it in several applications e.g AppCenter first screenshot). IMHO it should be more prominent centered top in the main content area, not (almost greyed out?) in the title bar next to the maximize/restore button (why?). Just weird. What GUI guidelines are stipulating this?
[deleted]
I've been using Elementary OS since 0.3 as my main OS at work (Higher Education IT) and it's my favorite distro. The lack of Ayatana indicators is annoying, but overall, the polish and look/feel of their desktop environment is really nice and has only gotten better with each version.
Not a fan, its trying too hard to look like OSX. If you like OSX, just go use the real thing.
See also this clip by Chad, I mean Nick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYUIKdIY7Y8
See also this clip by Chad, I mean Nick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYUIKdIY7Y8
I used Elementary 5.1 for over 2 years and then switched to Elementary 6. It was very buggy and slow on Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 9 with very good hardware. I switched to Ubuntu 21.04 and everything worked really well. I dont think I will hop distro again.
Elementary OS is in a strange place for me.
Coming from MacOS, it does so many things right and Danielle and the other contributors have such a great mindset focusing on accessibility and platform building.
With their dev conference, they’re doing great work encouraging people towards native app development with an eye to performance and HIG.
Everything looks so good.
And yet, as a daily driver for development, it’s just never quite there. The edge cases stand out enough that I always want to reach for Manjaro or Zorin or the like instead.
But I love their approach and think it’s ultimately “the right one”, so even when I’m not using it, I can only support them and cheer them on.
Coming from MacOS, it does so many things right and Danielle and the other contributors have such a great mindset focusing on accessibility and platform building.
With their dev conference, they’re doing great work encouraging people towards native app development with an eye to performance and HIG.
Everything looks so good.
And yet, as a daily driver for development, it’s just never quite there. The edge cases stand out enough that I always want to reach for Manjaro or Zorin or the like instead.
But I love their approach and think it’s ultimately “the right one”, so even when I’m not using it, I can only support them and cheer them on.
It for sure has a "death by a thousand papercuts" vibe to it. One of those papercuts is that they have modified the GTK theme so heavily that when you run Eclipse IDE on it the text and background are the same color.
I'm dying for installer support for Pinebook Pro. I can flash an image today, but as far as I know there's no way to do full-disk encryption yet.
I don’t know why this distro even exists, Fedora and vanilla GNOME does everything this does but better. I feel the same way about Ubuntu by the way. The theme and tweaks that are added on top of vanilla GNOME in both cases only makes it worse.
You heard me right: The official explanation on how to upgrade to Elementary OS 6 is to back up your stuff and do a full reinstall.
Considering that Elementary OS is somewhat marketed as being ideal for, say, elderly folks or people less experienced with their PC, as something that a Linux user might install for non-techie friends, this is beyond unacceptable and also shows a certain lack of technical competence for the folks running it.
Edit: Also, I've made the tragic mistake of installing previous Elementary OS versions for non-techie friends I rarely see. Not anymore! What am I supposed to do Elementary? Inform my friends I've got to basically rebuild their computer the next time I see them at Thanksgiving to keep them safe? I'm trying to avoid using profanity...