Comments about Linux/Ubuntu from a former MS-programmer

[John]

Eric Dunbar wrote:
> On 10/04/06, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
> 
>>>that Nautilus doesn't play nicely with  the network,
>>
>>I didn't think Nautilus was supposed to play nicely with the network.
>>That's what Konqueror is for. :-)
> 
> 
> What if you hate Konq even more than Nautilus? Seriously though, Konq
> and Nautilus are both supposed to be the GUI file browsers for their
> respective environments. Nautilus has a hell of a hard time dealing
> with my SMB file server. Mac OS X Finder OTOH plays perfectly with it
> every time.
> 
> But, as with a lot of things in OSS, "give it time". Eventually
> someone might stumble upon this as a good idea and go after it.

I've given Gnome time. Lots of it. It's going the opposite way to what 
suites me.

OTOH I am very happy with the direction of KDE.

> 
>>>that there are numerous user interface flaws and that
>>>apps don't play nice with each other.
>>
>>As opposed to Windows where there are _no_ UI flaws? :-)  On the whole, I

Windows, for all its imperfections, is pretty consistent.

>>find that the interface in Kubuntu is _better_ than in Windows, but while
>>MS can enforce a consistent UI, at least for their own programs, it's
>>difficult to do the same in the Linux world.  Generally, I just find that
>>if there's an app that doesn't play nicely with the rest of the tools,
>>there's a slightly different program that does.
> 
> 
> As mentioned, I despise Windows. It's a poorly designed interface and
> doesn't do a great job of implementing UI research. But, it is
> certainly a smoother ride than GNOME or KDE (though, to their credit,
> GNOME and KDE have made great strides in recent years). Mac OS X,
> though certainly a far cry from perfect (in many ways having regressed
> from its Mac OS 9 heritage), is tragically the "best of breed" (and,
> that's not saying much).

OS X drives me nuts. Linux (KDE) is better,

> 
> I think the next revolution in GUI might come from the OSS world, but,
> as long as people continue to copy Windows (and, sometimes Mac) we're
> not going to see that happen. Of course, it's quite possible that
> Apple will have something up their sleeve if they don't completely
> drop Mac OS X and become a clone manufacturer ;-(


It makes good sense to follow Windows UI until we have good reason not 
to. It seems to me that many of the differences are present just to be 
different, and that results in Linux being harder to learn than it needs 
to be, it results in shared applications (eg Mozilla*, OOo) being 
different from everything else etc.

Recent Gnome print and file dialogues are completely bizarre, apparently 
intended to constrain users rather than help them:-(