life hacker wishlist to the ubuntu community

[damarusama]

http://lifehacker.com/5355900/five-features-we-want-to-see-in-ubuntu?skyline=true&s=x

[Keyper7]

Well, that's rare. A feature request list on which the author does sound like he understands Ubuntu and is using it for more than five minutes. The points are a little bit generic but I agree with pretty much everything.

1) Hopefully will be addressed by Ubuntu Software Store.

2) Hopefully will be partially addressed by Grub2 and Wubi, but we would still need an easy VM setup for newbies.

3) That's hard but doable. For example, I'm starting the appreciate good ideas like uncluttering the tray through the messaging menu. The problem is that Shuttleworth himself seems very Apple-inspired on his ideas.

4) Hopefully will be addressed by a gradual improvement of Ubuntu One integration.

5) Hopefully will be addressed by OpenShot and Kdenlive.

First I thought "well, nothing mentioned is really Ubuntu specific"... and then I noticed that Ubuntu is already in the progress of addressing those points, which is good.

[purgatori]

This CLI user just has to laugh at that list. Anyone who thinks those are vital features, would be _much_ better off getting a Mac.

[Keyper7]

This CLI user just has to laugh at that list. Anyone who thinks those are vital features, would be _much_ better off getting a Mac.

I'd rather not having to choose just between a free open source operating system for CLI users and a proprietary closed source operating system for non-CLI users.

The world has room for more freedom than that.

[Paqman]

This CLI user just has to laugh at that list. Anyone who thinks those are vital features, would be _much_ better off getting a Mac.

Yeah right, because real Ubuntu users don't use a GUI.

:rolleyes:

What's wrong with making the GUI better than it is? WIMP is the overwhelmingly dominant UI paradigm for a reason, most people like it.

[Arlanthir]

This CLI user just has to laugh at that list. Anyone who thinks those are vital features, would be _much_ better off getting a Mac.

Anyone who thinks that would be _much_ better off getting a different distro? :P

Seriously, I think Ubuntu strives to be an easy to use, noob friendly distro. Its slogan is, after all, "Linux for human beings", right?

I respect that you like to use the CLI, it's far more efficient, but I don't think it hurts you that we build a nicer system for the rest of us :)
Don't forget Ubuntu is free, and runs on (almost) any computer. OSX is a different story.

Personally, I don't mind using the terminal, but if there's an alternate graphical method that doesn't take ages, I prefer it ;)

What would be your wishlist for Ubuntu?

[pwnst*r]

This CLI user just has to laugh at that list. Anyone who thinks those are vital features, would be _much_ better off getting a Mac.

rubbish.

[purgatori]

Anyone who thinks that would be _much_ better off getting a different distro? :P

Seriously, I think Ubuntu strives to be an easy to use, noob friendly distro. Its slogan is, after all, "Linux for human beings", right?

I respect that you like to use the CLI, it's far more efficient, but I don't think it hurts you that we build a nicer system for the rest of us :)
Don't forget Ubuntu is free, and runs on (almost) any computer. OSX is a different story.

Personally, I don't mind using the terminal, but if there's an alternate graphical method that doesn't take ages, I prefer it ;)

What would be your wishlist for Ubuntu?

Let me be clear: I'm not against making Ubuntu more user-friendly, it's just that I don't think that emulating OSX is the way to go about it -- which is what the author seems to be proposing.

As someone who rarely uses a GUI for anything except surfing the web, progress in this area is largely irrelevant to me, and the reason that I all-but abandoned the GUI had nothing to do with it not being easy to use or learn. I'm sure there are still improvements to be made, and other users will know better than I what changes are likely to enhance their user-experience; but I honestly don't see how adopting Mac features like an "app store" is really a step up from existing package management options . Nor do I think it's necessarily wise to hide more of the "guts" of what a program is doing than is already the standard practice in many KDE/Gnome apps. Do these desktop environments really need to be simplified even more? My nearly computer-illiterate sisters had very little trouble acclimating to Ubuntu when I installed it on their respective laptops -- and I didn't even go out of my way to configure it so that it would be easier, or more familiar coming to users coming straight from Windows. Undoubtedly, things could be better, but I think things are easy enough now that cloning OSX wholesale seems like a wasteful and misguided undertaking to me; that is why I found the article amusing.

Evangelizing Linux is of no interest to me, so I really do believe that if you want something just like OSX, you should get a Mac. Likewise, if the way Windows does things floats your boat, then that is probably the OS you should be running. Burdening yourself with Linux, and then hoping desperately that it will achieve 100% feature parity with OSX/Windows, or even beat them on the things that they do well, for the sake of some kind of moral/philosophical concern seems a tad silly to me; although perhaps there is a stronger case to be made there than I am aware of, so I don't know.

What would be my wishlist? I guess I'm a little complacenet when it comes to Ubuntu because it already meets my needs pretty well. Off the top of my head though, I'd like to see the Texlive packages being kept a little more up-to-date, and the inclusion of more packages for lightweight/cli apps which currently have to be built from source -- such as apvlv. I'd also like to see some tweaking of existing packages; for instance, building rxvt-unicode with 256 color support. Boring, I know :lolflag:

[ranch hand]

rubbish.
Let us play nice.

[earthpigg]

i can see the appeal of that list for some.

my concern, however, is that this will start bump Ubuntu's minimum requirements up:

-DVD instead of CD to install.
-256mb of ram, which lots of folks have, will be even less able to run Ubuntu.


to consider virtualization a 'basic' part of the desktop to come installed by default seems a bit silly to me....

[50words]

Let me be clear: I'm not against making Ubuntu more user-friendly, it's just that I don't think that emulating OSX is the way to go about it -- which is what the author seems to be proposing.

Really? I think he is advocating pushing past Apple (and Microsoft) instead of playing catch-up to Apple and Microsoft.

[Arlanthir]

Let me be clear: I'm not against making Ubuntu more user-friendly, it's just that I don't think that emulating OSX is the way to go about it -- which is what the author seems to be proposing.
(...)

I don't think that's the goal, look:


Projects like Mac4LIn are mimicry at its finest, and interfaces like GNOME-Do Docky theme bring both Quicksilver and Dock functionality to Linux. What Linux and Ubuntu really need now, though, is something new.

No one is asking for a Mac clone, but instead for an improvement on usability. You make a point, though, we've already come a long way. But we must keep improving :)

[purgatori]

I don't think that's the goal, look:



No one is asking for a Mac clone, but instead for an improvement on usability. You make a point, though, we've already come a long way. But we must keep improving :)

I read that statement too, but it is at odds with the rest of his suggestions which all pretty much follow the template of: lets copy this OSX feature, but make it better. He constantly refers either directly to OSX, or to the Apple way of doing things as if this is the exemplar that Ubuntu needs to follow. Just look at his appeal for an App Store in Ubuntu, or the way he talks about the "t-shirted genius[es]" who inhabit Apple Stores and who make virtualization easy, the wonders of iMovie, or Apple's ability to make technically sophisticated software look "clean and simple."

[blur xc]

This CLI user just has to laugh at that list. Anyone who thinks those are vital features, would be _much_ better off getting a Mac.



If you are suck a cli badass, why do you care what anyone does w/ the gui. Changes obviously wont affect you, will they? Why are you on Arch linux or Slackware anyway?

Or is this you-
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7923018&postcount=197

BM

[Merk42]

I read that statement too, but it is at odds with the rest of his suggestions which all pretty much follow the template of: lets copy this OSX feature, but make it better. He constantly refers either directly to OSX, or to the Apple way of doing things as if this is the exemplar that Ubuntu needs to follow. Just look at his appeal for an App Store in Ubuntu, or the way he talks about the "t-shirted genius[es]" who inhabit Apple Stores and who make virtualization easy, the wonders of iMovie, or Apple's ability to make technically sophisticated software look "clean and simple."

2 and 3 could apply to Windows 7. The virtualization is pretty much integrated, and the newer interface is some right brain thinking.

I can't say for sure, but perhaps the author uses a Mac as his primary OS so he's more familiar with Apple and OS X than Microsoft and Windows.

I doubt #3 will ever happen though. Contrary to how it's marketed, Linux is, was, and always will be: for coders, by coders

[blur xc]

i read that statement too, but it is at odds with the rest of his suggestions which all pretty much follow the template of: Lets copy this osx feature, but make it better. He constantly refers either directly to osx, or to the apple way of doing things as if this is the exemplar that ubuntu needs to follow. Just look at his appeal for an app store in ubuntu, or the way he talks about the "t-shirted genius[es]" who inhabit apple stores and who make virtualization easy, the wonders of imovie, or apple's ability to make technically sophisticated software look "clean and simple."



i'd admit i'm biased toward thinking about apple computers more than windows, because apple has gained ground with a surprisingly similar product, and some corporate, locked-down environments will never switch from windows.

bm

[Keyper7]

I read that statement too, but it is at odds with the rest of his suggestions which all pretty much follow the template of: lets copy this OSX feature, but make it better. He constantly refers either directly to OSX, or to the Apple way of doing things as if this is the exemplar that Ubuntu needs to follow. Just look at his appeal for an App Store in Ubuntu, or the way he talks about the "t-shirted genius[es]" who inhabit Apple Stores and who make virtualization easy, the wonders of iMovie, or Apple's ability to make technically sophisticated software look "clean and simple."

I think you should read more between the lines. Saying that something is better implemented is very different than proposing imitating it. What I liked about this article is precisely the fact that the author avoids the "it should be more like..." trap. He cites examples he considers better implementations, but never proposes that they should be used as a starting point. Quite the contrary: most of his suggestions are based on what Ubuntu already has.

[Tibuda]

I doubt #3 will ever happen though. Contrary to how it's marketed, Linux is, was, and always will be: for coders, by coders

"always" is a very strong word.

[purgatori]

If you are suck a cli badass, why do you care what anyone does w/ the gui.


I never claimed to be a "cli badass." But you're right, I don't particularly care, and I already said as much.



Changes obviously wont affect you, will they?
Redundant.



Why are you on Arch linux or Slackware anyway?
I assume you meant to say: "why aren't you on Arch linux or Slackware anyway?" Well, Ubuntu was the distro I started with, and the one I am most comfortable with, so it is the one I use. As I already said, Ubuntu meets my needs quite adequately. I don't feel any need to use Slackware or Arch instead at this point.



Or is this you-
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7923018&postcount=197

BM
I'm a CS undergrad, about to become a CS graduate student, working in an AI (kinda sorta) lab. I code in Perl, Java, and other languages. I wrote my Masters' report in LaTeX (and enjoyed it). I do all my work and a lot of non-work-related tasks in emacs, a programmer's editor (and much more) with esoteric keybindings that confuse the hell out of everyone except emacs users. It sounds like I should be a guru, right ? I'm most definitely not a guru, trust me on this.

I heavily depend on Ubuntu's defaults and automagical configurations. Sure, I use apt-get and apt-cache instead of a GUI to manage my packages, and I do a few other things in the console that have GUI equivalents, but that's about it. That's probably the nicest thing about Ubuntu that attracts even hardcore Linux users.Change a few things around, and yeah, that's me. I am comfortable with the CLI and use it for the majority of my computing tasks, but I do not in any way claim to be a Linux guru. Unlike the above poster, I cannot code to save my life, nor do I know how to compile a custom kernel, configure an Apache server, or perform a whole host of other things that any competent professional Linux admin would consider to the basic, entry-level stuff.


I think you should read more between the lines. Saying that something is better implemented is very different than proposing imitating it. What I liked about this article is precisely the fact that the author avoids the "it should be more like..." trap. He cites examples he considers better implementations, but never proposes that they should be used as a starting point. Quite the contrary: most of his suggestions are based on what Ubuntu already has.

Ok, perhaps I misread, but that's not the impression I came away with. I will re-read the article more closely.

[BwackNinja]

I have to agree with purgatori and Merk42 on this one, people use linux when they aren't looking for linux, and that is a recurring problem. Its a noble goal to make linux usable for everyone, but complaints will still arise because people thinking it should be what it is meant not to be. http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm describes it best and almost should be required reading.

[BwackNinja]

fail triple post, first time its happened >.<

[BwackNinja]

fail triple post, first time its happened >.<

[purgatori]

I have to agree with purgatori and Merk42 on this one, people use linux when they aren't looking for linux, and that is a recurring problem. Its a noble goal to make linux usable for everyone, but complaints will still arise because people thinking it should be what it is meant not to be. http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm describes it best and almost should be required reading.

That article made a big impact on me when I first migrated to Linux, and I think it still rings true today. Perhaps there should be one written for OSX as well, even though many of the points still apply.

[blur xc]

I have to agree with purgatori and Merk42 on this one, people use linux when they aren't looking for linux, and that is a recurring problem. Its a noble goal to make linux usable for everyone, but complaints will still arise because people thinking it should be what it is meant not to be. http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm describes it best and almost should be required reading.

There are some good points, and some broad blanket statements which I don't think are fair to make...

But as it pertains to this discussion, I think there's a common closed minded misconception by the anti-gui crowd. People make comparisons to what they have used in the past, to what they know. It's a frame of reference. Nothing more. To say the Apple's App Store is better than the Ubuntu Add/Remove programs is a fair statement. It doesn't mean that Ubuntu developers need to knock off the Apple App Store. I good designer should be able to identify what works in one app, and what doesn't, see if he can meld what works, and/or maybe find a completely different solution to a problem.

BM

[ranch hand]

If you are suck a cli badass, why do you care what anyone does w/ the gui. Changes obviously wont affect you, will they? Why are you on Arch linux or Slackware anyway?

Or is this you-
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7923018&postcount=197

BM
This kind of invective is uncalled for in a "free" forum.

[damarusama]

What is really really really exciting is that Ubuntu is getting in the major leagues now, when blogs like lifehacker start having their wishlist and copare ubuntu to mac os x and windows, well that means that ubuntu has come a long way as far as mainstrean usability goes! And that is really exciting to see, that finally a open source system compete with windows and mac os x !! Keep going! This is really good work and I do agree with lifehacker on one point, make ubuntu different than the other system, but geniusly different so everyone will be astouned to discover this new world!!

Keep on the good work! Open source will dominate soon !

[Frak]

I doubt #3 will ever happen though. Contrary to how it's marketed, Linux is, was, and always will be: for coders, by coders

Until I figure out how to code, save, and compile on my phone, I'll have to give a no to this one.