Shuttleworth: "Pretty is a feature"

[greggh]

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/63


If we want the world to embrace free software, we have to make it beautiful. I’m not talking about inner beauty, not elegance, not ideological purity… pure, unadulterated, raw, visceral, lustful, shallow, skin deep beauty.

We have to make it gorgeous. We have to make it easy on the eye. We have to make it take your friend’s breath away.

As shallow as it sounds, I think he's 100% correct.

[ComplexNumber]

yet another reason why Mark chose gnome for ubuntu :D

[chaosgeisterchen]

You will never win any new users with an ugly interface.

[Kateikyoushi]

That's true and if you prefer something more simple can do it yourself.
Hope the next release will make Vista look like 98 compared to it.

[John.Michael.Kane]

chaosgeisterchen gnome is not necessarily ugly. It has been stripped down to the bare functions. The end user for now is left the task of making DE gorgeous.

[Brunellus]

That's true and if you prefer something more simple can do it yourself.
Hope the next release will make Vista look like 98 compared to it.
don't hold your breath. Unless you know something I dont' about the impending coolness of Free graphics drivers.

[Mimsy]

It also has to be customizable. I have heard people describe WinXP as gorgeous, so obviously tastes differ. Let us change the appearance to what we want and like. :)

/Mimsy

[PriceChild]

Hope the next release will make Vista look like 98 compared to it.My beryl install DEFINATELY makes my vista look like 98...

Especially if i add a vista skin, it just looks sooo good. Vista wastes the transparency abilities etc.

I think ubuntu looks great, i just installed FC6 this afternoon and "yuck" in my opinion...

Pricey

[pelle.k]

Agree! I love features, but they are just as important as a clean organized interface.

Expose the only the most common features, don't remove the advanced features (keep them in a menu or something). This is something _both_ kde and gnome could learn from.

God i hate kde:s clutterred interface, ang gnome:s over simplified panel etc etc.
Maybe kde4 will improve on this.

By the way... I love opengl in X, but some of the totally useless effects they just throw in beryl (compiz etc.) is just redicolous. Fade in/out, transparency and exposé effects is enough for me.
The cube, you ask? I would rather se a compilation of screenshots in a row, and chose the highligthed one. Have you seen how MacOS handles workspaces in their "xgl" couterpart?

[Sushi]

yet another reason why Mark chose gnome for ubuntu :D

Sorry to rain on your fanboyishness, but Mark does offer, use and recommend Kubuntu as well.

[bruce89]

Sorry to rain on your fanboyishness, but Mark does offer, use and recommend Kubuntu as well.

Well, Ubuntu was using GNOME before Kubuntu existed, that is what this person meant.

[chaosgeisterchen]

chaosgeisterchen gnome is not necessarily ugly. It has been stripped down to the bare functions. The end user for now is left the task of making DE gorgeous.

My posting came false in the context. It referred to Mark Shuttleworths article and I just wanted to state that it is a primary target for the open desktop to be come optically intereting for the end user. I did not intend to bash GNOME in any way - the posting above the mine was just sent earlier without me seeing it.

I think that both Qt and GTK are great and can look great so please to not get me wrong.

[Kateikyoushi]

don't hold your breath. Unless you know something I dont' about the impending coolness of Free graphics drivers.

I won't, I use ratpoison and mostly terminal apps in screen so can live without it but the rest of the world is quite concerned about it.
For example my girlfriend choose win over ubuntu because it looks better. :-/ So my hope is in the next release before the Vista RC expires.


My beryl install DEFINATELY makes my vista look like 98...

Especially if i add a vista skin, it just looks sooo good. Vista wastes the transparency abilities etc.

I do not think transparency what's the best point of Aero, even the basic skin is well done, every little detail looks good and detailed. I put Vista skin on gnome but Nautilus still doesn't match Vista.

[bionnaki]

the default ubuntu look is ugly, though. I like the brown and orange. the menu is nice. but the icons on the top and bottom panels need some work. the firefox globe is ugly and so is the evolution email icon. and the applications/system/places menu is too...ugly. I think switch it with the "menu bar" and it'll look good. change the icons and space them out a little.

and the ugly brown wallpapers have got to go. something lighter would be nice.

of course, you can change it to your liking. here's my desktop:


but the default "look" needs some work.

[daou]

Pretty is a feature, and unfortunately priority #1 for many people. Most of my friends have wanted Ubuntu after seeing mine run with Beryl (although it was Compiz back then). Not a lot of interest before that, with just plain Gnome running.

[cunawarit]

I agree with Mark's statement 100%. I generally choose very simplistic and clean cut interfaces, I actually love fluxbox. However, I am aware that most users love a flashy, yet elegant interface.

I do have to say that I am not a huge fan of the standard Ubuntu look, it is much better than the standard XP look though.

[phersotty]

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Is brown beautiful? It could be for some. For me it looks about as beautiful as a UPS truck. I know you can change the look, but even the default choices are brown. So you can go from brown to brown or brown. Select any color of brown you like. Ok I'm done criticizing Mr. Shuttleworth's favorite color. I actually like what's been done with the default themes in Edubuntu. In my opinion its quite friendly.

[aysiu]

Can't we discuss good looks without it turning into a KDE/Gnome flamewar? Geez.

Both can look good, and both can look terrible.

[.t.]

Good looks are important:

[chaosgeisterchen]

I wonder if Mark also included Beryl in his statement? It is a major part of Linux eyecandy by now and it will be growing and getting more and more stable and better.

[Reshin]

Can't we discuss good looks without it turning into a KDE/Gnome flamewar? Geez.

You know, you are asking quite a lot...

[chaosgeisterchen]

You know, you are asking quite a lot...

Since when is neutral discussion style a lot? It should be part of the basics. Preferences are good and allowed all the way (freedom is a part of our community, a major one) but preferences are not there to be imposed on all your human environment.

[aysiu]

I think Reshin was being sarcastic. It may be hard to tell in a written medium, though.

[chaosgeisterchen]

What a shame. You may blame me for tapping into that.

[Reshin]

What a shame. You may blame me for tapping into that.

Don't worry. It's pretty common to people understand my writings, it seems... :-?

[Henry Rayker]

Don't worry. It's pretty common to people understand my writings, it seems... :-?

More sarcasm or did you mean mis-understand? :-D

[.t.]

You know what; I read that as "mis-understand", even though it wasn't.

[Reshin]

*sigh* Yes, I meant 'misunderstand'. Sorry

Can we now please drop this? -_-;

[chaosgeisterchen]

We're getting rather OT, aren't we? Thanks for your forgivefulness :)

Ubuntu is beautiful!

[Henry Rayker]

I will drop it after I say this...it is kind of funny to me that we understood what you meant, despite the fact that you were saying people misunderstand you quite frequently.

[chaosgeisterchen]

Do you think that Bery is a main factor of conviction towards linux-newbies?

[.t.]

Categorically yes.

[Brunellus]

Categorically yes.
No. Eye candy can only do so much.

[Johnsie]

i found most of the features in Beryl to be quite annoying. With compiz I also ended up switching a lot of things off.... Spinning windows and cubes aren't what's necessary for Ubuntu to be good. Ubuntu needs better apps, like an instant messenger that can do video/audio over the major networks. The people who make those apps need to do more to make them look good and still be good at doing that they do.

We need to look at what most people actually use their computers for and improve those features. Eyecandy may look nice but I'd much rather see well designed programs that actually do what most people want to do with their computers.

For the home users that's media playing, web browsing, gaming and instant messaging.

For the business user it's having high quality publishing and management tools.

I think it's more important to concentrate on purpose, power and effectiveness than making things just look good. It's kind of like gaming... A game with good graphics isn't always the most playable. Making Ubuntu "playable" is needed.

[.t.]

I know quite a few shallow individuals.

[chaosgeisterchen]

Well, concerning business use we are on a good way offering professional GUI looks.

SLES comes with XGL enabled. Whoever needs that in business use?

[awakatanka]

i found most of the features in Beryl to be quite annoying. With compiz I also ended up switching a lot of things off.... Spinning windows and cubes aren't what's necessary for Ubuntu to be good. Ubuntu needs better apps, like an instant messenger that can do video/audio over the major networks. The people who make those apps need to do more to make them look good and still be good at doing that they do.

We need to look at what most people actually use their computers for and improve those features. Eyecandy may look nice but I'd much rather see well designed programs that actually do what most people want to do with their computers.

For the home users that's media playing, web browsing, gaming and instant messaging.

For the business user it's having high quality publishing and management tools.

I think it's more important to concentrate on purpose, power and effectiveness than making things just look good. It's kind of like gaming... A game with good graphics isn't always the most playable. Making Ubuntu "playable" is needed.
I think you totaly right. I can switch more people to linux if it had a messenger that could do webcam and voice with MSN/YAHOO/AOL. If it had a tool that is as easy as wirelesszero from MS. Switching resolutions is a pain sometimes. Solve those problems, eyecandy is for everyone something else and we can already make it look the way we like.

[Yossarian]

I find Ubuntu's default theme quite nice looking. I'm posting this from dapper with the default theme, and the dawn of ubuntu wallpaper (the tree). I liked the way breezy looked too, actually.

Then again I have Windows XP with the default colours and no background on my main desktop.

I wouldn't mind trying that beryl stuff, but I have no hardware that'd even come close.

[23meg]

As I and others have stated many times, Compiz / Beryl isn't just about eye candy but usability as well, and the underlying technology (X on GLX) demonstrated by Compiz / Beryl isn't about eye candy at all but accelerating 2D rendering; the eye candy is just a "totally unintentional side effect".

[.t.]

And what a great side effect!

[slimdog360]

I wonder why a dull brown was chosen as the theme colour then??

[CarpKing]

I wonder why a dull brown was chosen as the theme colour then??

It isn't meant as a "dull" brown, it's meant as a "warm" and "earthy" brown.

[towsonu2003]

it would be so nice if part of that "beautifulness" aim included pressuring video card manufacturers to release better drivers (if not release them under gpl or similar)... compiz wants you to have good 3d, meaning good drivers... but that's utopia :)

[slimdog360]

It isn't meant as a "dull" brown, it's meant as a "warm" and "earthy" brown.
It seems what they meant to do and what they did do have been two different things. At least in my eyes that is.

[daou]

It seems what they meant to do and what they did do have been two different things. At least in my eyes that is.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Thats why we have countless themes ;).

[Brunellus]

It seems what they meant to do and what they did do have been two different things. At least in my eyes that is.
I happen to like brown. It's the colour of skin (for most of humanity). It's the colour of the earth. It's warm & comforting. And it makes the default desktop different from a BILLION other cool-blue-desktops. Except Kubuntu. Kubuntu uses Kool Blue Kolours.

[Henry Rayker]

I'm kind of tired of all of the people who whine and moan about the default colors. I haven't used a grey and blue theme on Windows since Win98. I used the default XP theme for about a minute before changing it.

Additionally, there isn't possibly one default theme that can please every possible user.

I like brown. If they took brown away, I would just put it back. On my RedHat station at work, I use a variant of the Human theme, just because the blues and all felt too cold and detached.

[greggh]

I'm kind of tired of all of the people who whine and moan about the default colors. I haven't used a grey and blue theme on Windows since Win98. I used the default XP theme for about a minute before changing it.

Additionally, there isn't possibly one default theme that can please every possible user.

I like brown. If they took brown away, I would just put it back. On my RedHat station at work, I use a variant of the Human theme, just because the blues and all felt too cold and detached.

What you're saying is true, but I find it annoying that there is not even one non-brown theme to choose from as an option that's included with the standard install. Come on, can't the Ubuntu folks throw us a bone and include one blue desktop as an option in the distro?

[Brunellus]

What you're saying is true, but I find it annoying that there is not even one non-brown theme to choose from as an option that's included with the standard install. Come on, can't the Ubuntu folks throw us a bone and include one blue desktop as an option in the distro?
A single-CD distro is like a haiku. One theme fits. You could argue that it would be trivial to include a few more themes if emacs and nano weren't shipped with Ubuntu, though.

[happy-and-lost]

Sorry... but the muddy salmon colour in Edgy does nothing for me.

Everything else is sexy though :D

[Henry Rayker]

A problem with including one non-brown theme is that you then have people who complain, "Oh, the brown theme is ugly and I hate blue themes. I want a green theme."

If you give a mouse a cookie.......

[puppy]

Actually, there are several *complete* alternate themes available in the repos as packs - a gdm, splash, window borders, wallpaper etc. In no particular order:

Peace - you like muted colours? Well this is dark and muddy with a capital M!
Blubuntu - my favourite, and what I'm using at the moment
Tropic - oh my eyes, my eyes!!!!!!! :mad: (good for shock value)

I think there's another one which has completely slipped my mind for the moment, but you really should check out Blubuntu, it's very nicely done...

EDIT: if you can't find the splashes (the system doesn't automatically go to the right folder when trying to select them) they install into /usr/share/pixmaps/splash/

[Henry Rayker]

I think the previous point was that these packages aren't installed by default as options...you have to get additional packages.

[greggh]

I think the previous point was that these packages aren't installed by default as options...you have to get additional packages.

Exactly. You know when you right click on the desktop and choose "Change Desktop Background", would it be the end of the world if the Ubuntu folks included even one non-brown desktop wallpaper? Right now there are 4 to choose from, and let me doublecheck...the first one is brown, the second one is brown, the third one is brown, and let me see... the fourth one is... oh yeah... brown...

[puppy]

You're not wrong - although once found they are easy to install fortunately. I would also give a shout out to the Ubuntu wallpapers at www.gnomelook.org - some of them are absolutely fantastic - Ubuntu users can be so talented :-D

[bruce89]

Right now there are 4 to choose from, and let me doublecheck...the first one is brown, the second one is brown, the third one is brown, and let me see... the fourth one is... oh yeah... brown...

Not quite true for Edgy:


Dark Brown solid colour
Greeny Brown
Light Brown
Dark Brown


There is no pleasing some people.

[greggh]

Not quite true for Edgy:


Dark Brown solid colour
Greeny Brown
Light Brown
Dark Brown


There is no pleasing some people.

Not really. That will please 100% of the folks that belong to the "I love brown" fan club. It might be a good idea to broaden out the appeal a little bit more than that though. :rolleyes:

[Mimsy]

In that case, just make it very easy and obvious to install new themes from that window. By installing a myriad of multicolored themes all you will do is bloat the thing, and make the liveCD larger to download, and you won't be able to please everyone anyway.

/Mimsy

[Henry Rayker]

That's a good idea, Mimsy. Have it work sort of like the Firefox theme/extensions dialogues...not only list the available backgrounds/themes or whatever, but also have a link to a good source (or at least maybe a link to an official page that has suggestions for adding new themes/wallpapers).

Regardless of what colors are and are not represented, the problem lies in the fact that brown is the color chosen by the developers, so it will be the representative color. You can't package a green, a blue, a red, a pink, a black and white, a white and black (reverse) etc theme to try to please everyone. What if I only use wallpapers of sea creatures? I will be disappointed.

[IYY]

That's true and if you prefer something more simple can do it yourself.
Hope the next release will make Vista look like 98 compared to it.

I rather liked the look of Windows 98, and I think it's better than 50% of GTK themes, 80% of QT themes and 100% of Windows XP and Vista themes. It's nice, clean and professional.

[ArizonaKid]

My biggest complaint with Gnome and KDE revolve around basic window look. Menu options and buttons are much larger than they need to be, and quite a bit of free space is wasted with button selection. Basically the overall look is bulky. Evolution is a good example of an application that has a clunky look to it. Changing the font helps to some degree in Gnome, but the overall look still needs a lot of work.

What I like about Windows is how compact but clean you can get everything. I prefer to browse through my files in list view in Windows Explorer. The menu bars as well as browse and search options take up only as much space as they need.

Rather than themes, I would wonder if Mark's statement expresses that he is unhappy with the current direction of both Gnome and KDE. It sounds like he is which opens the possibility of Ubuntu consolidating some of Gnome's work to produce its own distinctive window manager.

[Henry Rayker]

That's true and if you prefer something more simple can do it yourself.
Hope the next release will make Vista look like 98 compared to it.

Why not have it the other way...if you want something complicated, you can do it yourself. I like Ubuntu because it's very simple.

[peterson2k4]

My only gripe about ubuntu is that it is rather ugly. I mean, beryl is sweet looking. there is no question about that but, everything lacks a sense of unity. If you look at Vista or OS X you'll notice programs all have the same look to them. Linux on the otherhand is very hodge podge. Songbird has a look to it and Totem has another and I can't find a firefox skin to match either!

[qamelian]

My only gripe about ubuntu is that it is rather ugly. I mean, beryl is sweet looking. there is no question about that but, everything lacks a sense of unity. If you look at Vista or OS X you'll notice programs all have the same look to them. Linux on the otherhand is very hodge podge. Songbird has a look to it and Totem has another and I can't find a firefox skin to match either!

Wrong answer but thank you for playing our game. There are plenty of apps that don't use the standard look on Windows. A few that come to mind are Quicktime, TrueSpace, and Kai's Powertools.

[Rotarychainsaw]

I took a basic Human computer interaction class last term, and amidst all the white noise I think I remember our teacher saying something interesting.

He said that pretty things are more usable. Now this wasn't an opinion, but he was going on about studies that showed how something that was pretty on a visceral level got rated as more usable than an ugly thing that worked exactly the same. Food for thought eh.

[FuturePilot]

Wrong answer but thank you for playing our game. There are plenty of apps that don't use the standard look on Windows. A few that come to mind are Quicktime, TrueSpace, and Kai's Powertools.

Forgot one, the infamous iTunes

[Anthem]

Why on earth did we bump a thread from October?

[Tundro Walker]

I had a theory a while back about how I'd divide Canonical's developer resources...

50% goes towards really cool new features that are useful (make it useful)
25% goes towards fixing bugs / issues / security risks (make it secure/functional)
25% goes towards shear eye-candy, usability & "fad" gadgetry (make it cool)People are visceral. They like slick looking things. It's basic human nature. So, even if things like Compiz & Beryl and what-not rank pretty high on the "looks cool but can live without" scale, you still devote time to getting it to work with your distro, because cool, superficial things bring in people. Once they have their foot in the door, then you can wow them with real stuff that's useful.

You have to lure them them with style to try and win them with substance.

[FoolsGold_MKII]

You have to lure them them with style to try and win them with substance.
Good point. One of the reasons I came back to Linux was by a chance viewing of a YouTube video showing Compiz Fusion. Now I stay because development in Linux is so amazing fast, problems get fixed with the more substantial software as well.

[amoore]

I'm a Gnome user and have always despised KDE but, I have been keeping a close eye on KDE 4. I must say that the Oxygen Icon theme, Plasma, and the Dolphin file manager look great. The over all appearance of KDE 4 looks like modern OS out of the box. I hope that KDE 4 gets the Gnome devs working on Gnome 3.0. Gnome just seems a little flat out of the box.

Yes, I know that you can customize a DE to look any way you want but, it would be nice to have a sharp looking DE out of the box. Most of my friends see my DE and are like WOW! but when I first install Ubuntu its just plain unattractive.

[steveneddy]

yet another reason why Mark chose gnome for ubuntu :D

Agreed - and this new Compiz-Fission is incredible.

I had jury duty today and took my laptop.

I showed one person next to me and the 30 people behind me almost fell out of their chairs trying to get a look.

Incredible.

[FoolsGold_MKII]

I had jury duty today and took my laptop.

I showed one person next to me and the 30 people behind me almost fell out of their chairs trying to get a look.

Incredible.
Judge: "Trial adjourned, I just have to see jury no. 4912's tricked-out desktop!"

[pseudonym]

GNOME sux. KDE rocks! :guitar:

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Plus I don't think you can say your life's complete if you never make a forum post like this :D ).

[aimran]

Agreed - and this new Compiz-Fission is incredible.

I had jury duty today and took my laptop.

I showed one person next to me and the 30 people behind me almost fell out of their chairs trying to get a look.

Incredible.

Haha! I remember doing that in lectures :O and generally disrupting the peace :)

By the way, isn't it Compiz-Fusion not Fission?

Edit: Sorry for picking on it but just way too many people not getting it :P

[@trophy]

So uhh if we're supposed to make it "pretty" what's with the fugly brown and orange theme by default? I even like brown and orange, but somehow they just didn't do it with Human...

[peterson2k4]

What I meant was that the 1st party software have a similar feel to it. Vista or OSX. and half of the apps mentioned do look similar to each other. because they are apple.

I like everything to look as much as possible. I know that to do that I'd have to buy a mac but, since that is my only gripe I think I will be more than able to manage

[steveneddy]

By the way, isn't it Compiz-Fusion not Fission?



I'm doing it on purpose. I hate fusion and think that Fission is a better name if they are gonna screw with the name.

:popcorn:

[diskotek]

that's right, i know people who thinks that linux s only text-based thing.
and also many friends of me would like to use linux after i show them my gnome+beryl box :D

"we want that too!!!!" x 10

[kamaboko]

So uhh if we're supposed to make it "pretty" what's with the fugly brown and orange theme by default? I even like brown and orange, but somehow they just didn't do it with Human...

It's supposed to look like a South African dirt road: clay and mud.

[olejorgen]

I really like the default look (colors, shape etc.), but I also think things are too big. (and in gnome it's no way to change that?)

[@trophy]

It's supposed to look like a South African dirt road: clay and mud.

I get that, but what looks good on a South African dirt road might not exactly look good on my desktop, you know? At any rate, you'll be happy to know that I'm still using human anyway, because I reinstall often and am far too lazy to change it LOL.

[runningwithscissors]

Of course pretty is a feature.
Here is an example:

[jrusso2]

If pretty is a feature why is ubuntu theme so ugly

[laxmanb]

Wow... does that mean we'll have better wallpapers in the next release?? I've had enough of brown....

[steven8]

Wow... does that mean we'll have better wallpapers in the next release?? I've had enough of brown....

My wallpaper is a picture of my dad, my niece, and my three sons at the zoo. Your wallpaper is what you make it.