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posted by on Wednesday February 22 2017, @09:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-already-perfect-is-not-the-right-answer dept.

We all know about Microsoft's latest OS, so I won't rehash. A lot of us intensely dislike it, to put it politely. Those of us who can, use other operating systems. This is Soylent, so let's focus on the one that is the most important to us: Linux.

I have been using Windows as my OS since right after Atari times. A few years ago I bought an ARM (ARMHF/ARMv7) netbook and put Lubuntu on it. I had problems with my first Linux experience, mainly in the area of installing software: missing packages in Synaptic, small dependency hells, installing a package at a time by hand, some broken stuff. I put it down mainly to the architecture I have been using, which can't be supported as well as x86-64.

Now, we all know that no software is perfect, and neither is Linux, even though it is now my main OS. We support it in spirit and financially, but there is always room for improvement.

So, the question is: What are your problems with Linux and how can we fix them? How do we better it? Maybe it's filesystems, maybe it's the famous/infamous systemd. Let's have at it.


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  • (Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:57PM

    by Rich (945) on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:57PM (#470131) Journal

    I run Mint/Mate as "standard" distro on my (non-Mac) boxes and laptops, and Elementary on an experimental one, to test the waters. Generally, all that stuff is way good enough for everyday use (though Elementary regularly gets me with its single-click file manager logic...). Nothing much to improve here, I didn't even bother to upgrade the Mint 17 boxes so far. One Thinkpad was tested from a live system on 18, and it looks and feels marvellous. Once again I repeat my theory that we've had "peak desktop" in 2010, and while the commercial offerings have gone downhill from there, the Linux desktops I use remain faithful enough to that original.

    The software supply is a bit awkward, but with the PPA system, there's a solution that works reasonably well. In fact better than everything else, if one considers a seamless global update process part of the job. It could use some polish, but the basics are sound.

    What bugs me is little things, like how the Elementary guys couldn't get screen flicker on T-Thinkpads away. Or the "use two finger scroll" button in Mate remains dimmed, despite 2FS working great after a little command line magic. Or cursor hopping, probably because of the trackpad static compensation settings. So energy to improve stuff is probably best spent fixing low level bugs.

    The system aside, if I had my say, all applications would need to religiously conform to the classic Macintosh Human Interface guidelines. The revised version, ISBN 978-0201622164, is fine. This simply nails the most universal way of desktop workflow.

    Oh, that, and please put in working HiDPI support. As in 12pt Text at 100% is precisely as big as it's printed. Thank you :)

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  • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday February 22 2017, @01:33PM

    by Pino P (4721) on Wednesday February 22 2017, @01:33PM (#470142) Journal

    Oh, that, and please put in working HiDPI support. As in 12pt Text at 100% is precisely as big as it's printed.

    There's a reason it isn't. Because a desktop screen sits farther away from the eyes than a piece of paper, it needs to display things bigger in order to subtend the same angle at the eyes and thereby look subjectively the same size.

    • (Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday February 22 2017, @02:20PM

      by Rich (945) on Wednesday February 22 2017, @02:20PM (#470161) Journal

      That's what the bloody zoom setting is for, because neither you, nor I, nor the computer have the slightest idea about where that friggin' piece of paper is right now. In fact, as I type this, there are two sheets of A4 paper next to my (laptop) computer: one is closer than the screen, the other further away. Global geometry setting in the "Monitors" control panel .Look how the Mac does it since Retina day 1, and we're set.

      Some days I wish Mac-Ki-Do back, with its fanatical postings about doing things in the correct, and of course Mac, way. Alas, he had to resign when Apple stabbed him in the back with OS X (with OS X being unfaithful to the pure spirit!).