[TheZookie007]

Computers are supposed to be used to get stuff done, without requiring their users to tweak them just to avoid inconvenient time-wasters like those I mentioned. It's just sad to see that at this late date (30 years+ after the beginning of small PCs) Windows7 and Windows8 still get so much of the simple stuff so wrong. I'll never stop being amazed that Microsoft has 90% of the small PC OS market, considering the state of their products. 

That's a function of both how bad the alternatives were, and BillG's massive powers of monopoly

[Lightfoot]

I agree.  Windows has some odd design ideas.  How about having several ways to display the control panels?  Some of them hide lesser choices.  Also some Windows settings aren't in the control panels but instead in a menu in the explorer windows (although Macs do that same odd thing too).

Each OS has it's flaws, and it's good points.

The big advantage of Windows is the giant range of programs and games for it.  Macs are really simple to use, but you can't alter it very much.  Linux gives you a lot of control, but you often have programs that are rough around the edges or are to some degree inferior to Mac/PC options (like Krita versus Manga Studio 5, MyPaint versus Sketchbook Pro, Gimp versus Photoshop, Scribus versus Indesign).

Linux could bridge the gap at some point.

[3deroticer]

On building a case for the Raspberry pi
I have seen a lot of them built with LEGO blocks and some super glue for the foundation.

[Palomine]

On building a case for the Raspberry pi
I have seen a lot of them built with LEGO blocks and some super glue for the foundation.

I do have a huge box of (old) Legos in the garage somewhere. Yes, I've seen all sorts of cases from about $5. and up online, plus of course, there's all the home-built ones. Things have been too busy lately for me to even play with my Pi, but I was going to epoxy a couple of nylon (non-conductive) bolts (to fit through the holes on the circuit board) to a hand-sized chunk of granite countertop and just use it like that til I have time to make something nicer.

[Palomine]

Some of you may recall my off-the-top-of-my-head bitch list post about Windows and its GUI here: http://forum.bearchive.com/index.php/topic,9983729.msg10311907.html#msg10311907 Rest assured that I could double or triple the length of that list w/very little effort... I repeat: it's stunning how many blatant mistakes/problems exist in a commercial OS from a company that's been selling them for decades.

However, Microsoft doesn't have an exclusive license on examples of obvious foolishness. Though I routinely use Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, the OS I use most of the time, on my main/home PC is Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS. Yes, it's the most popular Linux distro... easy to install and use (even for Linux newbies) and my choice of it will earn me no street cred w/hardcore Linux freaks. Be that as it may, I use it on this machine simply because it works really well 99% of the time and feels very polished... not kludged together like some less-popular Linux distros.

In any case, Ubuntu (which runs their own Unity desktop GUI by default) is not without its faults, and since I bitched about Windows, it's only fair for me to list some fairly obvious nonsense that the Ubuntu/Unity coders should have fixed before release as follows:

---

Gedit keyboard navigation: In gedit (the simple notepad/textedit-like editor that comes w/Ubuntu) the page up/down keys work, but the home/end keys inexplicably do not. I guess they're emulating the behavior Microsoft Word, which does the same stupid thing.

GUI window scroll arrows: In the file system GUI, when you move the cursor to the right edge of a folder window, the up/down scroll arrows appear at the cursor position when you reach the edge. That's fine if you want to scroll up/down (though I'd personally prefer an option for regular fixed-position scroll arrows) but a huge PITA if you're going to the right edge to drag/widen the window itself. It often takes several attempts at jiggling the mouse around until you manage to grab the right side of the window *without* activating the up/down arrows widget. There's probably some way to turn this off (maybe switch back to regular fixed scroll arrows?) but even if there is, whomever thought this annoying behavior would be a good default should be smacked about the head and face with a day-old raw snapper. Added later: on further inspection, I see that you *can* move the right edge of the window left or right to resize the width, even though the cursor only shows the scroll arrows (instead of the resize handle). So, resize works, but could be clearer.

GUI info tag obscures selected file: In the file system GUI, when you do a search (control-F) in a folder window, it's not uncommon for the item you want to appear as the last (bottom, when in list view) item in the window (the window automatically scrolls to include the item you're looking for, which is also auto-selected). This is fine *except* for the fact when any item is selected (auto or manually) a somewhat redundant and unnecessary small light-yellow info tag pops up at the bottom of the window describing the item and unfortunately, that tag often obscures (completely covers) the selected item itself. Because of this, if you want to right-mouse click menu on that item (say, to open it in another tab or window, a logical next step) you can't actually do so until you manually click/drag to scroll that item out-from-under the yellow info tag. This is more annoying than it sounds.

Save As dialog opens in fixed, inconvenient location: Though this problem seems to exist in most major OSes/GUIs, it exists in Ubuntu too: the Save As file browser window always seems to open up in the exact middle of the screen. This can be inconvenient, since the middle is where you usually have what you're working on: your open document/file. Habitually, I always manually drag the Save As dialog over to the right before using it, so I can see my open document (i.e.: you may wish to refer to it as you save with a version-based filename, etc...). I do recall some older versions of Mac OS where, if you had manually dragged the Save As dialog to a side or corner of the screen, *that's where the next Save As dialog would appear* the next time one popped up. That was smart, and I wish Ubuntu and other OSes did that now.

Progress dialogs open in fixed, inconvenient location: Another quirk common to other OSes, not just Ubuntu w/Unity: when the File Operations dialog box pops up (say, to show the progress of a transfer of a file from one drive to another, or when uncompressing a large file) it too appears in the middle of the screen, on top of whatever else you're working on. Since this dialog sometimes stays up for several seconds or even longer (when moving a big file for example) you often have to manually click/drag it out of the way so you can get back to work and still see the progress bar in the dialog box. Instead it should open at an edge or corner of the screen, since it's safe to assume that other windows will already be open. Better yet, why not have a system preference letting users choose *where* this and other dialogs pop up (i.e.: the Save As one, or any sort of pop-up status/progress dialog box, etc...): in the center, corner, where-you-last-left-it, etc...? Tangentially: I'm not even sure why these short-lived progress-type dialogs have to open up in their own new windows at all: wouldn't it make more sense for them to be displayed in the top-of-the-screen menu bar (say, where other status/notices appear) or maybe in the edge of the file system window you were in when you started that process? Then, they could just appear and disappear when done, without requiring the user to move them out of the way.

You must manually edit filename in Save As to avoid first overwrite: This too plagues most major OSes, not just Ubuntu: when you Save a file (i.e.: image.jpg, which we see so much of around here thanks to Apple's iOS stupidity) and there's already a file there with that exact filename, Ubuntu doesn't automatically offer you the option of incrementing the filename (i.e.: renaming it on-the-fly to image (1).jpg) on the first save: you're only given the option to cancel the save or replace (overwrite) the file. To avoid these, you have to manually edit the filename yourself and then click save. It *does* do the auto-increment/rename for subsequent saves to the same directory (only during the same session/while you're still in that directory... when you come back later (after having saved elsewhere) you'll still have to edit/rename/fix the first one manually again to avoid overwriting). This is a no-brainer thing and should be fixed in all OSes. Related: the auto-increment should have a system preference so you can set it to use numbers (+1, etc...) or append the date/time to the filename, or add a manual text string, etc...

Save As dialog could benefit from a second filelist pane: Another not-just-Ubuntu-specific suggestion: Save As dialogs should have two panes, so the current location's contents could be simultaneously displayed in *both* alphabetical *and* date-last-modified lists (for example). I could see having this be a system-preference settable option instead of default behavior, but it would be a handy option, given that manually switching display modes once the dialog is open isn't that uncommon, especially for folders with lots of files. Notably, many third-party file browsers/managers *do* provide exactly this dual-pane sort of display by default.

Launcher sometimes "sticky" when used with auto-hide: No matter how you have the "sensitivity" set, it sometimes takes two or three tries to get the icon dock (aka "Launcher" in Unity) to appear if it's been set to auto-hide (pop up only when asked for by sliding the cursor to that edge of the screen). That simple behavior has worked fine in Mac OS since Day One of OSX... not sure why such a basic thing is wonky in Ubuntu.

Launcher icons don't toggle: Unlike Windows, Unity does not use the icons in the Launcher in a "toggle" fashion... that is to say that clicking on them opens a window/application/etc... but clicking on them a second time does not minimize it. That's just plain silly... even Windows 7 works properly in this regard.

Filesystem GUI list-view columns not easily resized: There's definitely some idiocy going on re: how columns are displayed in folder windows shown in List view. No matter how small you choose to make the text (and the smallest isn't that small) at the usual default window size, you don't seem to be able to resize the width of the columns inside, say... to help show more of longer filenames. AFAICT, the only way to get around this is to manually resize the whole window (to extra-wide) *and only then* are you allowed to grab/drag to resize the columns inside. Why they'd restrict it like this and not let you actually grab/resize columns *that you can already see* in a narrower/default-size window makes no sense. This is frustrating from both an impracticality and just-plain-silly POV.

Close/min/max buttons should be movable/mirrorable: There should be an easy, built-in option to place the red/yellow/green close/minimize/maximize buttons at the top right of the window (like Windows) instead of at the top left, where Ubuntu puts them. A minor quibble, but if they're used to Windows, would it hurt to let users go along with their muscle memory? Of course, you could make the same complaint about OSX. And yes, I'm sure there's some third-party widget thingy that allows/enables this, but really, it should be just a regular system preference. Better yet: provide an option for those three buttons to exist on *both* upper corners of a window... why not? The unused corner isn't occupied by anything else... having the buttons at top-left *and* top-right would provide them in a familiar place whether the user came from Windows or OSX, *and* it'd be handy when the window you want to click is partially obscured by another window on top of it.

---

I suspect that SOME of these annoying behaviors might be due to the fact that Ubuntu is probably designing the Unity GUI on desktop machines with an eye towards "convergence" ...to keep it similar to how Unity runs on a tablet or phone (which has a much smaller screen, is usually only touch-activated, w/o fine mouse control, let alone a physical keyboard). IMO, that's just plain short-sighted... to willfully compromise the usability of the desktop GUI just so it works/looks like the phone/tablet GUI. Maybe years from now nobody will much use desktop PCs with mice and keyboards anymore, but Ubuntu's making a good/strong OS for them now, so why knowingly cripple it for the sake of fashion and/or pedagogy, let alone "convergence?"

People have been bitching mightily online ever since Unity came out (was it version 11 or 12?) and there are plenty of blogs to that effect (i.e.: "My Ubuntu divorce and why Unity sucks"). There are also a plethora of charts and graphs showing that since Unity, Ubuntu's market share has been sliding (it's still by far the most widely-used desktop Linux though). And yes, you can avoid some of the Unity annoyances or Unity altogether by installing a different (but still Ubuntu-based, or at least Debian-based) distro that supports other GUIs (i.e.: Mint, with delicious Cinnamon), or by replacing Unity in Ubuntu with another desktop or by keeping Unity but installing/tweaking GUI utilities. Still: none of that hoop-jumping should be necessary... the basic/default GUI that comes with Ubuntu should be usable and not piss too many people off. I'm not bitching about the idea of Unity in general (I've gotten used to it and overall, it's not the horrific abortion that many bloggers claim) but it does have an ample share of silly design mistakes per my list above. In that respect, it's more like Windows than Ubuntu GUI designers would probably care to admit.

I'll add more when I have time.

PS: I googled around for an appropriate graphic, but while there's plenty of Ubuntu/Unity Sucks stuff out there, none was particularly clever. The attached item *did* come up in the search though, and seems to fit... while there's some pretty sobering foolishness going on in Ubunut/Unity, it could be worse.

PPS: Canonical, if you read this post and can make use of my comments and would like to send me a token of thanks, I'd gladly accept a nice Ubuntu-logo hoodie, size large please: http://shop.canonical.com/product_info.php?products_id=767. Just drop me a private message to reach me.

[TheZookie007]

Nice rant, Pal. Let's hope someone from Canonical does read it!

[Palomine]

Nice rant, ]Pal. Let's hope someone from Canonical does read it!

And implement my suggestions, and send me a hoodie too!

I won't hold my breath for either one though.

[Hiram]

What about KDE? Personally I've always preferred it to Gnome.

Pal replies: yes, there are other desktop GUIs... as mentioned, Mint with Cinnamon is great. I also use CrunchBang with its appealing minimalist OpenBox GUI on another machine. And yes, you can (with a bit of effort) replace Unity or tweak it to avoid some of the worst faux pas. However, my point is since Unity is the default/standard GUI for Ubuntu and likely used by the vast majority of Ubuntu users, who themselves represent the majority of Linux users, it behooves Ubuntu to avoid these needless mistakes... it should work well for most users most of the time, without them having to resort to other tactics.

[SwitcherX]

...and two spaces after the period as if it's 1982 or something...

Some of us were taught that way...   

[SwitcherX]

I finally got Arch Linux installed the other day.  I've been installing different desktops and trying them out.  So far I've done KDE, Gnome, XFCE, LXQT, and a couple of window managers.  I've come to the inescapable conclusion that all Unix desktops suck ass.  Much of the suckery is due to the fact that you have to spend endless hours configuring it.  I've been using computers too long.  I don't want to configure every last tiny thing anymore.  My next 'puter is looking more and more like it's going to be a Mac.

I haven't tried the Lumina desktop on PC-BSD yet.  Fingers crossed.

[Hiram]

Some of us were taught that way...   

Yeah, same here.

[gonZo]

Some of us were taught that way...   

Me too, but for about 20 years Microsoft has been producing fonts that only require one space after the period, and they should know better.

[pedonbio]

Isn't the Vatican supposed to have one of the world's largest collections of porn? Or is that just an urban legend?

I'd rather worship at the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana, myself.

By the way, in the original Kinsey study on male sexuality 95% of respondents acknowledged that they had or continued to masturbate. That has led to a widespread belief among academics that 5% of male respondents will lie about anything.

[gOOber]

There’s a band called 1023MB. They haven’t had any gigs yet though.

[Palomine]

A shout out of THANKS is due to SwitcherX who helped me compile a small Linux utility program for the first time via PMs. Though the resulting program didn't seem to work as intended, that's probably a fault of the program and not the compiling.

It's not like this small step is likely to have me compiling my own custom Linux builds anytime soon (being realistic ) but I'm saving my notes for the next time I need to do this.

Thanks SwitcherX!

Edited later to add attached only-slightly-relevant photo... mildly amusing.