Hey guys, I’m just an ordinary dev looking for something to work on. While messing around with my hobby projects, I couldn’t help but notice that under the surface, there are a lot of places that the libre desktop can be improved. I’d like to take on your suggestions on what I should seriously consider working on and helping out with.
Thanks for any comments and suggestions.
(For those wondering, I’m still working on my other stuff.)
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Fractional scaling. Granted i’m a diehard GNOME fan and I hear KDE is better.
support in desktop environments for managing dual backlights when provided by the kernel. I was working on this for a bit but got too busy
Making the GUIs not follow the axiom of one tool for each job. I shouldn’t have to use the terminal if I want to zip a file with a password. It should just be an option in the GUI that uses both commands on its own
The whole point of a GUI is to make the system more approachable not to just replicate the terminal but with buttons
Excellent point, it’s easy to forget that sometimes. What makes a good gui, in your opinion?
I grew up in the XP era so I despise modern GUIs in general, I might not be the right person to ask.
I just want all the information clearly labeled and accessible easily. I want to have buttons and checkmarks for every option possible.
The few times I come across the XP control panel menus or a visual basic app I find it so refreshing and useful. Not having to go through 5 screens to change a basic setting or having to Google how the fuck I access the systems energy plan settings because everything’s practically hidden away to keep users from getting “confused”
I just hate the modern trend of “streamlining” and “sleek and modern” designs that just means you have less information, less options and everything is hidden behind 15 submenus.
It’s like when you find a web page that hasn’t been updated since the early 2000s and suddenly you realize how hostile modern web design is to the user
TL:DR: Not wanting to scare users and hiding away everything just makes users more tech illiterate and makes the experience worse for the tech literate users
Edit: My answer was more of a rant than anything but I really believe a good GUI should be even more practical and easy to use than copy pasting commands in a terminal. It shouldn’t be afraid to give detailed Information (albeit in a human readable format) and should seek to improve the user experience not just replicate the backend.
For example if an option that runs a command fails but the guaranteed solution is to run another command first the error sign should say exactly that and have a button that runs the other command with the necessary parameters according to the context of the error
Man, just the “normies” user experience in general.
I’ve had so many issues from the start, even on “beginner friendly” distros. Hell, I’m a software engineer by trade - I literally use WSL2 every day for my job - but there are some things the OS should just do.
Prime example: wifi connectivity (er, just connectivity in general - Bluetooth included). It seems like every distro neglects this part to some degree. I’ve tried Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Linux Mint, Kinoite, countless others - but it seems like every one either has some form of Bluetooth connectivity issue (a la Kinoite not detecting my Bluetooth headphones) or a straight up wifi issue (like Ubuntu, Lubuntu and Linux Mint ALL not connecting to Panera WiFi on a wiped 2012 MacBook Pro - it was because Panera has a popup to accept wifi terms, btw, which is extremely common. Starbucks was broken too).
It’s that sort of stuff that prevents people from staying on Linux. People DO go to internet cafes to hang out and surf the web. It’s a helluva deal breaker that I need to turn on my phone’s hotspot just to connect to some Internet and then deal with LTE speeds. And as for the argument of “well that’s super old hardware” - it’s prime hardware that people will try Linux on and get pissed off.
Also, Nvidia support. It’s one of the most popular graphics card options - it’s a deal breaker that it doesn’t work out of the box on a lot of distros. Never ran into this myself, but just scroll here for a bit to see how prevalent it is.
I REALLY want to daily Linux but man, these issues prevent it (even now that I’ve moved on from the MacBook). If you really wanna help Linux grow, fix these problems and / or work on improving the “non-technical” user experience. You shouldn’t need to know what KDE is to use your desktop, nor should you need to Google like 15 things to get thru the installer with certainty.
I know this will get a lot of hate, and I really really want to love Linux, but I’ve been burned often so I’m skeptical.
I said it yesterday and got crapped on, but I’m gonna die on this hill: We need fewer distros, opening up the people working on them to focus on the actual software.
We have plenty of Ubuntu forks. Stop making distros and start make awesome GUI apps for Linux.
Yea, sadly, Linux can do nothing to support Nvidia better since they don’t support the community with opensource driver and actively add DRM do make our lives harder. It’s just sad. Right now, I try to get my MacBook pro 5,5 with deticated Nvidia GeForce 9600m GT to work with openSuse I tested and failed with tumbleweed twice now and I’ll try leap next.
This is actually… Completely wrong. Open sourcing video drivers are getting really good a and, in a few years, they’ll be probably just as good, if not better than the proprietary ones.
Setting up secure boot and sensible defaults for it.
Verity in installers.
Being able to hibernate in kernel lockdown.
Actually just detecting when a volume is on encrypted media in udisks would be great.
I would kill for a server distro which came very very well optimized after install and you can run it in a bread toaster.
