Looks like Linux is built for games after all

Mint will probably be the next VM that I try here shortly.

I've run Lubuntu off and on...on a netbook. I was disappointed with Ubuntu (can't stand the Unity interface, though I've never really been a Gnome guy) - Kubuntu was a nightmare - Fedora addressed many of the issues of both Ubuntu and Kubuntu, but their package management's dreadful - openSUSE is looking pretty good so far; but I'll give Mint a shot shortly.

 

I recently tried my hand at Linux to begin my process of acquiring knowledge on how to run a VPS.

I installed and am using centos 6.2 on my other older PC. While I must say that Linux has gotten much easier to use compared to earlier years, I understand why Linux will not become a mainstream operating system YET. It is still definitely not yet a non-geek operating system(Here I have to confess I don't know how it is with Ubuntu but I am guessing it can't be all that different)

As a beginner I found that the process of installing software is definitely more complicated than Windows.

As a game maker I am more interested in the server side of things being able to run on Linux than in a Linux Unity client.

 

Well, none of the interaces is top notch but some are better than others. It's quite surprising that even with the money Ubuntu put into the distribution they still weren't able coming up with a decent designed and well thought trough interface. The icons alone all smell after Linux 10 miles against the wind. Ahhh this reminds me of MUI on the Amiga, it's kind of cool, the dock, ARexx, ... years ahead of OS X.

 

For me, I didn't find the interface itself too bad. centos 6.2 looks like this

Its not too confusing to be honest. Its when I got into the process of installing software that I had a lot to learn about repositories and repository priorities etc.
Basically I found if that if the software that I am seeking is not in the main repositories it can be quite a pain. I still haven't learnt how to install software from source yet

 

The screen looks like an interface from more than a decade ago to me.

 

Er...what do you think an interface should look like?

 

Different, not just like some Windows 2k or XP.

Have we learnt something within all those years interface related? How could we use this experience coming up with a better interface, ...

 

What would shake up things in the right direction is if Google got seriously involved in making a PC and eventually a server distro of Linux. Since Android itself is Linux based, Google has experience in that direction. It is probably much more complex than a mobile OS but if smaller players such as those behind Ubuntu, Debian etc can do it, then so can Google.

Of all the big companies, Google appears to be the one company that somehow coexists productively with open source

 

We've learned that many people like the 98/2K/XP interface.

Some say Ubuntu's taken a hit, because of the Unity interface. Some say Windows 8's going to take a hit, because of the Metro interface.



GEOS back on a C64 in 1986.



Win3.11 back in 1992.



Windows 95



Windows 98



Windows 2000



Windows XP



Windows Vista



Windows 7



KDE 4 for Linux



GNOME 3 for Linux



OS X Mountain Lion

 

I'm sure, for 100% sure, if you take enough time, experiment, also look at other more complex apps, you can come up with something better than what those OSs are able to deliver. OS X has some nice features as well as Windows 7 but none is perfect, none is fully thought through and Linux looks like, at least in this respect, is some further years behind.

You also need this do it from scratch but do it right attitude where a company like Google could be really helpful.

 

Guilty Here. I am one of those old fossils that despise change. Currently on XP but using the classic interface that looks like Windows 2000

 

But you're using/liking it because you got used to it, not because it's really good by its design.

 

You could be right. I just wouldn't know though. Some time back I had access to a laptop of a visiting relative of mine that had windows 7 installed on it. It probably is better designed but effectively speaking for me, I found it more difficult to use

An imperfect but apt analogy would be like this. Supposing every one or two years, you were to remove every piece of furniture and replace them with more modern ones that are supposedly more efficient and then for good measure rearrange them in different places. Thats what it feels like.

Some people might like that. Some people myself included would find it disorienting. I think, in general this resistance to change increases as we get older

 

I think you get used to new things rather quickly if they make sense and are real benefit instead of just being different.

Think of Chrome, Google reduced two input fields, the url and search field into just one. It felt a little bit weird in the beginning but once you got used to it, you don't want to return to browser setups like Safari anymore where it's cumbersome to differ between two fields depending on what you're looking for.

That's proper design/evolution/focus, making the process more efficient and your life easier.

 

Yes...e.g., I really didn't like the old MacOS and would never have considered getting a Mac, but after OS X had been out for a while (late in the 10.3 era), I gave it a try, and was surprised to find that most things made sense and worked the way I expected without any fuss. So I switched over pretty much immediately.

Safari isn't like that anymore.

--Eric

 

Really? When i open up Safari in a standard setup on iOS then...

As for OS X, not surprising as it's NextStep under the hood. They put a lot of effort into its design and starting from scratch those days and OS X still benefits from this.

 

Um, I have to disagree here. It's one of the many reasons not to use Chrome. It's less functional for me.

Firefox:

Ctrl-K, type, enter.

Safari:

Ctrl-K, type, enter.

Opera:

Ctrl-E, type, enter.

Chrome:

Ctrl-L, type, down arrow, enter.

IE9:

Ctrl-L, type, up arrow, enter.

Both Chrome and IE9 include an additional keystroke...when I am searching for information on a site, rather than going to the site itself. Sometimes I forget that extra keystroke, going to a site I did not want to go to...just look up information on.

When it comes to doing a regular search, there is no difference between hitting Ctrl-K/E for Safari/Firefox/Opera and hitting Ctrl-L for Chrome/IE9.

The only two browsers that inconvenience me are Chrome and IE9...

 

As of Safari 6, yes really.

--Eric

 

That passes the topic as i was talking about the benefit of the reduction of the graphical user interface. Secondly i doubt that the majority uses shortcuts for searching with a browser. Thirdly it's ctrl+l, type, return on OS X.

 

They updated Safari with Mountain Lion....adding smart search.

Safari 5.1.7 for Windows still has them separate.

 

It is only a benefit for some in certain cases. Even if it is of benefit to the majority, others will find another product. The best option is actually to provide both options. Both Opera and Firefox provide search from the address bar and from the search bar. That's a better option than removing one of the bars. You address both sets of users rather than inconveniencing one set.

Ctrl+L is for the address bar.
Ctrl+K is for the search bar. (Ctrl+E in Opera).

 

@Eric5h5
Uhm, in the latest for normal people downloadable iOS version it's still two input fields with two keyboard layouts. iOS6 is still Beta and as far as i know you still can use the old layout if wanted. But it's good that after some years they also catch up in this respect.

 

@ZeroByteDNA
I disagree, it's not the best solution coming up with as many options as possible. You want to offer some alternatives for certain aspects in order to allow a certain degree of flexibility but it's very important to reduce non reasonable redundance in order to follow a clear design which reduces a certain task to its core and solving it as elegant as possible. You know things are getting perfect when you can't take things away anymore and not by adding tons of options.

 

I completely disagree with that. People want options. People want customization. It's a major complaint about many GUIs - the lack of customization - the lack of options. People want to personalize - find what works best for them - not being told what should work best for them and having to adapt to it. They'll find something else.

Windows 7 saw several reg hacks and even hex edits so people could get back customizations they had in previous versions.
Ubuntu 12.04 has seen people installing 3rd party apps because the Unity environment does not allow them the customization they previously had.
Even with Windows 8, there are companies planning to sell various products to replicate the Windows Start feature that has been removed.

Things are perfect when you give the user the option to reach the point they do not feel they can take anything more away...it's not perfect if you're making that decision for the user.

 

Open customisation only works in a limited field of applications to a certain degree.

As soon as you're dealing with more complex software like an OS it doesn't work anymore because if an OS is properly designed it also follows a certain design philosophy which is thought up upfront in order making things easier for you and everyone else as, conventions and standards are very handy and needed. These you need to setup and based on your rules you grant the user a certain degree of flexibility which he might feel comfortable with but which doesn't contradict the purpose of your design philosophy and so the communication of users and applications amongst each other works. That's how things work best for the majority and are properly designed.

The rest is a config hell for nerds and a.o. due to such a way of thinking Linux still is where it is. Interesting for people who want to work on the OS but not for the majority who want to work with an OS.

 

You can install Linux for the average Windows/Mac user, and they could easily go about their business without batting an eye once you explain the basic differences in applications (you're using Libre instead of Office, etc). They can surf the internet, they can send emails, they write letters, track their bills, chat with friends, watch movies, stream music, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Depending on the distro, they may even find it easier to use than Windows or a Mac.

At the same time, that same installation of Linux could provide oodles and oodles of options for the guy that needs to customize every little thing.

Because it follows the design philosophy...to allow such.

Failing to consider the end user and their needs/wants in your design philosophy...is giving the go ahead to your competitor who has considered that in their design philosophy.

Doing the market research for the end user experience will obviously point you in the direction of what your default experience should entail - but it will also show you what some users may want/need. Not all of your users want/need it, so it's not going to be your default - but if you do not include it, those folks that want/need it are going to go elsewhere.

There's a reason that whether you're looking at Mac/Windows/Linux - they share a Hell of a lot - and why they have a default - and why they allow customization... even iOS and Android are going to share some of those features and allow for customization.

In designing a web site, you test for various connection speeds - various screen resolutions - different browsers - you take accessibility into account... you consider the end user. You may consider providing different versions of your site - a Flash version, a standard HTML version - you're going to look at having a mobile version. Not everybody coming to the site's going to be coming the same way - not everybody going there's going to want the same thing as far as how it looks. You'll attract more visitors to your content if you provide them more options...

In developing a game, folks are looking at multiple platforms. Do you just make your game for Android? What about the iOS, OS X, PC, Linux, etc folks? You can attract the most players/customers for the game by designing it to meet the end users' needs - their platform. You're taking into account their preferences.

It's not a case of deciding to try to stick a one-size-fits-all product out there...because one-size-does-not-fit-all...well.

Give a default that fits your majority but allow customization for the rest (and even that part of the majority that may wish to customize)...and you're covering yourself better.

You're not designing for you. You're designing for them. They're not all the same.

edit: Of course, for certain games - there's not going to be that expectation to customize the GUI. There's no doubt about that. For the game where that expectation does exist though, it had better be there.

 

I'm talking about the OS X version. I don't know about iOS, I'm still on 4.something there.

You're projecting your own desires onto "people" in general. I guarantee most people just leave everything at the defaults, aside from maybe changing the wallpaper.

--Eric

 

I always teach my team to work in ms of GPU / CPU time rather than frames per second because then your costs and budgets become fixed values. 60fps = 16.66ms, 30fps = 33.33ms

If you're trying to hit 60fps it's a lot easier to evaluate the relative cost / benefit of a 3ms post effect when you're putting it against your 16.66ms total performance budget.

 

I agree. Generally speaking it's only professionals and enthusiasts who want to tweak things from their defaults, and most people fall outside of those categories.

That's one design philosophy - minimalism, or subtractive design. But it's not the only design philosophy, and since the field is so subjective no one approach can definitively be shown to be better than all others.

Agreed, as long as you're using a known reference platform.

Of course, if you're not then no approach is going to work particularly well, so you should pick one.

 

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti..._Windows_8_Start_button_boot_to_desktop_hacks

Do a search for: Windows 7 never combine hide labels.
Heck, do a search for: customize windows.

http://news.techeye.net/software/ubuntu-sliding-in-popularity

http://gnome-look.org/
http://kde-look.org/

Torvald's comments on GNOME 3: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...nux_desktops_that_arent_unity_or_gnome_3.html

“Why can't I have shortcuts on my desktop? Why can't I have the expose functionality? Wobbly windows? Why does anybody sane think that it's a good idea to have that 'go to the crazy activities' menu mode?” Torvalds added. “I used to be upset when gnome developers decided it was 'too complicated' for the user to remap some mouse buttons. In gnome3, the developers have apparently decided that it's 'too complicated' to actually do real work on your desktop, and have decided to make it really annoying to do.”

http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/usability_resources/about_usability/definitions.html

http://wiki.eclipse.org/User_Interface_Guidelines#General_UI_Guidelines

https://developer.apple.com/library...M_iHIG_Station/Fundamentals/Fundamentals.html

https://developer.apple.com/library...html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002720-TPXREF101

edit:

Heck, how about this?

http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/UserGuide.html

The first section - Unity Basics. First there's an overview of the interface...and then customizing the interface.

What's one of the projects in the example projects? Character Customization. Why? Because character customization/personalization is important.

Whether you're talking about a character in a game, how Firefox looks, how the desktop looks...people personalize and customize.

Cars...are they all the same? Even the same model of a car - does it come with options?

Even if the choice is an illusion, it can go a long way. Consider the complaints about linear games... people want choice.

 

I'm not entirely sure that Linux users (much less deveopers who decided to write their own OS) and people implementing "hacks" on pre-release operating systems represent the typical user...

Nobody denies that there are people out there who want to tinker, hack, customize, etc. The point is that they're a minority.

 

How many different kinds of keyboards are there? How many different kinds of monitors are there?

When you go into a store to buy pants, how many different kinds of pants are there?

When you go to McDonald's - is there a single item on the menu? When you select your side, do you have options for sides?

When you sit down to watch TV at night, is there only a power button? Or can you customize your viewing experience?

When you wake up in the morning to get dressed... you're customizing your appearance for the day.
You go to the grocery store - you're customizing the meals that you're going to be preparing.

If you're standing in line at Wal-Mart and the line is moving too slow - do you stay there or do you look for a line that's moving faster?

Kids go off to college/university... major/minor/schedule...customized. They'll try to get into a school that offers them the best choices that suit them.

A person gets coffee... how much sugar? How much creamer?

You could go through and find that 70% of the coffee drinkers take X sugar and Y creamer - so that's how you offer your coffee. They're your typical coffee drinker. That 30% that does take X + Y? You've lost them.

Now, if on the other hand - you prepackaged X and prepackaged Y for that 70% while still allowing the other 30% to customize their coffee... you've improved the experience for that 70% without losing that 30% in the process.

Canonical could have done something awesome with Ubuntu, by including Unity...but also allowing folks access to options they had previously. Easier access - not requiring them to jump through hoops to get back to something they had previously. They would have tackled both sets.

Microsoft killing the Start Menu - they could have hid it by default but allowed folks the option to turn it back on - rather than have to resort to various hacks or consider purchasing some third party app.

There are companies that do things right and companies that do them wrong.

Think back to Lotus 1-2-3 for a moment, during the shift from DOS to Windows - and - the use of the mouse. They still maintained all the keyboard shortcuts and macros while introducing the use of the mouse. They catered to both sides during that transition. They did not force their users over to mouse. They gave them a choice.

 

This has kind of gone all over the place, nicely distracted I might say - from the question originally posed to taumel: If Windows, OS X, and Linux all have horrible interfaces...what's a good interface?

 

All I was saying was that that 30% is a minority. I wasn't saying that nobody should cater to them.

And unlike with coffee, I expect that the minority accounts for much less than 30% of the user base.

 

My bad on that, I lumped you in with the rest as part of that discussion.

The typical design goal is 80/20. I went 70/30, because I believe users have evolved.

 

Sure, but 80/20 of what? If you can't identify the "what" then your design goal is an unknown. And how are you ever meant to know if you achieved an unknown goal?

If you know that 20+% of your audience will expect a particular feature then hell yes you should implement it, or at least make sure it's on the "coming soon" list. But on the other hand, if a small percentage of your users want something that might be disruptive to the majority in any way at all - including taking developer time away from features desired by the majority - you have to seriously question whether it's worth the cost.

"Degree of innovation" is also something to be considered. It's not just about how much better your changes theoretically make things. Even the best improvements will alienate vast swathes of your audience if they're made too rapidly. But make them one step at a time over several versions, and don't phase out old systems until people are largely migrated to the new ones of their own volition... then people will be happy.

At the moment, most Windows users expect the Start button to be the first thing to hit once they've logged in, and whisking it out from under them makes them feel disoriented. It's a sure way to annoy people. On the other hand, if they were introduced to new ways to do things in this version of Windows, and then in the next version the Start button was off by default (but a "classic" setting was still available), and then in the version after that it was gone, people would be a lot more ok with it because there'd be no stage at which they were disoriented, and at every stage they'd be able to fall back to familiar ways of doing things.

Conversely, give those same users an iPad and they'll feel fine without a Start button equivalent today. Why? Purely because they didn't expect to see one in the first place, so they don't feel roadblocked by the lack of one.

 

@Eric5h5
And i was talking about iOS. Why? Because on desktop Chrome is more common than Safari and when you change from desktop to an iPad you really feel the difference and how you got used to it. Of course you can install Chrome on iOS too but most people don't. And i was pointing out talking about iOS also before.

@ZeroByteDNA
People like we? Likely, until they run into some details which stop them from doing things they are used to. People who use computers just for work? Nope, they'll run into showstoppers way earlier. And come on, i know how early computer vendors loved to advertised computers as being able to check your bills, enter your petrol consumption and things like that, no one i knew did that more than a week before they started playing games.

I suspect we will dance in circles here but maybe you misunderstood me, so i'll write it once again, people don't want to change every bit, they want something that works in the first place, and the easier and more reasonable it is done, the better. Within your design philosophy you grant the user a cerain degree of reasonable flexibility but it's counterproductive to open the gates and allow everything, as this destroys the design philosophy, the user experience and comes with a pack of problems.

If you're creating software for an OS then of course you need to take care of platform specific needs hard- and software wise, in order to support the hardware and the OS design philosophy you're running on. You do this to get the best out of the hardware and so that people instantly feel familiar with the software without the need to read through some docs first.

I see zero support for your argumentation here as well as i don't see any arguments for your point of view when you're talking about designing websites or crossplatform software. No client pays you for a website which is customiseable by the end user. They don't care. First you pitch different designs to them, then you implement a certain design philosophy. Depending on the budget and the target audience you'll again utalise different versions for different setups but they all still will share the design philosophy you agreed on with the client and which supports the target platforms design philosophy the best. Same applies to crossplatform games.

There is a big difference between something like a tweak and hackable Linux kernel which you can make run the way you like on almost every device you want to and an OS like OS X. The first is nice for playing around on your own or enabling very specific solutions but it fails in a broader way, due to the reasons i've mentioned in my post earlier already, if you want to target a reasonable and easy to use mass market product. If i can zoom in and out into a picture by a natural gesture, steer this by voice and offer a fallback for handicapped people, than that's enough, easy to communicate, and can be taken as a standard on an OS for every app and interaction. You don't need to add thousands of options how to do it different, it only makes things more complicate to setup, use, communicate without adding a benefit for most of the people. If you really need to zoom in and out by hitting your fifth mouse button and pressing alt+5 then use another OS. That's nerd stuff, this way of thinking is not what the regular user wants, it fragments your market and makes things painful for both developers and users.

Really, i don't want tons of options, i want one option which makes sense and does it all right. There are aspects which simply make sense for 99% of the people if you're doing them in a cetain way. Then there are options which everyone likes to do in his very own way. That's where reasonable flexibility comes in and it will vary in complexity depending on the product. But you limit the options to a degree where it still makes sense in order to remain a certain design philosophy and user experience you have in mind.

The best devices are coming from companies which put a lot of research into these aspects. They are easy to use because they just feel right out of the box because the designers upfront put a lot of effort into how things could be done best. If you're lazy or designed your product badly then you can try to hide this by making everything customiseable but that's not what users want and what well designed products should be about.

 

Again...such as?

 

You can find them everywhere in every aspect of your life. There always exist many tools which do it less right and only a few which are doing it simply better. This can be a clever but simple can opener, a magnetic screwdriver, some velcro usage, your climbing rope which twists less, some construction detail of your piano, the acoustics of your headphones, a electronic circuit, software, ...

 

Yes...software. We were talking about operating systems. You put down Windows. You put down OS X. You put down Linux.

So what's an example of an operating system that you would not put down - that you believe is doing it right?

 

Right now i don't see a single OS which does it all right. Some things are done well by OS X, some by Windows and only a few by Linux. But none of them feels fully convincing. You can try to evolve each OS into a better product but you will always collide when it comes to issues like user expectations, backward compatibility and such things, so i also think that it would be nice to start from scratch again where it's needed and coming up with a new OS which is based on all the experiences made so far. There are always times when it's good breaking with old habits, rethinking things and building the ground for a new product, leaving all the ballast behind.

 

Btw. which OS do you like the most?

 

GUIs reflect the origin in various DOS flavors. They were basically easier for the average person to use compared to command line interfaces (however, note we still have command line after all this time).

We're accessing files. It's still basic I/O - whether you're working in Unity or watching something on YouTube.

Whether you're on a computer with no internet access and just looking at local files or you're surfing the web; you're still just accessing files.

Operating systems are just file management systems - they try to help you store them logically, efficiently, and provide various means for you to access and modify them.

It's like a toolbox. At first, you may have just had a very plain toolbox - one compartment. You dropped all your tools in there, and had to dig them out as you needed them. Then somebody added a tray. You could separate your tools. Somebody separated that tray, so you could further organize your tools. Somebody came along and added containers that you could put inside the toolbox so you could further organize. Somebody added containers to the toolbox. Somebody made the toolbox larger and added trays. Somebody made it water resistant so you could take it out in the rain. Somebody added casters. Somebody made a large toolbox you'd keep in a garage or a workshop. No matter what bells and whistles were added, it's still a toolbox - something used for organizing your tools.

An operating system, it's there to organize your files. You're going to have different kinds of files - you're going to need different ways to access them. You're going to want to keep them safe - you'll have tools for that. The more you're doing, the more tools you'll have. You'll need a way to organize all of those tools - which in of themselves are files.

It's likely that different people are going to organize their tools differently, even if they have the same toolbox. The toolbox is designed to allow folks to do that. There may be little inserts with recommendations, etc, but if it fits and somebody wants to stick it there - they can. It doesn't change that it's a toolbox, if anything...it reinforces that it is a toolbox. It's like that with an operating system.

They allow us to do what we need to do. Sure, they offer more than what some people need to do - but it's leaving it up to them to decide what they are and are not going to do. It's not telling them, here - this is what you've got - this is what you can do.

Consider the evolution of the MP3 player. Here, you can play music. Then the MP3/MP4 player. Oh, I can watch movies now too? I may not watch movies regularly, but if I want to watch one I can. So the person buys the MP3/MP4 player instead of just the MP3 player. Oh, this one will let me surf the internet? Oh, this one will let me play games? Oh, this one will let me read books? Oh, this one... more features.

E-Readers...being replaced by tablets.
Cell phones...being replaced by smartphones.
TVs...either being replaced by smart TVs or having smart appliances connected to them.

People want choices. Those choices will require a more complex OS...a more complex file management system, to allow them to access all the apps that allow them to access all of their files.

And...they're going to want to personalize it - whether it's a case that they just want it to look pretty or they want it to be easier to see, etc, etc, etc.

There's a file in the doohickey that I want to see. Do I have ease of access to the thingamabob that will allow me to see that file? If I no longer want that file, is there some sort of widget that will let me get rid of it? If somebody has a file on their doohickey that they want to share with me, is there a way to get it? Is there a decent way that this doohickey allows me to organize the thingamabobs I use to access my files?

There's a reason that Windows, Linux, OS X, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, et al look the way they do...

 

It's a tough one. I like many of the improvements in Windows 8, but I do not like Metro. It's like a sidebar on steroids...I always turn the sidebar off. I can see where it will work for many people, though. For me though, I would have to say Windows 7. I prefer Windows 7 to Vista. I preferred XP to Vista. I preferred Vista to ME. I preferred XP to ME. I preferred 98/95/3.11/3.1 (2000/NT4/N3.5) to ME...lol.

I haven't used OS X since Tiger. I've never used iOS. I've used Android 1.5 through 4.0, and I definitely prefer 4.0 to 1.5...lol.

I've spent the last couple of weeks going through various Linux distros. I had previously used Lubuntu on my netbook (switching back and forth to Android). I tried Ubuntu again, having used it in the past - but I can't stand Ubuntu Unity. I shouldn't have to go all over the internet to try to find out ways to do the simplest things because they're not options. I tried Kubuntu, but it ran like crap and had hardware issues. I tried Fedora again, which I had not run since Fedora Core (it had been my main back in the day, as I went from Red Hat to Fedora). The package management was uglier than it had been back on FC (which I thought pretty good at the time). I've been using openSUSE lately. I'm very tempted to make the move to openSUSE instead of making the move to Windows 8.

It's a tough one - I'm a very Microsoft guy. I'd probably still rate Windows 7 over openSUSE. They're very close for me. That's openSUSE with KDE, btw - not with Gnome.

And you? Which OS do you like the most?

 

Puhhh, i liked AmigaOS (after V2), Solaris, NextStep, got along with Windows 2k/XP, like Windows 7 and OS X.

Currently OS X and Windows 7 are kind of close (with a slight lead by OS X) for different reasons but none of them is...

Windows 8 is nice for a number of field of applications but it doesn't work out for the whole range of platforms they have in mind, for this purpose it's not properly designed.

 

Oh and for your previous post:

I think you have to see it from the opposite side. What kind of needs does an audience have? How could a system help those people and thereby create new needs which need to be fulfilled as well? And then you think about how can you best offer/organise all this.

I don't see my computer as a machine to organise files in the first place, i see it as a device which enables me to communicate with other people, inform myself about topics i'm interested in, entertain myself via various media like games, music, films, images (i said images, not porn), text, being able to create something on my own, like a game an application, music, ...

All this is stored in various files, data formats, interpreted by different engines, apis, and so on but that's under the hood, especially for non developers.

I don't want to reiterate what i said about a reasonable offer of choice as you somehow prefer to misunderstand this aspect but depending on your design of a certain product/use case or whatever you're looking at, it just doesn't make sense offering tons of options and so watering down a clear design once you came up with a very cool way how to do a certain task. I guess most people also don't rub their dick with their nose, right? Instead they prefer to use their hand (design). Some prefer the left hand, some the right hand, some might use both hands (reasonable choices). Why? Because it makes sense (design based on research). For rubbing your dick on your own you don't need tons of options, so we won't support the nose. Maybe this one guy working for the circus would be fond of it but that's not our target audience, so we won't invest resources into pleasing his desire. Maybe another product does (different audience, different design).

 

It's not just under the hood though. Somebody wants to do something, they look for the app that lets them do that. That app is very much out in the open. The user may not care that launching that app involves a plethora of files, but they're still going to be looking for that app...and that app...needs to be presented in a way that can easily be organized - it's just a file management system. If a user has a set of common apps they use, that they put on the desktop - regardless of OS - they're organizing shortcuts to those apps, they're managing the shortcut files.

A computer's not a screwdriver. It's not just one tool. It's a toolbox. It's a collection of tools and a means to organize them. That's why operating systems look the way they do.

If you build a device that just plays music - all the music is stored in the same place - it only plays one kind of music - etc, etc, etc... then your design options are going to be different than if you're building a device that does more than just that, that plays different kinds of music, that can play music from other locations, etc, etc, etc.

A pair of headphones are designed to be a pair of headphones. A pair of headphones with a mic are designed differently. You're not going to include a mic boom on a pair of headphones that do not have a mic cord.

An OS is going to be what an OS is... I can't even begin to comprehend how you do not see that.

 

As an aside on the Linux for gaming, I had been trying to get openSUSE running on my machine on a separate drive. While it ran great in a VM, the networking was garbage. So I'm going to go ahead and try Mint (w/KDE). I definitely want to get a better idea of how things play out on Linux...only way is to keep trying various distros.

It's a tough one though, given the reduced prices both Apple and Microsoft are offering their operating systems at - they're both just so much more polished - things you'd take for granted...oh well, meh...

 

On mint, keep in mind its just Ubuntu with a different desktop ( the media and codec differences are long past) , the last time I had mint I found myself rushing to install the Ubuntu software center .

 

Sure, that's where they began, as various "Disk Operating Systems", but that's hardly still the case.

They're now fully fledged resource management systems, and those resources aren't all file-type objects. For starters there's memory allocation. There's system access privileges. There's processor time management amongst various processes. There's hardware access management. Most OSes now include higher level audio subsystems. You seem to be arguing that network layers are just another way to access files that don't happen to be on your system, but there's a lot of non-file things that they do as well.

Operating Systems began as file management systems because, at that time, files were all that existed to be managed.