Desktop Environment User Interface Surveys

As a graduate from UMBC, I'm not suprised.

The IS department isn't really ... one that all the engineering/cs students didn't make fun of.

If this was done by the CS department I would have been ashamed.

Didn't you read the memo about the projects' merger?

=D

I thought about it right after my post ;P The ironical thing was that I had just convinced a handful of my friends at the mathematical institute that the Riemann hypothesis had been proved :)

I didn't see any memo though... Where is it?

Davyd Madeley also has an important message about G12 in his blog.

What do you prefer? Getting your day's work done in 7 hours that feel like 8 or in 8 hours that feel like 7?

At the end of the day, what counts is your total productivity, and while for you personally your feelings might be more important, for your boss they won't :)

btw, before you flame me, I use FC3 + gnome on linux 100% of the time at work for 40hrs a week.

Why don't you try to help, I am not saying to code your self, but maybe just being a bit more specific in your post would be a helpful. Just stating "it does no work, it sucks and I love windows interface much, much more." is void and null. For instance I use the exact same configuration, and I am very happy with it, I almost never use the CLI (and I sure know how). And every time I have to use windows I curse all the damn buttons, simply because I am not used to it (I simply hate the way windows thinks it is more inteligent than I am).

Well I make an example by stating what bugs me in gnome. One thing is the search interface it could be better. I should be able to launch it from a folder to search a file inside it that wither it's name or it's content contains a search term (RE would be a plus for geeks).

mounting drives across a network are also a problem, mainly when you are in a mobile computer that can travel across several diferent nets.

There's a million different things that irk me about Gnome. I hate how media still doesn't quite work just right -- that I have to have totem, rhythmbox, xmms, mplayer, realplayer, and who knows what else just to have a good chance of being able to open media. I hate how the GNU Network Object Model Environment doesn't have great support for making network file systems transparent to the rest of the applications. I hate how CUPS occasionally decides to not be able to find my USB printer. I hate how drag and drop doesn't always work the way it should. I hate how I can't search back through the terminal buffer. Lots of things.

I still use it. Less and less, though. A half-dozen months ago or so, I was in the very unusual position of having $1500 to spare and feeling totally impatient with my Linux laptop's inability to use my PCMCIA firewire card with my iPod and my DV cam. So I bought a Mac. And I use that now more and more.

You could say that I should file bug reports on all of these. But they're not new complaints. Everybody already knows about these. They've been around for awhile. They're probably all mostly RFE bugs in Bugzilla or they're too general for Bugzilla people to address.

But that's alright. That's the polish that a commercial distributor puts onto a desktop environment. It's not that "I like Windows better" -- Microsoft just spends a lot of money paying a lot of people to make things like the above just work (mostly). It's not that "I like Mac OS better" -- Apple just spends a lot of money paying a lot of people to make things like the above just work (mostly). GNOME doesn't have a payroll. Novell does. Red Hat does. Sun does. And hopefully they'll spend some of it employing people to do just that.

But until then, GNOME has descended to my second desktop of choice. I have a Linux workstation at work that runs FC3+Gnome, and it's fine. But when I need to actually do work, like edit code on remote file systems, edit documents on the company file server, listen to media, plug up new hardware, or generally just get work done, I'm on my Powerbook. And I get on with my life.

I have hope for GNOME. I think it's great start for a Linux desktop. I think in 2005 GNOME can get that polish it needs. And when it does and I have another $1500 to blow, maybe I'll get a Dell again.

But until then, I'm just watching.

-jag

Media: Totem and Rhythmbox is split in two apps on purpose. Totem does play music very well though. Don't you need Realplayer on Windows too? XMMS? What era do you live in?

Network transparency: I have all sorts of "mounts" created with "Connect to server..." in my network places. They all show up (and work) in my network enabled apps. Bluefish is a wonderfull editor here... If you are thinking real NFS mounts, it's all up to the admin to set things up properly (by hand). There's not much the Fedora hackers can do here.

USB printing: Well. I don't have any problems what so ever, but I've had them in the past...

Terminal search: Hit ctrl-r and start typing. This will search backwards through you history.

-- By the way I use Ubuntu Hoary. On an aside I'd also love to have a mac :) Just can't afford one.

Multiple apps, like for example Quicktime, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player? Perhaps Media Player does play audio files fine, but as far as I am concerned, so does Totem. And usually it is best to have one app do one thing, and do it well, than handle multiple things and not so well..Just try to imagine how good would the resulting program be if you were to integrate Totem into for example Rhythmbox? That would just kill the whole idea.
-WareKala

Why should you need to justify that? If I were you I'd stay on high quality pay-for operating systems. Why try anything else when you can afford to buy the best? Just be thankful you have the choice - that's what matters.

I've been using and administering linux since the early 90s. I don't have to convince anyone about my loyalties. I've introduced linux into departments at more than one fortune 500 company.

None of this changes the fact that gnome doesn't have the look or feel of a commercial OS. Do I think thatis goingto change? Yes, I think the more companies like novell, ibm and (*gag* sun) are involved the better it will become. I'm not going anywhere.

at work i use linux 100% of the time on my desktop. at home I use windows XP 99% of the time. I Don't love Windows. Infact, I go out of my way to not purchase microsoft software. This particular licensed install came with my system (alienware workstation).

As far as helping. I've submitted dozens of bug reports to dozens of projects. People who do stuff for free don't tend to listen and that goes double for Gnome developers. Some of the stuff is so glaringly obvious that it shouldn't even need to be brought up. I'd say gnome's biggest problem is inconsistentcies across the UI.

Lets take the desktop icons. You get 'clean up by name' and 'keep aligned' as options for those icons on the desktop. Now look and see what options for icons you get in nautilus. Network browsing for nautilus is still broken in 2.10. IF they ignore it, it will not go away. The gnome developers have the right to work on whatever they want to work on. The price of that is that the desktop has a clunky unpolished feel to it. Right down to the unprofessional looking icons and themes.

I agree about the inconsistencies. Sometimes they really annoy me too, but they are fewer with every release. Just compare Gnome 2.2 with Gnome 2.8. The 2.8 desktop is definitely a lot more polished than the 2.2 desktop. It comes down to a matter of time. Gnome has time-based releases, so they don't sit down and polish everything up before, say, Gnome 2.10. However, they do polish it up a little bit more with each release, and the annoying inconsistencies are steadily going away. There is also a balance between infrastructure developement (so that we stay current), usability improvements, aesthetic improvements, and added functionality. There are limited resources, so any given release may have more emphasis on usability over aesthetic, or infrastructure over functionality. Network browsing has been broken for a while (this is partly an infrastructure problem), but system tools and integration have been getting a lot better lately. Both are things that need attention and it is the latter that has been getting the attention recently. As a side note, Fedora/RedHat do some pretty terrible things to the stock Gnome desktop, so I would take a sample of Ubuntu/Debian/Dropline before dishing out too much criticism (icons, etc).

On the upside, I think Gnome is positioned to do some incredible things on the desktop front with Cairo integration into Gtk (which has been talked about here), and OpenGL integration with the window manager. Yeah, you can complain that Nautilus is missing some features, but at the same time Gnome is going to be gaining some features that other desktops don't have yet.

In the Europe atleast that is not illegal. And besides, downloading a codec pack for Windozer isn't any more legal, as it is.
-WareKala

What do you mean? If you are considering MP3 and friends I think it is legal to do this in Europe... We don't have sw patents (yet).

MP3 playback is not about patents. It's about licence fees. Fraunehoffer Institute want few dollars for every encoder and decoder, now matter hardware or software.

--
:wq

While I do agree with the premise that these surveys were poorly developed in some ways, I do believe that some of the criticism here has been a bit needless and excessive. Yes, it is bad that typos and redundancy exist and that mailing lists were spammed, but there is more to the issue than what appears to meet the eye here.

On the issue of why either of the surveys brought up the question of using a file manager from another desktop environment, it seems that many valid points about inquiring such a thing have been ignored:

• First, asking one to evaluate Konqueror in the GNOME survey is valid, for it ascertains the attitudes of users on Nautilus in the context of the existence of another alternative, namely an alternative which works in open source environments. If such a thing is invalid, I wonder why I have yet to see criticism about the surveys' inquiries into Windows' Explorer. Granted, the surveys could have addressed Apple's Finder; but that did not occur.
• Second, there are valid uses for other file managers in different desktop environments. In spite of how great Nautilus' potential can be, it can be downright deficient in other areas of operation. When Nautilus can browse (S)FTP and Samba perfectly, which Konqueror has been able to do for some time, I will consider it great. Before I am criticized on this, let me say that I check CVS changelogs daily on all things Nautilus and GNOME-VFS related, constantly searching for improvements in Samba and (S)FTP handling; and if something seems worthy of a rebuild, I use build the source using JHBuild. I have yet to see Nautilus seriously address this disparity. Furthermore, outside of the topic of Nautilus, I have yet to use a GNOME-based CD ripping utility that functions as well as Konqueror's media ripping abilities do. The truth is that one should use the correct tool for the correct job. If the job requires a ball-peen hammer, Nautilus, to do the job of a sledge-hammer, Konqueror, I would be more rational using the correct tool for the correct job, leaving behind absolutism, inflexibility, and blind allegiance. Perhaps, this is just another case of GNOME vs. KDE granfallooning gone too far.

On the topic of the number of response options that these surveys provided, there seems to be some misunderstanding here:

• The task-based questions offer eight responses, which if one excludes the first option of 'N/A,' produces a seven-point survey, which is standard for individual attitudes acquisition purposes used in fields like political science and related disciplines. The point here is to have a balanced set of responses, which do not lean in any one direction or another. On this seven point scaled, one could map the following numerical values to the responses in the following manner (-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3); I hardly see any bias in favor of one particular group over another. More importantly, for those who consider such a practice needless, this method of inquiry ascertains the degree to which the participant holds certain feelings (i.e., if she likes X over Y, how much does she?).
• Similar to the task-based questions, the guidelines questions follow a seven-point survey format, yet I am curious as to why the responses do not include the eight response item of 'N/A.'
• Complaining about the simplicity of responses is invalid, for the point of conducting a survey as such is to get a sample of attitudes in a consistent fashion. While it is true that such a format prevents detailed responses which could explain why one holds an attitude, the surveys at least segment the responses and questions to specific aspects of desktop environments. The results thereof will not say that GNOME or KDE sucks; rather, they may say that either sucks with respect to a certain task. Moreover, there is a response text-entry box at the end of the surveys where one can provide detailed responses about certain things.

Look, nothing personal to anybody, but I am just playing the Devil's advocate here.

Yes, it would be nice to see what the results of these surveys say; perhaps everybody will have something to learn from them, even though their results will be very biased due to how these surveys are convenience samples and the participants are self-selected.

Concerning your advocacy: Naming Konqueror in the Gnome-survey is most probably a fault, because if you look at the same question in the KDE-survey you find out that they have not to use nautilus. In the light of comparability the two surveys should have the same questions...

I agree completely; it should make mention of Nautilus, if it does not already. I only had an opportunity to perform a cursory viewing of the KDE one, so I did not pick-up on the fact that it did not make mention of Nautilus, assuming that the survey had near symmetry with the GNOME one due to its apparent duplication of errors.