Hello folks,

I just had a shower an was thinking why linux OSes cannot look pretty like mac? Do linux programmers have no idea what looks good? Because I met people in my life who are so good at programming and that other boring stuff but do not know what sells or looks good. You know what I mean? Look what you are wearing, do you really cannot afford something that suits you, you probably making 3 times what I do. Is similar thing happening with linux GUI, can afford it but dont know that it would make your community 100x bigger? And yes i noticed it is getting better over past 10 years or so. Slightly. Currently im trying linux mint with MACOS wallpaper. I do have macbook, I just wanted to try linux after i realized I cannot install freetube on mac (not the end of the world and not final decision stop using mac or windows which I also have for gaming). Not unless i run some commands to disable “security”. And i do not feel comfortable doing it. Trying freetube happened after the day when apple locked my secondary icloud account which I used to try Indian youtube premium subscription by redeeming indian itunes card to top up the balance and buy subscription via appstore. it worked for a month, good that I bought only one months youtube price worth of itunes rupees. Was about 3 euros or dollars. I am quite new even to MacOS - 5 years or so, maybe 8. 99.9% of time not using terminal. So again what is it with Linux GUI? Can someone collaborate with me or ideally other aspiring and avid UX/UI designers to create something that would blow everyone’s even apple users’ minds? I mean if nobody wants I can help to make linux look amazing can you just do the coding and materialize it. I mean i have no xperience and never even tried to make an os GUI concept, should I do it first and then do similar rant? using gimp or photoshop? I have both. Photoshop GUI looks better lol and I even downloaded GIMP 3.something RC…

P.S. do good looking linux themes exist and I just dont know it yet? If they do, why they are not default for distros, why you have to download “some code” after that. How do I know it is not malicious? Man, so much more to learn isn’t it? Is it that you linux users do not want big community and make linux look bad on purpose so there is no viruses and other shit that you can find for example on Windows, because I think if same amount of people who are using windows would use linux, linux would not be this secure. is it secure actually? Can you simply explain how is it secure compared let’s say to windows? Scripts do not start running themselves? Explain me like im five please.

I appreciate your answers, and apologies to those who do not fly <@;)

Yours faithfully,

Dropper-Post

nihil sub sole novum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwO0CDYxyxc
  • loiakdsf
    17·
    9 hours ago

    First of all, you need to distinguish between a desktop environment and a distro. a distro by itself doesn’t have any looks, that is up to the desktop environment mostly. Secondly, you assume that the goal is attracting lots of users, which might be true for purely profit driven conpanies such as microsoft or apple, but linux mostly comprises of open source projects put together. only a few of the maintainers have the ultimate goal of attracting more and more users. they have an intrinsic motivation to create a cool project and hope it finds attraction by function instead of form.

    now, what i reallylike about your post is that you do not just rant but want to get into solving exactly that problem. in my limited experience, loads of work go into designing a consistent UI that is just as functional as it is beautiful. hats off to you if you can really do it, but prepare for a rough ride, because UX mistakes are one of the first things to attracting users’ dissatisfaction which makes it a very unthankful job.

    if you really want to get started, try first thinking about theoretical stuff: color schemes, usage paradigms, user stories and a general concept you want to adhere to, before you even start drawing some wireframes. UX design also requires rigorous testing from various different points of view and for most developers, it is just not worth putting that much effort in just to have “a little” less users complaining and instead calling the interface pretty (again: function over form).

    also another reason might be the terminal affinity of devs that has them leaning away from UI, because a CLI is enough for a start.

    i wouldnt call mint cinnamon the ugliest distro/DE pairing like other commenters, but i get that people looking for the prettiest desktop are prolly looking elsewhere.