Try something without any design at all, like Linux with a tiling window manager and some minimal applications.

I totally agree with you- but it's worth pointing out that a tiling window manager + minimal applications is still a designed interface.

This is what I use Windows for. It's an SSH terminal that has a web browser and plays music (via groove which is actually quite good)

My previous laptop was a windows machine that acted as a web browser, music/video player and VirtualBox host. All of my work was done in linux in virtualbox (and my SSH terminal was also bash running on linux in virtualbox).

My linux environment was very minimal though (mostly living in the terminal, used a tiling WM, vim as my editor). In many ways my mac environment isn't that different except without the tiling WM.

That setup worked quite well, although used more resources than if I hadn't used Virtualbox.

Is Putty still a thing on Win or does it have something native?

Putty (or Kitty or MobaTerm) is still a thing, but there are other options. The Linux subsystem will give you a *nix shell and ssh that works exactly like you expect it to. There is also msys which will give you an ssh client you can run directly from cmd.exe or power shell. Microsoft have been working on a proper native port of OpenSSH, but while it apparently works pretty well, it's still not feature complete or ready to be shipped as a standard part of Windows (hopefully early next year).

I use putty. Haven't found a compelling reason to use anything else yet.

I agree. To my mind the greatest obstacle to Linux Desktop adoption is the traditional Desktop concept.

To me, NeXTStep was the best feature rich desktop.

I wish there was a modern version that isn't macOS.

Well it depends on what you consider modern but Openbox is still alive and kicking (albeit it is only a window manager).

On a rant tangental note a slight annoyance I have lately is that all the window managers are getting pushed out / ignored because of Wayland.

With Wayland you basically have to write an entire desktop instead of just a window manager. I used to love that about Linux.. the pick and choose what works best model but now the choices are becoming fewer.

Oh well back to my macbook with zero choice.

The only wm I loved and stuck with on Linux was Windowmaker. Your comment is why - NeXTStep was awesome and missed..

Back in 2009 my dream was to run OSX with a Thinkpad keyboard and trackpoint. Now that I have OSX on a Thinkpad X220 my dream is to run i3-wm with unified application design language and underlying foundations. On OSX Spotlight works well and gives me what I want, and applications look good. There aren't any missing icons and text size isn't all over the place. Amethyst WM on OSX is pretty good, but it's not as good as i3. I'm not sure if it's easier to make applications look good on Linux or to get a WM that looks more like i3 on OSX.

Oh nice, how is driver support on the X220? I've had mixed luck with Hackintoshes.

I agree that there is a lack of great window managers on OS X. I'd love to be able to run awesomewm.

Weirdly enough that's how I spend a lot of my time on my iPad Pro - use Mosh to connect to a Linux box and then use tmux and vim to set up tiles and do my work.

Funny I'm the exact opposite. Only on a MBPr for the hardware, otherwise would prefer Linux to OSX. Lightweight tiling window manager + Vim keybinds for all apps = super efficient. With OSX I actually have to use the mouse. How quaint.

Customizing the Cocoa Text System (which in turn pretty much affects all apps with text input)

https://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html

This enables you to do what you're referring to in MacOS.

If you haven't yet tweaked these "not well-advertised" settings, this may indeed turn out to be a "this changes everything!" moment for you

how do you get vim keybinds in every app?

For OS X at least...

https://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html

If you haven't yet tweaked these "not well-advertised" settings, this may indeed turn out to be a "this changes everything!" moment for you

pretty much everything has a vi-mode these days. all shells, tmux, browser via extension (vimperator/vimium/cvim/surfingkeys) or by default (uzbl et al), wm by configuration or default (bspwm/i3/awesome etc.). intellij even has support for an .ideavimrc which surprisingly works quite well.

Yup, this.

Also curious!

(dupe of other comment in same thread by me)

For OS X at least...

https://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html

If you haven't yet tweaked these "not well-advertised" settings, this may indeed turn out to be a "this changes everything!" moment for you

I guess he's picking the apps that support that - probably web browser via extension, and cli apps which often do that.

Script that stuff with Hammerspoon :)

Take a look at reddit.com/r/unixporn

C'mon now, don't be lazy, add that http:// to the front to create a link:

http://reddit.com/r/unixporn/

> C'mon now, don't be lazy, add that http:// to the front to create a link:

C'mon now, don't be lazy, add that s to the end of http to create a link:

https://reddit.com/r/unixporn/

I didn't know that was a feature. Oops!

I never get these screenshots of desktop backgrounds. It's background-porn. The fact that it's made on Linux and has a Linux menubar and different fonts than Windows or Mac - who cares?

I've used Ubuntu since seven years at work, the mac since 17 years, Windows not anymore since seven years, unless when helping others. I would change to Linux anytime if all would just work, meaning Photoshop and other software that now doesn't work. Plus the mac is still my favorite piece of hardware. When I bought this 2015 Macbook, I've looked for a good Linux laptop, and came out at about the same price. Then the choice was easy.

Don't get it either. Most themes or skins or whatever for Linux desktops (including the default ones) are pretty terrible - the fit and finish is generally poor. If I'm going to be staring at something for 8+ hours a day the inconsistencies really start to grate.

Most of those desktop screenshots remind me of Winamp skins from back in the day - yes it's a great piece of software and endlessly customisable, but most of those customisations are terrible. Like a 14 year old with a copy of Neuromancer and MS Paint.

I'm constantly trying Linux distros and DEs and the answer when I talk about this is 'Well if you spend time tweaking it...'

NO, that's not the right answer. Endless configuration options means there wasn't the will to make a design decision and stick to it. 'Customisation' can be an excuse for a poor job. That's why Elementary OS is the least horrible desktop, even if it still has issues. Their lack of global menus may be a questionable decision, but at least it's a decision.

Maybe someone should do a kickstarter project for this: to get a decent Linux distro well designed. Hah!

do y'all really think Cinnamon is unpolished? I use a Mac at work and definitely prefer Cinnamon over the Mac interface

The problem with your rant is that people have different opinions on what is "good". You would probably hate my setup because it's a tiling WM with nothing. No conky bar, no date/time in the bar, no power monitors, etc. But it works the best for me because I don't like any distractions at all.

Linux gives you the freedom to choose the environment that suits you personally best. Windows doesn't give you ANY choice, and it's still bad! If you like to be told what is good and make no optimizations for your personal workflow, more power to you. But don't go saying that Linux is "not the right answer", that's just silly. Works on my machine :)

Most of those posts have a good deal of theming setup. Usually people include just the background alone because people invariably want the source to use on their own setups :P

Give an up-to-date KDE a shot.

KDE certainly is powerful and the Kparts system is amazing. However, in the beauty category I would put it at the bottom of the bunch.

KDE Plasma 5 is gorgeous. I couldn't stand KDE4's "windows XP" look but now KDE is one of my favorite DEs.

I used Plasma 5 for a while and really loved the interface and the ability to customize almost anything, but what got me in the end was trying to sync settings across multiple machines. From what I can tell, there are a bunch of random files with names starting with "k" dumped in ~/.config that store most of the settings, but copying them to different machines didn't seem to work. Of course, it's not much easier to sync settings with something like Gnome, but it takes me a lot less time and effort to set up Gnome with the exact settings I like than Plasma. If I didn't switch around machines/distros a lot, I probably would have stuck with Plasma though.

So, did you use a recent version?

I have to concur, the latest Fedora 25 with the KDE Plasma is a beauty to use. Put it on a new Thinkpad X1 Carbon, screen is amazing, fonts crystal clear, all very smooth.

KDE was trash when Ubuntu first started and chose GNOME but I'm sure they are kicking themselves now.

You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to make a prettier UI, but apparently it is.

Original windows interface is pretty usable.

What makes it worse is that they change, regroup and rename things each f-ing year. W7 made it hard to select apps (floating groups in taskbar), explorer introduced dumb libraries, control panel is always a mess, as is /Users/Shared (iirc) thing. Now that w10. I try it and understand that I'm unable to do anything again and again.

Biggest questionable change in macos for 6 years was new ui flavor and maximize button became fullscreen. That said, iTunes also experiments too much.

Ubuntu with Unity looks pretty good out of the box. The appearance of my desktop has been a non-issue for years.