> I think this shows off why linux desktop enviroments aren't up to par with other systems.

I find the top bar menus well done on Unity compared to what we have on macOS. Take the sound menu, for example: on macOS you have a small slider to control the volume, and that’s all. You can’t even control iTunes from macOS’ topbar; you have to install a third party. On Unity I can control the sound not only with a slider but also by scrolling on the sound icon—no need to open the menu. Players like Spotify are nicely integrated by default and I have basic controls like play/pause/backward/forward as well as album artworks. That’s sounds like a simple menu but it doesn’t even exist on macOS nor (IIRC) on Windows.

> I find the top bar menus well done on Unity compared to what we have on macOS

I completely agree. I like it much better then the stupid uniform menu of macOS. I use Manjaro XFCE as my only desktop OS and I like the UI for the most part. I just really dislike the inconsistencies.

Most people who see me using my computer thinks it looks "cool" and are wowed that my Thinkpad x220 runs that smoothly. They'd love to use it but I know that most people wouldn't put up with the 50 different ways to interract with very basic menues. Even file picking is a pain (no icons) and using arrow keys to navigate are broken, and the "recent" files don't actually work.

Edit: In general my issue is cohesion. Linux's Desktop enviroment is Good Enough (TM) for people and already looks fantastic. It just needs polish which it isn't going to get for a while in my opinion. I'd happily pay a good 10 bucks to someone whos willing to do it and it looks like Elemntry OS are the only people who are willing to. Sadly it's Debian based and I prefer Arch based distros.

i have plans, but limited time. the base system is starting to come together, but i need to do a couple more iterations before i'll be willing to move on. i should probably do some write-ups while i'm working on the stuff.

base is arch, for sure.

>Did it open in the background? Is it loading? No idea.

This happens sometimes on my Mac.

Along with the computer freezing or giving a black screen when I remove an HDMI cable or other external screen, random keychain messages asking for passwords on boot, somehow losing access to my Apple account which prevented updates and required a phone call to Apple, crashes...

I use Ubuntu at home and don't notice any obvious deficiencies .

Not that I'm doubting you, but none of those have ever happened to me while using macOS. No OS is perfect, and you clearly had your share of issues with macOS, but I think the difference is that experiences like yours are the exception on macOS where on the Linux desktop they are closer to the rule.

EDIT

Not sure why all the down votes. Ignoring the problems is how they never get fixed. Go read all the recent threads on trying to replace a MBP with Linux that highlight the issues with desktop Linux. Power management, HiDPI, drivers, UI consistencies, etc...

This may just be me but UI inconsistencies are a minor annoyance compared to the iCloud account/login fiasco that Apple regularly puts my family through.

OS update? Sweet, let's apply that and see those new features... "Please login to your account to continue..."

OK, this is my wife's Mac so I think the password for that is... No, that wasn't it. Alright it must be... Nope. Then it's definitely... Damnit. Now the account is locked!

I'll take UI inconsistency over that garbage any day. The password is for a cloud service and not the password for the host itself. So to apply updates in Mac land you not only need the password for an account with administrative access you need the password for the 3rd party Apple account. It's an OS update! Why does it require logging in to a 3rd party service just to upgrade?

Then if the account gets locked it gets locked everywhere so suddenly my wife's iPod can't install stuff or apply updates either until the account is unlocked which requires a password change which requires reentering that password on n Apple devices.

I'll just deal with the minor annoyance of having to use GIMP's interface alongside Dolphin's (KDE's file manager).

You can go to App Store -> Settings and change "Free Downloads" to "Save Password". I get prompted only to sudo when doing app and OS updates.

With that said, I'm still confused about this 'fiasco'. There is signing into the computer, and signing into various services. One of those services happens to be iCloud/apple account. I'm sure you are having some issues, but most do not.

Everything else you're ranting about is called good security.

Your wife uses her iCloud account as Apple login. Also, an OS update asking for a password is perfectly fine, that's called security.

Windows has two control panel apps. One in the Windows 8 app style, and the old one from Vista and up that has been mutilated repeatedly.

The styling and even UI elements of Office vs everything else are wildly different.

There is no cohesion there, and there never needed to be any. On Android practically every corporate app is a completely custom styled atrocity with no common behavior, but Android took over the world.

What matters is that what the developer gives you out of the box is uniform and consistent. Anything you yourself install after that can always, and often will, break that common theming. And that is by necessity a product of an unrestricted development platform - if developers can change everything, they will.

>Windows has two control panel apps. One in the Windows 8 app style, and the old one from Vista and up that has been mutilated repeatedly.

However, unlike others, MS is in the process of gradually cleaning things up and updating their UI to to comply their new UI standard. Change is a slow and delicate process when high levels of backwards compatibility is a must.

"Also, another issue is that there are thousands of different ways across all of the apps for how to interact with them. Some have "Quit" options, some have top bars, some have icons everywhere. There isn't cohesion."

How is that any different from Windows?

I cant think of any two Windows programs I use who's basic interaction varies as wildly as Linux program interaction can vary.

Aren't the ribbon menu in Word, the classic menu and the Chrome/Firefox "menu" button wildly different?

Most users dislike the Ribbon menu. When I've setup systems for people, and family, and they requested "word" they are expecting this [0]. When they see the ribon menu they feel "I don't want to learn this, I already know word, this isn't word". The average user also doesn't open or change anythign in a browser. All they do is type into google. None the less they dislike those changes too. Cohesion is the most important thing in an enviroment.

[0] - https://i-technet.sec.s-msft.com/dynimg/IC354367.jpg

Oh sure, but those are still 3 different menu styles for Windows. I have never tried the ribbon thing but I think I wouldn't like it as a casual libreoffice user.

Those programs were created with different toolkits. Such is life in the freedom of free software.

Three window modes in Windows: full screen, borderless and windowed.

Full screen will take up the entirety of the current monitor with no menu bar. If the resolution of the app doesn't match the monitor, it will either skew the content (common) or add a black border (uncommon) to fill the unmatched window space. Removing focus from a full screen app will minimize it to the tray. Games and some video players are typically the only apps that use full screen.

Borderless is the same as full screen, except the content will not be minimized if the app loses focuses. Text editors/IDEs in "distraction free" mode, full screen mode for browsers and games set to borderless are typical use cases for this mode.

Windowed has three icons in the top right with minimize, restore/maximize, and exit always on the menu bar in that order. The menu bar is draggable. Double clicking the menu bar will maximize or restore down the application.

The notable exception to inconsistent behavior is the exit button. It used to be that the exit button would cleanly shutdown the responsible process. Devs now sometimes input a menu option that makes the exit button close the window while leaving the process running in the background. The app still resides in the system tray. Apps with this behavior are usually communication software (Skype, Slack, ICQ) or something that processes data in the background where a main GUI isn't always needed.

Fun fact: if you use Windows 10 LTSB, the Windows Store is disabled/removed, and since Microsoft replaced the default image viewer in Windows 10 with a "store app" gallery, that means there's no image viewer in Windows 10 LTSB that you can use (other than Paint, which you have open manually).

But I agree with the general sentiment. Linux distros often have this problem of "not getting" what a typical regular user might need, because the distro developers and their core users still prefer doing most things by the command line, which they say is "easier" (and virtually impossible for a regular OS user, but that aspect often seems to escape them).

And Ubuntu is one of the more user-friendly distros out there, but even it can't get many things right. Hopefully this will improve with the arrival of flatpaks/snaps, and with a bigger focus on "apps" (rather than packages).

You need to remember that Unity 8 is still in a early alpha stage and it won't be ready as the default ubuntu desktop till 18.04 or even further.

Development is going awfully slowly then. Unity 8 was in early alpha stages more than three 3 years ago.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/08/unity-8-ubuntu-13-10-arri...

KDE neon is actually usable and a bit more sane than Ubuntu ;)

well the last time I tried kde plasma I actually felt a little bit overwhelmed. And I guess the more non technical the person gets who is using it, the more overwhelming it gets. (I think neon somewhat resolves most problems, tough. But I didn't had the time to look at it (yet))

> I think this shows off why linux desktop enviroments aren't up to par with other systems. At one point the recorder clicks what I assume is a button to open an image they download in "Gallery" and nothing happens.

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/startup-noti...

"This document specifies a mechanism allowing a desktop environment to track application startup, to provide user feedback and other features."

As used by KDE, GNOME, others.

Unity 8 is a desktop environment, but if something is lacking in Unity this doesn't mean it is lacking in all.