The GUI experience on Linux suffers mostly from inconsistency when using applications written with different toolkits, awful font rendering, and a general sense of being in the uncanny valley if you're used to other desktops environments.
My first computer in the mid 90's was running Linux on the desktop, and aside from a smattering of Windows here and there for games throughout the years, I've mostly stuck with it. Using Windows and OSX isn't some revelation in usability these days. OSX is more aesthetically pleasing, and a bit more consistent I think, but otherwise I don't find it profoundly better than the Linux options. I don't think it's more discoverable, and certainly hasn't been more stable in my experience- and there are definitely features I miss going from Linux to OSX on the desktop.
She has been annoyed many times by the way her Mac is running. One day she lost all her books because of a new version if iPhoto which suddenly requires you to have a kind of remote on Apple servers, the spreadsheet/writer tool is really bad at opening Excel and Word documents, the email client has very small fonts, etc...
For basic day-to-day usage, we found that Windows/Gnome/Macos are basically at the same level of consistency/quality. You can complain against some stuff on each side, they have inconsistencies on each side, but at the end of the day, one is not any more really better than the other, but she hates the fact that she has no ideas why sometimes on the Mac it does not work.
[0]: https://www.pixum.de
This is true, however Windows suffers from the same problem (and OSX too, however in a minor degree).
> awful font rendering
Only by default maybe. I did tweak my fontconfig (just some symlinks available in /etc/fonts/conf.avail) and IMO the font rendering in my Linux systems are better than my Windows systems (even after tweaking Windows ClearType).
There is the fact that some applications does not support fontconfig, however I can't think anyone that I use daily at least.
infinality is obsolete. Freetype 2.7.0 ships a new interpreter (that's… based on infinality. but faster and simpler) http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/freetype-devel/2016-07/...
I have never understood the claim different software should be stuffed into the same user interface paradigm. Mainly it's an artifact of the encumbrance the software stack we use to compose user interfaces imposes on us.
OS level components should have the same look and feel.
Otherwise I see it as a bonus that different applications look and behave differently. I see no added value for the user if, say, Spotify and Word used the same toolkit.
To me however, this is on a different architectural level than how the UI itself is inplemented (which, technically, is just motion graphics with hotspots, but psychologically is the most important part for most users).
It seems like "must be UI native" is a way for Mac fanboys to try to enforce their preferred design paradigm on otherwise-uninterested people.
I think we are now at a point where the glowing animated screen is far more familiar to most people and the raw power available on most devices is such the only rational constraint for UI design is that use experience must be understandable to most and that the underlying system must play nicely with rest of the device.
This is the first time in years of experimenting with desktop/laptop linux where I've been able to say that it's close enough to gain mainstream popularity.
I do wish it was based on a more sane (for my tastes) distro like Slackware or Gentoo, but that probably wouldn't work given how much it depends on the Ubuntu/Debian way of doing things under the hood. The fact that it has made me give up Slackware on the desktop still surprises me; I'd been using Slackware almost daily since about 2001 but the last few releases have felt trapped in the past while struggling to catch up to every other distro feature-wise. Maybe that's due to their insistence on remaining systemd-free (something I am proud of them for) but whatever the reason, I now only use Slackware on servers and really old hardware, and only use Elementary on the desktop. Anything else in either setting just doesn't compare.
I was going to put it on my Chromebook as my main OS, but theres a silly bug with the legacy BIOS for specifically my chromebook (Toshiba Chromebook 2 2015) that makes installing any Ubuntu flavor, or ElementaryOS, just not work.
I ended up putting Mint on it, since the OS installer would actually render.
Still want to try ElementaryOS someday.
It looks really good though, and the community behind it seems to be growing, so I'm hoping to become active contributor.
http://blog.elementary.io/post/153360513026/busting-major-my...
While transition effects are pretty, I personally do dislike them: if it's not instantaneous, it's too slow.
If you're using a DE (like Gnome) they bring it by default. If not, well, you can choice any of the multiple window compositors out there. However if you're using something lightweight enough to not bring a compositor by default, well, you probably asked for it.
Compton is a lightweight alternative BTW.
> or auto-mounting USB drives.
This isn't really a problem since systemd-logind. Just make sure that you're starting X.org in the same TTY that you logged in, or at least make sure you're using a Display Manager. After that, any File Manager that supports auto mounting will work, even without running a DE like Gnome.
Last time I setup my i3-wm workspace it was simply a matter of cloning my configuration from GitHub. Everything DBus related (including auto mounting) worked. Never more I needed to do insane things like:
$ ck-launch-session dbus-launch i3 # or it was dbus-launch ck-launch-session?
I think compton is the only choice, isn't it? As far as I know, xcompmgr and cairo both are not being developed anymore. And even compton is an unhealthy project, see https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues/352.
Arch-Wiki article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compton
It's the attitude that annoys me, I guess. A lot of OSS stuff doesn't feel like it's made for "real" people - sane defaults and such. With i3wm specifically it's just more obvious because it's minimalist-to-a-fault, but there are little things I find counter-intuitive even in something like GNOME.
And while I do appreciate modularity of a light WM, and being able to fine-tune things to my liking, I'd like to see more projects like elementaryOS, regardless of how many times people say it's all "bloat" or "botnet".
I find plenty of counter-intuitive things in OS X and Windows as well. Linux desktops aren't perfect by any means, but I don't find them to be far from Windows or OS X, and they're better in some ways.
I think part of the issue is the number of choices on Linux. There's a wide range of desktop environments/window managers, and of course a wide range of quality too. And with such variety, there's sure to be plenty of options that are not made for "real" people, since many of them were just made for the author.
There's also a subreddit called "unixporn" where people post their various setups, usually accompanied by their configs. Might be worth to take a look at.
Other than that, there's really only waiting or going back to macOS, I suppose...
I used to run XFCE + compiz, which you configure using a program called ccsm. It's not hard, either use apt-get or click on the "software" icon from the start page. Install compiz (and maybe compiz-extras or whatever), and ccsm (again, times may have changed so it might be called something else).
That will get you a 3D accelerated desktop. You can let your desktop be a rotatable cube, rubbery wobbly windows, real opacity/transparency, and an accelerated magnifying glass/zoom effect which I used quite a bit (hold down windows key and the mouse wheel zooms you in/out). It also supports inotify, so its windows-like when you put a USB in you'll get the little dialog box saying "USB stick inserted". Highly recommend you give it a spin.
Over time, I got over the coolness of it, and just switched over to xmonad so I dont even need the mouse (much) anymore.
Thats only true if you want it to be. I would recommend to look into gnome shell. And maybe KDE
But... Where's the GUI love? :(
I know it's all about the terminal, but god damn it, I'm trying to drop OS X, and just because I can use bash doesn't mean I dislike having nice things like desktop transition effects or transparency or auto-mounting USB drives. I swear, if I have to read another Arch Linux forums post about how things Windows 98 could do out of the box are bloat...