[HN Gopher] A new wave of Linux applications
___________________________________________________________________
A new wave of Linux applications
Author : Vinnl
Score : 304 points
Date : 2022-02-16 19:10 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tuxphones.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tuxphones.com)
| jfb wrote:
| What if you don't _want_ the same applications with the same
| interface modalities on different devices? Shouldn 't we be much
| more concerned about _data portability_ than application
| portability?
| fsflover wrote:
| GNU/Linux phones are about FLOSS. Of course the apps have the
| data portability, too.
| nine_k wrote:
| This just doubles the UI development effort.
| jfb wrote:
| More than doubles it, because there are a variety of phone
| sizes, tablets, monitors, &c. But that's OK! Build the best
| thing, don't settle.
| nine_k wrote:
| The choice is usually not between building a great thing or
| a sub-par thing, but between building anything at all or
| not bothering.
| puggsy wrote:
| > What if you don't want the same applications with the same
| interface modalities on different devices?
|
| In an ideal world, you'd be able to choose from a variety of
| programs, to optimize for your usecase, all while maintaining
| data portability/sync.
|
| Convergence is a practical choice to allow contributions to be
| shared by desktop and phone users.
|
| https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph...
| discusses this.
| Decabytes wrote:
| Looking forward to the improvements KDE will make in 2022!
| eric4smith wrote:
| Until there is as "simple" to use an app like Preview on the Mac,
| most of these new generation apps are garbage.
|
| I've just switched to Ubuntu on a workstation I have lying
| around. And man, is it hard to use for just normal everyday use.
|
| Yes, it has the basics covered, but like many others my job has a
| lot of simple image manipulation related stuff.
|
| Convert pdf to png. Assemble multiple images into a pdf. Quickly
| share with someone else over chat. Normal productivity stuff.
|
| Take a simple thing like screen capture - you have to remember to
| save the screen that you captured otherwise it just sits there
| doing nothing in the screen capture app.
|
| The thing that saves most Linux desktops for office productivity
| workers -- is Firefox and Chrome. Otherwise, outside of
| programmers and highly specific use cases, hardly anyone would
| use a Linux desktop.
|
| And that's kudos to the fact that so much of what we do these
| days is in a browser.
|
| But if you look at the small pieces of software to do everyday
| things - they are awful.
|
| Dropbox barely works in a sustainable way.
|
| I have to keep pulling out my laptop every now and then to do
| simple office productivity things.
|
| Yeah yeah, I know that Apple is a trillion dollar company that
| had a room full of people just working on the screen capture
| feature alone.
|
| And yeah, I use Linux every day for programming. But Brah, all
| the little widgets and do-da's need some serious polishing.
| imiric wrote:
| The issue is not the lack of good tools on Linux, just with the
| ones shipped with the major distros and DEs.
|
| Quality and simple tools do exist if you look for them:
|
| - Image viewer: feh
|
| - Screen capture: scrot
|
| - Dropbox: Syncthing
|
| - Converters: Pandoc, ImageMagick
|
| etc.
|
| Granted, some of them are CLI only (though they might have GUI
| wrappers), but desktop users whose productivity is the main
| goal should learn to use and not fear the terminal, instead of
| settling for whatever their popular brand of distro decided to
| package for them.
| firecall wrote:
| It's all true.
|
| I can use Ubuntu, for instance, perfectly fine for web-dev.
| It's great.
|
| But in the end, I'm just fighting it.
|
| The UI/UX on todays Ubuntu and apps isn't as good as macOS was
| 10 years ago!
|
| And yes, I know there are other Distros and I can customise KDE
| and Gnome and so on. But they are all offer a very shallow user
| experience.
|
| I wish the Linux GUI and App landscape looked better!
| taeric wrote:
| I can't claim you are wrong... But I struggle with versions of
| those on my Mac on a regular basis, as well. Screen capture, in
| particular, is hilariously fickle for me. I finally got it so
| that it puts the image in my clipboard. Which is great, until I
| try to remember how to get it directly to a file. Because, I
| can't remember where that setting is anymore.
|
| And I have no idea how to make a pdf on this computer. Combine
| multiple images? I don't even know why I would do that. Much
| less how.
|
| My favorite battle recently was just trying to shutdown the
| machine without it starting right back up. Pretty sure that
| isn't possible if you have external monitor and keyboard hooked
| up. Which took me several shutdowns to realize.
| nl wrote:
| > My favorite battle recently was just trying to shutdown the
| machine without it starting right back up. Pretty sure that
| isn't possible if you have external monitor and keyboard
| hooked up.
|
| Apple Menu -> Shutdown. Make sure you don't have the
| "restart" checkbox ticked.
|
| Works fine on my MBP with external monitor and keyboard
| taeric wrote:
| There is no restart checkbox?
|
| I can try to reproduce later. This was maddening when I was
| getting ready for a vacation recently. Machine just
| wouldn't stay off.
|
| Mayhap it is the USB dongle I have that does power and
| monitor/keyboard?
| jmckib wrote:
| On Mac don't screenshots go straight to Desktop?
| taeric wrote:
| They do by default, but you can make it start sending to
| clipboard. I find that a bit more convenient for many uses.
| Evidently, if I use the 5 version instead of 4, it gives
| you the option again. Not shockingly, I typically use 4...
| flipper_au wrote:
| Depends! I use the following modifier pretty frequently:
|
| Shift + CMD + 3/4/5 = Screenshot goes to desktop
|
| CTRL + Shift + CMD + 3/4/5 = Screenshot to clipboard
| greggsy wrote:
| Shift+Command+5 gives you the full screenshot experience, and
| let's you define where to put it (Desktop, clipboard, etc.)
| Once you select a location, it will be the default for next
| time.
|
| Preview let's you create a PDF pretty easily?
|
| No idea what's going on with your restart issue tho.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Learn a little about imagemagick [1], it will change your life!
|
| Edit: also, I bet doing an rclone mount of your Dropbox will be
| pretty seamless and stable, havent tested this personally
| though [2].
|
| If you don't like the command line interfaces, then yeah you
| are probably better off with a Mac.
|
| 1. https://imagemagick.org/
|
| 2. https://rclone.org/dropbox/
| greggsy wrote:
| Most users don't want to use the CLI.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > Take a simple thing like screen capture - you have to
| remember to save the screen that you captured otherwise it just
| sits there doing nothing in the screen capture app.
|
| idk with KDE this seems to work ? I hit screen capture and
| spectacle shows up and saves it to images.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Can confirm this works on Plasma. There's also Flameshot[1],
| which is cross platform, that works really well and has
| pretty much every feature you could ask for in a screenshot
| app.
|
| [1] https://flameshot.org/
| oskenso wrote:
| Try nomacs as an image viewer/converter and Ctrl+alt+prntscrn
| for saving a screenshot of the window into your clipboard
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| Yeah yeah, we know Linux isn't in the perfect state for Apple
| die hards. This article isn't about how nice it is to use Linux
| and how everyone should switch, it's about the advances the UI
| frameworks and hardware companies have successfully made to
| better cater to UI DE focused crowds.
| jteppinette wrote:
| > An example is Flathub, where new applications using the most
| modern toolkits and UX strategy appear every day, providing "just
| works" alternatives to complex older FOSS software
|
| I go to Flathub. Click the first app I see. <App not found>
| vondur wrote:
| What app was it?
| bobthecowboy wrote:
| Not OP, but I went to go look and found the Minecraft one
| (which was one of the six apps above the fold in "Popular")
| leads to that:
|
| https://flathub.org/apps/details/io.mrarm.mcpelauncher
|
| ``` App Not Found
|
| No app with the ID io.mrarm.mcpelauncher was found on
| Flathub. Try searching for the app using the search bar
| above. ```
| nailer wrote:
| > An example is Flathub, where new applications using the most
| modern toolkits and UX strategy appear every day, providing "just
| works" alternatives to complex older FOSS software,, in a boom
| similar to that seen around 2012 on Apple's Mac App Store.
|
| Damn that's sad to read - for those unaware, Linux had one of the
| first app stores ever in about 2002 (Click n Run on
| Lindows/Linspire).
| spitfire wrote:
| Interestingly NeXTStep (which became Apple) did it back in the
| 1991.
| http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/SWCatalogs/page274/page27...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_AppWrapper
|
| Also, I remember back in 1996 when quake came out you could buy
| the shareware CD which came with all of IDs games locked. You
| called up a number and paid to get an unlock code. Very, very
| quickly a serial generator started floating around.
| nailer wrote:
| Idstuff! I remember that.
| chakkepolja wrote:
| Rise in cross platform frameworks would be a positive trend.
|
| When I am writing a flutter application, I often run on desktop
| directly and resize to mobile shape. That works good enough
| unless I am writing a mobile-specific feature. This probably
| means most flutter apps can run on other linux based phones as
| well.
| treis wrote:
| Cross platform frameworks have already risen in Electron. Every
| application I use at work runs on Linux. VS Code, Slack, Zoom,
| Postman, and others I can't think of are all Electron.
|
| And they all perform fine. The speed difference between JS and
| native is meaningless in 99% of cases given how fast modern
| CPUs are. RAM usage is similar. Everyone complains about it,
| but I've got 32 GB and I don't get above 8GB usage when using
| these apps.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Probably good for there to be competition in the cross-
| platform space. Maybe Electron is a little overly-bashed, but
| it's best when it's not the only game in town.
| getcrunk wrote:
| One of the biggest drawbacks to me about Linux is the aesthetic
| quality. This gives me alot of hope. As the author said this
| might really well be a turning point.
| BakeInBeens wrote:
| Although it takes a lot of configuration work ricing my desktop
| is how I got into Linux and I've always found that the
| aesthetic improvements seen in popular OSs to be similar to the
| popular aesthetics trends in the Linux community (although they
| obviously take a lot from other OSs too)
| puggsy wrote:
| +1 the migration to libadwaita has been a win for aesthetics
| according to my taste!
| moron4hire wrote:
| I've been really happy with Cinnamon on Linux Mint with the
| MintY-Dark themes.
| debo_ wrote:
| Zorin is also beautiful. I installed it on a whim, and it
| became my daily driver just because it felt so nice to me.
| akselmo wrote:
| I'm on Kubuntu (so KDE), been using it for over 6 months
| now. I am the kind of person that loves setting up the
| desktop and all the apps just like I want, so it has been
| perfect for me, although the defaults are pretty solid as
| well. The default Breeze theme also is really pretty, I
| went through all kinds of themes but eventually settled
| with Breeze due to how good it looks.
| superkuh wrote:
| Convergence? How many times do we have to go through this? No one
| wants convergence. It's the worst of both worlds. Keep the
| hobbled UI and gimped network workarounds on mobile where they
| belong.
| traverseda wrote:
| I have to say I just don't like Gnome's design. The shift away
| from text and towards more and more abstract icons, the "don't
| theme my app movement", removing features I consider pretty
| essential like typeahead....
|
| Maybe mobile is where their weird (to me) design choices will
| finally shine though. Also looking forward to what KDE can
| accomplish in this space.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| I'm still burnt by the fact that RedHat contributes so much
| code to Gnome that they basically control it. They made Gnome
| wholly dependent on systemd and this is how RHEL was able to
| influence every distro out there, of consequence, to adopt
| systemd as well. No systemd? Then you'd have to maintain your
| own patched fork of Gnome.
|
| That aside, Gnome's UI is horrendous and can only be made
| better by installing tons of poorly supported extensions. It's
| like a lesser MacOS (and frankly, i despise MacOS's desktop as
| well).
|
| KDE and XFCE aren't perfect, but as far as MacOS, Gnome,
| Windows 8.1, 10, and further, and other Linux desktop
| environments, KDE and XFCE blow them out of the water. Mate,
| Cinnamon and others just don't have the stability or
| functionality.
|
| I'm not really enthusiastic about Gnome and KDE trying to bring
| stuff to mobile. It's been a fool's errand. Here it is, 2022,
| and they never captured a chunk of the desktop market.
|
| The phone market at one point had Ubuntu (very very briefly),
| FirefoxOS (even more brief), Blackberry (gone), Android
| (multiple versions), Windows Phone (gone), and iOS.
|
| All that's really left is iOS and Android. Google is looking to
| replace Android with an OS that lacks the Linux kernel. So what
| you got left? Pine phones? It's even more niche and more
| hobbyist than desktop linux was in 2001.
|
| The year that linux makes any serious inroads into mobile will
| come just like the "year of the linux desktop" came. Which is
| never.
|
| So we've ruined a perfectly good desktop environment and poured
| countless man-hours into KDE and Gnome for mobile and to what
| end? Why? WHo's going to use it? What's the point? What's there
| to accomplish?
|
| Beyond some college kid being real proud of his Summer of Code
| project, nothing of note will materialize from this.
| trasz wrote:
| I wonder if people who develop those apps actually use them
| in real life, or do they simply treat it as yet another
| software development job. The latter could easily explain the
| problem: by failing to "scratch one's own itch".
| malermeister wrote:
| GNOME has design zealots similar to Apple, but with more
| bizarre choices.
|
| Their whole crusade against tray icons and a usable task list
| have been painful to deal with. Do they just not like
| multitasking??
|
| It's sad too, because there's a lot of nice UI/UX in there,
| it's just buried under all sorts of crazy choices. Thankfully,
| there's extensions to restore some of the missing
| functionality.
|
| https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/
|
| https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2890/tray-icons-reloa...
|
| These two fix those weird design decisions and make GNOME a
| pretty good desktop.
| asddubs wrote:
| I still dislike the gnome3 title bar with the icons. As you
| say, unlabelled mystery meat and hamburger menus.
|
| I'll admit, part of my dislike for the new title bars is
| probably irrationally rooted in just wanting things to stay
| like they were on windows 98 when I first became familiar with
| computers, forever, and never to diverge too much from that.
| But those unlabelled icons, they really do puzzle and frustrate
| me. On websites too
| dkarl wrote:
| Unlabeled icons are terrible. I use Gmail more than any other
| application outside of dev tools like my editor and my
| terminal, and I use every single one of the message
| operations (archive, snooze, add as task, report spam, etc.)
| at least occasionally. After a month with a new work Gmail
| account I realized I was still waiting for the tooltip to pop
| up before clicking the buttons, just to make sure of what I
| was clicking on. Fortunately, Gmail lets you switch to text
| buttons. Now when I want to snooze a message, I just click
| snooze, instead of thinking, "This button is a clock, I bet
| it's snooze, but hold up, what if it's another time-related
| operation I'm not thinking of... okay, confirmed with the
| tooltip, now I can click."
|
| And that's for a button I click several times per week!
| 867-5309 wrote:
| it's made worse by the fact that tooltips are unavailable
| for mobile users
| asddubs wrote:
| I still use the html gmail, that's getting harder to access
| all the time (and which google now just straight up ignores
| being set as your default view, and gives you the
| javascript view anyway unless you manipulate the URL)
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > I still dislike the gnome3 title bar with the icons.
|
| It's a key part of touch readiness. There's even a Windows-
| like theme for Gtk3+ that looks really close to the original,
| you might like it better than the default look.
| hughrr wrote:
| Why do we have to suffer it on the desktop though? It's so
| damn hard moving windows on gnome without setting something
| off accidentally. Especially with the shitty touchpad input
| devices.
|
| My mac laptops aren't touch screens and they get this
| usable.
|
| The whole gnome desktop makes me want to stick forks in my
| eyes.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Super+drag anywhere on a window. It should be a must on
| every single OS.
| hughrr wrote:
| This is completely Inferior to dragging a titlebar as it
| requires twice as many hands.
| saturn_vk wrote:
| I think you can drag almost anything on the header bar
| without activating it
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > It's so damn hard moving windows on gnome without
| setting something off accidentally.
|
| I'm not sure, I've never run into this? The headerbar
| itself, with its labeling text, works just fine as a
| mouse/touch target.
| nebul wrote:
| Yeah, clicking and holding on a header bar button will
| still allow you to grab the window without firing any
| action. It's quite handy, especially with a touch pad.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| You don't have to target a _button_ at all, that 's quite
| silly. Aim at the window label. Labels have always been
| connoted as "plain text" with no actions associated, so
| they're quite intuituve for that purpose.
| nebul wrote:
| Of course! But when you're using an application with a
| fairly busy header bar (like Nautilus or Epiphany, which
| don't have any labels) it can be useful to just point at
| the first pixel you come across without having to aim for
| a blank interval between buttons.
| asddubs wrote:
| They could at the very least put labels under or next to
| the icons.
|
| In regards to touch-readiness: TBH I've had a laptop with a
| touchscreen, and I never once used the touchscreen on it
| productively in any way. On a tablet it's a different story
| of course, but no one is forcing them to do a one-size-
| fits-all approach. But yeah, my main complaint is really
| just that stuff isn't labelled. Everything else I can
| begrudgingly understand somewhat
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > They could at the very least put labels under or next
| to the icons.
|
| On a desktop, you should be able to hover with the
| pointer and get tooltips. Mobile is more of a challenge,
| but it's not like text would be any better. You can't fit
| much text in the typical mobile touch target.
| asddubs wrote:
| I shouldn't have to hover over the icon to figure out
| what it does. That's terrible UI. Even tiny text would be
| better than no text
| fsflover wrote:
| > Also looking forward to what KDE can accomplish in this
| space.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DLQWv8P5Hw
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| It's cool they have this (mostly) working on mobile, but
| those gestures are pretty clearly all copied from Android and
| not a result of KDE Desktop's design decisions.
| traverseda wrote:
| That's fine, if the Android gestures work well they can
| feel free to adopt them. GUI toolkits getting not-invented-
| here syndrome is terrible.
| vore wrote:
| With UX, copying others should be the default: don't make
| users learn a completely new set of behaviors that aren't
| the ones they've been using every day.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I love Gnome's design. Maybe I'd make title bars skinnier and
| add corner tiling?
| _jal wrote:
| Agreed. Visually, it is... fine, I don't care that much and the
| iconization of everything is probably just trend chasing. And
| personally I don't care too much about theming, but either it
| should be supported, or not.
|
| But it is so dumbed-down now that I find it pointless as a
| desktop. I try it out every time I rebuild, and become
| frustrated with how it doesn't do any number of perfectly
| reasonable things to want from a Linux desktop. Then some
| random component I don't even care about starts misbehaving
| enough to be distracting, and I switch back to blackbox.
| brimble wrote:
| > Agreed. Visually, it is... fine, I don't care that much and
| the iconization of everything is probably just trend chasing.
| And personally I don't care too much about theming, but
| either it should be supported, or not.
|
| I'd take inability to cope with, at the _very_ least, color
| palette theming, as suggesting that a program or ecosystem
| probably has some serious problems with accessibility.
| [deleted]
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > and the iconization of everything is probably just trend
| chasing
|
| Icons work better as touch targets due to their uniform
| shape. So I think the change is driven by ergonomics as well,
| in a context where touch support is already expected.
| jcelerier wrote:
| Touch is as relevant as 3d screens lol. I remember buying a
| laptop with a touchscreen back in 2011, there are as many
| today as there were back then. Tablet usage has dropped to
| less than single digits and are pretty much a dead form
| factor except maybe the iPad pro. Etc..
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The "don't theme my app" thing just tells me that
| GNOME/GTK+/Adwaita aren't built in a way that gracefully
| handles theming, or that devs building apps with them are doing
| things like hard coding colors when they should be using
| dynamic system colors such as those provided by UIColor[0] in
| UIKit.
|
| [0]:
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uicolor/ui_e...
| stickfigure wrote:
| Supporting themes imposes an ongoing technical burden across
| the whole ecosystem. It's not worth it. You don't hear people
| say "I hate macs because I can't make my title bars purple".
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| You do however see many complaints when an app doesn't
| support dark mode (which is closer to the typical use case
| of themes).
|
| Additionally, see my other comment about accessibility,
| which is also negatively impacted by hardcoded UI
| appearances.
| Andrex wrote:
| Dark Mode is first class in the next releases of GTK4 and
| LibAdwaita. It'll be available in GNOME 42 and Fedora 36.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Yep and that's great, but there are still other
| legitimate uses for theming. One of mine is cutting down
| padding to reasonable levels -- GNOME is much more usable
| to me when using a theme like Nordic or Skeuos, both of
| which do that.
| rvense wrote:
| I switched from Mac to Linux (in 2008-2009) because I could
| understand it and make it my own, among other things with
| theming.
| guelo wrote:
| I do say that. The light-grey on top of light-grey theme
| means a lot of times the only way to tell which is the
| foreground window is by looking for the 3 colored dots.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| I want customizable color schemes and fonts and sizes. It's
| nice as a user to pick full-on custom themes. Sadly even
| though Qt is based around theming, I had to turn _off_
| theming for semi-customized controls (colored sliders) to
| make them render correctly on Windows and Linux Breeze
| /Fusion. And it's more work to verify my app looks good
| across OSes when QButtonBar and QFormLayout change
| appearance on different OSes. So finding a good solution is
| nontrivial.
| nine_k wrote:
| If not for scrollbars color, I certainly dislike the macOS
| GUI for its straightjacket approach. (Also, poor window
| management.)
|
| I wish Gnome folks did not keep on copying it more and
| more. I see why it's easier to do, but KDE somehow manages.
|
| (And if one thinks that Apple UX design can't go wrong,
| remember Macbooks from a couple of years ago.)
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I get what you're saying but I find GNOME more evocative
| of iPadOS than macOS. It's almost exactly what you would
| get if you tried to create a desktop environment using an
| iPad as a starting point.
|
| macOS still has several traditional desktop affordances
| that are eschewed by GNOME, like full menus (not just
| hamburger junk drawer menus) and customizable toolbars.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| This attitude is why we can no longer have stuff that
| doesn't only come in "light theme" or "dark theme". I
| consider this a regression. Let me theme my damn computer
| the way I want. It's called a Personal computer for a
| reason.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It is silly that dark mode isn't regarded the same as
| just switching themes. Forcing its adoption however
| breaks dependency on non-themable components so its
| popularity is still a net benefit.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I'm quite sure you could change system colors willy nilly
| in OS 8. It was great fun. I miss that part - the feeling
| of having "your own" system.
|
| Since customization where pretty standard back then, it
| feels like product managers pushing their "vision" rather
| than technical difficulties preventing that nowadays.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Kaleidoscope and later on Appearance Manager in Classic
| Mac OS were so much fun. No OS theming system I've
| encountered since have been as capable as those were.
| akselmo wrote:
| I feel like partially the movement happened because some
| themes made the apps unusable and then instead of blaming the
| theming, users blamed thee app developers instead.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| In some cases badly designed themes (like dark gray labels
| on black backgrounds) are the culprit, but most often it's
| a result of the app developers hard coding colors in their
| UI elements assuming all users will be using a similar
| theme.
|
| That's not only bad for custom theme users, it's bad for
| accessibility since there's no way for increased contrast
| modes to modify the hard coded colors. Apps really just
| shouldn't hard code colors.
| akselmo wrote:
| Agreed, definitely. OS should provide basic colorsheets
| that the apps use, and those sheets should be freely
| modifiable.
|
| Which is why I really like KDE.
| goodpoint wrote:
| The "don't theme my app" movement is really harmful to the
| application ecosystem.
|
| Especially true for users with partial visual impairments, but
| also for other users that want to have a consistent style on
| their desktops or phones.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Not to mention, some people just want to theme their desktop.
| To make the computer feel like it's theirs.
| [deleted]
| w4rh4wk5 wrote:
| Please just give me the option to turn the hamburger menu into a
| regular menu bar.
| quanticle wrote:
| _Furthermore, the variety of projects that are enabling
| convergence on their applications is growing at a fast rate, with
| KDE, GNOME, Nitrux, Elementary and Jingling among others shifting
| their interest on mobile-ready and touch-friendly applications
| for the future of Linux._
|
| So, in other words, Linux desktop applications are going the same
| way as "desktop" applications on Windows and MacOS. I put
| "desktop" in sarcasm quotes, because so many of these apps are
| just upscaled mobile apps, which retain the giant buttons and low
| information density suitable for a 6" touchscreen even when
| they're scaled up to a 24" monitor.
|
| If this is the future, I hate it.
| hawski wrote:
| I am sure that there will be a successful counter-culture. I do
| not have Suckless folks in mind or others that are minimalist
| and Unix philosophy above all. Don't get me wrong - I like most
| of their software, but I'm too lazy to be a purist. I would
| love to see more GUIs augmented by command line, but with a bit
| more GUI and mouse then the latter. I think I'm not alone, but
| a movement or a desktop environment that unites people thinking
| in that similar way is not there yet. I'm sure it will come.
| fsflover wrote:
| No, GNU/Linux phones can run desktop applications _scaled down_
| in such a way that they stay usable. See examples here:
| https://puri.sm/posts/converging-on-convergence-pureos-is-
| co....
| hughrr wrote:
| Yeh that worked out really well for the last two platforms
| who tried it...
|
| Microsoft produced apps that no one used because they were
| horrible on all devices. Apple conceded defeat and we have
| different interfaces on each device class.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The recent "scaling down" of Linux Gtk+ apps also
| encompasses "diferent interfaces". Look at some of the
| convergence examples, and you'll see all sorts of widgets
| merge, move around and disappear behind "alternate" views
| as window sizes shrink, then come back as the windows
| enlarge again. It's a fully responsive interface that
| merges both styles of interaction seamlessly.
| hughrr wrote:
| A certain $2tn+ company can't manage to pull that off and
| actually has different interfaces for each platform.
| We're making some big assumption that responsive
| interfaces actually work and don't push poor compromises
| on all users at the end of the day.
|
| This is another UX death march like flat interfaces
| without cues and mystery meat.
| fsflover wrote:
| > We're making some big assumption that responsive
| interfaces actually work
|
| I think is pretty clear that they work. Look at
| responsive web pages.
| hughrr wrote:
| The thing is they don't always. And in some cases they
| actually completely fall apart.
| quanticle wrote:
| _Apple conceded defeat and we have different interfaces on
| each device class._
|
| Apple hasn't conceded defeat. Every release of MacOS
| becomes more and more like iOS. Apple keeps releasing
| tools, such as Catalyst, to make it easier for iOS
| developers to get their apps to run on MacOS. Apple is very
| much pursuing convergence between iOS and MacOS, to the
| latter's detriment.
| hughrr wrote:
| You can run any app on any platform. It's just going to
| be a shit experience.
|
| Apple want you to get 80% of the way there, then do the
| last 20% of tailoring it to the device.
|
| There isn't some magic unicorn toolkit which can do that
| last 20%.
| quanticle wrote:
| That's exactly the problem! There's this idea that, if we
| automate the 80%, developers will do the last 20%, and
| we'll end up in a land of milk and honey, where mobile
| apps scale up their information density and rearrange
| their UIs to suit the high precision pointing devices and
| large screens that come with desktops and laptops.
|
| In practice that _never_ happens. Developers make their
| mobile app, use the automated tool to make it into 80% of
| a desktop app, hit the publish button and proudly
| advertise, "Hey, look, we have a desktop app now!"
|
| Maybe it's fine for Apple and Google to ruin their
| desktop UIs like that. Maybe they don't care, or, more
| likely, they think that catering to the vast majority of
| users who are on mobile is an acceptable tradeoff for
| alienating the few of us who still prefer desktops as
| their primary computing device.
|
| But why does Linux have to tread that same path?
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| > But why does Linux have to tread that same path?
|
| It doesn't, which is the beauty of open source. If enough
| people value this as much as you clearly do, there will
| always be options out there.
|
| And, if there aren't enough people then you always have
| the (less practical, but still doable) option of rolling
| your own.
| hughrr wrote:
| Linux doesn't have to tread the same path but there's no
| one behind it all waving a big stick when they go off
| track. Which is why we end up in a fragmented half baked
| mess every damn time and why I'm sitting here on a mac
| after 20 years of being promised linux on the desktop
| fsflover wrote:
| They did not scale down desktop apps. They created
| completely incompatible mobile OSes.
|
| https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-
| wiki/-/wikis/Freque...
| shams93 wrote:
| This is why we still need html/css for interfaces, so the PWA
| with wasm still seems to be the best way to distribute an app
| that works anywhere, or PWA for mobile and electron for desktop
| with wasm enabling very high performance client features.
| quanticle wrote:
| I disagree with the whole premise of having a single app for
| both desktop and mobile. Even if you give developers the
| tools to make a good app for desktop and mobile, they won't.
| They'll make the mobile app first, ensure that it runs on
| desktop, and then dust off their hands and call it a day. To
| quote the Purism blogpost cited elsewhere in this thread:
|
| _Web designers now have toolboxes to design web pages, which
| they adjust for mobile or desktop in order to get easier
| readability and use._
|
| Except, web designers _don 't_ adjust web pages for mobile or
| web. They adjust pages for mobile, and then what you end up
| in a desktop web browser is _acres_ of white space and
| buttons that are the size of your head.
|
| The way I see it, this is Linux UI framework developers
| chasing Apple, Microsoft and Google's taillights _yet again_.
| Sure, Apple, Google and Microsoft don 't care, but that's
| because they're trillion dollar companies and they have to go
| where the majority of the customers are. But why does Linux
| have to go there too? Why can't Linux UI framework developers
| focus on an under-appreciated niche (desktop "power" users)
| which are increasingly neglected by the megacorps?
| fsflover wrote:
| But it already generally works on the web. Why wouldn't it
| work on Linux given good tools
| (https://blogs.gnome.org/alexm/2021/12/31/libadwaita-1-0)?
| leveraction wrote:
| > Except, web designers don't adjust web pages for mobile
| or web. They adjust pages for mobile, and then what you end
| up in a desktop web browser is acres of white space and
| buttons that are the size of your head.
|
| I had to laugh at this.
|
| I am writing a PWA now and this is definitely an issue in
| "desktop mode".
|
| The thing is though, with giant monitors (I develop on a
| pair of 4k curved ultra-wides) there is so much room that
| most non-game apps just don't need all that much space. If
| you do use it all, it becomes cumbersome to move the mouse
| all the way to the corners because it is so far away. And
| even if you did use it, there would still be acres of
| unused space most likely, white or some other color.
|
| I suppose you could do a true re-write and put multiple
| mobile screen onto one desktop screen, but that would be a
| very heavy lift and in the case of a saas app that will
| largely be used on mobile, it is pretty easy to understand
| why it never gets done. Bad cost-benefit and it would delay
| your launch.
| [deleted]
| go_elmo wrote:
| cli > gui
| oblio wrote:
| For some things.
|
| Not for discoverability or visual things.
| smoldesu wrote:
| History is back around to repeating itself. I'm an avid Linux
| user (and even a developer who uses GTK pretty regularly), but
| the recent developments surrounding GNOME, Flatpak and their
| related libraries has not made me optimistic for the future of
| Linux applications.
|
| GTK4 is really bad. It launched with horrible text rendering
| issues (still unfixed, 10+ months later), broke compatibility
| with a number of basic features, and then had those features
| replaced by the GNOME middleware known as libadwaita. libadwaita
| is in a "functional" release state, but still lacks support for
| custom stylesheets, basic desktop integration on non-GNOME
| desktops and has it's own litany of bugs that accompany it. Fair
| enough for brand-new software, but the state of GTK4 is
| unacceptable and borderline impossible to use on a daily basis.
| If you're a developer, things only get worse. Gone are the days
| of fast app development with gtk::Builder workflows, and now
| Glade has been thrown by the wayside with no replacement. Talk
| about a second-class developer experience. And then there's the
| strange omissions that the GNOME team insists on; some issues are
| marked as WONTFIX since they can be mitigated with Flatpak. Some
| features (like appindicators) have been ignored completely
| because they don't align with the GNOME desktop's vision. The
| general demeanor of the team has been my-way-or-the-highway, so
| making suggestions mostly gets you labelled as a troll in their
| gitlab and sees you forcibly removed if you don't give up and
| assimilate into their opinion.
|
| Flatpak itself is becoming the new Wayland. With more than 600
| open issues on Github and outstanding issues like random data
| deletion, portal malfunctioning, compositor glitches, security
| holes and more, it's less like the "one package manager to rule
| them all" and more like "snap but it doesn't work". It's slow,
| doubles the dependencies that you store on your system (!!!) and
| doesn't integrate with your desktop unless you go out of your way
| to install questionable third party hacks that forward your
| native stylesheet and XDG options. I'd honestly rather use
| AppImage if given the option.
|
| The future of app development on Linux is bleaker than ever.
| Fragmentation is at an all-time-high, and the technology that was
| supposed to fix it only fanned the flames into an unsalvageable
| dumpster fire. If you are a Linux developer planning on shipping
| an app, please stay on GTK2/3 for the sake of your users. I
| outright refuse to run GTK4, libadwaita or Flatpak on any of my
| systems. Nothing I've seen recently changes my opinion on that.
|
| Dead dove, do not eat.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Flatpak is a bad idea but GTK4 and libadwaita are really nice.
| grey_earthling wrote:
| > libadwaita is in a "functional" release state, but still
| lacks support for custom stylesheets,
|
| Libadwaita is an implementation of GNOME's design, analogous to
| libgranite in elementary OS. This includes the visual design.
| GNOME only has one style, Adwaita (which means "the only
| one"!).
|
| If you don't want to use GNOME's design, you don't want to use
| libadwaita.
|
| > basic desktop integration on non-GNOME desktops
|
| Libadwaita is the library you use when you're targetting GNOME.
|
| If you want to target something other than GNOME, you don't
| want to use libadwaita.
|
| Libadwaita isn't trying to be a general-purpose library for
| making apps that feel integrated on any platform. I don't think
| it's reasonable to criticise it for not being something it's
| not trying to be. It's like objecting that a dog doesn't meow
| :)
|
| > and has it's own litany of bugs that accompany it.
|
| Now, _that_ is always a fair criticism :)
| jcelerier wrote:
| > The general demeanor of the team has been my-way-or-the-
| highway, so making suggestions mostly gets you labelled as a
| troll in their gitlab and sees you forcibly removed if you
| don't give up and assimilate into their opinion.
|
| Remember:
|
| > I guess you have to decide if you are a GNOME app, an Ubuntu
| app, or an XFCE app unfortunately. I'm sorry that this is the
| case but it wasn't GNOME's fault that Ubuntu has started this
| fork. And I have no idea what XFCE is or does sorry.
|
| > It is my hope that you are a GNOME app. Yes this kind of
| fragmentation is unfortunate. I'm not happy about it either.
| Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up. Wish you the
| best.
|
| This was a message from a GNOME dev about the transmission
| torrent client, 11 years ago. I guess they're consistent with
| themselves over time at least.
|
| The issue about border decorations on Wayland on their gitlab
| was also bewilderingly infuriating.
| oblio wrote:
| > And I have no idea what XFCE is or does sorry.
|
| Where is this from?
| jcelerier wrote:
| https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685
| oblio wrote:
| Heh, drive by comment saying app functionality will be
| broken with no clear replacement, from someone who didn't
| even know a major desktop environment at the time, then
| proposals from another dev to completely rearchitect the
| app about 6 years later.
|
| Nice.
| allisdust wrote:
| Only if you are hung up on gnome of course. Plenty of
| alternatives that work out of the box in desktop space and
| flatapps aren't really needed really as one click with much
| less issues is possible many gui package managers.
|
| First option for anyone coming from other OS should be kde.
| Defaults are sane and customizations are easy to do. Frankly I
| really don't know why all distros provide gnome by default.
| There are neither helping themselves nor the broader linux
| desktop community by shipping something that's broken in so
| many ways.
| anthk wrote:
| I guess XFCE will be either moved to QT5 or, maybe, as a
| crazy move, rewrite everything in Motif.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| I've been a gnome user for well over a decade. What's common to
| hear from people like you who have a good level of
| understanding the ecosystem and the community is that Gnome
| developers consistently make shitty design decisions and refuse
| to take input from a wider audience.
|
| What is the reason for no group emerging, forking gnome and
| doing it the right way? I'd actually pay to support such
| efforts.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| It's not forked from Gnome but KDE tends to stay out of your
| way pretty easily and supports just as much as Gnome (with
| some Wayland caveats) if not more. In fact KDE community is
| very responsive and if you participate you will likely
| experience and benefit from the momentum they have.
| malermeister wrote:
| I find touch support much worse on KDE unfortunately. GNOME
| works really well on my surface pro, KDE, not so much.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I wish I could get _any_ Linux on my Surface Pro 3. That
| thing heats up to 60c within 5 minutes of turning it on,
| and then randomly freezes. This is how I learned about
| the awesome feature Wayland has where you can 't reload
| your session like you can in x11...
| malermeister wrote:
| Are you running the surface-linux kernel? The SP3 should
| be well-supported!
|
| https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-
| surface/wiki/Supporte...
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Isn't that exactly what cinnamon and mate did?
| jcelerier wrote:
| You'd need a really big lot of $s to go beyond RedHat/IBM's
| budget ; you wouldn't hear as many complaints if GNOME wasn't
| the default DE on so many distros.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| That's what XFCE is. (And MATE of course!) Now that they
| uniformly use Gtk3+, they could even try to achieve better
| touch readiness than even Gnome itself!
| oblio wrote:
| XFCE didn't fork Gnome, though. It was a CDE clone at the
| start. It just uses Gtk, but otherwise it doesn't really
| copy Gnome much.
| [deleted]
| floren wrote:
| These applications look really pretty and all, but for my selfish
| purposes, I just really want real goddamn scrollbars back. I use
| a mouse that doesn't have a scroll wheel, but for the life of me
| I've been unable to figure out how to make applications like
| Firefox just give me a real scroll bar on the side of the window
| that's thick enough to grab without fiddly pixel-hunting.
| ugjka wrote:
| Why do you use a mouse without a scrollwheel?
| chillfox wrote:
| Maybe touch pad on a laptop?
| bitcharmer wrote:
| I'd love to see OP's response to that. I don't think I have
| seen anyone using a mouse without a scroll wheel for at least
| a decade.
| stilisstuk wrote:
| I have a be trackball and a vertical mouse. Both expensive.
| Both without proper scroll.
|
| Many trackwheels on are also slow at of you want to flick
| many pages down.
|
| I rely mostly in keyboard.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Many trackwheels on are also slow at of you want to
| flick many pages down.
|
| This is why the Apple Magic Mouse is so great - it's
| essentially a phone surface instead of physical buttons.
| throwaway889900 wrote:
| Middle mouse button + dragging works fine, faster than
| scrolling in some situations.
| floren wrote:
| I use the acme text editor
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor) for work
| every day. It makes heavy use of mouse chords, so I need 3
| real buttons on the mouse, and it's hard to find a mouse with
| 3 real buttons _and_ a scrollwheel which doesn 't get in the
| way of the buttons. I've got a Kensington Expert Mouse
| trackball which works pretty well, but at the end of the day
| an old Logitech PS/2 mouse plugged into a converter is my go-
| to.
| l30n4da5 wrote:
| > I need 3 real buttons on the mouse, and it's hard to find
| a mouse with 3 real buttons and a scrollwheel which doesn't
| get in the way of the buttons
|
| does a gaming mouse work? I'm currently using a $10 gaming
| mouse that has 4 buttons and a scroll wheel. Two of them
| are thumb-buttons that function very well and are not in
| the way at all.
| bollu wrote:
| I am very interested to learn about your workflow. What
| language do you program in? How does acme help programming
| in this language? Do you have a video or a stream I could
| watch? I'd love to know!
| floren wrote:
| I write Go code almost exclusively. I don't have a video
| demonstrating it, but you can read
| http://jfloren.net/tools.html for more information about
| how I use acme, and watch https://research.swtch.com/acme
| to see it in action.
|
| Here's a few key points:
|
| * Select text & middle-click it (or just select with the
| middle button & release) to execute a program. I just
| keep a file full of common commands open at all times and
| fire them off as needed.
|
| * The "acmego" tool automatically formats my Go code &
| adds imports as needed whenever I save. The "A" tool can
| find the definition of any function/type/variable I'm
| looking at and open the source file to an appropriate
| line. (yes I know these things are available in other
| editors)
| aliher1911 wrote:
| I also struggled to find a mouse with a decent wheel that
| you can click without moving it off which is handy in
| CAD's. Gave up in the end and switched to using thumb
| button for middle click. But there's an option to get one
| of 3DConnexion CAD Mouse's if you can swallow the price
| tag.
| akvadrako wrote:
| I use the middle button lots and the MX master 3 has never
| given me issues.
| tormeh wrote:
| Depends by what you mean by "real buttons" but my first
| thought was that 99% of gaming mice will have at least 3
| buttons and a scrollwheel. Often it's closer to 10 buttons.
|
| This one has 20 buttons (including 3 big ones and a
| scrollwheel): https://www.logitechg.com/en-
| us/products/gaming-mice/g600-mm...
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The IBM Scrollpoints have 2-axis scroll _and_ a real middle
| button.
| kelnos wrote:
| On the mice I've used recently, the scroll wheel itself was
| clickable as a middle button. Is that not sufficient for
| your purposes?
| floren wrote:
| Unfortunately not... after prolonged use, my middle
| finger gets pretty painful from the mid-clicking. It's
| less ergonomic than a real button.
| kesslern wrote:
| Consider a Ploopy trackball. There are 4 easy accessible
| buttons on the mouse plus another under the scroll wheel,
| and it's fully programmable.
|
| https://ploopy.co/classic-trackball/
| reassembled wrote:
| May as well call it Tracky McTrackface. Looks like and
| awesome project but "Ploopy" is such an odd naming
| choice. Is it a non-English word or have special meaning
| in the community?
| detaro wrote:
| https://blog.ploopy.co/yall-need-a-new-name-48
| bityard wrote:
| You might like the Logitech Anywhere MX. 5 real buttons and
| a scroll wheel that toggles between clicky and smooth. Only
| downside is that it's not bluetooth, it needs a tiny USB
| dongle.
| TheSmiddy wrote:
| It has bluetooth support as well! I use the MX master but
| it's the same system. There's a button on the bottom to
| switch between up to 3 devices.
| bityard wrote:
| Genuinely curious what you do when you have to navigate a
| long document or page that doesn't have a clickable table of
| contents. If you're at the top and you need to get somewhere
| close to the bottom, do you just sit there and flick the
| scroll wheel for 5 minutes?
| alar44 wrote:
| Page down?
| tokai wrote:
| Just hit End?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Not parent, but I use a trackball. Apparently adding a plain
| scroll wheel onto one is rocket science or something, based
| on the prices.
| traverseda wrote:
| I have a real scrollbar on firefox with KDE.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Touch users don't use the scroll bar, they just swipe up/down.
| chillfox wrote:
| Because you can't use the scroll bar on mobile, it's
| impossible to get hold of.
|
| Swiping is a pain if you need to jump up and down on larger
| pages.
| oblio wrote:
| He wants an option for a mouse...
| rland wrote:
| I found a solution for Firfox on Ubuntu MATE:
|
| 1. go to about:config
|
| 2. find widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.size.override
|
| 3. Change to some pixel value (I have mine set at 26).
|
| voila!
|
| I do not understand why the default is so thin. Really bucks
| the trend of every UI element being touch-screen large
| nowadays!
| floren wrote:
| Thank you, this is a big improvement. I'd rather have a nice
| chunky Motif-style scrollbar but it's better than nothing.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Because if you have touchscreens you can use two-finger
| gestures, and if you're on a mouse you'll have no issue
| targeting a thin widget. It makes a lot of sense from that
| POV.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| If the thin widget is _directly_ against the edge of the
| viewport, maybe.
|
| If it's literally _anywhere else on the screen_ , then no,
| Fitts's Law applies, and it's a bad target. It has _height_
| but no _width_.
|
| This is _especially_ true for those with motor or visual
| handicaps, or both.
|
| It's damned near unusable even with very modest levels of
| distraction or other factors, e.g., using a device as a
| passenger on a moving vehicle, as with a boat, train, or
| airplane.
| saturn_vk wrote:
| You can also use the scroll wheel of the mouse just fine,
| or the TouchPad scroll gesture. I don't even remember that
| the scrollbars are invisible anymore
| rland wrote:
| It would -- but it's set so thin by default that I have
| trouble targeting it with my mouse!
| anchpop wrote:
| For a fullscreen window it would be nice if moving the
| mouse all the way to the right edge was sufficient to
| target the scrollbar, but that doesn't work in Chrome on
| my mac
| dredmorbius wrote:
| My browser is rarely against the RH side of my display,
| or even on the RH sie of my screen.
|
| My preferred informational / programming layout is
| browser on left, terminal on right.
|
| And in _any_ multi-window layout, _any window not aligned
| with the right-hand display border_ remains difficult to
| target.
| Lukineus wrote:
| Some touchpads also support gesture scrolling.
| Jenk wrote:
| > I do not understand why the default is so thin.
|
| For scroll/touch users, the scrollbar has become an indicator
| only, and not so much a tool for scrolling, to show where on
| the document the window is.
| ulimn wrote:
| Does this help you? https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/09/how-
| to-disable-gnomes-...
| [deleted]
| BoysenberryPi wrote:
| If I wanted to get into linux phone development, what's a good
| entry point into this?
| fsflover wrote:
| https://forums.puri.sm/t/development-prep/14855
| kop316 wrote:
| I would ask, what is it you want to do?
|
| Linux phone development is more or less the same as linux
| development, just with a computer that has a smaller screen and
| a modem.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| That's not quite accurate. What about power management,
| signal stability and coverage? Those need to be accounted for
| too.
| Ardon wrote:
| If you want some examples to start from, check out
| https://mauikit.org/apps/
|
| It's a UI Framework being used to make the basic OS apps in a
| fully scalable form. They're currently used in Plasma Mobile.
| weberer wrote:
| Create a new virtual machine and set the window size to
| 720x1440 with 2x scaling (or just 360x720) which is what the
| Pinephone uses. Everything else is the same as desktop Linux,
| just compiled for ARM.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| A touchscreen is probably needed for this. Human fingers are
| huge and you need to design for that in mind.
| puggsy wrote:
| 1. Buy a device,
| https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices#Main . I suggest the
| PinePhone if you want something with decent power management in
| the next few months, or PinePhone Pro if you're willing to wait
| a few months for decent power management.
|
| 2. Find good programs on https://linmobapps.frama.io/
|
| 3. Figure out what functionality you're missing. Contribute
| improvements.
|
| Keep in touch with the community at https://linmob.net/
| xyst wrote:
| the apps look very "apple"-esque
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| Web application interfaces have already been ruined for desktop
| users by trying to serve both mobile/touch and desktop/mouse. It
| would be a real shame if other native software followed suit.
| fsflover wrote:
| It can also be done well, see videos here:
| https://puri.sm/posts/converging-on-convergence-pureos-is-
| co....
| habosa wrote:
| These apps look very nice, I am happy to see this movement. But
| this is HN so ... allow me to go a bit off topic and complain.
|
| Why is is so freaking hard to install an app on Linux (Ubuntu)?
| There's nothing in the software center, and when I find an app I
| want I am just pointed to a .tar.gz or something. I want a file I
| can double-click and end up with a launchable icon representing
| that app in my dock later. I would also like to be able to update
| that app easily in the future. I have yet to have this experience
| with an app I wanted despite using Ubuntu for years.
|
| This is why I have given up and just started using Windows with
| WSL. Then I can have all the command-line tools I like and also a
| sane app installation experience.
| kodah wrote:
| You might like Pop!_OS or Elementary's app store (they're the
| same.) It supports .deb and Flathub packages.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| tar -xzvf app.tar.gz cat app/README
|
| Then follow instructions, but usually just cp
| app/app /usr/local/bin
|
| or wherever your $PATH is. or: make
| make install
|
| If you're not willing to put in the effort to do this you
| should indeed probably not use Linux.
| atrus wrote:
| What apps are you having to do this with? I've yet to have an
| app that I couldn't either get through apt or as an AppImage
| which definitely has that experience of double click and go
| when you have AppImageLauncher installed.
| habosa wrote:
| AppImage does seem promising although I tried it the other
| day for Electrum (bitcoin wallet) and it was a mess. I was
| not able to double-click to launch and once I closed the app
| I was never able to launch it again. Maybe I'll give it
| another try?
| hashimotonomora wrote:
| sudo apt install
| drekipus wrote:
| what's wrong with the ol' "sudo apt install foo"
|
| outdated packages are the problem of the distro, not of the
| tool.
|
| the whole reason I went from windows -> linux was because I
| could just type in what I want, rather than having to go
| looking around for dumb things on sites that no longer exist.
| habosa wrote:
| That installs a binary tool I can run at the command line.
| Which is great for a lot of things. It's not great for a web
| browser or a calculator.
|
| I want an app. I want it to have an icon I can click on and a
| button to close it. I don't want logs in my terminal or
| zombie processes and I don't want to have to remember the
| name/path of a binary.
| bmn__ wrote:
| > > what's wrong with the ol' "sudo apt install foo"
|
| > That installs a binary tool I can run at the command
| line. [...] It's not great for a web browser or a
| calculator.
|
| You're wrong about that. A package manager installs any
| type of software, the user interface of the software
| (command-line or GUI) is irrelevant. For example, chromium
| and kcalc: `apt install chromium kcalc`
|
| * https://packages.ubuntu.com/chromium # web browser
|
| * https://packages.ubuntu.com/kcalc # calculator
|
| > I want an app. I want it to have an icon I can click on
| and a button to close it.
|
| You got it.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| `apt` can install everything you can find in the graphical
| Software Center and more, and with the exact same results
| (like icons to click on).
|
| If it's not available in `apt` repositories there's a
| pretty good chance you can install it with flatpak, which
| does roughly the same but is distro-independent. Graphical
| non-free software like Skype is easy to install with
| flatpak and "just works" in my experience.
| unknown2374 wrote:
| sudo apt-get install firefox ?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| sudo apt install firefox
|
| works just fine.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| > That installs a binary tool I can run at the command line
|
| No, that install an application in general. You choose to
| run it from the command line. If you want to just turn your
| terminal into the application, `exec firefox`. Most window
| managers provide a way to run an application standalone via
| some shortcut. On i3 it is Win+D for example.
| [deleted]
| pygar wrote:
| Do you know how to use apt? [0] It sounds like you're trying to
| install software the windows way (download from a website and
| run).
|
| Some software is distributed as source only, but it's super
| rare for anything remotely popular to not be packaged (although
| you might have to add a PPA).
|
| [0] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto
| golergka wrote:
| Strange that electron isn't mentioned here. I develop a desktop
| application that targets macos, windows and linux, so it is a
| full-fledged linux app -- but without such an effective cross-
| platform toolkit I don't think we would have resources to support
| Linux at all.
| [deleted]
| jcelerier wrote:
| I am almost alone and I develop https://ossia.io for
| Mac/Win/Linux in C++ with Qt without issues.
| bearbearbear wrote:
| kuon wrote:
| I love that some work is going into UI design, but there are a
| few things I really dislike in gnome apps. For example using a
| hamburger menu instead of a regular menu or icons instead of text
| for buttons.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| This could be less about device convergence and more about UX
| improvements and design coherence among apps. Some examples of
| what's been happening:
|
| - Touchpad gestures through various efforts:
| https://linuxtouchpad.org
|
| - Gnome: libAdwaita:
| https://blogs.gnome.org/alexm/2021/12/31/libadwaita-1-0/
|
| - Core workflows getting better first-class approaches rather
| than being another app to install: (e.g. screenshots &
| screenrecording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewC1Zc-5qPQ&t=2s
| )
|
| - Visual improvements proposed to larger complex apps like
| libreoffice:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/ChristianOhrfan/status/1472015987...
|
| I wouldn't recommend it to everyone but it'd definitely
| interesting to see as someone who came from being a fairly
| invested mac user - I track personal workflows between OSes here:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/148zTJUwfVv9xfDcpSoH3...
| nikodunk wrote:
| Excellent links - thank you so much for the resources.
|
| I'm very excited to see what the Pinephone Pro brings as a
| platform to build towards in this regard. I'm already eyeing
| shipping some apps on Flathub!
|
| I hope the React Native => Flathub pipeline gets built out,
| similar to what Ubuntu is doing with Flutter => Snap. Exciting
| times!
| kodah wrote:
| libadwaita and Kirigami are huge improvements for the desktop
| app ecosystem from what I've seen as a user. When I started to
| delve into desktop applications I quickly realized there's a
| couple hurdles I face:
|
| 1. QT was an ecosystem shock to me. I barely knew what to do to
| get started and got lost easily.
|
| 2. Do these applications work outside of Linux; more directly,
| do they have dynamic dependencies? From my experience, the
| former is difficult and the answer to the latter is yes.
|
| 3. The lack of library support for Go and Rust is notable.
| Sometimes I want to throw a UI on top of what used to be a
| terminal app written in Go (or Rust).
| Klonoar wrote:
| Rust and GTK3/4 are fairly well supported, no?
|
| I know QT is a bit more of a pain to do from Rust, but I
| wanna say that's possible too... though nowhere near as
| evident as gtk-rs.
| Tmpod wrote:
| For Qt (QML/QtQuick; Widgets are no linger the preferred
| method afaik) you have qmetaobjects-rs, which is reeally
| nice.
| mappu wrote:
| QML is practically electron - it's runtime interpreted
| declarative UI plus a Javascript engine.
|
| QML still has only rudimentary support for AOT
| compilation. Both the old qmlcompiler and the new qmlsc
| compiler are commercial-only: https://www.qt.io/blog/the-
| new-qtquick-compiler-technology . LGPL users only get the
| interpreter.
|
| Widgets is still the 'Real Qt'. Some very modern,
| responsive-layout desktop apps like Telegram are written
| entirely with Widgets.
| nirvdrum wrote:
| GTK and Rust works really well on Linux, which I suppose is
| the pertinent part given the focus of the article. I've yet
| to work out how to get GTK and Rust to work on macOS or
| Windows, which makes cross-platform UI difficult.
| gattr wrote:
| FWIW, my smallish project [1] (Rust + GTK3) builds and
| works on Windows out of the box. I use the MSYS2 build
| environment.
|
| [1] https://github.com/GreatAttractor/vidoxide
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I've been experimenting with gtk-rs, but the GTK ecosystem
| is really difficult to get right. The examples are few and
| far between, and the type exceptions the macro DSL throws
| are very difficult to parse.
|
| All the necessary components are there, but there just
| aren't enough guides out there to get started. I tried
| looking into how existing applications use the ecosystem,
| but experienced GUI developers pull tons of dependencies
| and use complicated code structures that are hardly
| documented.
|
| I think switching from Python/GTK to Rust/GTK is probably
| an easy move, but as someone coming from .NET Forms GUI
| design, it's been tough getting into GTK. GTK Builder is
| supposed to have native support for Glade and all the other
| nice tools, but for me that either doesn't compile any code
| or refuses to even work at all.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I have a pinephone.
|
| KDE _demos_ well, but it feels like bug whack-a-mole with each
| pmOS upgrade. The native browser seems to be missing kwallet
| integration, and Firefox alternates between working and not; in
| particular the on screen keyboard hardly ever works with it.
|
| sxmo actually works as advertised, but it's not exactly a
| mainstream UX. I couldn't figure out how to get it to sleep
| automatically, so the first time you forget to sleep it your
| battery dies.
| goldcountry wrote:
| That's cool and all, but who is actually out here using a linux
| phone?
| fartcannon wrote:
| Hey there!
| fsflover wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24959506
|
| And I'm using a Pinephone as a daily driver, too.
| dleslie wrote:
| I have a Pinephone. I tried, in earnest, to use it as a daily
| driver; but the software stack was hideously unperformant and
| the camera was just too awful.
|
| I have young kids; I need to take pictures quickly on occasion.
| I couldn't rely on the phone to do that, not by a long shot,
| and so it remains a pointless curiousity that I purchased.
| taeric wrote:
| I can't rely on any phone's camera for speed. Sucks to hear
| this one is even worse than normal.
| dleslie wrote:
| The camera is so bad that it's even a shame that they
| bothered adding it. The additional cost for the hardware
| clearly wasn't worth it.
| floren wrote:
| Seconded. It's been several years of development time and
| I still think I'd get better pictures with one of those
| cameras that saved pictures on floppy disks.
|
| I've bought two Pinephones and I hope things go well but
| man, I install Mobian and wonder what exactly their long
| term plan is... it runs like an absolute _dog_ , worse
| than a $30 Android prepaid phone. The only way to get
| reasonable performance has been to use sxmo, which is ok
| for me but not the experience normal people want.
| fsflover wrote:
| If you need a good camera, consider Librem 5 instead.
| bogwog wrote:
| To be fair, the Pinephone store very clearly states that this
| is a beta device intended for experience linux
| developers/early adopters only. It's not meant to be a daily
| driver yet.
| dleslie wrote:
| It's not Beta. At the time I purchased it, it wasn't even
| Alpha. Beta, as a game developer, implies to me that
| there's a few outstanding show-stoppers but on the whole
| the product is safe to show to eager end-consumers who are
| willing to tolerate some rough edges. The PinePhone isn't
| even that, yet; I couldn't conscientiously hand it to a
| non-techy and ask them for feedback because I'm not even
| sure it would reliably respond to their touch input, let
| alone do anything else.
| bogwog wrote:
| The Pinephone isn't a video game.
| dleslie wrote:
| Considering that video games are usually released
| unfinished; if you're saying it doesn't even meet the
| dismal quality standards of video game development, wrt
| Beta quality, then I agree with you.
| asddubs wrote:
| Seems like you're just arguing semantics. The pinephone
| is very clearly advertised as aimed at developers
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Do you think even a developer will want to use something
| that falls apart in their hands like wet sawdust as a
| daily driver? As a developer, hell no. I'll give Linux
| phones a couple more years before I try that.
| dleslie wrote:
| The question was if anyone was using a Linux phone.
|
| Did I use it to tinker with mobile Linux? Sure.
|
| Did I find success using it as a phone? No. It's nowhere
| near ready to be used as a phone outside of tinkering.
| asddubs wrote:
| Well, I don't disagree with that, my point was just that
| you're arguing semantics regarding the word beta, because
| their marketing is very clear about what it is (and I'd
| also argue that beta for hardware is a different standard
| than for games, but I guess now I'm arguing semantics)
| jcelerier wrote:
| If my Jolla phone hadn't kicked the bucket i'd definitely still
| use it
| m4rtink wrote:
| I have Xperia 10 II with officially supported Sailfish OS as
| my primary device, with family member using Xperia X in
| similar capacity. :)
| asddubs wrote:
| I'm not, but I would love to some day. I fucking hate my
| android phone (and the iphone is just as terrible, in slightly
| different and often the same ways). Thank god for the people
| tinkering on pinephones and purism phones, paving the way for
| something less awful, with control in the hands of the user
|
| We're not there yet, but we won't ever be unless people put
| effort into it. The linux desktop used to suck, too
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Until I can plug my phone into a keyboard/mouse/monitor and
| have a powerful workstation I don't care that much about
| linux desktop apps being on my phone. My phone is backup/on-
| the-road browser, messaging applicance, and a phone 95% of
| the time.
| nomel wrote:
| To me, phone os is an easy way to get to apps, switch between
| apps, and handle notifications. It appears to be something
| else for you. What is an ideal phone for you, and how would
| Linux help achieve that experience?
| kelnos wrote:
| Not the person you're replying to, but I have the same
| issue. The phone OS is indeed a way to get to apps for me.
| And the problem is that the "alternative" phone OSes don't
| have access to apps that I've woven into my day-to-day-
| life: banking apps, contactless payments, video streaming,
| music streaming, etc.
|
| None of these are available on platforms other than iOS or
| Android, unfortunately. Some of them have web experiences,
| but they're terrible on mobile when compared to their app.
|
| I, too, would love to run a mobile-optimized Linux desktop
| on my phone, but it's not about the _desktop_ , it's about
| the apps and functionality it gives me access to. So I'm
| stuck with Android for the time being.
|
| What would be really cool is if these alt mobile OSes could
| perfectly emulate Android to the point that Google's
| SafetyNet would believe that everything is a-ok. Not sure
| if that's even technically possible, but could help bridge
| the gap and allow alternative OSes to gain some market
| share among people who aren't willing to give up many of
| their usual mobile apps.
|
| > _What is an ideal phone for you, and how would Linux help
| achieve that experience?_
|
| The main bits for me are privacy and control. I refuse to
| use an iPhone because I viscerally hate Apple's
| stranglehold over the platform. I very reluctantly use
| Android, hating that Google is always watching. A fully-
| open mobile OS where _I_ get to choose what runs on it, how
| it runs, and what access it gets would solve both of those
| problems.
| asddubs wrote:
| I don't like the ridiculous number of settings you have to
| tweak to stop google from spying on you, 4 settings levels
| deep somewhere. I don't like that google made phone
| manufacturers take the "disable location" button out of the
| quick menu. I don't like the restrictive policies of the
| app store that is downright prudish, and how every app on
| the app store is just laden with crap and ads, and often
| also spies on you (i do use f-droid to circumvent most of
| that when possible). I don't like how you literally cannot
| control your phones update behaviour. I don't like how
| after a couple years, the phone will stop being updated and
| you'll have to buy a new one or just accept that your phone
| has security holes that will never be fixed. If you're
| using a modern phone os, you are fundamentally not in
| control of the device, and it will make sure at various
| points to remind you of this.
| grey_earthling wrote:
| That's pretty much my use-case too. I want my laptop, but
| smaller :)
|
| Primarily, I want software I can trust, because I trust
| that the developers' motives are aligned with my own: a
| useful tool that I'm in control of.
|
| In my experience, most Free software fits that bill;
| whereas most proprietary software seems more interested in
| persuading me to buy something or sign up for something
| that I don't want. (Most, not all; I can think of
| counterexamples.)
|
| Bluntly, Free software is usually much less full of skeevy
| bullshit.
| goodpoint wrote:
| A bunch of people are. If you compare the efforts of
| communities of volunteers against the investments in
| google/apple phones you can already call FOSS phones a big
| success.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| It's not chic though so can you call it a success just
| because it's possible and works but you have to put a little
| effort in?
| goodpoint wrote:
| The idiotic silent downvotes are unnecessary.
| kop316 wrote:
| I am. I have used a Pinephone with Mobian daily for a while, I
| am currently using a Librem 5 with PureOS.
|
| I only turned on my Android phone once since December, and that
| was to factory reset it since I wasn't using it.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-16 23:00 UTC)