[HN Gopher] Elementary OS 7
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Elementary OS 7
        
       Author : Quot
       Score  : 118 points
       Date   : 2023-01-31 18:04 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.elementary.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.elementary.io)
        
       | segaboy81 wrote:
       | I fully believe that Elementary survives only because 99% of
       | those purported 400,000 downloads are really just YouTubers
       | racing each other to apply some anime wallpaper and show it off
       | on YouTube.
       | 
       | I firmly believe that Elementary OS has no utility over
       | Arch/Fedora/Ubuntu and that any income they receive from donors
       | is money ill-spent.
        
         | cp9 wrote:
         | Okay!
        
         | nightowl_games wrote:
         | Aesthetics by default matter a ton. I'm on Linux Mint basically
         | completely because I like the Cinnamon DE. Elementary looks
         | great.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | pacifika wrote:
         | If you find gnome too ugly and kde not opinionated enough then
         | this is worth a try.
        
         | phaedryx wrote:
         | My kids like it better than any other distro. I've donated a
         | bit of money from time to time because that's what my kids use.
        
         | giancarlostoro wrote:
         | I like some of the built-in apps they have. They're nicely done
         | and they're fast, I just wish regular Ubuntu would of adopted
         | them into their ecosystem officially. I have no sane way to
         | pull them into POP OS which I prefer for the OOTB experience I
         | have.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | Kukumber wrote:
       | Most beautiful and polished distro, the UI/UX is consistent
       | across the entire ecosystem, that's great to see
       | 
       | I still find it sad that they mimic the stupid gnome design
       | philosophy WRT the top bar, the lack of proper global menu is a
       | shame
       | 
       | The way they do window maximize/minimize is also weird
       | 
       | 2 points i find deal breaker unfortunately, but that's their
       | vision and that's respectable
        
       | dualboot wrote:
       | Information that wasn't quickly groked from their website but
       | some digging(thanks Wikipedia) revealed.
       | 
       | It's based on Ubuntu LTS, so a Debian-descendant.
       | 
       | I appreciate they're trying to provide a specific type of
       | experience, and it's not really a criticism but as a 30+ year
       | Linux user -- with any new distro that's my first question.
        
       | smoldesu wrote:
       | Where is Wayland support standing for Elementary? I'm glad the
       | project is still around, but the dream of a Mac-like HID
       | experience won't be complete without gesture support and smooth
       | windowing. Now that KDE and GNOME are both using Wayland sessions
       | and implement 1:1 touchpad gestures, it's hard to recommend the
       | Pantheon desktop (even if a lot of the apps are excellent!)
        
         | pacifika wrote:
         | Wayland is not in this release.
        
         | jchw wrote:
         | I hate to add even more of a wishlist, but in addition to
         | moving towards a Wayland environment, it would be nice to see
         | an immutable root as well. SteamOS on deck has sold me on this
         | concept; as long as there's plenty of escape hatches and the
         | ability to disable it, I view it as a plus, and no doubt it
         | makes updates excellent. These two features would make
         | Elementary OS the very obvious recommendation for anyone
         | curious about Linux but wanting an environment that actually
         | works and looks nice. Today on Linux, it feels like you are
         | more often than not stuck between choosing one or the other...
         | 
         | Regarding Wayland, it looks like it has been hacked on here and
         | there but doesn't seem to be a priority yet:
         | 
         | https://github.com/elementary/gala/wiki/Experimenting-with-W...
         | 
         | Hopefully by the time it is, NVIDIA's driver will have better
         | stability with Wayland compositors.
        
           | smoldesu wrote:
           | As a NixOS user I'll generally agree, as long as there are
           | still options for people who want to use Pantheon on a more
           | traditional OS. Immutable roots are cool, but feel like a
           | novelty when so much software breaks under it. Great to have
           | as an option for sure though.
           | 
           | > Hopefully by the time it is, NVIDIA's driver will have
           | better stability with Wayland compositors.
           | 
           | I think Nvidia's support is pretty much complete. Plasma
           | fixed almost all of it's Wayland/Nvidia bugs (as far as I can
           | see on my desktop) and Mutter has an Nvidia rewrite on the
           | roadmap IIRC. Still not perfect, but the new drivers have
           | stopped 95% of the major glitching caused with the old ones.
        
             | kitsunesoba wrote:
             | Hoping that mutter rewrite comes sooner than later.
             | Currently running GNOME on a Fedora/Nvidia box and it's
             | frustrating to lose features like Night Light when running
             | Wayland with proprietary drivers, as is the glitchiness of
             | Electron apps under GNOME+Wayland+Nvidia (for instance, VS
             | Code is a flickery mess with that setup).
        
               | smoldesu wrote:
               | Here's hoping. Things are much smoother on KDE for me,
               | the developers really hauled ass to get the Plasma
               | session working nicely. As of 5.26, I think the only
               | remaining major issue is that it doesn't keep track of
               | monitor configuration, which is due to be solved in 3
               | weeks with the release of 5.27.
               | 
               | I got Electron apps working nicely by forcing GPU
               | acceleration, but even still I prefer to use the web
               | versions of Discord and Spotify. Firefox has really nice
               | Wayland support, replacing most of my Electron apps
               | besides VS Code and Obsidian.
        
             | jchw wrote:
             | We still have to contend with the implicit sync issues when
             | dealing with NVIDIA drivers; there has been work to
             | untangle the mess there, but it's not done yet to my
             | knowledge.
             | 
             | Context: https://www.collabora.com/news-and-
             | blog/blog/2022/06/09/brid...
             | 
             | Edit: also a NixOS user, BUT: I am suggesting something
             | more like SteamOS with ABRoot. It's not exactly a solved
             | problem, but I think that future solutions should be
             | focused on not needing to modify the root to deal with
             | things like drivers and system configuration.
        
         | leonidasv wrote:
         | According to their Github, it hasn't progressed much since
         | 2020-2021[1]. Apparently, there is still a Gala issue and bugs
         | related to Plank Dock/Wingpanel holding it back[2]. There's
         | also a proposal for a Wayland Dock for Elementary OS 7[3] that
         | doesn't seem to have advanced much.
         | 
         | It seems like it was scheduled to be released by version 7, but
         | priorities have changed. Let's hope they can polish it for 8.
         | 
         | [1] https://github.com/orgs/elementary/projects/12
         | 
         | [2] https://github.com/elementary/gala/wiki/Experimenting-
         | with-W...
         | 
         | [3] https://github.com/orgs/elementary/projects/99
        
       | marginalia_nu wrote:
       | It's come to the point where the single deciding factor when I
       | decide on which Linux distribution I select is whether it has
       | decent support for fractional scaling. AFAIK, Pop! is the only
       | one that almost gets it right.
       | 
       | Sad state for Linux on the desktop.
        
       | pacifika wrote:
       | Elementary reimagines the desktop experience which can take a few
       | days getting used to, however once you do it does a lot of things
       | consistently and intuitively. So much more responsive than macOS
       | and with nice apps, on top of Ubuntu LTS HWE kernel.
        
         | sprkwd wrote:
         | Is it still impossible to save files onto the desktop?
        
           | pacifika wrote:
           | You can save files in the desktop folder but you can't see
           | files on the desktop area.
        
             | bitigchi wrote:
             | You can't make this up.
        
             | matejn wrote:
             | I do the same on Windows. There's an option to hide icons
             | on the desktop.
        
       | kitsunesoba wrote:
       | I don't agree with all of the design choices in Elementary OS,
       | but I appreciate the sense of craft it has that largely vanished
       | from mainstream software from 2012-2014 onward in favor of a
       | dollar store version of IKEA minimalism. I hope it can continue
       | to carry that torch until the industry finds its way back.
        
         | gradExMachina wrote:
         | Perhaps you are thinking of Skewomorphism as opposed to Flat
         | design?
        
           | kitsunesoba wrote:
           | That is maybe a facet of the change, but there's more to it.
           | 
           | It's also a certain attention to detail with regard to things
           | like use of whitespace, the layout and flow of widgets, the
           | types of widgets used, and user experience in general. These
           | things have become increasingly phoned-in, with little
           | thought applied; just dump it all into a grid and apply
           | copious padding and you're done. Things that don't fit get
           | removed or buried in dialog tunnels and there is no effort to
           | make anything clear to the user.
           | 
           | There have been flat designs in the past that don't suffer
           | these issues, like the earlier designs of Mac OS (System
           | 1.0-7.5), which worked fine on 1-bit and grayscale displays
           | but had a _lot_ of thought and research put into their user
           | experience.
           | 
           | This all got thrown out in the transition to flat design. Not
           | only was skeumorphism discarded, but so was care for UI/UX in
           | general. The baby was thrown out with the bathwater.
        
         | gjsman-1000 wrote:
         | Elementary OS is the pinnacle of a nice-looking OS with
         | questionable technical decisions under-the-hood. The biggest
         | one? No upgrades. You literally can't go from 5 to 6, or 6 to
         | 7, without a full reinstall. There's not a terminal command for
         | the adventurous either.
         | 
         | That, to me, is extremely nasty. You have to take everything
         | out of your computer, and put it back, every year to get the
         | latest features and make sure you are secure? That's so bad, it
         | feels like false marketing to call it "Elementary OS." You
         | might as well download a random customized Windows ISO from the
         | internet and disable Windows Update forever. At least Microsoft
         | Edge would still get updates for years but Elementary OS's
         | browser won't for very long. Unless, of course, you enjoy
         | taking personal responsibility for updating every PC of those
         | non-technical folks you recommend it to or install it for. I'd
         | happily install it for quite a few relatives who would
         | otherwise use Chromebooks, but that's a big showstopper.
         | 
         | I can read about how they've improved the Music app or made the
         | App Center better for developers all day, but they have this
         | massive hole in the ship that makes it fundamentally unsuitable
         | for the intended purpose and they still haven't fixed it after
         | 7 versions. Elementary users don't find pleasure in
         | reinstalling their OS on weekends.
        
           | garbagecoder wrote:
           | I once tried to make its DE work on another distro and it
           | wasn't great, but it wasn't a full effort. Wish that could be
           | easier, because as you say, the no upgrades thing bugs.
        
           | hugs wrote:
           | Yes, they lost me on the lack of upgrades. When a new version
           | came out, I saw there were a few random blogs posts on how to
           | do a very much unsupported upgrade through the command line.
           | But I avoided the risk. Since I'd have to do a reinstall
           | anyway, I downloaded stock Ubuntu and never looked back. And
           | I was a happy Elementary OS user. Alas, I can understand
           | where they were coming from, though, on that decision. They
           | are/were a small, scrappy team and the QA effort for testing
           | upgrade processes is non-trivial. They had to pick their
           | battles on what to support. I didn't agree with their choice,
           | but I can empathize with them on why they did it.
        
             | gjsman-1000 wrote:
             | I 100% agree, they can prioritize however they want, but
             | _please_ for the love of well-meaning techies, drop the
             | "replacement for Windows and macOS" talk, and make a pop-up
             | warning that reinstallation is going to be necessary in the
             | future before you download, so that you don't spread it
             | everywhere only to discover you've just sunk everyone.
             | 
             | It's really not that hard, just a "Note: Elementary OS does
             | not support in-place upgrades. You will need to reinstall
             | Elementary OS every time a new major version comes out
             | every 2 years. If you want to support our in-place upgrade
             | development, please donate. < Donate > < I Understand >".
        
               | hugs wrote:
               | Yeah, the lack of a sane upgrade path really is a massive
               | issue that should be labeled more clearly. (And a
               | headline level bullet point in any written review of it.)
               | The lack of a sane upgrade path completely undercuts
               | their marketing message.
        
           | theGnuMe wrote:
           | I'm not sure that's bad per se.. people should keep their OS
           | separate from the data. Applications should be self-contained
           | but the bigger issue would be app upgrades to run on the new
           | OS.
        
           | scns wrote:
           | Form over function?
        
           | latexr wrote:
           | That does sound inconvenient, but is it so bad as to warrant
           | three similar comments in the same short thread in the space
           | of twenty minutes?
        
             | gjsman-1000 wrote:
             | It's not just inconvenient, I've been personally burned by
             | this issue and am livid that Elementary OS markets itself
             | in this way without a warning. Imagine installing
             | Elementary OS on a bunch of PCs for charity only to
             | discover that those users are going to be completely
             | insecure in 2 years because you weren't informed. You might
             | never meet those people again, and who knows what will
             | happen to them. It's reasonable to assume a user knows how
             | to update their computer once in a while; it is not
             | reasonable to assume an "elementary" user knows how to
             | reinstall their OS.
             | 
             | @pacifika: The Ubuntu LTS core will not help the built-in
             | apps that won't receive updates (i.e. Mail, Web, Music, the
             | Parthenon desktop environment), and the LTS core for
             | version 6 (which was current until yesterday) is 20.04 LTS,
             | so it will be obsolete in about 2 years. If you installed
             | Elementary OS for a friend a week ago, that's not what you
             | expected. So, you got 3 1/2 years on the long end of
             | support and 2 years on the short end between releases.
        
               | pacifika wrote:
               | They're not insecure they benefit from all the Ubuntu Lts
               | security updates
        
               | hugs wrote:
               | I'd bet that money and humanpower would have fixed the
               | problem, but they didn't have enough of either. The
               | problem was that Elementary OS was a very ambitious
               | project, but they didn't have the same people and money
               | resources that an Ubuntu or Red Hat has. Has that's
               | changed? (I don't know.) And maybe this is a
               | communication issue on their part. They innovated with
               | adding a payment button on their downloads page years
               | ago, which ruffled a lot of feathers. Maybe they should
               | have gone bolder and added larger payment tiers. "Want
               | free upgrades? Click here to pay $600,000 to fund a team
               | of 3 for two years!"
        
             | mynameisvlad wrote:
             | This is an odd critique. If it's an issue that someone
             | cares about, they should be allowed to comment about it as
             | long as it's within the guidelines.
             | 
             | There doesn't seem to be a guideline that defines the
             | number of times someone can comment about a specific topic
             | relative to the total number of comments within a specific
             | amount of time.
             | 
             | Two of the three comments are also replies to someone who
             | replied to the first, so it's not like the person is
             | spamming the same message over and over again. People are
             | allowed to have discussions.
        
               | latexr wrote:
               | > they should be allowed to comment (...) People are
               | allowed to have discussions.
               | 
               | My comment doesn't contradict that. On the contrary, I do
               | think their particular experience adds value to the
               | thread.
               | 
               | > it's not like the person is spamming the same message
               | over and over again.
               | 
               | After reading the three comments multiple times, I
               | disagree. The comments were (they've since been deleted)
               | superficially different but none added to the
               | conversation over the others. I would even say the
               | repetition detracted from the point, since it made it
               | seem like a personal gripe instead of a legitimate
               | technical complaint.
        
               | mynameisvlad wrote:
               | You're criticizing the fact that the person commented
               | three times. While you're not directly telling them
               | "don't do that", you're still admonishing someone for
               | doing something well within the guidelines and even
               | intentions of this site, to talk about things that are
               | interesting to the user.
        
               | latexr wrote:
               | I have _asked_ them to consider if the way they were
               | going about the matter was appropriate. I have even
               | explained to you what prompted it: I found their point
               | valid and worthwhile, but in my view the repetition
               | weakened their stance. Considering they deleted the extra
               | comments a while back, perhaps they agree.
               | 
               | Respectfully, you seem unreasonably angry about this
               | matter and I do not wish to continue a conversation where
               | the other party keeps assuming the worst of my replies.
               | There is no malice or ill intent in my post. If you see
               | any, that is on you.
        
               | mynameisvlad wrote:
               | If you didn't want people to assume the worst, then maybe
               | you should reconsider that how your write and what you
               | say could be interpreted in many ways, and not sound so
               | negative and admonishing when you criticize others?
               | 
               | Notice that I didn't tell you what to do, I simply
               | _asked_ you to consider if the way you were going about
               | the matter was appropriate.
        
         | musha68k wrote:
         | I'm definitely going to steal that phrase - that cheap perfumed
         | / polymer smell - it's indeed about time we get rid of it!
        
       | brightball wrote:
       | This looks like a very polished Gnome based experience. I might
       | give it a try at some point.
        
         | goosedragons wrote:
         | It's not Gnome, it's Pantheon, their custom desktop
         | environment. Still based on GTK though.
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | Also, it ships with bunch of Gnome applications, Archive
           | Manager, Document Viewer, GNOME Web are the ones mentioned in
           | this release, but there is more as well.
        
           | brightball wrote:
           | > we're shipping the very latest GNOME Web 43
           | 
           | My mistake. When I read this line it had me thinking Gnome.
        
       | jug wrote:
       | It seems to me it never took off which I partly blame on the
       | direction. It's beautiful but a bit too simple and I had a locked
       | in feeling I haven't felt before while using Linux (to the
       | contrary in fact). As long as I remained within the ecosystem it
       | was fine, but otherwise it was like jumping off a cliff. That
       | strains the ecosystem and emphasizes available software a lot.
       | How fun the OS is to use becomes a factor of everything besides
       | the OS.
       | 
       | I couldn't really use it like that and I didn't need to anymore
       | either as GNOME had caught up and I'm now a happy Fedora + GNOME
       | user. It also shares a "simple" and macOS like design
       | language/goals, but with many advantages from technical,
       | development backing, and community size standpoints.
        
       | snowpid wrote:
       | I was once a elementary os user but once I realised the
       | elementary model is stuck and there is no big changes since
       | version 5.
       | 
       | If you look to active DE you see some commercial contributers
       | e.g. GNOME from Red Hat and Cosmic from System76 (which started a
       | way later) But as the founder see itself as a communist, I dont
       | think, something will change (not to mention the moral ignorance
       | of communist anyway). I liked the whole experience approach,
       | "apple like", but now I use Gnome.
        
       | nkotov wrote:
       | Elementary is pretty cool but why does it look so dated.
        
         | carlosjobim wrote:
         | To me it looks productive and stable.
        
           | dlivingston wrote:
           | It reminds me very much of Aqua [0].
           | 
           | To be clear, I _like_ that design style, but it is clearly
           | true that it went  "out of fashion" 10+ years ago.
           | 
           | [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_(user_interface)
        
             | smoldesu wrote:
             | IMO, GNOME 3's version of Adwaita was evocative of the old
             | "Platinum" UI for Mac. Very clean and professional, and
             | aged much better than Aqua for my money.
        
               | kitsunesoba wrote:
               | GNOME 3 Adwaita had some commonalities with Platinum, but
               | in comparison it's a bit too bright in light mode and has
               | much worse information density with how hard it leans
               | into margins and padding.
               | 
               | In those ways I think Elementary's theme is a bit more
               | similar to Platinum. It's not nearly as afraid of mid-
               | grays and while it still has a lot of padding, it's less
               | excessive than Adwaita's.
        
       | schmorptron wrote:
       | I liked elementary, but progress has slowed to a crawl since the
       | two co-founders had a falling out [1]. Of course as outsiders we
       | probably don't know everything but the other founder's (the one
       | who left) offer to keep working on the project for free without
       | payment sounded pretty good, and it's disappointing that Danielle
       | Fore seemingly didn't accept it (Although I might be missing some
       | things here, this is just what it sounded like to me). A shame,
       | they really had something good going with the overall design and
       | attention to detail! That being said, the changes in this release
       | look cool and promising, hoping they can get back on track!
       | 
       | [1]https://news.itsfoss.com/elementary-co-founder-joins-
       | endless...
        
       | sccxy wrote:
       | Well written blog post and most important that there are a lot of
       | screenshots.
       | 
       | So many good OSS projects fail this simple task. Show some
       | images!
        
       | nsxwolf wrote:
       | At this point in my life I'm just not willing to look at a
       | desktop environment besides macOS and Windows unless it is
       | _completely different_. Is there anything out there that is
       | trying radical new concepts and not just trying to emulate macOS
       | /Windows/Gnome/KDE et al?
        
         | bitigchi wrote:
         | You are talking about "Tracker", the main GUI of Haiku. Read
         | the user manual for all the niceties it has.
        
         | cody_coconuts wrote:
         | I haven't really ever needed much more than a customizable
         | tiling window manager like i3. What kind of features are you
         | looking for?
        
           | nsxwolf wrote:
           | I'm not necessarily looking for anything in particular, just
           | new concepts and ideas. I know I can't go back to the 1960s
           | and experience a completely different evolutionary path...
           | There's certain things that have to exist now no matter what
           | (like... windows)... but I'm very interested in novelty.
        
         | sz4kerto wrote:
         | Depends on what you mean by completely different. For many,
         | libre/FOSS is a fundamentally different paradigm as you can
         | tweak it ad infinitum and also rely on it being stable (as in:
         | not changing) for a long time. This is a niche, but it's
         | important for some people.
         | 
         | If you mean the UI, then tiling window managers like Sway are
         | quite different.
         | 
         | But I don't think UIs will ever be factor that draws people to
         | Linux et al., it'll mostly be the feeling of freedom.
        
         | bravetraveler wrote:
         | Do you have much experience with tiling window managers?
         | 
         | While not flashy, I really appreciate the keyboard-
         | driven/instant approach they offer. The killer thing for me: I
         | never guess where something will open
         | 
         | edit: hah, look at all these window manager posts - hi friends
        
         | ploum wrote:
         | Regolith (which is Ubuntu + i3 + very sane default settings)
         | 
         | https://regolith-desktop.com/
         | 
         | (can't live with a MacOS anymore)
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | Gnome is very different than KDE, MacOS, or Windows.
        
           | RussianCow wrote:
           | In what way? I haven't used Gnome in a few years, but it
           | seemed very similar to macOS and Windows last time I tried
           | it.
        
             | kitsunesoba wrote:
             | Rather than macOS, as a long time Mac user I actually find
             | GNOME most similar to iPadOS. It's almost exactly what one
             | would get if they were asked to turn iPadOS into a desktop
             | OS.
        
               | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
               | Which part is similar?
        
               | smoldesu wrote:
               | Speaking for myself here:
               | 
               | - No AppIndicators in default spec
               | 
               | - All UI is scaled to work for touch interfaces
               | 
               | - Default windowing support amounts to split-screen
               | 
               | - App "icon" style launcher, even using the same sliding-
               | widget model people loathe on iPad
               | 
               | - Quick-settings menu pane in the top corner, almost
               | identical to the iOS/iPad one in GNOME 40
               | 
               | I could go on, but I think it's safe to say that GNOME
               | (especially GNOME 40) is derivative of iPad UI design.
               | Other visual cues (dock, lockscreen, stylesheet,
               | calendar, etc.) are pretty plainly inspired by the Mac
               | UI.
        
               | kitsunesoba wrote:
               | Note that I'm talking about the stock experience (no
               | extensions or even gnome-tweak-tool).
               | 
               | - Top bar which acts as a status bar rather than a global
               | menubar
               | 
               | - Somewhat modal UX that works best with keeping 1-3
               | windows on screen at all times
               | 
               | - No way to minimize windows
               | 
               | - Inclination towards gestures over keystrokes
               | 
               | - Simplified mobile-esque app UIs that eschew menubars
               | entirely in favor of hamburger menus
               | 
               | - Greatly reduced levels of configurability relative to
               | other DEs
               | 
               | - Heavily padded widgets that seem better suited to touch
               | than KB+M
               | 
               | - Use of touch-inspired designs like switches over
               | checkboxes
               | 
               | - No traditional desktop
               | 
               | ...among others.
               | 
               | Don't get me wrong, it's very polished which is what
               | leads me to use it, but it's not really a traditional
               | desktop environment.
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | I mean, not really, not if you compare it to something like
           | i3, sway or awesomewm. I think when someone is asking for
           | something radically different, then Gnome is not that
           | different from the rest of the ones you listed.
        
         | pqb wrote:
         | I noticed in one of your comments in this thread that you are
         | looking for new ideas for UI. As other commenters have said,
         | you might be interested in tiling window managers like i3 [0]
         | or sway [1]. They really are a gem for productivity and
         | sometimes for the eye [2].
         | 
         | However, I love the concept of a scrollable window manager like
         | PaperWM [3]. When I had a smaller screen (24" 16:9) I
         | complained a lot about the unused space on my screen. With
         | PaperWM I was finally happy with its dimensions, because I
         | could have a huge IDE on the left and a small part of terminal
         | on the right. This way I could see if something was being
         | printed to the terminal, while my editor took up 80% of the
         | screen.
         | 
         | [0]: https://i3wm.org/
         | 
         | [1]: https://swaywm.org/
         | 
         | [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/
         | 
         | [3]: https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | vorpalhex wrote:
       | I gave Elementary a try, unfortunately it's just too simplified.
       | You can eventually get gnome-tweaks up and fix things like font-
       | scaling on high dpi displays, but Pantheon is too basic.
        
       | Longhanks wrote:
       | > Sideloading apps and using alt stores like Flathub is a major
       | feature of elementary OS and a competitive edge over closed
       | platforms that only let you install apps from a locked down
       | store.
       | 
       | Unless elementary suddenly competes with iOS, I don't know which
       | platform they're actually referring to, all while actually
       | regressing the experience with Vista-style "are you sure"
       | dialogs.
       | 
       | Their dark pattern compelling you to "buy" instead of simply
       | download elementary (for which I doubt many $$$ go to for example
       | the Linux kernel) is still present, too.
        
         | carlosjobim wrote:
         | >Their dark pattern compelling you to "buy" instead of simply
         | download elementary (for which I doubt many $$$ go to for
         | example the Linux kernel) is still present, too.
         | 
         | Give them a break! They put their hard work into something that
         | could be useful for a lot of people and on top of that let the
         | user name their price. There's nothing "dark" about that.
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | It's also weird how they call it "Sideloading" rather than
         | just... installing apps. This is how modern operating systems
         | _should_ work, it 's baffling that they bend the rules to make
         | room for the exception.
         | 
         | That being said, I do think it's fine for them to charge for
         | their software experience here. What they're really asking you
         | to pay for is the development of the Pantheon UI, and the
         | desktop/OS portion of it. There's not really any reason to pay
         | that back to the Linux kernel besides good will.
        
         | t0astbread wrote:
         | The sideloading dialogs are a bit extreme, I agree. But in
         | general I don't see what's wrong with guiding users towards the
         | "happy path" for package management. It's an opinionated system
         | so it might not be everyone's thing but if it makes sense,
         | sure, why not.
         | 
         | Regarding pricing, even if we say they're basically charging
         | money for it, why is that bad? You get the thing under a free
         | license which is still better than commercial proprietary
         | software that doesn't share any of its revenue. And because
         | they allow you to choose how much you pay you can always pay
         | them less and donate to the Linux Foundation yourself (or any
         | of the other underlying software projects that are taking
         | donations). Granted, folks who are new to the Linux universe
         | won't know about this stuff, so a default split would help.
        
         | bravetraveler wrote:
         | I think they're taking a dig at Canonical with the Snap-fu. I'm
         | not very well informed, but I've seen/heard some drama about it
         | 
         | Slimy way to say 'we have Flatpak' _[like every other
         | distribution]_... including the one they hope to take a shot at
         | 
         | This project tears me. I want to say good work, but we don't
         | need more fragmentation. Pantheon doesn't really _need_ such a
         | 'fork'
         | 
         | That, with the longstanding dark pattern for donations... and I
         | can't help but feel worse for having been reminded
        
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