On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

Around the web a search for Vista alone will yield many an article about the terrible experiences people have had, how much better Windows XP is, and how it’s just junk.

It isn’t.

I’m saying this as ever, as a new user to the system, and as a Mac OS X and Linux user too. I’ll wager many of those proponents of the ‘Vista sucks’ message are either those who need/want to drive up visitor numbers/advertising revenue and those willing to read that message to confirm a half baked belief that will vindicate them as right. But this isn’t about what is right or wrong, just the facts. Just the facts Jack.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oddly enough the two things I wish to write about are interlinked by one word. Zen. I’m sure most people will have come across it or heard of it, some may even think of Zen Buddhism but that isn’t the scope of this post. Instead I start with a ‘definition’ from Wikipedia which is quite nicely put:

Zen. ‘emphasis on mindful acceptance of the present moment, spontaneous action, and letting go of self-conscious, judgmental thinking‘

The two things are something I watched today and Zenwalk – a Linux distribution. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok here’s a screenshot everybody of my Ubuntu 7.10 desktop set to only use sub pixel smooth with no hinting in Firefox with the New York Times’ website open:

(Click on the thumbnail to enlarge)

Yes, Linux font rendering does look good, n’est pas?

It’s often cited that Linux just looks bad put simply. A lack of ‘professional artists’ some might say even, but that’s a ludicrous statement. What Linux does well is promote absolute configurability with the user interface and the whole system. Counter this with Mac OS X’s default “Blue” and “Grey” theme, and Windows XP’s Blue, Silver and Green (Vista has a couple more options but they all look like ‘Aero’) and you can see that by default the interface on Windows looks much the same from system to system. In fact the basic window widgets of Windows haven’t changed since Windows 95 (Close is still an ‘X’ etc.)

In fact Mac OS X has elements from 1984 in it–the Apple menu for one and the window resize remains in the bottom right hand corner; as does the system menu bar at the top of the screen.

Linux however can with KDE and Gnome (and others) be configured so differently that what one person sees as Ubuntu can end up looking not too dissimilar to OpenSUSE, or Fedora, or not even Linux at all (which apart from the Jaguar-esque tabs is very close.)

The point is Linux can look pretty darn beautiful but the problem is that out of the box it’s very easy for someone with no sense of aesthetics to come in and change it all and whilst they think it looks good (they’ll change it again in a few days when they get bored) it often looks like a dog’s dinner. Mac OS X and Windows are good at being firm on the user’s shoulder saying, “We’ve given you a couple of colour variations but you can’t easily change this to something totally different.” Microsoft reputedly disabled skinning in Windows XP for this very reason as users may have ended up creating a Windows system that was inconsistent(…) and also couldn’t guarantee their apps on a third party skin that might be incomplete.

Linux has its inconsistent interfaces but on the whole most of them are up to scratch now. Again it’s a bit of a pain that there is more than one gadget (there’s an Amiga term if there was one) toolkit like GTK, QT etc. but overall the system looks more consistent than it ever has done. Windows has its fair share of inconsistencies too, the much vaunted ‘Add Fonts’ dialog in the Fonts directory that has survived since Windows 3.0 (1990), Windows 2000-eque 16 colour icons here and there and Win16 (WoW)/DOS windows uisng an old skin… Mac OS X with its Aqua, Staintless Steel and Plastic interface types (being refined in Leopard.)

Linux (or rather Gnome and KDE mainly, as Linux isn’t the desktop itself but for simplicity’s sake) isn’t therefore the only inconsistent user interface experience. The reason it can look so rubbish is the same reason most people’s Word documents look awful because they have found they have 50 fonts and 16.7 million colours to choose from and they want to use them all at once.

Some distributions look ‘just OK’ out of the box, Ubuntu and Fedora are in that for me. Some look drop dead neat like OpenSUSE 10.3 and Mandriva which just look great, particularly OpenSUSE’s green which is just fab. Some look corporate and steady like Slackware and so forth.

The point is Linux doesn’t look amateur because it’s Linux, but because the configurability of Linux allows for people without the sense of human interface design considerations and basic aesthetics to slap down a nasty theme with ease; where as Windows and Mac OS X need skinning engines, or system file adjustments.

Here’s my Ubuntu desktop (Gnome) with a nice background and a simple Window Border (Splint), Clearlooks Classic Controls and a green lead background – blues and greens are complimentary hues. No Compiz in action but I don’t need it and it’ll only slow down my Radeon 7500 (but it does work.)

My Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop with Tracker Instant Search

So food for thought, should some distributions limit the skinning capability to improve consistency, usability and the general professional image of the distribution for it to be perhaps accepted for a widespread corporate roll out?

I’m all for configurability; but you won’t catch me using a black user interface because it’s too much with my Thinkpad being black but I also find it straining on my eyes.