First impression of Vista

Tue Feb 6 17:49:32 UTC 2007

On Tue, 2007-02-06 at 12:12 -0500, Aaron Vegh wrote:
> Hi all,
> I thought I would provide my own impressions on Vista, in line with the parent.
> 
> I'm running it in a virtual machine on my MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo
> 2.3GHz). Performance is pretty good, but I wanted to address the whole
> "look and feel" thing that's been commented upon. As a Mac OS X user,
> you'll already know that I appreciate beauty and ease of use in an
> operating system. So you'll know where I'm coming from when I say that
> the whole Beryl/Compiz/XGL nexus holds little for me. It's eye candy

I don't know if it is a part of a plug in to beryl, but they have that 
Mac like bottom panel , animate/zoom thing.

I have a Mac igloo running 10.4, and I got it 1.5 years ago,
this was before compiz and fluendo,etc. So when it came to itunes
(and online music purchases, I did really think it was preferable to
linux)
But there are two things that I think are brain dead on a Mac,
1) why is every apps tool bar on the very top of the screen,
I have been an apple user since about 1981, and certainly when i got my
first 128MB Mac, with only running a few apps, and a small screen,
having a common top pull down menu panel was OK.
Fast forward to this century, and people have 20-30 apps/windows open,
and i don't want to be going to the top of the screen for my menus all
the time.
2) on the alt tab'ing on a Mac, when you land on a "shrunk"
 app, like in linux dt's it should revert out of "shrunk" state.
I mean what was apple thinking, you are going to alt tab to a app,
release on it, and _not_ want to use it?

Now with compiz/beryl, the transparent windows can be helpful,
i.e. make a top window slightly transparent to see a IM messages
underneath.
The 3D cube rocks , now you could think of it as just a animated
V-desktop switcher, but some time it is cool to see something on one
face of the cube and referencing something else on another adjoining
face.

The rainy desktop, yeah i can't see to much of a real use for that,
perhaps start rain when you get a ICQ/email might be nice, one could
argue it doesnt then take a permanent flagging spot up on your desktop.

Wobbly windows, the only benefit i know of that is that they want to (if
not already) tie the responsiveness of the app to its ability to wobble,
thus allowing for a clue into perhaps how that one app has been loaded,
or run away.

I think Beryl/compiz/xgl are a great initial step to bringing about a
whole new platform to make some advancements in DT usability.

My igloo is on the selling block now,
my wife who up until recently used windows, when she uses the mac, she
thinks its UI is f'd up - but thats due to years of win32 mind rot.
Me as a power user, the mac UI is now just to much of a hand cuff,
and its just getting way to far behind linux in technology.
So for the first time in 27 years, i am about to become apple-less, and
for the first time in about 22 years Mac-less. 
Actually i had a apple][, Apple ///, various lisa'a, mac 128, mac 512,
fat mac, mac se, ...  igloo. And i can't say I am going to miss it.
But , if i ever get the need again, I think you can install the
Intel-Mac OS now in a VM on linux, or so i heard, and i am sure this
will become even more doable in the future. But unless Jobs gets his
thumb outta his ass, I just see the Mac slipping farther and farther
behind with respect to usability as compared to a good linux desktop.

-tl

> without the matching ease of use. It doesn't functionally change the
> way you use a KDE/Gnome desktop.
> 
> Ditto for Vista. There's a fresh coat of paint on it, but it works
> fundamentally the same as Windows XP. Once you use it you'll find
> there's little to no learning curve. They talk about revolution, but
> the new OS is merely evolutionary. Don't misread me: there's nothing
> terribly wrong with that. But I get my hackles up when people talk
> about slick-looking interfaces and ignore the usability. In this
> regard, I've actually found Vista to be a step down in some instances.
> 
> I believe this is a great opportunity for open source operating
> systems to step up; but they should play the hand of "better, more
> reliable computing experience", rather than eye candy.
> 
> Cheers,
> Aaron.
> 
> On 2/6/07, William O'Higgins Witteman <william.ohiggins-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 09:22:34AM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > >On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 11:38:37PM -0500, William O'Higgins Witteman wrote:
> > >> This is a bug, but not a driver bug - a design team bug.  The default
> > >> insert cursor is set to a single pixel wide, and with screen hinting that
> > >> means that it disappears for some displays.  This is a "top 10" migration
> > >> question for most users, and you can set the insert cursor arbitrarily
> > >> wide, if you know where to look.
> > >
> > >Could it be someone has an LCD screen set to the wrong resolution and
> > >the scaling is making such small things disappear?
> >
> > Yes, I believe that is it exactly.  I'm perfectly happy to have Vista
> > drive people to (drink) Linux, but I think this one is just an example
> > of why UI decisions are hard - I see similar wrong-headedness in the
> > major desktops for Linux too.
> > --
> >
> > yours,
> >
> > William
> > --
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