I wanted to take a moment and talk about Linux UX because, let’s face it… it sucks.
Actually, it’s worse than that. Much of Linux’s UX is technically correct and that makes it objectively wrong.
No. I don’t want Linux to be more Windows-like. But I do want the most common Linux desktops to behave in a way that PC-literate folks can wrap their mind around — and do so from minute zero.
Do you think a user that never used macOS or windows would manage to use them from minute zero? I can answer that for you. No. Users have habits that comes from their day to day tasks. And that applies especially to such things that we use for hours every day. So a livelong user of macOS would struggle with windows in the same way livelong windows user would struggle with Linux. And btw young generations hooked on phones are not capable to use computer with any OS from minute zero. Seriously, its like watching granpas and grandmas.
I picked up both GNOME and KDE as a long time Windows user like that. On both mouse and trackpad.
I can’t even figure out how to drag and drop on my friend’s Macbook. Or a lot of other basic things.
If anything Macs are the odd one out with their control scheme, though I’m certainly not ruling out skill issue. But if you claim skill issue on my inability to use a Mac then I’m claiming skill issue on your inability to use Linux.
For me the transition from windows to gnome also was somewhat smooth, not it was also because when I didn’t know how to so something I just searched for “how to…” And found out. This surprised me in the ltt video, if they searched how to format flash to fat32 in Disks they would easily know that they need to add the partition, but instead of web searched they were jumping here and there chaoticaly. And its weird they are my generation and my generation knows how to google… Or maybe they are already brainwashed by using llms?
I didn’t even google much about GNOME or KDE. But I did have an exploration period where I opened every dropdown I saw to see what options are there and perused through the settings to see all the things I can change, mapping out how the software works.
A little curiosity goes a long way for getting to know a GUI software IMO. A computer is a complex tool that needs to be mapped out at least a little bit before you need to seriously use it.
I’m a lifetime user of linux/unix and struggle when I have to use MacOS or Windows. I’m used to X11! Select (and copy on select) anything you can see. Paste on middle click on the mouse. Fat scrollbars that tell you how much there is to scroll. Arrow-buttons on the scrollbar, preferrably one pointing up at the top and two at the bottom, one pointing up, one pointing down. Draggable scrollpiece in the scrollbar. Click in the scrollbar to jump. Buttons that look like buttons. Focus follows mouse. Etc. etc.