“Recently, a number of new Linux distributions have been seeking to create a Windows clone. Some of these are highly commercial projects and have arguably began taking on some of the code sharing traits of their model, while most simply seek to make a Windows-like system for new converts to use while they get accustomed to the entire Linux/Open Source world. A couple of these projects stand out because of their close similarities to the system they’re trying to copy. Others stand out not only because of that, but also because of the innovative features they add. Everyone’s Linux, or ELX, is in that second category.” Read the review at NewsForge. On a similar note, Lindows has released their third closed beta, Xandros their second one, while Lycoris is heading for public release of their Update2 version on June 17th.
ELX: Newbie-Friendly Linux Looks a lot Like Windows
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
If you wanted to make LINUX user friendly, you could hardly pick a worse model than Windows! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. What’s the point? There’s any number of X Windowing schemes that do FAR better in terms of user experience.
I agree w/ you 100%. They are completely clueless. Why not just take what works on each platform and then design something worth while! KDE and that Aqua-clone gui *sigh*
No. You don’t understand. This is not about UI design. This is about selling linux desktops to people who currently use windows.
The heading for this article says:
>while most simply seek to make a Windows-like system for new converts to use while they get accustomed to the entire Linux/Open Source world.
Get it? Elx is simply trying to make Windows users more comfortable if they switch from Windows to Linux. It has little to do with base usability, but EVERYTHING to do with enabling peoples existing skills.
*sigh* What are you talking about? They are just slapping a look-a-like icons and theme on KDE and Gnome. You aren’t paying attention here. If the linux folks want to convert the average joe to their o.s. They have a long way to go. Linux is nowhere near Windows usability (not to mention quality). If people must wrestle with the basic stuff what are the chances that their installation is gonna survive the next 24 hours?
>nowhere near Windows usability (not to mention quality)
You are confusing the number of commercial apps and the pervasive presence of Windows for usability and quality.
The review made it seem like casual users who can barely work a computer will be able to get something out of this distro. If not this one, then something similar in the near future.
It takes some time to learn a computer paradigm. Now herein ELX is a paradigm that feels familiar (thank you Mr. Gates and your donations to schools and libraries worldwide) and as users gain experience they will learn a different paradigm without out even trying/noticing. When they look deeper into their system, they’ll find a new OS world they now find slightly familiar.
> If the linux folks want to convert the average …
Face it, this type of distro is probably the only way windows will ever be displaced by linux on the consumer desktop in the near future. This or Lindows, or something else just like it. And ELX looks to me like it isn’t “Linux folks” exactly, but entrepreneurs who are able to capitalize on a freely available code base. Besides, a lot of linux folks probably couldn’t bring themselves to use MS style icons :p
the stability and velocity of (most) unix systems is based on their symplicity. there is no point on making linux (or other unices) user friendly. . . user friendly means resource hungry. . . most times slow performance.
remember, average users can’t setup “even” a windows machine (fdisk, format, setup, video drivers -if needed-, etc). . .m$ monopoly is based on office more than windows then “super-intelligent-automated-installers” and “nice-smoothed-and-funny” window managers aren’t the point.
🙂
What “inovative” features can a project put in a GUI? We’ve (the industry/community/whatever) have pretty much painted our selfes into a corner with the whole “windowed desktop” paradigm. The whole GUI thing, at this point, is a legacy concept that we have to support because we’ve sold every joe dick and harry on it. There is really very little room to budge. Anything too radical will be shunned by the masses, and everything else that is coppied is ridiculed as a “cheap imitation”. This is why I don’t understand why people are *constantly* ripping on X. X allows you to do *anything* you want from the user interface perspective. You want eye candy and bload, use KDE/Gnome. You want a thin layer on top the regular system, use WindowMaker (props to WindowMaker
).
Back to my 40 and House of Pain
So exactly how does this work? People sneak into a Windows user’s home and replace Windows with their brand…sorta like the old coffee commercials? If the person doesn’t notice the switch, then…what?
OTOH if someone gets this product with the full knowledge that it’s not Windows, then they wouldn’t become startled and die of a heart attack if it doesn’t look exactly like Windows, right? If they can understand icons and menus, minor cosmetic changes are meaningless. And if they’re too clueless to understand icons and menus under Windows, how will using a different OS to give them the same stuff that they can’t understand help them?
Face it, Windows’ UI sucks. Hardcore Windows users like David Coursey from ZDnet Achordesk can manage to move to Mac OS X without them even cloning Windows. How? They make a logical UI. The users would know where to find stuff. There’s no use cloning Windows, most of their users don’t even know how to install programs…
I can bet to you one day, ELX, Lycoris and Lindows.com is going down. They don’t give Windows users any incentive to use Linux, except maybe security.
ELX and Lycoris, they clone the UI. And they make it easy to hackers to hack because they have no focus on security; and the UI doesn’t allow the user to conviently change security settings.
Lindows.com doesn’t offer much to Windows users because it is focus on an impossible task, creating an implementation of the Win32 API that could run most Win32 applications. If the Windows NT team found that quite hard, you could imagine what it is like for Lindows.com – a team around 100-1000 times smaller than Windows NT.
With the money either one of these companies invested, I could make a better distribution in less time and make potentially more money.
Imagine a company/office/dept full of happy Linux/Nix power users engineers, programmers, tech folks. Now imagine the marketing, personel, secretaries staff. Is the company going to give them Sun/RH/Suse whatever, no it’s going to be Windows or possibly something like ELX, Lycoris and Lindows.
If half the company wants Windows, then you get into the document wars issue with word files etc plus all the licensing issues. If the Win users can be given a Win like env with OpenOffice, Netscape etc, they don’t install anything or worry about admin, since one of the RH guys will fix it for them. This way the Linux guys get it all, no MS and a little hand holding, v fighting the Windows virus.
I don’t see serious Linux guys using these except to experiment, but for somebody who has no choice but to use Linux, better to make them feel comfortable than lose them. I might even put my wife on it if I can get it to do all the things she does.
How many office staff go looking for a job when they know Linux is the std & no Windows, I bet 0!!!
Sorry but that still makes no sense. In the workplace, people are expected to do things, sometimes things that they would rather not be doing, in return for money. I would like to have a solid oak desk and my favorite Hermann Miller chair at work, but I know that the workplace isn’t there to suit my every whim. So why do people feel that it’s necessary to bend over backwards for employees when it comes to Microsoft products? Somebody is being conned!
” There’s no use cloning Windows, most of their users don’t even know how to install programs… ”
Compare that to, e.g., Mac OS X: to install a program, drag it to the applications folder. Done. And no registry.
Under old Mac OS: you have a problem? Go into the System Folder and trash the corrupt preference file. Under OS X: go into ~/library and trash or EDIT the corrupt XML preference file. Under ‘doze–hmmm. Could be a bit trickier.
Under ‘doze, often when you close the last window, you quit the app. This drives me NUTS. Plus, I find the staggered menu bars too much– I often go for the wrong one.
Yea, and under Mac OS’s, you unmount discs by dragging them to the trash. I think we all agree that this is unituitive.
I’m not saying OS X UI is perfect or anything– other products , like BeOS looked pretty cool (and they didn’t spend a lot of time trying to “look like Windows”). I am just saying: make Linux logical, and easy for the average user who may have NOBODY but himself to do tech support.Hire some “Easel” people– that company that was trying to make a good-looking LINUX– before they folded.
Compare that to, e.g., Mac OS X: to install a program, drag it to the applications folder. Done. And no registry.
Under old Mac OS: you have a problem? Go into the System Folder and trash the corrupt preference file. Under OS X: go into ~/library and trash or EDIT the corrupt XML preference file. Under ‘doze–hmmm. Could be a bit trickier.
Yes, I remember that well. I remember Macs with tiny HDs, much smaller than their PC counterpoints, with applications that took up 2-4X the disk space of the same PC app. Simple yes, but wasteful too. Nowadays we have much larger disks, but we also have people saving large MP3 and video files, so the problem really hasn’t gone away.
As for the registry, it gives all applications a standard interface for storing their own settings. But what’s more important is that it also gives applications easy access to settings for the system and other applications. It’s the key to having applications that work together effectively. Without that you have…a Mac.
Exactly what is “tricky” about a single, consistent interface?
Under ‘doze, often when you close the last window, you quit the app. This drives me NUTS.
Those BASTARDS!! How dare they do something intuitive like that? /me rolls eyes
Plus, I find the staggered menu bars too much– I often go for the wrong one.
So why don’t you just lose the ones that you don’t want?
I’m not saying OS X UI is perfect or anything…
Actually you haven’t said anything about the MacOS UI; all you have done is bash Windows. Why are you Mac folks so tongue-tied when it comes to finding positive things to say about your product? Did anyone invite you to come here to this Linux thread and evangelize?
” As for the registry, it gives all applications a standar interface for storing their own settings. But what’s more important is that it also gives applications easy access to settings for the system and other applications. It’s the key to having applications that work together effectively. Without that you have…a Mac. ”
Excuse me– surely you don’t WANT apps sharing settings with other apps. That sounds like chaos to me.
” all you have done is bash Windows.”
The whole point of this thread: LINUX people trying to make LINUX look like Windows. My whole point: why? Let’s make a ferrari look like a Model T, while we’re at it, with a crank in the front and nothing in the dashboard but a steering wheel and a bud vase.
Windows users are used to crashes, blue screens of death, and constant security problems. If someone who had no kind of background in OS design suggested on the linux kernel mailing list that we add these features to the linux kernel to provide a familiar environment for windows users, they would most likely get burned at the stake with Alan Cox lighting the fire.
But if someone like kernel hacker Alan Cox who is painfully ignorant of UI design issues were to suggest that an equal level of bad design be copied over from windows’ interface in the name of familiarity, a lot of people in linux’s technical/development community would be applauding his comments on slashdot.
Smells like a double standard to me.
As for the registry, it gives all applications a standard interface for storing their own settings. But what’s more important is that it also gives applications easy access to settings for the system and other applications. It’s the key to having applications that work together effectively. Without that you have…a Mac.
The registry has more bad than good. Let’s see, what happens when;
– the registry is corrupted, bye bye useful computer for average users.
– you uninstall apps? The registry gets more corrupted.
– you have an application that uninstall other applications?
– you accidently delete the only shortcut on the start menu to an application? For the normal user – nothing (in versions later than Windows Me, C: and C:Program Files are hidden from the user).
Interface wise, Mac’s idea is very good. Design wise though, it falls back;
– *.apps require more space because they cannot share libraries with other apps in the standard installation.
– Very easy to pirate applications, non-trivial.
Actually, you could take the good from Windows’ style and the good from Mac OS’ style; my ideas:
– When you want to install an app, you drag an icon into the hard disk, or you download the package. When in the standard desktop and applications it would automatically install and collect dependencies.
– If on an non-standard desktop using apps that is non-standard, when you run the package, it would automatically launch the installation process.
– The package contains all the application’s *.bins and stuff it needs to run. When you want it gone, drag the package to the trash, and the system would automatically uninstall the entire applications. You could also drag the package to any place on the hard disk the user wants. If he places it on private space, other users will not be able to run the application.
Nifty idea, no? It’s free.
Excuse me– surely you don’t WANT apps sharing settings with other apps. That sounds like chaos to me.
It is chaos.
Besides, for Lycoris, ELX (which the thread is all about) and so on don’t have the same installation methods as Windows, graphically (and techically, mostly).
Exactly what is “tricky” about a single, consistent interface?
This “single, consistent interface” is only consitent to the developers, hardly noticible (unless something goes wrong) to the user. Besides, there are many installation interfaces for Windows, Installer VISE, Windows Installer, what else is there? But at least, this is better than having RPM, APT, etc.
Actually you haven’t said anything about the MacOS UI; all you have done is bash Windows. Why are you Mac folks so tongue-tied when it comes to finding positive things to say about your product? Did anyone invite you to come here to this Linux thread and evangelize?
From what I read from his comment, he did a comparison. He picked out the main UI points of Mac OS X, and comparing it with Windows equalivents. So, instead of whining, why not you create a UI comparison between Mac OS and Windows? To me, I’m fairly pragmatic. There are plus points of the Windows’ UI; for example, the start menu. There is also minus points of the Windows UI, like an non-consitent user interace in the OS (in Windows XP for example, when you try to shut down when there is someone logged in the computer, a message would appear in the Windows 9x style). Mac OS X too have minus points, like the current Dock (Jaguar’s Dock is much better, they should have went with that since 10.0) and the lack of theming. (And do remember, we are talking about user interface here, no technical merits).
However, if someone that isn’t a geek, have at least a Masters in human pyshcology, doing Linux UI, I would be very happy :-). As Jef Raskin said, “They all suck” in relation to which UI is best.