Papercuts? More like deep stab wounds that require major surgery.
You can't polish a turd. It still has linux underneath it. The problem is there is no fixing linux. Its inner workings of being a mesh of patches taped together make it very hard to develop and use. You can't just slap a new UI on it and think its going to magically work. That is why this project will fail. What ever happened to Ubuntu's trying to make its UI more "Mac OS X" like? Another failed project. This is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.
Ubuntu aims at healing Linux's 'paper cuts'
Summary
Canonical has started a project called "One Hundred Paper Cuts" - it's aimed at getting rid of small issues with the UI that together end up as a world of pain, hence the name.
Topics
Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has started a project to fix all the niggling user interface annoyances in its distribution.
Called "One Hundred Paper Cuts", it's aimed at getting rid of small issues with the UI that together end up as a world of pain, hence the name. It's just a special bug reporting tool, but they're looking for specific, system-wide issues that aren't true bugs, but still get in the way of ease of use.
It'll be interesting to see the results. One of the problems with usability is that often what people tell you is the problem isn't really what's wrong. There's a mantra in usability of "Don't ask — observe", and it exists for a very good reason. You'll get a far more accurate picture of what in a UI slows people down by watching them than you will from self-reported systems like this.
This isn't to say One Hundred Paper Cuts is a bad idea; It's not, and I'd even urge you to take part. However, the results will be interesting to read as a study of human behaviour, as well as helping Canonical make Linux more usable.
This article was first posted on ZDNet UK.
Talkback Most Recent of 136 Talkback(s)
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Loverock Davidson16th Jun 2009 -
Yawn.
nt.
nizuse16th Jun 2009 -
I would disagree..
Linux is not a turd. The problem is that its not really commercially viable (for the desktop/home user) so there are very few mainstream programs that function natively in Linux (World of Warcraft?).
Yes there are "workarounds" - but at what point does it virtually become irrelevant, I think it already has. Once more vendors develop Linux branches then it will truely be viable.
JT8216th Jun 2009 -
I wouldn't
You just said it yourself that linux is not a viable platform. Somehow ubuntu thinks that slapping a semi-pretty face on it will somehow make it better and fix all of its internal flaws. That is just simply not the case and will do very little if anything at all to help linux.Loverock Davidson16th Jun 2009 -
someitguy7916th Jun 2009 -
Nor as a server
Linux fails in every possible way on the desktop or on the server. Ubuntu is just trying to pretty it up to deceive users into believing its good.Loverock Davidson16th Jun 2009 -
uh huh
I'll believe that when I see it.someitguy7916th Jun 2009 -
Nope
I'll believe linux works properly when I see it.Loverock Davidson16th Jun 2009 -
@loverock
No you won't. You are shill or a troll plain and simple.someitguy7916th Jun 2009 -
@someitguy79
Don't blame me for the many faults that were coded into linux. I didn't put them there and due to them being so entrenched into the kernel you will need to bring that issue up with Linus. I'm merely pointing them out as a warning to others.Loverock Davidson16th Jun 2009 -
Here's a novel idea...
Please provide evidence to back up your statement.
Or don't...
Viva la crank dodo16th Jun 2009 -
I already have
Read my posts. Just stating the facts.Loverock Davidson16th Jun 2009 -
You seem confused
Facts and evidence are not the same. Neither can a "fact" truly be classified as such unless there is evidence to support it. If what you state is truly fact, where is the documented evidence?Viva la crank dodo16th Jun 2009 -
If Linux is so bad, why is Microsoft so scared?
It's obvious that Microsoft is scared of Linux. Why do you think that you can still buy netbooks with XP on them? Why does Microsoft sell versions of Windows for $3 in non-developed countries?
Microsoft doesn't want Linux to ever gain any kind of critical mass. Keeping Windows cheaply available on netbooks and third-world computers helps them achieve this goal.
K B16th Jun 2009 -
Windows Competition
The biggest threat MS sees to Vista and Win7 is
pirated versions of XP and WIn7, then followed
a log way behind by Linux.
However there is one important thing to note,
Linux is just the Kernel. Like Mach kernel is
for OS X, (Which is based on BSD anyway) Most
of the tools and utilities come from GNU. These
are very similar in most linux distros and in
OSX. This is the nature of the Unified part of
the name UNIX. Many tools and utilities can be
designed across Linux and OS X because of a
common security model and similar file system
layout. The differences are more apparent in
the GUI. In linux, you can pretty much use
whatever you want. In OS X, you get Aqua or X11
only (Although I believe KDE is working on a
native OSX port)
Application installs - I think the Apple method
is pretty good as all of the application
packages come in one file, and ussually are
very easy to remove or move. However .RPM and
.deb files for Linux make installing and
removing most software a single line command.
Compare this to MS and the .msi model. This is
better than it used to be, but still hard to
track down dependancies and remove the app when
the install goes pear shaped.
For me though what takes the most time is
mapping drives (NFS, CIFS etc) This should be
mush more seamless than it is. FUSE makes a
difference here with file systems that can be
mounted in user space, but performance is an
issue there. The UI itself is pretty good. I
like both KDE and Gnome. The default
settings/themes usually last no more than 30
seconds on my machines though 8)
Usability studies sometime provide good
results. I really like the application menu
panel in KDE that came out of Novells study,
but I don't like the Gnome one so much.
The only really sucky part of the normal
GNU/Linux desktop is monitor and desktop
resolution changing. This has to be made much
slicker on desktops and laptops. I love the way
OS X fades all of the major screen changes. I
have never seen it display a bunch of crap from
the video card memory the way i've seen on
Linux and Windows (Vista and Win7 are a big
improvement here over XP)
chromeronin17th Jun 2009
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