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I have lost my Wow

By Bryan - Posted on 18 October 2007
Last week, I mentioned that Mozilla is planning to give the Firefox browser a makeover.  Alex Faaborg had mentioned that they plan to integrate the look of Firefox with Microsoft's Windows Vista and Apple's Mac OS X.  The problem was Alex had failed to mention anything about the Linux operating system.  Linux users, of course, then replied by comment that they were unhappy that there was no mention of Linux in the post.

I even replied with my own poorly written comment (#33) that there was a perception that Mozilla was abandoning Linux users by not also paying attention to the Linux desktop.  Alex eventually responded via e-mail and his blog (#35) that he "dropped the ball" by not mentioning Firefox 3 on Linux.   Mozilla was indeed looking at how they could integrate Firefox 3 (still in alpha) with the Linux desktop.

Interesting stuff, right?  Yes, but not really the point for why I'm writing this post.  In my reply to Alex's response I wrote something that was later disturbing to me.
Alex,

Thanks for the reply and clarification.  My own comment (#33) was written very poorly, but as I said there definitely was a "perception that Mozilla is not giving Linux its due".  While you may have failed to mention Linux in the original post, it seemed to me that this was a perfect opportunity for you and Mozilla to recover from the fumble and address the concerns.  I'm glad you guys have chosen to respond positively and take on the challenge.

I think for computer users this is a frustrating time and your post was caught in the crossfire.  Windows Vista reminds me too much of Windows ME in its lack of stability and the improvements in he Linux desktop always seem slow to arrive (personally looking forward to KDE 4).  Meanwhile, Apple's propriety hardware is costing my home checkbook an arm and a leg because I couldn't really recommend Windows Vista or Linux to the wife.  None of this is really Mozilla's responsibility but I think we're in a new environment that we all will have to navigate and adapt through.

Again, thanks for your e-mail,

Bryan Ruby
http://cmsreport.com
With PCs or laptops at my house now containing Windows, Linux, and Apple computers, I'm a three-operating system household.  It dawned on me that indeed "this is a frustrating time" for me when it comes to operating systems for personal computers.  For all the "variety" of computers we use in my home, they basically have the same features and from a user's perspective the operating systems are really not all that unique from each other.

It has been a very long time since I've really said "Wow, this is an operating system I can't live without".  Yes, the Windows Vista "Wow" campaign really overestimated users' impressions of Vista (it really was more of a "Is this all there is?" campaign).  But be honest Apple and Linux fans...when is really the last time you said "Wow" when using your desktop?

Perhaps, I'll be saying"Wow" when KDE4 for Linux is released.  Perhaps, I and my wife will be saying "Wow" when Apple's new version of Mac OS X (Leopard) is finally loaded on her laptop.  I hope so, because I want to feel the same way I felt when Windows 95 was released.  I want to feel the same way when KDE and Gnome were young and coming up with fresh ways to viewing the Linux desktop.  I want the days to return when computer companies were bold enough to dramatically and successfully change the way we view and use our computer desktops today.  I want to say "Wow" again.

Maybe, it's not really the computer and software companies fault that I'm no longer impressed with the operating systems they have to offer.  Perhaps, I'm just getting older and the disappointment I now have for operating systems rests solely on my shoulders.  But I remember the days when computers not only brought new features, they also brought a new approach that changed the way computers affected our lives.  I remember not only the first time I saw a Commodore Amiga but also that it was the very first time I heard stereo sound from a computer.  These are the type of things I remember and each memory prevents me from saying on this day, "Wow".

Comments

#1 The Wow starts when?

Jared Spurbeck's picture
Submitted by Jared Spurbeck (not verified) on October 20, 2007 - 11:52pm.
Aside from the one time I tried out Windows Vista for all of thirty seconds -- not quite long enough to savor its flaws -- I don't think that I've ever said "Wow" for an OS. But I remember the very first time I tried Linux out, Fedora 7 to be precise. I was amazed by the superb, clean royal blue artwork; the shiny newness of the interface, the soft buttons and rounded corners. And I was brought back to the time I was 10 or so, and my dad took me to a computer store, and I started playing on Windows 3.1 machines after living on DOS and a CGA monitor. Just like back then, I was in awe. Switching over to Linux was something I'd done out of desperation, and I'd thought it would be like a camping trip, where you have only the essentials and all the luxuries are left back at home. I've since learned how wrong I was. And projects like Compiz / Beryl further demonstrate what kind of "Wow!" factor Linux has.

#2 I say WOW everyday that I

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 1:51am.
I say WOW everyday that I use my Linux desktop. I am amazed at the power that Linux gives to me, especially using the command line. My WOW comes every time I issue a find command that at the same time executes a command on every file found. Or in using an awk script to do in seconds, jobs that took hours to do cutting and pasting in Windows. Trying to learn how to use this new OS has made computing fun again!

#3 Compiz/Beryl

Bryan's picture
Submitted by Bryan on October 21, 2007 - 4:12pm.

I think my first Linux was Redhat 4 in the 90s (used HPUX prior to that on the *NIX side)...so there definately has been improvements over time.  I have to admit....with Compiz/Beryl not being on by default in RHEL5/CentOS5 I have not tried it, but now I see I should.

Note to self: Install Compiz/Beryl on LInux PC at work Monday morning.  Find out if there is any "Wow!" there.

#4 I've Lost my Knife-Fork-Spoon "WOW!"

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 3:05am.
This endless preoccupation with "NEW" ways of doing everything is getting pretty old and tiring. Once the basics are fairly well mastered, such as, with the act of eating with a knife, fork and spoon, then, the efficient use and application of these proven core tools and methodologies should be addressed. All the while, however, implementing and converging all new technologies in an efficient, sane manner. Adding additional (non essential) bells and whistles, by default as part of the core operating system, although quite popular with some people, just serves to bloat the system and causes the need for more and more resources, and also, just serves to confuse the technology neophytes. Add-ons are fine if left as such "Add-Ons". The graphical desktops since Windows 95 with the IE4 active desktop upgrade, had reached that all important critical point of general features and usability, while keeping it fairly simple, and still required extremely low system resources. The Windows 98's were just bug fixes and incremental fixes to it. Not withstanding the NT kernel change in the later versions of Windows 2000,XP, the desktop remained essentially unchanged, with again, just incremental upgrades and bug fixes. Unfortunately too, however, an ever more intrusive Microsoft, ramming DRM and EULA's that require that users allow them to sachet into peoples computers at will. With the exception of DRM and EULA intrusion into the desktop, when Linux kernel based OS's are viewed in light of the above parameters, it fails miserably. To this day, it is far and away from being simple (at its core)to use, and it has become a huge resource hog even when pared back to a clean core KDE or Gnome desktop. The lighter desktops are so rudimentary as to be a ludicrous embaressment when compared to even the decade and a half+ old Windows 95 desktop. So, keep adding the useless kludge onto the default Linux desktop and the Firefox browser, there, all you GUI coders. Because, every day you make them less and less a viable alternative to Microsofts jack-boot software for the regular folks that go about their daily lives oblivious to the fact that Microsofts controlling and intrusive software is on their computers, or the serious implication of such. I will give you (Linux coders)that Vista is so profoundly vacuous that Linux uptake will probably rise simply as a result of it becoming the desktop solution that sucks the least. But not, however, because you are "WOWing" anyone but the fan-boys.

#5 Last time I said wow on Linux.

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 6:21am.
That would be the day that I followed the instructions on a debian wiki and installed compiz on my laptop with an intel video card. Vista was sort of wow, they did that little with aero? At this point I would just like the bugs to get squashed and software patents to be banned in the USA.

#6 Wow on Linux

Textureglitch's picture
Submitted by Textureglitch (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 10:24am.
But be honest Apple and Linux fans...when is really the last time you said "Wow" when using your desktop? Every single time the Compiz Fusion project pushes out another plugin. The 3D desktop on Linux looks absolutely amazing and the things you can do with virtual desktops is really "Wow". If you want to see people doing amazing, unprecedented, innovative things with the way users perceive a desktop you need look no further: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ImW0-MgR8I Every person who looks over my shoulder at work and see the desktop want to poke it, play with it and see what it can do, so it's not just a fanboy reaction. Best of all, it runs smoothly on my old crappy laptop with 512MB of RAM.

#7 The last time I said wow with Linux?

blackbelt_jones's picture
Submitted by blackbelt_jones (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 11:21am.
My life with Linux is filled with WOW, but I have to create it myself. The real WOW in Linux isn't in goofy 3D desktops with rotating cubes and wobbling screens. It's in the command line, it's in fluxbox keyboard shortcuts that can do ANYTHING. It's in Konqueror, the most comprehensive browser interface I have ever seen or can imagine. My second hand computer cost 75 dollars, and I am saying WOW every day of my life.

#8 WOW

jaxad0127's picture
Submitted by jaxad0127 (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 12:16pm.
The last time I said WOW to a windows desktop was when I saw how horrible Vista is. The last time I said WOW to my Linux desktop is when I last found a nifty little feature that makes my life that much easier.

#9 WOW

johnmtv's picture
Submitted by johnmtv (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 12:46pm.
I say wow everytime I use Ubuntu and not Windows.I have made the move from windows to linux and have not used a windows machine for 2 years.

#10 WOW

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 1:57pm.
I think WOW that people are so sucked into Windows that they spend a lot of their time learning and fixing nonsense, just to keep paying. What Microsoft really meant was "The Wicked Old Warlocks" start now.

#11 Versatility

plattypus1's picture
Submitted by plattypus1 (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 2:19pm.
The last time I said "Wow" about an operating system was about a week ago. It was Linux, and it was the moment that I realized that one operating system controlled my cable box (MOXI DVR, kernel 2.6.12), my home phone system (FC5+Asterisk), my cell phone (HTC Smartphone + familiar), my web and file server (Debian), my amateur radio repeater controller (FC5+Asterisk again), my Network Attached Storage appliance (custom embedded distro), my laptop and my desktop (both Ubuntu). Not only does it do all that, but it does all of that better than anything Microsoft can put out, where Microsoft even tries to compete. (Interestingly enough, the home phone system/repeater controller have no M$ competition, but everything else does.) Linux, one OS, beats Microsoft IPTV, Windows Mobile, Windows Server, and Windows Vista. That's consistency, versatility, stability, reliability, and if you ask me, that's "wow" enough.

#12 Rarely say "Wow" about a desktop

Richard Steven Hack's picture
Submitted by Richard Steven Hack (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 3:22pm.
Only time I say "Wow" about a desktop or user interface is when I see screenshots of some heavily customized desktop that looks really cool. Beyond that, I'm a very conservative user. I rarely modify my desktop more than to put a background image switcher in play. Where I want to see "Wow" is in applications that can do things without my having to click a hundred times to get anything done. Applications that UNDERSTAND what is going on and anticipate - correctly - what I want done. Applications that are EASY to use AND do something useful. Sadly, this continues to be extremely rare in the industry - commercial and OSS. The facts are that we're pushing the limits of the existing software development technology and it's becoming slower, more bloated, more difficult to integrate, and more unstable and insecure every day. Don't even think about talking about documentation - or software that doesn't need it. Without a major change in direction, Jaron Lanier may prove to be correct when he says AI will never happen because we can't develop software worth a damn.

#13 Linux Desktop is so-so

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 3:55pm.
As a Mac user, I can't understand why anyone would want to use Linux or Windows. The Mac desktop is so easy to use and for those of us in design, it's really the only good option out there. Is anyone really using Linux for commercial/professional design work? I bet there are more design users using Windows over Linux. And we all know how mediocre Windows is for design. My two cents.

#14 That would be true if design

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 4:17pm.
That would be true if design was all a user ever did. But Linux is the successor of older UNIX operating systems such as IRIX and Solaris and as such the ultimate solution for engineering applications and heavy duty workloads. Apple wants Mac OS X to be that successor or preferred choice, but it just doesn't cut it for the really high end, just as Windows doesn't.

#15 Linux sucks. OS X rules.

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 5:53pm.
With linux, you cannot do almost anything without resorting to the command line. What is this, 1985? If you want a modern, secure, stable, open source operating system, use OS X. Best of all no anti-american programmers and communistic GPL'd software! Think different. Think better. Think Apple.

#16 I am frequesntly wow'ed by

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 8:15pm.
I am frequesntly wow'ed by the various operating systems - when they work well.. edubuntu has a nice wow factor for homeschoolers, apple's os x is not only nice eye-candy, but is stable and works very well. mepis is easy to set up, works well and is good looking. xp pro works pretty good and has some nice features, it requires a fair amount of work and knowledge to maintain, but can actually be fun to use. vista is pretty to look at, but I have not used it enough to be wow'ed yet. I guess my point is that there are many os's and if you learn how to use them properly, the wow can still be had from them. for all the no-loads that have no idea how to engineer an operating system, shut your piehole and post a comment after you learn something.

#17 Ironically, the author of GPL was promoting democracy

Allan Registos's picture
Submitted by Allan Registos (not verified) on October 21, 2007 - 8:48pm.
So this comment makes no sense: With linux, you cannot do almost anything without resorting to the command line. What is this, 1985? If you want a modern, secure, stable, open source operating system, use OS X. Best of all no anti-american programmers and communistic GPL'd software! Think different. Think better. Think Apple. This comment makes perfect sense: That would be true if design was all a user ever did. But Linux is the successor of older UNIX operating systems such as IRIX and Solaris and as such the ultimate solution for engineering applications and heavy duty workloads. Apple wants Mac OS X to be that successor or preferred choice, but it just doesn't cut it for the really high end, just as Windows doesn't. --------------- Myself is a graphic designer, and I agree that OS X is the preferred OS for design over Windows. But because Apple was so obscure, we use Windows, and Windows' Corel apps is good enough. In fact, Apple was even more remote to be used as an everyday OS, because it was locked on an Intel-Mac hardware. AND NONE in my area ever was selling Mac computers. While Linux is only a few mouse clicks away to download. However, if Adobe will going to support Linux soon(They may consider that in the future, and as Valve software was going to port their games into Linux), Windows and OS X will become irrelevant.

#18 I was wowed yesterday by Linux!

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 22, 2007 - 1:10pm.
Doesn't have much to do with the desktop, but a co-worker who was going out on disability for a few months gave me an external hard disk that contained valuable data I needed this week. The drive was used with a Mac and formatted with an HFS+ filesystem. Besides that, it's really two drives in a RAID array. The whole thing made my windows box upchuck. No one else had a newer Mac that would open the drive. Did some googling and forum posting, popped in my Knoppix CD and "WOW", I can get my data and upload it to our network share. Would have been up a creek without a paddle otherwise...

#19 My life with Linux is filled

RedSeo's picture
Submitted by RedSeo (not verified) on April 14, 2009 - 7:41am.

My life with Linux is filled with WOW, but I have to create it myself. The real WOW in Linux isn't in goofy 3D desktops with rotating cubes and wobbling screens. It's in the command line, it's in fluxbox keyboard shortcuts that can do ANYTHING. It's in Konqueror, Muhabbet the most comprehensive browser interface Imirc have ever seen or can imagine. My second hand computer cost 75 dollars, and I am saying WOW every day of my life.

#20 Goofy 3D

Bryan's picture
Submitted by Bryan on April 15, 2009 - 3:48pm.

I agree, goofy eye candy eventually becomes an eye sore on the desktop. I have yet to meet an OS that I didn't need the command line at some point. However, Ubuntu's GFE configured desktop comes pretty close for me to not needing the command line.

Bryan's picture

About the Author

Bryan Ruby is owner and editor for CMS Report. He founded CMSReport.com in 2006 on the belief that information technologists, website owners, and web developers desired visiting sites where they could learn more about content management systems without the sales pitch. Although Bryan has been active in the content management community for a number of years, please do not call him a CMS expert. Bryan's preference is to be labeled a CMS enthusiast.

Outside of late night blogging hours, he is the Information Technology Officer for a field office in the federal government. Away from the computer he enjoys his family, bicycling, camping, and the outdoors.

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