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I have been pretty busy this summer crafting a site that will simply change the way the Linux Desktop works....

So GET READY!!!

I was talking to a friend and he commented that OpenSuSE (btw, I will not keep typing it this way) has not been a very big deal. To some extent I see his point. There has been very little written about it and not a lot of discussion. I don't read the entire Internet of course, so I could easily be missing something.

I do think Opensuse is very important. It marks the transition from a major distros kicking the habit of releasing a boxed desktop product to the general public. I know Suse 10 will be out for the masses formally, but more importantly, it will be released with input from its community. This is very exciting.

Most importantly, is finally acknowledges the importance of the community around this great distro. It is possible that this was expected, which really is a nice thought. It is good to think that folks expect this sort of treatment from free software companies. I think companies like Novell provide a huge resource to the community and vice versa. Projects like Opensuse acknowledge this relationship and offer a medium for changes. I know in the case of Novell, this has been an important aspect of their business choices. There is definitely a positive push towards more iterative design processes and things like Opensuse reflect this as well. So, lets all toast to the new Opensuse project and wish them well!

Ok, I just wasted a good minute or two reading this article on usability today. The guy points out that no one has used the four corners to its full potential and that the desktop is not spatial enough... Well, I have news for him. The HCI research has gone beyond these basic ideas and the desktops are a reflection of this. The essence of the story is tragedy and it my opinion that it just doesn't matter that much anymore. The spatial model has been replaced by a more robust and well researched model based around hypertext. This seems natural since computers quickly moved beyond a few hundred or even a thousand "objects" to developing huge databases that contain more information than most people keep over a lifetime. To force a spatial model on users in this kind of enviornment, we force users to think of their computers as nothing more than space saver.

The blogger also comments on how user interfaces are not able to grow with users. Again, this completely disregards the fact that the interfaces available have been essentially the same for almost 10 years. Considering the fast pace of technology and no real slow downs in adoption, the interfaces seen today have moved from arguable designs, to basic standards.

I'm sure there is more to say but I fear I have wasted enough time already. I think there is a lot of good work going on in the HCI world. I personally feel users do not need extreme new models as much as they need affective tools of digesting the wealth of information. HCI will increasingly become tied to data mining and search technologies more so than just design from a visual perspective. It is positive that usability is somewhat of a hip topic that people are paying attention to. This aspect alone is a huge plus to the field of HCI. It may provide unqualified perspectives, but it is also pushing people to think about possibilities.

So I reinstalled SuSE 9.3 on my laptop today. I am hoping I can be a bit more patient this time with it and get things working well on it. My problem has always been that I want the bleeding edge. This time I will just say no. I will need to get some current mono packages and the like going but I believe I can do that relatively easily. Apart from that, I am just holding my breath that my wireless will be kind this time. I must say, that the last time I had 9.3 and tried it on a relatively open network, I had tried to update my gnome packages. I think this was a mistake in hindsight (of course I have no idea really). Either way, I am trying to let SuSE grow on me. Lets just hope it doesn't grow into some puss filled weirdness that requires surgery... Yeah that is just a joke btw.

On the upside, I am trying out apt with SuSE which makes me feel much better already. I don't know if I am breaking things but it seems that apt knows about yast and the like so that is one good thing. I think it also uses the yast sources so that is another plus.

Lately I have been very frustrated with Linux. I am currently bouncing back and forth between the different issues with different distros looking for the happy medium where everything Just Works &tm;. What makes things so hard is that there is no consistency. As a usability person I am fan of consistency but this goes beyond the user interface. The problem is that with the amazing pace of Linux desktop development, every distro is at a different place in the iterative process. This makes it insanely difficult to nail down what a distro should and shouldn't do. One distro does well with compiling software and making life easier as a developer. That same distro provides crappy packages though where every day usage can be hard without spending time compiling. Another distro is a dream for day to day work but when one tries to do real development or get bleeding edge software, things crash and crash hard. Another distro manages to balance these things to provide a utterly mediocre experience where you feel like you just spent money to have your computer work good enough. It is all pretty pitiful really.

The biggest frustration though is that there is so much potential. There can be so many great things with Linux that the latest and greatest is just too good to let go of for a few months. Powers beyond your control drive you to find a simple way to see the newest version of some piece of software that looks amazing. Sometimes it is the opportunity to help with a project that turns your desktop upside down looking for a way to make that makefile work like you know you want it to. In other words, when you have seen the potential it is so hard to sit and wait for things to become commonplace with all the distros where you just know it will work. It is really sad but true.

Of course, there have been the lofty goals to merge all the different kinds of distros and how things are done but they are all pointless. We are just too smart for our own good to realize that mediocrity in some ways allows for excellence in others. I guess I will just keep searching and know that the reason behind the madness is raw desire to make something the best it can be. I suppose I would much rather see a never ending struggle for perfection in the Linux and Open Source community than a collaboration toward "good enough" software and technology.

In other words, if it ain't broke, there has gotta be something better...