I don't think ambition is something you have to earn, more power to him.
However considering the cat-herding involved in creating great user experiences from the top down, and considering how much Apple pays its engineers and designers, if he pulls this off he's 100 times the leader Steve Jobs is.
Package management is really useful for servers, or other systems where there's a bunch of dependencies. Desktop apps hardly need it, and OSX apps in particular don't need it. The combination of the drag-to-applications-folder installing and checking for new updates to the app when you launch it solves the vast majority of this problem for the vast majority of users.
That's a circular argument. OSX apps solve the dependency problem because they have no other way of dealing with it. They have copies of the dependencies inside the app bundle because they have to be self-contained bundles.
But that's not solving the problem - if you have a defective library inside a bundle, upgrading the copy that lives inside the other bundle will have no effect on the first one. Programs are on their own and the provider must ship a new release of the bundle for each and every update on each and every library that gets bundled. Each program has to self-update and decide if the user will be exposed to a vulnerability while it self-updates or if the user will have to wait for the upgrade to finish before he or she can read his or her e-mail.
The idea that all shared libraries are in effect shared and updated at the earliest possible time, automatically, makes a lot of sense for desktops.
This is insanity. It only looks sane if you have never seen anything better.
Remember DLL's on Windows? Having one new app upgrade a shared DLL was the source of so much pain in other apps. In a perfect world where interfaces are rock hard and apps code to them perfectly rather than how they actually work, shared libraries are a fine idea. In the real world of desktop software, though, independently tested, self contained packages are a much more robust solution. OS X's application installation system works wonderfully, and the libraries they provide to enable publishers to push updates works well enough.
And, disk space usage from redundant code is a non-issue.
Of course I do. That's one problem package management solves. You (software piblisher) don't update libraries you don't own - just your application. Shared functionality, like how to read PNG images is managed by the system. This also forces library makers not to break interfaces, solving the other problem you mentioned. If you need a specific version of a given shared component, you state that dependency in your package and, if possible, the proper library gets installed with your package.
Added disk usage was never the issue. Consistency of behaviour is. With shared components you know your machine will decode PNGs in exactly the same way across all the applications installed.
Oops, I just meant if you remembered the havok they wrought, not whether you actually remembered them or not. Didn't mean that to sound the way it did.
I think the problem comes when software devs code to the actual behavior of a library's interface rather than to the stated behavior (which may not even be completely documented). I think this happens pretty frequently, and always if the library's behavior deviates in a way that breaks the program.
In the context of Mac OS, I would prefer not to rely on the library makers, etc. to do the right thing in not changing interfaces, especially in the event that an earlier version didn't quite meet its spec. I'm OK with the earlier version not meeting spec, as long as the software maker accounted for that (which he did, if his software based on it is solid).
Also, I think consistency of behavior is more important in unix-style single-purpose apps than with monolithic Mac OS style apps, due to the former's higher likelihood in being used as part of a script or larger program. I agree that package management is a good thing on Linux, and shared libraries probably are, but I'm not convinced that's true on Mac OS.
You're absolutely right, but as a developer, package management makes a significantly more pleasant experience.
I also really hate how every OSX app has it's own way of doing updates. Even if the OSX makes desktop apps not need dependencies, it would be really nice if I only had one 'update' button to push. As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day.
> it would be really nice if I only had one 'update' button to push.
No. If you are asking for updates and fixes, you are doing it wrong. It should be automated, because you shouldn't have to bother to remember pressing a button. I set up my mother with a Linux box and sure as hell I don't count on her pressing buttons without some prompting.
> As it is, 5 different things want to update practically every day.
If you have a defective library that's bundled in five apps and needs fixing, you will have five upgrades instead of one. And, possibly, an OS update and a reboot.
But only if you are lucky and the publishers of the five programs are paying attention. Most likely, you will end up with five different bugs scattered throughout your system with many different libraries that really should be just one.
"Most likely, you will end up with five different bugs scattered throughout your system with many different libraries that really should be just one."
Actually, I prefer the five. When you have a shared library, and bugs are fixed, applications that use the library might well break. Shared libraries mean that either applications are at risk of completely failing to work, or that the library developers have to flag the bugfix as a new version to avoid that. Either way, incompatible bugfixes require application updates anyway, so you might as well avoid the breakage and use static libraries.
It seems to me that the only good non-mirage reason for shared libraries was disk space usage, and that's just not a problem any more. Down with shared libraries and dependency hell, I say! ;)
With a proper package manager, applications won't break with the ugprade of a shared library, because their dependencies will be such that the new shared library will conflict with the application (or, what usually happens, a new build of the application against that shared library is uploaded to the repository at the same time as the library). Sometimes the packaging of a program has bugs in it though, so the situation you describe sometimes happens, but I've only ever seen it happen when I'm installing random Ubuntu packages in my Debian install though.
So, yes, while you're right that shared libraries can sometimes cause the problems you describe, a good package manager will pretty much fix them. But what I love the most about Linux though is that if something bad like that happens (like the ABI of a shared library changing)... it's a minor inconvenience, but so what?
apt-get source $package
cd $package-$version
apt-get build-dep $package
dpkg-buildpackage
cd ..
dpkg -i *.deb
And bam, you just rebuild the program against the new shared library with the different ABI, and everything works. Obviously this isn't "user friendly", but then again I never had to do this before I started mixing packages from different OSes together. And isn't it so easy to do! You can just do that for any program in on your whole computer! "Hmmm, I wonder how this program works", and one command later you have its source code! Another command later and you've built all of that code, into a nice Debian package too. It's so wonderful to have such a powerful package manager.
It used to be really easy to junk a Debian system by installing random apps to try them and then uninstalling them. Even with more modern Debian-based systems like Ubuntu, installing and then uninstalling something (say, kubuntu-desktop, to pick an example that happened to me recently) does not leave your system in the same state it was before you started. Instead, you get (to a GUI user) bizarre random configuration changes, and programs that worked may now not work (or vice versa!).
Basically, as someone who switched back to Linux from Mac recently, Synaptic and the Software Center (and why there are two tools that show different-but-overlapping package sets is another WTF) are full of surprises and why-did-THAT-change?! moments.
> It used to be really easy to junk a Debian system by installing random apps to try them
Oh.. The 90's...
Seriously: I moved to Debian-based distros in 2002 and never experienced anything like what you describe. And mind you I ran testing with packages from sid directly for a couple years.
Before switching to Ubuntu late last year, the last time I'd used Debian on the desktop was around 2000, so it's true that my experiences with Debian are mostly 90s-era. However, it's still the case with Ubuntu that it's common to install something, try it, and then be unable to get things back to the way they were before (mostly speaking of desktops, WMs, and themes, here). It's not uncommon to allow Update Manager to update things and then find that programs that were working fine suddenly don't work. This happened to me just in the last month with Wine, and happened a while before that with PulseAudio.
I have the patience and time to spend a day changing my config until things work again, but it's certainly a ways behind both Mac and Windows in this area. Additionally (while I'm venting), Ubuntu trains you out of reporting bugs because if you actually reported a bug whenever things went wrong, it would be a part-time job. I actually had fewer update problems with Gentoo ca 2003, though at the time I had things to get done and just wanted stuff to work, whereas now that that I don't depend on my home system to make money, I find fixing the problems fun. :)
> It seems to me that the only good non-mirage reason for shared libraries was disk space usage.
Shared libraries are shared in memory too. If you have 5 separate copies of libfoo and you start up applications using them, you'll have 5 copies of libfoo in memory too. And memory is much scarcer resource than disk space.
True, although code memory space consumption is not the issue it once was. The consumption of most of the big hogs (web browsers, word processors, etc) is data-related.
It's pretty silly to have a serious dev machine without a package manager. What do you do when you migrate to a new machine? I like to copy a list of packages and then run an update/upgrade command. Linux wins by far. Copying a directory of self-contained apps is quick and easy as well... but if you need binaries for a newer arch, say x86-64, you'll have to download a new copy, whereas the package manager solution has you covered.
That's true. I quite like OS X and use MacPorts as well. These days I use OS X almost exclusively. The only reason Linux wins is OS X still has some installers. Not many, but any at all are too many for me.
Copying app bundles around is easy enough though and they make things Just Work w/ fat binaries, so kudos to Apple for making that easy. Their Migration Assistant is slow, but still eases much of the pain of migration.
In addition to that, there's no restriction on having something like apt-get for packages that really don't make sense in the "drag-to-install" paradigm. Which is why I installed my own version of ruby, say, out of ports.
I like OS X because, yes, there's a paradigm, but there's a rich underside that you can use as much as you like.
This isn't package management for OSX per se, but if you haven't seen it already I highly recommend macports/porticus, which is pretty effective at managing package for the unix-y apps that OSX is missing.
Why are there no OEMs making strictly ubuntu machines? There's System76, but they're too complicated (20 different choices). Go look at hardware partners and there are no north american system builders! That's what Ubuntu is missing. Guys like us will install it, but if they want to be adopted by normal people it has to come with the system. You'll never get a strong commitment from big guys like DELL. They're too worried about pissing off MSFT.
I'll tell ya, Ubuntu Netbook Edition is the best interface for "simple computing" out there. It's like an iPhone for your desktop computer. I almost want to do a live test where I sit people down with windows 7 and Ubuntu Netbook Edition. I bet you Ubuntu Netbook Edition will win almost every time.
Dell did make a serious Ubuntu effort in 2007. They had a fair selection of Ubuntu machines, but they didn't make any money. Other OEMs dropped their plans to sell Ubuntu, and all you can get with Ubuntu from Dell now is a few netbooks.
I bought one when they were brand new (in fact, I'm using it right now). It was not ready for prime time - there were suspend/hibernate problems, among other issues. I could not have recommended it.
That with Dapper Drake. Karmic works a lot better, but it's so bloated that I can barely use it. I had to get rid of GNOME and run fluxbox, and I don't use Firefox anymore because it takes fully half of my RAM (not that that's Ubuntu's fault). But I think regular Ubuntu would be ready for prime time on a faster machine. The only thing really holding it back now is inertia and software compatibility.
But I expect that it will be awhile before OEMs want to try again. Canonical shouldn't have pushed it to OEMs before it was ready.
Don't blame Ubuntu for the suspend/resume or other hardware compatibility problems. Dell sold you a system with hardware and software that conflict. Suspend, hibernate, et al work fine on almost all properly configured combinations of hardware under Linux. If Dell chose to sell you a system with an incomplete configuration or unsupported hardware, that's their fault, not Ubuntu's.
I don't know that I'm entirely convinced that Dell's program was on the level for Ubuntu, or that it's a fair representation of what would happen with a serious Ubuntu OEM.
A assure you it's not. My Acer Aspire One netbook worked almost flawlessly with Linux right out of the box without any significant effort from the manufacturer (it came with Windows).
The only problem I experience is when I set the desktop to exactly 2048 pixels while using Compiz. It will probably be solved by the next release.
Selling a box with Linux that doesn't work properly with Linux sounds like an excellent way to get a rebate on the OEM prices of Windows licenses.
Dell shouldn't have sold the system like that, but it should work when you do a fresh install of Ubuntu. If it doesn't, then the system is only good until you reinstall the OS, even if Dell did some post-vanilla install configuration.
It didn't work after reinstalling the OS. It does with Karmic, which shows that it's not a hardware problem.
I stand by my statement. But Dell is also not blameless, and my next computer was not a Dell (and won't be).
Support cost is the only thing I can think of. And pressure from MS. I looked just today for an Ubuntu laptop and ran into the exact issue you describe. Dell has Ubuntu on two netbooks, but that's it. Not that I can't install on my own, but I don't want to pay for Windows if I'm not going to use it (and knowing all the hardware is supported is a nice plus).
That seems anti-competitive... Have you heard if they play hardball on OEM contracts if Linux is also an option? If a company has to pay more for each of its millions of Windows licenses because Ubuntu is an option I could definitely understand why we're not seeing any options.
I doubt that is documented in e-mails, but I wouldn't be surprised if during lunch with OEM license seller and OEM license buyer, something like this was somehow mentioned.
The other thing I just don't understand is why are netbook manufacturers still putting crappy nonstandard little known restrictive linux distros on their netbook?
I bought an Acer Aspire One, which came with linpus I think, which was ridiculous. Installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and now it's fantastic.
Hmm, maybe linpus (never heard of it, but what a horrible name, makes me think of a wound with purulent discharge) offers a better crapware kickback or something like that.
We need an Apple that peddles Linux systems is what it boils down to. Someone needs to swoop in, add sexy branding, make it attractive to hipsters/teenagers/some other trend-setting crowd, and everything would work out just fine. The Mac/Apple fad is all about style and message. We need a company that will add style and message, that will make simple choices available to consumers (Apple has only a few different consumer-level computers, all with preset configurations), and something that has the withal to market it like crazy.
Consumers don't know or care about advanced functionality or technical considerations -- if your device can run the few applications that are relevant to their niche, then all systems are go; the company that performs those relatively basic technical requirements in the way that is most attractive to the end user is going to come out on top. That means sleek design and branding (probably above everything else), simplicity in choices, and high usability.
If you want your platform to succeed, you need to do the same kind of thing. Shuttleworth's investment in Canonical is good and has helped technically, but now, if he really wants to bring Linux mainstream, he needs to make a computer company that follows in Apple's footsteps. That's the way to make a dent in the market these days. Microsoft would be nothing if they were a startup now, their strategies wouldn't pay off in this environment.
I'm a developer, I spend 90% of my computing time in Vim and Terminal. I use a Macbook as my primary computer, and tend to bring it to work with me. I try to go to Linux probably twice a year, and have for a long time.
I use a mac because despite the tools I use being written originally for Linux, they work better on OS X. I've never neen unable to connect to a wireless network, I've never had problems with sleep/suspend, I've never even thought about upgrading the kernel. The things I need to do to the system, I can, and everything else works so well that I can forget it's there.
The Mac/Apple fad is all about things actually working. Windows crashes, Linux makes you think too hard about things that you're not doing. When things work, they're sexy, and that's how you can sell it to the masses, but the Zune is sexy too, and see how well pure style sells.
That might happen if you install Ubuntu yourself on a random machine. It's the same way that if you installed OS X on a random machine it probably wouldnt work right out of the box / would take a lot of tweaking.
This is why you keep things simple, find hardware that works well with it, and package it together.
The Zune doesn't have identity or message around it. It's from the big conglomerate. It's perceived as an iPod knockoff. It's lame to carry around a Zune, because although the actual device might be sexy, everything surrounding it is ugly.
You say that vim and Terminal work better on OS X than they do on Linux, and then proceed to give examples that have nothing to do with either vim or Terminal. I think the biggest annoyance I have with Terminal is that I can't highlight text and middle-click paste it like I can with X.
How much work does it take to get OS X on a Windows machine? Quite a lot. Are you complaining that OS X makes you think too hard because your machine, which originally came with Windows, is finnicky about OS X?
WiFi, suspend/resume, etc. all work fine in Linux on most of the hardware out there, and you don't have to think about upgrading the kernel if you don't want to -- just tell the updater to run automatically in the background and you'll never know the difference.
My post is about an OEM that sells computers pre-loaded with Ubuntu and integrates the whole system into a desirable identity, as Apple sells computers pre-loaded with OS X and has integrated OS X and the rest of the Apple brand into a desirable identity.
People want to be seen with a MacBook because it's stylish and cool and on top of that, it's more enjoyable than Windows.
It's about the brand, the identity. It's not about the computer going to sleep. Most computers sleep and connect to WiFi without any issues at all. People are not buying Macs because they sleep and connect to WiFi.
Ubuntu's default control layout looks ridiculous to me - everything is too far apart, the margins are too big, the buttons are too big, the fonts are too big, acres of space are wasted by toolbars in the File Browser in the screenshot, etc.
It looks like a toy for people with poor eyesight.
Unix machines have traditionally been used with big monitors. It's not surprising at all Gnome uses lots of pixels.
And there is nothing forcing you to use Ubuntu's default layout. You have literally hundreds of options to choose from. I tend to change look and feel more or less on a monthly basis.
I live with Windows 7 on two monitors, combined pixel area approximately 3600x1200, and it's still not enough even with Windows's more condensed by default tree views, list views, menu bars, toolbars etc. I have e.g. my desktop icons dialed down to 32x32px. I like my toolbar buttons 16x16px. I like my buttons approximately 75x25px. Information density.
When running XP, as I still do on my non-Linux laptops, the total vertical space wastage at the top of Windows Explorer is 65 pixels, including title bar, toolbar, menu bar and location textbox. This is possible because on XP the toolbars and menu bars have customizable locations, unlike Vista and above - I have screenshots in my blog here:
Unless you are talking about a pixel area somewhere in the region of 8000x3000 on high dpi screens, the Ubuntu proportions are nowhere near acceptable.
You have very unique needs. I am always with a lot of open windows, using small fonts and icons and usually have more than one screen at hand, but I am sure I would feel lost on a 3200x1200, at least for a while. A couple weeks ago, I discovered the big Integraph (I restore and collect interesting computers and this one was just gathering dust) screen my mother uses was capable of going up to 2048 by about 1500, I felt oddly agoraphobic.
I think you're missing the point. You can have as many virtual desktops as you like - and Windows does support multiple desktops, moreover there are utilities that emulate virtual desktops - but that doesn't let you display lots of information all at once.
The more you change it, though, the less likely you are ever to get it back to a previous set of settings. :( Switch to KDE and back to Gnome in Ubuntu 9.10, and you'll find yourself, bizarrely, with a KDEesque mouse theme, even after you uninstall all the kubuntu-desktop stuff (which should not be necessary, I would expect).
I use Ubuntu because I have the free time to screw around with my home computer, but I wouldn't recommend it for people who don't have the time and knowledge to do that, unless all they ever want to do is use what it comes with out of the box.
> unless all they ever want to do is use what it comes with out of the box.
Most people don't. At the very least, most (non-geek) people don't switch desktop environments often. The people that are 'too busy' will just settle on a desktop environment and stick with it.
Because it's a dumb comparison. Ubuntu provides at most 3 or 4 different default themes to choose from. If you want more, you can go explicitly looking for them on the web, but otherwise there's not choice overload.
I agree. The GTK font looks big. The button color and the GTK app color is not matching well. Giving same color to Title bar and menu bar is not a good Idea IMO.
But I feel, the new look is better than the previous default brownish theme.
Like the new logo of ubuntu. The font is minimal & elegant.
In some respects - I switched from GNOME to OS X and I found that Nautilus respected the tree a lot more than OS X did, NetworkManager also showed signal strength before OS X's top bar network thingy did.
Only reason I quit is that after speccing hardware that had OSS drivers (and was fairly underpowered to boot), drivers in Ubuntu still didn't work 100% (eg, connecting to external displays broke X render support) and this got worse over time (Intel drivers being replaced with much more unstable replacements).
(Intel drivers being replaced with much more unstable replacements).
Ugh, I had this same problem. Every time I upgraded Ubuntu, hardware rendering got another 10x performance decrease and more bugs. Eventually I couldn't even enable vsync, so I got horrible tearing while watching videos. I partially blame Ubuntu for this, since they could have held back Intel's driver updates. Ultimately though, it was Intel's fault for releasing ever-buggier drivers.
A lot of the bugs you're talking about were fixed in updates to 9.10, but I gave up and got a Mac way before that.
The problem is that X had a massive amount of crap in it. Getting rid of the crap is hard, and things really had to get worse before they got better.
Switching acceleration architectures to something that's not from the '80s, allowing modern hardware to effectively accelerate the UI, allowing video to interact with OpenGL and so on needed to be done, and there was really no good way to do it painlessly.
GNOME itself has evolved nicely but the wheels fall off the Ubuntu UI when you start installing applications. If you're careful and only install GTK apps it's bearable but once you mix in QT apps and other non-GTK stuff you have a horrible mix of UIs that lack consistency.
It is for usability. Ubuntu's only weakness is that at the pixel level it's a bit uglier than OSX in some areas... and that by default it doesn't come with quite the same level of fonts...
Fonts are in the eye (or rather, visual cortex) of the beholder. I got used to the Mac fonts, but at first I thought it was some kind of bad joke or misconfiguration. They seemed annoyingly blurry.
My theory is that one's brain gets used to the particular fonts and may not like change very much.
You are right that OSX uses different subpixel rendering than Windows, but I think that at present the free fonts on Ubuntu are not quite at the level of OSX's fonts and some of Adobe's.
This could just be my own aesthetic taste, but I think it could also be due to those companies having highly paid font designers working on those details.
Hmm... Well I admit some of the free fonts are awesome... but I have not found them to be quite as pleasing... Maybe it's just my own taste... not worth arguing about since Ubuntu is awesome and the free fonts are certainly good enough for most purposes...
Gnome's biggest downside is the same core problem of the Windows interface: having a menu bolted on to each window is incredibly inelegant, redundant and wasteful of screen space.
OSX's biggest downside is having a fixed region of the screen that changes according to the context of the selected window on the desktop. That makes it impossible to check what two windows can do or even what program is responsible for them until they are selected. That's terribly inelegant solution that separates the data (what's inside the window) from the menus that act on that data (the menu).
This is handled by title bars in Gnome, OS X and Windows, not window menu bars.
"separates the data (what's inside the window) from the menus that act on that data"
The menus don't just act on what's in the window. At least some menu items act on the application itself.
In a multiple document interface with a system that ties menus to windows, the menu of one window acts on multiple other windows. The other windows are either sub windows shoved inside the main window or they are windows floating independently from the window with the menu, which means you need to return focus to the main window to use the menu.
In a single document interfaces, the same menu, application controls and all, is repeated on each individual window.
Furthermore, in both of those cases, once you close the window with the menu bar, you no longer have access to any controls for the application, which is why most applications in these windowing systems can't run without at least one window open.
> which is why most applications in these windowing systems can't run without at least one window open.
As opposed to "application buildup" MacOS users experience since the OS7 days, when they are on a clean desktop and five applications running for no particular reason.
What are you talking about? OSX's menu bar is useless when you have huge monitors or multiple screens, and the menu bar and other behaviors makes focus-follow-mouse impossible.
OS X's biggest downside is the same core problem of the Windows interface: having icons, menus and windows bolted on to a desktop is incredibly inelegant, redundant and wasteful of screen space.
I just installed Xubuntu on a new laptop. I was blown away at how beautiful it looks in comparison with Ubuntu. I'm very glad to see Ubuntu get over it's fetish for its old ugly color scheme.
Lubuntu, which is the "official" Ubuntu sub-distro for light fast iso for small-spec computers runs on LXDE instead of XFCE and is purportedly much better on resources and faster. I think the real reason why Xubuntu is so bad is because all the other junk from Ubuntu Gnome got packaged in with Xfce and got called Xubuntu.
Well, saying "I like Xubuntu better than Ubuntu" kind of makes it seem like he thinks they're different. Xubuntu is just the name of the spin that comes with XFCE by default. If you're using Ubuntu or Xubuntu, you're still using Ubuntu.
The right comparison here would be, "I like Ubuntu's XFCE theme much better than their GNOME theme", or whatever the specific case is. Maybe he likes XFCE better altogether, and then it's "I like XFCE more than GNOME".
I still think that this new design feels more like a theme than a default GUI of a OS (or DM in this case).
While I love Linux and I use it everyday, mostly as a server, everytime I enter in the desktop interface I do not feel the "home sweet home" I do on a OS X or Windows.
Linux DM are not comfortable, specially when you have KDE apps mixed with Gnome Apps and there's that mix of different gui + usability styles.
I've said this once, and I will say it again (running the risk of serious bashing): Linux should concentrate in only one DM and improve it.
They've found a new way to make your corners and menus more dangerous. It's not just a classic "turn off" button in the top right. Now you get a "close window" button just below "programs" and above "file menu" for free!
I'd like to see Ubuntu taking a really radical approach and giving the user a choice of more non-traditional desktop options such as these custom desktops, courtesy of lifehacker:
It can't exactly hurt Ubuntu's market share to really look at exploring the possibilities (sorry couldn't resist). Apple (naturally) and even Microsoft are really upping their game on the UI front and there's the danger of Ubuntu being left even further behind.
"Not emulate, but blow right past Apple in the user experience we deliver to our end users"
I fail to see how that by any metrics are related to the new theme and branding efforts.
The user experience is not defined by the look and feel but by so many other factors. It would be interesting if they had actually better ways to deal with certain metaphors such as file browsing.
But as it stands right now although I love what Ubuntu are doing they are a long long long way from being anything close to Apple standards.
Purple and /brown/? Really? Did they have to go there? That's uuuuuugly. Blue and green. Red and black. Purple and black. But Purple and brown? That's a harsh color transition, if I don't recall. What's next? The Hot Dog theme for Ubuntu?
BTW, I'm a huge Ubuntu fan. But man, purple and brown? Geesh!
To nit-pick . . . let me repeat . . . to N I T P I C K, I reaallly think the window buttons need to be toned down. That one red button looks sends the whole thing back to something out of KDE 2 (no disrespect to the KDE, I run a KDE 4.3 desktop, it's more of a 90s-still-learning-how-to-design-desktops thing)
You gotta admire the guy's ambition.