[OT] Why Yellowdog?

[Clinton MacDonald]

Mr. Dunbar:

(Unfortunately, this is off-topic and has the probability of starting a 
flame war. Nevertheless, I cannot keep from commenting. Please ignore 
this post if you have any common sense. :-) )

Eric Dunbar wrote:
> Speaking of the best GUI design in existence...
> 
> Has anyone encounter an hacks/settings which allow for a
> "fixed" and single menu-bar. The worst design failure of
> the Windows-inspired GUIs that are KDE or GNOME is the
> menu-in-window design.

I agree! Usability studies showed many, many years ago that menus at the 
top, bottom, or sides have the fastest access time and the fewest errors 
of any other position (the only *faster* access is right under where the 
mouse arrow is right now, i.e., contextual menus). I am constantly 
flummoxed by the Windows and Linux conventions of putting all the menus 
in individual windows that move around and waste screen real estate (all 
Windows/Linux windows have a title bar *and* a menu bar, making one of 
them redundant).

The only worse waste of screen real estate is big, colorful, and 
oh-so-cryptic button bars (grrrrr...). Or, maybe a big ugly Dock 
centered at the bottom of the screen is more wasteful. I go back and 
forth on this one.

(Don't get me wrong -- I am a joyful Macintosh OS X fanatic. But 
thoughtless use of those kinds of interfaces irritate me to no end.)

> I'd love to be able to pin all menu bars to the top of the
> window a la Mac! The launch bar is a miserable compromise
> between fixed menu bars and task bars (alas, even the
> miserable Dock is a better solution).

Here, here!

I started experimenting with Linux a couple of years ago. One of my 
incentives was to see what new and innovative user experiences could be 
generated by an unfettered Open Source community. Sadly, much of what I 
see in Open Source software are clones of existing applications -- 
Windows applications, at that. KDE and Gnome seem indistinguishable to 
me, since they both largely mimic the Windows experience.

I would be pleased to learn either that significant Open Source 
programmers used (a) non-Windows (including but not limited to the Mac) 
applications as models, or (b) created a whole new paradigm for its 
interface. (And, no, using the Matrix movies as your model doesn't count 
as "new"!)

Sorry for the rant!

Best wishes,
Clint

-- 
Dr. Clinton C. MacDonald | <mailto:clint DOT macdonald AT sbcglobal DOT net>