I’ve said this previously, and I’ll say it again: we’re severely under-resourced. Not just XFS, the whole fsdevel community. As a developer and later a maintainer, I’ve learnt the hard way that there is a very large amount of non-coding work is necessary to build a good filesystem. There’s enough not-really-coding work for several people. Instead, we lean hard on maintainers to do all that work. That might’ve worked acceptably for the first 20 years, but it doesn’t now.
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Dave and I are both burned out. I’m not sure Dave ever got past the 2017 burnout that lead to his resignation. Remarkably, he’s still around. Is this (extended burnout) where I want to be in 2024? 2030? Hell no.
That’s more the desktop environment than the Linux kernel though. Gnome, for example, is a simple, good looking, accessible desktop environment.
I love and use GNOME daily, but I think it’s still the case that the interface “needs some getting used to” for a Windows/MacOS user. The design paradigm is just not familiar or self-explanatory to anyone who has regularly used desktop computers in the past decade.
What are the main issues in getting used to it do you think?
The first thing I always hear from people trying out gnome for the first time is along the lines of “Where is the minimize and maximum buttons?” and depending on what programs they use “where is the icon tray” (app indicators, or the “system tray” on Windows).
Whenever I try to explain the devs’ philosophies regarding those, they quickly have lost excitement so generally these days I just start people on KDE.
why do you think thats unreasonable? its a different system
I think it is unreasonable because a Windows user (i.e. myself) can quickly get up to speed with MacOS within five minutes without the need for external instruction. I can manage a MacOS system perfectly fine even without any prior knowledge of how it works. I can figure out how to configure the settings to do what I need it to do without needing to search for how to do it online.
GNOME took almost a week to get used to and remember where things are located, such as what is located in Settings, how the task flow works, and so forth. I never got used to the “disappearing dock”. I had to use an extension for that. GNOME is just way more different than the others. Meanwhile, my grandpa picked up Cinnamon as a lifelong Windows user within five minutes.
IDK, choosing between ctrl or the cmd key on macos always felt like a flip coin, I hated it
Why are you talking like gnome is the default Linux DE? Its not. As you said yourself cinnamon is better for some folks.
It’s not, but what distros frequently top the list of “user-friendly” distros?
Ubuntu, PopOS, Fedora, and friends.
Maybe it’s not how it should be, but that’s currently how it is.
I never heard of PopOS, and fedora is definitely not meant to be user friendly. I’d have mentioned first Mint (which ships with cinnamon I believe) actually
I would encourage you to look up “user-friendly Linux distros” on your favourite search engine and check the first few results.
PopOS is System76’s distro. It’s quite popular among beginners and frequently recommended to those just starting with Linux. I don’t personally use it.
Will do, it’s been a while since I’ve been a beginner I suppose. Nonetheless, few years ago mint would have been the goto recommendation, at least in my circle. I think I even got my mom to try a live version out of curiosity