Default button placement in Linux GUIs

[Richard Gaskin]

Peter Alcibiades wrote:
> The issue is, even if you are using Ubuntu, and are using Gnome, odds
> are you are not only using Gnome or gtk apps.  You're almost certainly
> using KDE apps as well.  And probably a few others.  Because any linux
> distro is going to ship with hundreds of apps, and they are a mixed bunch.
...
> So there is no such thing, in Linux, as an homogenous user environment.  This 
> is because of the huge variety of stuff the distros ship with.
...
> The problem with trying to match the user environment is, you can't do it, 
> because it don't exist.

Your description of the current hodge-podge that is the Linux experience 
  is in line with my own observations.

So far we're in 100% agreement on all that you wrote.  It's only here 
that we differ:

> I think we differ in how we look at this - to me, homogeneity is just
> irrelevant. 

Research on human cognition suggests a different view.

> And it is to most users I know, who I end up putting on
> a gnome desktop with lots of kde apps.   But however we feel about 
> it, its absence is just a fact of the environment right now.

Today, Linux has a smaller desktop penetration than OS X.  Apple has the 
highest margins in the computer industry, while Linux is free.

What does that tell us?

Well, it could tell us a great many things, some more relevant than 
others in a discussion of UI conventions.

But in part I believe it tells us that Linux is every bit as 
unnecessarily confusing for potential adopters as you describe.

As long as Linux is a tool for cowboys to ride the wild range, that's 
not a bad thing.  For many the state of Linux, both in terms of its 
usability and its market reach, is perfectly satisfactory as it is right 
now.

But I see an opportunity at hand for a publicly owned and maintained OS 
to become the world leader.

Maybe the Linux community doesn't share that vision or that ambition. 
There's nothing wrong with a person making a tool just for himself and 
his friends.

But if the Linux developer community wanted to achieve global OS 
dominance, I believe there's no external force which could stop them.

The only thing that can limit Linux adoption is internal, a lack of 
vision in the Linux developer community itself, a willingness to accept 
what is rather than ask what could be.

Not everyone is a cowboy, but everyone could benefit from a good OS.
I believe Linux can be that OS, and a few billion people who've never 
touched a computer before could benefit.  A free public OS could change 
the world, in ways no proprietary system could hope to.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com