GNOME 2/MATE isn't quite to my taste for my personal use, but it is cozy in a way that post-3.0 versions aren't.

I've settled on XFCE. It just works. You have to turn too many knobs to make it work on weird DPI / screen sizes, but other than that, it's fine.

Recently, I fired up Win 3.11 in 1600x1200@256 mode to run SimAnt, and was pretty shocked at how much better it felt than most modern operating systems.

I kind of feel like the start menu + task bar were a mistake now.

It is nice having the bluetooth + network icon somewhere accessible, but maybe <ctrl>-space should just pop up a thing that lets you type program names + also temporarily hide all windows over 10% of the screen or something? That'd solve the problem of trying to find program manager to run a second program. Also, the windows in windows approach of program manager wasn't great. Still, it's better than most things out there these days. The icons are so... clean.

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cosmic_cheese 2 hours ago | parent [-]

In my opinion, the versions of Mac OS with the Platinum theme (8, 8.5, 9) have aged quite gracefully. It's clearly not modern, but it also doesn't feel particularly old or kludgy or anything, and it's quite clean relative to modern desktops.

	▲	blackhaz 7 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Same as Windows 3.1, and Windows 95, up to 2000. After some point computers began to be optimized for a non-technical person and here we go... Ads, auto-updates, pop-ups, bright colors, all this fucking desktop circus.

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jcgrillo 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For me it's the difference between "this is a computer" vs "this is a computer trying to be a cell phone". I think that's what everything from the last 15yr is trying to be--a phone. And not everything is a phone. On a computer we have a keyboard and a mouse, which are much, much more precise tools than vague gestures on a touchscreen.

EDIT: I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say this is basically everything that's wrong with the computer(-adjacent) industry. We can appreciate the problem statement by asking "why would anyone want to make a computer be a phone?" The answer is a terminal case of a particularly defensive form of groupthink. It goes something like this:

(1) "everyone is talking about the iPhone" (2) "i need to feel relevant, ergo i must make phone noises too"

then they rub these two neurons together, and since it's the only two they got it isn't hard for them, and this process repeats a few generations and like a nuclear chain reaction soon enough the entire industry is trying to make everything be a fucking phone.

It shouldn't be like that.

EDIT2: As a species we don't play these games with other tools. Cars--some super early attempts had weird shit like tillers for steering but we quickly outgrew that idea and settled on the steering wheel, levers for the other hand, and pedals for the feet. Same with airplanes and tracked vehicles (bulldozers, tanks, etc). Same with machine tools. This stupid game people are playing with computer interfaces these days is fundamentally inhuman.

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Keyframe 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's so obvious now that you wrote it, but it never occurred to me as such. New desktops, be it macOS, Gnome, Win.. they all look like damn phones and not computers.

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1over137 5 hours ago | parent [-]

If you're under 25ish, you probably had a smartphone while still in diapers. When/if you later learn to use a desktop, it being like a smartphone makes it familiar.

Sucks for us geezers that learned things the other way around though!

	▲	ribosometronome 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>If you're under 25ish, you probably had a smartphone while still in diapers Circa 2004, when 25 year olds would probably be migrated out of diapers, smartphones were palm treos and Sony Ericsson K700s. I don't think they would be great distractions for kids, there certainly wouldn't be any endless Spiderman/Elsa YouTube to lock them in.
	▲	DaSHacka 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		More like ~18 and under. The post-2007 zoomers and nearly all alphites are ipad kids, but that drops off dramatically as you get to the older zoomer segment and millennials. At least, in my anecdotal experience.

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mackeye 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

what would you say makes a UI look as if it's for a computer (genuine)? aside from purely(!) cosmetic things, like the skin on the windows 11 taskbar vs. 10. i think to windows <= xp, or tiling window managers (bar hyprland, probably) as the two most popular evolutions of mouse- vs. keyboard-based UIs (plan 9 probably fits well under the former, too). i guess i'd prefer if macos looked like dwm, but i wonder what else would need to change for the friction i feel with it to disappear.

	▲	encom 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Your Honour, the prosecution submits "Windows 10 Redesigned Control Panel" into evidence as exhibit 'A'.
	▲	DaSHacka 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Information/control density. These massive ""finger-friendly"" buttons don't make any sense on a traditional desktop with a mouse, but it makes a ton of sense when you realize the designers were likely designing for mobile and/or touchscreen integration at the same time.
	▲	jcgrillo 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		A system which embraces the abilities of the mouse and keyboard without pandering to the limitations of the touchscreen. To wit, you have the ability, with a 3 button mouse + scroll wheel, to trivially select any nearby point in 3-space and label it with any one of 3 colors. More if you also allow your other hand to operate a keyboard. I dare you to attempt this with a touchscreen. I doubledare you motherfucker. Say what again.