Trisquel's road to the mainstream success
I've been viewing Trisquel from a mainstream PC-user standpoint for a while. I came to the conclusion, that, our beloved distro, is lacking an unique design and look. An awesome OS like Trisquel needs it's recognizable look and feel, which acts like a "trademark"; when people see it, they know exactly what is it about.
Let's look at Ubuntu example. Ubuntu's colour-rich theme, with the nuances of orange and violet, is widely recognizable. It's that what makes Ubuntu unique, while Trisquel comes more like with "out of the box" -feel.
It is then fully on user's responsibility to make it look a little bit nicer to their taste. Customizability is of course the freedom that goes without saying. But if we are going to gain the poplarity which, this beatiful, free platform really deserves, we should give it a purposeful, gentle touch of personality and elegance.
Any thoughts?
Thank you for the comment.
I agree that the promoting the distribution is the number one goal. There is of course other things than just a look of the desktop. But it's the issue which, in my opinion, we should give a thought.
Beatiful, fine look of the desktop and it's great usability (design) is where it all comes back to, when talking about potential mainstream OS. Ordinary people who just want the out-of-the-box experience, respect the OS which has the good design and a nice look. It is also a good way to get those people, who aren't so familiar with FOSS-movement, involved.
We should aim for being the most popular GNU/Linux distro ever, and make sure that all the Linux-beginners find their way up here, instead of those non-free distros like Ubuntu!
We should show the world that FOSS can be more than just a good philosophy; That it can be the synonym to quality and beauty besides freedom!
Cuba's Nova 2015 has a revamped Gnome. Looks cartoonish, almost like Android (must be the wallpaper and icons). One could argue it has some subtle hints from MS, too. It looks quite pleasing, lightweight and modern. Certainly more so than Mate.
That kind of idealism we need!
Not saying that "Cuba's Nova 2015" is the specific one to go, but that kind of an unique abroach I was talking about.
That looks fresh and professional. It signals to the user, that, we are serious about this project taking a ground amongst the world of personal computing.
On that kind of unique design abroach, we can build up a stable platform, that can help everyone out there, varying from the computer scientists to the ordinary people, to have the freedom and power off GNU/Linux.
And one day, Trisquel has come to what Windows have been for almost 20 years; the most widely used operating system on PC, which defines the software design standards used in gaming industry and all the way to the everyday-software. Then Trisquel will be one of the operating systems preinstalled on every pre-assembled computer!
That would actually be great! (:
Isn't there a design branch in Trisquel development team? Or how it's development is being handled?
If you are talking about general public distribution, out-of-the-box usability for the computer illiterate is probably a must. I'm linux neophyte and want to use Trisquel for ideological reasons, but also because for the most part it is a great, easy to use distro. That said, I have struggled at times, and if I hadn't had the time to educate myself even a little, or had some great support here at the forums, I would have been likely to not use Trisquel. And example is the graphical updater, which doesn't work apparently. That is bad. In no way could I have been able to investigate alternatives and learn the Terminal commands to install updates on my own. Luckily I had the time and inclination to get help. This is just my experience of course. Maybe the new generations will have a basic knowledge of key and terminal commands. But I'm not so sure.
Hope that helps.
Love Trisquel and want it to grow.
I'm linux neophyte and want to use Trisquel for ideological reasons
Then I guess you want to write that your are a *GNU/Linux* neophyte: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html ;-)
And example is the graphical updater, which doesn't work apparently.
What does not work? Here, it warns me of updates and install them if I ask it to.
Trisquel's Software Updater front-end works just fine in graphical mode as of now. Coincidentally, my Debian Package Updater has quirks -- it never finds any updates while apt-get update/upgrade in the Terminal does.
If you have an issue Trisquel not automatically notifying you about updates, check your software update settings.
I have the same problem. You know why that happens? For some reason, when you open the package updater, it doesn't refresh the package lists (i.e. "apt-get update"), it only looks for updates in the current package lists (i.e. "apt-get upgrade"). Doing "Refresh Package Lists" from "Packages" makes it work.
I applied that. I'll have to wait and check when updates are available.
That's why we need the out-of-the-box experience as you said, in order to be the general public distribution. User should be able to use the distro without any terminal command, in my opinion. That's the must for the most ordinary users, who just want to browse the internet and watch the movies etc. That's why Ubuntu is so popular.
I have a couple suggestions for Trisquel.
Ubuntu has it's Ubuntu software center, which is a easy to use GUI for purchasing and installing the software. Only problem is the proprietary software, that is being promoted by Ubuntu. We in turn, already have the "Add/Remove Application", which is the great starting point. But we should modify it to be more user friendly and easy to use, "Trisquel's Freedom Store" in which developers could upload their piece of software, with or without a price tag. There also should be included the most used applications provided by Trisquel.
Another important thing to improve is the "applications startup menu", or whatever you like to call it. What we have at the moment is only the list of different categories whereof user can choose from. What we need is, more like CInnamon-like startup menu, in which you have the greater options and functions. The most important one is the search bar, which helps you to find a specific app or a file from your system. That's the features that many ordinary user's would like to see happen.
It would be my pleasure to introduce these kind of ideas to the dev team of Trisquel and maybe to take part to the implementation. Atleast I could do some of it myself and then show it to the devs.
Ubuntu Software Center will be removed in the next release and replaced by Gnome Software.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/11/the-ubuntu-software-centre-is-being-replace-in-16-04-lts
https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Software
Personally, I'll never have much use for an app center. I use Synaptic or the command line.
Moreover, it's possible that Shuttleworth will drop deb packages for good. He has a system called "Snappy" in mind.
Ubuntu Software Center has *already* been replaced with GNOME Software in beta releases of Xenial (16.04).
Thank you guys for the news, I haven't heard about that before. That Snappy-system sounds like a good innovation. It's something to consider about.
I basically meant just a refined version of Synaptic. For example maybe Ubuntu Software Center -like UI, where you can browse just a normal apps. Then there would be a tab for more low-level stuff, that an ordinary user wouldn't use nor understand.
I'm basically brainstorming how to make Trisquel to look cool and more user-friendly. For Trisquel being recognizable brand.