Usability: 5 ways linux trumps Windows
On the heels of Dan Martin’s Things I can do in Linux that I can’t do on Windows, which emphasizes philosophy, I offer this modest list of five ways GNU/linux beats Windows in terms of usability. I use Linux, Windows, and Mac machines for my work (in order of famliarity), so when I switch from Linux to Windows, these are the things I miss the most.
Note that I’m using Ubuntu Feisty with the Gnome desktop; however, I have used just about every desktop environment and window manager available, and I can’t think of one setup that doesn’t offer these basic features.
- Linux automatically adds selected text to the clipboard. After all, you’re selecting text, shouldn’t the OS assume you want to do something with it? Why does Windows make me type control+c to copy it? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pasted the wrong text into documents in Windows because I’ve forgotten to copy the text after selecting it.
- The third mouse button pastes the clipboard. (Button 3 is typically the wheel, or buttons 1 + 2 if you don’t have a 3-button mouse.) I don’t mind using the keyboard, but when I’m doing mouse work, this is really handy.
When working with multiple windows, it’s sometimes handy to keep one window on top of the others. Isn’t it tiring to resize windows and drag them where you want them so you can look at multiple open windows simultaneously? Don’t you hate it when you click on one window and it covers up another? I love being able to make windows sticky, on the current or even all desktops.
Quickly get windows out of the way by shading them. (I think some window managers call it shading, Metacity calls it “rolling up.”) I love rolling windows up. Double-clicking the title bar allows me to quickly roll up or hide a window, leaving only its title bar. I like this more than minimizing a window because if I’m using a mouse, it’s less movement to get it back. In other words, I can double-click the window to shade it, move my mouse a bit, then double-click the first window again to get it back; I don’t have to move my mouse all the way down to the taskbar to retrieve it.
To set this up in Ubuntu, go to System > Preferences > Windows.
Linux has a sensible application menu. I wrote about the difference between Windows and Linux start menus earlier. If you have a lot of apps installed on your Windows box, believe me, the start menu is ridiculous.
I think there are other ways linux beats Windows in usability, but these are my top five. What would you add?
May 14th, 2007 - 7:59 am
One of the best features in Linux (Ubuntu to be precise), is Synaptic Package manager. It is so incredibly easy to use. Pity there isn’t an equivalent in windows.
May 15th, 2007 - 8:31 am
Yep, the package manager is nice. I believe most distributions have something similar. When I used Mandrake (Mandriva), they had a GUI for urpmi, which is like apt.
December 10th, 2007 - 12:21 pm
“Linux automatically adds selected text to the clipboard.” How is it I have never noticed that in all my time using linux. You learn something new everyday!
It’s also a pain installing programs and updates for windows after using Arch Linux’s pacman package manager and PKGBUILDs from the AUR. You never have to compile anything yourself and go through dependency hell trying to install some abstract program the PKGBUILD will do it all for you and make it into a pacman installable package. Sort of like making rpms but not really horrible and dumb.
Another nice thing about linux is the customization you have that you can’t do (easily) in Windows. I love the many themes and tweaks you can apply to your UI and I love the plethora of window managers available. I am currently using the dwm window manager which is fully customizable in the “config.h” header file. All-though once you compile it you have to recompile every time you make a change. Other window managers I use are openbox and Gnome.