Hammers Without Handles

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Inspired by LinusTechTip's latest Linux Daily Driver Challenge, I wanted to take a moment and talk about Linux UX because, let's face it... it sucks.<br>Actually, it's worse than that. Many in the Linux world believe our UI is technically correct and that's objectively wrong.<br>Like it or not, Windows is the dominant operating system. And it's not even close. That means when we're having a conversation about designing a User Experience on Linux-based operating systems, that conversation must be bookended by "how do Windows users expect this to work?" And we need to design for that or else everything falls apart.

When I (as a Linux user, FOSS advocate, UI/UX designer, and avowed Microsoft hater) suggest this, I get scoffs from the darkest, most anonymous corners of the web:

"This Microslop shill wants to Windoze-ify Guh-Nooo plus Linucks!!"<br>No. I don't want Linux to be more Windows-like. But I do want the most common Linux desktops to behave in a way that PC-literate folks can wrap their mind around — and do so from minute zero.<br>Our goal should be to extend the opportunity to daily-drive – and enjoy the benefits of – FOSS to every living soul . But if we expect all those Linux-curious adventurers to throw away their decades of hard-earned PC experience? Then that goal becomes moot.<br>Nowhere was our collective Linux UX issues illustrated more vividly – or more publicly – than in LTT's Linux Challenge video.

I'll call your attention to two significant moments to underscore my point.

UX Failure #1: Network Drives<br>The first was when the participants were tasked with exporting a file to a network drive.<br>Many Windows users understand the concept of mounting filesystems, despite what some of the more elitist Lunix crowd might say. Indeed, I have many friends who mount Samba shares as a specific drive letter. They know this. I have even done this on my Windows workstations so Emily and I can edit videos from our network shares.<br>And, in the video, Elijah knows that he needs to do this with his network share. Yet, there's no obvious way to do so. Not in the Dolphin File Manager, not in the settings. Elijah [spoiler alert] ended up failing this task.<br>Linus, on the other hand, first tried putting the path of the SMB share into the render dialog's path field. This didn't work. It complained about not supporting that specific scheme. Which is kinda helpful?<br>(But not really... since he was trying to input an smb:// address and it was still giving him an error)<br>So he ended up solving this issue by searching the repo and installing a random app. Basically just trying something and seeing if it would work. And to his credit, he managed to get the job done... but only after fighting with some oddly-titled inputs and despite our UX's best efforts to thwart him.

The Fix<br>Adding a simple context menu option (or even a tab in the file properties modal) for network shares that provides some kind of mounting wizard.<br>Ideally, it would help you:<br>Install any missing dependencies<br>Decide if you're mounting this share for yourself or for all users<br>Help you configure credentials and provide advanced options<br>Create the mountpoint on your local filesystem<br>Add the mount point to /etc/fstab<br>That's really it. And I don't feel like that's much to ask. But...

The Noise Bregade<br>They'll say that this would violate the Linux way. They'll lazily lean on the tired argument that "each program should only do one thing." (And they're technically correct on that... but we'll get to that in a minute.)<br>For example. They'll say a file manager should be about managing files and that's it. They'll argue that adding such features would just be contributing "Windows bloat" to their preferred desktop. They might even go so far as to say that "if this feature gets added to KDE/GNOME, I'll wear a t-shirt that says "fuck systemd in protest" switch to another desktop fork the desktop and revert the changes in order to keep things debloated and unwoke-ified bitch and moan incessantly."<br>But, here in the real world, Dolphin and Nautilus (GNOME's file manager) support multiple file protocols including SMB, FTP, MTP, PTP, WebDAV, NFS, and many others. Adding a simple wizard that can assist users to mount their remote files would be a good thing. In fact, the wizard could even let you set automount parameters for removeable media. This is also a PITA task that still lacks a readily-available GUI on Linux.<br>And, while we're in the real world, it should be noted that when a Windows user encounters a roadblock like this during their first Linux experience — one that feels insurmountable and like there's no obvious path forward? Their options become:<br>Continue to bash their head against the wall until they figure out some solution, OR;<br>Return to the comfort and familiarity of Windows.<br>Call me...