I would bet if you ask people what they don't like in their linux setup design would come last. The main issues i hear seem to be compatibility and missing obvious functionality (oh clipboard). In fact , most desktops are so configurable you can actually make them look great.
If you want to make a system popular, start with the people who are actually using it. Linux is used by technical people, so why are they putting us off with silly animations and glossy layers that will break in the next upgrade? OSX is not easier to use either, it has many nonintuitive quirks but they stick to their design and improve it instead of overhauling it.
Right, because the people who use linux don't understand what design is.
Look at the responses to my comments-- almost all of them defending linux make comments that show they don't understand what design is. They think it is how it looks.
>OSX is not easier to use either, it has many nonintuitive quirks but they stick to their design and improve it instead of overhauling it.
I suspect you simply haven't used OS X much. It was designed correctly and is intuitive. The reason you think its "unintuitive" is likely you've been trained to use a broken system that was not designed correctly and thus what feels "natural" to you-- which is actually learned behavior-- feels wrong on OS X.
Meanwhile, Apple has continued to improve their design, and in the rare case where they got something wrong, they fix it -- for instance, they reversed the direction of scrolling to make it more intuitive... move the finger up on the trackpad and the page moves up on the screen.
They don't need to overhaul it because they have been improving it for 3 decades....
They've done such a good job at it, that you think they havent' done anything!
I said there are some quirks , OSX is very usable in general although first time users do have to learn the ropes. For example, maybe everyone likes the fact that the maximize window does different things depending on the app or hate using keyboard shortcuts but i don't. I didn't mean to be anyone's advocate, as you seem to do.
If you want to make a system popular, start with the people who are actually using it. Linux is used by technical people, so why are they putting us off with silly animations and glossy layers that will break in the next upgrade? OSX is not easier to use either, it has many nonintuitive quirks but they stick to their design and improve it instead of overhauling it.