Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Might End Up Redoing The System Sounds

[NateHubbard]

I didn't even realize they had sound effects on the desktop. Seems like something I would just disable right away.

[eidolon]

That would be my choice...

Repurpose the Fort Apocalypse intro:

http://www.uni-go.de/c64/fort_apocalypse/fort_apocalypse_titelsound.mp3

/jk

[mzs.112000]

I like my system sounds. I have to ask though, whats wrong with the ones we have now?

[boxie]

A small sound notification for any async task (IMHO) is welcome, just as long as you can distinguish between a "file copy done" and "new email instant message" and they are all in a similar sound theme (i.e. all piano chords, not a guitar strum and piano chord)

For me the fit and finish parts of a desktop environment are worth it - the KDE Visual Design group has been doing an awesome job over the last few years in making things "just fit nicely together". This is often a very underrated and often overlooked part - until you see something that has been designed entirely by a programmer (functional, yes - but no amount of eye bleach can take the pain away)!

[vegabook]

set noerrorbells

[slacka]

Thanks for sharing that old startup sounds. Ahh, those happy memories of the excessives of youth....that is excesses of compiz fusion.

[speculatrix]

the only time I use the system sound files is to check that a kernel update hasn't broken the audio.

[Creak]

I so disagree with some comments here... People think that what only matters are speed and performance, that we shouldn't even have a DE because it's less effective... This! This is why people not knowing Linux thinks Linux isn't ready for desktop use and that only neck-bearded nerds can use it. I'm really tired of that.

I agree that system sound isn't the most useful thing, nor it is the most important thing to work on right now, but it is part of a whole UX. Why most of the devs are using OSX nowadays? Because it has both a very good UX and the all the power that terminal shells can bring.

UX is important, whether you like it or not. UI animation is also important, because it helps understanding what is happening. And when it is done well it doesn't constrain your productivity. I take for example the dashboard from GNOME: there is an animation to go from the desktop to the dashboard, but have you noticed that you can start to search even during the animation? so that you can launch any application almost without even noticing that there was an animation. Try to hit the "Windows" key and type, right away, "fire" and hit Enter. You'll launch Firefox super rapidly (even faster than moving the mouse on the cursor on the application on the dock). Having lots of application to launch I often use this instead of the bar on the left, simply because I don't want the bar to be over-charged, I like that there are only the launched applications here.

All this kind of UX subtleties take a huge amount of time, which Apple, Microsoft and Google are taking to improve the usability and the accessibility of their products. But on Linux we still have some hardcore user that believe that their way of using Linux is obviously the only way of using it.

And the worst is that I know this rant won't change anything...

Damn.

[stormcrow]

Why most of the devs are using OSX nowadays? Because it has both a very good UX and the all the power that terminal shells can bring.

I hear this repeated all over the place, but from what I can tell, it's not true. Many, but not most. The commonly pointed to Stack Overflow polls doesn't say OS-X is the most popular platform for developers. It says a minority of developers pick OS-X as a preference (only 26%), followed by Linux (at 22%). The biggest preference is Windows (all versions) for a total of 52% of those responding. If you only pick Win 7 & 10 you still end up with 43% of developers which is still more than OS-X. Microsoft is still the preferred platform over Apple. What you can actually take away from those numbers is that *Unix* in its various flavors and forms is very popular with developers. It's popular enough that it's a serious concern to Microsoft, hence WSL. While WSL isn't a silver bullet, it is a feature that both Windows and Linux developers are going to be keeping a very close eye on as it starts to mature in the coming years.

The Stack Overflow poll also goes to pains in the overview section to point out that it's not an unbiased world wide developer survey. It only reflects those from their website that speak and understand English and are comfortable about taking surveys in English which would naturally bias the results.

The Overview:

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2016#overview

The platform/OS poll:
https://insights.stackoverflow.com/s...erating-system


The other reference people point to is Google's employees are required to use OS-X for security reasons or in some articles for personal preferences. That's not true in the former and misleading in the latter. Most of the employee workstations at Google are Linux. Apple OS-X systems are found in the graphics departments or the iOS apps people. Laptops are a mix of Apple (which may or may not run OS-X, there are people that like their hardware but use Linux or Windows instead), Linux, Chromebook, and Windows around Google campus.

The rebuttal to the article claiming Google mandates/encourages Apple over Microsoft:
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Google-...tages-over-PCs

If you scroll down to David Tussey in the comments section he explains what happened and also points out that the developers are nearly all using Linux workstations while employee laptops tend to be a mix of Apple, ChromeBooks, Windows, and Linux. He also points out that Windows 10 is tilting the scales back to Microsoft feature-wise because Apple is ignoring desktop computing in favor of iOS and mobile computing. Apple doesn't seem to realize you actually write all those apps on a desktop OS (traditional desktop or laptop) not a phone.

[MadsRH]

So I wrote the blogpost Michael is referring to and this isn't really an encouraging thread to read. I'm sure glad that I came across post #18

I so disagree with some comments here...

As Creak writes the current sounds (to me anyway) doesn't seem coherent and comes across as more toy-like than a professionel OS (for UX reasons). If you've disabled all sounds anyway, would it matter if they were to change?

...I wouldn't want to see Ubuntu devs spend a lot of time on this in the bionic dev cycle with the transition to Gnome/Wayland still ongoing. If volunteers step up, that would be good.

This is a call for participation from the community, so no time would be taken from the desktop devs.