Fam, please, as other kind people have already reminded you, make your texts look crisp. You’re talking about UI/UX and how Linux is seemingly bad at it and how you would like to put in effort so that it may improve. Then, please, at the very least, start with putting money where your mouth is and show that your communication-skills and writing are on point. You can’t work with others if communication fails.

I’ll try to digest your ramblings and provide answers wherever I can. So without further a due.

I just had a shower an was thinking why linux OSes cannot look pretty like mac? Do linux programmers have no idea what looks good?

It’s all a matter of taste, anyways. Linux offers you great standards from the get-go. And you can mold it to your heart’s content, see here for some inspiration. If you, for whatever reason, didn’t like what you saw on Linux Mint, then it’s on you to make it look better for you. If you want something that looks better by default, I’d argue that the likes GNOME, KDE Plasma, Budgie and Pantheon offer a step-up.

Because I met people in my life who are so good at programming and that other boring stuff but do not know what sells or looks good. You know what I mean? Look what you are wearing, do you really cannot afford something that suits you, you probably making 3 times what I do. Is similar thing happening with linux GUI, can afford it but dont know that it would make your community 100x bigger? And yes i noticed it is getting better over past 10 years or so. Slightly. Currently im trying linux mint with MACOS wallpaper. I do have macbook, I just wanted to try linux after i realized I cannot install freetube on mac (not the end of the world and not final decision stop using mac or windows which I also have for gaming). Not unless i run some commands to disable “security”. And i do not feel comfortable doing it. Trying freetube happened after the day when apple locked my secondary icloud account which I used to try Indian youtube premium subscription by redeeming indian itunes card to top up the balance and buy subscription via appstore. it worked for a month, good that I bought only one months youtube price worth of itunes rupees. Was about 3 euros or dollars. I am quite new even to MacOS - 5 years or so, maybe 8. 99.9% of time not using terminal.

I’ve ignored the above as it didn’t feel like you were making a point or asking a question. Please feel free to enlighten me if I’m wrong.

So again what is it with Linux GUI? Can someone collaborate with me or ideally other aspiring and avid UX/UI designers to create something that would blow everyone’s even apple users’ minds? I mean if nobody wants I can help to make linux look amazing can you just do the coding and materialize it. I mean i have no xperience and never even tried to make an os GUI concept, should I do it first and then do similar rant? using gimp or photoshop? I have both. Photoshop GUI looks better lol and I even downloaded GIMP 3.something RC…

• Step 1: Make a cool rice (read: theme/customization) using whatever Desktop Environment or Window Manager you like to use as a base.
• Step 2: Share it on one of the many unixporn platforms; we even got some of them on Lemmy.
• Step 3: If people actually like it, you can share the associated dotfiles or what have you through GitHub or elsewhere.
• Step 4: Grofit. That’s all there is to it.

P.S. do good looking linux themes exist and I just dont know it yet?

If you liked any of the ones in the link shared above, then yes.

If they do, why they are not default for distros

Why should they? They are just creations that others made for themselves. There’s no universal design language that’s universally liked/praised or whatnot. If you like what’s there by default, then use it. If not, then don’t; instead make something of your own. Linux clearly owns the scene when it comes to customized setups anyways. So just do what others like you have done: do your own ricing.

why you have to download “some code” after that.

How can they share their personal configs if you don’t download them? You could technically copy and paste all raws, but the end-result is the same; you just made it more cumbersome for yourself. Btw, I believe KDE Plasma might have a platform for sharing themes and whatnot. But please don’t quote me on this. Though, still, you’d have to download ‘stuff’.

How do I know it is not malicious?

Good question. If you can read code, then it’s quite easy. If you can’t, then ensure it’s from a reputable source. Like, if it’s from GitHub, look at:

• how many stars it has received
• how active development is

etc.

Is it that you linux users do not want big community

I think that most people would agree that having a greater piece of the pie definitely helps to be taken more seriously by all parties. So, no: Linux users would like Linux to be more mainstream.

and make linux look bad on purpose

Fam, I’ve been on Linux for almost three years now and I’m very happy with it. Once, I had to do some work on the Windows laptop of my brother. The damn thing just wouldn’t open; updating and rebooting over and over. Accepting that is nothing but Stockholm’s syndrome.

so there is no viruses and other shit that you can find for example on Windows, because I think if same amount of people who are using windows would use linux, linux would not be this secure.

Security through obscurity is definitely a thing. And while server Linux is battle-tested and pretty safe -if you know what you’re doing-, I wouldn’t say the same necessarily when it comes to desktop Linux. It’s a nuanced topic, though.

is it secure actually?

It’s as secure as you’d want it to be. See here the security section of the excellent ArchWiki. Contrary to what you might expect, most of those instructions translate pretty well to other distros. So, if you want, you can make a fortress out of your distro that would put most Windows installations to shame. But, again, it’s on you.

Can you simply explain how is it secure compared let’s say to windows?

When comparing your average distro on default settings to Windows S mode, I think I have to give it to Windows S mode; but you can’t even install software outside of the Microsoft Store, that’s part of the reason why it’s safe. But even then, the Microsoft Store isn’t a beacon of secure software to begin with… Comparing Windows S mode to Qubes OS, however, is a clear victory for Qubes OS. Though, I’d have to admit that Qubes OS is technically not a Linux distro*. Linux is only used within dom0 and the qubes; which is 99% of what how one engages with Qubes OS, though. So I understand where the confusion may stem from.

But you see, we can’t even meaningfully engage in this conversation as I don’t know what you mean exactly with Windows.

Scripts do not start running themselves? Explain me like im five please.

This can differ between distros. On RPM-based systems, we find SELinux, a piece of software that has been developed by the NSA and is to this day actively used in Android for what it brings in terms of security. Though, the distinction should be made that Android makes better use of SELinux than these RPM-based distros do. But, to give some personal insight on this; I’ve had scripts blocked that I ran on Fedora (an RPM-based distro), but most of them went through. It ultimately depends on what the script tries to do. However, scripts running by themselves is pretty wild. Though, it could happen on insecure systems.

On Linux Mint, we find AppArmor, which behaves similar to SELinux. While the latter is infamous for its complexity, it’s generally considered to be more powerful. So much so, even, that disabling SELinux was a thing peeps used to do for ‘comfort’. To give a present issue I’m dealing with myself :P ; I’m pretty sure I’m experiencing difficulty with getting Waydroid to work due to issues relating to SELinux. It’s what it is 😅. But, the piece of mind is pretty neat. Btw, Waydroid should work on most RPM-based systems, mine is just a little special :P .

But some distros don’t ship either one of the two, nor any replacement or whatsoever. So, obviously, that should raise some red flags regarding security. The distros that do this either expect the user to do it themselves, or they just don’t care for whatever reason. Losing this kind of protection isn’t necessarily fatal, but I would personally not feel comfortable.

In case you’re really bothered about security, then consider using Kicksecure or secureblue. These are the most secure general purpose Linux distros that are meant to be used as daily drivers. The aforementioned Qubes OS is still way more secure than these, but Qubes OS is technically based on Xen and not Linux. Though, note that all three of these are known as harder distros. They assume (some) knowledge and lots of reading (comprehension). Use something else first. Become comfortable with Linux. And then consider the move to these more advanced distros.

PARAGRAPHS, mf! Do you speak it?!

No viruses is when the gui sucks

First of all, you need to distinguish between a desktop environment and a distro. a distro by itself doesn’t have any looks, that is up to the desktop environment mostly. Secondly, you assume that the goal is attracting lots of users, which might be true for purely profit driven conpanies such as microsoft or apple, but linux mostly comprises of open source projects put together. only a few of the maintainers have the ultimate goal of attracting more and more users. they have an intrinsic motivation to create a cool project and hope it finds attraction by function instead of form.

now, what i reallylike about your post is that you do not just rant but want to get into solving exactly that problem. in my limited experience, loads of work go into designing a consistent UI that is just as functional as it is beautiful. hats off to you if you can really do it, but prepare for a rough ride, because UX mistakes are one of the first things to attracting users’ dissatisfaction which makes it a very unthankful job.

if you really want to get started, try first thinking about theoretical stuff: color schemes, usage paradigms, user stories and a general concept you want to adhere to, before you even start drawing some wireframes. UX design also requires rigorous testing from various different points of view and for most developers, it is just not worth putting that much effort in just to have “a little” less users complaining and instead calling the interface pretty (again: function over form).

also another reason might be the terminal affinity of devs that has them leaning away from UI, because a CLI is enough for a start.

i wouldnt call mint cinnamon the ugliest distro/DE pairing like other commenters, but i get that people looking for the prettiest desktop are prolly looking elsewhere.

formatting. learn it. use it.

Have you tried Fedora GNOME? Looks pretty nice to me, and the UI is powerful and intuitive as well as attractive.

There are many linux distros like Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Arch, Fedora etc, etc. and they usually come with a Default Desktop Environment Cinnamon, KDE, GNOME, XFCE, etc. etc. This is generally how the UI looks and functions. Menus, Window styles, buttons, and general overall visual theming. There are many ways to make the linux desktop environment better looking and functioning than macOS. Mac doesnt even have the ability to auto snap and resize the window to the edge of the screen until recently. And even then it decent at best. So beyond being able to fully customize the look of the desktop environment by using different ones with themes options, you can choose a DE that has better customization for user interaction that suites YOUR needs. Ofc Apple has a whole ecosystem of products that and a cloud that syncs your stuff across, but that comes at the cost of near zero customization ability…But whatever floats your boat. check out unixporn community, there are some really nice setups over there to give an idea of what is possible.

Why is this tagged NSFW?

I’m sorry if this sounds rude, especially after not reading what must have taken you a long time to write…

Have you tried writing “distro that looks like macos” into a search engine?

With Linux, you can literally do anything that you want. And lots of people are already doing just what you describe, making pretty and functional Desktop Environments and compositors for anyone to use. As a beginner I’d encourage you to check out all the major Desktop Environment options first. You can usually get any of these in most major distros (Cosmic may be less available and mature right now).

https://www.gnome.org/

https://kde.org/

https://system76.com/cosmic/

Article with others https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/best-linux-desktop-environments/

Then you can get into compositors, plugins, and other customization, where you can make your system look almost exactly how you want it:

https://hyprland.org/

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/6099/paperwm/

https://github.com/Bismuth-Forge/bismuth

https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri

These just happen to include tiling because I love tiling haha… I’m sure there are other non-tiling projects you could try out as well.

Edit: sounds like you may have already rejected a bunch of the status quo Desktop Environments as too boring haha. Then I would encourage you to check out Cosmic, and then the experimental tiling compositors I listed above… I’m sure you will find them unique at the very least!

I aint reading all that.

Have you tried Gnome? IMO it does a better job than OS X at providing a simple, clean, streamlined gui

You’ll understand when you get older kiddo.

Oh if only you’d lived through the days of funroll-loops gentoo is rice.

Linux users have other priorities

Imo you picked the ugliest distro. You can pick any distro with kde desktop environment. It looks good by default. https://kde.org/ Or I like the looks of Deepin.

Do you know just how much money Apple pours into the design of their operating system?

Though I assume you never looked up what you are asking, as there are lots of people who customize their desktop to look like MacOS (there are ones that look exactly like one) or there are distros that come OOTB with a look similar to MacOS (like elementaryOS).

ElementaryOS (Pantheon desktop)