Even that 1990s desktop is too frou-frou for me now, let alone the excessively cute GUIs that replaced it.
My desktop layout doesn’t have a background, or icons, or action buttons, or gradients, or any of that crap. It barely even has color.
I’m not going to name my window manager here, because I don’t want to sound like I’m evangelizing for a particular one. The important part is that it’s all tiled windows all the way down with an absolute minimum of dead space and visual noise.
And I am so much happier than I was with conventional desktop GUIs. I love not having that visual noise constantly pull at my attention.
In hindsight, we spent decades being obsessed with UI details that were just meaningless, distracting fluff. That not only didn’t help us get work done, they were actually a drain on our concentration.
Only part of that can be blamed on pixel-pushing “UX” designers who got erections every time they changed the color or shape of a button. The rest of it’s on us, on people who bought into this glittery fake progress. I used to be guilty of this myself, but I’ve learned better.
Fancy visually-noisy desktop GUIs that suck your attention are the enemy. Fuck all that sideways with a chainsaw. Go simple, go tiled, go minimalist — stop abusing your brain!
Eric S. Raymond, Twitter, 2024-05-28.
May 14, 2025
QotD: To hell with visual distractions on your desktop GUI
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