- UART serial communications
- Command-line based user interface
- Login managers
- An unchanging implement now on modern desktop computing. Optional for single user systems, but even for kiosks, a “login screen” is used to display messages such as terms of service before the user may use the system. Also, to make sure the next guest user has a clean slate to start from, and confidential information doesn’t leak from the previous user.
- Terminal user interface, i.e. two-dimensional smart video display terminal
- Pseudo-terminals and terminal multiplexing, i.e. Emacs, GNU Screen, tmux.
- Bitmapped raster graphics screen
- Window Manager
- Only rectangular windows need to be supported! Overlapping and transparency can be used to give an illusion for non-rectangular shapes.
- Widget library
- Themes/styles
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Footnote: Now you have just enough technology to build a web browser. Do that, and the rest of application software can be supported through there. Even users accounts are supported via that means!
- Screen locking? It can be done via web apps, or the user can assign a custom temporary password for the duration of the login session to use for the screen lock.
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Otherwise, you have your standard suite of local software all programmed together in an integrated manner to support a single look and feel.
First category. “Standard basic OS software suite.” Only very basic software is permitted! More complex and advanced painting is verboten. Alternatively, this software can be excluded entirely from a computer system, as it is seldom used by the common modern office worker.
- Terminal, command-line
- File manager
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Control panel
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Footnote: The text terminal has become permanently fixated in the world of IT system administration and software development. Its foothold is impossible to dethrone, irrespective of previous attempts to obsolesce it. In practice, those who did not want to use terminals had entirely different desires out of software use, not remotely similar to those of the terminal users. Hence, entirely different software platforms formed. Namely, that of “office” and “communication” software.
- Text editor
- Drawing/painting software
- Photo viewer
- PDF document viewer
- Camera control and photographing
- Audio/video playback
- Audio/video recording
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Simple games
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Footnote: Many of these are vestiges of early personal computing, the early days of the Macintosh and Windows, when computers were “fun” and not so business-oriented. Matter of fact, none of these applications are neccessary for a “business-oriented setup.” A “business-oriented setup” only uses applications that were specially installed by the IT system administrators, and generally encompass the body of highly complex or specialized software. Literally, popularity is the business driving force here, although we do have some means of predicting which classes and categories of software will tend to be popular among businesses.
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Yes, yes, I have to accept this fact, make it clear to myself and understand it. Popularity is a huge driving force in software use adoption. Because of this, software upgrades are sometimes just necessary for fashion and cultural reasons, not technical reasons. This is where things get problematic, if the platform such software is designed for is difficult to make available via a libre software implementation.
- I should also emphasize that “adoption” is the key here. Popularity together with adoption of an existing symbolic interface.
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Second category. “Standard office suite.” Very complex software of these categories are required. Also, as a consequence of the high complexity required and the fact that most people are very stubborn when it comes to learning new things, this software is heavily driven by popularity trends. Users will only want to use it if it is something highly compatible with the popular ones.
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Footnote: The problem of complexity is solved only through /popularity/. When the system is simple, it is easy to learn and use on its own regardless of its popularity merits. On the other hand, complex systems are only adopted in so far as they conform with the current trends in popularity.
This is by far the main reason why complex libre software has not reached much progress on the “consumer level” it is never exactly conformant with the consumer popularity trends. On the other hand, libre software has established the main inroads for software development and network communications architectures.
- Word processor
- Spreadsheet software
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Presentation software
- E-mail software
- Web browser
Third category. “Standard communication suite.” Moderate complexity is permitted, but ease of use is paramount.
- Voice & video chat or conference software
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Text messaging
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Footnote: Suffice it to say, text, pointing/drawing, video, and audio are the main communication modes of modern computer users.
- However, a smartphone is generally impractical for drawing pictures, which is generally only done on a tablet, laptop, or desktop computer.
Each conceptual layer has uncertainties in the symbolic interface. Therefore, there is a need to “impedence-match” the interface between the hardware and the software. However, this is generally not a solvable problem. The problem can be minimized, however, through the use of /popularity/ on both ends: a single abstraction system that supports a wide array of hardware and is used by a large array of software. What are those?
- RS-232
- VGA analog video connector, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort
- PS/2 connectors, USB
- ASCII, UTF-8 Unicode
- Unix curses
- Previous attempts to introduce a newer MS-DOS and Windows terminal have all but fallen by the wayside, disreputable in terms of application popularity.
- ??? terminal multiplexers, anything similar to GNU Screen
- SVGALib, X11, XFree86, X.org, QuickDraw, Windows GDI
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??? For desktops and laptops, window managers similar to those of the classic Macintosh and Windows 95. For tablets and smartphones, window managers similar to that of iOS and Android.
- For desktops and laptops, an overlapping window manager is the way to go. There actually isn’t any clear winner in technical implementation for smartphones, other than the general idea of some single active window approach with some support for switching. Tablets tend to borrow from smartphones, but overlapping windows can work on tablets too.
And that’s where we end up veering off into increasing uncertainty. As you could see, we started reaching a limit on window managers, and could only way what interfaces are “similar” to what is common and popular. Ultimately, the interfaces much closer to humans are much less precise, software, and mushier.
But, something to deliberately exclude from the list: emulators and virtual machines. Why? Because the common office user only does common office tasks, and they only want to do so in the most convenient manner. The most popular applications will get reinvented in the most convenient manner on the newer technology, and these other things are only for super-techies.
So, what do you do if you can’t support the “most complex” applications demanded? Simply exclude them. However, the one that you absolutely cannot short-change the user on is the web browser. This must support full complexity and must not be excluded, as it is where all the other excluded applications are offloaded to and accessed from.
Everything else not included in the list is a “specialized application.”
Some software is very common in practical use but only on systems managed by professional IT. These are servers, virtual machines, and “container hosts,” for example.
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But this is the problem that I personally always complain about. Why must it be this way? Why don’t people want to move that special IT stuff to be closer to where they are? Why do they want some single central mega-corporate powers to do everything for them?
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Again, I reiterate, because this is important! Software like the stock market. Trying to choose the biggest platforms in hopes of combatting uncertainty. And ultimately many decisions are arbitrary and “cultural.”