Pinderkent

The actual benefits of 3D computer desktops is a topic I have written about in the past. And today I'd like to revisit it, specifically after seeing an article linking to a YouTube video of Beryl in action. In short, the title of the article challenges Bill Gates and Microsoft to exceed what is shown in the video. Except I don't think that there video really shows anything remarkable.

Shimmering windows and traditional 2D desktops placed around the faces of a cube may look pretty and be eye-catching, but I don't think they really offer any real benefits. There's a definite productivity decrease while waiting for the windows to stop jiggling after minimizing or maximizing them, for instance. Placing your 2D desktops around a cube limits you to only six virtual workspaces, while it's often convenient to have many more than that. It may look impressive to rotate a window into the screen at an angle, but beyond that, there's really no benefit to being able to do something like that.

While open source developers are free to work on whatever they wish, I would have to hope that more effort is instead put towards improving the existing X11 desktop environments. I am without doubt that the memory consumption of KDE and GNOME could be reduced a great deal, for instance. There are likely some performance enhancements that could be made. Doing such work, while not always exciting or fun, would surely lead to more enjoyable and productive desktop environments.