It works pretty nicely on linux, you have "mobile" environments like phosh, KDE mobile and that are pretty seamless between handheld and docked "desktop" usage. They have support in app toolkits like gtk and qt for applications that change based on screen size to accommodate mobile users. It's pretty nice: https://tuxphones.com/convergent-linux-phone-apps/
The reason why it didn't work for microsoft is because adobe, valve, and aren't going to whatever framework just because microsoft wants them to. But in the linux world you can just fork and fix. Even apple has a lot of leverage to force developers to act in a certain way if they want that app store $$$.
Obviously the hardware isn't all there yet in the open source world (the pinephones are pretty underpowered), but in terms of software all of the right stuff is there. And don't tell me the UX is too complicated for new users. Gnome's design is literally a ripoff of MacOS and KDE's interface is pretty much Windows.
In addition, Android apps and Debian Linux VM can co-exist on the same mobile display and there are rumors of desktop convergence between Android and ChromeOS on Chromebooks.
> still doesn't offer touch on any of their notebooks
Is that a feature people actually use? My last laptop had it, but I eventually disabled it in the BIOS because I never really used it, except by accident. I didn't find it comfortable holding my arm out at that angle, and I didn't like having all the fingerprints on my screen.
> Windows 10/11 it's a shit show. The last good Windows was 8.1. And the last great Windows was 7.
Yeh I think there's this weird stigma that stuck after Windows 8 was a bit iffy but 8.1 was fine.
I preferred Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 (and MUCH preferred it to 11) because at least it still had all the old core Windows control panel stuff under the hood. Windows 10 feels like a way more awkward mismash of things because they seem to have simply just taken a bunch of stuff away.
The zillions of different UI paradigms smooshed together started in Win8 but Win10 is where they really seemed to pile it on.
Anyway, I'm not a Mac user. But I absolutely see why they want to keep touch interface separate from keyboard & mouse. It's hard.
Oh right; I always forget that XP shipped with the insulting and horrible Fischer-Price motif enabled by default. The first thing I did was switch it to "classic" mode, which was the last revision of MS's GOOD windows GUI.
They also started obscuring the color-scheme editor, the eventual removal of which was a major blunder. By the time people finally realized that inverse color schemes are dumb, the color-scheme editor was gone and they had to wait for Microsoft and everyone else to implement hard-coded "dark mode" all over the place.
From Windows 3.1 through XP, I had simply created a "dark mode" color scheme at the system level; all properly-written applications inherited the system color scheme in Windows. Such an obvious, useful mechanism that Microsoft "forgot" and Apple to this day has never learned.
Even '90s Unix GUIs let you set up a color scheme, if I remember correctly.
Imho the samsung dex approach is a fine concept (not saying that was fully developed or as extensive as what would be required to do it seriously for a proper desktop os)
Two totally seperate UIs that can run at the same time, a desktop one and a phone one.. it worked shockingly well imho.
Maybe an additional case where you can use the tablet as an extra screen, but honestly that could probably manifest as an app in the mobile UI.
Apple has already done that to iPadOS. It's not the best either. Honestly if they just let you run a full speed Mac VM, even if it was only while a KB/M was attached it would be a massive massive improvement.
(I've seen them. Thought that they were pretty cool as hardware, pity about the OS. I'm not aware of what's transpired, though obviously it hasn't dominated the mobile/tablet market.)
