A First Look At The Xandros Desktop 441
Gentu writes "OSNews has an exclusive article regarding the awaited Xandros Desktop. Xandros is the company who purchased the Corel Linux source code and rights, so in essense, this is the second generation of the once promising, Corel's Linux. OSNews previews beta 3b and they say that this distribution, along with Lycoris, Lindows (and possibly Red Hat 8), is the one to compete for the purely-for-the-desktop Linux market."
Here's a hint. (Score:3, Funny)
I recommend Pinball [deskmod.com].
Your preferences may differ.
Re:Here's a hint. (Score:3, Insightful)
that's the problem! (Score:3, Insightful)
That is exactly the problem! Why would anyone think it was a good idea for people to associate Mozilla with Netscape. Netscape used to be decent, but 4.x became a total disaster, devolving into a total bloatware mess, with an ugly interface to-boot. It got lost in a never-ending cycle of bugfixes and new bugs, slowly(quickly?) becoming more and more unstable, and never coming close to implementing any of the newer standards, etc.
Why the Mozilla developers decided it would be a good idea to have that skin with those icons, and especially making it the default, I don't even want to guess. I consider that to be their biggest mistake. Everything else about Mozilla I really like, except that damn skin and it being the default, it just really upsets me, especially when I hear of people who throw Mozilla away and never give it a second chance JUST BECAUE OF THAT DAMN SKIN! People don't realize right away that they can change that, and they DO NOT want to use something that they think is still Netscape...
</rant>
Any one notice the resolution switcher? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can configure it. (Score:2)
Great fun.
Re:Any one notice the resolution switcher? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Any one notice the resolution switcher? (Score:2)
Re:Any one notice the resolution switcher? (Score:2)
Umm (Score:5, Interesting)
That's one thing that drives me nuts about the linux distros. Clearly each one of them has one or more features that they do better than any other distro. Yet for each distro they all go their own way and going from distro to distro you end up getting 50 different apps that do the same thing. As another example, why isn't Mandrake's font importer used in every linux distro? It's been around forever and is the easiest way to get your windows fonts on your linux box.Even Debian who just NOW is starting to work on a GUI installer when working gpl GUI installers based on Debian have been around for years. The day Stormix and Corel came out is the day Debian should have been picking the best GPL pieces out and using them.
Unfortunatly this appears to be the "linux way" at least when it comes to desktop apps and config tools. And Yes IMHO we are reinventing the wheel over and over by not cherry picking and then using the best GPL apps. Is my view oversimplied? Yes. But is foolish pride preventing say Redhat from using some of Mandrake's better GUI tools? Who knows.
I thought one of the benefits to the GPL was code Darwinism?
Re:Umm (Score:2)
Uhm, Debian is not a business. The only 'customer' worth anything are the people working on the distribution themselves, and for the most part (even now) a fancy gui installer is not a priority.
When you're buying redhat, or mandrake, or one of those other rpm based crappy distributions, your handing over of money gives you certain rights to moan and bitch about the priorities of development for the distribution, but for things like Debian, or Gentoo, or any of the others that don't even attempt to be a business, submit your code or keep your yap shut.
Re:Umm (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what you're seeing is very healthy behaviour. Everyone thinks that he can do slightly better than the other guy who has already done it. Of course, only 5 % will be right in that assessment, but who cares as long as in the end it does improve the state of the art.
People should be cautious not to suffer too much from a 'not invented here' syndrome, but reinventing the weel once in a while isn't bad at all if that makes a better mousetrap.
Re:Umm (Score:5, Insightful)
> based on Debian have been around for years.
No GPL-based GUI installer available for "production" meets the requirements for Debian: *mostly* the 11 architectures Debian supports (all spinoffs concentrated mostly on i386), but some other things too, like being able to scale between newbie and guru. Most GUI installers cater to the needs of the newbies, or the ones that don't need absolute control, but some people need more and they can find it in the current installer.
Debian users have different expectations from Debian software than the users of other distros.
In particular, NO ARCHITECTURE IS SUPERIOR TO THE OTHERS, it's true for the installer, for X, and for pretty much everything else. So an installer either works for all architectures, or it's not the official installer. See the amount of work done to port PGI.
I hope that makes it a bit clearer.
Re:Umm (Score:2)
The GUI is the first impression users get of a distribution. Many of them are used to work with familiar elements like windows, textboxes, buttons etc. and will find the lack of those rather annoying or even difficult to work with. A GUI may not be inherently necessary for making the installation process objectively easier. But for users that are mostyly familiar with GUI's, a GUI is simply the easiest to work with. And almost always a GUI does a much better job at presenting information in an understandable way simple because everybody is familiar with the elements that are used to present it; dropdownlists, radiobuttons blabla.
Re:Umm (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at PartDrake from Mandrake -- Good tool, noone but Mandrake uses it.
Look at HardDrake from Mandrake --> Good hardware detection (one of the main problems for Linux), noone but Mandrake supports it.
Look at apt4rpm --> wonderful stuff from Connectiva, noone but Connectiva uses it.
This is a real shame.
But the thing I miss most: Something as userfriendly as Mandrake based on
Bye egghat.
Re:Any one notice the resolution switcher? (Score:4, Insightful)
We need a distro that just selects the best parts of others (say apt from debian, installer from redhat, etc etc), and start from a "best of breed" (god forgive me for using that phrase) linux and work from there.
Re:Any one notice the resolution switcher? (Score:4, Funny)
Does that mean we get to call it Linux BOB(TM) ?
Any one notice the voodoo card? (Score:2)
Re:Any one notice the resolution switcher? (Score:2, Informative)
CTRL-ALT-KP_MINUS and CTRL-ALT-KP_PLUS ?
Been around in X for quite some time.
Or am I missing something?
Rip on it all you want, but . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is that this isn't necessarily the right distro for us, but it could very well be for our parents/grandparents/sons/daughters/alien sex fiends.
As usual, just my dos centavos.
Re:Rip on it all you want, but . . . Lycoris? (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, Lycoris is a spiffy little distro. I am enjoying the hell out of it. In fact as I speak I am installing the Beta build.
You are going to find teething problems with all the desktop distros. However, Lycoris has their stuff more together than most. It installed like a dream on every box I've put it on. And it does seem scarily like Win2K in places...it's designed for smooth transitions for Windows refugees.
There is going to be some hella-cool news coming from the Lycoris camp real soon...keep your eyes and ears peeled.
Completely missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
But this completely misses the point. The thing that's keeping Linux off the desktops of all those millions of Windows users is the lack of compatibility with the programs that those users want to run. Got a way to run all of MS Office, including all macros, keyboard shortcuts, etc.? How about Quicken? How about the stack of games the user or his/her kid has at home? How about the one text editor that the user finally found that he or she likes (and without having to spend hours reconfiguring a Linux editor to mimic it)?
All the pretty UI work in the world won't make any difference at all to users if the system won't run what they think is important.
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:2)
Inovate, Don't Imitate.
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:2, Insightful)
yes.. but its so friggin hard to make a lot of programs work, it isnt feasable to expect anyone not in the scene to do it themselves.
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I'm unsure that sending someone who is used to Windows this distro is any good -- they get confused, think Linux is just like windows, find out it doesn't quite work like they expected, doesn't run half their programs, emulates the other half with half-assed versions from vendors that truly don't give a shit, and then decide that "Linux sucks."
When I switched to Linux from Windows 2000, I ran Blackbox with bbpager and the "operations" theme. Was it entirely different? Yes. And no shit, it's a different OS, with differing apps. What did you expect?
Xandros claims to target Windows users. But if you really want Windows, go run the real thing, please! If (when) you're truly ready to try something different, cast away your previous ideas about what a computer can do and how it should respond to you, and try out a different way of interacting with your machine!
Themability is unimportant (Score:5, Insightful)
I have long believed that the obsession with themability is a huge red-herring, and is totally unnecessary in a desktop OS. Select an attractive consistent theme for the various themeable applications, and 99.9% of users won't need to change it.
Re:Themability is unimportant (Score:2)
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:2, Interesting)
That said, the screenshots on that page looked absolutely god-awful. I wouldn't let that theme sit there for a second. I personally don't care if it looks like windows or not, but the screenshots looked like the desktop was a cold, lifeless thing, not something I would want peeking out around my apps. If you're pushing pretty UI work like you say won't make a difference, at least do that well. I think that without both usability and a bit of aesthetics you're going to lose users. Not many Joe-users I know want to their desktop to look like its going backwards, regardless of how progressive it may really be under the hood.
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:2)
Codeweavers/Transgaming Wine does every single one of them. It does Office, it's in beta testing for Quicken, it plays games, and it runs TextPad which is imho the best Windows text editor.
Windows compatability gets better every single week. Just read the kernel cousins!
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:2, Informative)
Windows compatability gets better every single week.
Does Microsoft give Office technical support for WINE installs?
Why run it in an emulator at all when you could run the real thing?
If you're willing to shell out for the Office suite, why aren't you willing to buy or use the OS?
And Win2k *is* stable.
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm, obvious troll, but here goes anyway, just in case someone that's not already totally cynical about these issues is reading...
Does Microsoft give Office technical support for WINE installs?No. But it doesn't charge for it either. If you want the benefits of *nix without the enslavement of The Microsoft Way, and you *must* have 100% compatibility with your colleague's MS apps, it's a no-brainer. (Anyway, have you personally ever actually tried to get any of the 'support' that's offered with MS consumer products?)
Why run it in an emulator at all when you could run the real thing?Just because you must run Office for some reason doesn't mean you have to pay for software that you don't want or need, particularly when that software is deficient in ways that are significant to you.
If you're willing to shell out for the Office suite, why aren't you willing to buy or use the OS?Why would I buy a product that I don't want, and that can't do the job I want satisfactorily? Would you buy an Intel web-cam just because you've got a Pentium CPU on your mobo?
And Win2k *is* stable.If by that you mean that it's more stable than its predecessors then yes, there's no doubt at all. If, however, you mean that it's capable of staying up under load for months or years at a time, of having its major services patched on the run without a reboot, and of having its source-code analysed line-by-line by a customer until an unreported bug is found and cured... well... do I have to draw a picture for you?
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I *am* cynical. Or maybe I haven't been brainwashed that WINE on Linux is the universal panacea :-p
This story's about *desktop* installs. Win2k makes a very good desktop. It does everything you'd expect of a desktop machine. You can get all the usual suspect GNU utilities ported to it. I don't need my desktop to stay up under load for months or years. I can patch almost everything without reboot, barring a handful of shared libraries or in-use drivers. I know it runs Office as well as anything because Microsoft will have QAed Office on it. I don't expect to have to trawl through the source line-by-line if there's a problem - that's why people pay MS for their software. It's not commercially sensible that I have to maintain the source of the OS I'm using in work time when we can shift that burden for a few hundred bucks a seat.
I haven't *needed* to use MS support since 1994. We had a Win3.11 network problem. They were very helpful.
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Completely missing the point (Score:2, Funny)
> revolving door
That's easy!
Just make sure someone is coming through before you slam it.
James
No offense... (Score:4, Insightful)
- A.P.
Re:No offense... (Score:2, Interesting)
Simple, so you don't have to retrain every secretary in the office on how to find a word processor. A better question might be "Why does every Windows OS look like Apple's from 1985?" Have we really reached the apex of GUI design?
Re:No offense... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No offense... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No offense... (Score:4, Funny)
Because if you show people an OS with a more efficient interface AND it doesn't crash, they will just freak out. That's why Macs have such a low market share, as soon as people see one, they go running out the door screaming for help.
I'm sure someone can do something good with THAT...
Re:No offense... (Score:2)
Re:No offense... (Score:2)
Windowmaker, Blackbox, Enlightenment, XFCE. No comparison. Let's move on...
IceWM. Okay, there is a resemblance. I suspect it's deliberate. Let's move on...
The big two desktops on *Nix: KDE and GNOME. What exactly makes them look like Windows as opposed to Mac, OS/2, BeOS, CDE, etc?
As near as I can tell, it's because they have icons on the desktop, a panel on the bottom, a root menu on the panel, and window decorations with min/max/close buttons. But that's like complaining that Fords look like Chryslers because they both have hoods, trunks and steering wheels.
Looking at OS/2, Mac, CDE, BeOS, and QNX, I find that they all have those same elements. Some of them had them before Windows did. Some of those elements even predate DOS!
Re:No offense... (Score:2)
http://www.xfce.org/snapshots.html#TOP
Seriously though I agree, this just looks like a bad attempt at copying windows and looks worse than normal KDE into the bargain.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
You are partially correct (Score:2)
Yea w2k is MS's golden child, but MS Office is still the red-headed step-child. Office is unstable on any OS and thats where the opertunity for linux is.
Re: (Score:2)
OOo helps linux ... (Score:2)
Re:No offense... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are absolutely correct in what Microsoft should do faced with the growing competition from Linux, OpenOffice, and the rest. Microsoft should drastically reduce their prices, cotton up to OEMs like Dell, and generally do a better job of pleasing their customers.
However, if you think that this is what is actually happening, then you are smoking crack. I completely agree with you about the question of stability. For the most part Microsoft's newest OSes are stable enough, especially for the desktop.
Your belief that Microsoft is lowering prices, however, is completely false. The vast majority of home users stick with whatever OS (and software) their computer came with. There never really was an upgrade market for home users. Corporate users, on the other hand, are finding that Microsoft is pushing them inexorably towards software leasing. That way Microsoft gets paid no matter if they write new software or not. The new corporate licensing schemes are far more expensive than their predecessors for all but the most gung-ho bleeding edge Microsoft users.
The reality of the situation is that Microsoft has got to keep growing their business or their stock price is going to head even further south, and they are going to have to do so without being able to grow their market share. For years Microsoft's server revenues have grown at the expense of Novell and commercial UNIX, but Linux has finally cut them off. Further gains in the server market are going to be much smaller than in the past. Microsoft also can't count on too much growth in the desktop software. The first world countries are saturated, and the second and third world countries have massive piracy rates or are looking seriously at Linux. No matter what happens those folks aren't going to pay Microsoft prices for software any time soon. And don't even get me started on the XBox or any of the other businesses that Microsoft is dabbling in.
So where is Microsoft going to get the growth that they need to keep their stock prices up? They are going to get it by squeezing the customers they already have. The new licensing plans are just the beginning. You see, Microsoft management and employees simply have too much of their money tied up in Microsoft stock. If growth and revenues flatten out then their stock price will suffer.
I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of your piece. The race is no longer about stability. The battle now is between Microsoft's more familiar (and more consistent) GUI and their wide array of applications against Linux's price and flexibility. I just happen to think that Microsoft is going to turn up the burner a bit on price, at least for corporate users.
Re:No offense... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is something they cannot do indefinitly anyway. It's only a matter of time before Microsoft falls over, unless they radically change their business model.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No offense... (Score:3, Informative)
Still, the majority of Windows users are still probably using an older version of Windows with their 2-3 year-old desktop machines, and are in no rush to buy a new computer.
Actually, no. The numbers are basically dead-even, at least according to the Google Zeitgeist [google.com]: 49% of users are Win98/95, 46% are on XP/W2k/NT. (ME's not listed, probably buried in Other.) We've gotten rid of 98 (in favor of W2K) on our campus with the exception of a few old laptops that won't run anything else and other schools I know of have done the same.
Re:No offense... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I want to see the KDE Developers reaction to: (Score:5, Funny)
They also changed the default look of KDE to be more like windows 98.
Re:I want to see the KDE Developers reaction to: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I want to see the KDE Developers reaction to: (Score:2, Funny)
Where's the KDE uproar? (Score:3, Funny)
So where is the uproar from all the KDE devs? Why aren't they making outrageous claims like "Xandros is trying to kill KDE"? Xandros did *exactly* the same things as RedHat.
Re:Where's the KDE uproar? (Score:2, Insightful)
There was NEVER an uproar over a new widget style or new icons. Xandros is NOT doing the same thing as Redhat.
Why don't you actually find out from the KDE developers what their beef was instead of blindly accepting Redhat's second hand perception of what their beef was.
looks like minor changes from Corel... (Score:2, Interesting)
Unrecognizeable KDE? (Score:2, Interesting)
they should help kde by helping to add functionality, features, useabilty, squashing bugs, etc...not doing something like this that is totally unproductive.
(but they won't...didn't corel and the kde community have beef because corel didn't give back any of it's changes to KDE?)
if they want to make a distinction between themselves and other distro's do it with your wizards, config tools, hardware support, installation, updating features, etc.
this is much more productive.
most of the "new" features in xandros, for example the showing of your
mounted drives and such, are easily done (and probably better) without totally wrecking KDE.
there just isn't a point to trashing kde to make it look like windows, add functionality is one thing...totally changing it is another
on top of that they introduce an unnecessary learning curve for people who want to then explore other linux distro's
something's still missing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not talking about ditching the CLI, but there should be a distro that focuses entirely on the GUI and GUI-based tools rather than requiring vi/emacs-esque configuration. I'm talking DHCP and routing configuration, firewall rulesets, you name it. I'm talking about an OSX-like distro for linux. I still haven't seen one that even comes close, and I'm running just about all of 'em.
Let's face it, linux has suffered in the desktop market for just this reason. Yes, most linux users are very proficient and some would prefer to use the shell for everything, but I know many many powerusers who just want to focus on their work, not on hacking out scripts and config files to get a lan up and running.
The argument against a graphical distro has been in favor of supporting old hardware, and that's fine- go grab debian or something. But nowadays, most folk have more than enough processor and graphics power- why not throw them a distro too?
What is it with these reviews of commercial stuff? (Score:5, Interesting)
You see a review, and it says something like: "the big players in the Linux "purely-desktop market" are Lycoris, Lindows, ELX and the much awaited Xandros".
Good god! Mandrake, anybody? What they really mean is "the big players who may actually give us money to review their products are Lycoris, Lindows, ELX, and Xandros".
Absolutely pitiful. I see gobs and gobs of sites reviewing commerical *nix software these days, COMPLETELY IGNORING the more stable, mature, full-featured, robust, and easier-to-use open source/free software alternatives.
OSNews hasn't been as bad for this, in my experience, but I'm going to be watching very closely from now on.
Re:What is it with these reviews of commercial stu (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I'm saying they're doing reviews while completely ignoring a HUGE part of the market they're doing these reviews for.
Tell me, when you want an office suite, and you're looking for reviews, won't it seem a _tad_ odd when the only ones you can find reviews for are ones that charge money?
Perhaps a better example would be, what the heck, Unix-based desktops. How would _you_ feel about a site that reviewed software from a little-known newcomer while completely ignoring software from vendors that has been proven and established?
Re:What is it with these reviews of commercial stu (Score:2)
Say, like, Mandrake.
2 Requests for the Xandros Team (Score:3, Insightful)
2) PLEASE let there be an easy "Internet Sharing" wizard.
The little penguin... (Score:2, Interesting)
Contributions from slashdot?! (Score:3, Funny)
As a software company in the Linux space, Xandros benefits from and recognizes the phenomenal contributions of the following groups (to name a few): The Linux Kernel Archive, The GNU Project ...
Slashdot .
I wonder what Slashdot contribution is: first posts of idea bewoulf clustering?
Why Win9x style? (Score:2, Interesting)
Thoughts on a more modern GUI (Score:3, Insightful)
It occurs to me that what the Linux community needs is not another hacked-up KDE knock-off, but a real ground-up GUI. By GUI, I don't mean an X11 WM, I mean a complete GUI. Some lessons can be learned from Mac OS X's graphics system.
Point 1: Dump X11 entirely. It's a lot easier to write libraries to display X11 apps in a different environment than it is to make X11 into a modern graphics environment. Its development began 18 years ago (released 14 years ago), and frankly, its age shows, both in performance and in functionality.
Point 2: OpenGL compositing a la Quartz Extreme. Windows become patterns mapped onto a plane. 3D graphics are tightly integrated into the same screen model.
Point 3: With the exception of bitmaps (which you map as a pattern), draw all the 2d windows using 3d primitives, say as a variant of splines that have thickness, located just in front of a 2d plane.
I'm not sure how hard this would be, but the basic thinking behind this idea is to take a traditional PDF or PostScript-style bezier curve model and map it into 3d primitives so that it can be rendered in hardware.
I suspect that such a design may go farther than is practical given current graphics hardware speeds, but if someone were to write such software, eventually the hardware would catch up and such a thing would then become practical, assuming it isn't already.
Point 4: Do not use a client-server model. It made sense in 1984. It doesn't make sense in 2002. Most people don't have graphical terminals connected to big centralized servers these days. A client-server model can easily be grafted onto a local model if it is designed correctly. By contrast, local communication via a client-server model tends to cause a speed penalty.
Before you ask, no, I don't have the time to design such a system, and it would be a conflict of interest if I did. That having been said, I certainly think it would be cool if someone pulled it off.... :-)
Re:Thoughts on a more modern GUI (Score:5, Insightful)
The speed penalty only happens because people don't use X11 asynchronously, or they try to use it in raw bitmap mode instead of learning what all those pesky XDrawLine, XDrawString, etc functions do.
Re:Thoughts on a more modern GUI (Score:3, Interesting)
Asynchronous request are good for performance, but bad for responsiveness.
A Berlin-like scheme where the server can show the pop-up etc should have better responsiveness.
> 99% of all apps don't require anything more fancy than 2D drawing primitives and a few icon pixmaps.
What's your point ?
The idea is to be able to have real transparency, independency of resolution GUI not especially fancy effects.
As for Berlin not taking over the world: why are you using Linux?
It is not currently taking over the world!
> client/server is fundamental to the design of both Unix and X11. Try this: administer your parent's Windows or Mac machine from your home 100 miles away, as though you were sitting right there. Can't do it?
AFAIK remote GUI can be done in Windows with VNC, so it shows that you can have fast,responsive local GUI and remote GUI at the same time.
Just don't use X11.
Re:Thoughts on a more modern GUI (Score:2)
Could you please tell us which toolkits use X11 well - this would be very useful for future reference.
Again any examples - preferably open source - I would like to try them out and see how they work?
Re:Thoughts on a more modern GUI (Score:2)
Want to know the number 1 reason a Linux box freezes? XFree86 !
Ever seen X-win32, or other X servers for Windows? That's what I want on Linux. What this gives us is an abstraction of display layer and X server, which means that X would probably never have the power to bring the system down.
Instead, the graphics / display layer would be handled by DirectFB (http://www.directfb.org/). I can go on about the many reasons why this is a better model:
1) With the Linux Framebuffer (and DirectFB), we use the kernel for our graphics driver, which is something we should have been doing all along. Ever tried to combine XFree86 and svgalib? or the framebuffer? It's shaky ground, and most often results in a loud *BOOM*. With the kernel managing all of your video and actually knowing what the hell is going on means much better video stability.
2) On a similar note, DirectFB also uses whatever mouse you have setup in your kernel. No config files, it just works.
3) The Linux Framebuffer does not require root access to use. Rather, you just chmod your
4) Applications can access the local video directly for fast graphics access, and if they want they could use X also. This is the opposite of the current design, which is that you are always remote and you have to "ask" for local priveledge. Does anyone else find it totally backasswards that Quake requires X11 to run?
In short, don't dump X. But I say reorganize this whole display layer mess. We really can have our cake and eat it too. Just look at X-win32... and MacOS X....
DirectFB is really looking cool. I'm actually using it right now for my X display (and I'm only running X apps, so I'm not really gaining any accel at the moment). All in all, the DirectFB desktop is still not yet ready for prime time, but I'll be waiting
Re:Thoughts on a more modern GUI (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically a correctly designed client/server requires many ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE fewer context switches to get data on the screen. Not a measly 2 or 3 like people claim kernel servers give you, I'm talking about a reduction of 10000 times in system overhead. The reason is that it is trivial to batch requests together.
The known problem with client-server is latency. This has to be addressed anyway if you want any kind of remote interaction, even if it is supposed to be an add-on like VNC. Also everybody doing network programming is well aware of latency, and latency between the program and the screen ain't so bad if there is also latency between
The other problem with X is incredibly bad design such that many of the calls require a round-trip synchronization with the server. If you want to draw in arbitrary color c you must send c to the server, wait for it to respond with a "color cell" n and send n as the current color, and then you are ready to draw a thousand line segments in that color. But if you want to draw 1000 line segments in different colors, suddenly you have 2000 times more system overhead than before! Of course you could cache the colors, but that just shows the bad design of X so that you have to write complex stuff on the local end to talk to it. Any sensible design would take the original color c directly to set the color. (of course my description is simplified, but X is loaded with this crap).
PostScript was originally designed to be a 3-D system with perspective projection (I'm not sure if they intended to do depth buffer, probably not). 3D projections should not be much overhead if you have a bit that detects it so you use the 2D pipeline when possible. Some hardware will do a 4x4 perspective matrix multiply as fast as a 2x3 PostScript matrix, so it may not matter.
Variable-width splines are best handled at the near end. A more efficient communication would be to send the outline of the resulting fill area.
Pixmaps (what I think you meant by "bitmap") should be 3D as well, drawing them should be transformed through the 3D projection so that each pixel is a 1x1 square in the input coordianate space with z=0. All 3D graphics hardware can do this easily, it's what texture mapping is.
"Windows" could be off-screen images that you draw, using the normal graphics, and these are then mapped through 3D transformations and comped on the screen, giving you not only overlapping with transparency but the ability to distort windows arbitrarily without messing up programs that assumme they can read the bits back.
Re:Thoughts on a more modern GUI (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it is time for a radical fork. Desktop Linux.
Desktop Linux would put everything you would normally find on the first level of your hard drive into a "system" folder in a "linux" folder. That linux folder would also hold the configuration and kernel utilities that are normally hidden from anything but a command prompt call. It would assume root status for specific actions of the local user if prompted by dialog box, and would auto-mount any drive it was given. There would be no remote administration utilities. A more crash-resistant low level format for the hard drive would have to be chosen, as would many, many little utilities. Nothing would require the command line. And of course, (the impossible) binary compatibility with existing Linux apps would have to be preserved.
No, I don't think it is possible either, and I rather think the better idea is to help invest in OpenBE or another desktop-oriented Open Source project.
Linux, not surprisingly, still isn't a desktop-oriented OS project.
Gah! Multiple desktops (Score:2)
Most users have a trouble enough with one desktop to worry about - stop putting a desktop switcher in the taskbar by default!
Multiple desktops are cool _if_ you know what you're doing, but even experienced users take some adjusting at first, and if you have trouble w/ computers as it is then the desktop switcher just serves to take up space and scare the sh!t out of you all at the same time.
that being said I'm psyched about the gui resolution control
"I hate Windows...I am afraid of Linux" (Score:2)
I wonder how many of people feel that way.....
Here's one more likely: "I hate Windows..I have never heard of Linux".
Maybe this distribution will help both of these phrases.
Sweet! (Score:2, Interesting)
Finally, a linux distro has (by default) hidden those hundreds of lines of text that come up every time the system boots. For the average linux newbie, they do nothing but create confusion and panic. "Was that an error message that just flew by?" "What does that mean?" "Hmm...2645 bogomips? Will I need to remember that later?"...and so on.
I'm not saying they're not useful; in fact, they can be a life saver. Without all those printk's and init messages, it would be awfully hard or even impossible to diagnose and fix many problems. There's just no reason for them to be there when everything's working properly.
Re:Sweet! (Score:2)
Sometimes I watch that UNIX shit go by on the screen and I think that in the old days, no one would ever see that shit go by because the cold electron gun in the display took like three minutes to warm up.
No more security pants? (Score:3, Funny)
"Secure means users are less prone to virus attacks and security breeches as well as the down time, damage, and inconvenience they cause."
With Windows, I always felt claustrophobic below the waistline. Now that Xandros got rid of my pants, I can truly be free again. Thank you, Xandros, in the name of the entire office.
Stupidify is good for Joe. (Score:2)
No matter what we personally think about these distros they have a huge benefit for us who are a bit more advanced in linux. Something that many übernerds tend to forget is that with comercialism we also get some benefits as a spinoff.
A bigger userbase gives us better drivers, more comercial apps and overall better support for linux and i cant imagine that being bad. If they fsck up then adios amigos with them and we pick something else to use.
The diversity of linux is what makes it great and thats something we really should hold precious. Not to the expence of compability. Stick to the LSB and we should be just fine even with thousands of different distributions.
It's probably nice, but... (Score:2)
Seriously though, couldn't they have come up with better icons than this? Even completely reusing some of KDEs or GNOMEs work would have been better. It just looks horrible.
I do understand why they have tried to make it as windowsish as possible, but having it look like a very unprofessional unpolished version of Windows does it no good at all imho.
It 'apes' Windows. Bad idea. (Score:2)
Why don't these guys have the gutts to take a perfect linux setup with added usability and all (f.e. Fluxbox WM default behaviour) cool looking Themes and just close the holes that are then left over (crappy fonts on Linux, office package, textmessage bootup and shutdown)?
Why the hell does everybody in the buisness consider M$ the reference for end user usability (which is - mind you - utter bullshit)???
Do a mac rippoff if you will - but this grey in grey Win98 copycat? I'm gonna recomend Windoze migrators SuSE 8 Pro as the Linux n00by choice. It might suck as update, but the install is grafical all the way trough to bootup and shutdown and, damn, it may be green but it shure looks cool.
Another Linux Desktop... (Score:2)
The more the better, right?
blakespot
Re:No thanks (Score:2, Insightful)
but... (Score:2, Informative)
So no, nothing fishy here.
Re:but... (Score:2)
Re:Very nice work... (Score:2)
OT: How do I turn off the load on startup those stupid apps that run on the kbar(Kautorun, Kscheduler, etc.) Or more to the point, what
Re:More choices (Score:3, Funny)
Re:More choices (Score:2)
Don't laugh, I got this one from a person yesterday.
Bleh.
Re:Also check out: (Score:2)
Re:Get some PRIORITIES! (Score:2)
I dunno...faster respawn times?
*cue snare hit and duck*
thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waittress.
Re:Yet another GPL violation (Score:2)
Even giving away something for free is a GPL violation if you don't provide source.
However, my understanding is that you don't have to give away the source up-front, you only have to provide a written offer to provide the source for some number of years. You're allowed to charge a nominal amount of money for the distribution media.
But note that even if there is some delay you have to distribute the exact source for everything you distribute in binary form, even "beta tests".
Sometimes Unix apps are ported to windows by using the Cygwin [cygwin.com] DLL, and then given away for free, even with all the source code. But the Cygwin people are always very careful to ensure that people who do this provide the source code to the same version of the Cygwin DLL they link with; they have to give the source away themselves, it is not sufficient to provide a hyperlink to Cygwin's website.
Re:Will making an excellent UI attract developer (Score:3, Interesting)
Traditionally UNIX apps have always had a dozen different conceptions of interfaces. Take ten command line apps with even a maginally similar function and none of them will use the same command flags or command format. Too many open source developers carry on this ridiculous tradition with their GUI apps leading to confusion and inefficiency. There's more to good GUI development than merely looking like Windows. Despite its problems at least apps on Windows act the same way.
Re:For people who hate windows (Score:2)
Re:Why is the Windows interface so heavily copied? (Score:2)
You can make your Linux box resemble nothing else. Just install an "alternative" WM like E, FluxBox and so on. Often, people who take the time to learn them find they work faster, but most people don't want to break the habit of years to gain a modest increase in user efficiency. So we have interfaces that resemble Windows.
As for Apple, I've seen many posts saying "It looks just like Windows, Apple is so innovative", or some such bull. The MacOS user interface is now a blend of the old MacOS UI (designed 10+ years ago) and NeXT (ditto). It's absolutely not new, or innovative, unless you class high colour themes innovative. It's also useless for ex Windows users, it requires a huge amount of effort to get used to its quirks. If you've just spent $1000+ on a new Mac then of course you will invest the effort required to adapt, it's either that or admit that you've thrown out a lot of money due to lazyness. Having used Macs but never bought them, I can testify to just how irritating it is to learn new habits for no real gain in productivity. So please quit it with the Mac trolls, OS X is largely irrelevant for the "common user", as computers are at saturation so the type of person this distro is aimed at anyway needs to be broken in gently.
Re:Why is the Windows interface so heavily copied? (Score:2)
I would dearly love to see point-to-type be the default on a "novice" system. I would also REALLY like to see them stop raising the windows when you click on their contents.
This would be a HUGE breakthrough, I think similar to the invention of insertion mode-always back in about 1980 or the treatment of Newline as an insertable character, both of which made huge differences to the ability to use text editors, and both (I know because I was forced to write 4 freaking pages in a manual about how "insert mode" worked in 1984) were considered considerably user-unfriendly and geeky.
I do think there has to be some differences from Windows. User interface design has pretty much been frozen now for 7 years (since windows 95). Innovation does not necessarily mean "3d desktop" or "mind reading interface", it means remembering the forgotten ideas of ten or fifteen years ago, realizing what was good, and trying to introduce it to a public that has been brainwashed by never seeing anything other than a Mac or Windows.
Re:LSB? (Score:2)
These designers have to make a rule that the browser shows exactly the real hierarchy so there is never any confusion.
Of course the default hierarchy is confusing. There are a two ways to fix it:
First, make the program open already navigated to somewhere other than root, such as to your desktop or to the "My documents" type of folder.
Second, ignore the LSB and make it make sense to the user. In their example "/disks" makes sense, but why aren't the MSDOS disks in there? They should be, though they can name them C: if they want (this is a perfectly legal Unix filename).
Re:No! (Score:2)
Bingo, so well said!
Right from the word go, the whole idea of "*the* Xandros desktop" makes me wonder why anyone would want something with a cut-down installation - these commercial distributions seem only interested in saying "this is your desktop, these are your packages, WE CONTROL YOU NOW!!", sort of thing.
At least RH tend to GPL anything they write, including linuxconf (oh boy did that go down well), as do debian of course...
Best line in the review (Score:3, Insightful)
Xandros looks and feels quite a bit like Windows98 in places, possibly this was intentional.
I dunno, maybe it was a complete fluke that the Xandros Group came up with a Launch! button where Start is, a resizable Quick Launch area, applications tiled as buttons on the Taskbar, a System Tray, and a Clock. (A clock. Holy shit. I should have patented that.)
C'mon, people. You could have at least tried to put the Trash in the bottom right corner or something. I'm no big fan of current trends in IP law, but this is a total ripoff of the Windows(TM) desktop.
I think there might be a few improvements, like the little up-arrow at the end of the taskbar buttons to pop up another colums for when your drunken porn cruise has OnLoaded and OnUnloaded so many windows that the buttons are taller than they are wide. The four desktops thing is good if you have four monitors (which video card does that again??) But seriously, this desktop looks a whole lot like my current Windows XP desktop. Maybe I can install Xandros on the secretary's computer over the weekend and she'll never notice.
WARNING!! Singularity Approaching! Open Source computer indistinguishable from Monopolist Capitalism.
Re:If I were a windows user switching to linux.. (Score:2)