If it's as friendly as the website, there is still plenty to do there.
SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
11–20 of 47 posts
Re: SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
#12I fail to see how a desktop UI based on HTML5 can be marketed as "light".
Re: SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
#13Wow, I remember hearing about this project over a decade ago, and liking some of the UI concepts. I followed the progress on the website for a little while, and then it seemed to stall, so I mostly forgot about it. As others have mentioned here, the website is unclear. What's going on with this? Is it progressing again?
Re: SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
#14Is this based on one of the popular linux distributions? If yes, which?
Re: SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
#15There is remarkably little information on the website. I don't really want to download it without at least some indication that it's going to be worth my time. Is it just a modified fvwm running in Debian?
Re: SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
#16tl;dr: it's a Debian derivative. (I could be wrong. The wikipedia page is very mangled, and the website is entirely content free.)
It looks like it mainly exists as a platform for Mezzo, a desktop environment. I skimmed the design document; it's painfully opinionated, and keeps repeating the tired old cliché that users can't handle configuration options and we should make their lives easier but not letting them change anything...
Re: SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
#17I work with the maintainer of Symphony and it is still "alive".
Re: SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
#18Wow, I remember hearing about this project over a decade ago, and liking some of the UI concepts. I followed the progress on the website for a little while, and then it seemed to stall, so I mostly forgot about it. As others have mentioned here, the website is unclear. What's going on with this? Is it progressing again?
I am the sole developer/maintainer of SymphonyOS these days and it showing up on HN today is a bit of a suprise since it's been several months since a public release.
Development is progressing albeit slowly since my day job takes up most of my time. I am currently in the middle of a rewrite of the desktop environment making changes like moving from FVWM to openbox and rewriting some Perl code that has been around in one form or another since 2004 in Ruby. I am hoping to have a new release out in January :)
Re: SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
#19tl;dr: it's a Debian derivative. (I could be wrong. The wikipedia page is very mangled, and the website is entirely content free.) It looks like it mainly exists as a platform for Mezzo, a desktop environment. I skimmed the design document; it's painfully opinionated, and keeps repeating the tired old cliché that users can't handle configuration options and we should make their lives easier but not letting them chang…
The design document is 11 years old. Symphony has been a solo side project for the last 6-7 years with a release once or twice a year. There are a few more recent updates on the project's facebook page including screenshots of the new build in progress. https://www.facebook.com/SymphonyOS/
Re: SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful
#20There is remarkably little information on the website. I don't really want to download it without at least some indication that it's going to be worth my time. Is it just a modified fvwm running in Debian?
The currently available release is Debian based utilizing FVWM along with tint2 and a custom launcher written using HTML5 and WebKit. It's worth trying out in a VM or as a LiveDVD. I am currently in the process of doing a complete rewrite of most of the Desktop environment, replacing some very old Perl pieces with shiny new Ruby ones.