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Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

elementary.io

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Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#41

Post by rijoja »

hawski wrote: post #29
kitsunesoba wrote: post #13

The project is interesting and I have to give it props for being one of the few Linux distros that’s put the necessary level of thought into UI/UX and made consistency a priority. That said, I question some of their technical choices, most namely the choice of Vala as the project’s official language. Not that Vala is bad, but it’s incredibly niche at best and I think it severely limits contributions. Not many are goi…

Learning Vala is still far better than GObject-C. Rust GTK bindings are probably not yet there. So what's left? Python and JavaScript. If you care about native performance the way I believe they are these will also not cut it. Vala seems then a logical choice, especially at the time they were deciding. The question I have is: will Vala be supported further by Gnome in foreseeable future? I heard some time ago that it…

Sure got that one right. GObject-C is an impressively good implementation put next to WinAPI but way behind to anything vaguely modern.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#42

Post by jcelerier »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #32
jniedrauer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fedora is my daily driver, and I think it really strikes a good balance between stability, security, and bleeding edge. Having said that, I hesitate to recommend Fedora to newbies. Some things about it can be scary and unpredictable. SELinux is enabled by default, and gnome shows audit2allow notifications every time there is an AVC denial. Someone coming from windows will be scared by seeing dozens of errors the very…

Do you use a high DPI display? How is that? I'm reticent to give up my 5k screen and crisp text when programming but I'd love to use Linux as my daily driver (as much as I like macOS).

can't speak for OP but I've been using a retina MBP since 2014 until this year and I'm typing this from a 4k screen (both running ArchLinux) - everything is fine except the occasional 1997 TCL/Tk app not updated for hidpi

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#44

Post by kevingrahl »

I’ve been using elementary OS since a few years on my main machine and really like it but there are a few quirks that bother me.

For example I can’t use the WiFi drop down to change networks but instead have to open the network manager to scan for new networks. Also when right clicking on external disks in the file manager to mount disks the dialogue appears not where I’ve clicked but a few centimeters above. Stuff like that. I’ve come to live with all those flaws and very rarely have to boot up Windows to use software like Photoshop/Illustrator.

Overall I can recommend elementary OS and have convinced some friends and family to switch from Windows to it.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#45

Post by nkkollaw »

matchbok wrote: post #7

70/30 split for apps is ridiculous and a non-starter. Apple and Google can demand that because of market share. This experiment cannot.

> 70/30 split for apps is ridiculous and a non-starter. Apple and Google can demand that because of market share. This experiment cannot. reply

I wouldn't compare elementary OS's fee to that of Apple and Google.

Apple and Google take that 30% and keep it as profit, while elementary put it back (some percentage of it, I assume) into the project in the form of bounties a BountySource to fix bugs and improve the project. The more the project improves, the more users it will have, the more your app will sell, etc. etc.

Also, your bitter downplaying of the project by calling it an "experiment" vs. Apple and Google and the whole negative tone of your comment is pretty annoying. You're the one comparing the project to the biggest tech companies in the world, not them. Weird.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#46

Post by rijoja »

sanimal wrote: post #2

I don't like the "Pay What You Want" system they have to download the OS. It feels misleading that you have to click on custom then enter 0 to download for free. I totally understand how important donations are to keep a project going but this one rubs me off the wrong way. I hope I'm not the only one.

Nah .. everybody thinks that they will give contributions and are really charitable in their heads. When it comes down to reality however you never really donate. When it's pushed into your face like this there's an actual call to action to do it. If you want it for free you still get it.

Remember this is for consumer oriented projects, they can't expect to get B2B support deals for keeping vital servers up and running. So why not. Maybe a slider would've done it better, because then the 0 value is made available in a different way. Like the humble bundle used to. But that's just nitpicking. And sliders with different platforms and whatever might get messy.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#47

Post by rudedogg »

xaduha wrote: post #37

I'd recommend https://getsol.us if you asked me what Desktop Linux distro to get.

I really like Solus, but I've had issues updating it.

I installed it on an old laptop for a friend, which they have occasionally used for a year or two. Recently, they wanted help setting up a USB device, so I started by trying to update. The GUI showed a progress bar like it was working on it, but it wouldn't proceed.

To debug, I ran the update utility from the command line. It spit out an error that the update server JSON wouldn't load. I copied the URL and paste it into a browser - it was some sort of cache miss. It made it so I couldn't update or install anything, forcing me to reinstall the OS. This was a couple weeks ago.

I also vaguely remember something similar happening when I used it for a year or so; where I couldn't get updates to work and had to reinstall.

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#48

Post by Teknoman117 »

weberc2 wrote: post #20
kitsunesoba wrote: post #13

The project is interesting and I have to give it props for being one of the few Linux distros that’s put the necessary level of thought into UI/UX and made consistency a priority. That said, I question some of their technical choices, most namely the choice of Vala as the project’s official language. Not that Vala is bad, but it’s incredibly niche at best and I think it severely limits contributions. Not many are goi…

I briefly flirted with contributing to the project, but the code was a horrendous mess and the build system was worse (CMake mess; most of the dependencies were implicit; etc). Vala aims to be intuitive for C# developers, which is a nice goal but everything is built on the trashfire that is GObject and the Vala abstraction leaks like a seive. Hopefully much of that was fixed with time, but I doubt GObject is any bett…

What exactly do you mean by implicit dependencies with CMake? Do you mean that they just linking libraries without searching for them via find_package or find_library?

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#49

Post by baybal2 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #12

I've recommended Fedora to several "I'm scared of computers" people recently and the experience has been very good. The new GNOME does require 5 minutes of tutorial, but after that they've been completely happy exploring on their own. The new "Software" app is an excellent GUI for installing new apps and updating the system. Personally I use Macs but if I didn't, Fedora would probably be my next choice. It has by far…

In our company in China, we had few admin staff who first touched a desktop PC on their workplace. Ubuntu Mate worked flawlessly for them.

Few others in marketing and business development who were protesting the lack of usual Windows, got along well after being pressured to actually try it before complaining

We have nearly windows free work environment. Ironically, the only workers who have to use Windows are engineers. There is simply no alternative for Solidworks, Vivado, Cadence, FEM/physics modelling and gazillion of Windows only SDKs for microcontrollers

Re: Elementary OS – Fast, open, privacy-respecting replacement for Windows and macOS

#50

Post by a9entroy »

tapoxi wrote: post #21

What advantages does Elementary have over (its upstream) Ubuntu? It just looks like a different GTK/GNOME Shell theme to me.

Advantages: * It looks very pretty (arguably). The window theme is aesthetically very good looking. Some might prefer Gnome's look. * It is "fast". I found it to be faster than Ubuntu in terms of normal actions like opening apps, power off, power on etc. * Hassle free for the most part. If you don't do anything crazy, it works smoothly and is very low maintenance.

Disadvantages: * Tons of bugs. A lot of bugs have not been fixed since a long time. So, if you find a bug, be prepared to fix it yourself. * eOS devs also make their own Code editor, Mail app, music app, videos app, photos app, calendar app. Some might say that this is a waste of time. * No minimize button. And this is a little frustrating. The devs want you to use the workflow they recommend to the point that they went through the effort to hide the key and make it so that you can't enable it.

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