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Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

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Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#241

Post by michaelmrose »

spurgu wrote: post #143
II2II wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we usually discuss things in extremes. We don't need to know how to sew our own clothes, but knowing how to mend them is useful. Do we really want to live in a world where we toss out a shirt simply because a button falls off? We don't need to know how to build a home, but knowing how to fix simple problems is useful. Do we really want to live in a world where we have to call in an electrician eve…

It's not extremes. Modern society is designed so that we don't have to do any of those things (in extreme or even in between), we just throw money (that we generated doing one specific job) at our problems.

50% of the population of the US and 95% of the world would be unhealthy or poor if they all adopt that philosophy about food. Sounds like your bubble not modern society.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#242

Post by jdmg94 »

raziel2p wrote: post #129
II2II wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we usually discuss things in extremes. We don't need to know how to sew our own clothes, but knowing how to mend them is useful. Do we really want to live in a world where we toss out a shirt simply because a button falls off? We don't need to know how to build a home, but knowing how to fix simple problems is useful. Do we really want to live in a world where we have to call in an electrician eve…

I don't think your metaphors work. There's a huge difference between knowing how to sew a button or flipping a circuit breaker and being able to code.

statistically speaking most people today make a living coding in js, if we where going to extremes we would be talking about soldering your own board, assembling your own language, rolling your own OS, the shit Bell labs used to do. Coding is by all means an adequate analog to sewing my dude/dudette

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#243

Post by thekyle »

rtpg wrote: post #99
wraptile wrote: post #65

Wow, I'm masively disappointed with this thread. We have so many different Desktop "OS's" already. There's hardly a need for a _revolution_; strong stability and support is needed but there's just no paying market for it by the looks of it. 4 biggest desktop environments are by mega corporations (apple, microsoft) and by big open-source collectives (Gnome, KDE). But is that it? No, there's also a bunch of tilling-win…

Here are some mobile concepts that I miss on OS: - not thinking about files: I can open Notes/Drafts on my phone and get a textbox. I kinda get this with Joplin, barely. - Real sandboxing, with a nice permission layer - Extremely easy sharing of data between apps. Of course files are theoretically a great sharing mechanism, but the sharing mechanism in mobile OS's are the logical conclusion of the clipboard - URIs th…

What do you mean by "Extremely easy sharing of data between apps"? In my experience it's quite difficult to get your data out of one app and into another one.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#244

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

waddlesplash wrote: post #238
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #160

Honestly I think a lot of ideas about where to go with Desktop OSs these days are just complexity fetishist slashfiction. I don't think we need new complicated paradigms, instead we should take a look at our history of what worked and what didn't and build based a simple combination of good ideas we already have. My opinion, short version, hastily written, and incomplete: 1) Applications are self-contained objects th…

I know we've debated this point before, but as I don't recall seeing this particular list from you before, I just wanted to point out that Haiku already has (2), (6), and (7), the technical capability for (1) though it is not exposed to the GUI, about half of (4) though there is also no GUI for it (there is a command line tool for it however), and future plans for something like (3) and (5). :)

Well, we've had some disagreement over the extent to which (1) applies to Haiku for sure. Maybe there have been some changes there but the way it appeared to be implemented a while back I would say didn't quite meet (1), especially by convention if not by technical limitation.

If Haiku actually does (6) as I imagine it, that's actually something I had no idea about and probably deserves its own article. Ditto (4).

I'm genuinely glad to hear about future plans for (3) and (5).

These are the kinds of features that would make it more appealing to me than a Linux distro despite some of its current shortcomings.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#245

Post by remexre »

striking wrote: post #88
remexre wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a paper about how their computing paradigm works? Basically the only thing I got from that page was, "damn, I'm glad I don't need to use gluesticks when I code."

It took some digging, but I found some bits! https://omar.website/posts/notes-from-dynamicland-geokit/#ba...

Oh, this programming model (and overall goal) look quite like http://witheve.com/

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#246

Post by waddlesplash »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #244
waddlesplash wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know we've debated this point before, but as I don't recall seeing this particular list from you before, I just wanted to point out that Haiku already has (2), (6), and (7), the technical capability for (1) though it is not exposed to the GUI, about half of (4) though there is also no GUI for it (there is a command line tool for it however), and future plans for something like (3) and (5). :)

Well, we've had some disagreement over the extent to which (1) applies to Haiku for sure. Maybe there have been some changes there but the way it appeared to be implemented a while back I would say didn't quite meet (1), especially by convention if not by technical limitation. If Haiku actually does (6) as I imagine it, that's actually something I had no idea about and probably deserves its own article. Ditto (4). I'…

(1) is definitely by convention and not technical limitation, I definitely stated that during our last conversation.

Audio & video mixing is done via "Cortex". Looks like we don't have great documentation for it yet, but here's an old screenshot: http://maurice.kaldience.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/haik...

Regarding scripting on Haiku, here's a basic introduction to the main CLI tool: https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/humdinger/2017-11-05_scripting...

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#247

Post by bobthepanda »

Vrondi wrote: post #232
spurgu wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not extremes. Modern society is designed so that we don't have to do any of those things (in extreme or even in between), we just throw money (that we generated doing one specific job) at our problems.

Amazing to see someone celebrating helplessness for the masses.

Is giving the people the freedom to do what they want and not focus on the pedantry of things they're not interested in "celebrating helplessness", or is it getting work for the sake of work out of the way?

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#248

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

waddlesplash wrote: post #246
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we've had some disagreement over the extent to which (1) applies to Haiku for sure. Maybe there have been some changes there but the way it appeared to be implemented a while back I would say didn't quite meet (1), especially by convention if not by technical limitation. If Haiku actually does (6) as I imagine it, that's actually something I had no idea about and probably deserves its own article. Ditto (4). I'…

(1) is definitely by convention and not technical limitation, I definitely stated that during our last conversation. Audio & video mixing is done via "Cortex". Looks like we don't have great documentation for it yet, but here's an old screenshot: http://maurice.kaldience.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/haik... Regarding scripting on Haiku, here's a basic introduction to the main CLI tool: https://www.haiku-os.org/blog…

> (1) is definitely by convention and not technical limitation, I definitely stated that during our last conversation.

Indeed, now that I think back I believe that was ultimately what you clarified about my misunderstandings of Haiku and package management.

What still baffles me somewhat that it seems normal (non-ported) Haiku applications are actually made less flexible by packaging them because they 1) have no non-base-system dependencies and 2) hpkgs only work from certain locations (IIRC currently hardcoded but could potentially be configurable).

Cortex does look a lot like the kind of system I'm thinking of. That's wicked cool. When Haiku supports hardware accelerated video one imagines they could stick arbitrary shaders in the video pipeline to accomplish some useful, or at least really neat, things. I know built-in audio routing functionality would save me a lot of time on the Halloween display each year, maybe I should look at doing that with Haiku next time.

I see this quote in the comments about 'hey': "hey is not a tool to send generic BMessages", which seems like a missed opportunity from way out here at 100ft. Otherwise the only thing that seems needed for GUI exposure is a script editor with 'record' functionality and perhaps some kind of manager for how scripts are tied to system events.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#249

Post by fauigerzigerk »

sanitycheck wrote: post #145
LuvSauce wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind using Linux? It's been my experience that it's done everything I wanted it to well. Linux on desktop has changed. I hated it too in the 2000s. Now mostly everything just works, KDE can look and feel like any desktop including OSX. Very reliable. You'll find a pirated version of XP running as you wish soon since the leak of the XP source code not GPL though.

I almost just spat out my tea. I've tried to move to Linux once a year since 2005. A few weekends ago I did my annual attempt and had a go at Elementary OS (live USB wouldn't boot, gave up), MX Linux (couldn't get sound, wouldn't boot after installing nvidia drivers), Manjaro XFCE (kept locking up, requiring a power cycle) and Pop OS. Pop fared best, but even then I had all kinds of showstopper problems with monitor…

My experience is very similar. And yet in every debate on this subject some people will claim that they are running Linux without experiencing any of these problems. They can't all be lying can they? So what gives?

I believe it all comes down to selecting the right hardware. The way I've been trying Linux was to install it on some machine I had lying around (mostly Acer, Asus, MacBook, no-name towers). Apparently, that's not how it works.

I remember back in 1990s and early 2000s it was hit and miss whether or not Linux would install on a particular machine. Then over time things improved and you could install it on almost any machine.

Some Linux enthusiasts celebrated this achievement by claiming loudly that Linux now "just works". They couldn't possibly have done a greater disservice to the desktop Linux movement, because that's just not true.

It doesn't just work. It just installs. And then it's crushingly disappointing on most machines.

My next Linux attempt will be on one of those known good hardware configurations. Anything else is just a waste of time.

Re: Re-Thinking the Desktop OS

#250

Post by Koshkin »

pjmlp wrote: post #149
wraptile wrote: post #65

Wow, I'm masively disappointed with this thread. We have so many different Desktop "OS's" already. There's hardly a need for a _revolution_; strong stability and support is needed but there's just no paying market for it by the looks of it. 4 biggest desktop environments are by mega corporations (apple, microsoft) and by big open-source collectives (Gnome, KDE). But is that it? No, there's also a bunch of tilling-win…

Good that you mention Engelbart, because none of the mainstream desktop OSes are close to his ideas, or what the Xerox workstations allowed for, ironically Windows is probably the one most closest to it. While GNU/Linux have the necessary tooling for making it as well, but thanks to the fragmentation and some communities hatred against GNOME/KDE, it will never happen. This is what a modern desktop OS should look like…

> what a modern desktop OS should look like

I take this as a joke. There is nothing modern-looking about it. Geeky, yes. Not designed for touch interface. Resembles Oberon, which I would not call modern, either. Maybe, we are not ready for it yet. Belongs in the future, then. (Or, more likely, in the past.)

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