System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment • Hacker News Board

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#71

Post by valvar » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #55

kaibee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drop the 4K IPS for a 2560x1440 panel instead.

My aging eyesight says no. 4k or bust for me.

What's your logic there? I would have thought that if your eyesight is poor, resolution matters much less as you can't tell the difference. You'd want to scale things 2-4 times anyway.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#72

Post by thastings » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

llcoolv wrote: post #20

I think that those "Let's make our own DE" dumb kids are both a symptom and a cause why Linux never broke on the mainstream workstation market. Truth is that a shite miserable 25 year old xfce could be customised in a way good enough to compete with OS X. Why waste all the time on such a massive amount of extremely useless work? Just because it is fun? And yeah, you can downvote this into oblivion, I don't care. The…

No matter how unpopular this approach is, I must agree... I've been on Pop OS for years, and it really is the best GNOME I've seen. However, GNOME itself is pretty weird and even slow these days – yet it's nearly the de facto Linux DE. And System76 is adding more bells and whistles, probably not making it more snappy. This is sad to see, because there are stable, nice, and fast DE's, like Budgie. Or KDE, of course, but I'm more of a GTK person.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#73

Post by kodah » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

I never regret being a PopOS user. This DE is almost exactly what I have running today, which is compelling.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#74

Post by foxhop » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

llcoolv wrote: post #23

foxhop wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love USBC power. Is there a good reason?

There of course is - you don't write a perfectly useless kernel patch - you ain't coolandfun andthatsit.

I don't follow, does USBC power distribution not exist in the Linux kernel?

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#75

Post by superkuh » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

kactus wrote: post #3

Wonder if the file picker will have image thumbnails.

Unless they also fork Gtk3 and Gtk4 the GNOME will still seep in and ruin the desktop. Things like gtkfilechooserwidget are terribly broken in gtk3 and gtk4 but at least gtk4 finally got a patch that allows you to paste into a file->open window without it error'ing out. But gtk4 is still firmly in the "no text entry window for you" in file chooser menus by default.

Also, I looked at the github repo for cosmic under pop!_os's stuff and there's no actual code. It's all boilerplate with a single gsettings schema .xml file. There's no DE in that repo.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#76

Post by bmurphy1976 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

rubyist5eva wrote: post #60

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My aging eyesight says no. 4k or bust for me.

at 14" is the difference even distinguishable? I can barely tell the difference between 1080p and retina on screens that small

It's complicated. For me it's about how smooth the text is and how consistent the experience is. 4k with 2x (integer scaling) is a pleasant balance of crisp rendering and appropriate text size.

The lower resolutions would require non-integer scaling and so far my experience doing that in Linux environments has been very poor. I don't expect this to be a smooth experience any time in the near future. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#77

Post by bmurphy1976 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

valvar wrote: post #71

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My aging eyesight says no. 4k or bust for me.

What's your logic there? I would have thought that if your eyesight is poor, resolution matters much less as you can't tell the difference. You'd want to scale things 2-4 times anyway.

2x scaling at 4k is comfortable and crisply rendered fonts are a MUST. My eyes are far more fatigued at the end of the day if font rendering isn't crystal clear. Other resolutions require non-integer scaling and my experience with that has been... not great.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#78

Post by tannhaeuser » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

I wish Ubuntu would maintain a gnome3+ fork like that, with top menu and reasonable file picker, or partner-up with System76. Not because I can't use another distro, but because I think a well-tested default target desktop distro is important and helping the community. I'm still on Ubuntu 20.04 because I need third-party based stuff to run, such as Chromium and Electron-based apps such as Skype and Teams (which however doesn't actually work). But gnome3 simply sucks so I'll have to move to something else; maybe Kubuntu or even Unity again (the community fork).

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#79

Post by kitsunesoba » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

mixedCase wrote: post #66

mulmen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? The lack of a workable window manager is one of the biggest things that prevents me from using a Linux laptop as a daily driver. It makes sense that System76 would work toward a serviceable Linux desktop OS. For the same reason it makes sense that Apple develops MacOS but charges no license fees.

"a workable window manager" sounds to me like you just mean "I want a macOS clone and I don't want to learn anything else even if it's more efficient". If I got it wrong, I'd recommend sway or any other tiling wm that adapts perfectly to laptop limitations of 1 screen and no mouse included.

Desktop workflow is a highly personal thing. I've tried to make tiling WMs work numerous times but it never sticks, I always go back to a more traditional floating-first setup with titlebars and the like.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#80

Post by zepto » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

mixedCase wrote: post #66

mulmen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? The lack of a workable window manager is one of the biggest things that prevents me from using a Linux laptop as a daily driver. It makes sense that System76 would work toward a serviceable Linux desktop OS. For the same reason it makes sense that Apple develops MacOS but charges no license fees.

"a workable window manager" sounds to me like you just mean "I want a macOS clone and I don't want to learn anything else even if it's more efficient". If I got it wrong, I'd recommend sway or any other tiling wm that adapts perfectly to laptop limitations of 1 screen and no mouse included.

Right but to be fair to the parent - tiling window managers are the only kind that are superior to the Mac, and they are simply not to everyone’s preference.