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Burn My Windows

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Re: Burn My Windows

#71

Post by nerdponx »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #42
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #37

I love Linux because it creates a space for stuff like this to take place. That said, i3 is enough glitz for me (and it's pretty much none).

Somewhat ironically, now hosted on a Microsoft-owned closed platform.

Fortunately, Git itself is "open" and the source code can be migrated to another host without much difficulty. Migrating bug/issue tracking, PR management, and CI will be more difficult, but not impossible.

That said, I don't quite understand why no viable alternative has arisen.

Gitlab was a good attempt, but its interface turned out to be kind of clunky and more "team-oriented" than makes sense for general open source projects. I strongly believe that if it had a "slick" interface like Github, it'd be more popular.

Sourcehut is fantastic, but lacks the same "issues" and "pull requests" system.

Mailing lists honestly kind of suck, if only because there's zero semantic markup in email (excluding HTML-in-email which is a clusterfuck that nobody should use), making it difficult to track comment replies, embed code blocks, etc. And submitting patches over email is a chore compared to making a PR, viewing diffs, etc. on a platform like Github.

Also the social networking features of Github are unobtrusive and fun. Following other users has introduced me to a variety of interesting projects, starring projects is a fun way to show support, and the ability to watch a repo for releases is useful (although I wish it were an RSS feed instead).

Re: Burn My Windows

#72

Post by hammock »

jchw wrote: post #55
hammock wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know what Compiz is (not a linux user), but I seem to remember something like this mod existed for Windows in the 90s/00s

WindowBlinds had some similar features, but I’m pretty sure Compiz almost immediately did far more. The state of the art third party software on Windows in the 2000s tended to try to emulate Vista Aero on XP, or skin Vista/7 differently but with similar functionality. The Molten theme from WindowBlinds 6 is somewhat reminiscent of burning windows, but I don’t think it actually did that. Maybe at some point you could…

Yes I think that was it! I never used it for Windows XP but I definitely used it for earlier versions of Windows.

Re: Burn My Windows

#73

Post by marcodiego »

ridethebike wrote: post #69
marcodiego wrote: post #26

Compiz was probably the single most impactful event for desktop linux of the mid 2000's. Not that it itself made much of a difference, but the ripples affect many areas we take for granted today. A few reasons: - it put linux ahead of windows and mac in terms of appearance; - it brought many new users and most were a good mix technical and enthusiasts; - it showed the advantages of modular software; - many plugins we…

I remember when Compiz was released. It was mind-blowing, its sheer awesomeness was something out of this world. "ok, Windows is done" me and my friends thought, "prepare for linux dominating the desktops". Yet ~15 years later here we are.

I miss that feeling. Desktop moves at a much slower pace today.

Re: Burn My Windows

#74

Post by shadowoflight »

marcodiego wrote: post #60
shadowoflight wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then after I spent a day getting it all working I'd be staring at my computer and it wouldn't take more than an hour or two to think "Ok, that's cool but I want to play a game" or something else that I couldn't do in linux. Hah, for me, this was when I started getting deep into WINE and also some of the games available for Linux (SuperTux, that one game where you shoot a ball and it sticks to other balls and if eno…

> that one game where you shoot a ball and it sticks to other balls and if enough of them are the same color they disappear Frozen bubble.

Thank you! I knew the name had something to do with ice, but the name eluded me.

Re: Burn My Windows

#75

Post by schmookeeg »

Wow did this ever take me back. Arguably my first "public code release" was a plugin ("mod" back then I think) for the WWIV BBS system -- a screensaver called "Bubbles" that would draw random circles on the idle screen instead of the dead blinky cursor at top left. BBS owners would basically need to code it as a diff in their own system and recompile the thing.

I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. It was probably 50ish lines of C code, and I made some serious assumptions about what video card and modes were present.

I really really loved computers and coding back then.

Reading the comment below about being elderly and soulless also resonates for me at the moment.

I miss the romance of it all. :) I've been married to computers for nearly 40 years now, and all of the spice is gone. It's just comfortable and regular and routine.

Oh well, on to another 2-hour interminable sprint planning sesh (sigh) -- "yes dear, I'll be right there"

Re: Burn My Windows

#76

Post by StillBored »

jeff_vader wrote: post #61
StillBored wrote: post #56

This is cool, but the fact that its written in JS tells me just about everything I need to know about gnome... JS has its place, using it for systems programming isn't one of them IMHO, since I prefer to have the core of my computation stack slim and fast. I can almost forgive the electron apps their piggyness given the desire to build cross platform, but gnome? Yah, no thanks.

I find it interesting since JavaScript in this case is only "glue" language. Actual effects are hardware (?) shaders: https://github.com/Schneegans/Burn-My-Windows/blob/main/src/... .. Had no idea this is possible.

IMHO, its less about where the work is done (and yes i'm aware that gjs tends to be used mostly as glue, and the same with KDE) and more the fact that I don't want a big heavyweight garbage collected language deciding to garbage collect and glitch some part of the system, or JIT pass recompiling a bunch of code when I first click it. I despise latency in human computer interactions and everyone whines about how its worse on pretty much every common PC/etc vs older devices, yet they go an install hooks written in JITed/garbage collected languages all over the system.

Having those hooks written in compiled languages/etc is bad enough, I found myself regularly cleaning the runas & windows explorer context menus of loads of cruft because the click latency was noticeable, and now not only can one plug in a ton of stuff but it needs to thunk though to JS to do it (and not picking particularly on JS, because it would be just as bad in java or python or whatever other scripting language one chooses).

Its just a waste of cycles, and for projects I work on, engineering time is "cheap". That applies to most system programming if one spends 1/2 a second considering that the code forms the foundation for hundreds of millions of devices all burning energy and the time of their users.

Re: Burn My Windows

#77

Post by dopeboy »

spacemanjack wrote: post #48
joshstrange wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every foray into linux on the desktop (when I was younger) for me started with seeing a cool video online with window effects (Compiz being the one I remember), installing linux on a new partition, spend the day getting most of my hardware working and playing with Compiz and other cool visualization utils (I can't remember the name of a tool that would add computers stats and whatnot to your desktop background…

You are likely thinking of conky. It was included on some distros with a basic layout, but you could spend hours just adding other stats to it and changing colors.

I still remember the hundred page thread started by the author of conky on ubuntuforums.org. Back when I'd volunteer time on that site to help new ubuntu users. Blast from the past.

Re: Burn My Windows

#78

Post by ratboy666 »

StillBored wrote: post #56

This is cool, but the fact that its written in JS tells me just about everything I need to know about gnome... JS has its place, using it for systems programming isn't one of them IMHO, since I prefer to have the core of my computation stack slim and fast. I can almost forgive the electron apps their piggyness given the desire to build cross platform, but gnome? Yah, no thanks.

Javascript for desktop extensions. Makes sense -- doesn't matter what processor you are running! Sure, depends on the version of the desktop environment - and each extension declares what version(s) it is operable for. The major problem is that I may be running (just for example) Gnome 40 on one machine and then Gnome 30 on another, and I really can't share the same home directory! That would be lovely if it could be worked out! Would also slightly simplify my backup strategies.

I don't see desktop extensions as the "core of the computation stack". Can you expand on that idea, please?

Re: Burn My Windows

#79

Post by dopeboy »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #37

I love Linux because it creates a space for stuff like this to take place. That said, i3 is enough glitz for me (and it's pretty much none).

We all go through phases. I was on Cinnamon for the past six years and see myself returning to GNOME. I find myself wanting less cruft out of a DE as I get older. And more keyboard friendly too.
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