GTK4? It seems like Rust based UI toolkit is still missing. I like the idea of using Rust for the DE, but personally I'd stick with KDE.
Yeah and they can get like infinite mindshare with it too.
Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
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Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
#62System76 should build a Rust GUI framework. I can't think of many other companies that are better positioned than them.
Doesn't seem like there'd be any good reason to do it. Gtk4 has great low and high level bindings in the form of gtk-rs and relm.
There's a very good reason. GTK never looks very good. Also it uses paradigms that are just not idiomatic in Rust.
Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
#63Original Nautilus and early GNOME developer here. I am very out of touch with what is current, so excuse some possibly ignorant questions. How is this a Rust-based environment if it is based on GTK? I assume GTK is still essentially the C-based GTK we used with some improvements. Why is this called Rust-based? I’ll do some more research but would like to get some insight from more knowledgeable sources.
GTK is just a library, you can use it from any language it has bindings for.
Understood. I have made significant contributions to GTK. My contributions possibly had memory leaks or memory corruption issues that will bring down the higher Rust layer. I am trying to understand the purpose of the Rust layer. It is fine with me if it is because Rust is interesting, but what is being presented doesn’t seem like a Rust desktop environment _to me_.
Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
#64I know that open source and Linux in general don't need/want another DE, but selfishly... I really want System76 to succeed. They give me the same kind of feeling I had when Apple was kicking butt in the early 2000s. And I think that for them to become a general-audience company, they need to really own more of their software. They have some great ideas, and they've already plugin'ed Gnome to within and inch of it's life; it's time to move out on their own. And it's not like a new DE means apps won't work. DEs are just the window dressing and computer management.
What I really wonder about is Wayland support. Is this going to be a brand-new DE that's X only? That would be a real shame. I know System76 has stuck doggedly to X because they sell so many NVidia cards, but NVidia supports GBM now.
Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
#65Nice, exactly what Linux needs the most - another desktop environment! Sarcasm aside, it does look pretty good. But between indistinguishable window title bars and yet another settings app (wanna bet it will miss some config so users wil still need to run one of the others?), I think I'll pass. As far as I'm concerned this problem was solved ages ago, so I simply don't understand why the designers keep mucking with i…
Gotta keep up with the latest Apple designs! :)
I for one would be satisfied to miss the Big-Sur-ification boat...
Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
#66At the risk of sounding too negative/critical, I honestly just don’t like the design language here.
Everything seems overly rounded, and more importantly, the screenshots even show very weird/inconsistent alignment and padding in the UI.
Why is it that so many Linux GUIs — between apps and desktop environments — suffer from a lack of attention to detail?
Once again, it’s early, I’m sure they are aware of some of these issues, but I can’t say I’m excited for this based on what I just saw.
Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
#67I can see 2022 being another almost Year Of Linux on the Desktop. I wonder what dirty tricks big companies will pull, like Microsoft did when netbooks became a threat. (Searching around, I see a lot of people don't get it, they say that Year of Linux on the Desktop has happened. It hasn't yet and some think it never will.)
It happened for me in 1994, and I think it's a case of "gradually, then all at once": Once Microsoft and Apple stop maintaining their software, people who still have computers and electricity will move to Linux.
I hope so. The thing is that we have Chromebooks, which is the Linux Kernel on the Desktop (to me, doesn't satisfy the goal of Linux on the Desktop). So we need something so compelling that Google will also not be able to keep up. Or we need Chrome and/or Android to morph into something open enough to be considered Linux on the Desktop.
Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always took that to be a reference to "it's so robust, it'll survive nuclear winter," which is pretty cool if true. The last database standing after all other species die off.
Fun fact: the supposed extreme hardiness of cockroaches is something of a myth, and in particular they are not fond of cold (hence their affinity for human domiciles!) They should rename to TardigradeDB.
Their nuclear hardiness however has been experimentally validated [1], though flour beetles survived even better than cockroaches.
Either way, both using CockroachDB and participating in this thread put cockroaches on my mind a lot more than I'd really prefer. +1 for TardigradeDB.
Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
#69GTK4? It seems like Rust based UI toolkit is still missing. I like the idea of using Rust for the DE, but personally I'd stick with KDE.
Yeah and they can get like infinite mindshare with it too.
Right, but it's probably a huge project they don't want to maintain.
They could limit the scope though. I.e. focus on Linux only from the start at least. But it's probably still a lot of work.
Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also GTK4 means they are still at the mercy of GNOME which changes APIs often and without consideration for third parties. Wasn't the whole point of the project to emancipate themselves from GNOME? If they rely on GTK they will fail.
Then they would need to either 1) do the yak-shaving and create a whole new GUI stack in Rust (which would be an absolute boon to the Rust community but will be a tremendous effort), or 2) switch to Qt (and basically become KDE) Thinking about it, maybe Sciter ( https://sciter.com/ ) would be an okay foundation to build a DE in (lightweight stack, flexible theming, solid Rust bindings). But then it isn’t open source…
create a whole new GUI stack in Rust
Is there a reason iced is not good enough (other than not being accessible)?