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Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

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71–80 of 408 posts

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#71

I think I would've tried Pop!_OS by now if not for the name - I know it is totally irrational, but having a ! in there really pisses me off.

It's not just you. I have trouble going near CockroachDB because of its name. It's absolutely unjustifiable from an engineering perspective, but the effect (for me, at least) is real.

I have a few of those projects as well.

MongoDB because mongo is a derogartory word in my language. It is an abbreviation of Mongoloid, was (apparently) used to describe people with Down syndrome, thought I've never heard it used for that. It's more colloquially used to describe people who act wierd or something that are stupid or made in a wierd way.

Svelte, the javascript framework is also something I've kind of avoided so far due to its name. While it doesn't really mean anything in my native tongue as far as I know, it is a very plausible word/spelling and it kinda just sounds unappealing. I can't help but reading it like that either.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#72
post #46

i always disliked gnome 3 because of the user interface (it seemed to be an amalgamation of all the bad things from os x or even macos), not because of the underlying language it's coded in.

I know a lot of people who despise GNOME 3 on the whole, but I'm willing to defend it for what it is. If you've ever used a touchscreen Linux device, it becomes a whole lot easier to appreciate what they did with the toolkit. GTK apps just... work on a touchscreen. No modifications or fancy-pants libraries required. They also work really well on desktop too, with nice plump interactive elements that make sense for the category of devices that it's targeting. It looks equally as spiffy at 200% scaling as it does at 100%, and it's snappy as all hell.

I don't speak for everyone, but GTK3 is the unofficial "native" toolkit for Linux. QT isn't far behind (I've been using Plasma since GNOME 40 and it's a blast), but GTK3 just feels... right. Also licensing and custom stylesheets yadda yadda yadda.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#73
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

...and a desktop environment isn't? Building your own GUI toolkit isn't that bad esp. if you have a team. Cross-platform isn't that hard, windowing is like the only thing that comes to mind where there are some differences in behavior.

Rendering would be done presumably using some cross-platform GPU API like Vulkan or wgpu.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#74
post #28

Looks like the Android 4.0 UI with a bit of neumorphism thrown in. I really don’t like it. I hope that’s not the style they end up with. The GTK window conveys the same information more clearly (and it looks better).

Looks like it is already better than gnome settings. >The search also displays a list of all the settings that match the search criteria and not only where they’re located as GNOME Settings does, this makes it easier to change your settings without having to leave the section you currently are in. >the search bar is available at the top of the navigation view, this is problematic when inside nested menus as the user…

Definitely. When I saw the new settings app my jaw hit the floor, I think GNOME's team is going to have a serious fire lit under their ass now that there's a new kid in town finessing their toolkit like a pro.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#75
post #32

Nice, 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…

> Nice, exactly what Linux needs the most - another desktop environment! One could argue that because no one desktop environment has taken over the Linux mindshare, we haven't invented the one yet, so people keep trying. It's not until something takes over the mindshare (like systemd did), we can all unity and start improving upon the same base.

I'd argue that the battle over desktop environment supremacy leaves desktop Linux less compelling overall. There is so much choice that it's paralyzing and new users constantly second guess themselves. You have thousands of developers doing their own thing rather than working together to make mainstream choices like Gnome more viable.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#76
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

...and a desktop environment isn't? Building your own GUI toolkit isn't that bad esp. if you have a team. Cross-platform isn't that hard, windowing is like the only thing that comes to mind where there are some differences in behavior. Rendering would be done presumably using some cross-platform GPU API like Vulkan or wgpu.

I agree, I think building GUI toolkit first is a better idea than building a new DE before you have a better foundation. Not sure what's their rush with DE then. They can improve KDE instead, until Rust based GUI toolkit is ready.

Cross platform here is not easy, if you want that toolkit not to be ugly and have some kind of native look and feel.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#78

I 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.)

They don't have to sabotage Linux, Linux developers and the community does that all by itself (unwittingly).

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#79
post #28

Looks like the Android 4.0 UI with a bit of neumorphism thrown in. I really don’t like it. I hope that’s not the style they end up with. The GTK window conveys the same information more clearly (and it looks better).

Looks like it is already better than gnome settings. >The search also displays a list of all the settings that match the search criteria and not only where they’re located as GNOME Settings does, this makes it easier to change your settings without having to leave the section you currently are in. >the search bar is available at the top of the navigation view, this is problematic when inside nested menus as the user…

Does that have anything to do with the DE though? Isn’t that a change that could have simply been made to the Gnome settings itself?

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#80

After unity, I tried couple of DEs but then forced myself to stay with Gnome because I wanted to stop endless tinkering and get work done. I tried it for half a year and then switched to Sway, a tiling window manager. Sway has little to no footprint. I have configured my system the way I like it. Now I do minor tweaks sometimes but nothing major. My entire configuration is in a single file! I am not going back to DEs…

Sway is a window manager, not a DE. The right thing to compare it to is Mutter. I also use sway, but quite a few of my applications are from Gnome (like evince, nautilus, gnome-calendar, fractal...).
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