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HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

hellosystem.github.io

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Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#71

Post by jwells89 »

jeroen79 wrote: post #34

i don't know why people wan't to keep cloning osx, it might looks nice, but time has proven its a quite unproductive gui

The problem is that very few macOS clone projects reach anything close to maturity, which means that paradigm is barely represented in FOSS desktops. Aside from GNOME (which is iPadOS, not macOS) and its prettier cousin Pantheon, It's just Win9X clones and tiling WMs as far as the eye can see.

That might not seem like a big deal, but if the goal is to get as many people switched away from commercial operating systems as possible there needs to be a healthy range of conventions/workflows represented by meaningfully different DEs so more users find one they can slip on like a comfy pair of shoes. For most people, switching desktop paradigms is something they want to avoid if at all possible because of the immense friction it brings.

Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#72

Post by sleiben »

egypturnash wrote: post #60

[flagged]

You‘re probably not the target group. It’s an open source project (in comparison to the MacOS walled garden) and I think that especially your 3rd question is disrespectful. In general your comment reads like a rant against the open source philosophy to me and is attacking/demotivating people who spend their spare time to create free software. Instead of attacking OSS creators one should give kudos and encourage them to go on. … just my 5 cents.

Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#73

Post by doubled112 »

BoppreH wrote: post #61
jnsie wrote: post #11

I wonder if, in the future, stable diffusion or other AI techniques can be used to generate nice icon sets and other UI elements. Not that I'd expect Apple levels of design, but anything to bridge the gap would be nice...I'm primarily a macOS user, secondarily a windows user, and my forays into *nix have always provided a poor first impression. Anecdotal, of course...

Or bring back skins[0]! Have software read textures from areas in a big image, then let the user replace the image. Forest theme for Microsoft Teams! SciFi file explorer! I tried using MidJourney to generate exaggerated UI themes (not skins, just general themes for inspiration), but the results were disappointing. They were always gorgeous[1], but my prompt engineering skills couldn't coax it to use space efficiently…

Part of me really misses those days, and another part of me is screaming “please no” internally.

Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#74

Post by jwells89 »

pacija wrote: post #46
pacija wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find these BlahBlahBSDs silly. Since when is setting desktop themes or tuning a few sysctls "forking" or worth calling a new OS?

Ok, I see downvotes coming and I understand I didn't give enough context so I'll try to clarify. I use BSD, particularly FreeBSD and OpenBSD, for two decades now. For the last 15 years professionally. Four "recognized" members of BSD family are FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and DragonflyBSD. Each of them pursue different goals - FreeBSD stability, OpenBSD security, NetBSD portability, DragonflyBSD no idea, never tried it.…

> Each of them pursue different goals - FreeBSD stability, OpenBSD security, NetBSD portability, DragonflyBSD no idea, never tried it.

The goal of desktop BSDs are to specialize as desktop OSes, and people keep trying it because the four main BSDs aren't particularly great at it — OpenBSD is probably being the best (mainly thanks to OpenBSD devs dogfooding it on their laptops), but its hardware compatibility and older packages aren't particularly great for most desktop users nor is its functional but spartan setup process.

Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#75

Post by egypturnash »

sleiben wrote: post #72
egypturnash wrote: post #60

[flagged]

You‘re probably not the target group. It’s an open source project (in comparison to the MacOS walled garden) and I think that especially your 3rd question is disrespectful. In general your comment reads like a rant against the open source philosophy to me and is attacking/demotivating people who spend their spare time to create free software. Instead of attacking OSS creators one should give kudos and encourage them…

"helloSystem is a desktop system for creators with a focus on simplicity, elegance, and usability. Its design follows the “Less, but better” philosophy. It is intended as a system for “mere mortals”, welcoming to switchers from the Mac."

I think I am kind of exactly the target group.

Why is "why is half of the screenshot used as my first encounter with this system in a different language from the rest" a disrespectful question?

Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#76

Post by egypturnash »

jnsie wrote: post #11

I wonder if, in the future, stable diffusion or other AI techniques can be used to generate nice icon sets and other UI elements. Not that I'd expect Apple levels of design, but anything to bridge the gap would be nice...I'm primarily a macOS user, secondarily a windows user, and my forays into *nix have always provided a poor first impression. Anecdotal, of course...

"here is an open source operating system for creatives"

First HN comment: "I wonder if we could use AI to replace the large-scale creative work of making sets icons."

Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#77

Post by egypturnash »

nawfalak wrote: post #68
egypturnash wrote: post #60

[flagged]

I feel like you're looking a bit too much into it and that this rant is a bit unnecessary. You write as though you're being attacked by the creators or something. It's not going to "replace your MacOS" or anything, but rather is a showcase of clean UI and UX. Looking through the "What" and "Why" sections on their Github says how it follows certain UI and UX guidelines; many of which Apple has adopted. I don't think y…

I'm critiquing the presentation.

"helloSystem is a desktop system for creators with a focus on simplicity, elegance, and usability. Its design follows the “Less, but better” philosophy. It is intended as a system for “mere mortals”, welcoming to switchers from the Mac."

Sounds like I'm somewhere near the target audience if you ask me.

Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#78

Post by dark-star »

I tested helloSystem when it was still new and beta. It was buggy but it showed great potential. I will try it again tomorrow, I guess a lot has changed (for the better)

I love the idea of FreeBSD on a desktop (or laptop), and stock FreeBSD has always been troublesome to get working nicely on a laptop (at least for me)

Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#79

Post by _lqaf »

swozey wrote: post #47

About 20 years ago I was an openbsd and freebsd admin, webhosting mostly. Then the rest of my maybe 16 year career was debian with some sprinkles of centos/rhel What would bring me to bsd today? Not in a negative way at all, I'm curious what people love about it. I barely remember much about it. I loved pf over iptables but I don't remember why. It has jailed containers which.. I think people still love? I'm not sure…

I run FreeBSD for my home storage server, have for almost a decade now. I've also used it for various other things here and there, but that's my major personal use.

The best thing about it is that it is boring, completely predictable outside of hardware faults, and dependable. If you know how to competently manage it, which isn't hard, it is a rock.

Also nice is that FreeBSD isn't involved in vendor tugs-of-war that result in the constant stream of bullshit changes* - the network config format doesn't change every version, people aren't playing political games with init, etc. All of which mean far fewer goofy make-work surprises.

And the quality of their releases is still very high. I consider them one of top open source projects, period, in terms of qualities others should emulate for better results.

As with anything, it isn't for everything. If you need the latest version of whatever is trendy this month, you should run Linux. But if your use case benefits from stability and ease of administration, FreeBSD rocks.

* What is bullshit in my environment may not be in yours, etc.

Re: HelloSystem: A graphical OS built on FreeBSD

#80

Post by stonogo »

egypturnash wrote: post #60

[flagged]

Typing "adobe" into the search bar of apple.com returns a bunch of external hard drives. I think your analysis is off.

Seems to me you're an Adobe user more than a Mac user, and there's nothing wrong with that. Not every project needs to target you.

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