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Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

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Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#41

Post by giancarlostoro »

diegof79 wrote: post #36

This post brings back memories from when Windows dominated the market, and many online sites—e.g., Slashdot—talked about the "year of the Linux Desktop." (Sadly, in 2024, the closest thing to the year of the Linux desktop is Android.) I tried multiple Linux DEs at the time. I also remember "Helix Gnome" (later renamed to Ximian). I also remember that Helix Gnome used icons created by a person with the "Tigert" user a…

For years I'd go back between Windows and Linux, but sometime after 2018 or so I stopped even "going back" altogether. I've been able to daily Linux, my bar is high too. If it doesnt work OOTB I go back to Windows or to a distro that does. I'm not wasting any time fighting a broken OS.

I think the era of Linux on the Desktop is already here, just wish BestBuy would sell System76 towers, might push it further along.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#42

Post by bityard »

diegof79 wrote: post #36

This post brings back memories from when Windows dominated the market, and many online sites—e.g., Slashdot—talked about the "year of the Linux Desktop." (Sadly, in 2024, the closest thing to the year of the Linux desktop is Android.) I tried multiple Linux DEs at the time. I also remember "Helix Gnome" (later renamed to Ximian). I also remember that Helix Gnome used icons created by a person with the "Tigert" user a…

> "year of the Linux Desktop"

Well, Linux as a desktop is quite popular amongst IT and developer types anyway. That's good enough fo rme.

In retrospect, I think I should be grateful that the Linux desktop never really went mainstream. It would have ended up being controlled by one (maybe two) companies and twisted into something that removed all of the benefit of it being open source to begin with.

So, ChromeOS, I guess?

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#43

Post by andrepd »

coliveira wrote: post #37
tmountain wrote: post #3

I remember the hype when Nautilus first came out. I was a teenager, but even then, I had my doubts as to how a file manager make sense as the centerpiece for building a business. IIRC there were conversations about how to monetize it using premium add-ons which seemed pretty ridiculous at the time.

At the time, there was the pervasive notion that a business didn't need to make a profit to be valuable as a public company, as long as it had a large number of loyal users. The practical issues of how to make a profit were almost ignored for most companies of that era. So it is not surprising to see that a company creating a new file explorer would be consider valuable, especially if that browser made lots of people…

> At the time, there was the pervasive notion that a business didn't need to make a profit to be valuable as a public company, as long as it had a large number of loyal users.

Right, at the time...

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#44

Post by bityard »

diegof79 wrote: post #36

This post brings back memories from when Windows dominated the market, and many online sites—e.g., Slashdot—talked about the "year of the Linux Desktop." (Sadly, in 2024, the closest thing to the year of the Linux desktop is Android.) I tried multiple Linux DEs at the time. I also remember "Helix Gnome" (later renamed to Ximian). I also remember that Helix Gnome used icons created by a person with the "Tigert" user a…

I have basically had a history of using whichever desktop environment got in my way the least. At various times, that has been GNOME 2, MATE, XFCE, GNOME 3 (Ubuntu edition), GNOME 3 (PopOS edition), and probably a few that I'm forgetting.

Lately I have been running KDE on Debian and it is basically everything I always wanted Linux on the desktop to be for the last two decades.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#45

Post by Suppafly »

horsawlarway wrote: post #15
tmountain wrote: post #3

I remember the hype when Nautilus first came out. I was a teenager, but even then, I had my doubts as to how a file manager make sense as the centerpiece for building a business. IIRC there were conversations about how to monetize it using premium add-ons which seemed pretty ridiculous at the time.

So extra context that may help at least understand the perspective: There was a considerable amount of overlap between the browser and the file manager originally. The notion of the modern day internet wasn't really here, and instead a lot of companies saw "browsing the web" as mostly equivalent to "browsing your files - but remotely". Even Microsoft did this - "Windows Explorer" (The file manager) and "Internet Expl…

>Even Microsoft did this - "Windows Explorer" (The file manager) and "Internet Explorer" (The browser) shared a huge amount of code.

And famously got sued for closely tying the browser with the OS, despite the design making technological sense.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#46

Post by Suppafly »

Bluestein wrote: post #18
bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A user's "home page" is valuable real estate for good reason. If they could have become the home page for a large number of users then they might have been able to monetize without losing those users, but that's a pretty big if on a convoluted path.

> A user's "home page" We'd (sadly) call that Facebook nowadays.-

No, it's generally talking about the page that comes up when you first open the browser, generally this is google or bing nowadays, or some portal your company or ISP redirects you to.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#47

Post by Suppafly »

iSnow wrote: post #8
tmountain wrote: post #3

I remember the hype when Nautilus first came out. I was a teenager, but even then, I had my doubts as to how a file manager make sense as the centerpiece for building a business. IIRC there were conversations about how to monetize it using premium add-ons which seemed pretty ridiculous at the time.

Yeah, I also remember. It was the frothy time of the dot-com era where anyone with a novel idea could raise a couple millions. I was also scratching my head how you'd make money off Linux desktop users, considering there were very few of them, and they hated commercial software.

>Yeah, I also remember. It was the frothy time of the dot-com era where anyone with a novel idea could raise a couple millions.

It's still like that today, you build something attractive to users and assume you'll figure out the monetization later. It was more of a wild west back then because they were throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick since everything was still too new to guess at what would work though.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#48

Post by Bluestein »

Suppafly wrote: post #46
Bluestein wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A user's "home page" We'd (sadly) call that Facebook nowadays.-

No, it's generally talking about the page that comes up when you first open the browser, generally this is google or bing nowadays, or some portal your company or ISP redirects you to.

That homepage. Stand corrected. Thanks.-

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#49

Post by Suppafly »

diegof79 wrote: post #36

This post brings back memories from when Windows dominated the market, and many online sites—e.g., Slashdot—talked about the "year of the Linux Desktop." (Sadly, in 2024, the closest thing to the year of the Linux desktop is Android.) I tried multiple Linux DEs at the time. I also remember "Helix Gnome" (later renamed to Ximian). I also remember that Helix Gnome used icons created by a person with the "Tigert" user a…

It's wild how sane (and stable) linux desktop is today when you look back at some of the crazy experimental stuff that was going on 20 or so years ago.
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