Judging by video on their front page, this looks like an attempt to copy OSX look and feel.
ElementaryOs Luna released
61–70 of 307 posts
Re: ElementaryOs Luna released
#62I have been a developer for elementary for 3 years, and I am part of the elementary core team. I am also personally close friends with much of the design and development team, including the project's founder and lead designer, Daniel Foré.
There seems to be a lot of feedback here which basically says "this trying to rip off OS X". I would like to offer you some insight into our internal assessment of these claims.
Is elementary OS reminiscent of OS X? I can't disagree. Did we actively intend for it to be reminiscent of OS X? Absolutely not.
We build upon good ideas from all sources. We don't have a dock and silver window chrome because OS X does. We made those design choices because they work (Windows has slowly made its task bar more and more like the OS X dock) and because they look good.
Could we have changed the window chrome to be, say, green, just to try to make ourselves stand out from OS X? Sure, but frankly, we don't feel we have to. I think there is a strong sense in our design team that we shouldn't change things simply for the sake of being "different" -- we should change things to actually improve them.
Disclaimer: I wrote this post myself and it reflects my own personal opinions, though I'd be happy to ask other core team members to back me up here -- I think they'd agree.
Re: ElementaryOs Luna released
#63Background: have been using the early (read: 'unstable') betas of eOS for quite sometime now (almost 1 year in fact!)
I have gone so far as having installed it onto actual live / production (networked) environments (who were previosly running M$ junk).
Apart from a few minor quibbles (most of which were easily fixed) it has been absolutely flawless!!
The biggest testament to the design philosophy / directions that these guys have taken is, in my opinion, the simple fact that I was able to transition non-technical end users from using Windows to using eOS (and therefore Linux) in a live SME environment without any downtime and very, very minimal training! Try doing that with some other OS's or distros!! And this was with the beta/unfinished version!!
Given how well that went, I have also now managed to get it installed successfully on at least 4 Macs (iMacs, MacBook Pros and a recent MacBook Air). And I didn't even bother with rEFIT or any dual booting shenanigans.....I literally downloaded the ISO....burnt it to a CD ....booted the Mac from the CD ans clicked "Install Elementarty OS"..... and in about 10 mins flat I have brand new, screaming FAST, lightweight and beautifully thought-out Linux OS running perfectly!
Oh, and just for the record....as someone with a background in design and who has used every flavour of Apple hardware and software since the AppleII 'Euro Plus' (the one with Steve W's signature on the box!;) .....this is NOT a simple 'knock off' of OSX or anything else. The people who say this I would wager have either not used it so are basing it off a few screen grabs which tell you nothing..or, just have no idea about UI/UX whatsoever. As someone who has been using this day-in day-out now for quite some time.....this already is way ahead of Apple in a lot of respects (and wherever it isn't yet, I have total confidence that the eOS team will keep improving it!).
This is not a paid advert, I have absolutely no affiliation with this project, I just thought I should put my 2 cents in so hopefully some others can benefit from my experiences with this GREAT project!!!
Keep it up guys
E
Re: ElementaryOs Luna released
#64Does it play mp3 and movies without requiring anything to do?
I hate it when websites do that, and I certainly wouldn't want an operating system doing it. At the very least it should require the user to click on something before playing anything.
Re: ElementaryOs Luna released
#65Here I am stuck on "pretty" OS X because of the support for sexy hardware and all I really want is awesome window manager, chrome and some terminals. If only there was a haswell ultrabook with a huge trackpad, nice backlit keyboard, hd screen and out of box linux support with drivers that gave windows graphics performance and os x battery life. Anyone who wants a dumbed down UI has got an iPad already.
Re: ElementaryOs Luna released
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never heard anybody say Linux doesn't look sexy. Remember when we were comparing Compiz to Windows XP, or Enlightenment to Windows 2000? Ubuntu is one of the few OSs that can pull a black theme. Linux problems include: 1. Hardware compatibility 2. Office compatibility (also Adobe + games) 3. Easy to mess up your system with no hope of fixing it I don't see how any of these address the problems with Linux. I ru…
Note that if they position this as competitor to OS X instead of Windows, then GNU/Linux and Elementary OS actually have better hardware compatibility (broadly) than OS X.
OS X & Linux are not direct competitors, they are in different market segments. Extensive hardware support is not that important to end users. The important thing is that the OS supports well the individual hardware you use.
Re: ElementaryOs Luna released
#67I really like a lot of the stuff Elementary is doing, but I loathe the way they're mimicking OS X. It's a complete deal breaker for me. It feels like a knock-off.
I used the desktop environment for a little bit and they even took the icon bounce from OS X. I hope Elementary succeeds but that was just meh. Especially since the physics of the bounce were off.
As an elementary developer, the feedback is appreciated :)
Can you suggest an alternative to the bounce?
Re: ElementaryOs Luna released
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used the desktop environment for a little bit and they even took the icon bounce from OS X. I hope Elementary succeeds but that was just meh. Especially since the physics of the bounce were off.
As an elementary developer, the feedback is appreciated :) Can you suggest an alternative to the bounce?
Hey, thanks for being cool about it. I'm not sure a good alternative would be, but I do have this advice. Google often takes ideas from competitors and remixes them to the point of making them original (a good example is the gesture password on the Android lockscreen). You can remix ideas from competitors. So in this case, instead of a bounce, a spin could work.
I'm nowhere near an expert but I thought this could help.
Re: ElementaryOs Luna released
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never heard anybody say Linux doesn't look sexy. Remember when we were comparing Compiz to Windows XP, or Enlightenment to Windows 2000? Ubuntu is one of the few OSs that can pull a black theme. Linux problems include: 1. Hardware compatibility 2. Office compatibility (also Adobe + games) 3. Easy to mess up your system with no hope of fixing it I don't see how any of these address the problems with Linux. I ru…
Compiz is sexy, with it's sexy animations, and it's sexy rotations, and I still couldn't get it as usable as I had windows be. That's the point. Sexy is secondary to utility. They appear to be basically trying to copy the good parts of OSX.
Which "good parts", exactly, are you talking about? There's a lot of talk of elementary copying OSX, but much of the video is default functionality of GNOME/Compiz -- no one is specifying _exactly_ what is being copied. The only major difference is a grey theme, which is probably triggering the whole OSX copy nonsense.
Re: ElementaryOs Luna released
#70I really like a lot of the stuff Elementary is doing, but I loathe the way they're mimicking OS X. It's a complete deal breaker for me. It feels like a knock-off.
As someone who just watched the video but hasn't used it yet, that was my thought as well. Are they doing things design-wise and interface-wise that are different than OSX? Or are they simply aiming to re-implement OSX's GUI in Linux? (This is meant as an honest, non-sarcastic question, my curiosity is piqued but I'm genuinely wondering what their goal is)
Yes, absolutely we are doing different things. Examples include our launcher (from the top left hand corner), slingshot[1], our deprecation of the desktop as a place for folders, and our human interface guidelines. As another concrete example, we are very much trying to eliminate menu bars entirely. Instead, our apps use the "AppMenu"[2] -- a cog wheel that works similarly to Google Chrome.
[1] Here's a video I found of someone using a pre-release version of it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYwIQ9HcWZU
[2] (Note: images seem to be broken for the time being as a result of the website relaunch in tandem with Luna): http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines/appm...
Full disclosure: I am an elementary developer and core team member.