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ElementaryOs Luna released

elementaryos.org

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Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#71

Post by aroman »

ineedtosleep wrote: post #69
Justsignedup wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In fact, the video (and Luna) uses neither GNOME nor compiz. We use our own window manager called "Gala"[1] (it is based on the same library that gnome's is) in our own desktop environment called "Pantheon"[2].

[1] http://elementaryos.org/journal/meet-gala-window-manager

[2] (I couldn't find an elementary journal article explicitly about this, but here's one from the Gentoo wiki): http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Pantheon

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#72

Post by tuananh »

manamana wrote: post #49
jknightco wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they focus none of there efforts on elegant, usable, and consistent design. Because none of the effort done was for design. Its literally a carbon copy of OS X. The layout, the colors, the gradients, the multitasking, the dock, the app bounce on the dock, the music app, the exposé style window layout, the mission control tile multiple desktop layout. Any Linux distro with its own UI spent more time on elegant, us…

It breaks my heart when I see a comment like this because I know how much hard work goes into the design, but I can't blame people for not seeing it. It's sad. I wish they would differentiate even if it's just for the sake of differentiation.

please enlighten me. Because from the demo, I really could not see where the real innovation in design is.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#73

Post by dombili »

adrianlmm wrote: post #52

Congratulations to the ElementaryOs team, I recognize the effort you have put developing your own tools in a great language like Vala. I don't believe that you try to mimic OSX because I have used it and they are not as similar, I think the people say it because they see the elegance you have put on it.

I haven't yet tried the OS so I can not speak from an experience, but after watching the introduction video, I think it was pretty clear that they took some design ideas from OS X (I'm putting it lightly). Even the wallpaper was the same.

I'm downloading the OS right now and I hope I'll like it. It always makes me happy to see people trying to get casual users to use Linux. I hope they succeed. Having said that, the introduction video left a bad taste in my mouth.

Update: I'm using it right now and I love it! Great job. I have to give it more time, but I may even use this as my main OS on my notebook if everything goes smoothly. Looks very promising.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#74

Post by aroman »

unknownian wrote: post #68
aroman wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hel…

Thanks for the advice, and I definitely see where you're coming from. I tend to be an advocate of the "take good ideas but make them seem different" approach, but I think a core philosophy in elementary (perhaps to its detriment at times) is: "don't change for change's sake". I wrote more about that philosophy, and the general perception of elementary copying OS X in my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6193676

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#75

Post by jalcine »

I'm downloading this now and going to throw it up in a live VM. To be honest, aside from the work-space management and what not in the video; that desktop looks close to my KDE 4.11 desktop here.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#76

Post by aroman »

fcmeneg wrote: post #25
nsmartt wrote: post #4

I 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.

That's my fear. If they become too big, Apple may sue them.

Do you really think this is a legitimate concern? I'm asking this as someone who is intimately (well, less so in recent months) involved in elementary's strategic planning -- I am on the core team.

Can you suggest specific aspects of our OS that would judged to be too similar to Apple's products so as to warrant a claim of infringement, other than a general aesthetic similarity and the color of our window borders?

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#77

Post by nsmartt »

aroman wrote: post #62

I 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…

I can agree with this to some extent, and I don't have a solid answer as far as a different approach. However, knock-offs feel cheap, and because elementary feels like a knock-off, it's having trouble gaining some mindshare.

Taking steps to differentiate from OS X a bit more would (arguably, perhaps) be an improvement, albeit not a technical one.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#78

Post by jalcine »

aroman wrote: post #62

I 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…

I'd like to nudge in one thing: option flexibility. I'm still downloading and about to try it out; but I hope that the setting does allow the user to tweak everything they can tweak and not hide options away for the sake of hiding things. My personal thing, but it's shared with many, is that flexibility can lead to a personally complete design.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#79

Post by clockwork_189 »

aroman wrote: post #62

I 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…

I am a bit confused. A lot of it looks like Ubuntu, but with slightly different GUI. At first I thought it was just a variant of Ubuntu(like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc)...is it? How does it differ from it? Sorry if this seems like a naive question. I am really interested in trying it out...will do so shortly after I am done my exams :P

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#80

Post by aroman »

omaranto wrote: post #64
oakaz wrote: post #41

Does 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.

I believe oakaz was referring to the ability to actually play movie and audio files which use non-free formats, such as MP3. This is a frequent/historical pain point for laypersons using Linux desktops.

The answer is yes. In the installer, there is a checkbox that asks if the user wants to install these non-free codecs.

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