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ElementaryOs Luna released

elementaryos.org

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Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#91

Post by jared314 »

jorgecastillo wrote: post #83

I think design is not the number one issue of desktop Linux. Windows is very ugly and it still dominates desktop computing, by the way KDE looks and feels amazing. The first problem desktop Linux has to overcome is the lack of support from computer manufacturers. Most people are not gonna go out of their way to find a computer with Linux. Another very important issue is that Windows compatibility is unavoidable. Even…

> I still think self contained applications like in OS X & Windows are way better

The single-folder application is a focus of Canonical's new package format project[0]. I would actually prefer a more LXC-style container format (similar to Docker.io) than another deb/rpm zip file, but that is personal preference.

[0] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2013-May/0370...

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#92

Post by aroman »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #82
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…

FWIW I don't think it is a bad thing [1]. KDE's look was clearly inspired by Windows XP. But I'm a user. Designers, people who make their living giving life to a "look" or a "user experience" feel pretty strongly about their work (this is typical of many artists, programmers, architects, musicians, Etc.) In part because they often see their own work as a reflection of them, and in part, and I speculate here, because…

Thanks very much for sharing this. Trying not to take it personally is something we all really try to work on.

I think you're spot on, particularly about [1]. A lot of the flak we get seems to stem from the fact that we're very very much a design-oriented (as in, design at the top) community. We don't have business people saying "But people will think this looks like XYZ and that's bad for our bottom line".

I personally think there must be a happy median between the "design purist" approach we currently lean towards and the "market differentiator" style. We haven't quite hit on it, as some the feedback we've received today suggests, but with thoughtful insight from people like you, and lots of internal discussions, I think we'll get there :)

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#93

Post by nileshtrivedi »

RussianCow wrote: post #31
wickedchap wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know anything of design, Elementary is not a clone nor is mimicking OSX. Or, put differently; everybody is copying everybody. If you have good enough eye sight, then you can see that the difference between OSX and Elementary is huge. Dock was used before OSX, so you can't say that's copying from OSX. The light-gray colors and clinically clean interface was also used before OSX.

Yeah, but with Elementary OS, everything from the colors to the buttons to the layout of apps is almost identical to that of OS X. There's no innovation here--it's just Linux with the GUI of OS X. If I wanted that, I'd just use OS X.

But what if you wanted "Linux with the GUI of OS X", not just "GUI of OS X"?

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#94

Post by pilgrim689 »

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 never heard of elementaryOS but it looks great at first glance. I have a specific question I was wondering: how will distributions using non-Unity DEs/WMs such as elementary handle the replacement of X with Mir? I'm not familiar with how child distros handle divergent dependencies in general so I'd love to hear what elementary is doing.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#95

Post by fizx »

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…

Perhaps you should change the background image in the demo video away from a photo of a galaxy. I'm sure there's many images (e.g. http://archive.org/download/313253main_moon_landscape_HI_ful...) that don't so directly evoke the OS X default wallpaper.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#96

Post by aroman »

pilgrim689 wrote: post #94
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 never heard of elementaryOS but it looks great at first glance. I have a specific question I was wondering: how will distributions using non-Unity DEs/WMs such as elementary handle the replacement of X with Mir? I'm not familiar with how child distros handle divergent dependencies in general so I'd love to hear what elementary is doing.

Great question.

The simple answer is: we don't know yet. We actually had a conference call with some folks from Canonical a few weeks ago discussing this very issue. At present, it seems like there are three options (I'm taking these points mostly from the minutes from that call):

1. Port everything to Qt and use Mir (because GTK+ might not work under pure Mir -- they've been backing Wayland so far). This would require an IMMENSE amount of work and would be tantamount to rewriting almost every line in our codebase.

2. Help port GTK+ (or make an extension/fork of it) to Mir. This might honestly be less work than #1, but elementary would be at a specific disadvantage because most of our developers (speaking for myself as well) don't really have the skills needed for something like this.

3. Do nothing and use XMir until we absolutely must switch.

We don't have an official or internal consensus on this point yet, to my knowledge. However, I would personally tend to think we'll be leaning toward #3, depending on how XMir shapes up.

This is definitely an area of interest and importance for us, and it's something that will undoubtedly continue to be discussed as we begin the L+1 cycle and beyond.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#97

Post by aroman »

fizx wrote: post #95
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…

Perhaps you should change the background image in the demo video away from a photo of a galaxy. I'm sure there's many images (e.g. http://archive.org/download/313253main_moon_landscape_HI_ful... ) that don't so directly evoke the OS X default wallpaper.

100% agree. I personally only noticed this tonight shortly before the launch (at which point it was too late to change), but I definitely dislike the fact that we (in fact, the video was created by a fan) used a video which showed off a wallpaper Apple used in OS X.

Frankly, I expect we'll try to get that amended soon.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#98

Post by minor_nitwit »

wickedchap wrote: post #23
silverlight wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

If you know anything of design, Elementary is not a clone nor is mimicking OSX. Or, put differently; everybody is copying everybody. If you have good enough eye sight, then you can see that the difference between OSX and Elementary is huge. Dock was used before OSX, so you can't say that's copying from OSX. The light-gray colors and clinically clean interface was also used before OSX.

They use the genie animation to minimize apps, and the full screen button is identical to the one in OSX. If they're not mimicking OSX then why are things like that in there?

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#99

Post by joel_perl_prog »

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…

Hello. I'm super late to this party, it looks like. I only have one question: will my retina display (on a MacBook Pro) do all the right things, just as it does under MacOS and MacOS programs?

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#100

Post by silverlight »

aroman wrote: post #70
silverlight wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If I can make a suggestion, then, since I have your attention. The video on the page that the OP linked to basically shows a very OSX-like interface, especially by showing off the dock, a very (for the six seconds it's on-screen) iTunes-seeming music app, the expose-style window manager, and the multi-desktop. Maybe try highlighting some of these other concepts if possible in the video that most people who are coming to your site with no idea what makes elementary different are watching? Might help stem some of the "this is just Linux that looks like OSX" comments.
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