ElementaryOs Luna released • Hacker News Board

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#111

Post by nsmartt » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:02 AM UTC

aroman wrote: post #107

silverlight wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I appreciate the suggestion. We (as the elementary team) did not actually create the video -- rather, a (very talented) fan created it of his own accord and sent it to us. I agree that we would be well served by highlighting the features of elementary OS which are visually dissimilar to OS X, but frankly, Apple doesn't own light color schemes and multi-desktops. The latter has been on Linux long before Apple implemen…

>We're proud of them, and we want to show them off -- aesthetic parallels to OS X or not.

This is completely understandable. I appreciate taking pride in your work,—we all do—but it's detrimental to adoption. You're sacrificing mindshare because of fondness for your work.

It boils down to a straightforward question: Are you more committed to creating a beautiful design (regardless of similarities to OS X) or are you more committed to bringing elementary to users?

If you're more dedicated to the former, I can respect that 100%, but it's important that this is the question you ask yourselves.

edit: clarity

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#112

Post by pilgrim689 » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:04 AM UTC

aroman wrote: post #96

pilgrim689 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 requi…

Wouldn't Canonical be largely helping with the GTK+ port? Otherwise, that would mean that Ubuntu will only support Qt applications, would it not?

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#113

Post by e12e » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:04 AM UTC

aroman wrote: post #96

pilgrim689 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 requi…

How about 4. Rebase to Debian (Aka: which probably would mean stick with Wayland/follow Gnome) ?

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#114

Post by e12e » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:08 AM UTC

e12e wrote: post #110

It looks like this might be an interesting competitor/test ground wrt Gnome 3 (and beyond). They're using Vala heavily, and they don't have any strong committed user base yet -- and therefore no need for backwards comparability. Also nice to see a project that goes beyond simply building on top of Linux -- rethinking how apps are open/closed/minimized is a great example of this. I doubt I'll ever use it for anything…

Note-to-self: not just building on top of a GNU/Linux distro -- I'm sure most would agree that Android is a pretty big break from most other distributions as well...

edit: As are the Amazon and Sony e-readers...

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#115

Post by e12e » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:14 AM UTC

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…

Outdated DLLs (library code, like stuff that handles image formats and many other tasks) is a big (security) problem in Windows -- and has always been. I think the package model used by most Linux distributions is far better.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#116

Post by aroman » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:20 AM UTC

pilgrim689 wrote: post #112

aroman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 requi…

Wouldn't Canonical be largely helping with the GTK+ port? Otherwise, that would mean that Ubuntu will only support Qt applications, would it not?

I would imagine they would help with the porting effort, but I really have no idea. I can't speak to Canonical's intentions or Ubuntu's plans, I'm afraid.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#117

Post by asveikau » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:21 AM UTC

nosefrog wrote: post #16

Mark my words: elementary OS is going to be big. I was on a beta version of elementary OS a couple months ago, and it was like a breath of fresh air. elementary OS sets out to settle the number one complaint casual users have of other Linux distributions: design. Other Linux distributions look like a mish-mash of a bunch of different designs by many different people. elementary OS has a beautiful, striking, and (most…

Does anybody else remember what people said about Eazel in 2000? Because what you are saying is giving me deja vu. If only some designers would come in and fix Linux, it'd be a smashing success, inevitably. Didn't work out so well for those guys.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#118

Post by aroman » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:23 AM UTC

e12e wrote: post #113

aroman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 requi…

How about 4. Rebase to Debian (Aka: which probably would mean stick with Wayland/follow Gnome) ?

Rebasing to Debian definitely comes up a lot. Our main reasons for sticking with Ubuntu are:

- we rely very heavily on Launchpad - we rely on the hardware support and testing work they do - the Ubuntu userbase seems to be a bit more in-line with the kinds of people who will enjoy elementary OS (this isn't a technical reason) - we have some close relationships with Canonical/Ubuntu employees/developers

It's definitely a possibility, though personally I don't see it becoming feasible in the near term.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#119

Post by joel_perl_prog » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:24 AM UTC

aroman wrote: post #102

joel_perl_prog wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I honestly don't know! I don't know of anyone who has tried Luna on an rMBP. I would encourage you to burn a copy of luna to a USB disk and boot into the live environment. You can play around with it and see how it looks, with no changes to your hard drive. I'm sure other people with rMBPs will be trying Luna in the coming days, so hopefully we can assess what the current state of affairs is and make any necessary ch…

Nice. I'll look into it. Thank you!

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#120

Post by sandGorgon » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 5:26 AM UTC

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…

There are a million and one themes for GTK. I wish they had picked one - anything except the OSX clone.

What they don't realize is that there are a bunch of howtos out there around customizing Ubuntu to "look like OSX" and this looks like one more.

I wish this discussion could be around performance enhancements and innovations in usability, but I cannot get past the OSX clone-ness.

In an admittedly egoistic sense, I am a loner Latitude/Ubuntu user in a world of Air/OSX all around me. This is not something I will be able to explain off. And this is in India. I assume it will be much worse in the US.