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ElementaryOs Luna released

elementaryos.org

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Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#221

Post by rob05c »

codebeard wrote: post #108

Can anyone provide some specific examples of how this is a "copy" of OSX? I am someone who sparsely used Os X and is admittedly anti-Apple. I'm trying hard not to assume the people in the thread saying it's a copy are more than just Apple zealots but it's difficult when no one provides any evidence.

Watching the video, I identified:

1 login screen has a picture of a galaxy.

2 windows are white-themed, with rounded corners, and minimalistic buttons/scrollbars.

3 music player is reminiscent of iTunes with time bar and track info top-and-center, and large album art pane.

4 system settings window has radio-buttons-like-normal-buttons reminiscent of OSX system settings. Also has a search bar in the upper-right of the window, with minimalistic magnifying glass.

5 windows have no visual border on sides and bottom.

6 Dock.

7 Expose-style viewing of all windows.

8 top-of-screen menu, with system icons in upper-right.

As I said in a previous comment, Apple didn't invent many of these, if any. Many, perhaps all, of these points are simply good design. However, they all combine to make the GUI "feel" like OSX to me.

Furthermore, it isn't a "copy." You can certainly identify as many differences as similarities. It simply shares a certain design aesthetic.

The galaxy login pic at the beginning didn't help :P

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#222

Post by asveikau »

aroman wrote: post #137
millstone wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OS X System Preferences screenshot: http://imgur.com/RLB8JZp ElementaryOS settings screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/vnjmHrQ.png It's got the same left-aligned, bolded categories, in the same order, with almost identical text. It even senselessly copied the choice of the Apple Magic Mouse as the mouse icon. That tiny smudge at the bottom represents the Apple logo! I don't mean to suggest that an ElementaryOS designer is…

As a matter of fact, I wrote that very program, Switchboard. It's getting late and I don't want to write a whole book about it's design (though I could), but basically here's the story: I saw some mockups Daniel Fore (the project's founder and lead designer) created for a hypothetical system settings app. Here's an example: http://danrabbit.deviantart.com/art/User-Accounts-Plug-19860... I set about coding the app. I…

Let's see if I have that right:

* The designer did it, not me!

* I argued with him for months and ended up saying "ah, screw it".

* Ubuntu and Gnome do it too!

I don't see any of these as exculpatory. Not that what you've done is necessarily wrong per se, I'd just rather you come by it honestly. I don't think any of these designs (or for example some of the icons - or even the decision to group elements into these categories) are "inevitable".

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#223

Post by rsynnott »

aroman wrote: post #76
fcmeneg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There probably isn't much. The icon showing a magic mouse might infringe a trademark, though; Apple tends to trademark icons where practical, which is likely why TouchWiz scrapped its very iOS-esque icons a while back.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#224

Post by jetaylor »

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…

Oh please. You even use OSX wallpapers and a Macbook look-a-like laptop in your intro video.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#225

Post by sciurus »

andrewflnr wrote: post #43
manamana wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but I mean elementary OS is something that you can actually give to people that have never used Linux before and they will like it. Unity is, well, divisive to say the least.

Unity is divisive among people who have used Linux before. Now that it has (allegedly) stabilized, do non-Linux people still have a problem with it?

I think the user experience of Unity is largely stable, so I agree with your point. I just thought I'd mention that there's a rewrite of Unity underway, so the software itself might not be stable in upcoming Ubuntu releases.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnityNextSpec

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#226

Post by aroman »

rsynnott wrote: post #223
aroman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There probably isn't much. The icon showing a magic mouse might infringe a trademark, though; Apple tends to trademark icons where practical, which is likely why TouchWiz scrapped its very iOS-esque icons a while back.

We aren't using the magic mouse icon. It's a hand-drawn svg, although I agree it looks pretty similar.

Here's the icon at a larger size: http://i.imgur.com/Hnc53Yd.png

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#227

Post by dkuntz2 »

keithpeter wrote: post #217
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…

Just downloaded the (64 bit) iso and tried a live session. Looks very nice. Works fine on Thinkpad X200s. How do I make the terminal background solid? I can't read the terminal when open over another window. I could not discover any way of changing the settings in the terminal application.

Open dconf-editor, navigate to (I think, if I'm wrong, just look around) org.pantheon.terminal and change the opacity field to 100.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#228

Post by dkuntz2 »

handelaar wrote: post #215
minusfive wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I wasn't even sure whether it was Linux or BSD based or something else until halfway down the front page, and had to check the Developers section to find out it's based on Ubuntu." Really? Are those really worth complaining about? If anything, successful OSes (based on user base) have taught us that marketing should focus on user-centric features first, technical ones second.

Package managers are user-centric features and I'd certainly never install a Linux distro that doesn't use apt. It's fairly important information.

You'd never install a non-apt system? You should try a pacman based system, I find it to be nicer, because it embodies the Arch philosophy of keeping things simple.

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#229

Post by sciurus »

sandGorgon wrote: post #127
aroman wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, thanks for the interest! Our desktop interface and apps are actually quite different from Ubuntu, though we are an Ubuntu-based distribution. To give some concrete examples: - We use our own desktop environment and window manager, Pantheon and Gala, respectively.[1] - We write many of our own apps in-house or work closely with the third-party apps we ship with. For example, our music player, settings application,…

Why browser and mail program ? I mean I can understand usability considerations of photo apps and music player, but you can do so much more by dropping effort on those two apps. I dont mean it in a "resistance is futile" kind of way - but more in terms of not-immediately-needed kind of way. Especially the browser. Webmail suffices for now - I know people want a Sparrow-like mail app on the desktop, but there is so mu…

Free software color calibration has actually come a long way in the past few years thanks to Richard Hughes work on the software and hardware side.

https://lwn.net/Articles/460678/

http://www.hughski.com/

Re: ElementaryOs Luna released

#230

Post by __xtrimsky »

mtgx wrote: post #219

If you're used to the Windows interface more, I'd recommend Zorin OS: http://zorin-os.com/

To be honest it doesn't look good.

I'm a windows user and like it. But I'm more likely to try elementary os then zorin. zorin's theme looks like another bad linux theme. The start menu looks ok, but that's pretty much it.

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