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Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

blog.edfloreshz.dev

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Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#91

Post by ijidak »

I know we developers love our languages.

But I'm always skeptical when underlying language choice is featured prominently as a selling point for any new project.

It tells me, this is a technology-first, users-second enthusiast project.

And thus, I'll be surprised if it tackles the deepest issues users need solved.

That doesn't mean it isn't cool as a proof of concept for a new or popular language.

It just makes me question to what extent it's going to solve the deepest problems with similar or older projects it is competing against.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#92

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

smoldesu wrote: post #74
michaelmrose wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like it is already better than gnome settings. >The search also displays a list of all the settings that match the search criteria and not only where they’re located as GNOME Settings does, this makes it easier to change your settings without having to leave the section you currently are in. >the search bar is available at the top of the navigation view, this is problematic when inside nested menus as the user…

Definitely. When I saw the new settings app my jaw hit the floor, I think GNOME's team is going to have a serious fire lit under their ass now that there's a new kid in town finessing their toolkit like a pro.

Gnome team is busy killing their projects for so long, that they won't even notice.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#93

Post by lawl »

mstipetic wrote: post #86
lawl wrote: post #33

I honestly don't quite understand what System76s intentions with COSMIC are. To me it feels like a regression from the previous gnome and i've kicked their plugins to get a regular gnome back. It just... Doesn't do anything my custom openbox or i3 setups in the past didn't do (imo better). Nor is it better at being gnome than gnome. And now that i'm getting old and gotten used to stock gnome it just seems like it mak…

Do you really not understand that most people don’t want to use custom i3 configs?

I do, as i said, i'm getting old and use stock gnome these days, because i don't want to maintain custom configs for everything anymore.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#94

Post by SahAssar »

anthropodie wrote: post #24

After unity, I tried couple of DEs but then forced myself to stay with Gnome because I wanted to stop endless tinkering and get work done. I tried it for half a year and then switched to Sway, a tiling window manager. Sway has little to no footprint. I have configured my system the way I like it. Now I do minor tweaks sometimes but nothing major. My entire configuration is in a single file! I am not going back to DEs…

Could you share your config? I also use sway but to me it seems like behind the statement "I have configured my system the way I like it" there is quite a lot of configuration. Also when saying "My entire configuration is in a single file", do you also include things that are normally configured in a DE settings app, like wifi, disk auto mounting, bluetooth connections, sound settings/volumes, display configurations, etc?

I like (and use everyday) sway and I like using WM's as a part of puzzling together a system. I just don't think you are comparing apples to apples here.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#95

Post by Shared404 »

mstipetic wrote: post #86
lawl wrote: post #33

I honestly don't quite understand what System76s intentions with COSMIC are. To me it feels like a regression from the previous gnome and i've kicked their plugins to get a regular gnome back. It just... Doesn't do anything my custom openbox or i3 setups in the past didn't do (imo better). Nor is it better at being gnome than gnome. And now that i'm getting old and gotten used to stock gnome it just seems like it mak…

Do you really not understand that most people don’t want to use custom i3 configs?

This is my thing.

I have machines where I run Alpine with sway customized. I have had machines where I've run without a DE at all. I've customized things that weren't meant to be, and not customized things that were.

But if I want something where I can walk up to any somewhat modern machine (currently typing this on an old Alienware running pop), and install an OS that gives me an i3-like environment with no extra work? Pop is fantastic. There are things that I would do differently. But they're minor and being able to just go is worth a lot.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#96

Post by acdha »

jandrese wrote: post #85
Narishma wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GTK is just a library, you can use it from any language it has bindings for.

The issue is that Rust is extremely opinionated at to how code should be structured and there is going to be considerable interface friction with a system that is built around aliasing data every time there is a callback.

Do you have an example of that friction? Looking through the docs at e.g. https://gtk-rs.org/gtk4-rs/stable/latest/book/hello_world.ht... it doesn't seem that bad but not having used it I would be curious how it works out once you're building a serious app.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#97

Post by pure_simplicity »

CameronNemo wrote: post #70
cyber_kinetist wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they would need to either 1) do the yak-shaving and create a whole new GUI stack in Rust (which would be an absolute boon to the Rust community but will be a tremendous effort), or 2) switch to Qt (and basically become KDE) Thinking about it, maybe Sciter ( https://sciter.com/ ) would be an okay foundation to build a DE in (lightweight stack, flexible theming, solid Rust bindings). But then it isn’t open source…

create a whole new GUI stack in Rust Is there a reason iced is not good enough (other than not being accessible)? https://iced.rs/ https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/issues/552

No stable release yet, and you generally want your DE to be the most dependable bug-free part of your software, especially if you are selling hardware with your own software pre-installed.

but looking good so far, gonna check this out for myself. I was rooting for azul, but iced seems to be further ahead

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#98

Post by astrange »

jonpalmisc wrote: post #66

At the risk of sounding too negative/critical, I honestly just don’t like the design language here. Everything seems overly rounded, and more importantly, the screenshots even show very weird/inconsistent alignment and padding in the UI. Why is it that so many Linux GUIs — between apps and desktop environments — suffer from a lack of attention to detail? Once again, it’s early, I’m sure they are aware of some of thes…

Rounded is good so it doesn't poke you in the eyes. There's some strange choices of ligatures in their UI font, though. Or just poor kerning.

https://blog.edfloreshz.dev/images/articles/linux/system76/r...

I'm not sure why this desktop UI looks like an iPad either.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#99

Post by benatkin »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #78
benatkin wrote: post #38

I can see 2022 being another almost Year Of Linux on the Desktop. I wonder what dirty tricks big companies will pull, like Microsoft did when netbooks became a threat. (Searching around, I see a lot of people don't get it, they say that Year of Linux on the Desktop has happened. It hasn't yet and some think it never will.)

They don't have to sabotage Linux, Linux developers and the community does that all by itself (unwittingly).

I have your response covered under "some think it never will" :)

I agree a lot of mistakes have been made but I'm not sure Linux developers/community will continue to make big enough mistakes to stop its momentum every time it gains some.

Re: Exploring System76's New Rust Based Desktop Environment

#100

Post by DCKing »

This blog post focuses on some superficialities of how their DE's apps will look slightly different. That's understandable for first impressions.

I do hope these superficialities don't have all of System76's focus, as they're a dime a dozen in Linux DEs. Even the category of "we kind of look like Gnome, but with more familiar workflows" is oversaturated amongst Linux desktops (Budgie, Xfce, Cinnamon, MATE, Elementary/Pantheon, even "Gnome+extensions" are all in this category to various degrees). I suppose one distinguishing factor that Cosmic has is a strong Wayland focus, which is still missing from nearly all Gtk based alternatives.

System76 with Pop_OS! has an opportunity to tackle topics head on like "we can make fractional scaling work somewhat decently across all apps" (IIUC currently requires shipping a forked XWayland, unfortunately), "we can make trackpads the best they can be" (requires shipping some forked libinput related things IIUC) or "we can make font rendering best we can make it". The actual desktop environment stuff I'd be interested in.

A desktop environment needs more vision than shipping the same old Linux desktop problems with some other apps. I really hope System76 can make an effort there. They're trying to make their paycheck depend more on their own Linux desktop's success, and that I can only encourage.

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