Various parts and applications of the ROX Desktop have been updated recently. Firstly, ROX-All 1.1 (a single archive containing launchers for most of the ROX applications) has been released; the main improvement is that it’s now compatible with Ubuntu Edgy. Also, ROX-Filer 2.6 (the file manager at the core of the ROX desktop) has been released. Filer can be updated via the built-in update tool. Lastly, various important panel applets have been updated.
Does anybody have any fresh and pretty screenshots of Rox with all goodies, most importantly the panel and its applets? The ones that are on the site seem to be oldish.
I’m fairly happy with Gnome when on Linux but still curious. I used Rox with Xfce back when I had a Celeron 266.
Yeah, it’d be nice to see some fresh shots.
ROX desktop (ROX-Session, ROX-Filer, OroboROX etc) on OpenBSD:
http://users.unet.net.ph/~lars/images/roxshot.png
Thanks!
Soulbender, would you care to make a port of the ROX Desktop?
AFAIK, only the rox-filer package is available on OpenBSD.
Doesn’t Zero Install work on OpenBSD? It works on FreeBSD…
I have a port of ZeroInstall ready but it is too late to get it into the ports tree now in time for 4.1.
Look up CPX-mini….its a usb distro based on Kanotix soon to be based on Sidux.It uses fluxbox and rox.
Some nice screenshots there.
edit;
sorry,was in a hurry,here is link;
http://debian.tu-bs.de/project/cpx-mini/index.html
Edited 2007-03-02 02:13
ROX is interesting but one thing bothers me, they have no roadmap (there is a sketchy one for ROX-CLib). What are they working on? What are they heading for?
I know ROX stands for RiscOS on X and they basically wanted to create RiscOS like DE but they are rather complete and the feel I get from the project (for a very long time now) is that they are in maintenance mode.
It would be interesting to see the ROX people try to take the project to a new level. XFCE became a lot more interesting with 4.x when it stopped being a simple CDE knockoff.
Edited 2007-03-02 03:58
I think Dr. Leonard and the other main developers are focusing most of their attention to Zero Install. I agree with your point that ROX has achieved its main goal – an implementation of the elegant RiscOS desktop for *NIX.
But I am very excited about what ROX fully integrated with Zero Install would achieve. In some ways it would break very new ground and go where none of the other DEs have. Imagine a simple network based, decentralized application distribution system fully integrated in to the filer and other desktop components. I also disagree with ROX becoming more “generic” and larger like XFCE. I do in fact love XFCE but it is now less unique, in fact it is now what I wished GNOME was years ago. I would not like ROX if it lost its streamlined mode of operation to try and compete with KDE/GNOME/OSX/Vista.
What does this mean? Unlimited “tagging”? Search folders for this tags?
Are there screenshots of this feature?
Thanks!
“ROX Desktop”, what a name found by a 12 years old child.
“w00t, look at my rox desktop” – tr0ll4x0r
About 3 years ago, I installed rox on top of fvwm for a friend who had a really old laptop with about 100mb ram + a win98 system that had become unusable due to spyware. She had lost her original install media. It’s not just that she isn’t tech savvy, she is totally tech inept, but she just needed her machine for web browsing+ word processing. She was short on cash at the time and didn’t want to buy a newer machine…
Well, it was a huge mistake. She had a very hard time using rox. I customized the fvwm to make it simple but kind-of attractive. I made her menu shortcuts for synaptic (was a debian system) and all the apps she used, BUT… basically, she had such a hard time with her system that I think it actually soured our friendship. I think she goofed in ROX a few times and accidentally deleted some important files. She probably cringes when she hears “linux” and would probably never try it again.
After a year of using it, she had some money saved up from her new job and bought a mac mini.
At the time, I don’t know that there was a better FOSS setup for her old machine. Gnome was already pretty nice at the time (this was before ubuntu existed), but her machine couldn’t have handled it. I think the old xfce file manager was too non-intuitive and confusing for that to have worked either. There really was no good option.
If I were in the same situation today, I’d really think twice about giving a total tech inept person linux. But if I they really needed something light weight for old hardware and had no other option, I certainly would NOT go with Rox again; I’d go with xfce. Actually, I set up an old laptop for my wife with the new xfce, and she generally has no problems with it.
Anyway… a bit long winded, but I mostly bring it up because I appreciate the Rox project and in the past it served a certain niche. However, these days I think thunar blows it out of the water in that niche.