OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/18299/New_Syllable_Build_System_for_Linux Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 22 May 2013 10:51:56 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256873 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256873 Does Syllable Desktop still matters?
If Syllable Server is not bloated like a 'normal' Linux distro with tons of packages and heavy weight desktop environments, applications can be easily recompiled, why developers don't make Syllable Server the new Syllable OS? Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (plfiorini) Comments RE: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256877 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256877 Its nice that a group of people are a totally new desktop.

From the comments in the last post I guess they think having their own kernel is important enough to warrant writing one.

The SkyOS author seemed to think having the UI mixed into the kernel made it more responsive.

Personally I would be happy to see a new 'Desktop OS' build on the linux, especially if it breaks away from X11/GTK/QT and standard unix stuff (they are all well and good in their own way but also have drawbacks from unix heritage).


All the minor OS's want better drivers so Its surprising more of them dont go this way- Even if linux is not their IDEAL kernel it would be a hell of a lot easier then writing a new one. With compile time choice of schedulers, preempt etc in Linux Im sure a configuration could be made so it dosnt totaly suck for a lightweight OS like syllable..

I quietly think that the 'Syllable Server' project may gain more traction and end up being the most popular syllable OS. - But who knows, give it some time to evolve.

PS... If people want to write new and innovative kernel, then great. But for a kernel thats not a hole lot different from existing free (and MAINTAINED) kernels.. it seems like a good way thr throw away a few years of your life ;) Edited 2007-07-20 17:50 Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ideasman42) Comments RE: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256882 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256882
Does Syllable Desktop still matters?


Yes.

If Syllable Server is not bloated like a 'normal' Linux distro with tons of packages and heavy weight desktop environments, applications can be easily recompiled, why developers don't make Syllable Server the new Syllable OS?


Even as a light weight OS on top of Linux, Syllable Server will still be heavier than Syllable Desktop and less suitable for general desktop use. Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Vanders) Comments RE: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256898 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256898 "Personally I would be happy to see a new 'Desktop OS' build on the linux, especially if it breaks away from X11/GTK/QT and standard unix stuff (they are all well and good in their own way but also have drawbacks from unix heritage)."

Yes! I agree - I'd like to see something without X11. Oh wait, that would be OSX? Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stodge) Comments RE[2]: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256912 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256912 no, that has X11 ;) Fri, 20 Jul 2007 20:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spikeb) Comments RE[3]: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256915 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256915 Not by default. As an add on. By default it uses Quartz. Fri, 20 Jul 2007 20:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zizban) Comments RE[2]: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256928 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256928
Oh wait, that would be OSX?


Apart from being bloated, like all the mainstream OS'es (incl. DE's) Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments RE[2]: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256945 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256945 If X11 is lightweight enough that it can be put inside LinuxBIOS, it's good enough for me.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=linuxbios Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (snozzberry) Comments RE[2]: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256947 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256947 I would also like to see that. If there was a well developed linux distro that had a non X based gui and just blew away all of the load of crap that is currently there (ie made a single unified clear API for programming under the operating system) I would switch to it in a heartbeat.

This is pretty much what apple did with OSX and bsd, and id say its a pretty successful trial case.

As it stands all linux distros are giant hodge podges of hacks stacked on top of hacks stacked on top of hacks to make it appear as if its user friendly at first glance. But nothing truly is.Edited 2007-07-20 22:17 Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (computrius) Comments RE[3]: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256949 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256949 ...it's because they want their BIOS to be bloated too.
Soon you'll be able to download your own Linux BIOS... And burn it on two DVD's ;) Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BurningShadow) Comments RE[4]: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?256959 http://www.osnews.com/thread?256959 OLPC's LinuxBIOS is going to be 1024K in size. A comparable AMIBIOS on the same board would be 512K. Sounds pretty compact to me. Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (snozzberry) Comments RE[3]: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?257015 http://www.osnews.com/thread?257015 I'm not going to sit here and claim it can't be done, but LinuxBIOS is a pretty contrived test case. If you notice, they're using KDrive (Nee. TinyX) which is a highly stripped down X, specifically designed for this type of application, and a very lightweight window manager.

You can strip X down, but you lose most of the modern functionality in the process. If you add a modern toolkit on top of that (I.e. Qt or GTK+) you've broken straight through the 2MB barrier.

It should be possible to do a lightweight system based on a lightweight X, but no one is doing that. The obvious question to ask is "Why not?" Sat, 21 Jul 2007 11:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Vanders) Comments RE[2]: What's the point? http://www.osnews.com/thread?257046 http://www.osnews.com/thread?257046 It could be OSX, along with AROS or possibly FBDev, except that
1) OSX isnt exactly light weight
2) OSX is owned by apple, so its not a project people can become involved with.

regarding X11 being good or bad, I had a check with some of the guys in #Xorg and they dont think much of XLIB which is what you have to code in to use X11 -
(unless you use some OpenGL or GTK which intern uses XLIB)

They are working on a replacement for XLIB though that can run alongside X11.Edited 2007-07-21 18:40 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ideasman42) Comments YASA http://www.osnews.com/thread?257055 http://www.osnews.com/thread?257055 Seems to be a lot of Syllable articles lately. Maybe OSNews should change it's name to "YASA - Yet Another Syllable Article". Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (chuck97224) Comments