OSNews:

Speculative?

donotreply@osnews.com (Morgan) — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:37:00 GMT

These look very much like someone's speculation on the coming interface, rather than actual working screenshots. In fact, some of these have the look and feel of an open-source desktop that has been modified to look Windows-like. This is possible in pretty much every DE and window manager for X.org. It could also be skins created for Stardock products.

I seriously doubt any of this came out of Redmond.

Comment by apoclypse

donotreply@osnews.com (apoclypse) — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:46:00 GMT

So basically screw all usability by making everything transparent, good idea even if it is only mockups. Then again that didn't stop MS from doing it in vista as well so these are probably not that far from where MS wants to go. Some of those were pretty though.

2010

donotreply@osnews.com (systyrant) — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:54:00 GMT

I only hope by 2010 Linux really is ready for the desktop.

Fake

donotreply@osnews.com (CrazyDude1) — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:57:00 GMT

'nough said.

RE: Speculative?

donotreply@osnews.com (helf) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:03:00 GMT

yeah, half those look like heavily modified E17 desktops.

Not ready for the desktop.

donotreply@osnews.com (agrouf) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:03:00 GMT

Windows is not ready for the desktop. The screenshots looks pretty, whether they are fake or not, but it doesn't tell if Windows 7 will be ready for the desktop. Changing the look is not enough. It looks interesting though. 2008 may be the year Windows is ready on the desktop.Edited 2008-05-27 14:04 UTC

GUI...

donotreply@osnews.com (_mikk) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:04:00 GMT

Can they concentrate on the core OS?
Any info on memory consumption, different scheduler?
Any manageable security? Not just primitives?
Good shell?

RE[2]: Speculative?

donotreply@osnews.com (Laurence) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:06:00 GMT

yeah, half those look like heavily modified E17 desktops.

Well it wouldn't be the first time MS has borrowed ideas from it's rivals. (joke)

I'm a little confused why Thom would even linked the article if he himself views them as being fake.
Or did I misunderstand Thom's blog?

RE: Not ready for the desktop.

donotreply@osnews.com (Laurence) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:13:00 GMT

Agreed but (assuming these are real for arguments sake) the first thing most people ask for when told about an upcoming release of Windows or a GNU/Linux distro is screen shots.

Fact is, screen shots grab peoples immediate attention - especially in terms of mainstream (for want a better term) OSs. Then people will start reading into feature list.

You only have to look at the amount of people who dismissed KDE4 (granted it's not an OS) down to it's default theme to see what I mean.

RE: 2010

donotreply@osnews.com (hussam) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:18:00 GMT

Linux as an operating system + Gnome/KDE is already ready for the desktop. Whether your favorite application runs on Linux or not is a totally different issue. Distributions can't control that.

Ugly as hell

donotreply@osnews.com (asdx24) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:29:00 GMT

Linux + KDE4 FTW.

RE[3]: Speculative?

donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:43:00 GMT

I'm a little confused why Thom would even linked the article if he himself views them as being fake.

Because I want you to make up your own mind?

RE: Ugly as hell

donotreply@osnews.com (WereCatf) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:50:00 GMT

Linux + KDE4 FTW.

Tastes differ. I find those screenshots quite pretty. On the other hand I dislike how the default theme in KDE4 looks like. It's just plain hideous. I don't really like KDE4 as a whole either but..well, ymmv

RE: GUI...

donotreply@osnews.com (Morgan) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:58:00 GMT

I'm with you. My biggest issue with Windows has always been the core of the OS and not the GUI. There's a lot of room for improvement under the hood, especially compared to other operating systems built on even older UNIX foundations. Vista was, in my personal opinion, a huge step backward regarding core stability and security. Yesterday I read a story about a glaring security hole that ONLY targets Vista; XP and previous are perfectly safe from it. See below:

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/26/0257213&from=r...

That's a pretty serious glitch, if you ask me. Granted it's only one example, but it's certainly not the first nor the most dangerous flaw in a Redmond OS.

shiny shiny

donotreply@osnews.com (Glynser) — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:10:00 GMT

No matter if they are real or not, I just hope they will give up on the glossy shiny shitty glary look one day.

If everything shines and blinks, how can you keep a reasonable amount of overview?

A "flat" looking GUI can also be modern, who the hell said that everything has to contain color gradients and glassy effects... it's just ugly.

Look at the OS news logo. And the rest of the site. Plain and simple. And strong. And good. No glass, no gloss. Perfectly clear. I hope all those GUIs may come back to that one day...

Comment by Kroc

donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:29:00 GMT

Ah, just like the great 'mockups' of Windows Longhorn!
And look how much of that great vision made it through...

Fake

donotreply@osnews.com (BlackTiger) — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:51:00 GMT

It's (almost) fake.
Most of "screens" are Origami Experience 2.0 (3.0? ) concepts. Not a Win7.

If I am Microsoft...

donotreply@osnews.com (biffuz) — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:53:00 GMT

To sell Windows 7, I would start with a completely new GUI. Vista's GUI is terrible under every aspect, not only visually. I can't find anyone who likes it.
A completely new, pleasing GUI will make a good selling point... copy that from Apple!

RE: If I am Microsoft...

donotreply@osnews.com (daschmidty) — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:25:00 GMT

Despite my many gripes with windows, I actually like the windows GUI (many would tell me that's the reason I am also a KDE user). Though aero is unnecessary and I generally just go with the "classic" win9x look. It behaves much more responsively than aero and doesn't get in the way of what I am doing. I find the layout of the taskbars etc to be intuitive, though that may partially be due to familiarity. The style windows uses is rather standard though. As a former OS/2 user, win9x didn't feel like such a radical change.

On the other hand, I, unlike you, have never taken a liking to the OSX gui. I find it a bit awkward to be honest. The dock i much bigger than it needs to be, and on a laptop or small monitor, it consumes alot of screen real estate for my liking. I also dislike the window minimizing behavior of the dock, in that it doesn't label things, so if for example, you have a bunch of documents open, they are indistinguishable when minimized because the thumbnails the dock uses are way too small to try and read text. I also have never been comfortable with the menu-bar-on-top philosophy, as it seems counter intuitive to me to have a menubar at the top of the screen if the window you are using it not full screen and at the bottom. Lastly, I never got used to the way the mac gui handles multiple opened windows on the desktop. The stacking and manipulation of windows feels awkward.

But anyways, I was not trying to bash OSX here, my point was simply that as someone who needs to use windows on a near daily basis, I would hate to see and windows 7 gui that resembled the mac. If I liked the OSX design, I would use OSX . Some of us actually do like windows interface design.

As the Stomach Turns

donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:39:00 GMT

Prepare yourselves for years of leaked W7 screenshots... which turn out to be nothing... multi-page analyses of off-hand, three word remarks by Microsoft execs... which turn out to be wrong... endless speculations regarding what Microsoft will do because they are so smart... or alternately because they are so stupid, or perhaps because they are so scared. Gird yourself for endless predictions of release dates, which come and go without event. Rumors of features, always unconfirmed. Rumors of cut features (ditto). Phantom benchmarks sent back from the future (YMMV). And, of course, predictions of Microsoft's demise, or ultimate triumph depending on the success or failure of this "bet the company" move.

And count on your news source: "OSNews" to bring it all to you blow by blow as the information becomes available.

Or... just blow it all off. It probably doesn't make any difference. :-)Edited 2008-05-27 16:41 UTC

RE: Comment by apoclypse

donotreply@osnews.com (phoehne) — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:47:00 GMT

In fact, they're going to make the monitor transparent. That way, you'll be able to see the dust accumulating in the corner of your cubicle behind your monitor. Transparent text on a transparent field, over a transparent background with a transparent monitor. This is part of their new push toward corporate transparency.

Strange notion of a microkernel

donotreply@osnews.com (jack_perry) — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:03:00 GMT

We do know that the next generation of Windows will be built around a stripped-back âmicrokernelâ codenamed MinWin. ...As âproof of conceptâ, Traut showed an iteration of MinWin consisting of just 100 system files, which occupied 25MB of hard disk space and ran in 40MB of RAM.

25MB hard disk space? 40MB RAM? They need to send some folks over to QNX and see what a truly stripped-back OS looks like. Or just look up that old floppy download QNX offered, complete with OS, web browser, and TCP/IP stack.

RE: Strange notion of a microkernel

donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:08:00 GMT

Uhm, the name microkernel has nothing to do with the actual size of the kernel, but with the way it works.

RE[2]: Strange notion of a microkernel

donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:26:00 GMT

I believe that the confusion arises from the fact that Traut spoke extensively about microkernels in that talk, referring to the virtualization platform he was presenting, and then introduced MinWin. I made the same mistake, at first, thinking that it was supposed to be a microkernel.

However, that still leaves the issue of 25MB of files, and 40MB of RAM being barely enough to run a simple http server. Linux devices do this and more with < 4MB of files and 4-8 MB of RAM. Presumably, the *BSDs and others can do that, as well.

RE[2]: If I am Microsoft...

donotreply@osnews.com (BigDaddy) — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:34:00 GMT

On the other hand, I, unlike you, have never taken a liking to the OSX gui.

Gasp! Are you serious? I thought I was the only one who didn't like the OSX appearance. I mean yeah, I like the font rendering, and some of the neat eye candy, but all in all I just don't care for it. The whiteness, the brushed metal, the glass buttons... meh.

The dock as an application launcher if fine, but that is about as much as I would ever use it. Glad to know I am not alone in this.

RE: If I am Microsoft...

donotreply@osnews.com (Horatio_Hellpop) — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:40:00 GMT

(Raises hand)
I've used every version of Windows since 3.11, and I like Vista's GUI the best by *far.* I've also used every Fedora release since core 5, and Ubuntu since 7.

Vista makes it much easier for me to get work done. And it took all of two weeks of use to get completely familiar with it. YMMV.

Comment by J.R:

donotreply@osnews.com (J.R.) — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:48:00 GMT

So basically what they do is rape all the screen estate by features in all corners (and everywhere else), increase the size of everything, and add transparency to...everything?

Count me out.

RE: Not ready for the desktop.

donotreply@osnews.com (gotten) — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:30:00 GMT

what did we say about this expression "ready for the desktop", i thought we were going to help eradicate it.

RE[2]: Speculative?

donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:08:00 GMT

yeah, half those look like heavily modified E17 desktops.

When I'm in a creative mood, I can see elements of RiscOS, ROX, gOS and KDE. Looks familiar. :-)

Vista works for me!

donotreply@osnews.com (NY2NV) — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:06:00 GMT

I like the look of Vista. I like the ability to adjust or change color, size etc. My system is fairly complex, yet Vista runs smooth. I kept XP and Ubuntu as back-ups, but never use them.
Tried OSX not comfortable with it, I guess with time it would work for me. Really miss the right mouse button. I use the VistaStart menu add on, everthing at your finger tips. Vista works for me.

RE: 2010

donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:07:00 GMT

Lil backwards, it's more a matter of whether the desktop is ready for *nix.

Even if it weren't fake...

donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:08:00 GMT

Precisely how much do you think would survive from now until it goes gold? Judging from Whistler and Longhorn, I'd wager not a whole lot.Edited 2008-05-27 20:09 UTC

RE: Not ready for the desktop.

donotreply@osnews.com (gonzo) — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:15:00 GMT

Windows is not ready for the desktop.

LOL That must be the funniest comment ever.

Look pal, Windows is on the desktop.

RE[2]: Not ready for the desktop.

donotreply@osnews.com (WereCatf) — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:35:00 GMT

LOL That must be the funniest comment ever.

Look pal, Windows is on the desktop.

It's just the same kind of pointless argument people say about Linux not being ready for the desktop either. Truth is, it is already on the desktop.

Although XP is ready for my desktop...Vista sure ain't :3

RE[3]: Not ready for the desktop.

donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:42:00 GMT

Although XP is ready for my desktop...Vista sure ain't :3

I was watching a panel session from the collaboration summit the other day, and one of the PC vendors actually made a relative comparison of the percentage of units returned by the customer for various OSes which they offered. May have been Dell... but I can't remember for sure. Interestingly, the return rate for Linux units was in between that of XP and Vista. More people return PCs loaded with Microsoft's latest OS than return Linux units. Five years ago, I would have been shocked by such a statement. Today, I believe it and am not even particularly surprised. :-)Edited 2008-05-27 21:44 UTC

RE[2]: 2010

donotreply@osnews.com (systyrant) — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:52:00 GMT

For the record I was being sarcastic. Notice the little

As for applications. It would be nice if more developers would support Linux, but most of them are steadfast in only supporting Windows at the moment.Edited 2008-05-27 21:54 UTC

RE[2]: GUI...

donotreply@osnews.com (tomcat) — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:07:00 GMT

I'm with you. My biggest issue with Windows has always been the core of the OS and not the GUI. There's a lot of room for improvement under the hood, especially compared to other operating systems built on even older UNIX foundations. Vista was, in my personal opinion, a huge step backward regarding core stability and security. Yesterday I read a story about a glaring security hole that ONLY targets Vista; XP and previous are perfectly safe from it. See below: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/26/0257213&fr... That's a pretty serious glitch, if you ask me. Granted it's only one example, but it's certainly not the first nor the most dangerous flaw in a Redmond OS.

It's a pretty lame exploit, because it requires physical access to the machine to accomplish. If you have physical access, there are a lot worse things that you could do.

RE[3]: GUI...

donotreply@osnews.com (Morgan) — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:18:00 GMT

Astute observation, but I think you missed my point. I used that example because it was fresh in my mind, but as I said it was one of countless flaws in a commercial operating system that should have been found in beta at the latest. A flaw is still a flaw, no matter how you spin it.

RE[3]: Speculative?

donotreply@osnews.com (helf) — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:15:00 GMT

yeah, can definitely see ROX.

RE[3]: If I am Microsoft...

donotreply@osnews.com (helf) — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:19:00 GMT

I don't like the OSX GUI much, either. I've never liked the Mac GUI design much. Which is funny, since I adore nextsteps and it's rather similar in a lot of aspects. I don't mind the Amiga GUI, either. There is just something about the Mac GUI that annoys me...

I hate how glitzy every major OS is getting. It's sad. It's like people are reverting completely back to the "ooo.. shiny! ug want!" phase of evolution.

:(

RE: Strange notion of a microkernel

donotreply@osnews.com (helf) — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:22:00 GMT

wait, wtf. I've run windows xp in 32mb of ram with free ram left over. Stripped back to nothing, it was using 24mb of ram. I could still launch most programs I use and get online and everything.

I'm not impressed.

RE[2]: 2010

donotreply@osnews.com (stabbyjones) — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:26:00 GMT

by hussam

Linux as an operating system + Gnome/KDE is already ready for the desktop. Whether your favorite application runs on Linux or not is a totally different issue. Distributions can't control that.

---------

i think it was a joke...Edited 2008-05-28 01:27 UTC

RE[2]: Strange notion of a microkernel

donotreply@osnews.com (jack_perry) — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:30:00 GMT

Bad choice of title, sorry. My point was more that "stripping it to the bare essentials" requires so many resources.

RE[2]: If I am Microsoft...

donotreply@osnews.com (biffuz) — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:22:00 GMT

I used to like it as well, but after 13 years I got tired :-)

On the other hand, I, unlike you, have never taken a liking to the OSX gui.

This isn't the point. The point is that the Mac's GUI is so attractive, that people buy Macs just for it. This is the lesson Microsoft should learn: make Windows something that people will be happy to buy.

Then, you should (preferably) make it something people will be happy to use, too. Sure, OSX isn't perfect and doesn't meet everybody's tastes, but most people is happy with it.
And this is true for most products, otherwise you won't find them in a store for long.

RE[4]: GUI...

donotreply@osnews.com (PlatformAgnostic) — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:57:00 GMT

Uh.. that's not a flaw. If you have full administrative access to the system (which is implied by being able to boot into a linux CD), it's not a flaw in the OS to be able to do anything a full administrator can do (such as replacing OS files). This is not a flaw and isn't 'fixable' short of establishing a hardware root of trust system such that no software that is uncertified can ever run with privilege on the system.

RE: As the Stomach Turns

donotreply@osnews.com (PlatformAgnostic) — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Thank you!

RE[3]: Strange notion of a microkernel

donotreply@osnews.com (PlatformAgnostic) — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:08:00 GMT

The goal of the MinWin project was not size, but modularity. I'm looking forward to seeing how things will pan out if/when size becomes a goal.

RE[3]: If I am Microsoft...

donotreply@osnews.com (Johann Chua) — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:43:00 GMT

I still wonder why the OS X menu bar messed up the fixed positions of the File, Edit, etc., menus in Classic Mac OS by inserting the app name (which doubles as the app-specific menu) in between the Apple and File menus.

RE: Fake

donotreply@osnews.com (DCMonkey) — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:57:00 GMT

I thought that too. But Origami Experience 2.0 looks like this: http://origamiproject.com/blogs/team_blog/archive/2008/01/07/29519....

Thse fake screenshots are by some guy named xazac that posted his concept pics to AeroXP:

http://www.aeroxp.org/board/index.php?showtopic=11072&st=0

RE[5]: GUI...

donotreply@osnews.com (Morgan) — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:21:00 GMT

Ok my intention was never to debate the intricacies of security holes, rather to provide an example towards my point of Microsoft's poor track record. That being said, the example I used is indeed a flaw, and a big one. First, it should never be possible to gain system wide access simply by renaming a file. At the very least, the OS should simply ignore a file name change and run the same set of instructions it would have with the original name, else error out and run nothing. Second, this exploit only affects Vista, not XP, not 2000, not even 98 for god's sake. This clearly indicates a huge step backward in securing an OS from local attacks.Edited 2008-05-29 00:22 UTC

RE[6]: GUI...

donotreply@osnews.com (PlatformAgnostic) — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:55:00 GMT

You can't rename the file in question until you already have system-level access. Once you have that access, you can do a lot more aggressive stuff than just renaming files.