LinuxEdge has posted the videos of the presentation of Novell Desktop Linux 10 by Nat Friedman. "A preview of Novell Linux Desktop 10 was shown to an audience at the Solutions Linux conference this week. We have a selection of videos which display a variety of amazing effects through the use of XGL, including transparency, wobbling windows, a 3D cube for desktop switching, and a task switcher which displays a preview of windows."
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Did you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed watching shadows ripoff (yes even old DOS apps had shadows under windows), alt-tab ripof in 10.0?
Or was it as enjoyable as rotating cube in installer which rip off 3ddesktop, etc.
I actualy expect that Apple will reinvent off xrain in 10.5 or at least virtual desktops.
:P
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I think that's because a completely hardware accelerated desktop using 3D graphics interfaces isn't a new idea by any means. It's a sensible and logical thing to do, and has mooted for years -- I'm pretty sure the idea for XGL was around before Quarz Extreme or whatever it's called in Vista. It's just taken Novell to actually take a lead and get it developed.
If there were certain effect whereby windows appeared to grow out of the taskbar when they were unminimised, a la OS X, or the titlebars of windows appeared frosted when they were in the background, a la Vista, there might be more of a case for shouting "copycats" -- but as it stands, I don't think it's reasonable.
Besides, Gnome and KDE have been stealing the best ideas from OS X and Windows (usually, respectively) for years ;-)
Member since:2005-07-06
This is a "preview of Novell Linux Desktop 10", meaning that it's not just a tech demo, but an actual preview of what may be in the final. I'd say it's at least somewhat reasonable to shout "copycat", seeing as how the same is done against Microsoft when there's even a slight whiff of any reimplementations of existing competitor's products.
In any case, I'd like to know where you get the idea that the idea for XGL was around before Quartz/Avalon. Do you actually have any news story or timeline to prove that?
Member since:2005-07-06
Moving to a hardware accelerated desktop isn't copying any more than moving to a high/true color desktop was. It's just the obvious next step given current hardware capabilities. I wouldn't say that Vista is copying OS X either, for the same reason.
I've spend maybe 30 min max playing with XGL (from CVS) and OS X, and I've only seen videos of Vista's 3D effects, but I'm already aware of several differences:
1. AFAIK Vista will still be single desktop only, so no desktop switching let alone rotating cube desktop switching. I don't remember OS X having multiple desktops either.
2. The wobbling, although weird and distracting, is original I think. It can be turned off.
3. Vista shows windows at an angle when cycling through them, XGL doesn't.
4. Mac OS X has cute elaborate effects like the genie thing, that Vista and XGL don't seem to be copying.
Member since:2005-07-06
1. AFAIK Vista will still be single desktop only, so no desktop switching let alone rotating cube desktop switching. I don't remember OS X having multiple desktops either.
I'm pretty sure that's because they just didn't make any demos that do it. That and it would most likely be trivial to add. The desktop is just a surface in DirectX, as are all the windows. The desktop itself is just a window. They could very easily rotate around the surface, and put multiple surfaces together to form a cube.
2. The wobbling, although weird and distracting, is original I think. It can be turned off.
Not at all. OS X had something similar (though a bit more simple) in 2001? And Longhorn demos had the exact same thing (wobbly windows) a few years ago.
3. Vista shows windows at an angle when cycling through them, XGL doesn't.
That's Flip3d. There is also just "Flip", which is pretty much the same thing as Novells.
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2005-07-06
While the pace of development here is impressive, and only good things can come of this, it really irks me that no one is bitching about Novell copying Microsoft/Apple.
If this were a story about Apple or Microsoft implementing something or other, there would UNDOUBTEDLY be lots of comments in the order of "Waah, they're copying Apple/Microsoft/Linux."
Come on, while it's good that the Linux desktop is catching up to OS X/Windows, at least be fair. Either whine about copying things HERE, or don't whine when the next Apple/MS story comes out.