EyeOS is a free, cross-platform personal content manager system based upon the style of a desktop operating system. The base package includes the whole operating system structure and ten apps: a calendar, file manager, text editor, internal messenger, browser and calculator. EyeOS’s is thought to provide a complete, scalable and free (GPL) organization and work system. Everyone can port an existing PHP app to EyeOS and create a meta-package. You can test it online here.
I don’t know, this can’t really even be called a virtual desktop? I’ve seen several sites which have a better implementation than this, and a lot of javascript projects that provide cool concepts that would bring EyeOS to the front. This one seemingly doesn’t even use XMLHTTPRequest (Ajax).
Hi, I’m the mantainer for the unstable branch of eyeOS a.k.a. celebloth. I know exactly what you mean by doubting on the current virtual desktop implementation, and I have to tell you that visual appeal and interactivity is under hard developement and will, as you said include AJAX. But AJAX won’t hit the stable branch until 1.0 since by now we are giving maximum priority to other things we believe more important for a new project such as ease of maintanment of the code, modularization, integration of the different applications i .eyeapp folders making easy for everyone to add their own applications, and xml deployment with PHP5. However, I kindly thank you for your sincerity and I would be very grateful if you could pointed the javascript projects that would bring eyeOS to the front.
PD: Excuse me for my English, since as you may have noticed it’s not my first language.
I’ve tested and seems a good project, but still in alpha/beta phase. Maybe Ajax is planned. It could be pretty usable for schools, i see.
Need some developement, i’m gonna help.
Whats the old saying? Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it?
Beyond using PHP, how is this any sort of innovative technology? It’s been done before – WebOS, Desktop.com, etc. Those projects failed because they were bad ideas.
Why do I need a desktop in my web browser when I already have a desktop? What is the purpose of using a web browser inside this “os” that I’m using a web browser to access? There is no additional or special functionality that this “os” is giving me beyond that which I already have. In fact, it’s giving me LESS functionality that I already have. I already have a full featured mail client, and messenger, and calendar, and calculator, and so on. Why do I need these barely capable ones inside my browser?
It’s a wonderful showcase of the capabilities of dhtml or AJAX or whatever the kids are calling it these days, but as a practical application, this is useless.
I guess the purpose is to be a thin client, but since thin clients are easier and faster when using the slew of other technologies to accomplish thin clients, it comes down to EyeOS really lacking compared to the alternatives.
OK, a thin client. But to access the “os” the thin client would still need to have at least the capabilities of WinCE (for example) – which has a web browser and a claendar and a calculator and so on. There is still no need.
Why do I need these barely capable ones inside my browser?
You should look a bit further. How about when you’re on vacation, and you want to access your home material on your server?
Or, you are at a friend’s place, and he or she just got her vacation pictures– you could then upload them directly to your server using this system.
Seems like a pretty good idea to me.
>>You should look a bit further. How about when you’re on vacation, and you want to access your home material on your server?<<
VNC? Remote Desktop? Remote X session?
A pig in a dress is still a pig. I honestly see absolutely no practical use for this.
Come on jchildrose:
This is a worthful work! It is very useful when you are away from home and the only tool you have is a CSS complaint web browser (NetOp, NetSupport, VNC, RemoteDesktop and old that stuff require more than a web browser)… I think it’s an amazing thing…
If you cannot find it useful, you should appreciate the job that these guys are doing to bring us their product FOR FREE.
saludos
ernesto
The goal of eyeOS isn’t to create a virtual OS, is to pride a scalable CMS with the appearance of an OS, for doing it easy to use for the end user.
The scalabilty of the project makes possible to install any PHP application to eyeOS without almost any changes in the app, and to centralize lots of different-kind applications into a single and intuitive desktop.
EyeNav, in fact, isn’t for browse Internet (it would be stupid to do that), is for two things: The first, to open the links of any app inside EyeOS, and the most important, to save web pages without proxies in client, since it’s server who saves the web, so it can jump any proxy installed in client desktop. Thanks
OK, but if that is the case, and you are trying to create a scalable CMS – why not use the UI basics of something the end user would be familiar with? Like a web site? I’ve found that most people I have encountered know how to use a web site (clicking on links)- which require NO modification of PHP apps, and allows for the use of other web applications as well, such as those built using asp.net. A simple cross-browser drop down menu is all thats needed to access the applications from any platform.
While your application is technically interesting, the desktop paradigm makes no sense in a web application. It didn’t make any sense in 1999 and it doen’t make any sense now. If it did, we would all be using the Google OS at this point.
Have you ever heard of the word “research?” Jerk.
Yes, but if I remember correctly weren’t Desktop.com and WebOS using Java heavily..?! Which in my opinion you needed a really good system to have them run.
I don’t remember if desktop.com used java, but I am sure that WebOS did not -it was strictly vbscript DHTML. They may have used and ActiveX control or two – which is why WebOS was strictly an IE only site.
And regardless, other than being an interesting use of DHTML – they both sucked.
Though not open source and only IE compatible, Sitecore is a CMS bulit more like an OS. You can open several applications, move them around, bring them to front, install programs etc.
Couldn’t why EyeOS should be very impressive.. sorry.. maybe the idea, but it is a bit old..
So let’s make eyeOS the free sitecore, isn’t it? 😉
EyeSORE. I went blind looking at the screenshots.
And you can still get here and type ?
Actually, I quite like the look of it. Better than K. (for Klutter) D. E.
I think it’s early to give a definitive opinion. I’m testing eyeOS since it was a “baby”, few months ago, and now it’s “another thing” (a “child”, ;-P).
Their developers are working hard and the system is improving very quickly. I think in a short time it’s going to be more useful than it’s is right now – yes, I think it’s useful, no to use it at home, but on holydays, for example, far from our computer it could be a good tool.
Of course, we must wait some time to see eyeOS as a “man”…
The English demo gives me password errors. Did you get slashdotted and change it or something? I was able to get into the Spanish demo, but my Spanish is nowhere near good enough to tell what things say.
i m trying to log into the demo with user “demo” and password “demo” but it doesn’t work … says i have got the wrong password.
Glad it’s not just me! Demo fails here too.
Not sure about the green on the website…
This looks like something that could metamorphose into a sort of free home-server version of Backpack or Basecamp (although it certainly doesn’t have the funky look and feel of those babies).
And whereas BP and BC cost, this is free – so come on guys… just give me a version built with RoR and I’ll be happy.
Why is there a browser window inside this virtual OS which runs inside a browser? The screenshot I refer to is here http://eyeos.sourceforge.net/screenshots/060_2.png
This seems silly to me.
The real value here, being able to drop in just about any PHP application, is pretty cool.
Error when loging in with demo account has been solvented. Thanks to all support!
Still doesn’t work for me, but a workaround is to first click either of the Spanish or Catalan entry links and then select English from the selection box, proceeding to enter the demo/demo username/password combination as normal.
Whaddya know, it suddenly started working for me too.
Never mind then.
I’ll certainly be following it.
Good work.
This is very useful for business and possibly also for home users also. It is a system for thin clients but the important point is any thin client can use it. The hardware and the OS is completely irrelevant.
If you integrate the functionality of an office suite into this you no longer need a computer – or an office.
You just give a user an account on a system like this and they can access their info anywhere there is a networked computer, you could probably even do a version for phones.
This is the sort of project that will make Microsoft obsolete.
P.S. Please turn the brightness on that green down a bit!
ϋber-cool sums it up. Eye-OS would be awesome for a small team to collaborate on.
I’m gonna put it on my new s3rv3r b0x when I get it.
Besides the application of thin clients (especially when your rights on a computer are limited or you dont want to bother with installing), though not knowing about the architecture, this could work great for gettng around firewalls.
At my work, they have Nazi style network administration, limiting what programs you can run, what ports you can use, etc even if it is necesary for the work that you do! So this could end up as a good workaround for that to keep people productive, Yipeee
and that is for sure.
i cannot see why use it.
I prefer stand-alone application better than web application for the 90% of the cases.
totally useless.
I had this idea once, but sadly it would take way too long, and it would be nothing more then an “useless-but-fun” exercise.
But why not use DOM Javascript first? And then Server-side as a safety-net and for accessibility sakes?
Here are some more interesting implementations of such abstraction layers
http://www.masswerk.at/jsuix/
http://robin.sourceforge.net/
If I had lots of time and money (so I dont have to work)
I’d swear I would just for the hell of it – embark into a Javascript OS project. But given I dont have any; I gave up even dreaming about one.
To all the negative poo-pooers I think this project has alot of potential. Its main benifit is a simple easy to use interface to do specific things and not having to worry about the clutter that a website design generates. It may seem useless now but i can see it used for perhaps thin client kiosks or an interface to a computer controlled home. I wish these guys well.
But you got to admit the project is still its embryonic stage.
The idea is not new.
Have a look at WebOS.
They prolly wouldn’t get that much poo-poops if the article wasn’t posted here.
Being a forum of mostly developers – you have to expect strong scrutiny.
is that it requires some pretty sketchy settings on the server side (safe_mode=off and register globals enabled) so it wouldn’t be sane for me to do an installation on any of my machines that run other PHP fueled applications. That is an issue that really needs to be addressed before this admittedly interesting piece of software can really be rolled out on live servers.
Since 0.6.1, it runs well with register-globals off, the only need is to have safe_mode off for creating and editing files. that’s all! Thanks to all support!
On the downloads page of the site it has register globals on listed as a requirement. It would be worth correcting that since that (albeit outdated) requirement was what initially turned me off from doing anything but monkeying with the demo.