An observing poster at the Ubuntu forums unearthed what he says are screenshots of the upcoming Novell Linux Desktop 10. “I was snooping around for details about Novell Linux Desktop 10 and stumbled upon an internal Novell Desktop Design wiki. Most of the pages were unavailable without logging in but I found a few pics by going through their ‘Recent Changes’ page.” So, are they for real? My take: Whether these are real shots of NLD 10, or just ‘mere’ mockups, they in any case show that Novell is willing to differentiate itself from its competitors. Which is a good thing.
A Sneak Peek at Novell Linux Desktop 10?
118 Comments
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2005-12-03 10:46 pm
AbdullahHmmm…
I wonder if they are working on it behind the scenes or just keeping it as a mockup which they won’t try and develop.
Does anyone remember the QNX mockup screenshots? They were really nice, and the finished product didn’t implement a lot of things in those mockups.
Somebody on an Ubuntu forum posts links to screenshots of a public internal Novell product wiki that happens to have parts of it that are public and others not?
Whether these are real shots of NLD 10, or just ‘mere’ mockups, they in any case show that Novell is willing to differentiate itself from its competitors. Which is a good thing.
Differentiate themselves from what competition? Competition implies that there’s a market, and there isn’t. Red Hat certainly don’t consider themselves to be competition, and the CEO of Red Hat has, quite rightly, publicly lambasted the NLD. Seriously, who’s using it except for free?
I really don’t know when this magpie mentality of getting excited over screenshots of non-existant desktops, that no one uses even when they’re released, is going to end. There’s a lot more to be done to make a Linux desktop work out there in the world apart from posting mockups on a site, talking about usability and coming up with pretty meaningless use cases. There’s even a couple of pages on Microsoft Sharepoint in there. Quite what that’s doing in there is anyone’s guess, but there’ll probably be something about a Sharepoint clone pretty soon I guess.
More ammunition for the Microsoft boys about dorking around with source code I guess. In fact they’re not even dorking with source code.
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2005-12-03 7:23 pm
moleskineRed Hat certainly don’t consider themselves to be competition, and the CEO of Red Hat has, quite rightly, publicly lambasted the NLD.
In the first place, publicly lambasting the competition is always a mistake. It suggests you’re worried by them and lack confidence in your own path. In my book, it’s just part of Red Hat’s “We are Linux” FUD.
More ammunition for the Microsoft boys about dorking around with source code I guess.
Second, screenshots of internal artwork from Microsoft wouldn’t be any more or less significant and few if anyone would then claim the Microsoft boys were just “dorking around”.
We should be grateful that Novell has a few designers to try things out. For years, Linux suffered from a lack of graphic design talent. Now that’s coming good.
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2005-12-03 9:20 pm
segedunumIn the first place, publicly lambasting the competition is always a mistake. It suggests you’re worried by them and lack confidence in your own path. In my book, it’s just part of Red Hat’s “We are Linux” FUD.
Well, from the incredible success of the NLD, and many of peoples’ delusions of grandeur associated with its success, I’d say they should be really worried ;-). They sell more Suse Linux Professional boxes than they ever do of the NLD, which makes some of their recent decisions pretty confusing. As Suse discovered years ago, there is no market for a pie-in-the-sky corporate desktop.
Second, screenshots of internal artwork from Microsoft wouldn’t be any more or less significant and few if anyone would then claim the Microsoft boys were just “dorking around”.
Well, the problem is that Microsoft already have several existing versions of Windows that people out in the world are actually using. Also, there are actual builds of Microsoft software out there that people have actually got screenshots for. As galling as Microsoft’s hyping of Vista and other software is, it isn’t as galling as this. Desktop Linux, or whatever they’re working on, needs to actually come to some sort of fruition (or have a chance of it) rather than this continual cry wolf syndrome.
We should be grateful that Novell has a few designers to try things out. For years, Linux suffered from a lack of graphic design talent.
It needs a hell of a lot more than graphic design I’m afraid, and Novell don’t have the money, time or resources to contribute everything that is required. The people around the NLD, and some people here, are living in a fantasy world unfortunately.
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2005-12-04 12:55 am
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2005-12-04 2:16 am
segedunumsegedunum…seriously grow up.
That’s what kids say when they want to be grown up but aren’t strong enough to swim in the big pool ;-). If you actually have something to say that’s relevant then do so, but really, keep your pointlessly short and insightful comments to yourself, OK?
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2005-12-04 2:19 am
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2005-12-04 3:07 am
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2005-12-04 3:09 am
segedunumGo back to #KDE-promo bitch.
Ooooh. A -2 for me and a +5 (the highest here) for a really cutting edge, on topic and insightful reply.
I’ve never been on kde-promo actually, nor have I got any idea why you think what I wrote originally was about KDE, since I’ve never even mentioned it. Can you enlighten me with your thoughts as to why you think that’s the case?
If you don’t like what you read then I suggest you reply and open a sensible dialogue. If not then I’m afraid that’s just tough luck. Do try and whinge and stamp your feet without touching your keyboard. Alternatively, just get some fresh air every now and again.
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2005-12-04 3:12 am
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2005-12-04 3:13 am
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2005-12-04 3:26 am
segedunumOh, and I’ve also not had a reply to this:
Go back to #KDE-promo bitch.
Ooooh. A -2 for me and a +5 (the highest here) for a really cutting edge, on topic and insightful reply.
I’ve never been on kde-promo actually, nor have I got any idea why you think what I wrote originally was about KDE, since I’ve never even mentioned it. Can you enlighten me with your thoughts as to why you think that’s the case?
If you don’t like what you read then I suggest you reply and open a sensible dialogue. If not then I’m afraid that’s just tough luck. Do try and whinge and stamp your feet without touching your keyboard. Alternatively, just get some fresh air every now and again.
The most obvious clue that it’s a mockup is the URL:
http://primates.ximian.com/~jimmac/product-design/desktop/desktop-a…
jimmac is an artist.
I would love for the Linux desktop to look as polished as these screenshots make out. But so many of these designs you see produced by jimmacs would just be a huge undertaking of work. And certain things aren’t very practical–for example, his “switcher” screenshot shows a full-screen task switcher, with expose-like screenies of each application and a list of all apps across workspaces. Nice, but do you know how long it would take to make a screen with all that data appear (especially on systems with Xorg + Composite)? Definitely not the short time necessary for a quick ‘alt+tab’.
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2005-12-03 9:28 pm
rayinerNot very long at all. Xorg + Composite saves window buffers (just like OS X), so doing this wouldn’t be any slower than Expose.
OSNews should change their slogan to “Random comments on forums qualify as news around here.”
As someone already mentioned, I posted a link showing videos of various animations aswell:
http://jimmac.musichall.cz/stuff/private/xgl/
The link to the actual Novell Design wiki where I found the pictures is here:
http://primates.ximian.com/~glesage/wiki/doku.php
Edited 2005-12-03 18:59
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2005-12-03 7:18 pm
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2005-12-03 7:35 pm
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2005-12-03 8:23 pm
KrocWorking, thanks! I wonder what codec they were using. Just a simple MPeg2 or DivX would have done :/
I never said they were “screenshots”, actually my next comment I made even said that they were mockups:
Originally Posted by Anthem
SUSE and Ubuntu are two great distros.
Supposedly the Suse/Ubuntu devs share a lot of patches at the code level, but I’d love it if there were more ties between their products. If I was a gazillionaire, I’d pay Mark to hire away some of the top SUSE / KDE devs… they’re excellent.
I’d rather hire some of those Ximian guys. In particular Tigert and Jimmac, they are incredible with UIs. I think Tigert came up with most of those ideas in the mockups that I posted earlier.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=96912&page=7
🙂
This looks very similar to the ideas in the SymphonyOS project and it’s subproject, Mezzo.
Corner targets, and all.
I have to say that are excelent ideas and not so good ideas on that pics. But there are good ideas generally speaking. I think that you can get some ideas of ndl from there, like tango icons, beagle, fspot, and others.
Also like to say that i like the linux community, is great in help and ideas, but is also the most cranky community. When an idea come out, there are always complaints (instead of constructive opinions), and in general when someone says i dont like it, it does not say how to fix it.
Again, i think the ideas of the shots are very good, i hope they can implement some of them.
A UI like that would be great for the Linux camp. It would really propel them into the current century in terms of UI cohesiveness/usability. I would actually consider switching some family members over to this if it looked like that …
… But only if the performance was equal to/better than Windows. I installed Ubuntu 5.10 last night on medium-range hardware, and it’s just plain *slow* and bloated. 🙁
I’m hoping that something is done about that.
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2005-12-04 8:49 am
raver31Come on man, that is pure FUD..
I agree on “medium-range” hardware, whatever you class that as, Ubuntu might be called slow.
But it cannot be called bloated.
One of the aims of Ubuntu is to have one app for each job… one web-browser, one-email client, one video-player etc etc, you get my drift ?
It is no way bloated.
Now the speed thing, are you talking about a perceived slow-down ? , or is it that apps take a while to open ?
here is a tip:
If you made any linux partitions EXT3, then edit /etc/fstab and add the following at the end of the line of the partition in question…
data=writeback
you will notice a vast increase in speed.
Also, on the topic of tips, did you edit /etc/sysctl.conf and add
vmswappiness=10
at the end ?
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2005-12-04 7:22 pm
WrawratPeople should not have to tweak their installation for getting better performance. It should be relatively fast out of the box, don’t you agree?
As for data=writeback, I would not use this unless you don’t really care of your data. A power failure or kernel panic could corrupt some of your files since the data is not commited to the journal. Only the metadata is, and that is before committing your data to the filesystem. Data writeback is the strategy used by ReiserFS 3 and XFS and they are not renowed for being safe unless you use an hard drive with a disabled or battery-powered write cache.
It could be acceptable on /usr, but that’s about it.
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2005-12-04 9:33 pm
AnonymousDuron 1.2 GHz, 512 MB DDR RAM, Rage 128 16 MB AGP
My dad used to run Windows XP on this machine, and it was very snappy for all of his uses. On Friday I installed Ubuntu, and to my horror, the UI is extremely laggy (I drag windows around, and they “erase” what’s under them, only to be redrawn a few moments later), and the damned thing is using about ~150 MB of active RAM right after a boot!
What the hell?!
OS X 10.4.3 on my iBook uses *50 MB* of active right after boot — and OS X is 10x more functional and prettier than Ubuntu. Where’s the 100 MB of RAM going? I don’t get it. I don’t even have a sound card, modem, or any other peripherals in the system. My iBook has WiFi, Bluetooth, CD burner, USB touchpad, modem, Firewire, etc.
My quest to find a snappy and low-resource Linux distribution continues.
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2005-12-04 10:25 pm
AnonymousOn Friday I installed Ubuntu, and to my horror, the UI is extremely laggy (I drag windows around, and they “erase” what’s under them, only to be redrawn a few moments later)
Unfortunately, graphic systems on linux have been traditionally used with drivers that featured no acceleration since the manufacturer wouldn’t provide technical details to the driver developers.
The only way to effectively speed up the UI would be to optimize at assembler level (as has been the case with windows and macintosh before the 3d acceleration boom). But that produces non portable code, and in the free software world portability and functionality come before those details (that are nice nonetheless).
Right now the situation is changing thanks to NVidia and ATI, and projects such as X.Org are experimenting with drawing systems that use 3d acceleration for snappier UIs. But it might take a few years before their use is extended enough.
Where’s the 100 MB of RAM going? I don’t get it.
Linux uses free RAM as cache for hard disk access. On my 384 MB system, right now it’s using 100% RAM (theoretically) and 0% swap, but I launch new applications and no swap is used. When an app needs RAM, a cache is flushed and the free RAM assigned to the app.
Although it looks like the system is swallowing insane amounts of RAM for no reason, that’s far from being the case.
Windows NT/200X/XP, on the other hand, tends to overuse swap. Many times, inactive apps are directly sent to swap memory and when you try to use them again, you get quite some HD noise.
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2005-12-04 11:50 pm
AnonymousI know about RAM and how *nix OSes tend to use it — which is why I specified active RAM. Actually, thinking about it, I probably meant wired. Ubuntu vs. OS X = 150 MB vs 50 MB wired.
But anyway, I was under the impression that Rage 128’s have been supported *very* well for a number of years in Linux now. Is that not the case?
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2005-12-04 8:50 pm
BnonnPerhaps you could expand on what you consider “medium-range hardware”, good sir? I run Ubuntu 5.10 on a Pentium III 1 GHz with 512 MB PC133 SDRAM (what I think any reasonable person would consider a low-end machine), and I wouldn’t consider it slow. It runs faster in some areas, and slower in others, when compared to Windows XP on my Pentium 4 1.6 GHz with 768 MB DDR RAM at work.
Further, Ubuntu 5.10 is five years more advanced than Windows XP, so suggesting it should have the same system requirements, or run as quickly as WinXP, is quite plainly absurd. When Windows Vista comes out and it runs like a dog with bricks tied to its head on your currently high-end (and then-mid-range) hardware, will you complain that it’s slow? I don’t imagine you will; you will recognize that modern desktop environments are designed to run on modern hardware. So why is it that you expect Gnome, a modern desktop environment, to run well on non-modern hardware?
Again, what hardware are you running Ubuntu on? Can you post benchmarks to demonstrate this slowness you speak of? It sounds to me as if you are, again, posting fibs, untruth, and duplicity.
Regarding the UI mockups (to be a bit more on-topic); there are some areas of them that I like, but many that I don’t. Generally, the look of the DE is very much like it’s trying to be Windows or OSX, which in my view is not a good thing. While I support efforts to duplicate in Linux DEs good functionality found in other OSes, I don’t think that we should be doing that at the expense of the identity of those DEs. Many of the things in those mockups are simply bad ideas; a huge applications menu, for a start. Where are the other apps? Why must it be so big? What’s with the close window button? How are the apps organized; will they always be in the same place, or will they shift about “cleverly” based on my usage, so as to be more “available”? Why is there a giant world clock applet? What would it be used for? Why is practically all the apparent functionality in these mockups integrated into a single area? Shouldn’t we be sticking with the more sensible idea of differentiating functions into individual programs or task entries? Some integration is good, but what is the point of all this?
It looks like it was designed to be pretty, rather than useful. I’m not suggesting that some of the ideas incorporated into these mockups would not be useful, and would not improve Gnome. I’m just very skeptical about the thing as a whole. I think Gnome can (and will, with Topaz), do better than quasi-duplicating the look of OSX. I think many functionality and cosmetic improvements will be made, and that they won’t look a lot like these mockups, because there are better ways to do things. The fact that you (and, to be fair, many others) think that these mockups would be a very good thing says a lot about the perception of what makes good functionality, versus what actually does make good functionality.
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2005-12-04 9:49 pm
AnonymousDuron 1.2 GHz, 512 MB DDR, 40 GB 7200 RPM hard drive, Rage 128 16 MB AGP
As I posted elsewhere, my dad used to use this system running XP, and it was always snappy and more than adequate for all of the usual stuff along with some photo editing.
This is how I classify Ubuntu as “slow”:
Boot-up time: About 3x longer than XP
UI lagginess: When I drag windows around, they erase what’s under them in ~30 pixel increments, and then the stuff is re-drawn moments later. Unacceptable. What is this, 1990?
RAM usage after boot: Ubuntu – 150 MB active, OS X 10.4.3 on my iBook with 3x more hardware – 50 MB active, Windows XP on the same box – ~85 MB active
All in all, the general responsiveness of the UI is much slower than XP was on the same hardware. I find myself waiting for programs to load (omg is OpenOffice slow, even loading it from disk cache the second time around), graphics are not smooth (that whole erasing of windows underneath) but rather jerky and somewhat ugly, and the freaking RAM usage!
Why is it that when asked about Linux, advocates will proclaim that it’s faster than XP, but when it comes to the facts, you people justify it with “well it’s 5 years newer”? Vista is highly scalable, in that even semi-decent systems nowadays will run it nicely, though without most of the eyecandy. Can’t do what Microsoft is doing, so you just decide to spread FUD about them? Hmm? I’ve run one of the later Vista builds on an Athlon XP 1800+, 512 MB of RAM, GeForce 5950 Ultra, and it was only marginally slower than XP — and that’s interesting seeing as how Vista is chock-full of debug and testing code still.
Based on what I’ve seen, Ubuntu is 10 years behind XP. Drawing errors on mid-range hardware in 2005? Pssh. Go eat your cake.
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2005-12-04 10:38 pm
SlackerJackIt’s not as simple as you say, comparing apples with oranges and you mension memory usage, redraw and program startup. For one ubuntu is no the fastest distro and two because you just try Linux to prove a point, your not going anywhere with this.
Come back when you have a proper grasp of Linux and how it works.
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2005-12-04 11:53 pm
AnonymousAww, typical Linux zealot response! If Linux is not up to the expected modern standard, insult the user and his/her intelligence! *clap*
I know how Linux works. I also know about its strengths and its many weaknesses.
How is mentioning ugly redraw vs. smooth graphics comparing apples to oranges? Is that a cheap attempt at defending Linux and its backwards graphics subsystems? Really … what do you mean?
Edited 2005-12-05 00:06
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2005-12-04 10:49 pm
BnonnOkay, to address your points:
1. Boot-time. I agree. The boot time for Ubuntu, and most Linux distros, is slow; unacceptably slow from a Joe User desktop OS point of view. For servers it’s not a major issue, and for me it isn’t either, as I very, very seldom turn my machine off or reboot it. But yes, for most users this is a pita. I don’t know what work is being done in this area; I’ve only heard vague rumors of efforts being made to improve boot-times. Whether we’ll see anything in Dapper is anyone’s guess, but I’d expect not.
However, that said, Windows XP doesn’t boot all that fast after you’ve used it for a while. It’s real snappy to begin with, but once you’ve installed some programs and used the system for a few months, the boot process usually slows down a fair bit. The other thing to consider is that, when I log into Gnome, I have a usable desktop in seconds. All of the OS components are loaded and running. With WinXP, when I log in, some of the OS components are still loading in the background, making my UI very unresponsive for a short while still. Windows does cheat a bit with its apparently-fast boot process, so you should take that into account when comparing the two systems.
2. UI lagginess. I’ve never noticed this, probably because I don’t drag windows around a lot. To be honest, I don’t feel this is a particularly valid complaint under the “slowness” category. So redrawing looks nasty. Big deal. That’s a cosmetic issue; not a speed issue. Hopefully this will be fixed in Dapper, as a lot of work is going into cosmetics.
3. Memory usage. Why is 150 MB of used memory a problem when you have 512 MB of RAM? And, how well does Windows report its memory usage, compared to Ubuntu (the correct answer is “badly”)? How about OSX? If Linux’s memory management is significantly better than Windows’ (it is), such that, even using more memory, the OS still performs faster (this has been my own experience; Windows’ memory management is truly appalling compared to Linux’s), then why is using more memory a problem? That said, how are you measuring the memory usage? What is most of the memory being used on in Ubuntu, as compared to Windows? If it’s Gnome, that will hopefully improve with Dapper as well, as a lot of effort is being put into improving memory and CPU performance for the next release.
OpenOffice: I don’t use it much, because it is slow. That’s a known issue. It’s slow on Windows too.
Graphics issues: I don’t find any graphics issues with Ubuntu myself. Sometimes menus are a little laggy to load, but then they’re never as laggy as they can be in Windows, where a menu will take several seconds to draw, and another couple of seconds to render all the icons.
Anyway, your subjective observation of Ubuntu being 10 years behind XP isn’t really very convincing. Obviously you’re rather biased, so it’s hard to take your obvious hyperbole seriously. Yes, Ubuntu definitely needs improvement; I don’t deny that. It’s not as fast as it could be on older hardware, it’s a bit slow to boot, and until X.org 7 is released the cosmetic issues will remain to some degree. But my own subjective experience is that using Windows is an exercise in frustration, and that I can get far more done, far more quickly, using Gnome. Speed isn’t just about opening Windows or redrawing icons. If you find that WinXP is a better tool for you than Ubuntu, or any other Linux distro, then use WinXP. Obviously your needs are significantly different to mine, given that my experience is the exact opposite; but notice how I’m not posting here under the nick ‘Windows is Poo’, ranting about how far behind Windows is and focusing on all of its faults, while ignoring all of its good points, or the faults of its competition. I’m not going to defend Ubuntu against allegations which are true. It’s not a perfect OS, and there are things I would improve in it if I could; but given that it’s a fairly new OS, and that Gnome and Linux and all the applications which ship with Ubuntu don’t have the same level of commercial backing (if any) as Windows, I think it’s a pretty strong effort.
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2005-12-05 12:04 am
Anonymous1. Agreed. Though when I compared relative boot times, I don’t count the moment my desktop appears in XP as “done”. I count it when significant drive churning stops. Even given that, XP is still 3x faster.
2. The slowness of drawing is more pronounced because of the ugly redraw. When the redraw *does* happen, I can very faintly notice that the drawing is not an instantaneous “it wasn’t there, now it’s there” … I see a very quick top-down motion. I can see the same thing when pulling down larger menus. The drawing itself is just *slow*.
If your *menus* in XP are taking “several seconds” to draw, I’d say you’ve done something serious wrong with your computer. I don’t know, maybe you’ve forgotten to install your AGP and video drivers. With or without the fade effect, all menus in XP usually start appearing the instant you provide input to create the menu.
3. Oh, so taking 150 MB of wired RAM purely after boot is *okay*? I can’t believe the double-standard at play here. If Windows XP was taking 150 MB after a straight boot, you people would be like “waaah, Windows is so fat and bloated”, but when Ubuntu takes 150 MB, suddenly it’s okay because I have 512 MB anyway?
Puh-leez.
I checked Ubuntu’s memory usage in top, and XP’s memory usage in Task Manager. Windows doesn’t report its memory usage badly — you just don’t know how to read it. It’s as accurate as you want it to be.
The fact of the matter: A graphical desktop with minimal hardware should NOT eat 150 MB of RAM, especially when an advanced and prettier OS like OS X takes 1/3 of that.
That said, yes, it’s a strong effort, and good for them — but it’s people like you (not so much) and others that are what piss me off. Claiming that “Linux” is “faster”, or “more usable”, or “better-looking”, or “leaner/not as bloated” are just plain and filthy lies, seeing as how “Linux” usually means Fedora Core/SuSE/Ubuntu/other mainstream distro.
Stop with the blatant lies, and perhaps people will take you more seriously.
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2005-12-05 1:16 am
BnonnMenus: in my experience with Windows XP, it’s normal for a slight delay to occur between invoking a menu, and it appearing. Sometimes that delay is vastly exaggerated, however. Not just due to system load, though; sometimes it’s just like Windows has to figure out what to do, and it takes ages. However, this isn’t all that common.
RAM: I would have no problem with Windows using 150 MB of RAM from straight boot. I can’t speak for everyone, but this doesn’t seem unreasonable to me on a modern machine, although given that XP’s system requirements recommend 128 MB, I’d say it was bloated. It’s a fairly accepted notion that Gnome needs 256 MB or more to run well, though, so although I’m sure memory usage could be improved, it doesn’t strike me as a major issue (as I’ve mentioned, even my old machine has 512 MB RAM). So no, I wouldn’t be all “Waaah” at Windows. Again, I can’t speak for others.
Anyway, I agree that if OSX is taking up a third the RAM of Gnome, something should be done with Gnome. Still, is it possible that OSX is putting a lot of its memory usage on to the graphics card, so you’re not seeing it? I have no idea how this works, so don’t shoot me.
Anyway, I’ve never claimed that Ubuntu is objectively faster than Windows in all instances. I’ve said that, in my experience, I find it faster. Further, I think that Ubuntu is better-looking than WinXP (indeed, imo WinXP is completely fugly; sorry). These are subjective impressions. There’s no need to start bandying accusations of blatant lies, sir. As far as usability goes, in what way is Windows more usable than Ubuntu, subjective or cosmetic issues aside? I find my productivity in Ubuntu is greatly increased, as opposed to Windows. Heck, multiple workspaces, just for a start, are a huge bonus.
Perhaps if you stopped assuming that everyone who supports Linux believes that it is a universal truth that Linux is always better, then you’d find Linux supporters a lot less annoying. I don’t deny that bigots exist, but to be honest, you come across as a lot more bigoted in favor of Windows than most Linux supporters here are in favor of Linux.
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2005-12-05 2:40 am
AnonymousMenus: Agreed. That’s a much more sensisble statement than simply “several seconds”. 😛 I’ve noticed the same, but only when I’m starting to run low on physical RAM and I’ve got some kind of disk access going. In general, I find that this problem is virtually non-existant with 768 MB of RAM and up, though.
RAM: In the big picture of things, not, 150 MB doesn’t matter — but the fact alone that it could be done BETTER bothers me. It could be done better, yet there are still people claiming that it is the best. However, a difference of 100 MB is pretty considerable. I can run Photoshop in that 100 MB, or something equally complex.
All in all, I apologize for labelling you as a Linux zealot. You seem like a sensible guy, and you’re obviously quite a bit more level-headed than most of the people around here.
PS: About OS X and video card memory … no, I don’t think that that is quite how it works. The memory readings I get are for applications, kernel structures, modules, etc. I’m sure that some graphical components are kept in the video RAM, but it won’t be significant. My iBook only has 32 MB of dedicated video RAM anyway.
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2005-12-05 3:21 am
monodeldiabloAlthough I agree that GNOME’s memory use could improve (as does everybody associated with the project, hence the huge push for optimization recently), I still don’t see how you knowing that “it could be done BETTER” should bother you. Windows’ security model could be done better. Have you lost any sleep over that lately? EVERYTHING in OS design can be done better if given enough time and effort. GNOME is coming along nicely in the optimization department, and their developer blog is a great place to start if you’d like to track their progress.
Also, with regards to your inquiry regarding Arch Linux, I would wholeheartedly encourage you to try it. I’ve tried a number of Linuxes and *BSDs and it’s the perfect combination of both. It has the simplicity and elegance of configuration that the BSDs offer, with the package selection, support and responsiveness of a well-done Linux distro. Try it on for size and I think you’ll like it. Word for the uninitiated, though: the setup requires a minor muck-about with config files. A dry run with Knoppix or something (to identify your hardware) will help a lot.
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2005-12-05 7:22 am
AnonymousThanks for the tip. Contrary to popular belief, I’m actually pretty well-versed in Linux.
I’ve made some hardware-specific modifications to the kernel back when I was using it on my sort-of-supported Athlon XP-m laptop, I’ve done LFS more times than Paris Hilton has had sex, and used to admin some Linux servers.
As for GNOME … meh, the better option is KDE at this point in time. 😛 That is, of course, if you don’t want to use Windows/OS X.
Edited 2005-12-05 07:23
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2005-12-05 1:30 am
AnonymousThe best you can do is get Kubuntu or use apt-get in Ubuntu to install KDE. Its definitely snappier than Ubuntu-GNOME. I haven’t compared it to XP bootup but on my office laptop, it definitely boots in as much time as XP (sorry just a visual approximation and no numbers).
And for those waiting with their flame-throwers — I’ve always installed a new Ubuntu first and due to all the reasons cited above, I’ve later switched to KDE. Its definitely snappier than GNOME.
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2005-12-05 2:35 am
AnonymousThanks! I’ll try that. I need a Linux workstation for some embedded programming/hacking (most of the utilities I’ll need, JTAG-related stuff runs on Linux only), but I refuse to use something that is slow and bloated.
Do you have any other suggestions for some lighter-weight distros? I’ve been hearing a lot about Arch Linux here.
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2005-12-05 3:01 am
elsewhereAll in all, the general responsiveness of the UI is much slower than XP was on the same hardware. I find myself waiting for programs to load (omg is OpenOffice slow, even loading it from disk cache the second time around), graphics are not smooth (that whole erasing of windows underneath) but rather jerky and somewhat ugly, and the freaking RAM usage!
Please. Linux isn’t the end-all-be-all but now you’re just talking trash.
I’m running FC3 on my 6-year old Dell PIII750/256MB with the same graphics card and the same hard drive, that I use mostly as a home server. FC3 is a much heavier distro than Ubuntu, and it runs fine even with the stock xorg driver. There are no laggy windows or painful redraws. Granted, that’s typical use only, no fancy or tricky graphics, but it works well enough for what it’s supposed to do.
I will admit app loading can take marginally longer than when I had it running 2K (never had XP running on it), but it’s hardly debilitating.
Besides, any mainstream linux distro needs to be tweaked out of the box if you want to minimize things like boot up times or maximize performance. Same as Windows. If I remember my old Kubuntu installation, simply disabling the ntp service from starting at boot does wonders for boot time. And just like Windows, info like that isn’t hard to find on the web, if you choose to seek it out.
On my everyday laptop with Suse 10.0, it didn’t take much to tweak it enough so that it is easily equivalent to my clean XP install in speed for regular use. Out of the box it was fairly good, without any tweaks.
Of course, this is all subjective because we’re talking about our personal experiences on our own hardware and we could nitpick ’til the cows come home, but even so, me thinks there’s something wrong with your performance analysis.
Really, it’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that I think you’re lying.
The amazing thing on the link was the two shots of fvwm made up to look like OSX. Quite why anyone would want to do that is a different matter, but to have managed it to that extent, truly extraordinary. Must have taken endless hours. A true project for long winter evenings in retirement, that one.
This is holmes the new user interface developed by Novell for beagle desktop search
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/5882/screenshot2jc.png
Am I the only one that doesn’t like it? I’m not talking about the eye candy, that’s okay. What bothers me is that the GUI seems to be trying to use up every bit of screen real estate it can. Do we really need to turn high res monitors into low res ones, just because XP decides it’s a good idea? When I want to get work done, I don’t care about playing with the eye candy, I just want to get stuff done with *applications* and I don’t want some oversized desktop getting in my way.
What am I not seeing? Or are people just gawking over the eye candy?
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2005-12-04 1:59 pm
AnonymousTaking up screen real estate isn’t a problem at all, as long as it’s something that’s only done while you work with it…
The start menu, the task switcher and the network stats you see all disappear again when you click somewhere else!
the screenshots look very cool, but aren’t they for KDE? they look very similar to quite some KDE 4 mockups i’ve seen (functionallity-wise, not colorwise…)
anyway, it might be clever if novell went to kde-artists.org to avoid doing the same as they’re doing 😉
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2005-12-03 11:48 pm
A buddy of mine that works at Novell was just down at their sales rally in Utah a few weeks ago, they demo’d NLD 10 and apparently everyone was very impressed, he said it was significantly different than 9, which they’re using internally.
Not sure how it relates to the mockups though. He indicated that it was very “Mac-like”, which I suspect is an internal corporate spin, since I don’t think he’s ever seen a Mac desktop himself. He also mentioned that they’ve really improved media handling and integration, which also seems like a strange priority for a corporate desktop.
Novell has been talking up version 10 since practically before 9 was released, including that foot-in-mouth comment about how 10 was going to outshine Vista. Hype aside, Novell has supposedly expended quite a bit of engineering into this release, rather than just updating and freshening. It’s supposed to be released some time in the beginning of next year so I assume most of the development work must be completed by now. But until I get a preview copy for myself, I won’t believe anything until I see it.
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2005-12-04 1:41 am
kaiwaiYou do realise that in the corporate world, they use their computers for a little more than just thumping out word documents and playing solitaire.
Oh, and the other side, Novell needs to get a clue, NO ONE is going to move to their Linux desktop offering until they (the customer) can run the same software titles are they can on WIndows – they don’t give a shit about alternatives, they want the same thing.
They want the same accounting packages etc. etc. So instead of Novell prettying up the desktop, how about getting some bloody ISV’s onboard and producing the applications required.
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2005-12-04 1:48 am
AnonymousWhat about cloning Windows? Or, better, what about using Windows instead? I really finmd hard to believe somebody still thinks this way.
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2005-12-04 8:13 am
kaiwaiWho said anything about cloning Windows? what Linux needs are APPLICATIONS! Commercially available application – Peace Tree, Creative Suite, etc. etc.
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2005-12-04 2:50 am
segedunumThey want the same accounting packages etc. etc. So instead of Novell prettying up the desktop, how about getting some bloody ISV’s onboard and producing the applications required.
Well, that’s the ticket. However, it’s not as straightforward as it might sound. You need good development tools and a good base framework, but you also need the supporting desktop infrastructure there to do it. That is so much dedicated, focused and hard work to be done you simply can’t put it into words. Novell will never achieve it if they worked non-stop for ten years, and they’d also be throwing money away on developing code they’ll give away for nothing. It simply won’t work unless they rethink how they’re going to go about it. Glossing it over with eye candy is a very bad idea. I’ve lost count of the number of developers who’ve hidden problems behind screenshots of their software.
It’s Novell’s funeral, because if they are moving all their desktops to Linux (the NLD – the only people using it!) then they have to make sure they have a sustainable ecosystem (I hate that word, but it’s accurate). Novell always stated that moving to desktop Linux wasn’t about replacing Windows, but they are replacing Windows! There’s a lot of stuff that comes along with that. That means they need to have good open source software for most purposes, yes, but they also need the support for their desktop for ISVs to create specific software they and their customers need as well as the paraphernalia (knowledge base, documentation etc.) to support that. It’s huge.
The worst thing that could happen is that Novell have to publicly crawl back to Windows on the desktop, tail between their legs, and that would be extremely costly. However, that’s what could happen if this runs out of steam. From the top down, I don’t think Novell have any clue or conception of what they’ve undertaken or the areas which they need to work on to ever make this viable.
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2005-12-04 3:12 am
segedunumSince I was so rudely interrupted by the little trollers around here with mutliple accounts I’ll play along and see how much I can whittle their mod points down by ;-). There must be an awful lot of accounts on OSNews now. If you want to reply I suggest you formulate something decent:
They want the same accounting packages etc. etc. So instead of Novell prettying up the desktop, how about getting some bloody ISV’s onboard and producing the applications required.
Well, that’s the ticket. However, it’s not as straightforward as it might sound. You need good development tools and a good base framework, but you also need the supporting desktop infrastructure there to do it. That is so much dedicated, focused and hard work to be done you simply can’t put it into words. Novell will never achieve it if they worked non-stop for ten years, and they’d also be throwing money away on developing code they’ll give away for nothing. It simply won’t work unless they rethink how they’re going to go about it. Glossing it over with eye candy is a very bad idea. I’ve lost count of the number of developers who’ve hidden problems behind screenshots of their software.
It’s Novell’s funeral, because if they are moving all their desktops to Linux (the NLD – the only people using it!) then they have to make sure they have a sustainable ecosystem (I hate that word, but it’s accurate). Novell always stated that moving to desktop Linux wasn’t about replacing Windows, but they are replacing Windows! There’s a lot of stuff that comes along with that. That means they need to have good open source software for most purposes, yes, but they also need the support for their desktop for ISVs to create specific software they and their customers need as well as the paraphernalia (knowledge base, documentation etc.) to support that. It’s huge.
The worst thing that could happen is that Novell have to publicly crawl back to Windows on the desktop, tail between their legs, and that would be extremely costly. However, that’s what could happen if this runs out of steam. From the top down, I don’t think Novell have any clue or conception of what they’ve undertaken or the areas which they need to work on to ever make this viable.
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2005-12-04 3:14 am
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2005-12-04 3:18 am
segedunumSince I was so rudely interrupted by the little trollers around here with multiple accounts (again) I’ll play along and see how much I can whittle their mod points down by ;-). There must be an awful lot of accounts on OSNews now. If you want to reply I suggest you formulate something decent:
They want the same accounting packages etc. etc. So instead of Novell prettying up the desktop, how about getting some bloody ISV’s onboard and producing the applications required.
Well, that’s the ticket. However, it’s not as straightforward as it might sound. You need good development tools and a good base framework, but you also need the supporting desktop infrastructure there to do it. That is so much dedicated, focused and hard work to be done you simply can’t put it into words. Novell will never achieve it if they worked non-stop for ten years, and they’d also be throwing money away on developing code they’ll give away for nothing. It simply won’t work unless they rethink how they’re going to go about it. Glossing it over with eye candy is a very bad idea. I’ve lost count of the number of developers who’ve hidden problems behind screenshots of their software.
It’s Novell’s funeral, because if they are moving all their desktops to Linux (the NLD – the only people using it!) then they have to make sure they have a sustainable ecosystem (I hate that word, but it’s accurate). Novell always stated that moving to desktop Linux wasn’t about replacing Windows, but they are replacing Windows! There’s a lot of stuff that comes along with that. That means they need to have good open source software for most purposes, yes, but they also need the support for their desktop for ISVs to create specific software they and their customers need as well as the paraphernalia (knowledge base, documentation etc.) to support that. It’s huge.
The worst thing that could happen is that Novell have to publicly crawl back to Windows on the desktop, tail between their legs, and that would be extremely costly. However, that’s what could happen if this runs out of steam. From the top down, I don’t think Novell have any clue or conception of what they’ve undertaken or the areas which they need to work on to ever make this viable.
Edited 2005-12-04 03:20
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2005-12-04 3:25 am
segedunumMy, my. There’s abviously a lot of people very tetchy over this subject logging in multiple times and using up their points. If you want to reply quote and come up with e decent reply:
They want the same accounting packages etc. etc. So instead of Novell prettying up the desktop, how about getting some bloody ISV’s onboard and producing the applications required.
Well, that’s the ticket. However, it’s not as straightforward as it might sound. You need good development tools and a good base framework, but you also need the supporting desktop infrastructure there to do it. That is so much dedicated, focused and hard work to be done you simply can’t put it into words. Novell will never achieve it if they worked non-stop for ten years, and they’d also be throwing money away on developing code they’ll give away for nothing. It simply won’t work unless they rethink how they’re going to go about it. Glossing it over with eye candy is a very bad idea. I’ve lost count of the number of developers who’ve hidden problems behind screenshots of their software.
It’s Novell’s funeral, because if they are moving all their desktops to Linux (the NLD – the only people using it!) then they have to make sure they have a sustainable ecosystem (I hate that word, but it’s accurate). Novell always stated that moving to desktop Linux wasn’t about replacing Windows, but they are replacing Windows! There’s a lot of stuff that comes along with that. That means they need to have good open source software for most purposes, yes, but they also need the support for their desktop for ISVs to create specific software they and their customers need as well as the paraphernalia (knowledge base, documentation etc.) to support that. It’s huge.
The worst thing that could happen is that Novell have to publicly crawl back to Windows on the desktop, tail between their legs, and that would be extremely costly. However, that’s what could happen if this runs out of steam. From the top down, I don’t think Novell have any clue or conception of what they’ve undertaken or the areas which they need to work on to ever make this viable.
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2005-12-04 8:16 am
kaiwaiBut no one has ever stopped them from approaching the ISV’s and saying, “hey, I understand there is huge demand for your application, we’ll pay you to port your software to our platform” – thats the key, make the cost NILL in terms of porting it, and in return see the number of operating shipments increase.
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2005-12-04 4:04 am
elsewhereYou do realise that in the corporate world, they use their computers for a little more than just thumping out word documents and playing solitaire.
Actually, no, in the corporate world many admin workers do only use their computers for thumping out word documents and playing solitaire. Plus email. No heavy lifting there.
Oh, and the other side, Novell needs to get a clue, NO ONE is going to move to their Linux desktop offering until they (the customer) can run the same software titles are they can on WIndows – they don’t give a shit about alternatives, they want the same thing.
So then why aren’t people still using Lotus 1-2-3, or WordPerfect, or cc:Mail? Companies will switch applications if there’s a justifiable business case for doing so.
They want the same accounting packages etc. etc. So instead of Novell prettying up the desktop, how about getting some bloody ISV’s onboard and producing the applications required.
It’s a circular argument, how do they get the ISV’s on board without having an install base? How do they get an install base without having applications?
Nobody could ratioanlly argue that Linux will replace Windows, but it is a viable alternative in many situations. There will be applications that simply can’t or won’t be ported, and there will be cases where Windows is simply the best platform for the requirements.
My own company runs ERP + core applications over Citrix. CRM is web-based. That means that my linux laptop works as effectively in our office environment as our corporate issue Windows desktops do. Who needs XP running on a 2.8GHz processor with 512MB of memory to use Citrix? There’s no performance advantage over my 3-year old linux laptop. Hell, I can access a full Windows desktop, including IE 6.0, from my citrix client on linux. So why would a desktop worker need a Windows license to access thin-client services and applications being served by a seperately licensed Windows server? That’s a viable opportunity to get linux on a corporate desktop, even if only in a thin-client implentation. But it’s a start.
And speaking from our personal experience with thin client, it frankly sucks. Losing local servers and apps has been a headache, both for the users and the admins trying to make it work smoothly. So why do it? Cost savings. Our company did a cost analysis and determined there would be significant savings in reducing our global bandwidth requirements and having all remote offices operate thin-client to regional datacenters. That’s all. It’s how businesses work. Company decided to save money, the users have to learn to adapt. They didn’t hold off on deploying thin-client desktops because the users would be uncomfortable with it or find it less convenient. The months our IT department spent testing and preparing for the deployment, not to mention supporting it after, was simply an acceptable expense. Food for thought.
Our engineers use Visio, our marketing people use Photoshop. For them, Windows workstations are more or less mandatory, and that’s fine. I’d never suggest they should be forklifted and forced to use alternatives, at least until the alternatives are compelling enough to justify it.
Yes, applications are the key driver and will always be the focal point. But the desktop is becoming less relevant. Thin-client or web-based apps are increasing in popularity, java isn’t disappearing any time soon, and the gradual drive to increasing enterprise mobility requirements or hosted application environments like salesforce.com will force application developers to think outside the box and not arbitrarily lock themselves into a desktop environment.
Linux has a lot of work ahead to make serious inroads in enterprise, but Microsoft’s foothold on those desktops is no longer absolute either. Even Bill G. has admitted their future is in delivering service based apps. If Novell stays away from focusing on things like eye candy and mp3 playback, and emphasizes areas like centralized deployment, admin and manageability for desktops and applications, or tools to simplify migration and integration into legacy environments, it would be a significant start.
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2005-12-04 10:42 pm
AnonymousI’m not going to directly comment on things that I have heard from Novell, but how do you know that they haven’t already started on that. Just because their marketing really sucks doesn’t mean they are stupid.
The links now lead to a “Forbidden” page. Can anybody else reach them? If not, could anybody post backed up links? Did anybody grab these before they went offline? I wanna see what all the fuss is about
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2005-12-04 2:58 am
segedunumThe links now lead to a “Forbidden” page. Can anybody else reach them?
There was really nothing to see, trust me, and the screenshots weren’t recent either. They probably realised it was a bad idea to have a wiki like this on a public site rather than an internal network……
The screenshots were also a bit embarrassing to be honest. I’d be suprised if you ever saw anything like that in NLD 10 (if there is one) and if there is then I really can’t see anyone wanting to use it. They’re creating mockups and pie-in-the-sky ideas for nothing.
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2005-12-04 3:05 am
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2005-12-04 3:14 am
Will the last Novell employee please turn out the lights? This Linux infatuation is a funny thing but, Novell, c’mon, you’re just a shadow of your former self. You never absorbed a product that you couldn’t kill.
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2005-12-04 1:50 am
Novell/Ximian artists are good at making great mockups but never implementing them. Look at the F-Spot, Beagle, Evolution, Gnome mockups …. unfortunately very little actually gets implemented.
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2005-12-04 2:46 am
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2005-12-04 3:28 am
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2005-12-04 3:31 am
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2005-12-04 3:33 am
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2005-12-04 3:38 am
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2005-12-04 3:38 am
Very beautiful screen shots, I’d love to have my Ubuntu (or SuSE) system look like one of these pictures. Maybe we’re not too far from this. Hope that _real_ graphic designers will help to achieve this !
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2005-12-04 3:44 am
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2005-12-04 3:47 am
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2005-12-04 3:54 am
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2005-12-04 10:47 am
AnonymousRamsees2/Hiev/Manuma/Mitarai/Anonymous (201.132.80.—) we all know you’re the same person (the three-dots-mexican troll) so stop pretending you’re not. I’m tempted to send an email to the OSNews admins, asking to check your IPs, but don’t want waste too much time with you.
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2005-12-04 11:01 am
AnonymousIt’s really disgusting to have these trolls here and I really thought that this time as “Adam Scheinberg” said in his metablog that this time he is going to pull through and getting rid of all the spammers, trolls and fake accounts. To clean this place up as he said – nothign about that to see here. The same insanity is going on here over and over again which makes it problematic having a normal mature and valuefree argumentation possible on this place.
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2005-12-04 1:12 pm
segedunumEven segetroll has looked them.
Is not fair.
You mean you haven’t even seen them?
As I said, there was nothing to see. You’ve got a handful of (outdated) screenshots displaying nothing of any real significance, a very small video displaying a start menu the size of Brazil popping up and various wiki pages talking about various use cases, usability and a bizarre page about Microsoft Sharepoint.
All in all, absolutely nothing that is going to advance NLD usage or Linux desktop usage in general. It’s a bunch of magpies crowding around some bogus shiny objects – again. At least they had the sense to take it down.
Hell, I can access a full Windows desktop, including IE 6.0, from my citrix client on linux. So why would a desktop worker need a Windows license to access thin-client services and applications being served by a seperately licensed Windows server? That’s a viable opportunity to get linux on a corporate desktop, even if only in a thin-client implentation. But it’s a start.
I bet ther’re more similarities.
I could retrieve them from my cache, so if someone is interested, give me an upload link. (approx. 2.15MB)
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2005-12-04 8:53 am
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2005-12-04 9:27 am
AnonymousOk, here are the links:
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/8154/desktop7uy.png
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/2444/desktopappletsim3tr.png
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/8418/desktopappletssearch8bo.png
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/152/desktopappletssearch21md.png
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/1328/desktopappletstime4xu.png
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/3541/desktopapplications7dd.png
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/6763/desktopapplications20zk.png
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/9438/desktopcomputer9cf.png
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/6824/desktopcontrolcenter3zg.png
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/7439/desktopnetapplet1bh.png
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/479/desktopswitching9li.png
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5103/garrettdesktop5xj.png
I’ve backed up up everything 56 images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gamehack/sets/1506658/
Regards
Edited 2005-12-04 11:10
See, those screenshots and mockups are really nice and I would be pleased to use such a desktop. Unfortunately you will never see something like this for GNOME to come true. At least not in the upcoming years – that’s clear. Even in the current state it lacks basic functionality in all areas so how will you expect that a dream like this will come true one day ? Not that it lacks basic functionality to work seriously enough also its architecture that the developers have to use is absolutely broken. GNOME is a deep pit full of freaking bugs and issues, full of bloat and crap.
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2005-12-04 12:43 pm
AnonymousIndeed KDE/Qt-libs offer a more coherent/finished/polished API (Qt for all platforms). As a developer switching to GTK I particularly miss (1) documentation (most notably on how to use the cool parts of GTK like cairo) (2) coherent behaviour across all platforms (most notably the windows build)and (3) packaged gtk builds (with all of its huge number of sublibraries) for all platforms. As the gtk libraries become better more programmers will chose it as their gui library of choise but I agree it needs a lot of work.
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2005-12-05 1:51 pm
AnonymousYou could check SymphonyOS, which is at beta PR state, but which UI has been copied in these mockups…
Wow those NLD mockups look very good. I can see why the anti-Linux squad on here would be worried. After all they were hired at MS to troll!
I think the NLD shots looks a bit like the Mezzo stuff.
http://www.symphonyos.com/mezzo.html
I would love if they would also consider this guys mockups:
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=31128
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2005-12-04 7:46 pm
WrawratDoes that mean that those who didn’t liked those mockups are paid by MS? Man, I can’t wait to get my check. Won’t refuse a revenue source, especially when it’s based on an opinion.
My impression? The widgets are too big, there is too much space between contents and the windows are big lumps of a monotone colour. The Mezzo-like corners are a great idea, but what’s up with the vertical text?
In my opinion, the Gentle Gnome mockups you have posted are much better. Minimalistic, subtle eyecandy, uncluttered. That said, the look doesn’t matter as much as functionnality. I would rather use something that works rather than something aesthetically beautiful. Unfortunately, it seems that few people are focused on the former…
Your points aren’t all bad but your doomsaying is getting extremely old. Consider Apple not many years ago, everyone said they were dead and they’ve made an incredible comeback. Clearly linux offers a new area of revenue for Novell, something they really need. For now, most their money will come from Linux server products but the desktop is an investment in the future as it becomes more and more relevant.
Look at companies like Adobe taking involvement the linux desktop with the OSDL. They clearly have a vested interest but not everything makes sense.
Check http://www.symphonyos.com and prove me wrong.
Damn bastards… can’t get enough copying WinXp(esque) taskbars, they try and copy someone who’s really making a difference here!!
Damn!!
DEATH TO THE TASKBAR!!!
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2005-12-05 9:01 pm
AnonymousDamn bastards… can’t get enough copying WinXp(esque) taskbars, they try and copy someone who’s really making a difference here!!
Yeah!!! No one should copy what’s good to use, everyone should reinvent the wheel everytime!!! I curse you, Novell, I curse you!!! Booo!!!
I found this on Nat blog
you can see he mention’s Mezzo(http://www.symphonyos.com)
So maybe there is some truth to these mockups ?
These are just mockups. The last screenshot shows the task list. The first task due is ‘NLD10 Mockups’…
So unfortunateley just mockups. To bad, looks really great!
Greetz M
there are also videos, and they clearly shows they’re just mockups, unfortunately.
but nothing really innovative, i have to say.. i think that by the time they will be coded, tested, stabilized and integrated into kde/gnome, vista will make them old. anyway, nice to see something is moving.
The links do not seem to point to anything.
scroll down.
The links do not seem to point to anything.
Scroll down a bit on the page. The anchor link on the Ubuntu forums didn’t seem to work, so I just linked to the page as a whole.
Very nice. But they seem like mock-ups rather than a real working model.
Anyway I would like to use this system, on condition that it is slim and fast enough.
It looks well designed.
Edited 2005-12-03 17:37
wow, it’s a shame that the desktop is not ready for release now, i think that would really bring linux to the desktop in force. The Three OS’s would all look great (Mac, Windows and Linux).
Which desktop is it? I’ve seen some videos and they remind me to Gnome… but it is really different comparing to current 2.x series!
They are using the corners of the screen to full effect, as Symphony OS is doing – notice those icons on the upper corners, in some screenshots. Nice work. I hope they implement this UI Mockup.
Too bad neither of them are implemented very elegantly.
This looks nice, but why does it feel like OS X style to me, I don’t like that.
And what is this 800×600 ? and the Applications menu takes the whole screen ?
Obviously mockups (and obviously done by tigert, given the names and tasks :>). Some nice ideas, some horrible ones (the Windows-esque Gigantic Start Menu From Hell, for instance).
Here’s the full list of mockups and the brief movie clip:
http://primates.ximian.com/~jimmac/product-design/desktop/
Awesome!!
Here’s the full list of mockups and the brief movie clip: