DistroWatch reviews Geubuntu, and concludes: “For Enlightenment and Ubuntu fans this distro is custom made for you. It takes the best of Ubuntu and combines it with a great desktop environment. If Ubuntu or Kubuntu is a bit too heavy for your equipment, then Geubuntu just might be what you need. It might also be an idea for those who find Elive a bit overwhelming, or those who like to be a bit different from the rest of the crowd.”
http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.p…
… that’s a foul default theme.
Still, each to their own.
I was going to chalk this comment up to just a personal opinion, but seriously that is theme hideous. No excuse in that being the default.
That’s nothin. Check out the last screenshot with the yellow theme. 2 words…scorched retina
I hear that a new, more modern theme is in the pipeline. So this state of affairs should not last long
.
The E17 devs fully admit that while the theme was very ‘bling’ back when bling actually looked impressive on the desktop, a change is needed.
Maybe it’ll be released at the same time as E17
Default theme is indeed hideous, but there are some nice themes at get-e.org (simply-white, gant, clearlooks, milky, japan…).
The night one looks cool.
The Japan theme is what I’m using now. It’s a lesson in design simplicity.
agreed
Eh, the default is not that bad. The screaming yellow one is hideous though.
Achtung, lookenspeepers: Das Operativ System GUI Looken ist Blitzen der Eyes and braindamagen your neuronal Konexions – keepen derselben klosed! 🙂
“Eh, the default is not that bad. The screaming yellow one is hideous though.”
Yes, not *that* bad. Sub-optimal. I’ve seen worse things as default settings. Allthough black on white gives the best reading contrast, at least in regards of printed material and from a psychological-cognitive standpoint, you should try not toexaggerate with such an important goal. Contrast is good, but it’s hard to move within the small zone between too less contrast (e. g. CDE default colors) and too much contrast (e. g. the yellow screenshot). But finally, that’s nothing you cannot change to fit your individual requirements.
But hey, at least it doesn’t look like “Vista” on the first sight. Oh wait, did I mention the “Moonlight” theme? 🙂 Don’t mind, I’m just joking.
I’ve downloaded the ISO and recorded it, I will give it a try tomorrow. Just judging from the screenshots – you know this says nothing in fact – the system looks promising and could be a good solution for system that are a bit low on power. And remember, I’m a BSD guy, I have *very* different imaginations about what is “low on power”. 🙂
From the article:
Every minute or so, a sunbeam shines down from the Sun for an interesting effect.
Wow, that’s really what I need! An interesting effect that distracts me periodically. Or is it an indicator to show me that the machine isn’t frozen? 🙂
Edited 2007-12-14 04:26
From the article: “Enlightenment has a solid reputation as a lighter desktop…”
I haven’t taken a look at Enlightenment in *many years* – but I well remember Enlightenment from 10+ years ago. And it was pretty much the butt of every joke regarding window manager performance.
Window Maker (which was WindowMaker [without the space] 10+ years ago) was my *light* WM of choice back then. I remember toying around with all kinds of window managers back then but all I ever heard about Enlightenment was what a bloated pile of code it was. I remember the reflective water effect at the bottom of the screen, translucent window movement, etc… back on my Pentium 166!
I remember RedHat (I think version 6.something) shipped with Enlightenment/Gnome as the default Desktop. (http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3590) What a hideous mess that was.
Edited for typo.
Edited 2007-12-14 03:05
“I haven’t taken a look at Enlightenment in *many years* – but I well remember Enlightenment from 10+ years ago. And it was pretty much the butt of every joke regarding window manager performance. ”
You should probably check it out again, because now it runs circles around KDE or GNOME, and possibly around XFCE too.
>>now it runs circles around KDE or GNOME, and possibly around XFCE too.
Yes, XFCE is sadly bloated now. E17 runs very well when I boot my system with 64 MB RAM. I don’t use it for the theme, but because it’s lightweight and yet configurable with nice GUI tools.
Things have changed quite a bit since then. Back then, E was the “bling” desktop, it was a lot flashier then the alternatives, but also rather resource heavy. The thing is, the rest of the linux GUI world has pretty much caught up, but are a good 5 years behind rasterman (the lead dev) when it comes to ideas and techniques. His rendering libraries are probably the most efficient out of whats available atm.
The only thing is that OpenMoko recently hired him, I have no idea what kind of impact that will have on E.
I believe they hired him to work on Enlightenment, so probably a positive impact.
One of the reasons he was hired by OpenMoko seems to be that they want to port E17 to their platform, so I’m assuming that impact of Enlightenment will be positive, as he will be able to work on E and get paid at the same time.
I haven’t taken a look at Enlightenment in *many years* – but I well remember Enlightenment from 10+ years ago.
It’s been completely rewritten since then. Maybe even more than once.
I’ll have to check it out again one of these days in the not too distant future. I settled comfortably in to OpenBox a few years ago and haven’t had much motivation to explore other WM’s and Desktop Managers since.
Edje looks like a nice concept. I wonder how difficult it is to build an application arount EWL and Edje.
Enlightenment is fine with me. I really like it. BTW you kind of sound like some windows people taking a look at linux with either kde or gnome for the first time in their lifes! Lol!
E is alternative, not mainstream like kde or gnome. thank god for that.
Edited 2007-12-14 10:57
Ubuntu is not a Linux distribution any longer, no: Ubuntu Is Not Linux. It looks like it’s got enough branding inertia that it will roll over couple other distros for breakfast. Will the next generation of girls substitute Ubuntu for not-Windows, or there will be no such thing at all, remains to be seen.
🙂
another useless linux distribution…
With all of the renewed interest in the E17 desktop, with the gOS and now this, I wonder if it will encourage Rasterman and his development team to consider a stable release anytime in the next 5 years? It’s pretty usable as it is right now, I’m not sure what they are waiting on?
I was pleased with speed. I wasn’t when it showed to be impossible to activate my network connection, which is absolutely simple on all (all!) other Linux distro’s I’ve tested on the same pc: most of the time, it is done automatically. Not so in GeU, and no way to activate it. So, I was left alone with a left alone pc, unable to communicate. Back to ZenW and Mint, they don’t let me down.
It’s still Linux, it’s still Ubuntu and applications for real world use are still seriously lacking. This is no different then the hundreds of other distro’s. Until major companies start developing software for linux, it will still be a “toy os” for the desktop.
> Until major companies start developing software for
> linux, it will still be a “toy os” for the desktop.
There are major companies developing software for the Linux desktop.
Is MacOS also a toy os because certain major companies refuse to develop their applications for it? According to your logic, it is.
NO Mac is not a toy it has a niche in the graphics industry. I think GNU/Linux is a great OS however you don’t use the OS you use it’s applications. I have used Linux in the past and it always leaves me disapointed whan the programs that I need are not available for it. Most big companies when they release software make a MAC version. Professionally I need to run Photoshop, this is not possible in linux, Please don’t tell me about wine or vurtulazition software. I also like to run and bike and the training tool that I use are also not avail. for Linux. Untill this happens for me and millions of others Linux is nothing but a hobbiest platform, when it comes to the desktop. Also a lot of the programs that I enjoy using on Linux are avail for Windows.
Here is software for your polar heart monitor.
http://code.google.com/p/s710/
You can run Photoshop in a VM, seamless; or you can run it in Wine. Don’t discount it and claim you absolutely can’t when you have options, or your argument carries no weight. Why won’t Wine or virtualization work for you? It’s working for many others.
http://luiscosio.com/how-to-adobe-photoshop-cs2-on-ubuntu-10-steps
http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?appId=17
It’s not a hobbiest platform just because it doesn’t meet your needs. Don’t be a fool.
“It’s not a hobbiest platform just because it doesn’t meet your needs. Don’t be a fool.”
Thank you, you echoed my own thoughts.
I hardly consider myself a hobbyist doing statistical modeling and analysis. I have R and SAS (yes, that SAS from a major corporation) at my disposal.
Just because it doesn’t meet your needs doesn’t mean it doesn’t meet someone else’s.
Here is software for your polar heart monitor.
http://code.google.com/p/s710/
You can run Photoshop in a VM, seamless; or you can run it in Wine. Don’t discount it and claim you absolutely can’t when you have options, or your argument carries no weight. Why won’t Wine or virtualization work for you? It’s working for many others.
http://luiscosio.com/how-to-adobe-photoshop-cs2-on-ubuntu-10-steps
http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?appId=17
It’s not a hobbiest platform just because it doesn’t meet your needs. Don’t be a fool.
You really can’t be serious about this reply. You send a link for polar and linux. Polar makes about 20 Heart rate monitors. Mine does not work under linux. I googled for days.
Photoshop CS 3 Does not work uder Linux check the wine link that you sent me it sates that what works is NOTHING.
People on this site really need to get their heads out of there asses on replys and visit realty.
“You really can’t be serious about this reply. You send a link for polar and linux. Polar makes about 20 Heart rate monitors. Mine does not work under linux. I googled for days.
Photoshop CS 3 Does not work uder Linux check the wine link that you sent me it sates that what works is NOTHING.
People on this site really need to get their heads out of there asses on replys and visit realty.”
I’m not the one out of touch with reality here. I’m not the one whining that an OS is only for hobbiests because the one or two apps that I use doesn’t work. If it doesn’t work, use a vm or stick to native windows, but don’t lie and make false statements that it’s not ready for anyone because it doesn’t work for YOU.
YOU are the only one with the head <-> ass problem here.
Thanks.
was the Linux desktop of today – years ago.
Sure it was resource heavy when it first came on the scene – but there was NOTHING ELSE like it that I can recall, I’m pretty sure it surpassed even what BeOS was touting for their interface although their SMP / multitasking may have been ahead of Linux at the time.
Rasterman’s vision was way ahead of the curve. If Redhat or one of the other Linux players at the time has sponsored the project, I don’t doubt we could have had a superior Compiz or a better-performing, eye-candy-heavy,
competitor to Vista’s Aero – 5 years ago.
After all, did anyone think that a Pentium 166 with 64 megs RAM was going to be the epitome of the PC?
I’m posting this from a Geubuntu LiveCD session inside VMware workstation with 256 megs RAM allocated to the VM – performance / responsiveness is excellent , so far.
“If Redhat or one of the other Linux players at the time has sponsored the project, I don’t doubt we could have had a superior Compiz or a better-performing, eye-candy-heavy,
competitor to Vista’s Aero – 5 years ago.”
Well, I do. Do you know the background of Compiz, and related important X server extensions like Render, Composite and Damage? A long story made short: X development has stagnated for years because the core team was too conservative and resisted progressive changes. The changes in the X server, necessary to support 3D compositing, would never have been accepted by the XFree86 developers. That’s also the reason why XFree86 eventually forked into X.org, and only in recent years has development started to gain some speed again.
The problem was not technological, it was political. Sponsoring Rasterman would not have helped the situation.
To me this whatever-buntu stuff is pure silliness. Why have a different distro for every gui in existence, or even different applications (edubuntu)?
I think there are already more Linux distros than Linux users. And the community just wants to crank out more distros. It has really become a joke.
With debian, you download the network edition, then put whatever gui you want on it. Or, don’t use any gui at all. It’s all the same to debian. To me, that makes much more sense.
But, whatever floats your boat.
“To me this whatever-buntu stuff is pure silliness. Why have a different distro for every gui in existence, or even different applications (edubuntu)?”
It’s because users want (or at least are expected to want) to have a certain set of applications, along with a preconfigured desktop as their default installation content. They don’t want to have a base system that they put on what they want or what they need, no, they assume different stuff to be installed automatically.
Of course, this point of view differs from the opinion of most (usually professional) UNIX users who start with a pure UNIX or Linux base system and intentionally decide what is going to be installed – instead of having stuff installed they never use or the need to uninstall.
“I think there are already more Linux distros than Linux users.”
Hehe, I’d like to see a proof for this. 🙂
“And the community just wants to crank out more distros. It has really become a joke.”
What community are you mentioning here? In my opinion, there are two communities, equipped with a subset relationship: The community of users (pure users who want everything done automatically) and the community of developers (developers who design distributions, create applications and distribute them).
“With debian, you download the network edition, then put whatever gui you want on it. Or, don’t use any gui at all. It’s all the same to debian. To me, that makes much more sense.”
You’re definitely expressing the philosophy I’ve mentioned above: You decide what’s going to happen. But this behaviour of intended acting requires some knowledge (at least reading what’s on the screen) and some time which most of the users community don’t have or don’t want to have. While you are willing to do this manually (interacting with the system in order to build it the way you need it), those users won’t do this. They want it done, and that’s what the developers community provides with the many distributions: Preconfigured sets of software to be installed.
So finally, you could say there’s a need for different distributions. I won’t discuss their number now, and I won’t discuss their incompatibilites now. I just want to say: Use what is the best tool for your task, according to your own experiences and education. And for several users, YXCVBNMubuntu is the way to go.
As I promised, I did try the geubuntu live system CD. Here are my (very short) comments about what I experienced. Please NB that it is very individual. Most of you would note other things.
First, I took the claim that geubuntu would be a good choice for systems that are low on ressources literally. Sadly, this did not work with the default settings (and I didn’t take the time to examine possible kernel parameters for assertion override): The system seems to require a BIOS date from at least 2000. I did try a 300 MHz Intel P2 system from 1996 and a 500 MHz AMD system – none of them did work. That’s what I‘m talking about when I say “low on ressources”, but I think the developers of geubuntu had different opinions, maybe 2 GHz is to be considered a low power system today.
So I decided to run the live system CD on the fastest x86 system I have at home, which is a 2 GHz Celeron with 768 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600 graphics and some additional ATA and SCSI equipment.
First of all I noticed that my USB keyboad (Sun Type 6) was not usable inside the start selector, so I had to plug in an AT keyboard on the HIL connector. This worked fine.
Internationalization is very important for users that do not come from an english speaking country. (I may exclude myself here because I prefer correct english instead of sloppy german translation.) Fortunately, keyboard layout and system language cvould be changed very early in the start selector. Even the help texts (PF1) were translated. Great!
But I didn’t get behind the secrets of the PF4 (VGA and resolutions), PF5 (Accessibility, magnification, braille output etc.) selections. They did not have any effect. Should they?
After starting the system (default setting, first choice), there did not occur any kernel messages that could be interesting for diagnostic purposes. I think the developers did switch them of in order not to scare new users with DOS. 🙂
Suddenly, a message reported that the installed Realtek RTL8138 (10ec:8139) NIC would not be compatible to the 8139C+ and I should use the “8139too” driver. Strange… but the 3Com NIC did work without problems.
When the system started its services, status messages were displayed. But not in german – they were in english. After that, the monitor switched off for a short time and displayed a yellow background with an ugly white mouse pointer. After a short time, the system was usable, the GUI was displayed. Sadly, its upper section was above the monitor’s top, so I had to adjust it manually – as if an 21″ CRT would not be big enough. 🙂
I noticed that the USB keyboard did work now, but it was switched parallel (!) to the AT keyboard so I could use one keyboard per hand and do parallel input. 🙂
The mouse pointer, still strange in shape, changed to another colour that did not appeal to me – some kind of red brown. Along with the default color schemes, the text effects and the other desktop effects, the GUI was overloaded with eye candy, at least in my opinion. You see, I don’t care about eye candy, I don’t need it and I don’t want it. Every user of compiz+fusiion surely would say: “Overloaded? Hey, that’s just 1% of the effects I usually have enabled!” 🙂 But for me, it was too much. The text above the animated icons in the launch bar on the bottom of the screen was not good to read, same for the text in the menus, which were not as good browsable as menus that do not look like a heap of pushbuttons.
Okay, but now for the more impressing things: The language selection I did inside the start selector did have an effect to the system – a thing I didn’t notice using KDE based live systems. But sadly, Firefox and Thunderbird were still in english, while Thunar, Pidgin, Gimp and the CD creation utility were in german, so this would be very good for german users that want to try out a Linux system.
Sound did wirk, CD creation worked, video playback did work. From my first impressions, Thunar is a nice file manager that could make “Windows” users feel familiar. Allthough UFS partitions got detected correctly, at least as hard disk volumes, they could not be accessed.
Later on, I’ll have a look at printing capabilites of this system.
My take: If you are really low on ressources, geubuntu isn’t what you’re looking for. But if your system is new enough, it’s an interesting experience how you can build a very usable system on a desktop that is not KDE and not Gnome.