DesktopLinux.com founder and executive editor Rick Lehrbaum interviews Abhi Datt, Chief Software Architect and founder of Project ELX, a new project to create a uniquely easy-to-use Linux distribution. Abhi Datt describes his vision for Project ELX, lists the main features of the ELX Linux distribition, provides an update on the status of ELX, and shares his thoughts on how Linux can succeed on the desktop and elsewhere.
Interview with ELX Founder & Chief Architect, Abhi Datt
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Yet another promise that a Linux distro will rock the desktop. I welcome anybody to try but remain VERY skeptical. Their making the same mistake all others make though. If your going to make a desktop killer, quit trying to compete with Windows on ease-of-use and speed. Compete with BeOS, as it is the easiest to use and the fastest OS on the block. Bragging you can match Windows at something is pretty stupid.
gung ho GPL fanatics in high school…
The Linux distro of the day. Woohoo !
My Docs, My Computer, My Home, Network Neighborhood.. Come on, be sensible.
At least 8 major linux distros are going for the desktop:
Xandros
Mandrake
Lindows
Lycoris
Elx
Icepack
BlueLinux
Libranet
I adknowledge the great amount of work that they are all doing, yet almost all of them seem to be exactly the same KDE desktop with very few changes.
The last Icepack I tried (v1.0) had a very nice Windowmaker configured as default. Libranet prefers IceWm as the default window manager. Xandros v1.0 will primarily go with KDE but with its own FileManager.
A brief resume of the ones tried would be: Libranet crashes, Mandrake crashes, Icepack crashes, a lot. I am positive most of these crashes are caused by X. I’ve tried them with different graphic cards, brand drivers in some case, and different settings (switching off acceleration). X is a crashing problem. W2K doesn’t crash on me, I don’t need to hack anything, no need to configure anything nor to look for any driver, it’s stable out of the box.
“Abhi Datt: Project ELX was begun in February 2000, to build a distribution with the ease of Windows and robustness of Linux.”
As I see it, the problem with Linux distros is the problem with the Linux myth. Linux is not robust within a GUI. With X as companion, it is very, very unstable, and slow. The NT series of MS Windows are easy, robust and comparatively fast, whereas all these desktop distros lack ease of use, robustness and OS standards.
The key for a desktop alternative starts by forgetting X as a window system for good. Have all that beloved “X network transparency” within a console on a server distro, but not on the desktop. This is why I believe OpenBeOs has more possibilities than these 8 distros alltogether. I always have a linux installed anyway, and I can’t wait to try Xandros Linux, but none seems by far an alternative to Windows2K at all.
“At the mere mention of network window systems, certain propeller gheads
who confuse technology with economics will start foaming at the mouth about
their client/ server models and how in the future palmtops will just run
the X server and let the other half of the program run on some Cray down
the street. They’ve become unwitting pawns in the hardware manufacturers’
conspiracy to sell newer systems each year. After all, what better way is
there to fore suers to upgrade their hardware than to give them X, where
a single application can bog down the client, the server, and the
network between them, simultaneously! ”
(Don Hopkins)
Showing screenshots like this will not draw Windows users attention.
http://www.elxlinux.com/gifs/control_panel_s.gif“>Control
Just look at it. It’s a mess.
Linux without X is cool. “Desktop Linux” is not.
I don’t know if it will not draw Windows users attention. I know a lot of Windows users who love that mess. One of them has something like 70 icons on his screen ! Another has 2 tasks bars, the Office bar, and about 25 icons.
Take Gnome for example, dump most of Nautilus, clean up and update GMC (Nautilus feels like going backwards), work on that control panel, redesign/uniform menus and taskbars so they are not the icon jungle they are today.
And make the Great Unix Miracle: Forget X. Implement a window system like Berlin or KGI, port those gtk apps, as Raptor32 pointed out this porting shall not be of the complexity some paint.
After trashing X, odds are antialiased fonts would be a reality, beautiful freeTT rendering on the way.
Now you have a fast, robust, stable and nice looking Linux or xBSD desktop.
danlu, I agree with you that is a messy control panel Elx has, although MS Windows is not an aesthetic champion either. I think MS Win is hopelessly ugly, I wonder why, even after windowblinds or litestep surgery, the monster remains there.
For the time being no miracles are on the way, Berlin and KGI seem forever stalled, and everyone is making Linux desktops with the X virus in.
Nowadays the only little light I see at the end of this tunnel is that OpenBeOs may bring fun back to computing, or may not…, not tangible yet.
X-Windows: …A mistake carried out to perfection
X-Windows: …Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems
X-Windows: …It could be worse, but it’ll take time
X-Windows: …Live the nightmare
X-Windows: …Never had it, never will
X-Windows: …No hardware is safe
X-Windows: …The art of incompetence
X-Windows: …The first fully modular software disaster
X-Windows: …The joke that kills
X-Windows: …The problem for your problem
X-Windows: …Putting new limits on productivity
X-Windows: …Flaky and built to stay that way
How many times do you have to be told X isn’t a problem? Or is it that you just like spouting nonsensical soundbites?
They’ve all read the Unix Haters Handbook or excerpts from the list, or more often, they’ve read sigfiles from people who’ve read Unix Haters. They have no idea of the context, just like when OSNews resident trolls claim that the vi / Emacs religions represent an obstacle to Unix acceptance.
The problem is definitely worse since the BeNews posters migrated here, apparently because their own news sites don’t work worth a damn. I might have assumed it was only non-coder Be fans who were behind this flaming, but read OpenBeOS devel for a little while and you’ll see that this stuff could be just as easily written by Nathan or Michael.
The Be employees mostly seem to have taken home the right lesson. All the bits of BeOS code that least resembled Unix were the lousiest bits, so next time clone more of Unix (e.g. BSD sockets, Unix VM, Unix process model, don’t require needless threading and IPC in the GUI). A lesson taken to heart in OS X too. Unfortunately loyal but rather clueless followers will parrot the party line long after it has served its purpose, as the X haters here are doing.
Personally, I think ELX is doing a great job. I like them taking the Windows ideas up right clicking to send files to floppy and sharing folders. It’s simple and very effective. And the control panel you state that is so ugly is a great idea…I mean install a distro and have KDE as the WM and then u have system configuration menu and apps all over the KDE menu. Centralizing the system configuration is a good idea. I wish you BeOS people would get off your high horse and stopp bring BeOS up everytime. Fact is BeOS doesn’t offer much at all. It’s tracker an gui are ugly and it’s single user let alone has a crappy net stack. Second you all can keep dreaming about this OpenBeOS cause its not going to happen and if it does it isn’t going anywhere.
Lets see a *nix distro with windowmanager running on top of X and it to be as STABLE, FAST, RESPONSIVE and as EASY to use as TRACKER. That means system wide drag n’ drop, fonts that scale and don’t suck the ability to recognize what application to use to open a file without spending an hour configuring it. And a file manager window that opens in less than half a second when clicked. You know like BeOS does on a P166 with 32MB RAM.
Just get to work on that real quick, and post the URL here. Then the argument will be over.