Here is an interview with Robert and Kelly from SkyOS posted on SkyOSnet.
SkyOS Members Interviewed
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Great screenies. The fonts look better than I remember, and everaldo’s icons make a world of difference.
but the WindUI in SkyOS does not look like the WindUI that won the contest. I wonder if they plan on sharpening it up.
Hmm. If you look at the http://www.skyos.org/downloads/binaries.php“>download page you seem to have the choice been “Coming Soon!” and “No longer available”. This is pretty pathetic. I think it’s obvious that we need to kidnap Robert Szeleney and perform some heavy FOSS brainwashing on him.
I suppose it works ok as a hobby OS, but what is the point of paying money for this when other free operating systems are already running the same applications? Does this OS offer up anything new in the app department?
Where are the screenies?
I Think you bring up some valid points, but SkyOS is different in some ways. It is run by an individual, and not going up against Windows directly. It already has great community support, and we will frequently interact with Robert.
Plus, Robert is a machine. Look at how frequently developments are posted on the main website, and you’ll realize how incredibly fast his guy is. I’m not too worried about keeping it up to date.
They’re visible when you click “HOME.” Sorry.
1) http://66.90.81.8/skyos.org/5.0/abis.png
2) http://www.nathanpalmer.com/skyos/files/abiword_01.jpg
3) http://home.comcast.net/~marshmanthe1st/vm.jpg
Well, it’s good that there is such breadth in the Open Source community. Given sufficient scalability testing, say, running apache on an SkyOS box would have a great virtue of adding an extra layer of security through obscurity to a network.
Though you require staff that can administer it.
Notwithstanding the novelty value, I’d call a one- or few-man show just a little quixotic. Possibly that’s an improvement over a Monolithic Shambles, but I think that a few good folks is a better answer. My success at doing one-man shows in the desktop arena hasn’t been encouraging, though I’ve probably a fraction of the skill of the two in the article.
Those screen shots look great. I think I’ll be trying out SkyOS soon, especially if it will be able to run Mozilla
“They’ve done some amazing work, but I just wonder what advantages there are to building a desktop OS like this and not using the Linux kernel. When they have to modify every toolkit and framework in order to run on SkyOS, the amount of development work becomes insurmountable. What happpens when GTK 3.x comes out? Will they port that? Where’s the Qt support.”
We don’t intend on porting every toolkit to SkyOS. Quite the opposite, our hope is that this version of GTK is the only one we have to port. Our original intention was to make a native port of both Abiword and GIMP, but looking at the timeframe in which we hope to release 5.0, that simply was not a possibility. So, our solution was to port GTK, Abiword, and GIMP to SkyOS. This will allow SkyOS 5.0 to have both word processing and image editing solutions for our users. In the future, we hope to make native ports of the applications, or if anyone is interested, they may do so on their own, or join our software development team and spearhead the initiative.
Is it just me or does the title bar text in all their screenshots look strange? It hangs out very LOW, below the bubbly looking thing at the top. It seems like it should be centered vertically. Hell, the whole bubbly part should probably be removed, since it serves no purpose and makes the title bar text look odd.
“Hmm. If you look at the http://www.skyos.org/downloads/binaries.php download installation binaries page you seem to have the choice been “Coming Soon!” and “No longer available”. This is pretty pathetic.”
We took the previous versions of SkyOS down because they were painfully old and did not represent the current version of SkyOS in any sort of a useful way. The newest version (SkyOS 5.0) is not available because it is not complete.
> I suppose it works ok as a hobby OS, but what is the point
> of paying money for this when other free operating systems
> are already running the same applications?
Some people (me, for one) have more faith in closed software rather than open.
again good work there.
Can’t believe that name caught on…
Glad to see SkyOS developing the way it has, hope to see a longer more exhaustive (perhaps osnews one) interview once the 5.0 release starts to get close.
I remember reading about SkyOS, that it was going to go for a different, even revolutionary, GUI concept, and yet like Gnome and KDE, it does not seem to do anything truly new or innovative with the GUI.
What would truly distinguish this OS and its interface from the rest of the copy cat world of Operating systems out there so as to compel me to buy it?
So far, nothing. Even that interesting looking little dock appears to be little more than a variation on the OS X Dock which itself has similar variants on many OSes.
Hector
You think you (or other people) will buy an OS because it *looks different*? I don’t think so. Average users want the think to Just Work(tm), and want to learn as little as possible. All the “innovation” as you call it will confuse more confusion and will just encourage average users to stick with Windows, because they don’t want to spend time learning a new system.
>Some people (me, for one) have more faith in closed software >rather than open.
Note that if SkyOS 5.0 will have a word processing solution and a graphic manipulation solution will be thanks to the nature of open software… without open software, leaved to himself, without the contribution of some really really big company it would simply die of software absence…
I think people asking “why should I try SkyOS?” are missing the point. Right now, it’s a hobby operating system. If you don’t like tinkering and trying new things, it’s not for you yet. Personally, I’m looking forward to trying it out in VMware, or even as a dual-boot on one of my desktops if that’s an install option.
But just wait…a few years down the line, once Apache, OpenOffice, Mozilla and other important applications have been ported, SkyOS could become a valid stable and secure alternative for the server or desktop.
Apache has been running on SkyOS since the 3.x versions IIRC.
I like the concept of SkyOS very much, a simple stable OS. However, I think it is a bit early to start asking money for it, because it has not proven to work yet at all. Why not provide a download version for, let say Eur 5,- (for bandwitdh) and a cd version for Eur 10,- (shipping, burning) and improve it some more and maybe charge real money for SkyOS 6.0
Well said, bro.
Hector: I’ve asked the same questions and made the same point here several times. No replies. Of course I ignore those replies that mumble about how it must look and work like windows in order for a user to switch from windows.
Keep up the good work. I love the previous version of SkyOS. I liked how fast and clean it felt when using it. Reminded me of a cross between BeOS and AMiga, two of my fav’s.
Jim
I understand that people think that they have to bring on a certain familiarity, but if that is the case, why do it? Why not expend energy contributing to Gnome or KDE rather than coming up with yet another GUI that looks like and works like Windows.
I picture a UI that is drawer based. Imagine it if you can, the screen is a desktop, like what we have now, but this desktop’s contents are dictated by a drawer, which is essentially a tab on the right of the screen with a name given it by the user.
The Tab named Graphics, for example, would change the contens of the desktop and automatically open up the chosen Graphics applications or modules and include sub tabs of all the directories on the filesystem that were relevant to the task of working with graphics, including access to cameras, etc. The Tab named Documents would do the same, opening a word processor or presentation app or publishing app and the desktop changing to reflect the tasks at hand.
You could combine tabs by opening new ones without closing old ones, etc.
In my OS/2 days, I remember making use of folders that did this. They sat on the desktop, or wherever you wanted them, and when you opened them they automatically launched the appropriate applications and documents so you could just go to where you left off.
I, unfortunately, am no programmer, so perhaps this is not feasible, but if OS/2 managed to capture part of that in the mid nineties, I am almost sure it could be done today.
Anyway…
Hector