Video and new screenshots of SkyOS 5.0-beta6 available for download. (MPG, 352×240, ~7min). In other news, the Diff-Filesystem is almost finished. The Diff-Filesystem is a layer between the VFS and any disk’s file system. Elsewhere, the Syllable team released experimental new USB drivers.
New Video/Screenshots of SkyOS
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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They fixed the title bar!
It looks beautiful now! heh
I still dislike the brushed metal media player, but its not a major issue, imo.
Sweet!
…or is that video of very bad quality (with no sound). If I’d known I wouldn’t have bothered…
Just my tuppence worth.
J
SkyOS has gone past a little hobby OS. There’s been a lot more time put into this project than there has been into many of the “Yet Another Distribution”s littering the landscape. What I’m wondering is where they’ll go with the project. I think they have the ability to eventually go commercial. The question is whether they will.
Thats a good point. As much as I like SkyOS, I can’t help but wonder what we’d have if he put that much work into a linux distro. Yikies!
I agree completely.
I don’t even bother testing live CD. Reason? Well, Linux is good enough for me to avoid all other OS variants.
But then again. Sometime ago there was enlightenment, really good interface, and being 0.16 now for few years and unusable 0.17(few years of beta). Well everybody forgot about it, mostly remembered just as joke to show time. The point? Sometimes such valuable persons just take too much on them self.
SkyOS is NOT another Linux distribution.
And although the latest screens look great, I do think you guys should make the dropshadow a bit more attractive.
But what is with that ugly syllable-style logo on the desktop wall paper with all the new screenies? Yikes.
Judging by the screenshots and video’s, I can see that SkyOS has come a long way. But for some reason, it just does not attract me. I wonder if there’s a place for another closed source OS.
It sort of looks like something I see everyday on OS X. The top-bar thing looks a lot (not just a lot… but really a lot) similar to the dock. It expands as programs are opened etc.
Well, I really like it. I hope this could put some focus on graphic accellerated OS-interfaces. They really make you smile (though they’re not that much of a productivity-enhancer). After all, closed or not, every step is a little further the evolution of OS’s.
Does this have anything to do with BeOS?
It uses the Be File System. But other than that no.
Apart from using OpenBeOS FileSystem (renamed SkyFS), they are different OSs.
Gein
This is not a closed-source OS. SkyOS has a community of developers behind it.
I have a lot of admiration for these people, going out and doing their thing. People will criticize and say “Oh, why don’t they just do stuff with Linux?” but first and foremost, it is their choice. Also, in doing what they are doing (a really integrated OS in terms of GUI etc.) they are pushing forwards discussions and debate for how certain things could be done. All roads lead back to the same place.
I’m always amazed at the time, effort, commitment and money people can put into an awesome project like this. Major kudos!
See topic
SkyOS is not a closed source OS? Where is the source then?
SkyOS is closed. They have developers that port apps to it and write things for it… they don’t do core OS programming.
“This is not a closed-source OS. SkyOS has a community of developers behind it.”
SkyOS of course is closed – as someone rightfully asked “where’s the source?”. All OS’s have a community (of some sort) of developers behind. Even Microsoft Windows – even though only some would consider that as a real OS, and not just a simple toy – needed to be protected from everything not toyish.
Though, I think the combination of opensourced core and copyrighted user interface will be the business-model to rule the future.
They really polished the interface during the last weeks. Looks clean and neat now.
But why do they make a 62 MB video with a video camera with 352×240 pixel? A 2 minute video in a better quality would have been much better – I can’t identify anything… not very impressive…
Anyway, skyos comes along quite well…
..is a big understatement. Bill Gee should hire these guys and speed up the development. Amazing..
Somebody wrote:
Well, Linux is good enough for me to avoid all other OS variants.
About 98% computer users says that IExplorer is good enough for them. You get my point? They never try something different! It’s sad that this way of thinking is so popular, because we will stuck with windows and linux.
Once i try BeOS and now it’s my home os
ps.
Yes I know my english is bad. I’m working on this.
Cheers from Poland to SkyOS deverlopers!
I won’t be using it, cuz it ain’t free (cost-wise) like Linux, but it still looks pretty impressive for a one-man show with an art and application programming team behind him.
Oh yahz.
Is SkyOS a beOS clone? I never really get it. What do they use
for source to their apps. No way they did this from scratch.
No way they did this from scratch.
First of all, there’s no “they”, it’s mainly “he”. and, sorry to bother you, but besides AbiWord, GIMP and the Filesystem, everything is written by Robert. FROM SCRATCH.
http://www.skyos.org/aboutnew.php
Thanks for the link..you don’t bother me Thom, not at all I just wanted to know more about this..
What is SkyOS’s license ? And Syllable ?
Can I download source code of both ?
SkyOS is closed source besides the programs (like ABIWord, etc) that require source inclusion.
And yes, SkyOS 5 is a one man coded OS that started around September, 2003.
(Again, closed source)
I really can’t wait for skyOS 5 to be publicly released. Looking awesome
Past0R : Same here, I now use BeOS as my main OS.
Nice work! I can’t believe he’s doing all of this from scratch. I think it’s awesome to see what talented people can do. Kudos!
BTW, it looks like they are going to have a Live CD available sometime.
http://www.skyos.org/downloads/binaries.php
the PS3, I do believe, will run somethign base don a *nix OS…nothing new realluy…
In 1999 a window opened for a competitor to Windows and Microsoft business practices. Linux closed that window.
Man, you just can’t come to the message board of any story on OSNews anymore without the Linux salesmen out in full force. This is a story about SkyOS, nothing to do with Linux.
Pretty impressive for a new OS, by the looks of it at least (I haven’t used it so I can’t judge from more than the screenshots). I’m wondering, what are the developers plans for this, surelly he can’t be investing so much effort in something that will be ignored by the world, so what is he plans on getting ppl to adopt the OS? What are the development API’s like, how hard is it to port applications to it? (An OS is nothing without apps!) Also, does it have the basic stuff a user needs to be productive? The screenshots show it can play movies and the like.. does it have a web browser? an email client? a native compiler? (or do you have to use another OS to compile apps for it?
)
Take a look at http://sky-apps.info/
It has its own web browser coded by Robert. It has GCC and Binutils ported. It has Development Studio, also by Robert. It has GTK, SDL, Perl, Apache, Samba…
I really wish there was a way to capture the video directly from the computer.
A program, video out, scan converter… etc
The picture is dark and is hard to follow.
Was that an mp3? Was that I disk partition? Was that an FTP or IRC client?
The menu/dock at the top seemed fast, the two running quake applications looked fast althought you can’t really rely on that as a benchmark nowaday i suppose, and it’s impossible to see the fps using a video. Anyway, when starting gimp and similair programs it looks like the windows are drawn up a little slow. Is this the case or just an effect of the video?
Syllable is 100% Open Source. You can get everything from the CVS repository, or if it third party code (E.g. GNU code) you can get the code directly from the authors and some relevent patches are in the Syllable CVS repository.
The key question for SkyOS to explain to me is how they differentiate themselves from other products, and thus exactly why should I consider it as anything other than an “interesting research project, not even likely to make it into the footnotes of history”.
That’s what I’d like to here: exactly what mission and strategy and aims are they working towards, and as a potential user, why would I be attracted?
Most other succesful O/S’s have clear differentiation.
… might be good for demos, but I can’t imagine that having a task icon moving around whenever I start a new program is going to help me a lot.
Anyway, I commend the effort in creating a whole new OS, but I still reckon some more consideration would be wise before definitely deciding to make it commercial (is this decided?). After all, there is still clearly a lot more work needed to get to the point where it would look professional enough to appeal to people who knew they couldn’t alter it.
“Anyway, when starting gimp and similair programs it looks like the windows are drawn up a little slow. Is this the case or just an effect of the video?”
GIMP and Abiword run through the port of GTK, and as such are not quite as speedy as our native apps. It is our hope that more developers (such as the developers of those respective projects for example) will write native ports of their software for SkyOS. We made the GTK port of those two apps in the meantime because it was quick and gave at least some access to two powerful applications.
xvidcap
SkyOS, in fact, has been around for a while (7 years I believe since it started, a little less since it was recoded). There are already some new and unique features, and many future opportunities. It is already making some good use fo the BeFS file system with “flags” and some features still yet to come. It is extremely fast, and is very multimedia capable. The user interface is nice, its fully skinnable with alphablenging and free-form windows. You might say “Yeah but linux can do that” but linux doesnt have a unified installer program, it has multitudes of programs and the only way to get a nice working linux desktop that has a unified GUI with an easy intaller and whatnot is to dish out some cash like you would for SkyOS.
>>The menu/dock at the top seemed fast, the two running quake applications looked fast althought you can’t really rely on that as a benchmark nowaday i suppose, and it’s impossible to see the fps using a video.
I just measured the fps for the configuration used in the video.
When Quake I, Quake II, the media player and the opengl demo are running simultaneous, following fps were measured:
– Quake II 95.5fps
– Quake I 210.0fps
– Video 29fps (NTSC video)
– OpenGL 90.5fps
Note: Everything is measured running on a 1.2GHZ AMD with no hardware acceleration for blitting enabled.
>>Anyway, when starting gimp and similair programs it looks like the windows are drawn up a little slow. Is this the case or just an effect of the video?
No, it’s not just an effect of the video. As Kelly mentioned above, the main reason for this is the not yet optimized GTK port and the fact that DiffFS is enabled which still results in a performance decline when running SkyOS from a CDROM.
“You might say “Yeah but linux can do that” but linux doesnt have a unified installer program, it has multitudes of programs and the only way to get a nice working linux desktop that has a unified GUI with an easy intaller and whatnot is to dish out some cash like you would for SkyOS.”
no. people already dish out cash for linux and there is a free program to do it
go read autopackage.org.
Other than the fact that I saw a few apps running simutaneously, the overall quality of the video is so horrible, it’s impossible to tell what is really going on. I tried enlarging the image and all it did was make everything completely unviewable. I never got halfway though the video before deleting it off my hard drive.
I am somewhat impressed by the progress and design quality, but doubt I’ll ever use it, as I am back with Mac and ain’ never going back to PC.
I am somewhat impressed by the progress and design quality, but doubt I’ll ever use it, as I am back with Mac and ain’ never going back to PC.
And what if SkyOS becomes the MacOS X for x86?
”
And what if SkyOS becomes the MacOS X for x86?
”
no way
SkyOS is picking up where BeOS left off, isn’t it? I mean that in a good way, of course. Not sure why it seems so natural to compare it to BeOS, something just seems familiar about it…
“Not sure why it seems so natural to compare it to BeOS, something just seems familiar about it…”
because there is the befs and stuff and same fate
This isn’t meant as a flame, but the GUI reminds me of kindergarten, fruit candy, and well, crap. They seem to have the people who make those gaudy KDE themes working for them.
More people should take after the GNOME crowd and their relative conservativism with the default GUI. If you’re going to release an OS with candy-coating, at least take after Apple and do it right.
Also, try using glyphs for window buttons, etc. Colorblind people will not use your OS if they have to guess which color is which that does what. Confused? so are colorblind people.
Disclaimer: I use all of the major OSes regularly, and even dink with SkyOS on occasion.
I was wonder if all the posters, who bleat about the closed source nature of SkyOS, are actually kernel programmers. I am guessing that a lot of these would not even know how to read the source let alone have any use for it. Having the source does not change the user experience. And how many people have ditch their copy of Windows just because they do not have the source code? I think it is about time people just congratulated Robert and his team and be thankful that there is another choice out there.
“Variety being the spice of life”
I believe Robert is a time traveller. The OS is already finished and feature complete for the year 2015.
Why do you think the development is so fast!!!
Just kidding.
:B
I don’t like the Interface. My big gripe is the bar at the top. Every time a program is opened, it grows. I don’t know about you, but I like to have a menu in one spot; I don’t want to hunt for my menu every time I want to use it.
I would hope the developers take a step back, and are able to see the forest, instead of just the tree’s.
Keep in mind, the name of this place is OSNews, and not LinuxNews. Quit comparing SkyOS to Linux, it has about two things in common.
“Keep in mind, the name of this place is OSNews, and not LinuxNews. Quit comparing SkyOS to Linux, it has about two things in common.”
well its not sky os news either. we will talk about all operating systems and people spreading fud should shut up.
well its not sky os news either. we will talk about all operating systems and people spreading fud should shut up.
Yes talk about all OSes, but this news item is about SkyOS. So people shouldn’t bag skyos, and say why should it exist.
It exist because Robert (core developer) envisioned it, and that is why it exists.
Everytime I read about SkyOS and the progress it has made – these questions come to mind:
* Is there a specific reason for keeping it closed? e.g. Is Robert planning to go commercial in the future?
* Has he ‘borrowed’ code from other OSes and doesn’t want to reveal the same?
* What about possible backdoors / trojans in the system?
Ofcourse, the only reason could be that Robert simply likes being in control of his cration. And I find nothing wrong with that either. He’s probably started the project ‘just for fun’ and has every right to do with it what he wants… at the cost of losing paranoid prospective users like myself 😀
Regards,
Shaitan