Slashdot Mirror
The ROX Desktop
Anonymous Coward writes "The ROX desktop aims to provide a RISC OS style GUI on Unix/Linux
machines. Currently the filer is mostly finished and the desktop already
supports drag-and-drop loading and saving, application directories and an
iconbar. The desktop is stable and fully usable - I have been using it as
my only desktop for several months now without problems."
Is it me, or are all these GUI servers popping up making the focus on the movement in the XFree86 Project less and less important?
If all the attention were focused there, we'd probably have v4 by now, instead of projects like Berlin and now this one that do nice pretty graphics, but don't give us what we really want/need in the end.
Failure isn't falling. Failure is staying down.
I hate to be the "negative" one here, but, well, who cares? why base a desktop off of a RISC enviroment? What is its utility? Does it translate all your code or something? I'm not understanding here. WM's like Enlightenment and such provide form and function. From what I can tell about this one, its just like X, just looks different.
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There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Or am I missing something?
With most major developments in X Windows lately being more directed at the aesthetic aspects, not usability, this comes at a pleasant surprise.
Far too often eye-candy is used to gloss over a terribly underdeveloped interface. Finally someone has acted on the notion that appearance must go hand in hand with functionality to create an effective GUI.
RISC OS was an OS developed for the Acorn platform. This was a British phenomenon; I believe that these machines were StrongARM-based, which is where the RISC part comes in.
Acorn is no longer in operation, and so a whole lot of RISC OS folk have started looking at Linux/X as their future platform.
This is a pretty good thing; they may have some useful UI ideas, as well as useful code that might be ported.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Is it my imagination or is there a greater need for moderation lately.
RISC OS is the name of the operating system used in Acorn Archimedes computers. The fact that it's RISC isn't important for this; what is important is that it has a GUI with some interesting features. One of these is that what appears as an application is really a directory containing separate files for icons at various resolutions, scripts to run the program, additional data and so on. Another is that the normal way to save is to drag an icon from the "save" dialog into a directory window.
Christ, don't be such a moron, its not an X11 replacement, its a rather mundane "desktop environment". Try reading the articles before complaining. For a much more "complete" desktop environment alternative to gnome and kde, take a look at XFCE (gtk based) at www.xfce.org Much better than this (for now)
Do we really need another desktop? Something like this may be of use to the author(s) and a small group of his/her/their friends/users, but is this where we want to be going as a community? I have no problems with extending the functionality of the current desktops (or anything for that matter). But we need to realise that our tallents would be better focoused on making the existing generation better rather than just taking our cool ideas and starting another project.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Read this if you know nothing about this RISC OS thing like finding out about old operating systems...
:-) ) and the OS has been taken over essentially by two enthusiastic hackers and lots of well-wishers trying to extract a salary out of it. Check this page out for the list of new and exciting features that you get for £120. There's also a somewhat suspect conflict of interest created by the fact that the people who have taken it over are those people who want to sell software for it.
:-)
RISC OS is about the only OS to `get' this drag-and-drop thing. It didn't have a clipboard from day one or those ghastly save/open boxes which infest every other OS. You have a Filer (the RISC OS filesystem explorer) and when you want to save a file, you open the application's save dialogue, which is a small window with a filename and a document icon. You then drag the icon onto the Filer to save it, or onto the Printer icon to print it. I'm sure this could be grafted onto GTK somehow, if only someone would write a filer as functional as the RISC OS one.
The other thing RISC OS got really really right was its application encapsulation. That is, you have a directory which contains the main program binary, an initialisation script, any other program-specific resources, plus an icon for the Filer to display. This directory could then be zipped up and copied elsewhere which is why pretty much no RISC OS application ever had, or needed, any mucky or unreliable install wizards. This also meant that for many people the Filer served as your application launcher too-- a concept completely alien to most desktops these days.
Hmm... it sortof went wrong in the shared library department, though. The only `standard' way of doing shared libraries in RISC OS was through kernel modules providing extra system calls. Yup, in the ARM's supervisor mode and everything. So they have to be pretty perfect otherwise bugs crash the machine.
But its fate is pretty much sealed, sadly: last year Acorn cancelled its new hardware project, laid off half its staff and eventually disappeared. By this time nearly all the talent who had once programmed for the machine had left for greener pastures (with some exceptions who continue to amaze me
Bah; I could go on but ultimately I left because the thing was too slow for me to play games on, the SDK increasingly dated and the application support had long since dried up. I hope somebody someday gives it the shot in the arm it needs, but for now ROX is quite a good simulation
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
Personally, I'm really pleased to see this project.
The RISC OS desktop was developed by Acorn here in the UK. After their success in the mid-eighties with the BBC/Acorn computer series, they used their own machines to design the next generation, the Archimedes series. At the core of the Archimedes was four ROM chips that contained the RISC OS.
Man, that operating system was the best! Like greased lightning, obviously, because it was on ROM chips. More stable than anything else I've ever seen (Linux included - no flames please). I would love to hear from anyone who ever crashed one.
So coming into the nineties the Acorn Archimedes took the market in educational machines, being used in 9/10 schools here in the UK, with tons of educational software being developed (and still available today), as well as other packages.
Unfortunately somewhere around 1995(ish) they lost their way after targeting the home market with the A3010's - it should have worked, it's what all the kids used at school. They also had a fabulous new line - the RISC PC - which took their line up to using the StrongARM processor (now owned by Intel), and at the time blew away all the Pentiums on the market. It also had a PC card option, allowing you to boot Windows on one of these boxes.
RiscOS itself went up to version ~3.5 or version 4.0 IIRC. It was Drag 'n' Drop HEAVEN! Absolutely everything could be done with a mouse (making an ideal special needs hardware/applications platform), and used three-button mouse operation to the full potential.
Sorry to get all nostalgic, but I passed my A-levels programming on these machines, and I have an old A3010 gathering dust undeservedly.
As with most good computer stories, this one came to a sad end a few years ago, with Acorn downsizing, loosing their education markets and being swallowed up by bigger fish. I'm sure that some of you know the details better than I do, if so, don't worry about correcting what I have said.
insignificant sig
that gui looks like ass.
someone had to say it
Why is this project being built from scratch? Good gods, someone's actually going back to square one and implimenting drag-and-drop? Why not rip apart GNOME or KDE and re-impliment the desktop GUI there? At least then, you'd have several dozen programs that were already compliant out of the box.
We are all individuals. The entire idea of the OpenSource "Community" is a marketing LIE. (Useful one tho.) If the man wants a new desktop, let him have and shut the hell up. How many people said "why another kernel?" when Linux started up?
Actually, this thing looks pretty neat, but I don't really like the concept of desktops. All I need is a plain and simple wm. flwm works best for me. I somewhat mutilated it and I have my version here. It has a built in command line which I find pretty handy. hehe </plug>
just what we need.. yet another desktop.
.. im all for diversity and the freedom of choice that this offers. but why?
instead of continuously re-inventing the wheel, why dont people improve on whats already there?
dont get me wrong
The problem with Linux is that people seem to mistake it for a Windoze clone operating system instead of what it is: a fast, scalable, rapidly maturing kernel.
If you want less 'crap' to wee through, you could start by telling people to stop writing software.
P.S. Please do not do this. Thank you.
Ermac
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im quite curious why there are so many poorly made "desktop environments" and not ONE good one
i really dont see the attraction of GNOME or KDE or the rather lame XFCE.. who cares?
desktop evironments arent really that cool, and dont provide any real important features to an X station...
perhaps if all these desktop environment writers would get together... write one that actually works and provides features that improve your X session....
Yes, this applies particularly to the Gnome desktop. Sure, go ahead and mark this comment down as usual, but that doesn't make the fact go away: Gnome has got a long way to go in useability, particularly in the window manager department. Sheesh. I feel like I'm offending sensibilities every time I bring up a point in Gnome that needs fixing. This is wrong. We'll never get Gnome to where it has to be for world domination if every constructive suggestion gets buried and ignored.
/. and Usenet, the inevitable question of "Why do many Window Managers look like Windows when we know the GUI sucks?".
I have found in discussions on this topic that have taken place on
On more than one occasion the response has been that the intent wasn't to correct the glaring mistakes made by Microsoft, but to provide a reasonably accessible UI that fits within most users' frame of reference.
I find that attitude detrimental not only to XWindows but to the concept of Linux itself. It isn't just about the cost of the OS, but of the freedom to innovate, and copying mistakes isn't innovation, but the perpetuation of the same crap we are trying to rid ourselves of.
Basically, what I am trying to say is, if it isn't going to be better than what it intends to replace, don't bother with it.
I find the cries of "But it's *SO* configurable!" a excuse often used to deflect criticism of the actual usability of Window Managers. Configurability is a moot point when what you are tweaking isn't very functional in the first place.
I would take a static but productive interface over a configurable but hopelessly inconsistent, non functional and archaic one any day.
From looking at this project and just now trying it out I have the feeling ROX just surpassed GNOME and KDE in functionality! Yeah, this thing is all I need for my Desktop needs it seems. GNOME and KDE will bring me so called integrated applications but so far neither have givent me a real 'Desktop Enviroment' experience. The killer combo I see now:
Enlightenment + IReX theme + ROX
Thanks!!!
copyrighted undistributable open source guy:
If your going to use your open source ladies atleast get the names right. It's Gwen Stefani not Stefano.
"Sometimes I drink a little beer, Sometimes I make a little mess, Sometimes I get a little angry, Sometimes I kick a little ass"
.+ Stone Cold Guy +.
All I have to say is - congratulatiosn and well done. Keep workign oon RXO - the more competition, the better - it means i wont have time to get lazy. i'm goign to check this out and have a look.
i wish people would be more positive and offer encouragement not disparagement just because someone has a project they want to work on and it isnt what you're wishing was "the thing". let people have their projects - often they have a good reason they started it.. and sometimes they are so far into it that they aren't just goign to give up because someone else has a similar project...
Well done ROX - keep it up... Glad to see more stuff around.
--------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------------
thanks for the correction... i knew someone once named stefano, so i've been cluelessly using that since last night! funny.
It's cool to see something that looks pretty like enlightenment but that comes without the overhead (this is the third time I've had to reboot enlightenment in the past hour).
Why not redo it from scratch, if it doesn't work the way you'd like it to GNOME and KDE? While you're "ripping apart" GNOME or KDE, how can you make sure that all the previously compliant apps aren't broken?
YOU HEARD ME!
I don't understand how a gui that clearly looks like it came from the 60's could be even considered something someone could use...
....Just my opinion......
wouldn't be suprised if it was moderated....every other sense of free speech is, on slashdot.!
Hold on: isn't this for all Unix, not just Linux?
How would looking at KDE/GNOME source break apps? It's like saying my car will break down by reading the manual. :^P
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
then don't use it loser
I don't doubt that all OSes have some good ideas that can be learned from, but ultimately the usability of RiscOS was awful.
The filer for example. To do even the most trivial thing you end up with about 20 windows on the screen. Then you just get totally lost amoungst the windows. Maybe there was a gem of an idea in there with drag and drop, but the over-all effect was a loser.
Don't get me started on the OS core, interface and so on. Absolute junk.
Ahhh the powers of nostalgia frying peoples brains.
Did you see all the cool stuff about vim on those guys' pages? Cool!
Is this stuff even GPL'd?
Just about as exciting as Al Gore.(TM)
yeah
Just an idea that seems appealing to me, but it'd be nice to turn the background into a term with the command line down the bottom with the menu bar/whatever.
/var/log/messages or something along those lines :-).
:-).
Would also be pretty neat to just attach the background to a tail -f
Or is there already something that does this? If you can have xearth etc, you'd think it wouldn't be too hard to have an updating background based on a term.
If there is something like this already, I'd appreciate a quick e-mail to vastor@hotmail.com about it (I'll have to go check freshmeat later on just in case
Well, it seems obvious to me that you can only post positive comments about a subject to not be marked as flamebait or a troll. What the hell ever happened to freedom of thought expression? There are two sides to every coin people.
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This is the combination of an enlightenment theme ( DID anyone read the pages? ) and a few programs to acompany the theme for an overall awesome effect. All of its really simple to use. I cannot beleive people still flame Enlightenment as to much eye candy. And this theme proves E can be used for a lot of stuff other than A purdy WM. I dont like E so much. I prefer Fvwm2 myself. But I am good at its config files and its totally useable and I am good at developing within that enviroenment So its what I use. Anyways. Go read it. It made me go download it and try it! :-) Its pretty nice and I may consider using it.
I agree with Alorelith completely.
This is not an attack on the author of the comment two levels up from mine... but please, why must people discuss the moderation of their own comments??
It's nearly always secondary to the topic at hand. Please, people... Stop your comments about "I'm gonna get moderated down for this, but..." sympathy cries. And please don't beg "Please moderate this up so people can see it" either. Sometimes it comes across like a child begging for attention.
Moderators will (and should) moderate as they see fit, without having to read the "please (do/do not) moderate me (up/down)" cries.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
It seems that most of the comments on this article are saying one of the following:
"ROX sux"
"ROX rox"
"ROX sux rox"
...only more elaborately.
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Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Actually, there's even more history than that.
The *Original* RISC OS was Mips RISC/os - written by Mips Co. to run on, you guessed it, Mips Co. RISC hardware.
My first *nix experience was Mips RISC/os 4.53, in 1993. It was, for the time, a pretty slick *nix implementation, and was capable of making itself feel sysv-like or bsd-like by simply toggling an option in the admin menu.
As everybody knows, SGI eventually bought Mips Co, and subsequently shut down RISC/os development in favor of Irix.
AFAIK, the last release if Mips Co. RISC/os was 5.01a, released in late 1993. I could be wrong on the date.
I actually have no idea what the RISCWindows gui looked like, since i never used anything but the telnet console.
This, of course, has nothing to do with Acorn RISC OS, it's just that every time i see it mentioned, I get all nostalgic for that old account. You know, you never forget your first unix.
Mips RISC/os is currently maintained by Controll Data Corp as their EP/IX operating system. Or at least, if they're no longer maintaining it, they were the last to do so.
Incedentally, if anyone out there has a tape or tarball of MIPS RISC/os, I'd sure love to have a copy to re-load my rc3240. You won't be violating anybodies ip, ownership of the box gives you an implied license. 4.52 or 5.01, I'll take either one.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
I have found in discussions on this topic that have taken place on /. and Usenet, the inevitable question of "Why do many Window Managers look like Windows when we know the GUI sucks?".
Could it be that *gasp* the GUI doesn't suck all that much? And most of the animosity is rooted in silly Microsoft hatred?
I know this is really unpopular on Slashdot, but the Win/98 GUI is currently the best in the world. Yes, you can cite particular features that you might like in particular GUIs, and cite particular pieces of brain damage in Win/98, but on balance it provides the most functionality and efficiency.
Now, this is not to say that the GUIs under Linux haven't made tremendous strides forward (I would even say remarkable), but it still isn't where Windows is.
I would ask that people developing GUIs (and software in general) not be blind to the fact that occasionally Microsoft produces some pretty damn good stuff. Good ideas are good ideas, regardless of where they come from (ALT-TAB, for example).
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I don't get it.
Why do we need Desktop Environments (DEs)? In their current form, at least, they are mostly useless. I don't want desktop icons; the dock is much better. And, with KDE at least, there's no way to turn off said desktop icons, which only clutter my desktop. So if I want to use, say, kfm, I can't, not without running the rest of KDE, memory and CPU time I'd rather not spend.
I can see some use for them in the drag-n-drop functions and interprogram communication and integration (a la CORBA). But why oh why must this come with a desktop?
I, for one, would love to see a desktopless DE, if you get my meaning. Everything but the desktop, and the taskbar. Pure functionality. Pure libraries, really.
This way, the DE doesn't become too homogenous, as with GNOME and KDE, where for many things, there is only one program, since that is the one developed by the GNOME/KDE team.
I fear I have little time for such projects myself right now, but it's an idea for those with more time, and more skill, than I.
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END OF LINE
Thus spaketh the Slashdot crew:
Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. The real goal here is to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this. Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. Likewise, agreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it up. The goal here is to share ideas. To sift through the haystack and find needles. And to keep the children who like to spam Slashdot in check.
With this I leave you to consider.
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her name is gwen stefani
not stefano
god forbid someone talk about a linux weakness or a flaw in something. Or the classic "it will be better in the next version" good I hope it is, until then I'll use what works. How about a decent media play for linux? I'm tired of watching mpegs at 10 fps instead of 30.
But what I want to know is, where does your app go when you iconize it? There's no icon. And then I thought maybe it was behind the panel, so I closed the panel. But no, it wasn't. And that's the second question, how do you get the panel back after you've closed it? I had to logout with ctrl-alt-bksp!
what are sys reqs ? email me if you know where theres a faq or smt
So enlightenment crashes all the time. Hmmm... Is Linux more stable than Windows? Linux zealots boast that linux is more stable than windows; however, they never offer any actual proof. My experience with Linux is that the software (XF86, enlightment, netscape, etc.) is not very stable at all. Why would the zealots say it is more stable? Are they comparing the linux kernel to windows (GUI and all)? Who really cares. Its unfortunate that zealots are the loadest individuals in the linux community.
I am continually amazed by this thread.
We are trashing a valid open-source project for taking a different approach and focusing on a style of useability that perhaps exceeds that of existing ones.
GNOME/KDE are visual fluff and no easier than windows to code for. Trying to 'take what you like' from an older successfull WM and creating new WM projects diversifies the selections and perhaps will lead those whom 'try' before trashing it, to a conclusion that something light and highly useable is often preferred to bloat-ware eye-candy.
Un*x desktops are loosing thier useability and becoming buggy and inefficient resource consuming slovenly beasts. There is good cause to consider that just because a few people want windows that look like anime frames, doesn't mean that its a good solution for everyone.
Heck, I thought my IRIX Interactive Desktop was way resource intensive, until I started working with GNOME/Enlightenment/KDE etc.
Has anyone tried running a modern workstation with a simple window manager, like WM2 in a while? Its amazing the difference in memory and CPU available after such a change. I have a dual-channel display and often switch to a 'light' WM when I do work requiring many windows and resources. I can run GNOME+Enlightenment up to over 120megs on my SGI Octane! If I run the same apps and same number of windows my desktop under WM2 or AfterStep is just a tiny fraction of that!
My point being, lets lay off trashing people for trying to be user-friendly instead of focusing on the aesthetics. (especially since 1/2 of the posts here are obviously from lil script kiddies whom haven't the foggiest cloo about what they are posting)
1) Inconsistency. Is the file system bassed in a "my computer", or in a: c: etc drives? depends what you ask. Why does "my computer" look ike a normal directory but you can't add things to it? How come you can see the treeview in one way of accessing the filesystem, but not another? Is the file system capable of long names, or only 8.3 ones? Too many different ways of doing the same thing, each with differing side effects and capabilities.
2) Spurious crap. Internet explorer as a window viewer. Half the dir window taken up by a pane full of non-useful info. The MSDOS underpinnings. A start bar, desktop icons, a MSOffice toolbar, all to launch apps in different ways.
3) Un-protected access to stuff you absolutely do not wish to touch (unless you are very fond of the color blue). Complicated and hard ways of altering things you frequently want to alter.
4) The fact that it's designed to fulfil the interests of M$ over your own, where they conflict.
5) minor design faux-pas like putting the quit command in the file menu, or putting scroll bar arrowheads at each end
6) no security worth spit
Just what everyone could use, another desktop!! Thanks other Anonymous Coward!! I think I will write a slashdot article just like yours!
Hey! I've got an idea! Let's half a dozen different window managers and GUI servers, that all provide a similar functionality!
That way, all the GUI development efforts will be fragmented, and we will have a dozen half-assed GUIs to choose from instead of one really good one!!!
Oh, wait a second. We already have that...
So enlightenment crashes all the time. Hmmm... Is Linux more stable than Windows? Linux zealots boast that linux is more stable than windows; however, they never offer any actual proof.
... I believe most people either don't have the intelligence to use a computer OR they have substandard equipment. If a piece of hardware doesn't work on linux, then it probably sucks anyways. Example: Winmodems. If a person was computer literate in the first place, they would have never bought one for windows either.
.iso, irc'ing, listening to .mp3s, browsing, and cracking rc5 keys, on 4 virtual desktops, at once ... try that on windows ...
:)
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I still do not understand why people like you have this attitude. E on my mandrake 6.1 system runs fine. When I want to work, I load a light theme, when I want to show off, I load up a huge background and theme. I've run linux for about a year, and I never have had a problem with any major projects, with the exception of netscape. I am constantly amazed with the posts on the newsgroups / irc
As far as the "desktop wars" are concerned, everytime there is a new version, etc. we get dozens of posts about how bloated and slow it is. NO ONE IS SHOVING THESE DOWN YOUR THROAT!!! That's the beauty of linux, if you don't like it, don't use it!! There's something for everyone here. If you're a real linux fan, you'll be trying them all just to see what they can do anyway!! Right now I'm ripping/encoding a cd, burning an
I'm glad we have another fun toy to play with..
REMEMBER, Even if linux consisted of a hamster running around on a wheel inside a case, It would be regarded as "THe BEst OS"!!!, AND everything else is said to be shit. I think the linux l-users are just a little jealous because they can't write a Gui as good as the old standard(windows).
just my $0.69
I can do the same thing on both linux and windows. I often have several demanding tasks operating at the same time when I am using either OS. These comparisons are boring. There is a hell of a lot of propaganda on both sides. And most of these discussions fail to reach a level beyond name calling. For example:
"If a piece of hardware doesn't work on linux, then it probably sucks anyways" and "most people either don't have the intelligence to use a computer".
Torvalds said something like: Linux sucks but it sucks less than the alternatives. I disagree. I think Linux sucks and so do the alternatives. The difference between Linux and the others is that we can do something about the fact that Linux sucks. We can't do anything about the fact that the alternatives suck.
Although the empty comments of zealots are heard more often than comments with great insight, we have to be critical of Linux. Otherwise Linux will never develop to its full potential.
The other desktop that I've seen so far are superior to this. Anyways, this looks like CDE in color.
Linux is not Enlightenment, nor is it Netscape. Linux is more stable because when a program crashes, it doesn't take down the whole OS.
hmm...got any other reasons?
A blind, syphlitic, one armed hermaphrodite could write a better GUI than Windows.
Is it just me or is this webpage really fucked? It seems all bent out of shape and I can't click on any of the links using Navigator 3. So much for webpages designed with VIM, eh.
Win9x-NT couldn't exist without the mouse. Linux can and does in various forms. Why do people want to embed Linux in smart devices both GUI/Non-Gui? Because you don't need a mouse port to configure anything as long as long as there is a keyboard port. Reducing the number of required mouse clicks to easily do what a user wants to do should be the real concern-- not the beauty of the desktop. Various Linux desktops are not wrist friendly and this makes them almost as bad as MS/Apple.
EXCELLENT. You're hitting on what could be a sticking point for Linux. Similar to the Mac platform.
Over-evangelization.
It's great! It's wonderful! It doesn't do everything like we want it to but we love it anyhow and everything else is just a cheap hack!
WRONG attitude! That's pulling a bag over your head and dooming yourself to obsolescence.
If you don't stay critical, and either blind yourself to, or minimize, shortcomings within Linux (and let's be REAL people. Linux DOES have a lot of shortcomings.
You need to be able to acknowledge that something sucks and that it needs to be changed. This is for both the programmers AND the user-only-base out there.
Programmers, don't get pissed when a user mails you and tells you that your pet project(s) need work, or are buggy. Even if their ideas about what's broken aren't in-line with your conception of the project's goals, keep an open mind about it. Someone might spew for a genuine, bobdamned GOOD IDEA{TM} Remember, a TCP/IP stack wasn't essential to Windows at one time.
Userbase. Don't be afraid of hurting a programmer's feelings by criticising his work! (Note: But try to stay within the bounds of civility for pity's sake!) Even if you couldn't write a Perl script to save your life, even if you just installed Linux for the first time yesterday night, stay critical.
Summary: Don't be afraid to say "This sucks and I want to help change it!"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
One of the primary reasons the RiscOS GUI was so fast and responsive is that they got seasoned games writers to code the GUI.
All well and good - they got stuff like solid drags going on a 1 meg machine long before PCs could manage it -- but it sacrificed proper abstraction. I wouldn't like to try porting RiscOS to a new architecture; I'd imagine the whole lot is in ARM assembly language.
Cloning the desktop is a great idea. The only shame is that (like Mac software), the paradigm relies on *all* apps groking the interface. e.g. the RiscOS save dialogue is just a file icon, and a field to type the filename into. To save it to a directory, you drag the icon. That's great if all your apps share that method, but a UI pain in the arse, if they don't. Still, that's always been the blessing and the curse enjoyed by X.
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The other thing that RISC OS did - well - differently was file typing. Files were typed with (effectively) an unsigned short in the directory structure. This is sort of a kludge; it meant there was a finite number of file types, and by the early nineties they were already in short supply. I remember we asked Acorn for a block of sixteen, and, after intense negotiation, were actually awarded eight.
But it had the advantage that when a file icon was dragged to your application, you got a request which said, effectively, here's one of these files, and it's this size, how do you want to handle it?. This saves an awful lot of messing about... The other nice thingb was that when the user selected a file and didn't drag it to a particular icon, the file was offered to the existing running copy of the application it was registered to, rather than starting a new copy. And if a file registered to your application was dragged to the printer, your application got alerted to decide how to render it on an abstract output stream, which the printer driver then translated to the particular printer actually in use.
People elsewhere in this discussion have criticised RISC OS's collaborative multi-tasking. Yes, if your application failed to make it's next wimp_poll() call in due time for whatever reason the whole desktop locked up - so it was vital that you caught and handled all your own errors. But the upside was responsiveness. Yes, the ARM was faster than any other microprocessor available at the time by a good margin, but that didn't really account for the whole improvement in responsiveness that users percieved. Another big part of that responsiveness was due to the very low system overhead.
However, nostalgia over. What can we learn from this and take forward? Well, one of the things we can learn is that RISC OS died in the marketplace (I know: my company was trying hard to sell it into big industry). Part of the reason it died was that it was different. People didn't take time to look past the difference to see that it was actually better. Part of the reason it died was lack of applications (although by 92 this was ceasing to be a real issue - most of the things people really needed were there, and most of them were very good). Part of the reason was that too few people will pay even a little more for a genuinely superior product. Part of the reason was single-vendor - 'what do we do if they go bust'. A lot of the reason was the old unfair reasons of the computer industry: FUD, whispers, lies, dishonest marketing.
There are a lot of lessons out of RISC OS for the Linux community. And at some stage I think a desktop based on RISC OS-like drag-and-drop will win out over all the different cruddy file dialogs and stuff. But if I was designing a desktop application now would I write for this desktop? Well, I wouldn't, because a desktop needs critical mass. This is a chicken and egg situation... what we really need to be doing in application design is separating out the functionality into layers with well abstracted boundaries between them, so that if I wanted to put a ROX-compliant shell around, say, Mozilla or the GIMP it would be reasonably straightforward to do. Because whether ROX is it or not, some day there really is going to be a really creative new user interface metaphor which comes along and sweeps away the Windows-style GUI we're all currently using. It will come quicker if it's easier to experiment with new metaphors; and when it comes we'll all want to get our favourite applications working on it as soon as possible.
Off topic, this is why I like the Abstract Window Toolkit so much, and think Swing is, in effect, a retrograde step.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
This is excellent news! RiscOS IMHO is the best and most productive GUI/OS ever conceived. The look and feel of the Filer is a good start. Other functionality I would love to see:
I presume file associations are supported? ie double click on a JPEG file and it is instantly displayed. Keep up the good work,
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
"I still do not understand why people like you have this attitude. E on my mandrake 6.1 system runs fine."
The same is true for NT and VERY true for win2000. If you take some time, it is ROCK solid.
Yet, untold hordes of Linux users will talk allthe time about how unstable NT is.
&sign($AC[0]);
Could it be that *gasp* the GUI doesn't suck all that much? And most of the animosity is rooted in silly Microsoft hatred?
I know this is really unpopular on Slashdot, but the Win/98 GUI is currently the best in the world. Yes, you can cite particular features that you might like in particular GUIs, and cite particular pieces of brain damage in Win/98, but on balance it provides the most functionality and efficiency.
I am afriad that you have litte or no concept of, or experiance with, a good GUI.
Here is a set of examples of why the Windows (and other) GUIs are badly designed.
http://iarchitect.com/mshame.htm
Indeed. This is called "reactance" in soc psy parlance. I wonder if this is related with the moderator having a sense of authority when they get those magic points. I wonder.
"RISC OS" have nothing to do with the CPU design term "RISC" (Reduced Instruction Set Computing), "RISC OS" is the name of Acorn's operating system that runs on Acorn computers.
why exactly is this an article on slashdot? so someone has created a desktop that resembles an obsolete OS that sits on top a rewrite of an even more obsolete OS? so what? i just installed a desktop theme that makes my desktop look like an apple lisa's, it about as newsworthy as ROX thats for sure.
Did the first Archimedes actually have RiscOS, or some earlier system? I recall that their architecture was bootstrapped from the BBC Micro and Electron, and attempted to build an Amiga killer on top of it.
(The BBC was a very impressively designed system; from what I could recall, you could execute arbitrary system calls by outputting characters to the console, which beat the pants off ANSI art. And the BASIC interpreter was light years ahead of anything Microsoft had at the time. The Archimedes continued that tradition of impressiveness; apparently it was so fast that the entire UI system was written in interpreted BASIC, as was a 3D game that shipped with it. When I was in my teens, I really wanted an Archimedes.)
Anyway, from what I remember, RiscOS showed up a few years after the Archimedes made its debut (circa 1987), as a second-generation OS for it.
--
Thank dog for themes and different window managers - that's one fugly looking interface.
r@m
r@m
For example
John
John_Chalisque
As near as I can tell, this may well be the closest thing yet to the WPS that I've seen. As a "Warp Refugee", I've been wishing to see the WPS on Linux, and have been annoyed to see Linux desktop efforts so completely bent on chasing Windows or NeXT, to the exclusion of just about everything else.
I use DFM, but it's just too thin to really do the job right. ROX deserves a second look for WPS fans, though I need to look again for the licensing terms.
This is exactly the kind of small desktop/work environment a lot of my users can errmmm ... use. They need access to (mostly text) e-mail, pager messages, and a lightweight consistent UI (the machines are old).
G.
Both of those "Zealot examples" actually are true to a degree:
a) PC's are really far too complex to expect an "I just want it to work" user to deal with. PC's aren't appliances and likely never will be. Get over it and start recommending systems engineered for ease (if that's the driving motivation) instead of random collections of spare parts.
b) You don't expect to be able to modify any other 'appliance' and expect it to remain in perfect working order, yet many people will expect this of computers when software engineering is still in it's infancy. This is just plain absurd.
c) People work on projects they like. Hardware is reflected in this. So, some hardware without Linux drivers are infact lame and no one with a clue wants to bother fiddling with them.
d) Also, there is likely to be a correlation between a company unwilling to invest in their product and companies unwilling to invest in good end user support for anything but their central cash cow. The same chintziness is likely to drive both poor quality in the hardware and unwillingess to acknowledge anyone but Win9x users.
/ k.d / earth trickle / Monkeys vs. Robots Films /
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Aw c'mon I was expectin something like 1, Funny at least!!! Grr!!!
Plus if it woulda been a Troll comment I would have gotten talk-back, duh.
yeah
OK, well, the thing is this.
Run an AWT app on a Macintosh platform and it will look and feel reasonably Mac-ish. Run it on a Linux platform with the standard AWT bindings for Linux and exactly the same binary will look and feel reasonably Motif-ish. Run it on a WinXX PC and it will look as if it came from Redmond. And the reason this is so is that it isn't carrying around any personal baggage, it uses the real window toolkit of the environment it finds itself in. Consequently, if somebody invented a significantly different user-interface metaphor, and wrote AWT bindings for it, every AWT app would, if loaded in that environment, immediately look and feel (reasonably) native in that environment.
It would be entirely feasible to build a RISC OS like (or a KDE) binding for AWT and immediately all existing AWT applications would work in it.
This ain't possible with Swing, because Swing provides a look and feel (this is also why Swing is so huge and bloated).
In my opinion it would have been better to persevere with AWT...
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
This is simply not true. I rarely use the mouse for most operations under windows. Anything in the start menu is "clickable" with keyboard. I swap from app to app with alt-tab. Use alt for the menus. TAB for changing focus within an app. The file manager is completely keyboard usable and works sooth and fast. Hit WIN-E and the explorer pops up. Move to the directory you want, expand it with the space bar. Hit tab, select your file. Hit ctrl-c. Hit backspace to go up a directory, etc.
Most of my X based linux apps don't even let me use the menus without the mouse. Trying to pretend that X is less mouse dependent because you can run non-x applications that don't use the mouse is a poor argument.
I don't think I have used a mouse for file operations under windows for months and this is in a pure GUI environment. I am constantly frustrated by the lack of standards for how to control X applications from a keyboard, efficiently and quickly.
Mah gawd--it ain't pretty; it must suck.
:^) And, BTW, thanks to Slashdot for posting this link--I may never use KDE, GNOME, or WindowMaker again! :^) I might even use FVWM1 as my windowmanager again (shock, horror) :^)
Right now, I'm using ROX--including the nasty-looking ROX etheme. IMHO, this is the best desktop management system I've used in a *long* while, and it has great ideas. No, it's not a Windoze, NeXT, or Mac clone, it doesn't have 24-bit hand-painted icons, or any of that other crap--but damn, it's smooth.
Please, everyone, give it a look--this is several levels above most stuff out there (at least, free UNIX software
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I've got to agree with you big time here. The only thing worse than KDE for avioding removing one's hands frome the keyboard is MacOS. I really do appreciate it with windows that I am able to do anything with the keyboard.
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Having said that I'd like to make two points:
In other words none of the deficiencies of RISC OS need apply to ROX/Linux. I for one am looking forward to seeing how it developes.
Ah yes, I remember... the reference to British heroic myth is quite apt.
Which reminds me: I heard that the Archimedes and RiscPC are massively popular in Wales, mostly because it is the only system that is fully localised into the Welsh language (mostly a matter of national pride).
At the risk of repeating what others have said, here are the three main features of the RISC OS GUI that I think would be worth duplicating:
1. The Filer - a fairly run of the mill file manager that displayed each directory in its own window. As with most RISC OS things, clicking with the right mouse button did almost the same thing as the left, but with a small difference. In this case, right-double-click opened the new directory in the same window. Another cool feature is that selecting items with the right mouse button adds to the existing selection rather than replacing it (like holding down Ctrl in Windows).
The important part is that the Filer wasn't just a file manager but was 'pervasive' (ugh) throughout the UI. There was no separate application launcher - you just open the directory where your application is stored and double-click on it. Like NextStep, each app was its own self-contained directory, containing icons and a file to run when you double-click it. And saving files meant dragging them to a Filer window - no need for a separate File Save dialogue box.
2. The menus. No menu bar, but clicking the middle mouse button almost anywhere brings up a context-sensitive menu. There were some flamewars on Usenet with Mac fans over whether this is quicker and easier than having an explicit 'menu bar' on screen - IMHO it is much quicker. It makes using the mouse a pleasure rather than a chore.
3. Proper use of drag and drop. Mainly this is involved with the Filer again - drag a file to an app to load it (you could also double-click on the file, of course), drag it back to save (subsequently just press Return to save using the same filename), drag onto the printer icon to print. Oddly, there was no Trash - just a delete option.
It would be nice if there were some way to integrate this with David Alan Gilbert's arcem Archimedes emulator. But I don't think there is, unless you want to do some serious patching of RISC OS to let its windows play nicely in your X desktop. (Actually, although RISC OS is a binary-only OS, it was mostly written in assembler anyway, so it's relatively easy to disassemble and patch. The ARM has a clean but powerful instruction set.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com