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."

Comments

Functionality Makes It To A Linux GUI

[Bill Daras]

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 != RISC CPU

[Christopher B. Brown]

See the dmoz.org page on RISC OS

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.

Random RISC OS trivia by an ex-user

[mattbee]

Read this if you know nothing about this RISC OS thing like finding out about old operating systems...

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 :-) ) 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.

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 :-)

History Lesson

[MartyJG]

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.

Re:Alternative desktops

[reptilian]

Look, I'm starting to get sick of this. It's all Community this, Community that.. abandon your project, no one needs it. Work on something that's already there and make it better for me. You're wasting your time. blah blah blah. Go whine to someone else. These people can do whatever the hell they want with their time, and so can you. It's called freedom, and it's why they call it FREE SOFTWARE. If everyone only did what was good for the "community" we'd have about as much innovation in free software as microsoft has.

I know I'm going to get moderated down, but this really drives me insane. "Is this where we want to be going as a community?" Tell me.. who is we, and why do we have to all go in the same direction as you?

Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.

Moderate this up. People need to see this.

[Chas]

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.

• Think about what it is, SPECIFICALLY that you don't like about the program, or Linux itself. Write this stuff down.
• Think about what you DO like. Write this down as well.
• Think about something that could make it even BETTER, and (you guessed it) WRITE IT DOWN.
• Take these notes and turn them into e-mails to the appropriate persons who are responsible for maintaining the software. Without honest input, their projects will stagnate sooner or later. No one man can have ALL the ideas.

Summary: Don't be afraid to say "This sucks and I want to help change it!"


Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!