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3D Desktops for Linux?
Ryn asks: "I've
been looking around for a nice and easy to use 3D desktop/window
manager for Linux, and the choice seems to be extremely limited.
3dwm seems to be more of an
application framework than anything else. On the Windows side, there
are applications like rooms3d
and my favorite, 3dtop. Are
there any Linux apps like these?"
last year someone modified quake to do something like this. It was just for killing proccecess. Each proccess was a character, and you could really kill them.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
A 3D windowing environment will not be much use if you have a hard time reaching into the third dimension. The mouse is a nifty input device, but to do 3D with it, it is difficult.
For everyone that has played Homeworld, they have come the closest that I have seen to true 3d movement with a mouse, but the interface is still VERY annoying to me, I want my ships to attack them from above!
We do not cater to idiots.
- More or less, this environment would be a virtual-reality sort of thing. The user customizes the layout of the 3D scene that they inhabit on their computer, with both physical elements (like structures; walls, ceilings, trees, whatever), and programmable elements
- Have an integrated, virtual X server, to run X normal apps and clients. A virtual X server would render the appearance of the clients' windows into dynamic bitmaps. The bitmaps could be placed in the 3D environment as if it were a tile, in ways not possible without the use of a virtual X server (that I can think of), like tilting the window in different directions, or perhaps shaping it to a 3D object, like a convex surface.
- Programmable elements would allow a user to use this VR environment as their primary interface to the computer (for better or worse). The shape or behavior of objects and structures could change, or new physical elements could be created in the environment, based on internal conditions (user walked to a certain corner of the room), or conditions external to the environment (user has new mail).
- Have the option of running your own little VR server, so that other people may use their VR client to explore and enjoy your space, or designated areas of your space. The transition to another person's "space" could be very obvious, like explicitly starting your VR client from a shell prompt, and stating the remote person's VR server as an arguement. Or, you could program a portal into your own space; the portal could be animated and mysterious-looking, or could just be represented as the threshold of a door in your space. Perhaps a user and their friends could set up a small network of portals between their spaces.
- Design the whole thing so people can trade room/environment designs and elements, as well as scripting code, so that people that don't have a lot of time on their hands or don't know the scripting language can still enjoy the system.
Other possibilities could include some sort of a gaming environment integrated into the system. (It could be a distributed, open-source EverQuest. =) The more open it is and the more effort put into it to ensure expandability, the more possibilities down the road. (As if I or anyone else is going to make it happen, anyway.)SGI were doing it in at least 1993 - Filesystem Navigator (fsn) was available for free for the SGI Indigo. It's the thing with all the little cubes and spotlights for navigating files that you see in Jurassic Park.
More recently, there has been a plain-X11 version of a similar thing, but with really nicely done labelling, and good speed (no GL). I wish I could remember what it was called though! I think it was French.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
But it would be slow.
"Moving" to the printer room, then clicking on the printer to get its status is way slower then just typing in the command.
And if you have to make physical motions like in real life, then it become comically slower. What good is vr if I have to move my hands to oen a file cabnet, then wiggle my fingers to shuffle through the papers, etc....
Not that it wouldn't be cool, in that eyecandy see what I can do kind of way, just not very useful for daily activities.
The reason why I believe this is because when the Source to quake was released I hacked it to load a different creature depending on varies deamons running, then send kill commands whenevr I shot a particular creature. My co-worker where very impressed, but hunting down a onster take a lot longer then typing the kill command.
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Really? What if it was a house instead. Maybe even a city block. Run up to your room for your home directory (Lift mattress for pr0n, but remember to have your decryption disk in the drive...)!
SIG: HUP