What Happened to 5dwm?

CoolVibe asks: "Remember that project called 5dwm? It was supposed to give us free Unix users a Magic Desktop clone. The project seems to have died. What happened to it? Are there any mirrors? As far as I can remember, this project wasn't open source. Too bad, because if it was, we would have a MD clone. Anyone who remembers working on a SGI machine (I used to use an O2) probably has fond memories of the Magic Desktop for IRIX. If anyone from SGI is listening, how about porting that fantastic piece of work to Linux and the *BSD's?"

Comments

"Indigo Magic" or "IRIS Interactive Desktop"

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I don't mean to nitpick, but the correct names for the SGI desktop environment were either "Indigo Magic" (the older name) or "IRIS Interactive Desktop" (the circa-IRIX 6.5 name). Calling it "Magic Desktop" isn't technically right.

Just dotting the i's and crossing the t's.

well, for one thing it kinda sucked

[quinto2000]

I've used it on an Indy machine (IRIX 6.5 or so) and while it's not terrible, it's also not terribly functional for today's desktop user. While it had some good ideas, they've all been expanded upon and are exhibited much better in most modern desktops. I'd use it over Windows 3.1, but not much else. On the Irix box, my desktop consists of a number of xterms and Window Maker :)

Re:well, for one thing it kinda sucked

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Indigo Magic had one thing that no other UNIX desktop that I've seen was ever able to provide: ubiquitous drag-and-drop on a level rivaling what you get with a Mac. If you had two programs that were written with Indigo Magic desktop integration code in them-- admittedly, these were few and far between-- you could drag something (say, a picture) out of one app to the desktop, then drag the icon from the desktop to a folder, then from the folder to the other app. It worked really well. Indigo Magic was (is, I suppose) really light on the eye candy but seriously strong on application integration.