XPde: Cloning the XP Interface

An anonymous reader writes "Over at XPde.com, a clone of the Windows XP interface is progressing. They aim to copy the XP interface down to every last detail- with exceptions for text that specifically mentions Windows XP or Microsoft. Their project seems to be coming along well, and assuming they meet their goal, nobody can complain about Linux not being enough like XP. Here is the screenshots page." Depends what you like, I suppose ;)

Comments

Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this is just what we need to differentiate linux from Windows. :-p

Re:Great.

[KingDaveRa]

I'm not the only one who thinks this way then! Its a lawsuit in a tar.gz really though. Microsoft will have them over a barrell for something. As an aside, who won the Apple/Microsoft case way back when they were fighting over MS nicking the GUI?

Re:Great.

[Alan Partridge]

M$ won - Apple's claims that M$ had nicked the "look and feel" was rejected. Shame - could have saved a lot of shit later on...

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple had won that lawsuit then who knows what kind of a disaster computing would be in now. It is bad enough that Amazon et al is patenting every little process, we don't need a multitude of lawsuits on whether something as subjective as "look and feel."

stupid

[Spellbinder]

to me it looks plain stupid...
but maybe it will attract some new users ....

Screenshots

[AndreAtlan]

The Screenshots are amazingly impressive, It makes me wonder how many of the legs this knocks out from under Lindows and Lycoris

Re:Screenshots

[reallocate]

None, unless it's as easy to install and use as Windows.

Re:Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

I expect Lindows will probably pick it up as the default in a future release, once the project progresses further.

Re:Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

The Screenshots are amazingly impressive

What exactly are you impressed with? For the last many years I've been more than happy with the visual side of Linux. (i.e. WindowMaker, KDE, Gnome) But where it has always fallen short for me has been in usability. Moving tab buttons around and using spiffier icons is nice and all, but that really doesn't make the applications suck any less. So until I can actually *use* Linux, I'll stick with Windows for Desktop purposes. (Can't afford a Mac.) Linux will remain on my server machine of course and that is where Linux truely shines.

Re:Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't look like XP screenshots. Maybe XP running in Classic (2000) mode. Here are a couple of screenshots of Windows XP:

Basic Window

Basic Start

Perhaps they developed their model after Win2k and 256 colors (fade in title bar doesn't appeal to me).

Re:Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

Man , I run afterstep,and when my computer comes up, it's all black except for a pager in the corner - I can make the desktop do whatever I want in a given session. My big question is : is there workspace switching in this Windows clone? Now that I have this feature, there's no way I'd go back to windows unless it had it. Since i've started using linux, I've picked up 2 good habits that have increased my productivity immensely: using the keyboard (I can actually use Phoenix and barely have to use the mouse when Browsing the web!), and the multi-windowed approach - in windows, all the applications tend to come up and dominate the whole screen - then you have to go back to the task bar to get another running app - what a pain in the ass! In AS, I can just keep the apps open in another workspace and switch to them instantly with the keyboard. In addition, I use gkrellm with an ass of plugins that watch my processor, RAM, my TV tuner, radio, xmms, the temperature outside, and god knows what else. Windows is still cookie-cutter shit. If you know what you're doing, the linux desktops are superior when customized. The problem for your average Desktop Nate is the learning curve. And learning how to type at the command line.

Re:Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

This is another disgusting turn of events where Linux again rips off something that M$ has done. Linux is all about innovation... M$ is not. Why copy something and someone like M$. XP doesn't even have a nifty pretty innterface. Why not develop something original instead of copying?

Re:Screenshots

[happylight]

Windows XP has workspace switching too. It's called Virtual Desktop Manager.

Re:Screenshots

[madfgurtbn]

Windows XP has workspace switching too. It's called Virtual Desktop Manager [microsoft.com].

I tried it a couple months ago. It's pretty lame, without features like drag between desktops and has annoying behaviors with windows/alarms popping up in wrong desktops and so on. I uninstalled it after a week or two.

Remember this next time they say that OSS is not "innovative".

Sue me, sue me, please.

[codexus]

I'm bored and I'd like to get sued by Microsoft cause that way I'll be famous and all.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[lseltzer]

Pretty obvious copyright infringement. What are these people thinking?

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Spellbinder]

it is allowed to clone look and feel of an application ...
apple tried to sue microsoft and failed for the same =)))

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

If your bored, why not get a few friends together and hold a musical in the middle wallmart, or try to get arrested for laughing too much. Try sending a suicide note with some money to pay you tax, please mr tax man take my money or I'll kill myself. (I've had money returned!!)

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[lseltzer]

No, it's not the same. The Look and feel cases (Lotus v. Borland, Apple v. Microsoft) did not involve one party making the product look exactly like the other. You're just not allowed to do this.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[lvdrproject]

People have been ripping off the Windows (all versions) interface since day one. It shows just what Microsoft deems important. I've never heard of Microsoft saying the slightest thing about all the many people that have been so blatantly ripping off the Windows GUI (though maybe this has happened after all? correct me if i'm wrong).

Instead they appear to go after stuff they deem more important. On the other hand... Apple is notorious for their legal guys, who seem to have nothing better to do than hunt down any and all reincarnations of the Aqua interface, even if they're not exact rip-offs. They find something that's just in the STYLE of Aqua, they sue.

I don't know, i hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but at least in this matter they seem to have their priorities straight.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[astrodawg]

The desktop background images on these screenshots is from Apple. I have the same one as my osx desktop image now.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Hater's Leaving, The]

I remember a long time back when fvwm first came out in its fvwm95 incarnation Microsoft went ballistic, and ordered them to remove the icons that had been so blatently lifted from the W95 GUI.

THL.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Well, I think you're half-right. Yes, Microsoft doesn't consider their interface important enough for them to sue people who rip it off. That doesn't mean they "have their priorities straight" -- that just means that they don't consider interface design a priority. Which is one reason why their interfaces suck, and Linux developers are doing exactly the wrong thing in attempting to imitate them.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if Linux interface developers are going to rip anyone off, it should be Apple. Not in the areas of colors and fonts, because a) although I like Aqua overall, it's a little cartoonish for my taste, and b) that's just begging for a look-and-feel lawsuit. Instead, they should be looking at the underlying reasons Mac interfaces (Classic and OS X) work so well. OS X / Aqua proves that it's possible to have a Unix desktop that Just Works. KDE and GNOME are both considerably better than they used to be, but they're Not There Yet in comparison to OS X -- and they never will be until the Linux world stops chasing a goal that's not worth reaching in the first place, the shitty Microsoft interface.

This doesn't just apply to window managers, BTW. I'm really deeply annoyed that just about all the open-source productivity software I've seen tries its damndest to look like Microsoft Office stuff -- all the word processors want to look like Word, all the spreadsheets want to look like Excel, etc. People, there are much better interfaces for this kind of software out there.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Toraz Chryx]

If I had any mod points right now, I'd mod you up, as it is I'm forced to say "IAWTP" and then wave my arms around going "MOD THIS GUY UP!"

Just so this post isn't totally devoid of content, there seems to be a contingent of Linux advocates (mostly on usenet although I'm sure there are some here), that believe efficiency > usability

That seems like total bunk to me, just because something is easy to grasp doesn't mean that it's less efficient.. okay so there are certain things that are, but using it as a coverall dismissal at any remotely useable UI seems more like "I HAVEN'T GOT IT SO YOU SHOULDN'T EITHER!" paddying.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[eyeball]

...if Linux interface developers are going to rip anyone off, it should be Apple.

There's someone working on it...

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[aussersterne]

Just so this post isn't totally devoid of content, there seems to be a contingent of Linux advocates (mostly on usenet although I'm sure there are some here), that believe efficiency > usability

That seems like total bunk to me, just because something is easy to grasp doesn't mean that it's less efficient.. okay so there are certain things that are, but using it as a coverall dismissal at any remotely useable UI seems more like "I HAVEN'T GOT IT SO YOU SHOULDN'T EITHER!" paddying.


I am a longtime Linux user. I do not work in tech. Here is what I think:

efficiency > usability.

But for me, efficiency != economy of thought, but rather, economy of required action. This is why I use Linux. Because no file manager will ever come close to matching the speed with which I can manage my library of personal files (100+GB of photos and word processing documents which are chapters from my books or articles or research) in Linux.

There are a lot of people who will never invest the time necessary to learn to use Linux or UNIX at the shell prompt, or learn to use the integration features in desktops like KDE which really link the desktop to the shell effectively. There is nothing wrong with not learning this stuff; it's definitely harder to learn and involves a larger investment of time than learning how to click around OS X.

HOWEVER, don't begrudge those of us who do use the power of UNIX operating systems. I can type a single line at the shell prompt that will search all of my 100GB of files for the word "wasabi", repace each occurance with the words "hot stuff", send each document with a match to my printer (taking care to output separator pages between each file), then compose a sorted list of these filenames and e-mail the list to all of the people in my 'Sushi' e-mail address book. Again, not four hours of click, click, clicking to get this done -- just 5 seconds or so of typing a short string of commands on a single line.

Granted, this is an odd, overwrought example, but it's still real: such things are easily done with shell commands in Linux. Things like DCOP in KDE and scriptability in Nautilus help to bring the desktop to the shell and vice-versa; with them, you can not only harness the power of the command prompt, but you can provide it with more "usable" GUI-based integration, so that shell processes can provide interaction with and accept input from the keyboard, mouse and display.

To perform task of significant complexity across 100GB and 20k files using a Windows or OS X (with its tendency to "hide" UNIX rather than exploit it) would require significantly more work than it requires in Linux. In fact, there is an entire segment of products -- file organizers and document managers, etc. -- which exist to try to make "housekeeping" tasks and tasks which act on large volumes of data less painful in Windows and Mac OS. These operating systems are really caught up in a "single file" mentality -- the ease of use and functionality is all associated with working on a single file at a time. But in the new millenium, as our digital lives grow, few people have only one or two files to deal with. More and more people live their digital lives like authors and photographers have for some time now: with volumes and volumes of files, data and information to manage. This is where the efficiency of Linux and the Linux desktops improves quality of life considerably. I manage my entire photo library using KDE and my own shell scripts (a system that took about 4 hours to construct). This "system" is more efficient and well-designed for the subjects I shoot and the way I sell than any mass-market application ever could be (not to mention that I didn't have to pay $$$ for the software).

I guess I'm saying that you shouldn't knock efficiency until you've needed it and made use of it. Because some of us have, and sacrificing efficiency to gain "usability" would represent a significant loss of functionality. In fact, I would imagine that there are those of us at Slashdot who would feel comfortable asserting that efficiency is indeed the ultimate form of usability...

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[telstar]

Hey, those look pretty slick ... er, guess that's where they got the name.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

No one's talking about taking away your ability to do things efficiently via the command line. I find myself dropping into Terminal pretty regularly on OS X, because you're right that there are lots of things you can do much more efficiently via the command line than via any GUI. (There is, BTW, a smaller but still substantial set of things you can do via GUI more efficiently than via command line; e.g., moving large numbers of files between deeply nested directories.) But when you are using a GUI, it should work as well as possible. If you choose to spend most of your time on the command line, that's your choice, and a perfectly valid one -- but the majority of users don't make that choice.

Efficiency != usability, but they're closely correlated.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[aussersterne]

No one's talking about taking away your ability to do things efficiently via the command line. I find myself dropping into Terminal pretty regularly on OS X, because you're right that there are lots of things you can do much more efficiently via the command line than via any GUI.

The point is not merely the command line; the point is the KDE and GNOME and even the traditional X desktop (to a far lesser degree) provide command-line integration of various kinds, which much more "usable" GUIs tend not to do.

There is, BTW, a smaller but still substantial set of things you can do via GUI more efficiently than via command line; e.g., moving large numbers of files between deeply nested directories.

You're right on principal, but the example you've chosen is a rotten one. Moving large numbers of files between deeply nested directories is *much* more efficient at the command prompt, where patterns can be used to move all or any subset of those files and flow control and test logic can be used to move or categories to multiple deeply-nested destinations intelligently. A simple file manager window could never hope to compete.

A better example would be Photoshop-like or GIMP-like image manipulation (i.e. still acting within a single file).

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[blixel]

HOWEVER, don't begrudge those of us who do use the power of UNIX operating systems.

Oh please! Come off it dude. No one has EVER said "Oh man, dang those Unix gurus! They've got all the knowledge and it's just not fair! We need to dumb down the UI for every one to level the playing field so those braniacs are just as ill equiped as we are - because we are too lazy to learn the shell."

But quite the opposite can be read in each and EVERY slashdot post regarding interfaces. Where *many* (granted, not all) of these so called Unix gurus go off on a high horse about how the world would be a better place if everyone learned the command line.

I know the command line quite well but I don't think my mom or grandma should be required to learn it so they can see a picture of my dog that I sent them via e-mail. Nor do I want to learn how to rebuild my car engine so I can drive my car down the road.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[MortisUmbra]

I think you are missing the point. The benefit of having interfaces that mimic XP is that, if you want people to move over, give them a path with less resistance. This is SO true in business as well. If a Linux rollout means re-training already less than adept users in a new environment, then wether or not that interface is "better" or not is moot because these users are used to a different interface, right or wrong, for better or for worse, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Oh and btw, I f'ing hate Aqua, not just it's color schemes, but everything, EVERYTHING about it.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[aussersterne]

I know the command line quite well but I don't think my mom or grandma should be required to learn it so they can see a picture of my dog that I sent them via e-mail.

But I daresay your mom and grandma could both easily figure out how to open up KMail and click on an attachment, or do the same in Evolution, so for such tasks, there really is nothing wrong with Linux desktops, compared to, for example, OS X.

My mother already uses Linux -- although it's Red Hat :P -- she found out about it, installed it, and began to use it all on her own because she heard it was good as a server and she wanted to run an extended-family Web site. My mom isn't technical at all and she figured it out and uses it happily!

So if we're really only worried about whether mom or grandma can open up photos, why all of the bashing of Linux desktops all the time, saying that KDE and GNOME need to be dumbed down and the command line hidden because all three are currently too complicated?

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[nfotxn]

I dunno, it looks "nice" but it's not an exact copy by any stretch and the usability is probably not as good. All the interaction looks like it's divided up into highly specialized components much like oh-so-many other environments. Makes neato screenshots but does it make a useful gui?

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

But I daresay your mom and grandma could both easily figure out how to open up KMail and click on an attachment, or do the same in Evolution, so for such tasks

And if all my mom did on her computer was read e-mail, I might even advise her to use Linux. But my mom rather enjoys playing with digital photography and printing photos. If you have brainwashed yourself into believing that it's "just as easy" to do in Linux, that's fine - you can live in that fantasy world all you like. Or perhaps for you, it really is just as easy because you've acquired the necessary knowledge. That's not the case with my mom. Like most people, she just wants her stuff to work. And what's wrong with that? Why should she have to become an expert in Operating Systems in order to print a photo? She doesn't care the least bit about the technical details of computers and the concept of free software and Open Source are as foreign to her as the concept of getting laid would be to you.

OK that last comment was uncalled for, I'm sorry. But I get rather irritated at the die-hard Linux advocates who are so blinded by their hatred for Bill Gates and his company that they dream up the stupidest reasons/justifications for using software that by all accounts is quite simply inferior. Inferior? Yes - inferior. If you're a geek and you like it - great. No one's asking you to switch. But your vision of a utopian society doesn't necessarily coincide with everyone elses.

If nothing else, you should at least be able to agree with this. To each his own.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really see anything wrong with what these guys are doing besides maybe some copyright issues. They're just doing what Microsoft did to Word Perfect and Lotus 1-2-3. They took the standard and made the user interfaces of Word and Excel compatible with Word Perfect and Lotus 1-2-3. They weened everyone off of Word Perfect and Lotus 1-2-3 and made themselves the standard while no one was looking. Maybe these guys can do the same with Linux. Kudos to them.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[aussersterne]

Printing a photo:

Plug USB camera into USB port. Click on "Camera" icon on KDE desktop. File manager window opens showing icons of photos in camera. Click on the one I want to print. Full image is displayed. Click File->Print.

My GOD, that was difficult. I'm sure my mother couldn't do it!

You people who call Linux "inferior" all the time either a) haven't used it or b) have a chip on your shoulder.

I got laid last night, how about you?

Sheesh!

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really deeply annoyed that just about all the open-source productivity software I've seen tries its damndest to look like Microsoft Office stuff -- all the word processors want to look like Word, all the spreadsheets want to look like Excel, etc. People, there are much better interfaces for this kind of software out there.

It's not just the look that the emulate, it's the lack of customization. Take a look at AbiWord - you can't customize it one wit, in the grand tradition of MS Word. Now this is fine for simple usage, like if Linux Grandma wants to write a letter to her grandkids. But the whole point of Linux and open source is that you get more than the commercial counterparts. Just look at Emacs - for programming, there is no match for Emacs as far as extensibility and customizability go. That is what a great free software/open source tool is.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

You people who call Linux "inferior" all the time either a) haven't used it or b) have a chip on your shoulder.

I have used it. Many years as a matter of fact. Best server system I've ever used. Worst Desktop system I can possibly imagine.

I got laid last night, how about you?

Two nights ago, since you asked.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[mbogosian]

People have been ripping off the Windows (all versions) interface since day one. It shows just what Microsoft deems important.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think there is a precedent here, if anyone in this thread is old enough to remember when Apple sued Microsoft for the exact same thing...and lost. Granted that the two interfaces at the time looked nothing like each other, but they behaved similarly. In the world of themed window managers, "look" can be mirrored quite easily, and "feel" is something that, as far as I know, has already been tested as being able to be copied.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, um, mods.. how exactly is talking about UI's in a thread about Linux UIs that are a copy of Windows offtopic?

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Matt - Duke '05]

And I'm sure you probably posted your comment using Lynx. I mean, I think all of us who use a modern graphical browser would agree with you... we've _DEFINITELY_ sacrificed a galatic amount of efficiency, productivity, and functionality using a GUI web browser instead of a console based one. Let's be honest, who needs all of that crufty GUI stuff when you've got Lynx?!

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[DrunkenPenguin]

No, it's not a clone of Mac OS X. That project is unique and it implements a totally new UI that runs on top of KDE.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

The world would be a better place if everyone learned the command line.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[urbieta]

yeah right!
I have not even been able de dominate find in 6 months and you expect grandma to get used to the command line?

The future is in 3D, girls may download a hello kitty theme to make their desktops look like a doll house and color the 3dGUI representation of find pink colored in a beautyfull shade of light 8D

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[version5]

> the underlying reasons Mac interfaces (Classic and OS X) work so well I started using OS X when I started my new job, and I swear I had an open mind, but nonetheless, it can be quite frustrating to use. For example, there's two ways of minimizing windows. You can hit the yellow minimize button in the upper right corner, or you can hit command-H to hide the window. The only difference is that minimizing the window by clicking the button makes it appear in the dock. Functionally, both of these make the window vanish, which is what you want. But to get it back, you need to do two completely different things to get it back. Since I sometimes minimize with the keyboard and sometimes with the mouse, I now have to remember how I minimized a window, and I'm looking in the dock for my window, and its not there. This does not Just Work. More on the dock: When you are using IE these days, popup windows are inevitable. In Windows (and Windows-like GUIs), you can quickly and easily get rid of them by rapidly rightclicking on them in the taskbar, and clicking close. Two mouseclicks is all that you need. No such luck in OS X. Yes, yes, 'Use Mozilla!', but the fact remains that its harder to remove unwanted windows. iTunes: Sometimes, you listen to a radio station that for some reason, fails. What is that reason? iTunes won't tell you. It just doesn't work. Now, perhaps it makes sense to hide this information from the beginning user, instead presenting a uniform "This isn't working!" error message, but for a slightly more sophisticated user, its helpful to know why the stream failed. Could it not resolve the DNS address? If so, maybe the DNS servers haven't propagated yet, so I should try again in a few hours. No service is available? Maybe they are down for maintenance and I should check their website, or maybe they are down for good. Too many users? I will try again in a half an hour. So again, the much lauded OS X interface fails to impress me. Granted, iTunes is not the OS interface, but the same design philosophy is at work, and I'm not terribly impressed.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's so bullshit. There's NO WAY a non computer-savvy person would be able to install any linux distro and get everything configged and start doing work on their own, let alone set up a webserver or whatever it is you're postulating..

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Jace of Fuse!]

Not There Yet in comparison to OS X -- and they never will be until the Linux world stops chasing a goal that's not worth reaching in the first place, the shitty Microsoft interface.

I agree with most of your underlying points. The Mac OSX interface is functional. It's ugly in color scheme, of course, and I'd say down-right reupulsive. But it's quite functional and it does "FEEL" right.

Where I disagree with you is that Microsoft's interface is shitty. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that even though Microsoft's classic 9x/2000 look is steril, it FEELS right. Hovers, Drags, Movements all feel like they work as they should. Even context menus and icon behavior feels like it works, even if (as someone else has said) it feels that it's working when it actually isn't.

In that, Microsoft's interface could be said to be "ugly" too, and the XP Blue theme is definately high in gayness points. XP Silver look nice, in my opinion but then that's what the LOOKS boil down to. Opinion. I haven't seen too many interfaces that I think LOOK nice, but as long as they feel right, I don't care what they look like.

Both Mac OS X and Windows FEEL right. They feel like they function, and dispite what other problems some people may have out of XP, I have a rock solid system that I've configured to look rather nice (and minimalistic) by disabling all of the stupid shit, an option I'm glad I have with Windows. I am, after all, a Shell person first, and a Minimalist GUI person next.

KDE and GNome aren't "Quite There Yet", but XPde looks like it might be worth following. So they've managed to make it look like Windows. If it doesn't FEEL like Windows it won't matter one bit in the end. I shall give this a try, but since it is based on the XWindow System I have very low expectations from it. X is the problem, in my opinion and a whole new ground-up desktop is what is needed. In that respect, yes, something more like OS X.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[eyeball]

Sorry, I should've been more clear.. I meant the new apple look: shades of grey with a tinge of blue, rounded corners, sans serif fonts, flat LCD-ish gui components, etc.. Intentional or not, if I took a quick glance at those screenshots, I would've sworn it was part of some new OS X application.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can type a single line at the shell prompt that will search...

Why stop at the shell prompt? Why not write your own shell prompt? Better yet, why not write your own Operating System? Heck - why you're at it you might as well design and build your own computer from scratch. I'm not talking about piecing a system together, any Monkey could do that. But fabricate your own motherboard and everything. And dig down in the earth and get your own raw materials why you're at it. I mean come on - don't be a pussy and take the easy way out.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[ActiveSX]

Perhaps that's true for him. Every user is different, to a point.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that like it's actually possible for non-computer-savvy people to install Windows.

I recently did a bare-metal install of Windows XP Professional. Unfortunately for XP, it was unable to partition my disk (yes, you have to partition the disk for Windows, too; even if you throw everything into one partition, you still need the partition table). The installer kept thinking I had a 819GB hard drive (I wish), and it actually crashed when I tried to create a partition (bringing up a nice blue screen that advised me that if I had recently installed any software, which at this point could only mean XP, to try removing it to see if it made the problem better). I had to boot from a Linux floppy and run cfdisk (which had no trouble with the drive) to get past that glitch. Then XP didn't recognize my sound card and I had to go through all sorts of Device Manager gymnastics to get that to work.

Coincidentally, I've installed RedHat and Debian on the exact same machine (with identical factory-fresh hard drives), and both went off without a hitch.

Don't ever accuse Linux of being harder to install than Windows. Windows only seems easier to install because no one ever installs it. Installing any operating system is easy when some Dell tech does it for you.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

but if you knew how to rebuild your car engine, you would certianly be better suited for when it broke down half way to your grandmas house.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please.

[blixel]

but if you knew how to rebuild your car engine, you would certianly be better suited for when it broke down half way to your grandmas house.

And if you knew how to perform open heart surgery you could save a fortune on hospital bills.

Icons..

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Since most people that want their linux box to look like xp are dual booting anyway, couldnt you just point this to an XP install and let it steal all the icons/graphics from this so you can get a truely authentic xp look without all the cease and desist letters?

Re: Icons..

[Antity]

Definitely Interesting.

Just like this stuff with PalmOS, C64, SNES, Amiga and whatever emulators where it's no legal problem at all if you just copy the neccessary files (there: ROMs, here: Icons etc) from an original copy that you legally own (note: This is different from "bought").

It should also be possible to just extract icons just from the WinXP, Win9x or whatever CD. No need to install (and register), then. Most probably this won't include much of the drawing engine but just the icons, but it should be used if available.

I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[vudufixit]

ME: "Hey, check out this Linux distro I just got. It looks (and works) just like XP - right down to the..." A friend: "What? What's wrong?" "bluescreen"

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[vudufixit]

Nope. It was just a cheap shot. I use Windows XP as my main OS, and haven't found the time to learn Linux.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Chainsaw]

Oh yes, it has. A computer that my friend owns is three weeks old, came with WinXP, and has already shown the BSOD twice. My own Win2K installation has done the same a couple of times since summer 2000. I've also had kernel panics in Linux about two or three times since 1997. My MacOS X installation hasn't paniced yet, for some odd reason.

WinXP isn't immune to BSOD:s in any way. It might be more stable than the Win9x series, but that comes as no real surprise.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Sh0t]

His comp most be really shitty hardware wise or he is a total newb who downloads every program feature in all those gator popup ads we all know and love. His computer probably has more viruses than a culture dish at the Center for Disease Research.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

i am using winXP, and i have seen a few random blue screens when booting. luckely the old fix of restarting still works.

PS: ive also crashed linux, so maybe thats just my computer

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[SnowDeath]

Try changing in IDE driver in Windows 2000, seriously, and make sure to NOT have your trusy Win2k Install CD nearby.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[moonbender]

Windows XP BSOD'ed on me, oh, just about 2 minutes ago. It's probably one out of the following: buggy chipset driver (woohoo for Via), buggy graphics driver (woohoo vor NVIDIA) or over-heating hardware (woohoo for me, but it's unlikely anyhow). So, not really Microsoft's fault, I guess.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[fault0]

Try making him learn to administrate his computer a bit better. There is no reason winXP shouldn't be as stable as something like Linux if adminstrated properly. This is mainly because of Microsoft's improved quality and driver testing facilities since XP.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Chainsaw]

Nope. The hardware is all checked stuff, two identical computer to his with Win2K runs just fine with no stability problems at all. He's a software engineer with ten years in the industry, and has a clean WinXp installation with Emacs and Sun JDK 1.4.1. He's no newbie, and therefore no spyware junk.

Don't look down on people knowing more than yourself.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[ergo98]

I use a via based motherboard (333), an AMD processor, a nvidia GF4 4400, and I have _never_ seen a BSOD (or GSOD) on XP.

If you are with such mainstream hardware then I'd suspect that you have a borked piece of hardware. Contrary to FUDsterism, Linux can't protect one from flawed hardware anymore than XP/2000 can.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Chainsaw]

He installed the latest certified drivers for all the hardware, JDK 1.4.1 and Emacs. That's it. Now, mister know-it-all, what did he do wrong?

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing what what in a what what? Seriously, man, I use a real computer, so I don't know what this "realign the IRQ IDE DMA and then reinstall your SP by right-clicking on My Stuff" blabber is all about.

Have you considered the possibility, just for a moment, that you might be wasting your life?

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't say I know where he went wrong... but I know what you did... Seeking Windows advice on slashdot... that's a paddling....

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[bigbadwlf]

XP doesn't blue-screen, huh?

Three words...

"Unmountable Boot Volume"

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Toraz Chryx]

Or he just tried to use a new Nvidia detonator revision and got the dreaded nv4_disp.dll BSOD

really, wtf were microsoft thinking putting the video driver in the kernel space... for smegs sake, it isn't much of a performance improvement when it blows the OS up >:(

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[fault0]

He obviously has some errors in his hardware configuration then.

This is not the fault of the operating systems. /me oogles all the kernel panics I got with linux/ppc for years and all the freezes I got with my x86 box with a VIA mobo, IBM hd, Linux, and DMA :/

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[arkanes]

Point of fact: lots of people, including myself, run windows XP for days/weeks/months with no blue screens.

Therefore, the flaw is not inherent in winXP. It's most probably a flaw in some winXP specific driver, or a hardware flaw. If he's a software engineer with 10 years experience, you'd think he might be able to catch the blue screens and at least isolate the problem.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Zontar The Mindless]

>Windows hasn't blue-screened since win2k.

No, XP just grinds to a slow, numbing halt. Stuff just quits working.

And the UI itself blows. Not even changing it to "Classic Windows" negates the fact that MS has just made it that much more difficult to accomplish basic system tasks.

Win2K tries to do the same thing, but at least the Task Manager works halfway decently. I only have to reboot once or twice a week now.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to "Unable to mount root device"
from linux?

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[wideBlueSkies]

After 8 months of running XP pro 24/7, I haven't seen a blue screen.

Even when I f*k up some pointer math during development and write strings god knows where in memory, XP recovers gracefully.

Sure, IE crashes every now and then. It just crashes, no BSDO, no big deal.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it depends on his VIA chipset. I would like to assume (heh) that current VIA chipsets are better than some of the earlier ones, but since I have been out of the IT arena for a while I haven't touch a KT333. I have a machine with a 1.2 GHz Duron which uses the KT133 chipset, and it was "OK" but stupid problems with zip drives connected to the IDE controller ticked me off. (yes there is a software work-around, but the flaw was in hardware). Before that, I had K6-2 systems with the MVP3 chipset, which I didn't like, as Nvidia cards were touchy about K6-2 mobos anyway. I had a Celeron system once, also a VIA chipset (don't remember which one) I got rid of it... The only systems I have had that I really liked, have been non-VIA based. I have had 2 boards with SIS (one was an AMD K6 233, the other a Pentium 200 MMX), they weren't top performers, but WORKED and got the job done. The systems that I have really enjoyed have had Intel chipsets. I had a P3 500 on an Asus P3B-F... that was a great system, but after 2 years it was time to upgrade. This machine (P4 1.7) uses the i850 chipset. Absolutely flawless IMHO. I have had 1 system crash on Win2K, but that was due to a failed RAID 0 stripe, and I keep all my important data on a network drive anyhow.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Spellbinder]

any problems i had with linux where hardware once or stupid me deleting/modifing some config files =(((
windows: 5.1/4" floppy in my pIII 850 mhz laptop under xp =)))maybe i got still a screenshot =)))
clean install of windows xp on my laptop ... no icons in my explorer sidebar... something strange about taking drive f: as c:
i reinstalled again -> same ...
pure windows xp and office installation cant last longer then a few month, once installed as admin from then only user rights to all ... but screwed up anyway
btw Microsoft Word XP is started in save mode beats everything

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Penguin Follower]

There is every possibility that it is a hardware/driver problem. But, I wouldn't be so blind as to say that there is no way that it cannot just be a bug in Windows XP. I have had similar results upgrading this system to XP. It runs Linux fine, and I've had FreeBSD 4.7 on it for a test-drive. No problems there. This machine really LOVES Win2k though, I kid you not. XP, however, mixed results. I tried XP when it came out, and it performed OK, but crashed and burned after a month for some odd reason. Anyway, my current Win2k install is 10 months old and still kicking at this point. And it gets good uptimes as well, considering it gets "abused" a lot.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[pdiaz]

Even when I f*k up some pointer math during development and write strings god knows where in memory, XP recovers gracefully.

errhm, clueless. Any real O.S. won't let you "write strings god knows where".Of course you can fuck your own memory space, but any decent OS will prevent you from overwriting system or other users memory spaces.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[override11]

Obviously an ID - Ten - T Error....

Seriously though, I have been running XP on all types of systems, pre-built and home built, both at a business and as a home / gamer PC, and XP is extremely stable. You just gotta give it love!

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[dknj]

Ever done driver development? You can "write strings god knows where"

-dk

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[dknj]

Who said it was due to borked hardware? Have you ever tried working your system with the first revision drivers that come with your hardware? My mom's computer crashed last night with a BSOD due to Dell's stock NVidia drivers. I'm sure if I take the time to install the latest drivers I won't have to worry about it in the future (but hey, its not MY problem).

-dk

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

90% of the time, a BSOD in WinXP is due to a funky nVidia or ATI driver.

One time when I was running a bad nVidia driver, it actually did something pretty cool - I was watching a video, and my screen went black, monitor went into powersave for a sec, then came back with a message box saying that Windows had saved itself from some nasty shit goin' down (it didn't exactly use that terminology, you get the picture), and swapped in the 16-color VGA driver for me so I could keep going. Then it told me I needed to reboot and update the bad video driver. I thought that was badass.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever tried Novell Netwares drivers on XP? They manage to bluescreen it often enough.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME usually is bad news. Here's what Microsoft says. Whenever you get a BSOD, always note the hex number after the word STOP so you can look it up later. They're usually pretty well documented.

By bad news I mean is that whenever I've seen that it usually meant that the hard disk was dying a slow death. You get this error when disk clusters that hold some of the XP kernel or startup files go bad. Back that disk up, buddy!

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[tomstdenis]

I think he meant "god knows where" ... "inside the process memory".

Try doing

*((unsigned char *)0xFACEBABE) = 4;

in a win32 app and see how far you get.

Tom

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[atomice]

Hmm - I wonder where XFree86 puts the video driver... Oh that's right, in kernel space.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

He has crap hardware because it B.S.O.D.'ed twice in the course of over two years? Tell me please what hardware you are running on that isn't prone to errors now and then?

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Henry V .009]

A bad memory stick can be a problem as well. Memtest is always smart. I have a computer that crashed both Linux and Windows XP until I replaced the memory stick.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[mbogosian]

I have to admit, I was getting ready to hate this project after reading the summary, but before following any links. But after I saw it and thought about it a while, I love it. I'll never use it myself, but I thought, "what better way to help in the process of using those poor lost windows-only souls than make an environment which is so much like what they're used to that they won't notice the difference?"

From my own anecdotal evidence, I find that computer users can usually be classified in one of three groups:

Experts: these are the people who eat, sleep, live the technology for whatever purpose (hobby, professional choice, curiosity, whatever). They are typically curious and will be delighted by anything that does The Right Thing, or works well, or is just plain cool regardless of the source. These people typically have no problem running two or three operating systems on as many boxes (or more, or even less) under / on / in / near their desks / racks / etc. They are the software engineers, the curious hobbyists, the sys admins of large organizations (e.g., universities), the folks that learned how to program at age 12 "just for fun", etc. In the early industry, these made up most of the user base of computers (large and small).

Intermediates or Power Users: these users are typically very familiar with the end-user features of one (maybe two) OSes. They could tell you all kinds of tricks like how to re-order your Apple menu (anyone remember Mac OS 7-9?) by copying and pasting carriage returns into the first part of directory / file names and how to "unstick" Word when it won't load without having to reinstall Office. They know enough to be dangerous on a network, but not enough to properly care for other users. These are typically the most active in the OS religious (flame) wars. As personal computers became more accessible (enter Apple II, IBM PC, etc.), these users began to dominate the population.

Beginners: these are what BOFHs call lusers. They are the most ignorant of the bunch, and typically have an attitude of, "I just want the damned thing to work, I don't care how". These folks know just enough to do what they want to do on a daily basis, but aren't very good at troubleshooting problems when they occur without help. These make up most of the computer-using population today.

There is nothing inherently superior or inferior about any particular group. It's just how things are. To date, it has been extremely hard to convince members of the last two groups (beginners and intermediates) to go outside of their respective comfort zones (i.e., try new operating systems). I believe the middle group is nearly impossible to convert as there are as many emotional ties to their underlying choices as there are knowledge ones.

However, with this project, I think the conversion of the beginners group just got easier by several orders of magnitude. They don't care, as long as it works. If it looks and acts very similar to what they're already used to (and by very similar, I mean exact for day-to-day use and similar for more infrequent tasks like network configuration, etc.), then they are much less likely to notice that they are running Linux vs. Windows. This is a very good thing. Intermediates and experts can still use sawfish or twm or the console or whatever they choose, but beginners now have hope for a viable (and understandable) interface. This is truly wonderful, as an increased user base will help legitimize the efforts of Linux on the desktop. Kudos and respect to the xpde team for some truly outstanding work.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Lispy]

I might fit in your first category even if I'm not developing software for professional use. I am in fact working as a sysadmin in a large organization and I would love to use this kind of stuff on our clients. The users wouldn't have to learn anything new and i could finally use my Unixskills in my working environment wich would make me much more productive. Wouldn't it be a dream to just open a terminal from my desktop, connect to the client and fix stuff while he could just keep working without even noticing that there was support going on? I personally would prefer this to searching the Knowledgebase
over and over again? Sigh, but this will never happen because they (read management) just wouldn't believe us that it really works.
If only i could get rid of MS-Exchange...that would be a start...but we're not allowed.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[thechink]

No, XP just grinds to a slow, numbing halt. Stuff just quits working.

That maybe your experience but it's not mine. In over a year of running XP Pro I've yet to see a BSOD or the slow down you mention and I usually leave my computer on for long periods of time. I've had a few apps crash but they don't take down the OS. As for the UI, it's a matter of personal preference, I don't have any problem with it.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Penguin Follower]

That is rather nifty. Hopefully MS can make it catch more things like that in future versions.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[dimator]

AHH! Funny! "bluescreen"! I get it!

Fucking dumbass.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[zcat_NZ]

I've run Linux on some pretty dodgy hardware in the past. RMA'd parts bought cheap at auction, Drives I got from dumpsters, Mobo's that other people threw away because they're too flakey.

Stuff locks up, so the linux kernel resets the device and tries again. Drivers get totally foobared because the device is returning gibberish; I remove and reload the module and everything comes right again. For a couple of years my main computer was built entirely from hardware other people had disposed of; things that would crash windows within minutes if it booted at all.

Linux is remarkably tolerant of bad hardware.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try, but you're wrong. The video card registers and framebuffer generally get mapped into memory. X doesn't run in kernel space, so it is a stretch of the imagination to claim that X drivers are in kernel space. All the kernel has to do is provide enough functionality to allow X to get at the hardware configuration and framebuffer space.

Even if you would like to (Wrongly) claim that X drivers are in kernel space, Microsoft have still put the entire user interface (GDI) into the kernel. You don't see Qt running in ring 0, do you?

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

When your sat in an your annual review with your boss, do you stick your fingers in your ears and sing La la la, I can't here you! over and over again?

You child. Grow up and face the truth. Some people have trouble with XP. XP can still blue screen. Some people have trouble with Linux. Linux can kernel panic.

Frankly, if you're so scared that the real world might cause your little bubble to burst, may I suggest a good dose of paranoid schitzophrenia? At least doctors can medicate for that.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Penguin Follower]

Nvidia puts the driver in kernel space. I was under the impression that the XFree86 project's drivers run in user land.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Jace of Fuse!]

A long time ago I learned the lesson of bad memory. It came at the expense of replacing nearly every component only to discover in the end it was a single memory stick that was bad.

Now, memory is one of the first things I try. And now I always buy whatever the biggest name memory stick I can find happens to be. It costs a bit more, but after a few "cheap-o" burn outs I'm convinced that you get what you pay for. So far, this rule hasn't cost me anything except a little extra cash.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using XP for over a year and I've yet to see the Blue Screen of Death. On the other hand, I've yet to use Netscape under Linux for more than a half hour without it crashing. Take your reverse-FUD somewhere else because no one's buying into it.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[override11]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hahaha, you fucking retard. Do you understand a joke?? The part where I said seriously though... Everything has its problems, I was just offering my experiences. And my annual review was short, no complaints, and a bigger raise than usual. While you are delivering pizza's, think of me.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Zontar The Mindless]

To whomever modded down my post:

A "troll" is defined as a post that serves no useful purpose, makes an ad hominem or similar attack, or attempts to disrupt the flow of conversation.

All I did was report my experience and my opinion. Just because it doesn't match yours does NOT make my post a troll.

Perhaps when someone tries to mod down a post, they should get a message saying, "Does this post really fit the definition of 'troll'? Or am I just steamed because the poster doesn't agree with me?"

Hopefully when this is meta-moderated, others won't be so hasty to mislabel.

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[vudufixit]

"fucking dumbass???" You can't do anything more mature than an ad hominem troll attack?

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Suppafly]

You have to put the driver in kernel space if you expect any kind of decent video performance. Do you think that your favorite free os does it any differently?

Re:I hope it's not too good of a copy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, keep saying it zealot boy. Microsoft has fixed all its stability problems and any faults must be with his hardware. Yadda Yadda. I heard the same shite when NT 4 was released.

Interesting idea

[peripatetic_bum]

This seems to directly address the complaint that new users won't have a conceptual base to start on linux. While this is a good idea, I still think that new users should get some sort of introduction to the open source and its ideals. I know I know that users simply want to use the computer for work, but as we head off into this new digital age where everything can be controlled, perhaps they should also learn that switching from windows to linux, means that they are the ones in control and not business.

any way, thanks for readinging

Re:Interesting idea

[Unknown Lamer]

While this is a good idea, I still think that new users should get some sort of introduction to the open source and its ideals.

I think you mean the Free Software movement and not Open Source. Open Source is the non-political form of Free Software. The main part of the Open Source movement is that it is technically superior. There is no argument for freedom. If you want ideals, you want Free Software. The FSF had a button that summed it up well "What's the point of Open Source with the FREEDOM?"

Re:Interesting idea

[thx2001r]

I agree. What's the point of cloning the gui "theme" of windows? To draw in lawsuits?

I think if people want to use Linux they should learn how to use it. Forget the gui! Understand the OS, and more importantly, the philosophy of why you'd want to use an open source OS. There are so many windows emulators out there you'd think no one wants to run Linux.

Besides, so many people complain that windows users are idiots. This seems to be just a way to keep them stupid. "Now you don't even have to learn anything new to use linux". Ok, great, but then what's the advantage of using linux?

Re:Interesting idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, does this include an explorer interface?
And, how do you compensate for the case sensitivity on the filesystem?
And, can you setup file associations?
And, what about the filesystem file attributes?
And, do text files contain cr/lf's instead of just lf's?
And, to you render pathnames with backslashes instead of forward slashes?
And, can you defrag the filesystem?
And, can you check the filesystem?
And, do all the fonts work?
And, yata yata yata...

Yanked from the FAQ .....

[UnderScan]

I wonder if this project will get the beatdown from MS like the various Aqua skins did from Apple.

What is XPde?

XPde is a desktop environment for XWindow to allow Windows users migrate to Linux easily. It's composed by a desktop (XPde) and window manager (XPwm).

Why are you doing this?

1 To learn more Kylix and low-level Linux programming
2 For fun
3 To create software can be useful to many people
4 To have a desktop on my system I can customize

There are many reasons, but the main goal I think is to allow normal computer users enjoy the stability and security of Linux, I think right now is not possible with KDE or Gnome, so this project can be interpreted as a bridge to Linux.
[ Back to Top ]

Why do you think this project will be a success? KDE and Gnome are out there and also can be customized to look as Windows XP.

I don't know if it will be a success, but let's imagine this scenario:
-You are a Windows developer
-You develop accounting/payment and desktop applications for Windows
-You would love to develop for Linux, but you can't because none of your customers run Linux
-You could tell them, "hey!, I'm going to change all your machines to Linux, it's cheaper, faster and safer! (and all the Linux propaganda you can eat)"
-You customers would say "Why? Our system works, we know how to print, send mail, create documents, copy files and all we need, we don't want to change, this will mean to teach all my employees the new stuff and I'm not going to loose that time"
This is common scenario in the real world development, there is not time and money to forget Windows and install Linux, so this project is just another piece of software that could help to reduce the learning curve of a normal user to use a Linux computer. The main goal is to create an "exact" copy of the Windows XP interface (without any registered logo/graphic), that way, I plain user can start to use new applications (StarOffice, Mozilla, etc) without be frightened by a new desktop.

XPde FAQ

Re:Yanked from the FAQ .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote: -You customers would say "Why? Our system works, we know how to print, send mail, create documents, copy files and all we need, we don't want to change, this will mean to teach all my employees the new stuff and I'm not going to loose that time"
End quote.

This is a flawed argument. You can't expect a desktop environment and Window manager to replicate the entire user experience of Windows; the applications do indeed. Time will be lost in training, no matter what, because many widely used Windows programs do not have Linux versions. Sure, we've got good programs, but they are very different from what people are used to on the Windows side of things.

I just wanted to give my two cents and point this out. Otherwise, a commendable effort as I was thinking the XP look was just going to be implemented by a variety of themes.

Re:Yanked from the FAQ .....

[Raiford]

Consider this: *NIX and *nix-like OS find there greatest success and appreciation in two arenas:

1.) Server applications

2.) Scientific and Engineering workstation networks.

There are business networks based on *NIX/*UNIX-like platforms however they are a small share of the market (ask Sun Microsystems). I love Linux and I have been using the OS since 1993 but my gut tells me that it will probably never by Joe Average's OS regardless of what you try to make it look like. So why would you want to anyway ?

Re:Yanked from the FAQ .....

[ramzak2k]

The main goal is to create an "exact" copy of the Windows XP interface (without any registered logo/graphic), (Score:4, Funny)

I guess I just don't see the point...

[craenor]

I'll be honest I love Windows XP. I use it at work, I use it at home...I consider it a great operating system. But I'll admit that I also have zero concern for the other little "features" that some would call spywear that Microsoft has added to XP. I just don't care about those things, I have nothing to hide from microsoft, the government or anyone.

I know nothing about Linux. The idea of an XP interface that would help me get to know it at first sounds appealing. But the more I think about it. I don't want an XP clone that works different. The point of Linux for me would be to learn something new, not use something else I'm used too. I think they should remain different from one another. Linux should revel in it's distinction, not attempt to clone XP.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[spybreak]

I have nothing to hide from microsoft, the government or anyone.

In that case, why do you put your letters in envelopes instead of on postcards? Why do you close the shades in your house? The desire for privacy is normal and healthy. There is no reason not to extend this protection to your online activities.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

... 0wn me and my ass.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[craenor]

I am certainly not trying to make the argument that other people have nothing to hide. Rather, I am making the statement that I have nothing to hide which could be found in my house, on my person or in my computer.

The things I keep private are in my thoughts and in my memories. When the government or Microsoft or anyone else has access to those...then I'll worry. Until then, Bill Gates and the FBI can feel free to look on and be bored.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists should attempt not to clone Dolly The Sheep.

This is the world today myfriend. People will clone everything for money, often breaking the laws of nature (like that linux and windoze should remain different from one another (not like XP innovation is 0.1% and the rest stolen from MacOS)).

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

can you tell me your bank account numbers and send me you credit card please. thank you.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[gymbrall]

Everytime I read a post like yours I always wonder if the how strongly the individual objects to the things that don't appeal to them.
The neat thing ablut Linux, is that it can revel in its distinction and attempt to clone XP all at the same time. This is because there is no one thing called Linux. There is not one desktop known as Linux, not one shell, not one mail manager, not even one kernel tree.
Please don't take this as aimed at you. You don't sound militantly opposed to XPde pursuing their vision of an XP UI for Linux. You were just stating your opinion, just like me, but I've read so many posts that flame anyone attempting to do something that doesn't mesh with their vision of Linux. I just haven't had time to respond before.

Merry Christmas.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[Reziac]

Just make sure you don't keep your diary on your computer...

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when we didn't have to hide our differences and thoughts in America..

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't tell them I keep my 'fake' diary on the computer.

I also put money into my 'other' bank account and send the cash-card to friends around the country, just to make sure it matches my diary.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

9980-6786-5430-1234

exp 03/04.

send me some money please.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you never share any of those personal "thoughts" through e-mail, or the various instant chat services that are available. Access to your computer may infact mean access to the private memories that dwell in your mind and just might happen to come out into your computer.

The point is that there is a lot of very important and private information that is stored on computers. Computers are quickly becoming more and more integrated into our lives and just like no one has any buisness reading your mail and searching every corner of your house, without a warrant, they have no business gathering information from your "personal" computer. This is even more important for corporations that have research results and verious other important information stored on computers.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[fymidos]

Honestly i don't understand this "if you have nothing to hide why do you care" stuff.

I have nothing to hide, yet i wouldn't want to live in a glass house in the middle of Times square !!

It's not about you doing something wrong, it's about you being a subject of study. Your music preferences, your shopping preferences, your social network, everything.

Re:I guess I just don't see the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I just don't care about those things, I have nothing to hide from microsoft, the government or anyone. "

Well I got a lot to hide and ya know what, I like hiding it. It's not that I *want* to hide it from microsoft and/or the government, but I don't trust them. Hey, they hide stuff from me all the time, when they reveal all, so will I (full monty style!)

A good way...

[Kr3m3Puff]

It seems like this is a good way to get your ass sued for copyright or trademark infringment. Those screen shots do look like XP, and though Microsoft fended off the Apple "look-and-feel", I would be afraid of 10,000 Microsoft lawyers coming after me. Even if they lose, it would be in their best interests to sue these folks.

Also, what is the true purpose for something like this. Hoping to sell it to the Lindows folks? Seems like a lot of talent being wasted on a less than effective interface in the first place.

To rule the Desktop, Linux needs to be more user friendly. Copying Windows UI is not necessairly the best way to do this.

Re:A good way...

[Cynikal]

"To rule the Desktop, Linux needs to be more user friendly. Copying Windows UI is not necessairly the best way to do this"

ugh, i wrote a huge reply to this and then asked myself why the hell am i wasting my time? this is getting old. the masked issues are basically some people want linux to be open, popular, used by as many people as possible, and the other side, theres those who take pride in understanding linux, wanting it to be like a kind of members only club, only the elite can work it, and are afraid of their "skillz" being less impressive or unique when more and more people learn how to use linux. period.

Re:A good way...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. It is a real waste of talent.

But not in the way you put it. Can you imagine how cool this thing would be if the authors wrote the WM/taskbar/explorer with WineLib? They could implement Explorer and all of their "common dialog" clones as DLLs like it is on Windows, and have it configured through the registry, like Windows does too. Then they could modify WINE as needed to make its widgets actually look like Windows. And voila! A partially-compatible Windows clone, that happens to double as a Linux box.

But no. They merely cloned its appearance with some shitty Borland tool the equivalent of Visual Basic. They say it's an experiment in "low-level" Linux programming... Sorry, but I've coded in kernel space..

Re:A good way...

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't see any hint of this sentiment in his posting. What he DID say was that the Windows UI could probably be friendlier. For that matter, any Linux desktop could too.
Looks to me like you're just trolling.

and the other side, theres those who take pride in understanding linux, wanting it to be like a kind of members only club, only the elite can work it, and are afraid of their "skillz" being less impressive or unique when more and more people learn how to use linux. period.

Re:A good way...

[Kr3m3Puff]

I wasn't trying to say even Linux should rule the dekstop. It may not be the space for it. But obviously this group (and other) think the way to make Linux suceed is to copy Windows, which I feel is a bad premise.

If someone wanted to make Linux or a *NIX type OS be dekstop friendly only needs to look at MacOS X for an example. But that require not open. The only reason there is any standardization in desktop interface is because we have had them forced on us, between Windows and MacOS. I doubt anyone can get 90% of people to use a particular desktop interface if it is OSS. That means it would be difficult if not impossible for Linux to ever suceed at being on 90% of peoples desktops. Which may not be a goal of people, but it obviously is of certain people.

Oh my god no!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no, no, no!

Why the hell are these people cloning the Windows UI?! It is not a good UI from the scientific point of view and cloning it will only mean that it will truly become a de facto GUI!

Stop this madness right now. Whats wrong with the existing GUIs? Enlightenment or Sawfish kicks Windows XPs ass any day.

Re:Oh my god no!

[Anonymous Coward]

The existing GUIs are great if you only want to keep open dozens of CLI terminals.

If you want to have a consistent, elegant and completely mouse driven GUI they are not worth shit.

And believe me, most people wont bother learning a CLI these days. Hell, if I wasnt familiar with bash today I wouldnt waste my and my employers precious time learning such an arcane UI -- even if it could be more efficient in the long run.

Re:Oh my god no!

[fault0]

Obviously you have never used something like KDE, GNOME, or one of the "windowsized" versions of KDE, such as Lycoris, Lindows, and Xandros.

Sigh.

[metatruk]

Microsoft must feel proud... That the Linux people keep trying to emulate their OS and interface.

Re:Sigh.

[robbyjo]

Apple must feel proud... That Microsoft people keep trying to emulate their OS and interface.

Xerox must feel proud... That Apple people keep trying to emulate their OS and interface.

Re:Sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel proud.... That I am trying to elimate everyones interface.

Re:Sigh.

[eyeball]

The ghosts of horse-and-buggy inventors must be proud... that car manufacturers keep trying to emulate their mode of transportation.

Re:Sigh.

[oliverthered]

The ancient greeks must be proud... that computers keep trying emulate their mode of calculation.

Re:Sigh.

[yobbo]

The apes must be proud. The greeks nearly have as much hair on their backs.

*ouch* thank you you've all been wonderful.

Re:Sigh.

[C14L]

only the interface. honestly, the XP interface is way better than any linux desktop there is. On the other hand, as an OS, linux is way better than XP. But without a good GUI it will never win the desktop market.

Re:Sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have more

Re:Sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus must feel proud that Microsoft keeps trying to emulate his OS' stability

Re:Sigh.

[Reziac]

Digital Research must feel proud -- Xerox keeps imitating the GEM desktop.

Re:Sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are incorrect - as an OS, XP is way better than Linux. More stable, a more modular architecture, more scalable.

And of course, more expensive. But in this case you get what you pay for.

Re:Sigh.

[SparkyMartin]

The original poster must be proud...that further posts are trying to imitate his.:P

Re:Sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

The trolls must be proud... everyone's a troll on xmas...

hands up who's got nothing better to do (raises his hand).

Re:Sigh.

[Zanek]

Whats up with the Linux zealots who cant over their hatred of Windows to realize that some of Windows interface IS ok. There I said it. Not everyone wants to fool with config files or search for which dir the services/daemons are installed in (I personally dont mind, but having a CONSISTENT OPTION is nice).
I think this is a great idea because
1) You have a very familiar interface for newbies migrating to Linux
2) You could use this to eliminate some distro problems by overlaying the same interface to access services and programs over everything
3) I dont care what any Linux zealot says, but I think any reasonable person would prefer the BEST of both worlds in Linux and Windows
4) Its all about consistancy, and ease of use. If you dont want to dick around with /etc/hosts.allow , I shouldnt have to, there should be a GUI to allow me to easily modify everything if I so CHOOSE.

Say what you want, but IE has it good points, as does the whole Windows OS

Re:Sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

i have much better things to be doing, really.

Disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does this seem to me as another occurence of Embrace and extend? The only difference is it isnt Microsofts doing this time.

Re:Disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you don't unbderstand the concept of Embrace and Extend.

Some quick comments

[Anonymous Coward]

- They are just begging to be sued by Microsoft.

- The clean (I mean 'uncluttered') look evident in the screenshots is something that is missing very much from many Linux distros. The "put everything and the kitchen sink on the desktop" attitude really needs to go.

- Now, for the next step: EXTEND! ;-)

XP interface for Windows 3.1

[Anonymous Coward]

Its eerie!

Copyright issues?

[yerricde]

I wonder if this project will get the beatdown from MS like the various Aqua skins did from Apple.

I understand that Microsoft doesn't own the textual elements of its user interface (Apple v. Microsoft; Lotus v. Borland), but doesn't Microsoft Corporation own copyrights on the pictorial and graphic works embodied in the exact pixel configurations of the Windows XP operating system's icons, and possibly a trade dress on the look and feel of the "Luna" theme?

I too fear that Microsoft will follow in Apple's footsteps.

Re:Copyright issues?

[Reziac]

Maybe they've added luna somewhere I didn't notice, but... I didn't check all the recent screenshots, but the only ones I saw were emulating the Windows classic interface.

As the previous cases demonstrated, "look and feel" is not protected by copyright.

If it were, every publisher would have to come up with a new format (and maybe a new font) for printed books.

Re:Copyright issues?

[xenocytekron]

That is different, people don't buy books to look at the font and the layout all day, they buy them for the literature they contain. With Operating Systems, however, the look and design is often a main reason for choosing one over the other, thus they are very protective of their designs.

Re:Copyright issues?

[Reziac]

See my later post, in which I cite the legal precedent (hopefully someone will mod it up to where it can be seen).

This is exactly what we don't need

[metal_llama]

Linux needs to set itself apart from windows, copying ms's interface detail by detail is not only a waste of effort but harmful to the larger open-source effort. Worse yet, the windows interface is horrible, so of all the interface's to copy exactly, why choose one of the worst out there?I want a great interface when I'm using my computer, not the same old interface that frustrated me enough to get me to install linux in the first place.

We need innovation, not duplication.

Re:This is exactly what we don't need

[NDPTAL85]

Unfortunately the open source community isn't very capable when it comes to innovation. Just about every application you think of as innovative on the open source side has already been made and sold by proprietary software corporations.

Re:This is exactly what we don't need

[Anonymous Coward]

see you have a CHOICE no to use it. other people may feel the same way and make different interfaces so dont get your nickers in a twist!

Re:This is exactly what we don't need

[thx2001r]

So do you mean that the interface, not the OS, got you to switch to linux?

Re:This is exactly what we don't need

[AnyoneEB]

I still use Windows XP because it has a good interface. The X interface is horrible (I've tried KDE and Gnome).

Re:This is exactly what we don't need

[metal_llama]

I mean that my frustration with the windows interface and it's inflexibility was one of many things that convinced me to switch. Linux is wide open to customizability and innovation because of its open-source nature. Shouldn't developers take advantage of that and try new interface ideas to change the ways we use computers, rather than presenting us with clones that fall short of the sub-par products they are attempting to emulate? When software is cloned without creativity and new ideas, it's kind of like making a duplication of an analog tape: each succesive duplicate is going to get worse and worse in quality. I still keep windows installed for games, though.

Re:This is exactly what we don't need

[NDPTAL85]

Modding my comment as flaimbait doesn't make it any less true. Innovation IS something the OSS community is in short supply of, no matter how much you want to convince yourselves otherwise.

Funky Colorscheme

[ForceOfWill]

My first thought when reading the /. article was "Why would anyone want to duplicate such an awful look?" They seem to use the rounded blue titlebars on the website, even. But when I got to the screenshots, they all had the win98 look. What gives? Do they have a setting (in XP or XPde) to change the look?

Re:Funky Colorscheme

[BoneFlower]

Yes, they have the Windows Classic theme, which looks like 2k, though the dialog boxes and start menu and all still function with the XP enhancements. I use that theme myself, much less of a CPU/RAM hog than the default pretty one.

Re:Funky Colorscheme

[Fnkmaster]

You mean people use XP with the 3733+ XP theme? I thought the first thing everyone did with an XP box was check the box that says "Use Windows Classic Theme". Hell, I forgot that XP even had that until you just mentioned it because 80% of the XP boxes I've seen are in Classic mode (including the three Windows XP machines I own).

Re:Funky Colorscheme

[PotPieMan]

Most people I know use the Luna Silver theme, actually. A few ASP.NET programmers still use the Windows Classic theme, but they are an exception to the rule.

I was pretty surprised that the XPde guys weren't porting the Luna theme.

Re:Funky Colorscheme

[rmohr02]

Yea, but I'd been getting tired of the Windows Classic theme (it'd been seven years), so I downloaded the ux theme patcher and installed Aikon XP. I like it enough that I eventually bought Style XP (from the same company that puts out the ux theme patcher).

Re:Funky Colorscheme

[spectral]

I'm pretty fond of chaninja's work in the xp skinning area, very slick stuff. Honestly if xpde could handle the xp style themes, I'd run it just for that skin.. ^_^ There's nothing on the website about being able to support XP's ability to switch visual styles though, so I don't have much hope for that. Especially since they're emulating classic for some reason.. it's ok, but classic in XP looks ugly, everything is just the wrong size. They seem to be doing slightly better, but still, don't claim to emulate XP to the smallest detail, then leave out the biggest visual difference of XP (the luna theme, and the ability to change it to something else)

Re:Funky Colorscheme

[rmohr02]

Well, I don't mind them leaving out the luna theme. I'll try ChaNinja's theme, but I'm doubtful--the only theme/visual style/skin I don't find annoying after awhile is Aikon, and I've tried at least 50.

This is a GOOD thing

[slashuzer]

While it is very easy to make "jokes" about cloning XP's interface (comparing it to Hitler's clone, anone?!); but we must not forget that such an interface will prove ver useful in helping a lot of newbies help migrate to Linux.

Many people feel uncomfortable "re-learning computers" to do the same things. This project will provide visual continuiyt even as the underpinning is Linux instead of Windows.

Re:This is a GOOD thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on now. How many 'newbies' are REALLY moving over to Linux? One out of a million? A billion? A trillion?

People who are moving to linux are doing it for a CHANGE not for the same old sh!t.

I'd rather move to OSX.

Re:This is a GOOD thing

[Anonymous Coward]

While it is very easy to make "jokes" about cloning XP's interface (comparing it to Hitler's clone, anone?!);

Godwin called. He said you have to leave the discussion now.

Re:This is a GOOD thing

[okmijnuhb]

Yeah right. It looks like windows XP.
It's not going to help the learning curve one bit.
Now lets see you try to install your printer, scanner, get your sound card running, cd-rw, dvd, get realplayer running, use your palm pilot, burn a cd etc. etc.
Yes it can be done.
Is it easy? Not by a long shot, not without Googling for and reading compendious documentation, begging for help on IRC, and in general pounding your semi-computer-literate head against the wall for hours on end, searching for answers to questions you could care less about, all for the purpose of forcing your computer to do something that it will do practically by default with M$ WXP.

Re:This is a GOOD thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Riddle me this: why should newbies migrate to Linux?

Re:This is a GOOD thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Riddle me this: why should newbies migrate to Linux?

If you have to ask such questions, then you haven't understood Linux one bit. THere are as many reasons as there are Linux users, but, how about, Linux is FREE? Weak troll, really.

Re:This is a GOOD thing

[Anonymous Coward]

You are obviously lagging behind times, but let me tell you: what you are saying might have had an iota of truth in past. Sa 2 ears ago. The present distributions of Linux are as good if not better then Microsoft products. When was the last time you used Linux? Which distro? Which version? Or are ou trolling as always......

Lawsuit

[Reality Master 101]

Before we get a million posts about how Microsoft is going to start launching lawsuits, it's worth pointing out that Microsoft has zero history of using lawsuits as a weapon. You'll note that Wine, Samba and a million Windows lookalikes already exist.

And no, the Lindows thing has nothing to do with killing Lindows. That's a legitimate trademark infringement. You may not agree with it, but it's not a nuisance suit. Personally, I wish Lindows would just find another name. That name sucks (but I digress).

If you want true Lawsuit Evil, look at Apple, but Microsoft is clean on this issue.

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Their name is LindowsOS, not Lindows. It's similar to OpenOffice.org tacking on .org to get around someone else owning the OpenOffice name.

I think the name they chose is a bit sleazy, but Microsoft hasn't been doing well in the court battle so far.

My complaint about LindowsOS has more to do with running as root by default and charging an outrageous fee to download free software that you can get with any graphical front end to apt-get.

Re:Lawsuit

[bomb_number_20]

That's an interesting point.

Maybe they don't care because, in a way, it sort of helps Microsoft maintain it's desktop market. People can buy computers more cheaply now than ever before, and if they buy a Lindows machine (or have something like this put on an already installed system), then the Linux community is (to stretch things just a bit) training people to do things the Windows Way(tm) for free.

It's a wierd sort of PR for Microsoft. The linux community continues to try and bring people over, but they only way they seem to know how to do that is by emulating Microsoft interfaces. This effectively puts Microsoft in the 'Innovator' category and labels the Linux community as the 'Try and keep up' crowd. Obviously, this doesn't help anyone but Microsoft; and it leaves a large amount of people saying to themselves 'Well, this LOOKS like Windows- but I can't run my favorite software. So why bother.'

To them, since it looks like Windows, it IS windows. This means that if something doesn't work as expected or as soon as they find out that they can't run their newest [insert software here], then Linux is crap because it doesn't just 'work' like Windows does.

To them, their box is a broken Windows machine. They don't care why it doesn't work- they just know that since it looks like Windows, it should run like Windows. This kills the reputation of Linux among average users and boosts the perception of Microsoft as makers of quality software.

Re:Lawsuit

[Kircle]

it's worth pointing out that Microsoft has zero history of using lawsuits as a weapon

that's probably because the ms lawyers are too busy trying to fend off a zillion other suits being filed at them!! :)

Re:Lawsuit

[mijok]

"Lindows" does sound really stupid but it does do a damn good job at giving the average consumer a hint about what it is. Everybody knows Windows - that's what it says when it boots (so you see it frequently ;) on your screen) - and more and more people have heard about Linux. They might not know what "operating system" means but the name gives people a clue about it being an alternative.

Re:Lawsuit

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

The try-and-keep-up-crowd has been succesfull
in the computing history.

Just look att Microsoft :-)

They where behind in creating GUI, Internet and a whole lot of other things - but still prevailed partly because of lower prices. Now Linux has the price edge...

Re:Lawsuit

[fermion]

I would say M$ does not use lawsuits as a weapon for three reasons.

What MS does is to take existing technology and make it accessible and cheap to the common technology consumer. There is only profit in their approach because the have a monopoly(U.S. government rule of law, not my words) and so can set the price on individual sales and gain a large profit from volume sales. This keeps smaller vendors from making a profit, and also allows attacks competitators though unfair business practices, not lawsuits. We have few competing OSes because there is no money in it. Apple exists because it was the first consumer GUI(lisa) and Linux exisits becuase it was not written for profit.

Second, Microsoft uses unfair licensing restrictions and directly attack to maintain it's monopoly. Therefore many lawsuits have not been necessary. They have other avenues. They can intimidate system vendors to only include Windows on a machine, which is one the things that killed BeOS. They can create code that renders the competing product ineffective, which is one of the things that essentially has killed Netscape. They choose not to ship or support a product that is in generally use, which they did with Java and now has to ship. They make it difficult to set competing application as default, which they do with virtually every internet utility. Remember when it was all the craze to commodities the desktop and sell the real estate?

Third, MS can simple steal the technology and attempt to destroy the company, which is what claims happened to them.

Apple does not have option one or two, and can only occasionally exercise option three. Therefore to protect it's market share and protect it's trademarks and copyrights, it must sue. I do not agree with MS business practices, and I wish Apple could find another way to protect it's products. Also, I am glad Apple did not win the case against MS and the theft of the Apple desktop, although I wish that the court would have used the occasion to tame MS criminal practices.

One last point. To treat the Lindows as a purely trademark dispute is quite naive. Now it is true that Windows itself may, in time, become a nearly free product, MS will gain most of it's money through subscription applications, and Lindows users may prove a lucrative revenue in the same way that Apple users now are. However, that time is not now and may never come, Lindows may provide a means for users to migrate off a MS platform, and ultimately threaten the monopoly. This lawsuit is simply as the first foray into battle. An XP clone for Linux is the same principle.

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason why they don't sue is because they have nothing to sue for. Everything they have, have been ripped off others, so theres nothing proprietary in their interface they could legitemately sue anyone for using.

Just remember the guy who made memmaker (back in the ms-dos days). The rip-off of Apple's design and everything else they've stolen.

It seems to me that Microsoft has a very clear marketing plan:

1. Rip-Off peoples ideas and sell them
2. Creating their own version of standards
3. 1 and 2 over and over again. 4. 3... N. n-1..

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, and maybe this is their opinion too, but I can't see why they'd WANT to sue.

Wine, samba, this xpde thing... all these things are designed to make Linux operate more like/with Windows. Or, to put it a different way: All these projects are designed to fool the stupid into thinking Linux is the Real Thing(tm).

If you are a dumb person who works for a typical company, and your IT staff put a lot of effort into making your desktop computer run Linux and interoperate with all the MS servers in the place, you probably don't even KNOW it's Linux. MS are happy because that means the moment you go out to get a computer for home, you'll *happily* get XP because YOU THINK THAT'S WHAT IT IS. All this action helps to INCREASE XP's sales not decrease.

True story: our office used to be more or less all macintosh (old too, OS8 wasn't even out). Secretary used a Mac for four years. Eventually she bought a computer for home... she ran for a couple of months before she realized that she wasn't using a Mac, she'd bought a PC with win95 on it.

I'm not saying this says "See, interfaces are so alike they couldn't tell", it's really "This person, like 90% of people, do so little with their computers they don't realize it's different".

Re:Lawsuit

[thx2001r]

Exactly, and as they say, Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

I take issue with your BeOS and Netscape comments.

BeOS died because of stupid marketing on their part. Creating a successful new OS in this market is extremely hard (near impossible for a commercial product). BeOS seemed to always target the wrong audience and kept switching goals and therefore ended up being nothing to no-one.

Netscape (browser) died because Microsoft *gasp* actually created a better browser. IE started out crappy but quickly became much better than Netscape Navigator (faster, the URL search/completion thing, etc.). Netscape couldn't keep up and a huge chunk of people switch to using IE. It just snowballed from there and Netscape got farther and farther behind. So they went open-source. It's only been recently that Mozilla/Phoenix have surpassed IE as the better browser (tabbed browsing, themes/extensions, etc.).

Re:Lawsuit

[sheriff_p]

(mod parent up)

I dunno though. There's the old adage about Microsoft not caring if you steal copies of Office for home use, because they make the big bucks from business...

Re:Lawsuit

[Reality Master 101]

BeOS seemed to always target the wrong audience and kept switching goals and therefore ended up being nothing to no-one.

And exactly what market should they have targeted? They kept switching markets because every market kept slamming the door in their face.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: people don't buy operating systems, they buy applications. Exactly what did BeOS provide for an application that another operating system couldn't? Where was the "killer app" that would drive the market to BeOS?

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Many years ago in university. Autodesk gave our department a more or less free site license for AutoCAD (R11 or R12 at the time, I think). The students also pirated it like crazy.

The upshot of course... all these little drones then 'learn' autocad. They go out in the workplace and when the employer says "we need CADD" they say "Well, I took Autocad in university" and BING a sale of Autocad (at like $5000).

Re:Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Be would have had better luck if they bought/developed some proprietary application software. They could have sold dedicated audio/video workstations at a nice profit margin (look into the cost of Avids), and not spent so much time dinking with web browsers, OpenGL, NIC drivers and so on.

Their main problem was that they were trying to be Microsoft - everyone to everybody on every piece of hardware.

That's very expensive - even a big company like Apple was too scared to try it, and a bigger company like IBM didn't have much luck when they tried it with OS/2.

Re:Lawsuit

[Rew190]

Well- with a few exceptions, Linux's GUI is trying to keep up with MS's. Say what you will about MS, but I think their GUI has a nice feel and generally makes sense. I can't really say the same for Linux's. I feel the two big boys are coming along, but have a ways to go as far as catching up with MS. MS has invested years and god knows how much money into researching GUI's- why not take advantage of this?

This kind of project could pull in a lot of folks who want Linux stability/reliability with a MS feel. I imagine that's a pretty decent-sized market.

Re:Lawsuit

[Strudelkugel]

You are exactly right. In business, one can do pretty well just by not making catastophic mistakes. Sooner or later your competitors will, and the market will eliminate them for you. The Linux community is doing M$ a big favor by copying the Windows interface, which will have exactly the effect that you mention. Linux will become the K-Tel not-the-original-artists crap knock-off product that the general public will avoid.

On the other hand, there is an original, very powerful, intuitive Linux UI that I use every day. It happens to be rendered by my TiVo. While Linux is fun to tinker with, that is irrelevant to me from a business perspective since I write software and enjoy this kind of activity. When non-tech people ask me what kind of PC to buy, I tell them to watch the Dell site for deals and buy the lowest cost XP machine that suits their needs. Why? Easy: it will run the software they already have, easy to install new hardware since drivers aren't a problem (generally), and lots of "idiots" and "dummy" books to explain the basics.

I tell the M$ haters to go buy a white box at the local hole-in-the-wall and load Red Hat. Then they find out it doesn't run some esoteric program they have and complain. In the end, they refuse to buy XP and give M$ the money, they can't get their dog weight estimator software for Linux, so they stick with '98 or '95! The best thing about Linux ideas is that they keep M$ spooked, which means M$ isn't going to turn stupid the way IBM and all of the moronic *nix companies did in the 80s-90s.

From a business model perspective, Linux is best suited for mass-produced hardware devices where cost is a major consideration. All the talk about KDE/Gnome/XPde, etc is just a re-hash of the time when Windows 3.1 came out and Sun, HP, IBM and others were pushing their UI of the day. -Been there done that-

Speaking of Sun "Innovation-Through-Litigation" Microsystems, who are they going to sue next? Philip Morris? Gee, if they could get the Java VM shipped with every pack of Marlboros, they might actually make money on Java!

Local maximum

[yerricde]

Why the hell are these people cloning the Windows UI?!

Because it's a "local maximum". It takes effort to go from one local maximum to another. This XPde is designed to teleport the user directly from a local maximum on Windows to a corresponding local maximum on *n?x, so that you can separate adapting to the OS and adapting to the UI into separate tasks.

Re:Local maximum

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes effort to go from one local maximum to another.

No it doesnt -- unless the potential surface you are traversing is non-conservative.

Re:Local maximum

[daveinthesky]

True, but I would hardly call XP a local maximum as far as good UI design or aesthetics is concerned.

Re:Local maximum

[fault0]

It's pretty obvious that it's a local maximum in terms of users. This is of course, what the original poster was referring to.

Clones sell... but who's complaining?

[disc-chord]

Let me preface this by saying I do not use *nix as a desktop OS. I run FreeBSD on my router-box, I don't want my router looking pretty... I want it to be secure.

But for those who do run *nix as a desktop OS, there are so many alternative interfaces (how many themes for Enlightenment are there?) that completely blow XP out of the water, I cannot imagine where this deep desire for an XP clone comes from.

Considering most people who chosse *nix as their desktop OS are those that want an extremely customizable experience, I just don't see this getting a tremendous amount of love... but as other posters have pointed out, probably a fair amount of legal trouble.

Re:Clones sell... but who's complaining?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want it to be secure.

And you use FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD? Your logic escapes me.

Re:Clones sell... but who's complaining?

[fault0]

> But for those who do run *nix as a desktop OS, there are so many alternative interfaces (how many themes for Enlightenment are there?) that completely blow XP out of the water, I cannot imagine where this deep desire for an XP clone comes from.

Have you thought that some people actually like/are used to Windows/WindowsXP and the Windows/XP look? Hence all the Luna theme knockoffs and Explorer-like file managers, and startmenu/taskbar knockoffs (kde, gnome, icewm, qvwm, just from the top of my head)

Re:Clones sell... but who's complaining?

[Sabbath.sCm]

I'd want it to be pretty AND secure.

Re:Clones sell... but who's complaining?

[Anonymous Coward]

then you want this. rumors are that it will be sold for x86 hardware in the not to distant future.

j'espair...

Re:Clones sell... but who's complaining?

[squiggleslash]

If it's not a stupid question, why the hell don't these people use Windows XP then?

I mean: If Windows XP is what they want, why shouldn't they use it? Why is it necessary to pollute the Unix/Linux/BSD codebase (and it does pollute, because every new piece of code becomes a new focal point of inertia that will need to be moved should basic necessities be added to the base standards, where the HELL is file metadata for example? Why isn't in Unix yet? NeXT had no problems implementing it in 1985, so why are we still years away from an open, commonly implemented, standard? Because of this kind of moronic project, that's why) to promote the use of Linux to people who want to use an entirely different operating system?

I am not a Linux user because I want to be different for the sake of being different. I'm a Linux user because I like the Unix way of doing things better than the Windows way of doing things, because I work better in that environment than I do in Windows.

Let the Windows users keep to Windows. There's no reason why they should change.

Re:Clones sell... but who's complaining?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, because OBSD turns on apache by default and fBSD doesnt? Silly.

Embrace and extend

[ites]

Boring and nasty work compared to boldly going where no hacker has gone before, but totally vital. MS showed that software competition is about feature lists, and Linux has to be able to match and then beat Windows on every feature list. There is a good chance this project will get sued but that also means publicity.
Personally, though, I think that playing catch-up with the Monster from Redmond can only work so far. What the FOSS world needs is a killer application, something so radical and useful that it transcends all discussion of look and feel.
The Web was almost this application, but MS caught up just in time. So, what's next? Opinions, please?

Re:Embrace and extend

[Gorgonzola]

You are assuming that Linux is about beating Windows. It isn't. It is about getting a kernel that together with the GNU tools and other contributions constitutes an operating system that isn't crappy.

If that requires certain features, then they will be added as soon as someone feels an itch about the lack of them. If they are useless features that only should be included if Linux was in the game of beating Microsoft, but nobody actually will be using them, then they never will get in there.

Here's the point

[slashuzer]

It is not intended to "emulate" XP; rather to provide a visually similar enviornment to ease the learning curve. Kindly see my comment here.

Re:Here's the point

[craenor]

I realize that, and acknowledged it in my post. But I don't see Linux going mainstream for awhile. And if something like this pushes it mainstream, I think it would be for the wrong reasons.

I want to learn Linux for the sake of learning Linux. I want to see something completely different. I don't want the learning curve to be eased, I want the full Linux experience.

But maybe this is just me, I sure can't speak for everyone. But I know this, you average person doesn't just decide to up and learn Linux. They need a reson...for me, that reason is that Linux is different and well respected by the people in the computer world that I respect the most.

Re:Here's the point

[Col. Panic]

I want to learn Linux for the sake of learning Linux.

Good for you - so did I.

I want to see something completely different.

You will have a wide variety of desktop environments to choose from.

I don't want the learning curve to be eased, I want the full Linux experience.

Then don't install X windows at all :/

Re:Here's the point

[fault0]

> I want the full Linux experience.

I don't think you understand the fact that there is no *one* true Linux experience.

It could be a number of things, such as:

1. Someone running Virtual Terminals and Screen only - no XWindows
2. Someone running XWindows with a "hardcore" window manager such as ion and ratpoison, or running an old window manager such as twm or mwm.
3. Someone running one of the mid-level window maangers such as wmaker, E, fluxbox, etc..
4. Someone running stock versions of KDE/GNOME.
5. Someone running one of the various "windowzied" KDE versions such as Lindows/Lycoris/Xandros, etc..
6. Someone running xpde.

None of them is the true "full Linux experience", because there is none.

On the other hand, if you really want to learn Linux from the inside out, I think you should take a look at LFS.

Re:Here's the point

[mijok]

I want to learn Linux for the sake of learning Linux. I want to see something completely different. I don't want the learning curve to be eased, I want the full Linux experience.
What makes you think that Linux is more difficult? Yes, I admit, basic things are far easier in Windows but once you get a more complicated problem - presuming that you do something more than word processing and playing games, which I assume you're interested in doing if you want to learn Linux - Linux is (imho) much easier. You get more elaborate error messages, you're not limited to using the given GUI for configuration (sure you can change the registry manually but I really doubt that is feasible). Instead you can pick from a number of configuration programs or edit the files manually (and then really learn what they do). In general, Linux gets easier since you get more knowledge about what it does "under the hood".

Re:Here's the point

[October_30th]

The "advantages" you list just indicate that you do not understand why people find Linux difficult to learn and use: too much freedom. You should only have one GUI for configuration, strictly limited freedom to customize the system and no access to configuration files. Anything else is damnably confusing to a newbie.

Re:Here's the point

[mijok]

I don't quite agree. Your comment did remind me of my beginner days... I remember how I once I'd learnt how to configure things desperately tried to find (googling etc.) exactly the "right" solution to problems. If I found one solution (eg. where to put hdparm at startup) and then another I got very unsure which to choose. So I don't think the problem is the many different ways to configure things but the lack of "verification" that what you've done is one correct solution (even though there may be others).

Re:Here's the point

[oliverthered]

hmm.. good point, It would be nice if linuxconfig etc... gave you the option of a delta for your changes, so that you could see where the files were and what was going on.

It takes a hell of a lot of digging to find the correct configuration files, and the correct commands to reload the configuration.

n.b. A year wiithout windows at home and i havn't used a GUI configuration for the past 6 months at least. I've helped write an ADSL USB modem driver and done some poking around in the kernel.

If you have nothing to hide

[oliverthered]

Then why should they bother looking?

You should be worried, maybe oneday 'they' will decide that something you are doing is wrong.

One Good Thing

[E-Rock-23]

Upon looking at the screenshots, I found one good thing about Xpde: No nasty green, nausea-inducing start button. If they're going to go forward with this, I hope they keep that regular start button standard.

Personally, I'm fond of KDE-3's default look, with backgrounds from Digital Blasphemy.

Strikes me that

[Anonymous Coward]

these Linux folk are great at starting ambitious projects, but not finishing them. I'm not holding my breath.

Mod me down.

You Anonymous Clod!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe in God, you Anonymous Clod!

Phew...

[Dark Lord Seth]

At least they aren't using the standard XP toolbar (yet). The original XP toolbar has to be the most vile and horrific concept ever dreamed up by Microsoft. Sure, the insecurities are tolerable to a certain level, the incompatibility with most things I used was not a great concern, the fact the XP install made 4gb of (semi-legal)[1] MP3s vanish wasn't too bad either as is the fact it INSISTS to log on to my linux server as "$servername\Guest", but the toolbar... In Eris' name, the toolbar made me want to gauge my own eyes out with the install CD...

[1] Semi legal being illegal really, but it were FF8 soundtrack mp3s and I have the PC version with glorious midi sound. Listing to the midis made me feel like someone was shoving a chainsaw in my ears and twisting it, so I wanted something better for my money. Besides, the PSX version had digital music and both the PC and the PSX version were priced the same.

Re:Phew...

[Anonymous Coward]

linux server as "$servername\Guest"

And your problem with that is...?

Re:Phew...

[Anonymous Coward]

You had 4gb of FF8 soundtrack mp3s?

Interfaces suck these days..

[nother_nix_hacker]

..I like to work in a productive enviroment and so have chosen Fluxbox or Ratpoison as my WM and then usually use Rxvt (Emacs, Gnus...) and Mozilla. This means my enviroment is very stable and productive. Over Christmas I have come home (from Teeside, where I'm at uni) and have been lumbered using XP on my dads box. I find I can't do anything quickly at all. It just feels so clunky and bloated, luckily Emacs runs on it! :)

I can see what these boys are trying to achive but I would like to see other people realise just what an OS should be like. I guess moving them to Linux in the first step though!

Re:Interfaces suck these days..

[NDPTAL85]

An OS is supposed to be like whatever you want it to be like. There is no established standard of what it should be.

Re:Interfaces suck these days..

[Anonymous Coward]

At least you got the words "clunky" and "Emacs" in the same post.

How many years did you spent learning the Emacs utterily unintuitive and thus practically impossible to remember CTRL+ALT+META+x+CTRL+t style commands?

And talk about its help system. Jesus. I mean the Windows help is useless but at least you can naviagate it. In Emacs you first get stuck in a miniwindow and when you finally, by random experimentation, realize that CTRL+g (how intuitive again) lets you out of it, you get into the "info" hierarchy where you have, for some insane reason, two different sets of commands for traveling up and down the tree.

Re:Interfaces suck these days..

[v(*_*)vvvv]

An OS is supposed to be like whatever you want it to be like.

That in itself is a standard.

Many experienced users will vote for this view, but when a novice does not even know what to like, then this model is weak.

Re:Interfaces suck these days..

[nother_nix_hacker]

An OS is supposed to be like whatever you want it to be like. There is no established standard of what it should be.

But the point is they n00bs will never experience that setup if they move from XP to an XP like interface. They should of course have a choise though.

Re:Wankers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Over here in Europe we are mostly what you would call heathens and neo-pagans so going to church is not exactly at the top of our to-do list on the X-mas morning.

how long before it gets sued?

[I Want GNU!]

I mean, it has XP in the name, and the reason is that it's an XP-like desktop environment. And it looks just like WinXP. Seriously, how long before it gets sued?

On the other hand, it does look pretty nice, and if it could survive legal wranglings it might make linux at least look like Windows. They're doing better than the Lindows people at that.

I think program emulation (think WINE) might be more important, of course. People aren't gonna change because it "looks like windows." If they want Windows, they'll probably just buy Windows. If they want Linux, they'll download Linux. Linux has to make special reasons for downloading it. On my Windows partition, I use Mozilla because of its features (tabbed browsing, block popup ads, and type ahead find is a bonus that came after I switched). If Mozilla was just an IE clone that worked almost as well at rendering pages (which is tough since IE renders fake MS-HTML and broken Frontpage code and fake Javascript, etc) then I'd use IE.

Re:how long before it gets sued?

[pjrc]

If they want Windows, they'll probably just buy Windows. If they want Linux, they'll download Linux.

The real question is what they will do if they want the least expensive PC that meets their needs. Or hundreds of such machines....

Re:how long before it gets sued?

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess? Never. Why? Because its open source and Microsoft isn't as dumb as you think. They will not get their entire squadron of lawyers and sue the crap out of XPde, they will first send them a 34 cent cease-and-desist letter. Then, if XPde continues, Microsoft will just get their inhouse court to shutdown XPde and XPde will go the way of napster.

-dk

Re:how long before it gets sued?

[thx2001r]

Actually, the visual theme looks more like Windows 2000, or XP in the "Windows Classic" mode. The "Luna" theme, which by the way looks lousy in blue and looks much better in the "Silver" color scheme (in my opinion), is, I'm sure copyrighted in some way or another.

I agree, program emulation should be the more important issue because that is what's needed more.

Re:how long before it gets sued?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they want Windows, they'll probably just buy Windows. If they want Linux, they'll download Linux.

If they want Windows, they'll buy a computer with Windows. If they want Linux, they'll buy computer parts, assemble them, and borrow a red hat CD from a friend. Linux won't be nearly as abailable as Windows to the masses, until the big name people push it with at least "just as good". Note: regardless of the fact that YOU can download Linux, most people don't have broadband, and installing Windows or Linux is not something that most people want to do. They just want their computer to work. ls and vi are too much of a learning curve for most people.

Dude, you're getting a Dell. Note the Intel Inside and the Microsoft Windows XP logo... You want to impress me with ease of use on a Linux system? Make it entirely self configuring and helpful with the most used tasks by CONSUMERS (not GEEKS).

Copying the Windows UI is stupid, because it's missing the functionality. I recently gave my friend, the Linux geek, a CD my wife burned from taking pictures with my Digital Camera. On our computer, when you insert the CD, it just comes up. He spent 15 minutes getting a worse experience than my wife does in 5 seconds.

I will admit that there probably are distributions of Linux that have better consumer experiences, but Linux doesn't mean the best distro to me, Linux means the kernel. When people hype the kernal of an OS, but it gives an inconsistent experience, the battle is lost.

Re:how long before it gets sued?

[Rysc]

~ATTENTION~

After being contacted by Microsoft officials the XP-like Desktop Environment is hereby renaming itself to the "Xtremely Pretty Desktop Environment"

Thank you, you may go about your business,

Is this wise ?

[Krapangor]

It sometimes seems to me that OSS developers are always chasing MS and other commercial software producers by copying the features of their products.
I doubt that they will ever overtake them by this strategy. They should develop something new. The whole P2P stuff showed that this is indeed possible.

Keramik

[Anonymous Coward]

Keramik blows that stupid luna interace out of the water, KDE 3.1 when released will be the new standard in Eye candy. Translucent menus, Anti Alaising, Large Crystal Icons, Menu shadows and extreme scalability! (Good news for high and low res monitors)

Windows is very ugly compared to kde 3.1, and people know it! There are clones for that too (Geramik for example) and the clones SUCK!

Re:Keramik

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and KDE 3.1 will be coming to Debian when?

Goddammit. I havent been able to even buy a new graphics card for a long time because Debian still insists on using the ancient XFree86 3.x.

Re:Keramik

[Anonymous Coward]

Woody(the latest stable) release uses XFree 4 by default. KDE 3.1 isnt even released yet and you can get KDE 3.0.5 debs from the KDE ftp servers.

Re:Keramik

[twener]

I read that KDE 3.1 will enter sid shortly after KDE release and there will be also KDE 3.1 packages for woody.

Re:Keramik

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that episode of TNG where Picard and the insignificant supporting characters got into a transporter accident that turned them into children? And the Ferengi came aboard and took control of the ship and locked the children, including Picard, in the nursery? And Picard had to use the nursery computer to go all McClane and take the ship back? And how the interface on the nursery computer looked?

Keramik looks like that.

beware...

[middle]

of the dark side of the force!

Long-live all the differences that linux provides and let's try to i n n o v a t e rather than copy!!

Theres enough XP clones

[HanzoSan]

Why would I want a clone of XP? KDE does a good enouggh job doing it already.

I dont want anymore Linux XP clones, as if XP is such a great interface.

XP is crap, Clone OSX or something.

Dvorak won't be pleased.

[Sh0t]

Dvorak will be writing an article about them shortly beyond any doubt : )

Windows also supports Viruses

[HanzoSan]

Trojans too, and hidden exploits which would allow me to delete all your files from a website just like this one.

Re:Windows also supports Viruses

[thebigmacd]

This is not a troll, nor it is intended to be flamebait. This is biased information based on my experience alone, consisting of gross generalizations and blatant opinion ;)

If you are a reasonably current Slashdot-type, you will not get viruses on your Windows computer. Some security patches require deliberate visits to windowsupdate.microsoft.com because they aren't automatically installed, and some require being up-to-date on the latest News for Nerds and bugtraq, but as long as you ignore spam and run a reasonably new virus scanner, and dont open forwarded personal email, you will stay virus free.

Four years and counting here, from win 98 to 2000 to XP, and only two viruses ever occured and by that time I had Anti Virus, which caught them. Plus, those two 'viruses' were actually trojans that I consciously downloaded over P2P thinking they were cracks for games. Don't trust small executables.

I was running IIS when Code Red was around, but since I patched immediately with a patch from F-Prot, I remained untouched. Another thing I did was switch to Apache for Win32 :)

Oh...another thing...any reasonably security-conscious /.-type would only use NT5 if they were to use Windows.

Re:Windows also supports Viruses

[fault0]

That argument is not really valid. Every operating system supports virii and trojans. Granted, Windows has far many of them, but when patched/updated/auto-updated, something like WindowsXP should not be more prone to them than Linux. Windows just has way more virii and trojans as way more people use it.

If Linux ever conquers the desktop, you'll see many virii in it too.

Re:Windows also supports Viruses

[HanzoSan]

CodeRed?

Just because you patch AFTER a virus is discovered does not mean you are safe.

You only patched after the fact, when Microsoft decides to make you the patch, what if you discover a bug or hackers discover a bug in windows and there is no patch? then you have to wait for Microsoft to patc h it and hope no other hackers know about the bug too.
Remember Winnuke?

Re:Windows also supports Viruses

[HanzoSan]

" That argument is not really valid. Every operating system supports virii and trojans. Granted, Windows has far many of them, but when patched/updated/auto-updated, something like WindowsXP should not be more prone to them than Linux. Windows just has way more virii and trojans as way more people use it.

If Linux ever conquers the desktop, you'll see many virii in it too."

How do you get infected by a virus on Linux when everything is open source? Compile the code if you are paraniod, but if not, use MD5 or whatever the hell its called to verify every file you run.

Theres no way to hide a trojan in a file in Linux, its impossible to hide them because you can compile code yourself, even if you are infected by a virus due to your own stupidity of not checking the code, your entire computer is not infected, but just one user account, a virus cannot gain root access easily, and neither can a trojan.

Fact is, Linux is already the main target of hackers, no one writes viruses to kill home users computers, Code Red and most of the major viruses were written to take control of servers, Servers run Linux, but it seems only NT gets infected by viruses these days.

Patches dont work because they only protect you after you've been infected.

Re:Windows also supports Viruses

[Anonymous Coward]

I ran Apache by the time Code Red hit. And no, I had a Mac before my Win2K machine, so I never experienced winnuke.

Re:Windows also supports Viruses

[fault0]

> How do you get infected by a virus on Linux when everything is open source? Compile the code if you are paraniod, but if not, use MD5 or whatever the hell its called to verify every file you run.

Not everything in the Linux world is open sourced. There are many sectors of the software market that will continue to be primarily closed and propreitary. For example, any credible virus maker could easily distribute either a Linux or Windows versions of Quake3 with a virus embedded in it. Linux is not inheriently more virus-proof than Windows, but is so currently because of usage.

> Theres no way to hide a trojan in a file in Linux, its impossible to hide them because you can compile code yourself, even if you are infected by a virus due to your own stupidity of not checking the code, your entire computer is not infected, but just one user account, a virus cannot gain root access easily, and neither can a trojan.

Uh, when was the last time you personally checked (as in auditted), every line of a large(r) project, such as KDE, GNOME, apache, Mozilla, OO, etc.., before you compiled it and installed it. Do you really trust the source after you compile it? There have been many instances where crackers hack into open source websites/mirrors, and put in trojans directly in the source.

> Fact is, Linux is already the main target of hackers, no one writes viruses to kill home users computers.

Of course, but people will if Linux ever gets a big chunk of the desktop/home market.

> Patches dont work because they only protect you after you've been infected.

No, patches work so that the virii/trojan/hack doesn't work in the first place. Usually, other software must clear any infection.

Re:Windows also supports Viruses

[HanzoSan]

any credible virus maker could easily distribute either a Linux or Windows versions of Quake3 with a virus embedded in it.

MD5 checksum or whatever the hell its called, the same way you figure out if an ISO or file is corrupt, you can find out if a Quake binary is corrupt, how would a virus embeded into a program get past a binary check? Unless the virus comes directly from ID software its not going to work.


Linux is not inheriently more virus-proof than Windows, but is so currently because of usage.


Ok lets assume you did somehow infect my system with a virus, consider the fact that I'm not in root by default like Windows, how would you infect my entire machine? At most you'd only infect one account on my machine because a virus would have no way of getting my root password, or at least no easy way.




No, patches work so that the virii/trojan/hack doesn't work in the first place. Usually, other software must clear any infection.

In order for patches to be written someone had to be infected in the first place, what if you happened to be one of the ones infected before the patch gets written? Usually its only a few thousand but sometimes it can be millions.



Uh, when was the last time you personally checked (as in auditted), every line of a large(r) project, such as KDE, GNOME, apache, Mozilla, OO, etc.., before you compiled it and installed it. Do you really trust the source after you compile it? There have been many instances where crackers hack into open source websites/mirrors, and put in trojans directly in the source.
I get my software from high quality sources, directly from mozilla, or directly from Redhat, Redhat checks every peice of software so by the time I get it there are no viruses unless someone hacks Redhat.



Of course, but people will if Linux ever gets a big chunk of the desktop/home market.


You dont understand my po-int, all of the best hackers are already trying to hack Linux, what do you think all of the hackers target? WindowsXP? Or Linux? Only newbie wannabe winnuke using subseven loving crackers deal with Windows, crackers usually are less skilled than hackers and go after the easiest target (Windows users), They break into peoples machines to destroy them, they have fun watching people suffer, these people arent always skilled.

Hackers however break into machines for specific purposes, usually because theres some information they want or need, such as an ex employee hacking into the companies servers to get information to screw the company over, or a group of guys who hack into paypal to steal credit information. Hackers go after high profile targets, not corny WindowsXP.
The reason WindowsXP has so many viruses infecting it is simply because its easy to write them, its easier to write a virus than it is to write real software in WindowsXP, consider how complicated the WindowsAPI is, its easier to write a file to do some low level function in C such as fill the drive up with junk, or log keystrokes, than to actually write a REAL application.

Hackers while they dont write Viruses do write worms and Linux will have to deal with Worms, unlike a Virus a worm breaks into your machine via some exploit or a bug in the code, copies enough information to spread itself to all your friends, and so on, such as a worm which you are infected with, which has code which activates when you run Gnutella and then runs the same exploit on all the Gnutella users as it ran on you, just so it can spread itself around, so that the hacker later on, then at a set date or at the time when its hooked into a certain amount of machines, it launches a denial of service attack against DNS servers.

This is an example of how Worms can work. Honestly though most virus writers arent skilled enough to do this, thats why theres only a handful of worms like Code Red.

Now, consider the fact that if everyone were using Linux, writing a worm would be the only way to actually infect Linux, you'd have to write a worm which infects a user through an exploit in the Linux source code such as a buffer overflow, then you'd have to somehow through a trick get their root password, such as making their screen go black and putting them in front of a loginscreen which looks exactly like theirs and catching their keystrokes, then putting them back on KDE or Gnome, you'd have to go through alot of trouble to hack into a Linux computer.

How many hackers would be able to do this? Maybe a few thousand? How quickly would Virii be patched? The same day the first person is infected, so a virus would not have enough time to spread like Windows Viruses do. Linux is very secure, if you think its easy to write a Virus to infect Linux and Windows, Do it, write a virus which infects both.

linux becoming windows...

[john_uy]

linux is becoming like windows. and maybe in the future, linux people may simply keep following what microsoft is doing with windows.

so this only shows us two things (or maybe more depending on the person), microsoft is better so it is just normal to copy from microsoft (so microsoft indeed is innovating) or one thing to increase the adoption of linux is to make it like windows (for user friendliness and ease of migration.)

then what the hell do we need linux for? microsoft will always be a step ahead the linux in that field.

i am not undermining the efforts of the group, they are good.

but i think we should see new things coming from the community. the thing i have observed from previous years here at slashdot is that there are lots of projects being made that copies ones from commercial software (aside from microsoft.) so i don't see any innovation.

the thing is, i (this is my opinion) only see linux as a free alternative to commercial software and not because it is better (of course many people will argue me about this.) i have no reason to change (maybe expect when i'm broke) because i do not find it to be very superior compared to commercial software.

but i think it is about time that i see a different way of doing things. since linux is different to begin with, i think the community should develop better apps. think of having different concepts that goes beyond features that are different with commercial software. i must admit this is difficult but i believe that when everybody do this, i will see linux in every computer years from now. but if copying ideas will promulgate, it may just meet its demise.

i am speaking from a consumer perspective. think of what does linux have to offer different and better compared to the others. you will see a significant advantage to that. i believe there are already good projects among the developers. i am just waiting for them to become ripe.

Re:linux becoming windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

"then what the hell do we need linux for? microsoft will always be a step ahead the linux in that field"

This is about an interface, the Linux kernal is far supoerior then MS, so in that aspect we are all ready ahead of MS.

For me, it has become more of a philisophical issue, rather then technical. I do not like the way MS operates there business, so I don't purchase there products. If MS removed there damn spyware, and had a reasonable EULA, I would give it a try, but since I don't want to give up the rights to my data, I wont use XP.

The point is Linux is *too much* like XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Why try to imitate a clunky interface?

Why clone the XP interface

[horcy]

KDE is way kewler. But if this is the way to pull people away from the M$ syndicate... So shall it be ;)

good luck

[mrm677]

Good luck with recreating the beautiful text rendering and responsiveness of Windows XP.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

"beautiful" being of course highly subjective... *highly*...

responsiveness... I've seen XP desktops that choked on 2.4Ghz P4's and Linux window servers that only started to choked on 333Mhz P3's...

Jackass.

Merry Khrostm0s!

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

XP runs fine on my P3-m 1000. You can screw up any setup. DOS can choke on my Athlon 2200 too. Wow! People can misconfigure computer, no suprise there.

Why would anyone want to do this?

[Xpilot]

The Windows XP interface is hideous!!!

Mod me down if you like, but XP is frickin' ugly!. Contrasting primary colors? Who's lamebrain idea was that? And that sickening shade of blue... ugh... and those fat borders. Excuse me while I puke just thinking about it.

There. Somebody had to say it.

Just because it's from Microsoft it doesn't make it automatically "pretty".

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[Taos]

You hit it right on the head actually. I don't know who designed the thing, but every art degree on the planet starts all their students with basic color theory. Surely Microsoft has some graphic designers on their payroll that could look at it and barf.

Either that or someone switched their color wheel with the Twister spinner.

Rich

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[carpe_noctem]

Just because it's from Microsoft it doesn't make it automatically "pretty".

No, it doesn't, but because it's from Microsoft -does- make it socially acceptable and "mainstream", if you will. Look at the latest fashion trends and pop hits on the radio...many people will bitch and moan about the lack of style there, but embrace the new fads simply because everyone else is doing it.

On that note, I find it a bit sad that linux programmers have stooped to the point of trying to win over users by copying the leader. And quite frankly, as interesting as this new wm looks, I think I'll stick with waimea, because it is different and not ugly. ;)

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[mijok]

I agree - I almost threw up when I saw the screenshots ;) However, for the average computer user XP is probably still appealing. I've read a few publications on GUI design and one important thing is choosing the right colours. There are numerous examples of how colours affect people (the changes in mood can be measured in your brainwaves). And I'm pretty damn sure that MS has employed some of the very best experts to decide what it should look like.

Offtopic: People looking at something see many things that never reach the concious mind. A very basic example of this is how people "read" pictures (ie. in the same direction you read text) - many art books contain a simple example picture (I'll do my best to describe it): A crowd of protesters on the left side and a group of soldiers on the right - it looks like the crowd is pushing the soldiers back. When the picture is flipped around (ie. exactly the same image mirrored) it looks like the soldiers are pushing the crowd back.

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[Reziac]

Even as a Windows user, I agree -- the *default* WinXP interface is one of the most damned ugly annoying things I'd seen in years; even old low-res DOS GUIs looked better!! Reminds me of nothing so much as an etch-a-sketch that's been assaulted with fingerpaint.

Fortunately, you can turn the damned thing off and use the "classic" Windows interface (Win2K look).

Fortunately, the XPde people are smart enough to recognise both -- per the screenies I've seen, they're cloning the *classic* interface. (And a right good job of it -- only thing I noticed missing is transparency behind desktop icons.)

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[Rinikusu]

No fucking shit.

I mean, if they can fork over millions to get the rights to play "Start Me Up" from the Stones, you'd think they could throw Christopher Lowell a few bones to come up with a decent color scheme.

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[teslatug]

Have a look at that puke after you're done. You'll see where the inspiration came from. The first thing I do after an XP install is disable all the themes and revert back to Classic, which they thankfully left available.

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[nfotxn]

No, it doesn't, but because it's from Microsoft -does- make it socially acceptable and "mainstream", if you will. Look at the latest fashion trends and pop hits on the radio...many people will bitch and moan about the lack of style there, but embrace the new fads simply because everyone else is doing it.

Thanks for saying it first. To further the music analogy, MS is pop music. It's garish, simplistic and usually lacking genuine depth but people like it because it's readily accessible. Apple works conversely by tapping the market of people (artists and geeks alike now) looking for a interface that's had a lot of thought and depth put into it. Doesn't make one or the other any better it just works for different people. I'd argue that as computer users mature with their user interfaces we'll see more of the good ideas filter down from the haute couture to the ready-to-wear as time goes on. Just like fashion.

It's just a sign of how big The Industry is that it's starting to develop cultures of users with distinct preferences. Imagine if everyone had to "wear" the win95 interface? Fuck that!

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

"There. Somebody had to say it."

Moron. The standard default XP is "frickin' ugly"... but like most *nix dickheads, you fail to realize this interface can be changed in many different ways. And no, not just turning it off (e.g. Classic Mode). Take some advice, instead of ONLY bitching and moaning, LEARN about what you yearn to bitch about... thus making your arguments more solid. Knowledge is power, and your bantering holds as much power as a boulder at the bottom of a hill.

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[thx2001r]

The blue is the default color scheme (which is probably to have some sort of continuity from the previously defaulted at blue for other versions of windows color themes). Of course, blue looks cartoony and stupid.

Under the "Display Properties -> Appearance (Tab)" select one of the other color schemes that ship with WinXP (or download others)... I like the "Silver" scheme.

Also, all the "fat borders" can easily be slimmed down. If you like the Win9x/2000 look, two options changed will make it look that way again (and save you a little GUI overhead if you're running an older video card).

Of course, there's also a multitude of themes and desktop modification systems for WinXP, as with all the other OS's these days, your desktop is whatever you want to make it look like.

Shouldn't the underlying OS kernel be the thing that bothers everyone since GUI's can easily be changed? Or is it now solely based on hating the corporation?

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[Matt - Duke '05]

The first slashdot post to honestly make me laugh out loud in quite some time =)

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[Rysc]

Missing, you say?

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[MattCohn.com]

Um, uhhhhh.... I think he's talking about the transparancy behind the text lables. In XP, you don't have a block of the color of your desktop behind each name, instead they have a small drop shadow like OSX. Something I've been waiting for... (even though I don't have a wallpaper...)

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[Reziac]

Yes, missing, because it's only transparent behind the *icon*. The icon *label* lacks transparency.
This is actually the reason why out of all my Windesktops, only WinXP has a graphic -- because the blanked-out area behind the icon *label* looks so ugly otherwise. (There's a freeware util to add label transparency for Win9*, but I haven't got around to trying it on the other machines.)

Re:Why would anyone want to do this?

[ceejayoz]

Maybe if you'd looked at the screenshots, you'd have noticed that they're actually copying the Classic theme - that is, it'll look like Windows 2000.

Leave Out The Nagware Too...

[Shuh]

And the spyware,
And the DRM,
And the instability,


And I'd buy that for a dollar!

Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Rui del-Negro]

Honestly, I think some people in the Linux community are just too obssessed with Microsoft to produce anything useful. They say Microsoft sucks but then they waste their time copying it. Why would someone want to "migrate" to something that looks the same and can't run most software? It makes no sense.

"Hey great! It looks just like Windows XP and won't run half of my software! I can't wait to 'migrate'!"

Please! For the last six years neither Microsoft nor Apple have come up with anything really new. This time could have been used creating something better that would give Linux (and its users) an advantage. Instead, it was wasted making Linux look more and more like Windows. This is like AMD and Intel in the 386 era. It's almost as good and a lot cheaper!... Well, as long as you're just following the leader, you'll never put any real pressure on them.

RMN
~~~

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[roblight]

I agree completely. I've said this in as many words before. Glad to see this got modded up.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

They say Microsoft sucks but then they waste their time copying it.

It is certainly possible to dislike the practices of a business, yet find their software useful.

It is certainly possible for some people to like the winxp interface, and others to dislike it, and both kinds of people can be members of this "Linux community".

It's also quite easy to believe the winxp os to be of poor quality, bad design, wrong licensing, etc, and attempt to fix this by cloning it (and doing things right this time around).

It's also quite easy to understand that, even if you think the winxp interface sucks beyond belief, it's what everybody else is used to, and so, making it at least an option for Linux users will aid migration.

It's also annoying to hear all these stories about how Linux is impossible for newbies to use, from people who have never even seen Linux running - having a complete lookalike/workalike is one way to stop these people dead in their tracks.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are some people here soo negative. Here is a guy who got off his ass to do something on Linux and all I see are threads and threads of people trying to shoot it down. If you don;t like it, don't use it. This desktop isn't going to replace KDE or Gnome, it's just going to give you another option. Come on now, this can only be a good thing. I personally think it'd be fun to play around with.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[pjrc]

It's hard to imagine how something this clue-challenged gets moded to +5.

They say Microsoft sucks but then they waste their time copying it.

"They" used to refer to the monolithic linux community, which has one uniform set of opinions and makes sure that all public commentary "they" present in a consistent and unified manner. And saying "they" to refer to linux users ("us" for win32 users) ignores the well established fact that a great number of installations are dual-boot with windows.

Why would someone want to "migrate" to something that looks the same and can't run most software?

Lower cost would probably be the most likely reason (obviously someone hasn't see the $200 wal-mart PC and hoards of governments and companies switching or considering switching to lower costs). And, most software that is commonly used is available for linux in some alternate form that's good enough for most (IE-Mozilla, Office-StarOffice, Outlook-Evolution, etc).

This time could have been used creating something better that would give Linux (and its users) an advantage. Instead, it was wasted making Linux look more and more like Windows.

Once more, the paradigm of a team consisting of a fixed number of salaried programmers is applied to free software. HELLO, wake up call. Obviously someone's slept through the revelation that free software is developed by a large number of only loosly associated programmers, and the number is very large and highly variable.

He's not getting paid to work on "something" and they squandering that paid time developing something that doesn't advance linux as a whole as much as something else. He's doing something he finds interesting. It's not wasted time. It's time well spent, from his perspective. That is what matters.

It's also possible that others will want to use it. I can see how it could be used to overcome much of the "learning curve" objections to switching for some people.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Kizzle]

I could make a insightful response to your troll post but....


Blow me

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[FakePlasticDubya]

Please! For the last six years neither Microsoft nor Apple have come up with anything really new

Uh, what about OS X?

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: you are correct and it bugs the hell out of me to have nothing valid with which to respond. Additionally, it is now my duty to call your dissenting opinion a troll, not because it is, but because I don't agree with you.

Thanks for playing!

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Sentry21]

For the last six years neither Microsoft nor Apple have come up with anything really new.

I would think that a stable, fast UNIX microkernel architecture coupled with a usable, simple, and (arguably) beautiful user interface that people can actually use is something 'really new'. While Linux is still struggling with usability for the unix geeks who use it, Apple has made something that real people can actually get work done with. They've created a UNIX OS that is means to an end, not the end itself as Linux appears to be.

That's new. The problem is that people don't seem to realize that - hey - Open Source can do anything, but it'll take forever for anything worthwhile to get accomplished, since someone has to want it, understand it, and be able to write it themselves before that can happen. In the meantime, Apple is years ahead of Linux in the server and the desktop market, unless you count support for antiquated hardware, and it's only getting better. Linux, meanwhile, is still working on getting filesystem code that doesn't corrupt my data.

--Dan

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[StarFace]

Can we say NeXT? Good.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Shelled]

Honestly, I think some people in the Linux community are just too obssessed with Microsoft to produce anything useful.

Reading this sentence using links with the -g switch (extremely fast cruft-free graphic browser based on the svga lib), in a terminal-inspired desktop session (Ion), on a computer for which every piece of running software was compiled to my specifications (Gentoo distro). Thanks for the morning chuckle.
For those interested, Gentoo has xpde masked in the Portage tree. Use "emerge /usr/portage/x11-wm/xpde/xpde-0.1.1.ebuild" to automatically download, build and install. (Just like XP ... cough...cough.) You'll need KDE as well. Though I have a polar opposite taste in desktops, this looks amazing. It apppears to be in very early development and locked crtl-shift-backspace hard when closing a Rox window started from the 'Run' prompt, possibly due to not having KDE installed.
From what I can see, once stable this could be a corporate desktop killer in an environment where IT controls the OS/hardware side. It would nearly eliminate the user retraining barrier.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[thx2001r]

Agreed. Apple's current market share is contributed to by APPLE's religious dedication to making sure hardware is tested, Some extensive and detailled information on highly suggested OS User Interface Guidelines, or as apple calls them Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines (People really should read these, a truly admirable effort, in my opinion!), and, emphasis on consistency.

The important part of this statement is the fact that Apple goes through great lengths with developers to push standards they meticulously write (for User Interfaces and Interaction with the Users). Not that this isn't happening with Linux, but since there is no pressure from a central organization to standardize (it's debateable whether people want to standardize distros, as seen with much recent argument over the recent attempts being a good or bad thing) this level of an experience will not be wholly possible with the community at large (again, this is not necessarily a good or bad thing).

The point is that the comparisons to commercial OS's or, as more commonly done, to commercial OS GUI's is rather wasted. When it comes down to it, linux is a system assembled by a multitude of people working for, in most cases, the love of it, and applications and extensions are being written by an even larger and more loosely banded community of people also, often working as a labor of love. Maybe linux should just be for people that appreciate it. Let the big companies make their money and appreciate not having to personally deal with the marketing machines.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Rui del-Negro]

It's also quite easy to understand that, even if you think the winxp interface sucks beyond belief, it's what everybody else is used to, and so, making it at least an option for Linux users will aid migration.

No, it won't. Running all (or nearly all) Windows software with a better interface will get people to switch. Running a fraction of the software while looking the same just makes it completely uninteresting. People who like XP's interface will stick with XP (if they already have it, why would they bother switching to a different OS that won't run most of their software?) and people who don't like XP's interface have even less reasons to switch.

The only people who will use this are Linux users who, deep down, want to run XP.

Look at Apple. I dislike their way of doing business as much as I dislike Microsoft's, but at least they're making something that looks different (even if it behaves more or less the same). At least people have a choice. You have less software, you pay a bit more, but maybe it's worth it if you prefer the interface. But if Apple made OS X look and behave exactly like XP, do you think anyone would buy it?

RMN
~~~

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

What about it? It's MacOS running over BSD. I don't think Apple created BSD, nor did they create the first GUI for BSD. Your point was...?

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

So good, in fact, that Apple killed it.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading this sentence using links with the -g switch (extremely fast cruft-free graphic browser based on the svga lib), in a terminal-inspired desktop session (Ion), on a computer for which every piece of running software was compiled to my specifications (Gentoo distro). Thanks for the morning chuckle. For those interested, [ ... yadda yadda yadda ... ]

No-one's interested. Do you masturbate looking at compilation logs?

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

OR, maybe, just maybe, there are TWO KINDS of linux users (I know it sounds too amazing to be true, but bear with me here)?
Maybe one type of linux users that hate everything from MS, and another one that only looks at MS as a competitor?

I'm way out of line here, I know ... but could it be that the poeple who say MS sucks are not the same people who are emulating it's software?

I don't know. Maybe all linux users are the same?

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to your McHappy OS loser. Come back when you think of something worthwhile to post.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[sean23007]

Neither Microsoft nor Apple has done anything new in the last six years? Are you kidding? How old is Mac OS X? Less than two years, that's what I thought. OS X, while you may not like it because it is shiny, or you are bigoted against the Macintosh platform for reasons beyond -- well -- reason, is the best operating system currently on the market. And it was made recently. I agree that Linux should be trying to make something better, but so should everyone. The difference is that Apple succeeded. Before saying something, maybe you should take your head out of your ass long enough to look around.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

A competitor? Since when is Linux for profit..??

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Rui del-Negro]

OSX is a GUI running on top of BSD. Neither BSD nor GUIs are a new thing (and neither was invented by Apple, BTW). You might as well say that XP is "new" because it has a new window manager running on top of the NT kernel.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Rui del-Negro]

When I say something new I don't mean "something released recently"; I mean something innovative. Something that let the users do things they couldn't do before, or that radically changes the way people use computers. Things like mice, or windows, or multitasking. New concepts. Not just new (prettier, faster, whatever) versions of what we already have. If Microsoft does go ahead with a "property-based" file system in the next version of Windows, that will be something new. And it's coming from Microsoft. How depressing is that?

RMN
~~~

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft does go ahead with a "property-based" file system in the next version of Windows, that will be something new. And it's coming from Microsoft. How depressing is that?

Not depressing at all, considering both BeOS and OS/2 had them, and Linux/ReiserFS will have them very shortly (was meant to go into 2.5, but Hans missed the deadline).

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

Running all (or nearly all) Windows software with a better interface will get people to switch.

You don't get out much do you? A lot of people find interacting with their computer hard. If something is a few pixels to the left, a few pixels to the right, or a different colour, they get confused. They aren't computer professionals, they just use it as a tool to do their job. And they expect things to stay relatively the same.

People who like XP's interface will stick with XP (if they already have it, why would they bother switching to a different OS that won't run most of their software?)

I already addressed that, but it seems you are too clueless to read a post before responding to it. The interface is not the sole reason for using an os.

and people who don't like XP's interface have even less reasons to switch.

Yes, because as we all know, since Linux can only ever have one interface, this one will automatically prevent anybody from using KDE. Get a clue.

Look at Apple. I dislike their way of doing business as much as I dislike Microsoft's, but at least they're making something that looks different

It sounds like you think the only reason people use Linux is because they hate microsoft. You lend ms too much importance.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Rui del-Negro]

A lot of people find interacting with their computer hard. If something is a few pixels to the left, a few pixels to the right, or a different colour

Following your reasoning, no-one would have used Windows XP, because it looked quite different from Windows 2000 / 98 / etc. And yet, about 50% of Windows users today are using XP (I am not one of them, BTW). The visual differences between 98 and XP are not much smaller than the differences between XP and OS X or between XP and KDE. The problem is not the way things look, it's the way things work. If someone is used to Photoshop, they'll prefer Photoshop (with a different look) over Photo-Paint (with the traditional look). Because they know the menus, they know what each option does, they know what can be dragged and dropped, etc..

What Linux needs is very good Windows emulation, and useful features not found in Windows. BeOS and OS/2 looked great (and not too different from Windows). Lot of good that did.

The main threat to Microsoft comes from Lindows (and other "emulation-oriented" distros). Sometihng that can run the same tools, not something that just looks similar.

Yes, because as we all know, since Linux can only ever have one interface, this one will automatically prevent anybody from using KDE. Get a clue.

So first you say that this GUI is a great thing for people who are so clueless that they panic if a button is one pixel off, and then you suggest that those same people would be able to replace it with a new desktop? Looks like, if I'm to get a clue, it won't be from you.

Also, by the time this is ready, Microsoft will probably be close to releasing Longhorn (XP 2 or whatever they call it). Now on one side you'll have an OS (Linux + XPDE) that looks exactly like XP but doesn't run most of Windows' software. On the other side you'll have something that looks quite different but does run all existing Windows software. Which one do you think 90% of people will pick...?

It sounds like you think the only reason people use Linux is because they hate microsoft. You lend ms too much importance.

I don't think it's possible to "lend too much importance" to a company that makes software used in over 98% of computers worldwide. But it's one thing to acknowledge Microsoft's importance, and a very different thing to be obssessed by it. I'm not the one losing sleep to make Linux look more and more like Windows. In fact, partly due to that trend, I'm using Linux less and less these days.

RMN
~~~

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Rui del-Negro]

OS/2 and BeOS have died a long time ago (thoug they only realised it recently). Neither was able to run Windows software. Linux and OS X are (to a point). If they had used this time (between 94 and now) to make an OS that could run Windows software and offered new features not found in Windows (such as a database / property-based file-system, a 3D interface, screen zooming, etc.), their position would be quite different today.

A lower price by itself will not win the battle. In some countries Windows comes pre-installed on almost all computers, and in the remaining countries it's trivial to get a pirate copy, so Windows is "free" for most people too. Using a CPU analogy, Linux needs its Hammer or, at least, its Athlon XP. It needs to come up with something that can do what Windows does better than Windows does it.

RMN
~~~

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what's more pathetic, this guy who can't find any arguments or the moderator who modded him up... when you think Slashdot has hit the bottom of the pit, you realise the pit has no bottom.

Re:Microsoft is a religion... for some Linux users

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the moderators even know what flamebait means? I means provocative message with no constructive purpose, aimed only at getting a violent response. This post has a very valid point: Linux needs to get rid of its "I want to be Windows" complex if it actually wants to go anywhere, just as AMD had to get rid of its Intel obssession to be able to actually compete against Intel. As long as Linux is just copying Windows, Microsoft has nothing to fear. The only market where MS does fear Linux is servers, where Linux actually looks completely different from Windows. No wonder more people are switching from Linux to OS X than from Windows to Linux.

Maybe this shows....

[fudgefactor7]

That MS got something right after all since their interfaces keep getting copied.

I know this will be modded redundant, but that's cool 'cuz I got Karma to spare! ;)

like xp?

[User1234]

Just goto Walmart and buy a Speak and Spell then you will have an interface thats allot like xp.

it's not the look

[g4dget]

Whether applications look exactly the same as they do on Windows XP or not doesn't matter: even on Windows XP, there are many different looks and themes that people can choose.

What matters is whether applications are logically designed, easy to understand, and kept simple. Windows XP is not the system to emulate: its user interface is way too messy and too complex, it has too many unnecessary and confusing options, and its interaction is illogical.

While it is far from perfect, the Macintosh OS X desktop is a better model to copy. Apple has done a much better job streamlining system configuration and built-in applications. But, again, it's the logic behind the UI, not the graphical elements themselves that need to be copied. In fact, some misfeatures of the OS X UI that are present for backwards compatibility with previous versions of Mac OS should probably not be copied.

Re:it's not the look

[cmorriss]

Windows XP is not the system to emulate: its user interface is way too messy and too complex, it has too many unnecessary and confusing options, and its interaction is illogical.

This is also a pretty good description of the current set of Linux interfaces. If someone tries to move to Linux they not only get a confusing interface, but it's one they don't understand. At least they're familiar with the Windows XP interface.

There are keyboard layouts that are in theory much better than QWERTY, but people stick with it simply because the effort required to change itsn't worth the gain. Until someone makes a really intuitive and efficient interface for Linux, for a lot of people, it's best to stick with what they know.

Re:it's not the look

[g4dget]

This is also a pretty good description of the current set of Linux interfaces.

It's true of some Linux interfaces--those that try to imitate the Windows paradigm closely--not of others.

If someone tries to move to Linux they not only get a confusing interface, but it's one they don't understand.

Depends. Some Linux installations are much easier to use than Windows--those are the ones that are the most different from Windows. Also, it's much easier to support Linux remotely and Linux requires less system management, so shortcomings in its administrative tools matter less.

But, as I was saying: to the degree that some Linux desktop efforts try to emulate a PC/Mac paradigm, they would be better off emulating the Mac than the PC.

Re:it's not the look

[iJed]

What they need to try and copy from the Mac UI is its incredible consistency throughout all applications. This makes learning a new app so much easier than it is on Windows/KDE/Gnome. It would also be a good idea to copy things like the application menu and the global menu bar. Its amazing that people still put quit/exit and other app related functionality in the file menu and other menus after all these years. The global menu bar is a good thing since it enables "muscle memory" to be used when choosing a menu. I've always found the windowed menu idea to be slow and cumbersome.

Re:This is pointless

[Adam_Weishaupt]

Unlike Linux, Windows runs all the software you want, supports all the hardware you want and it's free -- -- get it from usenet or from a friend.

Excuse me, but isn't this Unethical, Illegal and Immoral ?

Menu sizing/spacing

[abischof]

Most of the screenshots look very close to XP (such as the network status applet, for instance), but the menu spacing & sizing doesn't look right (most easily seen in the task manager pic).

Ever since Eugenia Loli-Queru mentioned it in her review of KDE 3, I can't help but noticing that so many Linux apps suffer from odd menu sizing and spacing. (In due credit, Gnome isn't nearly so affected, as a whole.)

Important! The menu entries on every KDE's applications are extremely close to each other. Give it 4-5 more pixels please! The new Gnome 2.0 does it lovely and correctly in this respect.

(That quote is from the second page of her review.)

Re:Menu sizing/spacing

[stevey]

I agree .. and with most of the people saying this isn't for them.

But I really like the task manager applet and the network status applet too - I'd download them seperately if I could, and run them on my IceWm Debian desktops..

why ?

[Tom]

Even the windos zealots I know have turned off the XP look and prefer the old one.

Why don't these guys spend their time on making Linux better, instead of worse? Their FAQ has the question of "why are you doing this", but it doesn't explain why they didn't choose are more worthwhile goal.

More importantly, the guy who wrote the FAQ missed the point, by roughly a mile, in the next question. Yes, people want to switch from Windos to Linux, and yes the entire M$ world is designed to make this as painful as possible (so they don't do it).
But, the answer isn't to make Linux a copy of windos. Once Linux is exactly like windos, you haven't given people incentive to switch, you've removed it. Why should I switch to something that's exactly like the thing I already have?

People are not as dumb as some techies believe them to be, that's an old BOFH syndrome. I installed Linux desktop systems for both my mom and my sister. Neither of them had any computer experience to speak of. It was painless. In fact, I'm convinced that it would have been more trouble with windos. Just think of all the "it crashed, what do I do?" calls that I saved myself.
And the interface (window maker) was perfectly acceptable to both of them. In fact, explaining the dock is an order of magnitude simpler than explaining the start/kde/foot menu. ("no, _this_ program is in there, because... and those games are sorted by company name... no, _that_ program is in some other sub-submenu...")

Enough of a rant. It's so sad to see so much manpower wasted into copying something that simply isn't worth copying.

Looks like XP? Hunh??

[FireBreathingDog]

Why do y'all keep saying it looks like XP? Have you *seen* XP? It looks nothing like this, unless you go ahead and switch it to the "Classic" Windows look, which resembles 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, and 2000. This looks exactly like the *old* ("Classic") Windows.

Thanks

[szcx]

I'll bookmark this article for the next time someone's whining about Microsoft not being innovative.

Xpde, KDevelop, KWord, Kivio, Aqua themes, Evolution, Gnumeric ("95% of builtin Excel functions")... good grief.

<troll>Somebody wake me when an open source group develops something original.</troll>

Re:Wankers!

[Anonymous Coward]

pagans are retarded people with too much time on their hands.

Slow news day

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough*fvwm*cough*95*cough*

Important design decisions...

[coupland]

But wait! How will you duplicate the sluggish performance of the Start menu? You know, how it takes 10 seconds just to expand a level? I guess you could just insert an endless FOR loop, but that wouldn't be creative. How about installing a distributed computing client that would start crunching numbers while your Start menu struggles to open? That way while a Windows user waits in agony to drill down to All Programs --> Accessories --> Games, Linux users can actually spend that wasted time finding a cure for cancer!

Re:Important design decisions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Once linux emulates the full features and robustness of microsofts software, the under-the-hood bloat will be similar to that of windows.

Large scale software projects have the problem that each time you add a feature, you have to add to your framework resulting in bloat. Adding features that fit into your existing framework limits your choice of features to add. Microsoft has designed their code with expandability as a number one priority. After all, it makes sense when bringing new features to the market fast makes money.

While you may disagree with Microsoft's business model, their software engineers are some of the most talented in the country (software 'engineers', not coders). It is an amazing feat that one OS is suitable for such a wide range of applications. Windows is formidable in home/office/server scenarios. Yes it has flaws, but you should count the feature to flaw ratio keeping in mind that code complexity is non-linear in growth with respect to feature count.

Maintainability/expandability is the source of their bloat, but we will reap the benefits as microsoft integrates new technologies (useful or not) into their OS quickly.

I was really looking forward to the day when a browser was fully integrated with everything. We know where that idea is headed now. Microsoft has been ordered to let the competition catch up.

Anyways, about that start menu. Yes it is somewhat silly that it is as slow as it is, but there is some reason why it does things so slow and when that 'something' is ready to be used, it will be there. Microsoft doesn't hire bad programmers, if one does manage to make it in they are quickly spotted and dismissed.

You got to admit, in many ways they are innovators. They have not always been the first, but they were the first that got the masses to use technology 'X'.

Re:Important design decisions...

[Anonymous Coward]

TBH, from my experience, KDE menus don't open ANY faster than the ones in XP. Atleast for THAT issue.

Re:Important design decisions...

[coupland]

No, Microsoft are not innovators in any way or sense. Wal-mart doesn't consider themselves innovators for selling a product they bought from SmallGuy #605, they are only a retailer. Microsoft has bought or copied every idea they ever had, NOTHING AT ALL HAS EVER BEEN INVENTED BY MICROSOFT. I assert this with no hesitation whatsoever. Word processors, spreadsheets, GUI, icons, mouse, networking, internet, browser, integration, presentation graphics, WYSIWYG, windows, hypertext, wireless, consoles, and a million other technologies... NOT ONE was invented by Microsoft but each and every one has been made famous in their name. In fact Microsoft has NEVER IN ITS HISTORY invented something! They are great at copying the code of others and making it look better, but Microsoft the great innovator has never made an innovation in the history of computing...

Isn't this backwards?

[tacocat]

Haven't we been getting bashed for not being able to step out ahead of Microsoft but always doggedly trailing whatever they choose to do with User Interface? I think this cinches the arguement that Linux is behind MicroSoft when it comes to the desktop.

Until the Linux community stops promoting KDE because it looks just like windows and stops trying to make XP wannabes we will never ever sustain the argument that we are a group of wannabes ourselves. The point is to make something which is better and to turn the tables and make MicroSoft follow Linux for a change.

When we succeed in doing that, we will have made a credable dent in their territorial claims.

Wrong!

[c0d3h4x0r]

Depends what you like, I suppose ;)

Wrong! It depends on what works best for the largest majority of people. And WinXP's GUI has proven itself (over any other Linux desktop, or MacOS-X, for instance) a hundred million times over.

Surface is liberal

[yerricde]

unless the potential surface you are traversing is non-conservative.

And in this case, the surface of graphical user interfaces is highly non-conservative of learning time.

Copying just gets you sued.

[crovira]

The problem with GUIs is that they are copyrightable and become extremely proprietary.

Try copying Aqua and get sued by Apple. Copy the lousy/lesser looking XP interface and get sued by M$.

Since its what's visible, the system topography, its what sells the system to those incapable (because they can't, don't or won't know or care,) of seeing below the surface, the topology.

Sadly the only way to win is to make the GUI so transparent that its invisible or to change the way computers interface with users.

Create it and patent it NOW so you lock out Microsoft.

e.g. no more logon & security dialog, a fingerprint scanner and/or other biometric devices announce who's using the system.

e.g. voice recognition & gestural controls (no keyboard, just point in space at a letter or a word or an object.)

e.g. voice/speech/tone generation. Use music to generate reports on the relative scale of things.

e.g. 3D display.

Do it now or the one with the most bucks will lock you out of the game with laws (even if it only has to be able to afford to break them.)

Down to the last detail...

[The Infamous Grimace]

Funny, that desktop pic looks an awful lot like the one I'm using... on OS X.

(tig)

Re:Wankers!

[Anonymous Coward]

retarded people with too much time on their hands

Well, that pretty much describes the Europeans as well so you are both right.

bleh...

[Ceovsenik]

You people act like everyone on Linux wants to use this WM....it's just 1 of many MANY window managers for Linux, everyone I know uses non-XP clone window managers. I use Waimea, my roommate uses Enlightenment, and 2 of my friends use Fluxbox. It also seems like most of the people on IRC use window managers other than kde/gnome/xp clone.

Re: Terrible Scenario in that FAQ.

[Anonymous Coward]

A windows developer is going to recommend a systems migration for customers? Will these same developers also be responsible for the actual migration, and the administration of the new systems aferward?

Or would the customer just be expected to replace it's entire support staff?

I do not think the average small business or school is hesistant over linux because they would not be able to find the 'Start' button. Keep in mind that many people in the workforce remembering using Word Perfect for MS-DOS. Or even a typewriter. It is a matter of support, both from 'free' developers AND not-quite-so-free linux technicians.

Let me get this staight . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Soemone is cloning the interface designed by a focus group made up of hookers, circus clowns, and fast-food restaraunt architects?

This is a good thing?

Xplease!!!

[giaguara]

Xplease!! No XP, i don't want anything like that.

Why didn't they copy Aqua? Instead of trying to copy Luna that was already copied from Aqua.

Besides most commercal Linux distros look already too much like the Win distros anyway.

Aqua please :D

Re:Xplease!!!

[perlyking]

You must have missed the five squillion (yep I counted them) aqua clones for linux allready. Most of them suck sadly.

Personally I don't care too much what my widgets look like, I just want them to be fast and want nice fonts.

Re:Xplease!!!

[giaguara]

i havent been looking for _those_ clones, since i use mostly macs, and am confident with the standard themes i find for RH distro when i am in linux.
they don't look like aqua but cares, i normally use linux for working on it, not for playing with guis.

i _do_ care what it looks like but not essentially. as long as it doesn't look like any M$-product i'm confident.

besides.. one more luna-clone - but for macs: http://homepage.mac.com/max_08/themes/macosxp.htm
some might like that; i guess it's just me who hates anything that looks like xp.

Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[Penguin Follower]

Yeah, I know what you mean there! That's the one thing that ticks me off about the Windows NT lineage... just try and do a motherboard swap on a machine running NT/2K/XP and expect it to boot! I haven't been able to get one to boot afterwards except:
1) the new board is exact same as old (i.e. replacement board)
2) the new board has same ide controller
3) the system used scsi and therefore the same card was used on new mobo

Seriously, it was sooooo easy to do motherboard swaps (or an upgrade of mobo+cpu+ram) in Win9x, all I had to do was yank the old mobo drivers, install new mobo, and pop in driver cd after boot to load the drivers.

I'm sure some MCSE will reply saying there is a way to do it, but seriously, when windows is supposed to be "easy", then NT/2K/XP is a step backwards in this respect.

I still like my Linux box better :) I just use Windows for games, and school related stuff (i.e. Visual Studio).

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy. Press F8 when you start up and boot it in safe mode. Control Panel -> Add New Hardware. Insert CD as necessary. Reboot.

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[Matt - Duke '05]

Correct me if I'm wrong, as I've never had to do this, but I would think that a Linux system with a very precisely configured kernel is also not going to boot just fine and dandy after swapping in a brand new motherboard with different IDE controllers, SCSI controllers, etc.

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[Penguin Follower]

I tend to use the kernels made available by the vendor (in this case RedHat). When they release an updated one in rpm format, I upgrade. Not to say I haven't compiled my own. But when I do, I compile in the most common IDE controllers on the market, not just the current one in my system. (Just in case I need them.)

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[Penguin Follower]

Didn't work for me last time. I got a BSOD on boot telling me it could not access the disk. Probably due to the fact that during the installer for Win2K I have to supply it with a driver (Press F6 to install 3rd party driver, etc..). It is an HPT370 controller, built into my motherboard.

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[zcat_NZ]

Wrong on so many points:

We're talking about Win2K v. Linux. There's no way to 'customise' the Win2K kernel so it's only fair to make a comparison against a 'stock' Linux kernel. Not that it matters, since you can boot with a stock kernel from CD and then recompile if necessary.

For quite a few years now, the linux kernel has been made highly modular. Almost everything that can be supported is already compiled in, but modules are only loaded for the hardware you actually have. If you have to compile anything for non-standard hardware, I'd strongly advise recompiling it as a module anyhow!

Even if you have a highly customised non-modular kernel, it's still no big issue to swap motherboards, and only slightly tricky to clone the entire install from one kind of drive onto another (IDE -> SCSI for example). Boot from the standard install CD with init=/bin/bash, remount the root filesystem as rw, then recompile the kernel and/or adjust /etc/fstab.

I've been in situations (more than once) trying to move Win2K onto new hardware, and eventually dug up MSKB articles that simply say "You must reinstall in this case. There is no other option"

Also note that in many situations it's not actually -legal- to change your MOBO without a fresh install off a new paid-for CD. Check your EULA. (Not that I give a fsck, NZ's Consumer Guarantees act invalidates much of MS's EULA, but in less-developed countries.. :) ).

How about swapping the Mobo on a standard Windows XP install?

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[thechink]

Here's how I've done it:

Before removing the old board, change the IDE controller drivers to something generic like "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller"

Install new board, boot and let Plug and Play detect the new controller.

This has worked for me on many occasions. Can't help though if the old board is not bootable.

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[Penguin Follower]

I have swapped a mobo on a Win XP install... same probs as Win2k....

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[Cruciform]

Under Win2K I've done a swap between a Gigabyte 7IX and a Asus K7 mainboard, and the only issue was that I had to cycle through the boot-and-reboot process five times for it to get all the drivers in place. It was stable for about three weeks, then I ended the little experiment by doing a fresh install.

At work I was building a utility machine out of spare parts and tried swapping a drive with XP between systems and it puked before it even displayed the logo. :) This is the only time I've had a bluescreen under XP.

And this machine had the mainboard swapped out last night under XP, but it was only a very minor upgrade. An MSI KT333 Ultra to a KT4V. Since the boards have only minor hardware changes and revisions it was expected to go smoothly and did :)

After turning off all the "pretty" and "friendly" stuff that wastes screenspace in XP I find it a reliable and competent OS. But then I've never had to try and program for it. ;)

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[Afrosheen]

Same thing here. I upgraded my dual boot system with a new motherboard/chip, and XP refused to boot. It didn't even bother to tell me why, just flashes a bluescreen for about 4ns and then reboots the machine.

Mandrake, OTOH, didn't really care. It runs a probe at boot which solves any potential problems before they occur. Kudzu is a good service (thank you Redhat). I just had to say 'ok' to the new stuff it found, it loaded the kernel modules, and everything works.

XP is definitely not designed for upgrades.

Re:Concerning NT/2K/XP and changing hardware...

[Afrosheen]

...and to add to your misery, that driver was only available months after XP was originally released and isn't easy to find. My brother had the same problem with his XP install on an Abit BE6-2. For some mysterious reason the HPT-37x is supported but not the 370 itself.

Re:Wankers!

[Anonymous Coward]

retarded people with too much time on their hands

Well, that pretty much describes the Europeans as well so you are both right.

Stupid American self-righteous idiot, simply jealous of the fact that Europe is infinitely more civilized and better in everything.

But maybe the US some day stops being the home of ignorant, fat dorks. Until then, go to hell.

Let me explain then...

[C14L]

WinXP is a good OS and almost as stable as Linux is. Explorer is as stable as Gnome or KDE. But XP is much easier to use for an average (desktop!) user. The point in making an open source clone is not so much stablility or ease of use, but it is about taking the control of the worldwide desktop market from MS. It is not desireable --and even dangerous-- that one single company controls the enduser IT of 95% of the world.

I like XP too, and I wish there were a Linux as user-friendly as XP is. But I do not feel very comfortable knowing that one single company controls all that. Maybe because I studied politics and know what consequences absolute power may have. I hope Linux will be successful, but it has to be as easy to use as XP if it wants to break the MS-hegemony.

dumb idea, but for a different reason

[Twirlip of the Mists]

First off, the guy's page says he's doing this to learn and for fun. Good for him.

However, I'm a little afraid that somebody might latch onto this idea and say, "Gee, we should use this to help people migrate to Linux from Microsoft!" That would be a terrible idea.

It would be a terrible idea because it would give new users a false sense of familiarity. When somebody sits down at a new program or OS, they notice immediately that it's different, and they start learning. The contrast between old and new creates a kind of mental traction, something for the brain to hold on to: "Okay, in Windows I did this and then this, but this is Linux so I have to do that and that instead."

In a situation of false familiarity, though, everything is a little slippery. Because everything looks like something the user is already familiar with, the user naturally expects everything to work like the thing it resembles. When it doesn't, frustration sets in. "Okay, now I want to do this. Hey, it didn't work. But that's how I do it in Windows, and this is just like Windows. Why didn't it work? This is broken!"

Some folks seem to be under the mistaken impression that if the windows have the same chrome on them and the desktop has the same background and the fonts resemble each other, then the system will be easy to learn. In fact, just the opposite is true. The more you make X look like Y, the harder it will be for users who know Y to learn X.

Re:dumb idea, but for a different reason

[MonTemplar]

What he said! I can understand having an initial desktop set-up option that allows people moving over from Windows to get started faster (similar taskbar, similar window controls, etc.), but trying to make a Linux desktop that is exactly like Windows seems to be majorly counterproductive to me, for the simple reason that it's Linux, not Windows, on the inside!

I take my hat off to the guy who wrote XPde, and wish him all the best with his future projects. But this is one itch that run the risk of being scratched so much that it ends up a large scabby wound...

Re:dumb idea, but for a different reason

[Reziac]

A little bit of "but this is broken" is okay -- you even get that between different apps in Windows, because not everyone adheres to design standards, and some developers hare off in weird directions.

The problem for average users is when *everything* is "broken" because they can't figure out how the hell to even get started. Familiarity, even just "close enough for gov't work" helps enormously.

My own example: when I first delved into linux, there was no Win-alike file manager. The nearest thing I found (after some digging) that I could figure out how to use (and like most people, I *don't* have the time or energy to dig thru and read HowTo's) was Midnight Commander, but that interface was "familiar" (therefore usable) only because I already knew XTree for DOS. Most Win32 users would never figure it out.

I recently installed a newer disty that defaulted to Konquerer -- hey, this looks and acts just like WinExplorer! yeah, some stuff is different, but because MOST of the program behaved in a familiar way, that made it real easy to figure out the parts that didn't.

This by itself made linux feel a whole lot more useful, and vastly less hostile.

Re:dumb idea, but for a different reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell moderated this -1, Troll? Somebody is going to get smacked hard in M2.

Re:dumb idea, but for a different reason

[Dave2 Wickham]

Thinking about this...
When I started using Linux, I was lost. I did _NOTHING_ via CLIs; I searched for GUIs for everything. I had no idea how to even extract a tar/gzip file via the CLI. I couldn't use vim (obviously :P). I used the GUIs to help me get into the basics. Eventually I learned the "advanced" ways of doing things, and used them all the time. But making things like what people already know does help them to migrate.

What I think would be a good idea would be to have something like Xpde which slowly bit-by-bit over a set time period "morphs" into GNOME or something like that. That way users wouldn't be shocked by all of the differences, but they would migrate to the "Linux" way of doing things (well, GNOME or KDE or whatever :P). Maybe if there were hints telling users what happened (say a friendly "tooltip" saying "Your task bar has changed in X, Y and Z"), and it changed slowly enough this could work.

Of course, what would I know about this? :P

Re:dumb idea, but for a different reason

[Mitchell Mebane]

Um, what about the change from Windows 98/2000 to Windows XP? It looked somewhat similar, and acted mostly similar, but there were a LOT of changes.

This is a good step, but risky

[Punk Walrus]

I know what a lot of KDE/GNOME/Sawfish/X people are posting, "Ugh, why make it look like Windows?" Well, easy. Beacuse it's what people are used to. 90% of the people who could make the switch from Windows to Linux GUI don't have an f'n clue what goes on under the hood. They don't care. They want E-mail, IM, Web, and some Office Product (assuming this is a business environment). But they don't want to learn new stuff. This is a great idea for those people.

Then again, Windows could sue under the "look and feel" issue. I mean, MS can't sue for Windows, Icons, Menus, Bitmapping, and other GUI concepts (which they stole from Apple, who stole it from Xerox Parc Labs), but this is almost a direct copy of copyrighted images and graphics. It's the razor's edge, but I hope they succeed.

Seeing the rants, sometimes I wonder if certain people don't WANT the mass public to go mass-Linux. Like it would take away their "specialness" or power or something. "I am geek, hear me roar!"

Re:This is a good step, but risky

[AVryhof]

They don't want newbies on Linux because they are 31337.

This pisses me off so much. "Don't clone XP" what a load of crap. Before saying this, think of the deployment model for a large corporation. They want as little change as possible so they don't have to comletely retrain everyone. If you want companies to switch to Linux you need to remove the learning curve.

The first step should be to migrate the current Windows installations over to Mozilla, OpenOffice and other cross-platform tools so the users get used to them.

After that is to pull the tablecloth out and reinstall their systems with a Linux install that looks like Windows and uses the same tools they are now used to.

Finally, let the Sysadmins relax and enjoy the benefits of a stable system that they don't need to completely retrain everyone for. Enjoy the security, lack of virusses, and speed.

I am sick of these people who think Emacs is easy. Bullshit! Most newbies find Notepad difficult! Word might as well be learning Physics. People don't need a system with Pico, Emacs, VIM, TeX, and all that crap on it. They want a simple system that works without needing to know 4000 fricking keyboard shortcuts.

Re:This is a good step, but risky

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean . . .

"I am geek, hear me bitch on Slashdot!"
(geeks don't roar, at least not to another person's face) :)

one question...

[Anonymous Coward]

why?

100% mouse-driven? I'd rather not.

[yerricde]

If you want to have a consistent, elegant and completely mouse driven GUI they are not worth shit.

You don't want a completely mouse-driven UI on a PC unless you have something like a tablet PC, where no keyboard is available even to enter text unless you flip the screen around into its "laptop" configuration.

However, I'm not talking about requiring the user to know command lines. I'm talking about allowing the user to type the first few letters of an object's name as a shortcut to select it, providing a way to access all commands from the keyboard (good for users who have physical problems with using a mouse?), providing consistent keyboard commands for common actions across all applications, and making a command line available to those users who want to automate things.

One word

[Anonymous Coward]

Euuwwe

Wouldn't it make more sense to clone a useable GUI?

Mac OS X

a dangerous argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

The argument you make is an extremely dangerous one, and is generally used to justify totalitarian governments and the like.

Your rights to privacy reside in you. They have nothing to do with whether or not you have anything "to hide." Those rights may be limited or constrained if it is found or there is reasonable suspicion to believe that you have violated the rights of others. However, by default--all other things being equal--you are presumed to have a certain right to privacy.

It is certainly not the case that by default, Microsoft, Apple, the U.S. Government, or whatever, has absolute right to information about you, that your privacy is presumed to be theirs. It is even more certain that you and I do not "attain" privacy by justifying that we do not have anything to hide.

The burden lies on appropriate authorities--i.e., the government--to prove that you have lost privacy rights, not the other way around.

Arguing that you have no rights by default, that you only earn them, is extremely dangerous. You have rights by default and lose them through harm.

Re:a dangerous argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

A more desturbing possiblity is they 'watch' what people are doing, and if they think a particular activity is becomming to 'desruptive' to society then they can change the law and come for you.

Re:a dangerous argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravo. Very well put.

the windows useless interface

[v(*_*)vvvv]

um.. why don't you just install windows if you like it so much. No, seriously.

If you're aiming that low, then you might as well clone AOL while you're at it.

Microsoft is going to have a *real* easy time bashing open source if they have this to talk about.

Is there a Mac OS X attempt?

[wackybrit]

This looks like a good project, since it gives a familiar and uniform feel to many areas of the desktop, even if we don't particularly like XP. So.. is there a Mac OS X attempt? I'd much prefer that :-)

er . . . why is it so hard to understand?

[Idou]

This is ONE "project" out of thousands and thousands of others on the net (which anyone can start) which happens to use the Linux kernel as their basic platform. No, this is not the official "Linux position." The only reason this project exists is because a group of people have a "particular itch" in this particular area, and rather than bitch about it on slashdot (and get modded up to 5, no less) like some wannabe news editorial writer, they construtively did something about it. This, in no way, prevents you from creating a similar project to make Linux look different, and many projects exist to do just that, but you will never know that because, just like many other /.'ers, you are too lazy to do a little research before posting. Why should you when the moderators are too lazy to think for themselves, anyway?

I realize you probably still don't understand what I am talking about, so here in an analogy. There are some women in this world that think all men abuse and beat women. They complain and they talk down about men, but they always seem to get in a relationship were they get knocked around. Me, being a man and having never beaten a woman, know this is a falsity. In fact, I assume the majority of men do no beat women. However, these particular women have certain choice parterns which constantly expose them to the same kind of man. Believe me, saying "men" encompasses as diverse a group as saying "Linux users."

My personal analysis is that you (and the moderators that modded you up) have been constantly exposing themselves to the same type of Linux user/developer/slashdot info. There are many more projects that make Linux unique than that make it similar to XP. However, like the disillusioned woman I mentioned earlier, you only know how to get information that reinforces your prejudice. Articles posted at slashdot about projects that make Linux "unique" probably go unnoticed by you, as you immediately scroll to the "XP look alike" article.

Believe me, you are not describing Linux users, just your stereotypes towards Linux.

Re:er . . . why is it so hard to understand?

[Reziac]

Plus if linux and Windows remain visually distinct, and NO linux desktop imitates Windows, that gives fuel to the "Windows sucks" subcult. "See? It's so awful, we wouldn't touch it!"

The same ones who (like your battered woman example) had one bad experience, refuse to do normal maintenance on WinBoxen because they claim it won't help anyway, then claim that Windows is totally unstable. Whereas a whole lot of us haven't had a Win32 crash in months, and wonder why if they're smart enough to deal with an obtuse OS like linux, they can't get Windows to run right (and it ain't rocket science. See http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=45941&cid=4745 739, beware the /. space)

But there's no arguing with religious fanatics. They'll only see what they want to see, which usually includes shooting down anything they disagree with.

Re:er . . . why is it so hard to understand?

[Anonymous Coward]

There may be many other, terribly interesting projects, but this sort of crap is what gets airtime on Slashdot. This and anything made by Apple. Isn't it ironic that Slashdot is actually driving more people away from Linux than all of Microsoft's advertising...?

Yep...

[Penguin Follower]

I've seen that one too...

I was not happy at that point. Thankfully, I backup my important data (unlike some folks I know) and all was OK. Although I went back to Win2K :) I've had no real problems with Win2k that I couldn't handle on this machine.

Here's a complete mirror of the screenshots

[Mish]

The site was giving me problems so I dumped my cache here, better safe than sorry :) http://doomx.net/www.xpde.com-screenshots/

Slicker

[Linegod]

For all of you complaining about innovation, I'd like to see you put some effort behind Slicker, a replacement for the KDE kicker. Tie this in with the Geramik theme and you have a unified KDE/GTK look, with 'innovative' features.

Re:Slicker

[Anonymous Coward]

Slicker just does not do anything usefull usability wise. Its pretty much the same crap as this project. It just CONFUSES ordianary users.
They should think about usability and not icons and windowmanagers. Use some time on the KDE Control Center (Gnome's seems to be there on the next version) and reduce complexity. XP does not reduce anything in complexity

Re:Slicker

[Linegod]

And exactly how do you enhance usuability, if not through icons and WM's?

Linux XP interface is the best way

[Znort]

to get corporations to switch to Linux. Why ? Well have you heard of retraining costs ? They're huge and, I am sure, are a major factor in keeping M$ on desktops. Ugly or not is not the question, how many use it is ! Znort

Worthless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretend that I'm a Windows XP user (not a developer or power user) who is interested in switching to Linux. Obviously, I'm not going to spend the effort unless there is a practical advantage to using Linux. I don't care about the GNU/MS flame wars, or the wonders of the GPL. I just want my computer to work better. If Linux acts and looks exactly like Windows XP (except for differences that are subtle, as far as I'm concerned). So I have no reason to switch to Linux, right.

This is something that we should avoid. If we only immitate Windows, then we can never be better than Windows.

Looks real close

[da_Den_man]

However, my only question is and has always been:

Does this mean the clipboard works across all programs?!?

Because that is the one thing I really wish worked properly in Linux. If nothing else, MS has the clipboard available throughout ALL programs I run. If I select something and hit CTRL-C, in Windows I KNOW it will be available to me when I open (Insert favorite application here) for a CTRL-V.

Is the clipboard built into the kernel of Windows? If so, maybe thats an option Linux needs to copy?

And don't even get me started on printing...

Re:Looks real close

[josh crawley]

Whats funny is that xWindows natively supports a clipboard that can store any type of data, as long as the requesting program can determine the type. Essentially, you can have Abiword, xEmacs, and 2 sound programs open. Then cut some text, and then cut some sound samples. Then you can paste them in to the appropiate program. Even if you do 2 cuts in a row of differenty data types, they wont overwrite each other.

Yes. This is IN XWindows. Hell if I know why every fucking gui has to recreate something that's natively in there.

useless...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why even do this.. why replicate something thats terrible? what happened to innovation... for fuck sakes, linux on the desktop is useless. It should never be on the desktop! Mac's should....

-cozby

great tool!

[Anonymous Coward]

this is a great thing.. i've already switched my mom to mozilla and openoffice, and she barely noticed. (these are the ONLY applications she ever uses... outside of the virus scanner

now i can switch the underlying os and she won't even be able to tell the difference... except that its faster, more stable, and she doesn't need to pay for a yearly virus subscription.

and i can add software remotely, then slowly teach her to use it. i can tweak the ui remotely. i can upload media and teach her how to play it. i can keep her software updated... all without the horrible lagginess of vnc.. and without having to remember what obscure menu option holds what critical option... and generally not having to use that horrible, arcane interface!

time to see how well the thing actually works..

Did anybody else notice..?

[HyperColor Underware]

On one of the screen shots, there were 1 guests and 0 members online.

After its attempted slashdottery?

WOWZA.

Dudes,

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux that looks like Windows is just not cool. Linux is cooler than Windows. It should have a look that's totally unique from MacOS or Win32.

Linux would benefit from a group of bsd-minded graphic designers to draft a graphic identity spec for Linux. I think that would be rad.

The Real Reason For Xpde

[UnixRevolution]

The best use of XPDE i can think of is to run it on my laptop when i'm at my friend's house (my friend is a windows fanatic), and see if he notices :)

in soviet russia, slashdot posts comments on YOU!

Lotus precedent

[Reziac]

In any event, the Lotus vs. everyone-else-in-the-world case of the DOS era established that you cannot lay claim to "look and feel" and prevent others from using it -- if they can recreate your look but with their own code, tough for you. Maybe someone here can find and post details?

As soon as I installed XP ...

[styxlord]

... I changed the interface back to the much cleaner stylings of Win2k (which IMHO is cleaner than pretty much all linux desktops). The only giveaway is that they made the icons a bit nicer which I can live with.

may not be a bad thing.

[towaz]

While i personally do not use gui's on a regular basis cloning the gui is probable a good step. Microsoft pool a lot of money into research on a friendly gui so would be a good idea to have the same layout for linux. While this will only be a stepping stone for newbies, i remember when i first tried using X and thought it strange that they were so many menu's dupicated, Odd layouts with kde and gnome, wiget sets...... now its all second nature but why scare newbies off when you can gradualy ween them onto the more advanced features of linux later.

To be quite honest...

[HaloZero]

I rather like KDE and/or Bluecurve. And the interface with OS X is also damned sexy. Bluecurve with RedHat 8.0 is still my favorite, by far, though. :-)

If I wanted an XP interface, I'd use XP. Simple.

A great idea...

[cookiepus]

... I often say that the reason "normal users" don't feel comfortable with Open Source applications is because, unlike commericial makers such as Microsoft, the OSS community has no way to employ cognitive and behavioral physchologists, graphic designers, etc. - ie all the people whose job it is to ensure a completely intuitive interface.

By taking the XP interface, you're taking hundeds or thousands of hours of work that these people did and you're bringing it over to Linux, probably giving it a more intuitive intefrace than it ever had before - which isn't a bad thing.

For the same reason, I am not sure if mimicing an interface like that is legal.

Why BlueCurve and the cloning of Windows is stupid

[Ilan Volow]

It is often worse for an interface to look the same and act different than it is for the interface to look different *and* act different.
If the environment looks the same, the user will be coming with a whole set of expectations about how the environment will act in a given situation, and will get utterly frustrated when those expectations aren't met.In some cases, the user might actually lose valuable work because the thing that looks the same on the emulating environment does something destructive that is benign on emulated environment. At least when something looks totally alien you know it will act totally alien.

While some people praise RedHat for making GNOME and KDE consistent, they didn't do this at all. GNOME and KDE might now look the same under BlueCurve, but they still act completely differently. Some poor user will do some work in a GNOME app, and then when the go to do work in a KDE app, stuff will act completely differently. The same looking button in the two environments will act differently.

A specific example: In a KDE Save File dialog, Ok is on the left and cancel is on the right. In GNOME, it's reversed. Imagine the shock the end user has when they go to save a file in a KDE app and they find that the button on the right that they clicked in the previous app (which looked exactly the same) to save their file actually prevents them from saving their file in the app they're currently using. Or even worse, they don't notice the difference and they lose the changes their made to their data.

I actually talked to the guy who created BlueCurve when RedHat did a road tour at my school. And while he acknowledged the differences, I was disappointed that he didn't understand how much trouble this could cause.

The same thing goes for the "Let's just copy Windows UI so it will be familiar for those transitioning to linux" people. No matter how hard the linux developers try, things will be different from Windows. It won't be like windows no matter what they do. I could think of no better way to turn people off of using linux than to tell them it's just like windows and for them to believe that and for them to then lose a month's worth of financial records due to some small inconsistency between windows and the windows-clone linux distro they're using.

A better solution is to not worry about familiarity and just make sure that things are well designed in general, and that nothing is ambiguous or confusing and that the users data is protected at all costs.

Why not use the KISS Principle?

[Retief-CDT]

All I Want from a OS is to provide for stable use of Hardware and then have Applications provide there own look and feel. Really is it too much to ask for that the operating system be seperate from all the problems with secondary programs? Just like any other product, weather a car or tape player, you don't expect to have to rebuild them just because the brand of Fuzzy Dice(tm), copy of Michel Bolton is used on them. If consumers could rely on the computer to always work than programers could expand out to offer Cool Apps. and other nifty embellishments. Most People don't give a Damn about who makes a product if it works. But they will never forget one that doesn't.

Flattering the worst.

[nfotxn]

I'm just suprised nobody decided to copy the dock, preferences app etc. I don't mean some lame-ass theme for a window manager, I mean the actual interaction and usability. Having "lifestyle apps" for linux like iTunes, iPhoto and iChat would make it more attractive to a consumer base. That's for sure.

trendy jelly crap vs. functionality

[Anonymous Coward]

What I would like is a shift in the fundamental thinking of GUI implementation and design irrespective of the actual colors (by themselves) icons (another subject alltogether) and layout. (color scheme and how things are organized is different than just individual choice of colors)

Instead of just iconized files, how about an actual graphical interface that adds MORE functionality instead of choking it out. (example is how in Windows you cannot do a sorted replace, rename or deletion, like you could in dos like for example with: "cp *.dt1 ../backup/January.dt0") Modern GUI's are nothing but the difference of typing than clicking of which most can do so much more through typing than clicking and dragging.

Seems to me that the very thing that a graphical interface CAN give us, is the very thing that is often left out... choice of how to abstractly and directly link and categorize things. There should be no trick and no pain in a normal user setting the "right click" options or adding a taskbar, or setting what is on it and how it works down to the smallest detail. I should also be able to script GUI events easier than I could with a CLI based script and use schemas for the actual layout as well as the logical/logistical organization. (e.g. in Windows, this could include file associations as well as those file options for running,the "right click" options, and groupings in the start menu.) File structures are static by nature (not counting links which help a LOT) but a GUI should abstract this completely to create a virtual file system dependent on the need at the time. This would ideally use journalling but does not have to... just a history function that is more robust than just keeping track of the last X files used would be great. GUI... I'll start extolling the virtues of GUI when it is shown to be more than just a iconized layer of crap ontop of my file system that slows down my productivity.

Re:Why BlueCurve and the cloning of Windows is stu

[1of9]

I totally agree. I came to that conclusion when apple came out with aqua. At first, I was all in a lather about why they didn't just make it look like os9, but then I realized that no matter how hard they tried, there would always be a little difference because of the fact that the underlying OS had different capabilities. At that point, I saw the wisdom in deciding to go with a totally different UI that was slightly similar but different. At first I was like, oh man, I like os9 better, but now when I use os9 I think it looks so dull compared to OSX.

Respecfully disagree...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

I still think that new users should get some sort of introduction to the open source and its ideals.

New users don't have the same inquisitive nature that most Slashdoters have. I think if we get these new users onto a box that almost never crashes, works well, and doesn't need to be shut down every night in order to have a "fresh" pc in the morning, they will be hooked. Then later on they can play with colors and desktops and package updates and - perchance - drop to a shell. Telling them about Open Source, MS EULA's, Windoze security holes, that Duken Nukem will be out "when it's done" :) ...that comes much much later.

Just get them on a *nix box, and they will be hooked. This GUI looks to be a vital first step.

Re:Respecfully disagree...

[Oliver Defacszio]

"I think if we get these new users onto a box that almost never crashes, works well, and doesn't need to be shut down every night in order to have a "fresh" pc in the morning, they will be hooked."

And they are; it's called Windows 2000. While I am sure that the malcontented herd here at Slashdot has a million indestructable tales of how Win2000 crashes every six seconds, in the actual, physical world, it's the most stable desktop OS and, you're right, the world is hooked.

Linux zealots simply cannot use the stability argument anymore.

Re:Respecfully disagree...

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when using KDE or Gnome. Both run alot slower on less than current hardware compared to win98/2000.

I put RH 8.0 running Gnome 2.x and it was a slow pig. Then my hdd failed. The "new" hdd that I got from the store that I bought the laptop from (P3 500MHz) came with win98, norton, and 10gig instead of 6gig.

It "felt" so much faster, that I have not messed with it since. Sure, it is the only computer I own, and doing the windows update thing for 2 hrs sucked, but now I have a quick, stable OS that just works.

God, that sounds like a ad for Apple... ;-)

Re:Respecfully disagree...

[Afrosheen]

Try this little experiment.

1. Install a fresh version of win2k on some machine you own.
2. Plug it into your cable/dsl/t1 connection.
3. Watch the magic.

By the time it hits Microsoft and starts downloading updates, you'll be owned. There are so many infected win2k server farms with dead/missing admins that are spewing nimda and other virii over the net constantly. A typical win2k fresh install, connected to the internet, will get owned in 20 minutes flat. I kid you not.

So if you're savvy enough you can cache all the updates locally and apply them *before* you connect to the internet. Doing otherwise is taking your boxes' life into your own hands.

Windows UI not original either

[g4dget]

The linux community continues to try and bring people over, but they only way they seem to know how to do that is by emulating Microsoft interfaces.

Much of the Windows UI was actually not originally created by Microsoft--it was copied from various other sources, including previous UNIX toolkits. And the Linux toolkits have copied significantly from older UNIX toolkits as well.

So, much of the similarity between Linux and Windows may simply be because they have common ancestors, not because Linux is copying from Windows.

Still, I agree with the general sentiment: Linux developers should probably consider Windows as a negative example and as a warning to them and should come up with new ways of doing things.

Re:Windows UI not original either

[axxackall]

Much of the Windows UI was actually not originally created by Microsoft--it was copied from various other sources, including previous UNIX toolkits.

Small percent of engineers worked on Unices 15 years. Virtually noone used any computer at home. Even few % of office workspaces had PCs. Although some has TTY :)

Microsoft did innovation by bringing PC to most of home users and to many office users. It was copied and it was ugly. But home users were happy as they've got computers with some GUI. TTY users were happy as they've got GUI. And that was for a fraction of a typical Unix box price.

Now, clone MS Windows GUI and see what an average Joe would say: "I've saw it before. But it worked much better for me."

Linux Desktop must be innovative to get more desktop share. And it is not a problem. Look at Enlightenment or Sawfish window managers - they improve and bring new ussability experience. Look at Gnome panels and applets and its new transparency things. That's the way I expect Linux GUI innovation will be winning.

That's probably not enough to prove the innovation of Linux desktops for some people. That's why there are projects like Fresco/Berlin. Unfortunately, non-X11 way won't work on Linux anytime soon - many Linux users believe in X11 + there are many drivers and applications for it.

I don't want to count Mac OS X either - it's a proprietary deadend and I don't believe in proprietary UI innovation anymore. It's like industrial and post-industrial consuming eras. First you feed people up. Then they demand better quality and old fashion don't work any more.

Finally, I thing there are some formerly/currently proprietary technologies which are much more (than XP GUI) worthy for being cloned in open source GUI. Here is a short list:

• Speech recognition
• Text-to-Speech
• handwriting recognition (especially on touch screens
• taxonomy based (aka object oriented) document storage (or file systems)

Make them out of the Linux box and many people will buy Linux boxes for that.

Re:Windows UI not original either

[Anonymous Coward]

Much of the Windows UI was actually not originally created by Microsoft--it was copied from various other sources, including previous UNIX toolkits

Well, it goes the other way too. CDE/Motif's look-n-feel was licenced from Microsoft.

Re:Windows UI not original either

[g4dget]

Much of the Windows UI was actually not originally created by Microsoft--it was copied from various other sources, including previous UNIX toolkits.

Small percent of engineers worked on Unices 15 years. Virtually noone used any computer at home.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the relevance of your point. Microsoft did hire developers from other companies liberally, developers who were familiar with GUI work at IBM, PARC, OSF, and other places. That's one of the reasons why Windows and Linux look alike: they copied from the same sources, in addition to Linux copying from Windows.

Speech recognition

CMU Sphinx and a couple of others.

Text-to-Speech

Edinburgh Festival and a couple of others.

handwriting recognition (especially on touch screens

Handhelds.org has several pen input methods. It's unclear that on-line connected handwriting recognition is a good idea, but it can be built on top of one of the speech recognition systems without too much work (most of the code is very similar).

taxonomy based (aka object oriented) document storage (or file systems)

There are numerous choices for that, from object-relational databases like PostgreSQL to knowledge representation systems like FramerD.

Linux Desktop must be innovative to get more desktop share

There are lots of innovative and different Linux desktops out there already. It's just that there is also a lot of people who want a Windows-like desktop on top of Linux. The beauty is that Linux supports all of them.

Re:Windows UI not original either

[axxackall]

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the relevance of your point. Microsoft did hire developers from other companies liberally, developers who were familiar with GUI work at IBM, PARC, OSF, and other places. That's one of the reasons why Windows and Linux look alike: they copied from the same sources, in addition to Linux copying from Windows.

You really didn't get a point. It's not importan who copied whom. It's important who first delivered it to many users. Microsoft delivered GUI to home users and to many corporate users. Are we on the same point here? If yes - Microsoft looks innovative for those (millions) users. And don't pull out from ashes that cheezy Mac GUI: who care? They delivered it only to 5% of desktops. Virtually nothing.

Speech recognition

CMU Sphinx and a couple of others.

Text-to-Speech

Edinburgh Festival and a couple of others.

handwriting recognition

Handhelds.org has several pen input methods...

taxonomy based (aka object oriented) document storage (or file systems)

There are numerous choices for that, from object-relational databases like PostgreSQL to knowledge representation systems like FramerD.

Are any of them are usable by end-users out of the box? They are all good technologies, but they are far away from being used by end-users for tasks I mentioned. That's what Microsoft did with GUI and OS ideas of Unix and Mac and others - they delivered it to end-users OUT OF THE BOX. That's good for both Microsft and its customers. I have no illusion about what Microsoft did wrong about monopoly and so on. But they did a good job of bringing innovation (even someone else's) to desktops of many people and it's not clear when (if ever) such innovations whould be delivered to those users without Microsoft copiing.

There are lots of innovative and different Linux desktops out there already. It's just that there is also a lot of people who want a Windows-like desktop on top of Linux. The beauty is that Linux supports all of them.

If you mean Fresco/Berlin and similar non-X11, their problem is that they are not X11. Therefore, those users, who need Windows-like GUI, cannot smoothly migrate from Windows style to something innovative. That's why I suggest to pay attention on Enlightenment/Sawfish (wm) and Gnome (dm) - you can configure a system very alike Windows or you can use some very new ideas about borders, movings, workspaces, or you can combine them. So, users with Windows background can be softly introduced to new ideas. Also, once speech or handwriting or taxonomies will be ready - it's easy to integrate them into Gnome.

The point is: innovation by itself is less important than the way how the innovation will be delivered to most of users.

Slashdot...

[linux_warp]

You bastards, you killed xpde.com!

Re:Slashdot...

[Joey Patterson]

But /. (hopefully) won't kill Google. :) The Google cache has the XPde main page and the screenshots page.

IRONY ANYONE?

[jrs 1]

the screenshots are all of the standard pre-xp interface but (get this) the *web page* is all in the xp 'blue' theme... doesn't anyone else find this funny?

Changing windows.

[Ektanoor]

Well, I have some very large experience on using several desktops. And I think I know enough about them to say that people will not change systems just for the desktop. While this thing is very important, the problem on using one or the other desktop is the range of services such system may offer and the way someone gets used to it.

During the middle of the 90's I saw lots of people that considered the Windows desktop as "horrible". But you would be admired to see that they used some highly primitive and simple apps made on DOS. Sysadmins linked all these apps with small batch files and highly primitive menus. And people were happy with it. When things started moving into Windows95, these people got lost. They couldn't get used to this new system for quite some long time. And most of them, till now, don't know what is the "Start" menu. They launch their programs from the icons laying in the desktop. And they don't give a Hell if the program is Internet Explorer or Mozilla if it carries the same interface (yeap I saw this funny thing some time ago). And not because it is better or worser but because it allows the same mechanical, routine movements without thinking about what's behind the GUI.

On *NIX, most of the choice around an interface is made on what you are offered at first. Most Mandrake people prefer KDE, Others give preference for Gnome. And, they rarely have seen they could have a choice. Due to the fact that they got used to these things, they rarely change sides. I, during my work on several interfaces in the very early ages of Linux, got used to the AfterStep interface. And I have noted that, today, I naturally prefer something like WindowMaker or BlackBox. This brings up an interesting effect. In two works, due to certain constraints, I use KDE or Gnome. And, for me it is pretty clear that 90% of these systems offer, are completely superfluous for me. But a mix of necessity and lazyness to change interfaces, keep me having them there.

Will people change to Linux because of the XP interface? No. They will change when you offer the same mechanics of using their machines everyday. And that means copying not only the interface per se, but also making all the horrors that people do with it and making every application look similar. When someone brings up that mess, people will change the OS. But not because it is Linux. Frankly, they will not note a difference.

Note. In certain cicumstances, it is possible today to offer systems carrying a range of services very similar to what Windows offer at start. I did that in 1999 with stations that were used only and exclusively for Internet browsing. When KDE is configured as much as possible as a Windows interface, a good mass of people do not give a hint about what OS they are working on. And this things was damn popular. While in Windows NT, these University classes had only 2500 users. When on Linux, there were no less than 7000. And just because the Linux was solid stable and fast... as the interfaces were nearly the same... And only after a talk or some weirdness on some program, people realised that they were not working on Windows.

However, I would not recomend to any sysadmin to see the horrors these people did with their desktops... Most of them looked as happy hippy vans...

Efficiency really does == Usability

[Ilan Volow]

The reason why a linux terminal often seems more efficient (and usable) than a linux gui is that the people designing linux GUI's do not know how to make efficient and usable GUI's. If you don't develop a gui that tries to minimize number of mouse clicks, adhere to Fitts' Law, be non-modal, things like that, then you'll tend to have very inefficient and unusable GUI's that make you wish to be rescued by some archaic, cryptic, monochromatic piece of keyboard driven junk from 1970.

Many open source people tend to think that the kind of stuff that I linked to above is pretty much BS, and this is where the problem with linux usability really lies.

Re:Efficiency really does == Usability

[Shelled]

I glanced at that link. Ironically, Fitts' Law states "The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target", which seems directly counter to putting all the applications starts in a tiny box on the most unused corner of the screen as Windows does. The right-click desktop crew appear to be more in compliance.

I start Mozilla in Ion - a keyboard-centric windowmanager - by typing: 'F3' moz 'Enter'. Five keystrokes. All my usual applications are symlinked to three-letter starts. That's about as fast as humanly possible for someone with hands already on the keyboard. The link doesn't address the physical usability issues of removing hands from the keyboard to grab a mouse. Granted, I spend most of the time at the keyboard and not the mouse as a graphics artist might, so this is user and use dependent, as is most everything else in the world.

The GUI's advantage is that it is its own help file, the options available to a user are laid out in an easy to access form that requires no memorization. The disadvantages, and the root of the CLI's power, is that for the sake of managability the GUI must limit the options available, otherwise the interface becomes confusing and unmanageable, and that the GUI is locked from user changes. The CLI has no such limits, especially for those comfortable with creating simple BASH scripts. (For those who consider the latter a no-show, it was a normal occurence in the days of DOS.) So yes, experienced users can be much more efficient by combining CLI and GUI controls. It's not an illusion.

Re:Efficiency really does == Usability

[Toraz Chryx]

"Ironically, Fitts' Law states "The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target", which seems directly counter to putting all the applications starts in a tiny box on the most unused corner of the screen as Windows does. The right-click desktop crew appear to be more in compliance"

Actually, the corners of the screen are the fastest place to get to with the cursor. (although the huge flowing menu thing is a different issue.)

Re:Efficiency really does == Usability

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame that such an informed comment is buried so low, and not modded up.

To be fair, though, I'm not sure that a lot of the theory of UI design is put to use by anybody, even Microsoft or Apple. Otherwise we'd all be using marking menus. :)

But yeah, "efficient" and "usable" as they're being here are pretty hazy. There is a whole field of research dealing with this stuff, and a lot of metrics have been developed to quantify the effectiveness of a UI. Too bad all the other comments here are by the uninformed.

One word

[Anonymous Coward]

no.

OSuX

childish

[Anonymous Coward]

why do the articles on slashdot get more and more childish, boring, uninteresting, etc... as the years go on? Either things are getting worse or my aging/maturing has revealed how gay slashdot really is.

Re:childish

[Anonymous Coward]

The AC above wrote: " why do the articles on slashdot get more and more childish, boring, uninteresting, etc... as the years go on? Either things are getting worse or my aging/maturing has revealed how gay slashdot really is."

And yet, here you are.

It knocks ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THEM out.

[Wakko Warner]

Just because it looks like XP doesn't mean it runs the same programs as XP. This has no connection whatsoever to Lindows.

- A.P.

Re:It knocks ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THEM out.

[helmutjd]

Erm, yeah, but Lindows doesn't run Win32 apps either.

I think the poster was referring to the fact that Lindows aims to be very similar to XP in look/feel. XPde seems to do the same thing, while allowing the user to use whichever Linux distro he/she chooses (rather than having to use an oddball distro like Lindows).

"Look and feel" court case (legal reference)

[Reziac]

Excerpt from Lotus v. Borland Decision

LOTUS DEV. CORP. v. BORLAND INTL., INC. No. 93-2214
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 4618
March 9, 1995, Decided

III. Conclusion

Because we hold that the Lotus menu command hierarchy is uncopyrightable subject matter, we further hold that Borland did not infringe Lotus's copyright by copying it. Accordingly, we need not consider any of Borland's affirmative defenses.

The judgment of the district court is

Reversed.

Linked from User Interface Copyright

Linux Elitists...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, if you are a Kylix/Delphi coder - JOIN THIS PROJECT. www.xpde.com. JOIN TODAY.
Forget about Linux Elitists. They eat shit and drink pee.

Mod up point please...

[El Camino SS]

This post is on topic... and IMHO right on the money.

ummm....WTF?

[Myuu]

"nobody can complain about Linux not being enough like XP"

Who is complaining about this? The farther I am from XP, the happier I am. KDE3 can be a little too close for comfort.

On a similiar note, I notice that I couple of new programs I d/l'ed look XPish in WINE, is there some kind of seperate APIs or what for XP?

Put your money where your mouth is.

[SparkyMartin]

I have nothing to hide from microsoft, the government or anyone

If you have nothing to hide from anyone then share your drives post your IP here so we can all take a look-see. Obviously give only read-only access so you cant use the excuse that someone might modify your files and screw around with your system. You shouldn't mind anyone taking a look, right?

Since you have nothing to hide, in any further posts please include your full name, address, and phone number in the message.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I was going to post that. People who say what he said are usually too stupid to realise that even if they are INNOCENT that people will still abuse them. Besides - nobody has nothing to hide, he probably cheated on his wife or checked out another guy in the changing room sometime.

Linux is free? So is Windows.

[Wakko Warner]

It came with my computer, so it's free.

Also, I can download it off the Internet from several places.

Nobody cares that Linux doesn't cost money.

- A.P.

Everybody quit the crying....

[codepunk]

If the guys want to build a XP interface for teir linux systems then by all means have at it. Most of you idiots don't even write code and have no place to be crying about it anyhow. If the itch exists then by all means scratch it. Open Source programmers do what we want so just get over it.

Learn to type

[Anonymous Coward]

You Linux hippies are so weak...can't even type properly. Looser.

only one thing left before people can switch

[sirshannon]

Now there is only one thing left before people can switch (well, besides functionality):

Program names that a) make sense and/or b) are easily pronounced by English speaking (and reading) humans.

how the @#$# do you pronounce "XPde"? All those cool little programs that people insist on using in Linux don't even have vowels in the half the time. Users don't want to use the command line and they don't want to have to try to remember program names that look like commands and are only pronouncible by nerds (like me).

Went to the page

[Badanov]

But I didn't see the X-windows motto: Where the hell did you think they were taking you?

Check out the poll

[Simon Brooke]

It's interesting to check out the poll on their front page:

Windows XP 19.97% (1877)
KDE 25.60% (2406)
Gnome 15.73% (1479)
BeOS 8.10% (761)
MacOS X 21.68% (2038)
Other, please, post a comment 8.93% (839)

Yup, that's right, most people prefer KDE to XP.

Good, that saves a lot of work then.

Re:Check out the poll

[damiangerous]

So those almost 20% of people who prefer XP can go jump in a lake? Because 25% of people prefer KDE, everyone must use KDE with no alternatives allowed? Some of those XP 20% can't be allowed to create an interface for the rest of that 20%? Sheesh, what about those people who like Gnome, BeOS of OS X? Do they have to switch to KDE too? Or maybe they have to switch to XP because it's more popular than their choice?

You're a jackass.

Re:Check out the poll

[Dean Sas]

not really, i wonder how many people voted on there that have run kde (or whatever) and disliked it so they continued on using soley windows. The kind of people that don't keep up on linux news.

Re:Check out the poll

[MattCohn.com]

I somehow don't think that a poll on http://XPde.com is a fair sample of computer users. Better would be Google. Anyone ever asked if they wanted to put a little poll on their page? Could even make it a new tab, where people could dynamicly create them for everyone else to answer with a random one showing on the homepage. Alright, I'm done now. Uh, oh yah. Bad sample.

Why?

[Zenjive]

What exactly is the point here?

My laptop at work came pre-instaled with XP, I gave it 1 month before I finally got sick of it and wiped it and installed Win2k.

The XP interface is way too clunky. It's all rounded and hard-candy shaped, and not to mention dog-slow! And this is on a decently fast system.

Re:Why?

[yuiop]

You realize you can get XP to run with the Win2000 interface? You idiot!

Re:Why?

[Zenjive]

Yeah, I know that, dicksmack. I still had problems with, expecially with NT4/2000 admin tools.

View the statistical effect of a slashdotting...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.xpde.com/modules.php?name=Statistics&op =Stats

I don't think MS cares

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a few commercial, off-the-shelf programs duplicate the Windows look and feel almost exactly and these -aren't- windows programs. For example, the important parts of Powerquest's products like Partition Magic and Disk Image run in DOS mode. Each of these programs provide a user interface that looks like Windows 95/98, and I haven't heard of any lawsuits against Powerquest courtesy of Microsoft.

Of course, it could be that they got special permission from MS to copy their interface (certainly likely).

Why do Germans always do things the hard way?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I want to squeeze out a turd I just grab the newspaper and go to the shitter...

They might be cloning the XP UI...

[mtec]

...but that's Apple's desktop pattern.

(it's in my stock OS X desktop picture choices)

what a stupid waste of time

[Scottus]

actually nothing more to add. always chasing what ever idicoy ms does.

Uhhhh....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is THEIR project. They can do whatever they want with it. They're not forcing you to use it on your desktop, and I'm sure they could care less if you don't. I bet you're the same purists who complained about fvwm95 bringing X one step closer to its knees before billg's throne.

Quite simply, if you don't like it, don't use it. Personally I think it's a fine idea. If nothing else, it can at least show hardcore Windows users the interface they are used to can be provided by a free product.

Good for some, meaningless to Linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

On a whole, this means nothing. Should it have to, though? There are people who will use it, and open source is about being able to say, "I'm gonna do this, even though no one wants to hear about it - because I *can*, damnit!" In short, if they want to copy XP down to all the minute details, good for them. I'm sure they'll find plenty of people who appreciate it.

Anyway, now to rant about idiots. Take two computer n00bs, sit them down, and randomly make changes to their desktop. Redo this for Mac power users, Linux power users, and Windows power users. Also, get two BOFH's and change their default shell.

See what kind of reaction you get.

There is no magical One Desktop Environment, which will enslave all others under the Eye of Tux. People of all operating systems like choice. (You'd better not mess with yer secretary's ass ugly wallpaper on her 2k desktop! Especially not if she brings you coffee!)

I fell in love with Enlightenment, back in the day. It was a resource hog and a pain in the ass to configure. I then moved on to Blackbox. Loved it. Sleek, sexy and only one problem - apps looked ugly because everyone had a different idea of how they should be set up. Finally, I came to KDE. I tried it years ago, and despised it - it was nothing more than a Win 98 clone. Nowadays, I think it's offering a hell of a lot more. Maybe not without problems (Why can't I delete crap from my menu? *scream* Hide *this*, arseholes!), but hey - I like how my applications now resemble each other.

No, I'm not going on a 'KDE is bloated!' rant (Though it is. Yet praised be the ability to only install libs, base and network!).. My point is, I still use Blackbox on machines where speed counts. I still play around with Enlightenment when I want to make OS X drones cry at the ugliness of Aqua.

And I know people who swear by TWM.

For all the good little zealots who insist that Linux is doomed without a single desktop, piss off. Not even if it was the ultimate in customization and ease of configurability would everyone use it.

There will always be applications that don't use your desktop's toolkit. Applications that won't run without an additional 100 mb of libraries installed. As it should be.

X is for XTerms and running Mozilla!

Whaaa?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess John C. Dvorak was right after all.

Why copy Microsoft crap?

Re:This is pointless

[Dean Sas]

depends on your morals and ethics. The legality bit depends on your country too :) Though yes this person is probably referring to obtaining it illegally.

Great. Until you try to use an App.

[simetra]

Too bad there aren't any real apps you could use with it.

Looks nothing like it

[mccalli]

Went to the screenshots page - it doesn't look anything like the Luna interface of XP. Mind you, it looks extremely similar to Windows 2000's interface,.

Cheers,
Ian

Themes?

[MoogMan]

Can I turn off themes in XPde? Or can I at least install a KDE theme?

Ripping off Apple

[tuxracer]

if Linux interface developers are going to rip anyone off, it should be Apple

I agree, the only problem is that Apple is willing to sue anyone who rips off their interface, and has threatened those who've tried.

Can OS/X be ported to the i386 platform?

[Newer Guy]

THAT would be the coolest thing to ever happen. Since OS/X is based in unix, I can see no reason that it can't port to the Intel (PC) platform.
Many here say that the Mac platform is what people want over Windows...and I happen to agree with them. OSX on intel would be the best of all worlds...Cheap hardware, a bulletproof OS and a bundle of money for Apple.

Re:Can OS/X be ported to the i386 platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can OS X be ported to i386? Yes. In fact, Apple already has it running on generic PC hardware.

Will it ever see the light of day? Not bloody likely. Apple's money comes from hardware sales. A version of OS X that Joe User could run on his $300 eMachine would kill Apple.

They don't get it, do they ?

[master_p]

Microsoft is not gonna fill a lawsuit because the copying of their UI fits exactly with their 'embrace and extend' mentality.

Linux should not try to be equal to Windows, it should try to be better.

Looks is only half of it...

[HungWeiLo]

Most people would rather have the functionalities of MS OLE, where any random graph from Excel can be inserted into any other OLE-aware application. It's good that they can at least get people past the "looks" stage, but the core functionality must also be emulated if you want people to "not notice the difference."

Slashdotters need to chill out

[FreshFunk510]

Come on people! For once when the word "Windows" is mentioned let's not all freak out and start flaming left and right. For once, can we look on the positive side of things?

True companies may not want to switch if they already have a working environment but what about companies that are starting up? Sure this may not be Windows button for button and panel for panel but the general familiarity would help one crossover imho.

I also think that the familiarity in the design won't necessarily confuse people but it will allow them to start at step 25 of 50 of learning a gui as opposed to step 1.

What linux/*nix freaks don't understand is that not everyone wants to spend all their free time learning a new environment. GUIs are like relationships; they take a long time to get really familiar with.

Why this effort? XP looks like a child's toy.

[kobotronic]

Mickysoft's XP designers did a mediocre job surely not worth cloning. In designing their newest public interpretation of the consumer desktop, they've resorted to garish colors, plastic-y widgets and even more silly and time-wasting animations. Do you like the little Duplo people representing users? The rest of the iconography is equally retarded.

There's really no worthwhile innovation in XP's UI, it looks more like it came out of Willy Wonka's Lego Factory.

While OSX Aqua looks cute, it also fails to innovate - same old tired metaphors, reduced consistency, candy gimmicks over functionality, resource hogging shading tricks and severely reduced accessibility. The weird thing is, Apple recently had the most sensible, consistent and universally accessible implementation of the traditional (albeit tired) Xerox folders-and-documents metaphor with MacOS 9. Why all this candy fluff?

Innovation is what is needed to get ahead; candy is for kids. Mimicking the dead ends of evolution and soon-to-be desktop dinosaurs is futility.

You stupid people

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is a kernel. Can't you see that?
We're not trying to copy Microsoft or change Linux.

Can you see the differences between Linux and XPde? Get real, without GNU tools, Linux itself can't be even used. XPde is a desktop. Linux is a kernel.

Sorry we don't want to use frigging TWM or VI or emacs. We want to provide a migration for people. Understand the purpose of this project.

And for you to know, KDE has done MORE COPYING of Windows since when it started, copying Windows 95.

Get a life.

Re:You stupid people

[cpmte]

Thank you, RMS.

That's the linux way!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the Linux way; to copy and follow in MS's footsteps. Not to innovate or to be different. Yet another reason I use open source, just not Linux open source.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please. -REALLY? where?

[urbieta]

If there are better interfaces, let me see some examples please 8)

You are missing the fact that we want to take over microsofts 90+% marketshare to grow linux popularity, or where you planning to turn computer iliterate people straight into linux to make a niticeable difference in comparison to m$? pleasee!!!

OPEN your MINDS

[Anonymous Coward]

Open your MIND and UNDERSTAND for your own sake that LINUX is nothing but a KERNEL written by Linus Torvalds.

The fun about Linux is to do whatever you want and let people be happy with it. This is what Linus wanted to pass on.

Using vi, emacs, ratpoison, fluxbox, mutt, is not using Linux. It is GNU software.

Linux is a Kernel. Open your mind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Read this now: Linux IS a KERNEL.

Using tools like vi, emacs, mutt and others DOES NOT mean you use Linux. You use GNU software. Same with XPde which comes from a different technology platform.

XPde does not change Linux in any way. Linux is a kernel.

sluggish start menu

[IAmTheSuit]

IANAMCSE, but there are a few possible causes for this.

1) Your processor is just too slow.

2) You don't have enough RAM, so Windows has resorted to slow virtual memory. *crankcrank*

3) You have way too many items on your Start Menu. Try sorting things into subcategories.

4) You haven't tuned the Start Menu. A wonderful Microsoft PowerToy called TweakUI lets you change the delay used when expanding program groups (find it on the Mouse tab). Set it to the fastest setting. The only downside is that you can't "cut corners" when going to a menu item. The slider has 9 positions; pick one. I guess you could find it in the registry if you wanted to do even more fine-tuning.

FWIW, I have 2 1.2GHz machines with 512MB each (one Win2k, one XP Pro), and I've never had any problems with a sluggish Start Menu. But with Win2k server on a K6-2-333 w/128, yeah ;)

-IAmTheSuit

A Hybrid Linux-Windows OS would be PERFECT !!!

[Zanek]

Whats up with the Linux zealots who cant over their hatred of Windows to realize that some of Windows interface IS ok. There I said it. Not everyone wants to fool with config files or search for which dir the services/daemons are installed in (I personally dont mind, but having a CONSISTENT OPTION is nice).
I think this is a great idea because
1) You have a very familiar interface for newbies migrating to Linux
2) You could use this to eliminate some distro problems by overlaying the same interface to access services and programs over everything
3) I dont care what any Linux zealot says, but I think any reasonable person would prefer the BEST of both worlds in Linux and Windows
4) Its all about consistancy, and ease of use. If you dont want to dick around with /etc/hosts.allow , I shouldnt have to, there should be a GUI to allow me to easily modify everything if I so CHOOSE.

Re:Sue me, sue me, please. -REALLY? where?

[Anonymous Coward]

pal, you really, really need to work on your english.

and slashdot is lame.

Noo!

[miffo.swe]

Why copy something that bad and awful? It sure aint easy to use for a newbie. For someone used to windows yes but that isnt because the GUI is easy but because they know it from before.

I dont want to dog them for the effort, i just dont agree with them. Some people will probably love this .

Copying Windows GUI? At least it's better than KDE

[BigBlockMopar]

Yeah, this is just what we need to differentiate linux from Windows. :-p

Agreed. But look at it this way.

At least Microsoft has a budget to sit people down in focus groups and see what they like. If we had that in KDE/Gnome/$any_other_full-service_desktop_metaphor , then it's probable we wouldn't have new stuff being released with color schemes that make corporate users vomit, or xine logos designed by eurotrash 14-year-old Run Lola Run fans from East Berlin.

Microsoft spent millions developing that GUI look and feel. If user Joe Average didn't like it, they wouldn't have released it. We could do far worse than to take Microsoft's lead on UI design - KDE is the best of the free desktop metaphors for Linux, and well, frankly, it sucks.

By copying the good features of Windows software while avoiding their pitfalls of poor security and castrating inflexibility, we have no place to go but up.

The same, of course, applies to analyzing and "sharing" what makes the Macintosh GUI great. But you have to crawl before you can walk...

Linux isn't ready for the desktop.

How Stupid!!!

[ToasterTester]

Why are so many people trying to turn Linux into a free version of Windows. What happened to innovation, what happened to being an advanced Unix-like operating system. Everytime you turn around more people are trying to dumb down Linux so you can actract Windows users. Look at the whole push for GUI admin tools. GUI Admin tools have been a target of Windows critism, now Red Hat and others are cranking them out. Everything the Linux community has pointed to as a fault in Windows they are now trying to add to Linux. If you want Windows buy a copy, why reinvent the wheel.

Linux started as a clone of Unix, now it's becoming a Windows clone, is it Linux only knows how to clone things?

Re:How Stupid!!!

[Bandman]

why can't it do both?

I believe that Linux is already what we geeks want it to be. Sure it might not have gee-wiz-gizmo-2.25 yet, but it will, and we know it. What Linux lacks is the ability for idiots to use it. The "linux is user-friendly, but it's selective about who it's friends are" joke is in full effect here. There's no reason that if this non-geek user hurdle can be overcome, that it still can't be the coolest thing since sliced bread. Just change your preferred window manager and you're back to what you normally have. The beauty of linux is versitility. I can have my stuff, you can have your stuff, and we can use the machine for completely different tasks, and it's equally well suited* to each of them.

* multimedia not withstanding....in general i believe that multimedia on linux sucks. There are a few bright lights in the dim recesses of the cave that is multimedia (mplayer, soundtracker, etc) but generally it's too few and far between.

This is no good!

[Qbertino]

This is a bad idea, for various reasons:

1.) Drag and Drop and consistent fonts and clipboard aside, OSS Desktops are better, no need to copy a crappy one.

2.) In case you haven't noticed: noticable parts of the XP GUI elements are inspired by KDE! The Controlcenter for instance.
And: XP is ugly and visually impractical (since I'm a designer myself I'd say my judgement counts)

3.)One the pure visual side Linux desktops rule! E is the reason so many designers and visually orientated people see great potential in Linux. Cloning XP will get the majority to think it's finally reached parity with Windows, why it actually has surpased it long ago.
This will cast a bad light onto the OSS community, making the OSS artists look like a bunch of spineless goofs that have no own ideas. Which simply isn't true (fluxbox.sourceforge.net, enlightenment.org)

4.) Emulating a bad workspace management is a bad idea in general, especially when people think it's industry standard and desperatly need to be shown otherwise.

5.) This will strengthen M$ FUD about the OSS community being nothing but a bunch of sad and sorry rippers.

Re:This is no good!

[xutopia]

XP works better than any Linux desktop. It is an industry standard and that is 90% of desktops out there.

Microsoft packs more features and usability inside their OS than any other OS out there. Linux has not yet come up with anything half as good as that because it is inconsistant and people put their pride where they shouldn't. Face it, Microsoft has a better Desktop for the mass. It might not be as powerful as Linux Desktops out there nor as stable but darn it people! Wake up! It's better!

Re:This is no good!

[Radical Rad]

I respectfully disagree.

The Ms Window interface is not 'crappy'. It is composed almost completely of "borrowed" elements from competing interfaces. If those elements are now crappy then they must have been crappy also in their original forms on Unix / Linux / OS2 / Macintosh desktops. I don't think they were then or now. Though if you are saying that too many spices can ruin the stew then I would agreee with that, though KDE is more guilty in that respect I think.

Having an interface available which will require zero retraining for end users will save businesses so much money as they transition from MS lock-in to the more diverse, less expensive, more robust, equivalent Free Software. Regardless of whether an XP inspired interface becomes popular on Linux there will always be new, different, innovative, experimental interfaces being developed and available for Linux, so having one more which is perceived as familiar and intuitive to trained office drones is nothing to worry about.

You say we should not emulate what you consider a bad environment becuase people should be shown that it is not an industry standard? With all due respect, that is nonsense. Linux will never get that chance unless it can continue to grab desktop marketshare and that cannot happen unless the transition is seamless from one environment to the other. Linux must achieve parity before it could ever hope to lead people in a new direction. And due to the diverse nature of Open and Free software Linux can never force people to go anywhere; like a liquid, they will find their own path.

Lastly, the recent 'M$ FUD about the OSS community being'... essentially copycats is meant to make people like you fear being called a copycat and spending your time developing lots of new, unproven, and impractical, but innovative, and possibly occasionally successful, user interface enhancements which would make Linux an ungainly albatross but from which they could cherry pick the gems for their next platform. If you fall for this cheap psychological trick then you become MS's unpaid alpha version developers.

IbTitle???

[InfiniteWisdom]

Why do the screenshot s all have "IbTitle" for window titles.

Windows XP doesn't do that. Think they forgot something in their quest to copy the WinXP interface???

Re:IbTitle???

[Alex_Ionescu]

It's lbTitle, for "Label Title", a place-holder they probably put on the first beta builds of their Window Manager before being able to show the title.

Re:Copying Windows GUI? At least it's better than

[Deadstick]

Right, what KDE needs is a Blue Screen of Death. Or maybe teal.

rj

pointless in and of itself, but there is an upside

[Tumbleweed]

It keeps clearly stupid people off the streets while they work on this project. Good enough, I guess.

Completing the theme.

[Erpo]

Downloaded it. Tried it. I found it to be fairly crashy, but I like the idea.

Anyway, for those who like an XP desktop environment and window manager but want their apps to look like they do in XP, check out the TrueBlue gtk+ theme; it's not an exact replica, but it captures the feel. Also, if you like the puffy "Luna" window decorations, you might want to check out the Lunatic theme for sawfish.

Happy theming!

Font Trouble

[ReadParse]

It's moderately ammusing that EVERY single time somebody purports to have an interface that strives to look "just like windows", it's easy to identify it as a clone at first glance, thanks to lame fonts. I don't mean that the fonts aren't good, but they're not THE SAME. "MS Sans Serif" -- view it, study it, and copy it. Without that very font, the eye will refuse to believe it's looking at Windows. Yes, you can use other fonts instead of MS Sans Serif under Windows, but most people use the default, and you should at least default to the same font that Windows uses.

RP

How about getting XP to look more like Linux!

[Billly Gates]

One of the reasons I am sticking with w2k is the god awfull interface of XP. The only good thing I like about it is that the most recently used programs are in the start menu. That can be very nice. I noticed I can change the style to look more like the clasical Windows but the icons are still ugly as hell. Not to mention clasical windows also has a boring interface.

I tried Blinds but the nagwhare was annoying and it only changed the menu bars. Litestep was extremly bugging and for some reason interfered with the GDI so my printer would not print properly. This bug is well docuemented and I think its strange.

I want a free theme changer that changes everything so I can have a WindowMaker like desktop. That is my personal preference for my own look but kde is also nice looking.

One of the apealing aspects of the Imacs which saved Apple was that they were stylish. People pay alot of money for computers and they want interfaces that are highly customizable. You would not believe the amount of people who finally left Windows95 to Windows2k just for the shadows of the mouse icon.

SlicKer?

[Mitchell Mebane]

Speaking of alternative desktop environments, take a look at SlicKer. Right now it's mostly conceptual, but it looks like a GREAT idea.

Interesting

[captaineo]

Wow, this is very scary - Linux with a professionally-designed interface on top :)... (although XFree is still betrayed by the horrendous-looking fonts in the menu bar of their Task Manager...)

I hope they also take care to double-buffer most of the UI graphics like Windows - it's not good enough if the screenshots match, the interactiveness has to match also...

Re: I'm gonna call B.S. on this one. Sorry.....

[King_TJ]

Why is it I hear so much about Microsoft's UI "sucking" here on Slashdot, yet few others seem to hold a similar view?

Microsoft interface design surely is considered a priority in the company. Otherwise, they probably would have stuck with the horrible Windows 3.1 style GUI, instead of doing the total revamp they did for Windows '95 and beyond.

Just because MS isn't actively suing everyone who imitates their interface doesn't mean they don't consider their interface valuable or important. They simply know they're the de-facto standard everyone else is trying to copy - so they're satisfied.

Apple, on the other hand, is a company with much more to lose. Don't forget, they're in the computer hardware business, as well as software. Their interface design is a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to moving product. (EG. If you can run a good OSX clone on regular PC hardware, why buy the Mac hardware? Their UI is "leverage" to drive Apple Mac system sales.)

Now, before people get their panties in a bunch over my statements, let me clarify. I do *not* think Microsoft is the "holy grail" of interface design. I certainly agree that Excel isn't the ultimate best design for a spreadsheet, for example. On the flip-side, though, it's really not half-bad. Millions of people are very productive with the product every day - and it looks and works well enough that open-source developers often attempt to emulate it.

For all of Microsoft's failures and flaws, I really see the look and feel of their UI as being one of the lesser issues (if an issue at all). Even in an MS vs. Apple comparison, don't forget - MS was doing background full-screen wallpaper long before Apple. They had superior file management (no 3rd. party tools needed to get a tree-structure display of your drive contents). They had multitasking working much better than Apple too. (Could you even format a floppy in the background on MacOS until version 8 or so?) Even Microsoft's "shortcuts" in Windows seem more functional than Apple's "aliases" were. (Even through MacOS 9.x, I don't believe you could make an alias point to anything on a networked drive. It only allowed an alias to a file on a physical, local device.)

I know someone who won't like this..

[Anonymous Coward]

Dvorak is going to be pretty pissed...

Re:Why BlueCurve and the cloning of Windows is stu

[bogie]

Bluecurve isn't a problem for the same reason that www.msn.com is the home page for most people. The newbie who your worried about won't ever switch from Gnome to KDE, so it won't make a dam bit of difference since they will only keep the default and never run into the problem. Those smart enough to know that a desktop environment besides Gnome is available will adapt.

The user who is new to linux just won't run into the problems your describing with Bluecurve. The problems they will run into are ones that are common to the linux desktop. I don't think I need to list the multitude of problems the linux desktop has, but suffice to say the minor differences between gnome and kde when using Redhat pales in comparison to the serious shortcomings that they will experience well before then.

Re:Copying Windows GUI? At least it's better than

[BigBlockMopar]

Right, what KDE needs is a Blue Screen of Death. Or maybe teal.

[pondering...] Nothing beats the Amiga Guru Meditation Error!

Dude

[iamacat]

Since you have nothing to hide, post your SSN and your credit card numbers/expiration dates here. What? You never file taxes online? Log in to your banks? Shop on Internet? Then YOU might have nothing to hide, but your company still does. Unless your work machine and it's local network also do not have any confidential information.

I don't see the point

[suman28]

The reason I install and use Linux (what ever the flavor) is to get away from Windows (look feel and all). As was this old slashdot article mentioned, Linux developers are not being creative enough.

NT maybe

[cyberdog6]

looks more like 2000. really doesn't look anything like XP.

boring in any case, next to KDE.

Last Post!

[alpg]

The best rebuttal to this kind of statistical argument came from the
redoubtable John W. Campbell:

The laws of population growth tell us that approximately half the
people who were ever born in the history of the world are now
dead. There is therefore a 0.5 probability that this message is
being read by a corpse.

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...