Slashdot Mirror
XPde 0.5 - A Linux Desktop for Windows Users
Nissan Dookeran writes "From the website: 'The XPde Team today announced the immediate availability of XPde 0.5.0, a complete rewrite of the XPde desktop environment...XPde aims to recreate the Windows XP desktop environment on Linux in order to allow Windows users to "feel at home" in front of a Linux computer' Full announcement of release here with screenshots here. Might be a good transitional tool for Windows users looking not wanting to give up their eye-candy interface initially. The main page also has a good PDF document regarding legal issues when developing software that emulates Windows functions. A StarOffice version of the document also available."
hey, it's the secure WinXP release! (duck for cover)
This is a cool project. Windows is awesome. It is good to finally see Linux users realizing that the Windows UI is the best one there is and adapting to use it.
g1powermac already created a livecd using Morphix that has xpde5 inside. Just boot it using desktop=xpde5 boot parameter. It will default to 0.4.2 since xpde5 is still lacking some of the features. Sourceforge download
if MS can take down "Lindows", they can definitely take down "XPde Professional".
some of the icons are so similar that it looks like they've changed maybe one or two pixels at most.
Isn't this similar to the reason why Apple took Microsoft to court over the similarities between Mac OS and Windows? Or similar to the reason why Apple took some folks to court because they copied the look and feel of their Aqua GUI?
... look at a screenshot ... Start button is named Start, My Desktop is My Desktop, etc. Watch the headlines here in a week to a month for the cease-and-desist letter from MS to the XPde folks. Makes me glad I have a friend going through law school ... heh.
I don't mean to piss in anyone's Corn Flakes, but damn
Even superheroes once were losers
I tried this out one night when I was planning out a desktop for a person I knew who wanted to try out Linux. On a visual level, it was very well put together, and one could forget they were in Linux until one tried out the control panel, or wanted to get any work done. Menus and things still had to be assembled manually also, which didn't mean too much to me, as it was still 0.31 at the time. It wasn't ready for my friend's system, and I ended up putting Gnome 2.2 on there which they were more than happy with. I'd say this project definitely has a future, from what I see their mock-up of the Win2K desktop was pretty right on target, behaviors and all. The lack of some key features are what kept it from being ready, but I imagine much of it will be dependent on the distribution, placing icons in the start menu, etc when one installs a .deb, .rpm, or runs an emerge.
.
If XP has eye candy then I'm superman. The first thing I do on any install is take away that snot green interface and replace it with the classic interface.
I think that one of the areas that linux can really beat windows given enough effort is with it's desktop environments.
Given this, wouldn't it be better for people migrating from windows to become acustomed to the more powerful desktop environment of linux, rather than one which sacrifices some good features for the sake of making windows users feel more at home?
Also, if you shroud the differences between windows and linux behind a look-alike gui as soon as something goes wrong, or the user trys to install something the os will likely throw up a very un-windows like error, which will most likely confuse the user, leaving a sour taste about linux in their mouth.
You may claim my $0.02 via Paypal or Direct Credit
Man, the more I watch the Linux world from the outside, the less i'm beginning to believe in "the revolution". It would be funny if it wasn't crushingly dissapointing - Two sides that "just don't get it".
*Sigh*
Pretty much all window managers-themes look /horrible/ on linux, this looks nice and might just make it more attractive for people to switch.
Might encourage them to try it but it also makes them less likely to stick with it when they find thing don't work quite right. A different appearance helps people with the learning experience because they have visual cues that things ARE different. Mimicking XP's appearance will mean they're constantly caught off guard by small differences, and they'll find that harder to cope with than bigger differences would have been.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
I liked the last version much, even though it was far from complete. But IIRC it was based on Kylix, and there was no good way to run it on any other architecture than x86.
So can I run this completely rewritten version on our Sun boxes?
Mirrors
xpde.qadram.com
xpde.holobit.net
xpde.tech-critic.com
xpde.abenks.com
xpde.debian.co.nz
toxic-systems.de/xpde
xpde.linuxring.hu
xpde.gaesi.org
xpde.jt-webservice.de
I have mixed feelings about this. At first I thought "if linux is better than windows, why try to be windows". But then I realised, that this is exactly what I'd show people whom I wanted to convert to linux. For most people, the GUI is Windows. They don't know about kernel stuff or hardware compatibility issues (if it works). If they saw this, with a properly wordes sales pitch "free, no viruses, cool geek factor" etc, I think a "sale" would be easier.
I do have concerns about the legal side of the project, but other posters has already made good comments about that.
Very few people have made a conscious choice for Windows and its UI, and few people will really base their future decisions on this.
95% of the angst most people feel from using Windows comes from one single thing: security. I find it remarkably easy to switch people to a distro like Xandros by telling them: it is safe and will protect your photos and documents from viruses, trojans, and worms.
All that is needed is a reasonable level of compatibility so that people can continue to make their documents & spreadsheets, download their photos from their digital cameras, and email their friends.
Not a single person ever says: "but it looks nothing like Windows!" - the only counter objection is that "certain things do not work".
Emulating XP safely may be an intellectual challenge but it is not part of the Linux sales argument. Distributions like Xandros - which install easily, and handle smoothly - are.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
In my expirience with advocating GNU/linux there is enough Linux hype going around to convince some-one to take a look, and the KDE/Gnome desktops are in themselves easy on the eyes. The problem is to convinvce someone to work at learning the new system.
GNU/Linux is diffrent then windows! I hope it will always remain so, but when talking about user friendlyness the problem isn't with switching windows or what your icons look like, it is more about setting up programs.
In the GNU/Linux world people still open a text console on a every day basis, Somw of us find it the more convinient way of managing the system.
I have several times tried using some automatic configuration tool(usually by Mandrake) and quickly found myself opening emacs in a split window with a man page and a config file.
In many cases the problem is with the GNU/Linux gurus not being able to help with GUI tools. On several ocasions my brother came to me with linux questions how do I do this or that and I knew my way of doing it(Typing in a console window) but I knew very little of which GUI tool will do the job and how.
These are the major issues in GNU/Linux UI
Me
As long as there is choice, there will be no breakthrough. One more choice won't help either.
Sure, starting in various ends will perhaps give a Darwinian process of development, but now with a plethora of applications developed on the different desktops, incompatible with eachother, there will be no survival of the fittest. All the desktop technologies seem doomed to live side by side forever. sigh.
seems even at 6:30 am the site is getting slashdotted but, for one, i like it.
i know microsoft is the devil and all that, but i've grown accustomed to the XP interface at work. i use SuSE linux at home, and i like it. however, at work i use xp and find its interface better in many ways.
if only we could integrate all the hardware settings into the main gui like xp does for display settings and such, then linux would really take off with a window manager like this.
there's also a lot to say for copying OS X, or developing our own little gui interface altogether, but that's another post...
Emory: Uh..we're still..beta testing that.
Oglethorpe: What you're testing is me and my patience!
I mirrored the screenshot:
Screenshot
A shot of the 0.5.0 release, the rest of shots are from the previous release.
I really don't see the point. People claim that users will be "comfortable" with a Microsoft work-alike, like aping Microsoft's interface will somehow ease the path for regular users.
Fast flash: Microsoft breaks all of their UI conventions with every major rev. Everything from the start menu to common control panels to file managers are all wildly different from one rev to the next. A slavish adherence to Microsoft standards will only put you behind when they move on to the next mediocre interface, wasting a lot of effort that could be geared towards making a better, friendlier, easier-to-grok-than-Microsoft interface that "Joe User" will take to like a fish to water. Kinda like, you know, how Apple does with the Macintosh? And no, this does not mean to mimic the MOSX interface. Get creative and think everything through to the logical end, and you'll be all right. See the earlier article on ROX.
Aping Microsoft won't steal users, it will just confuse them when stuff breaks because it doesn't precisely match up with the way its Microsoft analogue works.
SoupIsGood Food
I've used windoze on my machine since win3.1. I've done the 3.11 thing, 95, 98, 2000 and now xp. I'm an engineer and did tech support for my department. I grew up with computers, I remember playing with a sinclair when I was like 6 or something.
I tried redhat 5.2 when it was current, got it installed as a dual boot, got X configured manually, got on the internet with it. Couldn't do anything else, thought it was a neat thing but not of much use, and removed it.
Tried redhat 7.2, and while the install was SO much easier, I simply didn't have the patience and time to learn how to recompile the Kernel, compile my apps, and become a command line wizard just to get anything done. (I knew a bit about the command line, I had used sun boxes at work for CAD)
Flash forward to this year, I seriously wanted to get linux to work, I want to have a fast, streamlined system with lots of good, free software. I installed Mandrake 9.2, and I *am* seriously impressed with this thing. I got so much of it working, the way it handles the rpm's is great, the desktop is great, the install was great, but why am I still using windows?
I can't figure out how to maneuver around X to update my video drivers and I can't get Firewire working. My goal is to have a killer video editing machine, and I gots to have firewire. The hoops I jumped through to get the video capture software working was dependency hell, and in the end I couldnt get the 1394 subsystem working.
Again, I don't have the time, I can install windows and have it all in just a couple hours. Maybe later... I promise, I will try again. I AM a power user. I AM competent enough. I HAVE programmed. I just don't have the patience and time to have to make things work that take a SINGLE CLICK and work OUT OF THE BOX in windows. Here's my point: Either give me to a single, difinitive guide that explains these problems or make it as easy as windows. I WANT To use linux, and I'm not alone. Help us.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
graphics card drivers, network drivers, tv-out, many things that have drivers in windows that don't in linux. this is the only situation i can think of.
This is a typical example of critics proposing the wrong solution to a problem.
We don't need one implementation, we need implementations to be compatible and interoperable! Instead of trying to make a dictatorship, go support effords like Freedesktop.org.
GTK has C++ bindings and QT has C bindings, so it doesn't matter what language you use.
"The linux people need to understand that ONE half-assed product is better than the choice between TWO superb products."
What?! Being forced to use one car that breaks down every week is better than being able to choose between two cars that don't break down for years?
Being forced to use DOS as a server OS is better than being able to choose between Linux and Solaris?
You are heavily underestimating peoples' intelligence and their ability to choose.
Again, we need interoperability and compatibility, not a dictatorship.
That having been said, WindowMaker's a fine window manager, but it doesn't appeal to the sort of user this thing addresses. (Though I wonder if it's this sort of user, someone looking for a better Windows rather than a free Unix, that is good for the Linux community.)
Exactly. There's choice on the desktop area because people disagree! Forcing one implementation down everyone's throat will make about 50% of the userbase unhappy. Do you really want to pay that price just for the sake of avoiding potential confusing?
The top parent post is yet another example of critics proposing the wrong solution to a problem.
What we need is interoperability and compatibility. Don't try to make a dictatorship, encourage effords like Freedesktop.org instead.
Luckily interoperability is improving more and more. I don't know about KDE but both GNOME 2.6 and ROX have adopted the Freedesktop.org MIME standard. All desktops have already adopted the Xdnd standard quite a while ago. KDE 3.0+ has adopted the clipboard standard. GNOME 2, and I believe KDE 3.2 too, have adopted the menu vFolder standard. This list goes on and on.
What people really want is to be able to write software that can integrate in every desktop. They want to write for one standard and work anywhere.
That's exactly why we need interoperability and compatibility, not a single implementation.
The point of the Windows GUI is not that it looks nice, it's that you can do everything in it. If this project provided a functional Add/Remove Programs, Device Manager and Control Panel then that would be a good thing. But it doesn't. To be fair the authors didn't intend it to do anything but recreate the look, but I think that will be counterproductive. It will only serve to make the limitations of a GNU/Linux system in terms of ease of installation and configuration of hardware and software more obvious.
The day you put the driver or software CD into your machine, click "install" and it Just Works(tm) - your new printer appears with an icon along with the rest, your software appears in the menu, the control panel lets you configure your new graphics card - is the day ordinary folk will switch to Linux.
The project has set out what it intended to achieve - a Windows XP look-alike. So well done on that front. But I think the authors are wrong if they think the look of the GUI is what's stopping people adopting GNU/Linux for the desktop.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual: of the mind
Property: that over which one has control
I would settle for a linux desktop for linux users.
You can dream but as long as Linux geeks continue the UI religious wars you are going to end up with an ugly hodgepodge of applications that look inconsistent and behave inconsistently.
Now we have this wonderful prospect that Miguel de Icaza has declared all existing toolkits obsolete and is presumably going to develop a new one from scratch and start a religious war in the Gnome/GTK camp when he decides he wants to switch existing apps over with all the devastating consequences. The one plus here is KDE will just ignore him and maybe he will sufficiently screw up GNOME for a year or two so that GNOME will fall behind and fail and then we can unify on one desktop.
Just do what I do and try to run OpenOffice and Evolution on a KDE desktop. It puts a massive suck on memory because there are three sets of software doing all the same things but differently. You have to shift gears everytime you move between them because everything about the UI's in each is different. I have utter contempt for people who complain they don't like the "look" of KDE and GNOME. The "look" is insignificant compared to consistency.
I don't even consider using Mozilla because then I would hate the massive inconsistency so badly I would just give up on a Linux desktop. Konqueror has its quirks but its really important that its small, light, fast and fits with the rest of the desktop. I'll drop Evolution and return to kmail as soon as the HTML editor in kmail works. I need to start evaluating koffice to see if I can get off OpenOffice or I need to buy a whole bunch more RAM. The time it takes OpenOffice to load is reason enough to want to get rid of it. KDE is using some major tricks to get apps to load quickly and to circumvent the major overheads in dynamic linking. When you load OpenOffice you benefit from none of this so you wait an hour for it to load.
Let me spell it out for you. Mac OSX and Windows have a consistent look and feel, all the applications behave consistently. This is especially true of OSX. Thats why ordinary people like it so much. If you use one app you can switch to another and use it with equal ease. This consistency is a hundred times more important to users than all the "innovation" you see in Linux applications. If you want Linux to win on the desktop the application suite HAS to be consistent, and I mean really consistent, as in how menus are laid out, how accelerators are defined, how tools work, how things look etc.
If you want Linux to continue to fail on the desktop just stay the course. You might win some enterprise support because big companies want free. You don't have a prayer with most average users with the current state of things.
@de_machina
Might be a good transitional tool for Windows users looking not wanting to give up their eye-candy interface initially.
I'm not sure that's the salient issue. Windows user who are savvy to Linux know about the great eye candy that is available for Linux. Frankly, if it came down to eye candy, projects like Enlightenment offer no advantage over ObjectDesktop, WindowsBlinds, and StyleXP. And so far, Microsoft's ClearType anti-aliasing technology is subjectively better than anything I've seen on MacOS or Linux. Note, this is an admittedly subjective evaluation. I found a Q&A that speaks to the technical quality of ClearType that is beyond my comprehension. The fact is, my eyes have never been happier! I work heavily with numbers and text. Show me how to anti-alias old Linux apps like xv and rxvt, and I'm yours!
As a longtime Windows user who does appreciate Linux, what keeps me from making the switch are three common issues that I and the thousands of Linux advocates and zealots still haven't resolved:
1. I, like most Windows users, spend a lot on Windows software. Windows software typically costs about $40-80 online or in stores. That's quite an investment. In order to let go of Windows I would have to write off my investment in software as a sunk cost. But what if I want to keep using that software? What do I do, toss it out? Maybe I should sell it all off on eBay? This is why Linux is an easier sell to first time computer users; there isn't an established dependency. There is a good amount of good software that doesn't run on WINE or any of the WINE spinoffs. Testing to see if my apps will work under Linux can require that I pay good money for Win4Lin or VMWare. WINEX is a gamble since I have to pay before I can try it out, and according to the site, none of what I run works!
2. I like my a Windows apps. I don't abandon my apps just because there's a new operating system in town. I still use a few DOS and Windows 3.1 apps. I also have MacOS and Amiga apps sitting around. Why should I abandon my favorite apps like MS Office XP or The Sims (I've bought all the expansions) just because there are shiny new alternatives available on Linux? At the end of the day, I bought my computer in order to compute, not so that I can fight a revolution. Being a Stallmanista is kinda cool too, but I want to use what I want to use... ultimately isn't Linux and open-source about freedom of choice?
3. I need to use specialized proprietary applications like SPSS, and I happen to use some hardware that isn't support under anything but Windows. For some apps, I just can't use an alternative. And for the hardware, I'm not talking about winmodems, I''m talking about video capture devices and software that rely on the current DirectX and DirectShow. It doesn't matter whether an alternative exists, I won't use it for reasons other than stubborness.
So far, the only solution has been dual-booting, which has its own problems, and purchasing a second computer.