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Syllable - The Little OS with a Big Future?
Vanders writes "Tired of endless Windows security problems? Intrigued by Linux's power but discouraged by its complexity? Tempted by Mac OS but not thrilled with the hardware cost? In an OSNews article, Michael Saunders takes a look at Syllable, the OS that picked up where AtheOS left off over two years ago. Michael takes you through Syllable and shows you what we have been doing these past few years."
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Now *there* was a great OS. Small, lean, easy to use, ran great. I know there's an attempt at an opensource BeOS but it seems to be a long way away. I looked at Syllables website, atleast they have a livecd, I might as well try it, got nothing to lose. Until then i'll still keep my midnight candlelight vigil until BeOS comes back.
I don't know if Syllable will be the ones to take advantage of it (or if anyone will), but I think that in the next few years there is a real opportunity for somebody to take over the PC operating system market. Microsoft has delayed Longhorn numerous times already, and it looks like the difference between WinXP and Longhorn will be as vast as the difference between Windows 3.11 and Win95. That added to the fact that many Windows users are already unsatisfied enough to be looking for something new.
Apple will not be the ones to usurp windows because their hardware is too expensive for most people. Linux or other BSDs won't be the ones to take over because they're too difficult for most people. Even the most user-friendly distros like Mandrake and Redhat, despite their continuing progress and great efforts, have some problems. Most fundamentally I think it's the fact that despite all of the friendly aspects, it's very difficult for a user of Linux to avoid ever using the command-line. I think the way OSX uses the command-line is much more appropriate -- if you want to use it and learn it, it's there and you can use all of its power, but realistically, no normal user will ever be FORCED to learn how to use it.
If Syllable manages to get some momentum, they might be able to do it. We'll see.
Apple could become a contender if they decided to take the leap towards porting OSX to the PC, or working to make their hardware cheaper. Neither of those look very likely though, but they're certainly possibilities, and things I would love to see happen.
Define ugly graphics.
There are about 2000 themes for various desktop systems (from Gnome to KDE to WindowMaker) and of those there are probably about 20-30 that are solid enough that I would consider them full default-theme replacements.
Are you refering to all of those, or did you just install some random distribution and declare it "ugly" (by your standards)? Are you refering to the lack of 3D acceleration on the desktop (e.g. what MacOS/X gets from having written their desktop on top of an Open/GL layer)? If so, that's a valid concern, but starting with the work x.org has done and implementing the rest would certainly have been easier than writing from scratch.
Question: Is there any way to use Linux device drivers with this os?
Probably not, and even if this OS were able to take advantage of Linux drivers, I doubt that it could take advantage of the larger subsystems like filesystems, networking stacks, cryptography, etc.
What I'd really like to see is some of these (obviously massively talented) people who go off and do their own thing, actually starting with a working system like BSD or Linux, but building something of their own, not just a distribution.
For example, these folks seem to want a system designed for the end-user with lots of media features... ok, so why wouldn't you start with a Linux kernel that supports just about every graphics and sound board on the planet... then layer on pieces as needed. Perhaps a modified X server would help, perhaps not... use it if you need it. Perhaps the filesystems aren't quite up to what you want, but you can always modify existing code. Maybe gstreamer is a good support library for what you're doing, perhaps not.
Well, you get the idea.
When Linus started off, he wanted something that didn't exist. BSD wasn't actually available for x86 yet, and down-porting it from Suns and VAXen was more work than he could afford. Meanwhile, Minix was too limited to even work as a good starting point. That's no longer the case, and efforts like this one seem to me much like Linus having decided that he wanted to write his little terminal server by first designing his own system bus.
Still, I wish them all the luck in the world. I hope it works out well for them... it's just that I can't help thinking about how much more they could do with a good starting point.