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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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Is their web site powered by Syllable? And can it withstand the /.?
I take it you don't use windows then.... ;)
RoseColor red={0, 0xffff, 0x0000, 0x0000};VioletColour blue={0, 0x0000, 0x0000, 0xffff};find / -name *mybase*|chown you
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.
As to the complexity of Linux issue. It appears to me that Syllable is a Linux based system
Incorrect.
using Gnome
Incorrect.
and it looks similar to Fedora in some ways.
Probably superficial.
So I ask you, how can a Linux system be less complex than Linux?
Because it's not Linux. They swiped the icons. IIRC, AtheOS was written in 100% assembler as a pet project by the guy who wrote it. He (and others) later built some POSIX, KDE and GTK API mappings so that Linux and Unix software could be compiled and used.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Can you run AtheOS and still believe in God?
I prefer dead operating systems over unborn Operating Systems thank you very much.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Poor software installation ? Have you ever seen apt-get and portage ?
AtheOS was written in 100% assembler as a pet project by the guy who wrote it
The kernel is written in C. The high level stuff is written in C and C++.
He (and others) later built some POSIX, KDE and GTK API mappings..
The AtheOS kernel has always been about 95% POSIX compliant. There are no KDE or GTK API's for Syllable; it has always had it's own C++ API and appserver.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
What's lacking: Some features and subsystems not yet coded; limited range of apps; occasional stability issues.
Wow, just glad it's missing the little things that don't matter.
Linux O Muerte!
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.
Furthermore, it shouldn't be necessary to use a CLI, ever.
I agree. I would further propose that it shouldn't be necessary to use a GUI, ever.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It's not, at least not where it matters to the user! Consider:
/etc/conf.modules. In Syllable, just copy the driver into a directory.
Driver installation. In Linux, mess around compiling your kernel and/or modprobing modules and editing
User-interface: single toolkit and desktop, sane design. Consistency is the result.
Plus, there are other things. The initscripts are cleaner and shorter (one of the factors involved in the sub-10-second boots), the GUI subsystem is like X and a toolkit all-in-one, and others.
So install it, and you'll see that it's not as complex at all!
The KHTML port is a total dead end; maintaining it is a nightmare. I hope we'll have a port of Gecko within the next 12 months, which will hopefully be much easier to maintain as it is designed to be portable. Personally I think we need stronger debugging tools before anyone tackles a large codebase like Gecko, so I intend to work on the development toolchain some more and then maybe tackle Gecko.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
How is 64 Megs low memory usage?
Seems like a pretty good chunk of memory if you ask me for a less than complete OS.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Well gosh you could have had that since before Linux, I suggest you walk over to GNU.org and download yourself the Hurd!
Regards,
Steve
Anyone can install a tarball and with great scripts like CompileProgram anyone can install it with one command.
No. You can do that, and I can probably figure it out easily enough, but no, most people can not install a program from source. Although I'm sure they could be enabled to do it - portage is a start, an easy to use graphical portage would be even more of a start.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
The old saw about Macs being expensive is old and tired.
It is more accurate to say that you cannot buy a "cheap" mac. That is, the lowest price mac you can get is more expensive than the least expensive PC you can buy. But those two machines won't wind up being even close to either other in features or TCO. This is particularly the case with laptops.
..so why wouldn't you start with a Linux kernel that supports just about every graphics and sound board on the planet...
Not to be too crude, but it is because the Linux driver model sucks large Dyson Spheres through capilary tubing. It has an extremely high Lovelace value. Anyway, the Linux and Syllable kernel APIs (I'm talking about the driver->kernel API, not the API's that define how a driver is managed) are very similiar, so much so that most drivers are ported from Linux in about a week or two. The SiS 900 NIC driver was ported by Michael Krugger in half a day. I ported the Ymfpci OSS driver in about a week of a few hours a day. Syllable has the advantage of being able to draw on a large driver codebase while at the same time totally avoiding what many of us see has the total sucktitude of Linux driver management in general.
Maybe gstreamer is a good support library for what you're doing, perhaps not.
Actually, ffmpeg drives almost all of the media codecs currently available.
Syllable did not spring into life from a total vacum. It was forked from AtheOS, when AtheOS was already at quite an advanced stage. Kurt wrote AtheOS for fun. I and many other developers thought AtheOS was very cool, and I created Syllable to keep it alive and keep it cool. If I were to sit down today, and AtheOS and Syllable did not exist, I would probably do exactly as you describe and start with Linux. I don't think it would be half as well designed as Syllable is.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
(I'm a member of the Syllable community.)
We are not trying to bridge any supposed gap between Linux and Windows. We're dissatisfied with Windows as a desktop OS, and we're dissatisfied with Linux as a desktop OS. So, we're working on a completely different OS that meets our needs.
We do not expect every modern home user to use Syllable.
I honestly find the final argument in thebdj's post humorous. It reminds me of the "Everything that can be invented, has been invented" argument, and reminds me of the arguments against Linux five to ten years ago, which suggested that Windows and MacOS were "enough."
thedbj's reading an awful lot into the Syllable project that simply isn't there. When I look at the tremendous amount of work being put into Syllable for such little reward, the idea that we're making Syllable simply to be cool is ludicrous.