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Syllable 0.5.4 Released
AtheOSParrot writes "Version 0.5.4 of the Syllable operating system has been released. The lightweight, BeOS-alike is aimed squarely at finally realising the dream of bringing an easy-to-use, free software desktop to everyday users. 0.5.4 is a significant milestone in this direction with the integration of the new desktop, which is completely unimpeded by any legacy X-Windows foundations or toolkits beneath. This is no tin-pot bootloader with bitmaps snapped on; other features include SMP, networking, ATA/ATAPI, audio & video, 2D acceleration, GCC, USB & a 64-bit journaled FS with attributes. With desktop Linux still not having dented the 1% mark, will Syllable be the one to do to Windows what Firefox has done to IE? Also reported on OSNews.com, Golem.de and Linuxfr.org."
Linux on the desktop is here. It's happening as we speak and it's fine.
This isn't some "far away dream" to "someday" have Linux work as a desktop OS. It's here now. People all around the world use it as their sole OS on the desktop and get along fine with it.
So the FUD of "Linux isn't "here" yet on the desktop" is just nonsense.
It's here there and everywhere...all you have to do is open your eyes. But I suppose if it doesn't work exactly like Windows then it can't be "here" yet. Then I guess OS/X isn't "here" yet either.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Can somebody tell me something that this system is better at than, say, Linux + KDE or Gnome? What does it do better than ReactOS? What does it do better than Linux + Y (or any other X11 replacement system) does?
While on the topic of alternatives for the desktop, what's happening in QNX-land? QNX is a very nice system, POSIX-compliant, based on a microkernel, nice GUI, good scalability, several open-source titles available. I haven't heard any news about it in a while, though. Is anyone working on an open-source clone yet?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
How about embedded devices? If it has BeOS's multimedia capabilities it should be fantastic for those sorts of applications.
The most common complaint about Syllable I have seen is the one that I also have, it just doesn't boot natively on my hardware. An OS that won't boot on a stock Asus motherboard with a AthlonXP 2400, Radeon9000 and plain ol' IDE drives is not going to make a dent even with Linux users.
:-P
I would love to try my hand at helping to port software over, even if it is nothing more than working on helping to get Python ported over and write native bindings for Syllable. But I don't have the time to hack away at a hobbyist OS that won't even boot on common hardware. If it only works in VMWare, it might as well not work at all for me. Even the hacked new distros of BeOS booted on that hardware for God's sake!
The syllable guys need to spend more of their time working on getting such basic necessities as actually having it bootable on all common hardware before they even think of challenging Windows. Firefox is a bad project to compare Syllable to because Firefox is built on an incredibly mature foundation that is over 5 years and millions of dollars of corporate R&D money in the making. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Mozilla proper actually closing in on 6-7 years old now?
What would really help is if some of the Linux kernel hackers would take a break from Linux and work on the Syllable kernel. OSS does need a plan B for the desktop, and going from Fedora or Mandrake to Debian sadly doesn't count
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
X is flexible, configurable, extendable, and easy to make do what you want.
Giving novice users too much rope makes it easy to hang themselves.
A typical Linux desktop these days is getting pretty crufty. There are a lot of configuartion files (a good number of which are related to X), a plethora of files in a number of locations, and a mish-mash of scripts, loaders, and utilities.
Diverse widget sets are great; diverse font rendering systems are great, diverse printing system is great.
But all those things are not great for general-purpose novice level computing.
If you can't do everything, and I mean everything without the command line then FORGET IT. I still see .profile and bash. too bad, but the next desktop should be designed by folks that HATE LINUX.
I would mod this far more highly. However high the download counter may be, the reality shows that it's just a tiny percentage of FireFox users compared to IE users, arguably single digits (Logs on all the sites I run put FireFox at the 0.5% mark). Considering Windows has shipped how many hundreds of millions of copies of its operating systems since Windows 2000 was released, even if Mozilla had 10,000,000 downloads thats less than a percent of the total Windows user base converted. Well done, have a medal, wake up.
Everyone with half a brain knows that the download counter on the site is massively, artificially inflated. It's generally accepted on IRC, even one of the core developers I talked to seemed to be of the impression that it's not going to do any harm. Mozilla right now, is a marketplace failure. The studies done by, or coming from anywhere near Slashdot and its readership will always be massively skewed in favour of the technical minority. Why do you know ten people with Firefox? You probably installed it in the dead of the night, put an IE skin on it and let yourelf out.
Gah... *thumps head on table*
2) Linux and all its apps are free as in beer and runs on $200 machines, neither of which can be said about Apple. This also means that software developed in the Linux world can be easily used in developing nations on the basis of donated intel PCs, etc.
3) Closed source prevents collaboration on the software components. The Linux world is full of innovation - even within a single desktop like KDE, you will find plenty of useful widgets and gadgets that are not copied from either Windows or MacOS. But if you look at the entire set of desktop offerings, from XFCe to ion to WindowMaker to GNOME etc., then it really becomes apparent that open source is an innovation space.
Yes, Apple currently has produced the more integrated desktop experience, but like Microsoft, Apple will try to lock you into that specific experience. If you want choice and you want to make sure you will always have that choice, OSS is the way to go.
4) Closed source prevents learning - in an open environment, kids can easily start experimenting and playing around with all parts of the system, hence become the innovators of tomorrow.
5) If you use Debian's apt-get, apt-rpm, urpmi or a similar update service, all your packages will be upgraded to the latest version with a single click. On Windows, there is no comparable service and there cannot be because the software is not free - Windows Update can't even properly handle Microsoft's own products as the JPEG Office fix has shown. Open source is far ahead of the competition in this department, there is just a lack of standardization. Yes, installing packages from source can be a pain - but with almost 10000 packages for Debian, the average user will virtually never have to do that. That they can if they need to is a good, not a bad thing.
Bottom line: If all you want is pretty pictures and the slickest GUI, then hey, go for Apple Mac OS X. But there are people who care about more than just that. GNU/Linux is the operating system of choice for people with a social conscience who care deeply about the future of computing. One of the best ways to make sure open source software keeps getting better is to use it, to thank the developers who have made it possible, and to send in bug reports. But open source has no chance if its users run away once a proprietary vendor offers slightly shinier widgets. That's why I share the GNU project's attitude with regard to proprietary software, if not their way of communicating it. It is important to talk not just about the technological, but also about the philosophical aspects of free software. I am confident that end users can and will understand that difference if it is explained to them in clear terms.
Wasn't BeOs going to be the big Kiosk operating system back when people thought things like that were going to be huge?
I knew a developer for BeOs back when it was still in business and they thought multimedia Kiosk type systems were going to be almost ubiquitous. The advantage was for the low latency high availability type stuff, not to mention stability. Far as I know to get this type of performance from linux you have to hack the kernal extensively (too lazy to look up the audio focused distro that has low latency kernal hacks, but you all know how to go to google and type 'low latency linux audio').
music lover since 1969
You don't want the hoops, don't use it.
The hoops are a feature.
They're designed to make the OS as customizable as possible. This is why it was originally referred to as a "metadistribution" - so customizable that you can even port it to cygwin and OSX.
Less hoops mean less more is done automatically, which means less is customizable.
Put up with the hoops and the users, developers, and documentation are more than willing to help you through them.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Furthermore, like it or not, by giving Apple control over the operating system of your machine you make it possible for them to sabotage any serious competition - look at the history of DR-DOS. Within a single vendor market they also have all the other trade and technology advantages that Microsoft used to lock out the competition, and they're not burdened by a monopoly (i.e. they are less likely to be investigated). Again, political naivete is very dangerous here.
And if Linux does become mainstream, do you really think Adobe and Macromedia will release Photoshop and Flash as open source projects?
Of course not, and I don't want either Adobe PhotoShop or Macromedia Flash. I want free SVG editors, good SVG/SMIL support in browsers, and the GIMP and Krita to become as useful as PS in every way - in many ways, they already are, esp. the GIMP. This can only happen through larger adoption.
If your job absolutely requires you to use PhotoShop, you can use CrossOver Office.
An appealing GUI is obviously important, but Mac users sometimes act like it's all that matters. That bothers me. The rampant homosexuality among Mac users is also slightly disturbing (just kidding).
Using Syllable on VirtualPC means you're running a Vesa driver (Syllable supports quite a few cards but not the Trio32 that VPC emulates) on an emulated video card. There is certainly going to be some slow dragging and tearing I'm afraid.
Syllable on VMWare is much better. Syllable has a proper VMWare video driver so everything is much smoother.
Syllable : It's an Operating System