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SymphonyOS Alpha 4 Released
Whafro writes "Symphony OS Alpha 4 has been released. While an alpha release might not seem like news, this will be the first release that will function sufficiently to be used as a primary OS. As users are anxiously awaiting the ISOs to make their way to the mirrors, Ryan, Jason, and company are now setting their sights on Beta 1. SymphonyOS is a Linux distribution currently based on Knoppix that is a distinct turn away from the norm in terms of OS user interface design."
http://www.symphonyos.com/torrents/symphonyos-alph a4-release.torrent
The torrent file has been mirrored here
Looks really cool from the screenshots. I can't wait to try it out. I love the idea of a radically different UI.
Kinda wish there was a LiveCD version though, so I wouldn't have to actually install it just to try it.
Still, I'm excited about it. Let the Symphony begin!
I quote others only in order the better to express myself. -- Michel de Montaigne
This is the first sensible approach towards innovation in GUIs and desktop operating systems I have seen in a long time. Unlike so many other efforts, these people are addressing the question of how to actually improve human computer interaction, while relying on tools that work and that lots of people understand (HTML, Perl, etc.).
Most of the other desktop efforts (including commercial ones) start from a systems programming perspective and demand that you first throw out all the tools you already know; and despite all that effort, they still end up with messy and complex WIMP interfaces that work little better than their predecessors.
I don't necessarily agree with all of Jason's principles, but this does look like a worthwhile effort.
The UI development on SymphonyOS is simply magnificent; I look forward to getting many of the desktop aspects implemented on my Debian system.
One thought -- the controls on windows are not easily accessed; MacOS resolves this issue by moving menus to the top of the screen, so that you can run your mouse up there and only deal with horizontal manuvering.
How about when you hold alt, the mouse is trapped inside the current window? This lets you use the corners for four buttons, and with some creative positioning (ie, trap the mouse at the menus instead of the topmost edge of the border), allows the same horizontal-only manuvering for the menus. (Note that this means the corners will not resize. Solve that by offering a resize button.)
Do recall that most window managers have alt+drag move the current window, so when you hold alt, make a big semi-transparent "move" box appear in the center of the window, and/or have any non-button allow dragging to move teh window.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
The previous release of Symphony OS was nice to get a first look, but over all, it was disappointing. The UI is still a little clunky, and there was not much in the way of system configuration / customization. On top of that, there is not much pre-loaded software, so you are kinda stuck once you exhaust Firefox/Thunderbird. I guess I will have to be patient and wait for v1.0 (whenever that may be) to get what I am looking for.
It seems to me that the big thing about this (and it looks awesome!) is the desktop manager.
What I would love to see is my already configured non-alpha Linux set up with the Mezzo desktop manager.
Scully: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
Mulder: Yes we should, but not for this.
The four corners of my screen are already either showing a corner of a window or Showing the Start menu, the clock, and all along the top is a bar for clicking on Application icons. The first one is Firefox and the second one is the Command Prompt. A link to my Media folder is up there too.
What I find most amusing about this project is that it uses the most unrestrictive Window Manager, FVWM, and turns it into a very restrictive user interface.
thisnukes4u.net
Do they really need to make a new distribution just for a desktop? I don't understand why it can't just be a piece of software that works across many distributions and OS's like KDE or Gnome.
But this looks like *extremely* amateur design to me.
Is it innovative in the sense that it looks so bad that no one with a UI / Experience Design clue would have ever produced something like this and owned up to it?
I'm not trying to troll. Really. But E17 has way more promise than this.
Does the red and white checked logo remind anyone else of the Amiga's red and white checked boing ball?
why wait for the mirrors, when the torrents are available?
FTFA:
"The Alpha 4 ISO is currently available via bittorrent and will shortly be available via ftp/http thanks to our primary mirrors, Indiana University and Progeny. Visit the Downloads Page."