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Etoile Project Releases Mac-Like Environment
pschmied writes "Today the Étoilé Project released v0.2 of its Desktop Environment. Not only does Étoilé share user interface similarities with Mac OS X, Étoilé enjoys some source-level compatibility with Mac OS X as well. Many here undoubtedly remember NeXT, the revolutionary computer / development environment that gave rise to the first Web browser and later became the foundation of Mac OS X. Étoilé uses the FSF's own implementation of the NeXT development environment, GNUstep, making this a close technological relative of OS X. Screenshots and a source tarball are available."
I, for one, welcome our new Mac-like overlords.
Everything is subjective.
Oh but it uses objective-C it must be NEXT!
Except for the fact that it has a top panel and a launcher, I don't see the similarity to Mac OSX (Not that I really use either of them -- just seen screenshots). Honestly, it reminds me more of WindowMaker using GnuStep apps. I think GnuStep is a great platform, though, and am glad that someone is finally puuting together a DM for it from the ground up, instead of using WindowMaker or similar. With the ease of development GnuStep gives, I guess the project could develop quickly if enough people get on board.
Put identity in the browser.
Finally, an open-source desktop environment whose developers understand that menus at the top are infinite targets and always in the same place and therefore are easier to hit.
What is the historical basis for claiming that NeXT gave rise to the Web browser? Was NCSA Mosaic developed on a NeXT? Or are you referring to an earlier browser?
Interestingly, the Etoile developers seem to want to avoid the GPL and prefer the BSD License (as seen on their about page here: http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/mediawiki/ind ex.php?title=EtoileWiki:About/), which I find a bit odd...
This isn't even close to OS X. Seriously. This is like making some really crappy "OS" and then saying, hey, we are close to MS Windows 95. I looked at this site, screen shots and other stuff. They just don't come close to the current Mac OS X OS.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
In Ubuntu Feisty (using 2.6.16 kernel, don't ask)...
It's not a window manager like my enlightenment or blackbox and I'm not sure where to start it. Seems to have installed fine.
Can I configure it to be an option in my login or do I need to command line it?
Etoile may be in its relative infancy, but I believe it has great strategic potential for the FOSS movement. Etoile / GNUStep is building some great infrastructure, uniting the Mac and FOSS communities, and is building on some very interesting ideas.
If you haven't already done so, I urge you to check out David's Core Object posting. There is some exciting stuff there. Smalltalkers will find it particularly interesting.
Props to the Etoile team! This is even more reason for me to grow my Objective C / Cocoa / GNUStep skills.
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
Once again, the "editors" have failed us. The linked news item doesn't mention Mac anywhere. Neither does the project "about" page. And the screenshots don't look particularly like a Mac. (The title bar icons are on the opposite side from MacOS!)
:(
So, the submitter is out of phase with our collective reality, and the "editor" went ahead and posted it to the front page
-Peter
This looks like Gnome with a Mac-like skin (I do realize that it's more than that). Although it does bear some similarities to Mac OS, I wouldn't say it was entirely similar...
Just what the movement needed, more copying and unoriginality.
Read some history, Apple bought NEXTSTEP and based OS X on it. Etoile uses some NEXTSTEP.
Yes, but does linux run it?
I've always loved the dockapps in windowmaker (the way you can just drag them on side and they stick).
I also loved some other features of windowmaker (its fast, small, integrated configuration utility, etc, etc)
However, I think they should add some sane functionality in windowmaker, like a file manager that makes sense, and the file choosing dialogs that are not crazy.
Really, someone should just recode the Windowmaker in a sane way so it makes sense, recode it in something like Qt/C++ so people easily can add features etc.
I really think that instead of just following one way of doing stuff (e.g. it has to look like osx, or it has to look like windows), developers should just pick the best features from all the environments (think of it as mistakes we can learn from) and then redo this in a better way, only taking features that are sweet.
Anyone up for it?
The reasoning is actually pretty good. They are building a services based desktop that also has a lot of components for which they want broad reuse to be possible. The FSF actually releases most of GNUStep under the LGPL. Given the age and status as an FSF project, I wonder if LGPL wasn't in part to address the requirements of GNUStep.
. Penguins Surely Ca
http://www.windowmaker.info/
Why couldn't the Etoile guys just enhance WindowMaker instead? It seems a bit like they are reinventing the wheel.
Close technological relative? Close? Like the bird and the dinosaur?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
*Yawn*. Nothing new here. It looks like every other windowed environment I've ever seen ever since Microsoft invented the windowed computer with Windows 95.
(mod funny, yo)
It looks as much like OSX as KDE looks like windows.
The tags and attributes in HTML 1.0 were largely based on what Tim Berners-Lee could display using NeXT's Text class.
The discussion of a replacement for the "file" abstraction seems a bit iffy. We've seen this before, many times, and it hasn't worked:
In short: it seems they're improving object serialization. Nice, but hardly revolutionary, and likely to introduce fun problems when interoperating with software relying on it.
The Cocotron (cocotron.org) project aims to implement Cocoa in a cross-platform fashion and is under the MIT license.
Urgh! Looks like an ugly version of a Gnome-ified WindowMaker/GNUstep. Granted, with GNUstep the underpinnings should be sufficiently NeXT / OS X like - but the 'G' part of the 'GUI' is fugly as sin and hardly Mac-like (with the exception of the 'taskbar at the top'), which doesn't bode well for the 'UI' part of the equation.
(Note to developers: you should actually use and think about the UI you're trying to emulate. Even broad concepts, like level of menu depth and placement of functions/actions appropriate to their complexity, can make all the difference in the world. Not that Apple themselves aren't adverse to ignoring their own guidelines on these matters when it suits them...)
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
The GNUStep project has been around for a very long time (been available since around 1991). Internally it is more like MacOS X or OpenStep, and therefor theoretically easier to port applications to this environment (or port GNUStep apps to OSX).
.. but it's older than Linux kernel.
I think what GNUStep needs is a lot more artists to draw some pretty icons and some people who are concerned with the front-end appearance rather than back-end compatibility and framework APIs.
You mention "it's a typical, ugly Linux text experience to boot."
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
...but does it run Expose?
Caveat Utilitor
It's like a Mac, but minus all the cool!
*dodges Linux fanboys* Aieee!
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Objective C is 1980's technology: it's a clever and useful extension of C, and its dynamic binding and typing are still convenient, but it's lacking garbage collection and runtime safety. Apple is addressing the garbage collection issue in Leopard, but there is still no runtime safety.
Why does runtime safety matter? It matters because it makes software more robust and more secure. Without it, an error in a plugin or application can cause not only a crash, but also silent data corruption or data loss. Mac, Windows, and Linux achieve reasonable robustness only through extensive and costly testing, and crashes and data corruption still occur regularly on all three platforms.
Of course, everybody still uses a lot of unsafe libraries, but Windows and Linux are moving away from it. On Linux, new code is increasingly written in languages like Python and Mono. In particular, a combo like Python with C extensions gives you an Objective-C-like object system (from Python) with C performance for compute intensive code, plus garbage collection and runtime safety.
I've often wondered what it would take to write a generic library for placing X11 menu bars at the top of the window.
Constitutionally Correct
The WIMP model has served us well, but if you told me I would never have to deal with a window, menu, or a pointer again I would be the happiest person in the world.
If open source wants to innovate, can we get away from little floaty things that you move around on the screen? Right now you're thinking "what else are we going to use?" Interfaces could have gone in a different direction, I don't completely know or understand what the other direction would be, but there HAS to be something better than these little floaty things.
OLPC has done a good job with it, second and third world kids are going to have a leg up on us because their interfaces have done away with all the annoying crap we have to deal with. Can we please have something that doesn't "take advantage of" all the interface advancements from the 1980s that we deal with on a day to day basis?
Am I asking too much? Maybe, but I want something better and I know you do too.
Also, ponder this without trying to find a solution: Would you be elated to find out you never have to see another window again? I know I would, and I would be happy to not have to see another pointer again in my life. The solution is obviously not easy. It will require great minds and years of research.
You don't seem to have described any actual problems that you perceive with a windowing paradigm. You assert that there must be some other metaphor, but you don't say anything about the ways in which it would be beneficial for that metaphor to differ from this one. You assert that you want something "better", but don't say anything about what would be better about it or what is currently lacking.
You can't find a solution without understanding what the problem is.
Slashdot 29 July 2007: Sun Says Project Indiana is Not a Linux Copy - yeah right!
Slashdot 30 July 2007: Etoile Project Releases Mac-Like Environment
Slashdot 31 July 2007: Mac OS-X is the most copied OS on planet - copying is the highest form of flattery.
So, Solaris copies Linux, Linux copies Mac OSX, but nobody is really interested in Vista.
I've never used a MAC but have tried the various UI customisation packs available (for fun and because I was bored). I don't think that Etoile should be taken as a Mac-like Environment but more like a Mac UI customization package. Think of it this way - the new dock in KDE4 is supposed to be compatible with Mac Widgets. That's nice. See, I can run the Mac widgets on KDE. That's a plus. Can I edit the preferences of KDE to make it Mac-like? Sure! Why not let the user decide how the UI will be? Major distros may add Etoile amongst the myriad of other UI 'tools' - Metisse. As far as the UI menus, and way to fill the screen go, I prefer Windowmaker and GNUstep. I minimise my windows, stack them on top, have some apps docked, and xterm always open. It's clean. Some may prefer Mac-like UI or Windows-like UI. That's the beauty of opensource and Linux -> you've awesome projects going on, and you've the CHOICE of customising your UI. (ok, I may have repeated myself in the above statement. *going to try Etoile now*)
Do I require the c-sig package to have a signature?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I don't get it. Mostly. I do get the one Font manager I'm seeing on one screenshot. Looks like it's using some *Step/*Maker/*Box WM toolkit. Anyone with more details on that? If this is their baby, then they desever big kudos for that alone. Font management still is underrepresented in the Linux world.
However the rest just looks like an inconsistent WMaker/*Step theme with an XFCE bar at the left. Or is there more to it than meets the eye? Some underlying feature laden super framework that will make this WM the new fluxbox? The last WM hype I remember was fluxbox - it introduced some cool new features and effectively displayed that there is room for improvement in the WM space (and that WM project websites needn't look like a pile of shit). Thus Fluxbox is my prime choice for small-footprint WMs.
What's with this one that could make it the new fluxbox? Maybe someone with the project could provide some insight on it?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Well said indeed.
(apart from the opening insults maybe - allthough they're understandable)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I have seen Gnome look more like any version of OSX than this.
A window manager is not a desktop environment; it is but one part of a desktop environment. GNUStep is an implementation of OpenStep, an open API that is based closely on the old NeXTStep environment from the old NeXT computers.
GNUStep is a decent implementation, though it's slow in development. It is based on Objective-C, which is (in MNSHO) a much better OO language than C++, Java, or C#. The foundation libraries are a little primitive by modern standards, but pretty clean and powerful nonetheless.
The window manager is the least of the operating environment.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
When I have a 24" iMac. I want to know at a glance which commands are available for each of the apps that happen to be opened. Heck, I want to do that even in my 13,3" Macbook screen. I do understand that having an infinite width makes it easier to hit - but I am proficient enough in hitting my menus, thank you. Give me the option at least, some people who are power users will be happy, and the rest can use the easier default. I like my Apple machines, but I'd really love if Apple didn't oversimplify things all the times.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
I haven't seen the compiz cube virtual desktops on a comercial offering.
Mac-like fanboy
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
semantical difference--'infinite' in this context means the far edge of the target, ie. the window/screen, so that when you 'throw' your mouse at it, it can only go so far. therefore, the idea of the 'distance to center' is a misnomer, imo. perhaps I didn't read closely enough?
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Bruce Tognazzini in this post, the orginal Apple Human Interface guru, and popularizer of Fitts' Law in the UI world: A Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts
Making something "cool" around GNUstep is something I've been hoping would happen for some time.
Objective C is not the best OOPL, and NeXTstep is not the best class library, but the competition that's actually got wide use is so appallingly bad that they shine like costume jewelry in a pile of muck. Being able to write code that will compile and run natively on OS X and X11 polishes it up a treat.
The looks and theme aren't the point. NeXTstep was awfully drab too but it developed a devoted following not because it looked cool, but because it worked well and consistently across all applications, and that was a result of the language and libraries as much as Steve Jobs' legendary attitude.
I've never used a MAC but have tried the various UI customisation packs available (for fun and because I was bored). I don't think that Etoile should be taken as a Mac-like Environment but more like a Mac UI customization package.
In fact that's exactly what it isn't. Not only can you not get a "mac-like" environment by changing the details of the UI, you can't even really get a "windows-like" environment that way... despite both KDE and Gnome borrowing so much from Windows. To get a real NeXT/Mac environment you need your applications to use GNUstep, so they inherit everything from Services on down from it. And to do that, you need people using it so there's a demand for it, and for that, you need someone to package the whole thing up in a cool and friendly way.
Which is where Etoile comes in.
The one thing that's always bugged me about the Mac and about NeXTstep is the way they make a fetish of making menus hard for the user.
Apple sticks the menus up at the top of the screen like we were all still on 9" Compact Macs. On a 30" monitor, or with two monitors, it's frustrating.
NeXTstep made the menus a vertical box that looked like another window and had all the charm of Apple's other bag-on-the-side-of-a-winow interface, the shelf.
Neither is ideal. I'd like to either make them a context menu on the title bar, or something like a menu bar on the window edge (one that can be dragged to any edge).
When Audacity has the power of Garage Band (looping is still in the 1990s in Audacity), I'll make the jump to Linux and run it on a Medosin Celebrity ;-)
Until then, sorry, Apple's got me by the balls.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
They are NOT "infinitely large". If they were infinitely large, then you wouldn't have to move the mouse *at all* to click on them. Calling them "infinitely large" just confuses people who know what the words "infinite" and "large" mean.
A semi-plane is as infinitely large as a plane. It follows easily by relating Descartes and Cantor theories.
If my mouse is outside that semi-plane I would have to move the mouse to click on it, and it would still be infinitely large.
That's for illustrating the concept. Screen borders are more like infinite rectangles with three sides, and screen corners are like quadrants on a plane (not so sure on this). Still as infinite as a plane (you can make the Cantor-correspondence just as easily as with a semiplane).
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.