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A Look At the Lightweight Equinox Desktop Environment
Linux.com (who share Slashdot's corporate overlords) takes a look at the Equinox Desktop Environment and why, even though it is extremely lightweight, it may still lack the ability for widespread appeal. "the Equinox Desktop Environment (EDE) is the fastest desktop environment I know of -- but its lack of standards support and a few missing features may be troubling to some users. [...] EDE feels as light as a window manager but also offers the features mentioned above. The speed advantage of EDE most likely lies in its foundation, a modified version of the Fast Light ToolKit GUI library. EDE started almost instantly on the 500MHz machine I tested it on, whereas the other environments needed at least a few seconds. EDE provides a coherent and simple interface that requires little effort to learn."
I thought the command line was the fastest desktop interface ;)
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
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Maybe EDE is a better GUI for OLPC. Starting the GUI instantly would be nice (takes about 10 seconds to restart sugar).
It looks like a Windows 98 clone; even that graphic with the computer and keyboard looks like it was stolen from a MS time capsule.
I wonder if those missing features were not included for speeds sake or because the developers of EDE didn't think that they were important.
There are also plenty of great uses for lightweight window managers:
1) New low-power machines with slower CPU's
2) Older machines being brought back to life
3) Lock-down environments were you want grant a little as possible to the user. Kiosks, single-purpose machines, etc
4) Thin client environments where you want to push as little eye candy as possible through the network
5) Smaller virtual machines where you want to use a little space as possible
6) Live distros that you want to load quicky
We have used IceWM for over a decade. Fast, stable, controllable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icewm
Looks like EDE is just another to add to the mix of blackbox, fluxbox, twm, etc.
but does it run on Exherbo?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I still like xfce for over this. It looks alot like windows 9x for some reason. http://www.xfce.org/ I dunno. I'm the enlightenment/fluxbox type, but if I want a DE so i can use compiz as the window manager, I always got lost in deciding Gnome or KDE, but as soon as I found xfce I decided its the best. The number of tray plugins are sortof limited, but all it needs is more developers willing to help out with that end.
I don't understand why one would want to copy such a soulless user interface...A lightweight Linux UI that copies Win95, that copied MacOs, that copied Lisa, that copied the Altos/Star. It even has that horrible windows font! They should just rename it Nostalgia, Equinox sounds too cool for this thing.
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
yet another light-weight desktop. fluxbox, xfce, ratpoison, etc etc. why so many?
herewith my theory of the cycle of lightweight software.
- program $Z is bloated and slow, lets write a small, streamlined, lightweight replacement
- 0.0 - the program runs, does something but not much
- 0.1 - it's beginning to be useful
- 0.2 - it's not bad, you don't miss program $Z so much now
- 0.3 - 0.9 - hey, where's my fave feature $F, you can't be seriously missing that out, ok, we'll add that in
- release 1.0 - quite good, not too bloated, fairly quick, has its serious fanboys, but most people would rather stick with $Z and buy a faster computer to keep the missing features
- 1.1 to 2.0 - adding all the features that made $Z great, gaining bloat and bugs, losing speed all the way
- release 2.0 - a direct replacement for $Z and runs 20% faster
- release 2.1 - fixing all the bugs discovered now the code base is too big to audit, making it much less secure than the now quite mature $Z
- Hey, your new program is a bit bloated and slow, I'm going to write a replacement for it and it's going to be a small, streamlined, lightweight replacemen
and repeat ad nauseamWhy not just make your own desktop environment?
I used to use Gnome, but then it got too bloated so I moved to XFCE. Now XFCE is bloated (memory leaks in the panel app don't help either), so I made my own "desktop environment".
I use fbpanel as a panel, Sawfish as a window manager, ImageMagick's "display" program to set the wallpaper, the Gnome settings daemon/screensaver applications, and a quick little Bash script I wrote to launch a Nautilus window without taking over the desktop.
Sawfish has more features than Metacity, and pretty close to the same number of themes.
The whole thing takes less than 40mb. I realize something like this isn't for everyone, but for me it does just what I want without using that much memory.
and they want their win95 widgets back.
I would be quite upset if a GUI toolkit that looked like windows 95 wasn't quick on a 500MHz cpu. Win95 itself was blazing fast on hardware of that speed.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Same concept, but it sounds like its at a slightly more stable state. Check it out as I just did.
This could be a pretty good niche product for if you don't want too heavy a DE though, just something simple with little (ok, NO) eye candy. Talking "we need something lighter than WindowMaker" here, of course ;)
I write bullshit
Doesn't sound that new to me. Must be because I've been using "fast" desktop environments/window managers (yes, there IS an overlap) for... hum... feels like ages.
Personally, I'm perfectly happy with just a window manager. I run fluxbox, and it's as fast as every GUI should be, i.e., fast enough that I can't tell that it's not responding instantaneously. The whole idea of having a computer screen littered with icons is something that I got used to ca. 1985, because it was the only game in town, but eventually I decided I didn't like. It feels like in addition to the mess on my physical desk, I'm also being saddled with a mess on my computer desktop.
But the good news about linux is that nobody has to agree with me. If they prefer a Windows-style desktop, they can use Gnome or KDE. If they prefer something a little more Mac-flavored, they can use gOS.
Find free books.
7) Confusing the idiot who comes to install your Cable Modem.
Me to Confused Techie: "What are you looking for?".
Techie: "My Network Places".
Me: "Arf!".
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Why not stick to twm? It was even running fast on my first unix station, a 80MHz 88K cpu (datageneral) some 15 years ago. And the good news is that is probably already installed on any linux computer with X11. Because it comes with X11...
The taskbar shows Cedega Running. So it was not enough to just LOOK like windows 95 that just came stumbling home after a 48 hour bender... but it needed to run actual windows apps too? ;)
The above quote seems to imply that light weight is some kind of requirement for widespread appeal. In fact, it seems to imply that light weight somehow correlates with ability.
How about:
Am I the only one who thinks that's a really bad idea?
I was going to rant about their blatant Windows 95 rip off, but thought I'd look at their official screenshot page first. It's not as bad as the screenshot in the article makes it seem.
Maybe not
"Talking "we need something lighter than WindowMaker" here, of course ;)"
What, like Open Look with a decent file manager? I've been fond of that since forever ago - since 486 and 8 megs ago. Can anyone get more lightweight than that?
Gimme back my oval buttons, bitch.
--
BMO
Well, that's the FLTK default look.
But some of us like that. I like knowing that the desktop is not wasting resources. That the widget toolkit is not wasting resources.
Looks mean nothing to me. To me the visual design of widgets peaked with Xev, or maybe gray scale GEM.
If someone could please tell me wtf was so funny about that, I'd be much obliged. None of it seemed particularly funny to me while living it.
I got to introduce a Cox techie (an actual techie, not a subcontractor) to Linux.
It went like this: Run the coax from the outside box to the basement and connect to the coax hanging from the basement ceiling. Go to apartment. Hook up coax to cable modem, cat5 from cable modem to computer, and plug in cable modem power brick. Power-cycle everything. Watch network connection come up on boot screen. Connected. Browse Google to confirm. Done.
"That was the easiest install I ever did" says he. Sure as hell got him interested in Linux.
--
BMO
speed, generally.
.. classic mode is pretty much the same one. Strange that MS would keep the old UI around, if no-one wants it.
Remember when XP came out, and lots of people turned the GUI to windows 2000 mode. They weren't too fussed, they wanted it to work, responsively and quickly.
Remember now we have Vista that lots of people turn that UI off
So, that Evolution looks like Windows 2000 UI, that could be construed as a good thing. Now round those buttons off, before Ballmer notices and calls in the copyright lawyers!
Maybe I'm missing something, but installing cable internet on my (windows) computer didn't require a power cycle - and I'm pretty sure Linux wouldn't either. Make sure the firewall is enabled, plug the cat5 in, little network cable unplugged icon disappears, browse to Google.
That's great, but what OS (that people actually use) *doesn't* auto-configure Ethernet connections when you plug the cable in? I can't think of any.
You can be lightweight without being a clone of clunk.
You know, what joker looked at the Unix world and said, "You know what we don't have enough of? Security holes based on file name extensions. That is really an advantage Windows has over us." and then implemented *.desktop?
Because it's the worst aspects of Windows's PIFs, and extension hiding, and everything else, all rolled into one. They couldn't be bothered to even make such files only work when executable.
Can't wait to see the first "FreeDesktop" exploit.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
You're missing my point. You don't have to look exactly like windows 95 to be lean and fast.
Make a GUI that does nothing but run a browser and a shell window. Put webmin on the system for people would rather click than type. Make a bunch of web apps to replace the stuff people expect on a computer.
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
MaXX Interactive Desktop.
MID is heavily based upon SGI's Indigo Magic Desktop and IRIX Interactive Desktop environments. I believe the developer may have an agreement with SGI also.
http://5dwm.org/
Anyway, since it's probably not GPL you can mod this post down like I know you want to.
Slashdot = -1 Redundant, Asperger, kdawson FUD, Libertarian, and Linux
#DeleteChrome
Round corners are in.
Grey is out.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
That using the foxes thing is pretty weird.. don't know what that's all about.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Although you have to compile it from cvs its stable enough for everyday use. It also looks a million times better than this and runs smoothly even on my PII300 w/128RAM.
I'm surprised to see that no one has yet mentioned IceWM. It's just as fast (or faster) than this EDE, but is much more popular and customizable. You can make IceWM look like almost every operating system, including Ubuntu (with the IceBuntu theme), Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Plus, IceWM has the best keyboard shortcut support of any desktop environment I've ever used.
They want their GUI interface back.
There have been so many great UI innovations in the last decade, this seems pretty niche to me...
Innovations like... wobbly windows! Boo-ya!
Sarcastic? Me?
I love Windowmaker! It's my default environment on almost every *nix system I run.
Trolling is a art,
I also love it, altho to be fair given that I'm using OS X (basically NeXTstep gone pro) it'd be kinda redundant for me to use it. ;)
I write bullshit
Actually, IMO copying the Win95 interface may be EDE's strongest selling point. Who on earth doesn't know how to use it?
Ron Paul 2012
ion, ratpoison
Remember when XP came out, and lots of people turned the GUI to windows 2000 mode.
My XP desktop at work is in Classic mode right now.
Oops...
/home/equinox/python/lib/python2.4/lib-dynload/time.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/home/equinox/python/lib/python2.4/lib-dynload/time.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Trac detected an internal error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/equinox/public_html/cgi-bin/trac.cgi", line 23, in ?
from trac.web import cgi_frontend
File "/home/equinox/python/lib/python2.4/site-packages/Trac-0.11dev-py2.4.egg/trac/__init__.py", line 14, in ?
__version__ = __import__('pkg_resources').get_distribution('Trac').version
File "/home/equinox/python/lib/python2.4/site-packages/setuptools-0.6c5-py2.4.egg/pkg_resources.py", line 16, in ?
import sys, os, zipimport, time, re, imp, new
ImportError:
Why'd you reboot? That seems like a pointless step.
gross, looks just like Win2000
I used this desktop back when it was called ICEWM.
Jesus fucking tapdancing Christ, if you're going to pretend like you made a new DE while stealing from another, at least change it enough to not make it obvious.
"Why'd you reboot? That seems like a pointless step."
Belt and braces. I was anticipating problems, especially since the tech wasn't familiar with Linux, and at the time I hadn't dealt with cable broadband installation before, being a former dialup victim. That was a few (5?) years ago.
--
BMO
Is the Fast Light Toolkit GUI accessible? Does it use the Accessibility Toolkit to make the GUI accessible via the Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface? Can it do record and play back to automate GUI testing?
George (gk4)
People have to actually use nix for people to want to write exploits for it ;)
Ah, the benefits of being unknown.
My work computer and home computer are set to "Classic". I played around with WindowBlinds and other stuff for a little while, and my hardware handled it quite well / snappy. I found out that I was more interested in content and information retrieval than pretty stuff. I like to tinker and look at new technologies, but in the end I usually find out that the standard desktop metaphor works well enough for what I need, no fancy graphics needed. The "cool" visual factor wears thin rather quickly for me, but if others like it, more power to them.
Sure, it might be pretty and let you drag around windows and pop up menus at lightning speed, but its the applications that really matter on a day to day basis..
Without that underlying toolkit i don't see a point. And most the ones that actually matter are pretty bloated these days.
FLTK might be quick, but where are the *real* apps?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
My best experience of that involved the idiot insisting that he had to install the road runner software from his cd, or he would not complete the installation (or hand over my modem)
Me: "You can't. Not only do I not want you to install it, but it's actually impossible for you to do so. I'm not running windows."
Techie: "Is this a mac?"
Me: "No, it's Linux."
Techie: "If it's not a mac, it will work."
Me (actually amused at this point): "Be my guest and try it out."
I figured he would at least double-click his way into finding the setup.exe file on the cd, but he got stumped when the disc didn't autorun. So he called up time warner on his phone, they told him to click some stuff he couldn't find, but I got to talk to them, at which point they just activated the modem and told him it was alright to leave without installing the software.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
There have been so many great UI innovations in the last decade, this seems pretty niche to me...
Better that than copying Windows 3.1. Seriously, this may have been meant as humorous but I'm starting to get frustrated. Windows 95 is one of the very few times that Microsoft got things indisputably right. Yet despite that, it seems that everyone is determined to redesign this classic formula in an attempt to making things more usable, only I haven't seen anyone actually get it right. I'm using KDE right now, since it seems they're the ones least infected with this "Let's change everything for the sake of seeming fresh and original!" virus (seems to have started with Microsoft and spread out from there), but I'm sceptical about KDE 4. I know I'll probably use it someday, but I'm scared that they're going to fuck it up and the best desktop environment will end up losing a lot of its lead.
I'm sure there's a user interface revolution on the scale of Windows 95 out there somewhere, I'm just hoping we don't have to wade through too much more crap before someone finds it.
Actually, that was my biggest suprise when I first started playing with linux about 9-10 years ago. The Win98 box I was tooling with needed to be restarted for some strange reason everytime I poked at the cat5. It just wouldn't renew an IP after being disconnected (at the time, there were two computers and no routers/switches). So I was extremly delighted to save myself that time and inconvenience everytime I wanted to play around.
Lose: misplace or fail || Loose: not bound together
Off-topic, but that reminded me of the time I wanted to get dial-up for a week while house painting/sitting for my folks. I went to the telephone office in their town and asked them about it. They cheerfully handed me a CD-ROM. I looked at it and said "I can't use this, I run neither Windows nor Mac." The gals just shrugged their shoulders and sent me on my way.
I eventually got to talk to someone at the main office upstate and told her all I wanted was a local access number to dial and an account name/password combo.
She said "Sure." While asking me for billing information, she realized that the duration would be shorter than their billing cycle so they would not be able to send a bill. Preparing for the dejection, I was pleasantly surprised to hear "What account name would you like?"
A few billion people.
how to invest, a novice's guide
Ok, fine.
:)
Would you please care to explain why you have not done that experiment again, in six years?
Please don't spare us!
EDE uses FLTK as a tool-kit.
Which is openGL based.
That means the high speed is dependent on having an opengl.
Whereas the OLPC XO-1 uses a GPU which is embed inside the Geode CPU, and I seriously doubt that it has any interesting opengl performance.
Thus FLTK won't be as much accelerated as it is on desktop computers.
On the other hand, FLTK is designed to be ultra-light-weight, so it's going to be faster than GTK / Gecko based Sugar anyway.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Windows 95 is one of the very few times that Microsoft got things indisputably right.
You keep using that word... etc, etc...
sic transit gloria mundi
"I'm sceptical about KDE 4. I know I'll probably use it someday, but I'm scared that they're going to fuck it up and the best desktop environment will end up losing a lot of its lead."
If it stays buggy, KDE may temporarily lose it's lead, because Ubuntu is pushing Gnome so hard. However, I've been following KDE4 the developer's blogs very closely, and I'm confident that KDE will rise above all other desktop environment projects as the best of the best. 'Specially when LinuxMCE comes of age. The underlying technologies (like Qt, Plasma, and Phonon) are so powerful and flexible that KDE4 will morph into whatever the best desktop environment can be.
why u just don't use ion3?
It's a bit of work to learn/config everything so its fitts your needs but once done u will never leave ion again.
And ion is really lightweight, fast and reliable
I'm sorry, but this DE is a complete Windows wannabe, down to the hard corners and the clock in the system time tool. I don't particularly like the Windows DE, preferring Xfce or fluxbox or Gnome.
Also, having had to code FLTK GUIs before, I think it's a pretty rotten toolkit. I mean, it does the job and there is even a UI designer, but it's painful to code against, in contrast to decent toolkits like QT.
Fluxbox, GNUStep, WindowMaker, IceWM are just as fast and have just as many apps, and IMHO, prettier themes. Xfce is a tad slower but also gives you much more power. So... why EDE?
Give me a fast DE that's easy to work with. Then we can chat about looks as long as you wish.
XP: taskbar/properties/start menu/classic, folder/tools/options/general/classic
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
Mine would be if the LAN group here weren't so retarded as to think that changing appearances was a security issue.
GUI interface is redundant.
Much like TCBY Yogurt, or ATM Machine
I have mod points but want to respond because others have been giving flippant responses.
"Funny" is an upmod that doesn't affect karma, so my guess is someone thought your post interesting to read but did not want to reward your user acct, just your post.
Similarly, posts that are so wittily funny that the poster deserves a reward are sometimes upmodded "+1 Informative" or some such, since "+1 Funny" doesn't reward the poster.
Sorry to hear about your troubles. Be careful of baring your soul and seeking sympathy from a faceless geek-agglomerate like Slashdot. If you want a bar-like atmosphere, IRC might be a better choice.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
They probably think you're running Windowblinds. :P
I can't find it now, but there was a blog post a while back from some fella at Microsoft who had their own internal DRM freak out on him because he was running Windowblinds. Perhaps if you can convince them that this is not random third party software, this is something Microsoft themselves includes...?
(Personally I prefer the NextStep look and feel, except for the daft menus of course... WindowMaker is my X11 window manager of choice)
Granted.
And how many of them are going to ever be presented with the problem of choosing an X window manager? If anything, they would have one picked for them by somebody who (hopefully) has a grasp of their capabilities.
However, I do think the Win95 interface is pretty easy to get used to.
(My apologies if you were going for funny, but it didn't seem like you were.)
Ron Paul 2012
Fluxbox works fine, as do all the other light WM's. Plus, this one looks like windows way too much. It isn't minimal, it's emulating windows. If you want minimal, try Ion or awesome.
I built EDE for NetBSD/mac68k and ran it on an upgraded Color Classic. No speed demon (not that I expected it to be) but it was at least responsive. I don't know of any other DE that I can say that for. Heck, there's even some WMs that would be sluggish at that speed.
I'm looking forward to EDE after it switches to using regular FLTK rather than the eFLTK fork. There aren't many FLTK apps, but by using the main toolkit branch at least there will be more resource sharing (and less redundant development), which is a good thing.
Anybody want to extend this WP article?
Constitutionally Correct
Can you, really? How many different button designs can you really do with a couple of rects.
Rounded corners, gradients, anti-aliasing all add pretty significant amounts of processing.
The plain humble rect however, is as fast as it gets.
That seems like a safe guess.
Several hundred million Mandarin speakers probably think tonal languages are pretty easy to get used to. I suspect familiarity helps.
how to invest, a novice's guide
I think, LXDE is a cool, free desktop: http://lxde.org/
SZERVÃC Attila -
Square solid color rectangles is not the problem. Not being original is the the problem. Not improving is the problem. Not thinking is the problem.
There's no excuse to looking cheap.
As much as everyone bashes Microsoft for not innovating, the only people that innovate less the FOSS community. They simply blindly copy whatever Microsoft does, without regard for whether it's good or not, so they're always stuck developing a crummy knockoff. The FOSS community doesn't have the restrictions that Microsoft are saddled with, and so they have a tremendous opportunity to expand the state of art, yet they consistently refuse There's just no excuse.
You bring up an interesting point. To what extent do language and culture differences affect the ability to adapt to certain user interfaces?
I would think there's been some research done, but I wouldn't know where to look.
I could reform my original statement and say that I think most native speakers of "romance" languages would handle the Win95 interface easily; they've most likely already been exposed to it (in developed nations at least), and the languages share the same general conventions as english, are written left to right, etc.
Then again, has language hindered windows from becoming hugely pirated in China? Or is there a more widely used alternative in the middle east?
Ron Paul 2012
Certainly looks like the old Windows '95 interface.
I wonder... Why is that interface the preferred one for projects like these? Nobody thinks it's ugly, blocky and dated?