Elementary OS "Freya" Beta Released

jjoelc (1589361) writes One year after their last release "Luna", Elementary OS (a Linux distribution with a very heavy emphasis on design and usability which draws a lot of comparisons to Mac OS X) Has released the public beta of their latest version "Freya." Using core components from Ubuntu 14.04, "Freya" sports many improvements including the usual newer kernel, better hardware support and newer libraries.Other updates include a GSignon-based online accounts system, improved searches, Grub-free uEFI booting, GTK+ 3.12, an updated theme, and much more. This being a beta, the usual warnings apply, but I would also point out that the Elementary OS Team also has over $5,000 worth of bugs still available on Bountysource which can be a great way to contribute to the project and make a little dough while you are at it.

Comments

Unless there is some killer feature

[Chrisq]

Unless there is some killer feature, or the distribution is tailored well to a specific niche, I am quite bored with the "yet another Linux distro" articles

Re:Unless there is some killer feature

[danbuter]

At least it is Tech news, unlike half the articles on the main page. Or does Tech news not interest you?

draws a lot of comparisons to Mac OS X

[SirDrinksAlot]

"draws a lot of comparisons to Mac OS X" or Draws a lot of cues from OSX?

Drawing a comparison would suggest its different but comparable, and not inspired by. Straight up copying as it is I wouldn't even suggest saying it's drawing cues.

If I wanted OS X I'd run OS X. I'm not sure why Slashdot is bothering to cover a distro whose claim to fame is ripping off somebody elses design. Or at least cover it and act like they're doing something unique.

Re:draws a lot of comparisons to Mac OS X

[nine-times]

If I wanted OS X I'd run OS X. I'm not sure why Slashdot is bothering to cover a distro whose claim to fame is ripping off somebody elses design. Or at least cover it and act like they're doing something unique.

I think a lot of people want OSX, but also want to run something that's free (libre & gratis) on commodity hardware. Hence, interest in a Linux distro that draws lots of [whatever] from OSX.

Re:draws a lot of comparisons to Mac OS X

[BasilBrush]

I'm not really sure why people think that Elementary OS is a copy of OS X.

OSX is my everyday desktop. And I looked at the video on the homepage of Elementary OS, and to me it looked every bit like OSX.

No it's not just the Dock. Though the dock is a blatent copy, right down to the bouncing whilst launching.

Going through the vid: The progress spinner si a an OSX copy. There's also the system tray icons top left, they are an OSX copy. In the music app, there is a source-list copy. The file browser is an OSX Finder clone. The delete icon consisting of a white X is black circle with white border verlapping the top left corner of an object is a copy of one used in various places of OSX and iOS. The task switcher is the same, only switching top and bottom of the screen.

And that's from just a very short vid, most of which isn't showing OS chrome.

It's certainly somewhere in the inspired by OSX->Copy of OSX continuum.

And very nice it looks too.

BTW you point out the lack of an application menu, looking at screenshots in Google Images, I see (presumably older version) pictures of Elementary OS with an OSX like application menu sticking to the top of the screen. So whilst perhaps they are experimenting with deprecating the app menu as a primary interaction element, when it was there it was a OSX copy, as was everything else.

Re:draws a lot of comparisons to Mac OS X

[BasilBrush]

From Mavericks onward each screen has a menu bar and a dock. There is no need to move your cursor to another screen to access the menu bar.

Re:Freya

[Thanshin]

"In Norse mythology, Froyjo (Old Norse the "Lordo"), son of Njörðr, is a god associated with yolo, swag and yogurt. "

Usability is THE killer feature that Linux needs

[kervin]

Unless there is some killer feature, or the distribution is tailored well to a specific niche, I am quite bored with the "yet another Linux distro" articles

As someone who uses Ubuntu as their primary desktop OS both at home and at work, I have to say that usability is the biggest feature holding back Linux desktop. It is the reason all those "year of the linux desktop" stories are BS. Hence it is the killer feature for the Linux Desktop.

Linux Desktop feels like someone built a great desktop but never went back and reviewed their work. There are so many little things daily that cause the OS to be hard to use for regular people. And yes, that includes Ubuntu.

I wish there was a commercial Linux desktop option that offered create support, spent some time cleaning up and smoothing out the rough edges on the Linux Desktop, and had just one top tier hardware partner. I would gladly pay a few hundred dollars a year for this.

Yet another "usable" distro

[funky_vibes]

Let's see, the number one most common reason to create a distro is "usability" and we've already got hundreds. Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse, Ubuntu to name a few. None of them became as usable as they claim.

Maybe there's something awfully wrong with that recipe, maybe usability comes as a result of other factors, such as choice, determinism, *nix philosophy or any number of other things, which these distros clearly don't focus on.

Re:Usability is THE killer feature that Linux need

[serviscope_minor]

There are so many little things daily that cause the OS to be hard to use for regular people. And yes, that includes Ubuntu.

Such as? Are you sure it's not a question of familiarity, where someone who has used almost nothing but Linux might notice similar irritations about other OSs?

Wish Red Hat 7 had a better interface

[walterbyrd]

If you are going to actually work with Linux professionally, you will probably have to use Red Hat.

Red Hat seems determined to force crappy, and unwanted, interface, and other technologies, on it's users. Very Microsoft like in that respect.

Gnome2 is far superior to anything based on Gnome3. And it's hard to see where Systemd is much of an improvement.

I envy home Linux users who get to have a nicer interface.

Try it before passing judgement

[benmhall]

I've been using Elementary OS Luna for about a year now. It's just lovely.

It has no grand plans of world-domination or a perfectly converged all-in-one interface to rule them all. It does give me the stability and packages of Ubuntu with excellent desktop usability and elegance.

It offers a consistent, well-thought out interface. It easily supports colour calibration, multiple workspaces and monitors, great keybindings, etc. After using it for a bit, it has become an effortless part of my workflow in a way that Unity failed to.

And that's the old version.

This is news. As someone using Desktop Linux daily, a new release of Elementary OS based on the latest LTS of Ubuntu is what will finally have me upgrading my machines. I have great respect and appreciation for what Cannonical has done for the Linux desktop. I use Ubuntu everywhere I can, but for day-to-day Linux desktop use, I use and recommend Elementary OS.

Try it. If you like simple and elegant interfaces, I think you'll like it.

bad name. Kindergarten OS?

[raymorris]

In the US at least, the word "elementary" means "elementary school" 95% of the time, so that's the association I have with the word "elementary". I'm sure I'm not the only one. It doesn't look like it's actually designed for children, so why in the world would they use that name. Might as well call it Kindergarten OS or Playskool OS.

Re:Usability is THE killer feature that Linux need

[war4peace]

* No GUI for a lot of small-thing configuration activities;
* Invariably having to drop to terminal to do this and that;
* When I double-click on an "executable" I want it to execute, not open it in whatever equivalent of Notepad there is;
* I want my updates to install as seamlessly as possible, e.g. download and install updates in the background then let me know I need to restart (if that's the case), much like Android does;
* App store for my favorite flavor, where I could sort by features, not by category;
* While you're at it, give the applications proper names. A Text editor named "Kate"? A streaming application called "XBMC"? A music placer called "Clementine", "Banshee" or "Amarok"? Please...
* Make it absurdly easy to mount an ISO or browse a network/network share.
* Enable "Win" key functionality and try to replicate as many "Win"+key commands to make former Windows-based power users feel at home (Win+R, Win+Arrows).
* Make it easy to search for files and folders. Many times I copied a file or downloaded a file and I had no idea where it was, searching for it yielded no results but manually browsing around eventually found it. Y U NO SEARCH???

The above are off the top of my head and represent just a little part of my overall "user-inducing frustration" that pretty much every Desktop Linux flavor thrown at me so far.

I don't know how to best emphasize on this: as a desktop user, I simply loathe having to open terminal and drop to root 50 times a day, when whatever I have to do should involve a right-click and picking a menu entry or a couple checkmarks selected in a configuration GUI window. People eventually start doing everything as root and then they are laughed at for "not being secure". Well, doh. It's the OS pushing that behavior, not the user choosing it deliberately.

emphasis on design and usability

[mythix]

"emphasis on design and usability which draws a lot of comparisons to Mac OS X"

I've been switching between win/linux/osx on a daily basis for a couple of years now, and I honestly have no clue where the idea comes from that OSX is superior when it comes to usability...

It's even the OS with the weirdest UI quirks IMO...

Re:Usability is THE killer feature that Linux need

[rmstar]

As someone who uses Ubuntu as their primary desktop OS both at home and at work, I have to say that usability is the biggest feature holding back Linux desktop.

I keep wondering about this one. Because of work requirements, I started using windows again after a long hiatus, and find it rather cranky (windows 7). It was easier to program the reactions to my marble ball mouse under linux than it was under windows 7 (essentially impossible to get reasonable scroll-wheel emulation). Then there isn't anything remotely comparable with xmodmap. I can't have multiple desktops. Files are named in weird ways (PROGRA~1, etc) that have their special rules (it really is much simpler in linux). The keyboard layout kept unhelpfully switching to whatever it felt was right, and it took a long battle to ensure it stays where I want it. And Skype has annoying ads under windows.

Installing updates is gargantuan pain in the buttocks, especially when compared with ubuntu. In windows, a reboot is almost always necessary after downloading and installing updates. Quite often you need multiple reboots, and all of it takes ages. Under ubuntu they are much faster and unintrusive.

So, in my experience Windows actually sucks compared to a decent linux distro. All the talk about the little annoying things in linux is, I think, due to an illusion. Windows is popular today because it was popular yesterday, so people are used to it and all its little (and not so little) annoying things. They just don't notice anymore.

Re:Usability is THE killer feature that Linux need

[Anonymous Coward]

Allow me to give an objective reply (sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing).

* No GUI for a lot of small-thing configuration activities;
* Invariably having to drop to terminal to do this and that;

I'm a complete n00b with Linux Mint 16 installed, and I hardly ever have to do this for my regular use. Everything worked out of the box. I only use the command line for a particular video editing feature, because I am too cheap to buy a better program, and because someone wrote a simple program that does exactly what I need.

* When I double-click on an "executable" I want it to execute, not open it in whatever equivalent of Notepad there is;

I agree with this one.

* I want my updates to install as seamlessly as possible, e.g. download and install updates in the background then let me know I need to restart (if that's the case), much like Android does;

Actually, no, that is really annoying, because you end up with a computer that does stuff behind your back, and is using bandwidth/processor power when I need it. I will choose when my computer can have those resources. For me, the way Ubuntu / Linux Mint does its updates is by far superior to any other method I have seen.

* App store for my favorite flavor, where I could sort by features, not by category;

The app stores are relatively new to Linux, and this may be built in the future. I generally end up googling for the program that I want, then selecting it from the app store for installation anyway. But it is probably true that Linux' app stores are not as fancy as the commercial ones. Also, the apps are almost all free, which may have something to do with it.

* While you're at it, give the applications proper names. A Text editor named "Kate"? A streaming application called "XBMC"? A music placer called "Clementine", "Banshee" or "Amarok"? Please...

As opposed to your document viewer called "Acrobat Reader", your browser called "Firefox", and your video player called "VLC"? Please...

* Make it absurdly easy to mount an ISO or browse a network/network share.

(sorry, not sure what this is about)

* Enable "Win" key functionality and try to replicate as many "Win"+key commands to make former Windows-based power users feel at home (Win+R, Win+Arrows).

If you're a hardcore Windows user, I recommend Windows for you. However, you are not the average windows user. The large majority know zero such combinations. But I believe Ubuntu with Unity uses a lot of win-key combinations for useful stuff. Personally, I only use it to open the "start" menu in my Linux Mint. I can do without all the fancy stuff.

* Make it easy to search for files and folders. Many times I copied a file or downloaded a file and I had no idea where it was, searching for it yielded no results but manually browsing around eventually found it. Y U NO SEARCH???

I also agree with this one. There are tools, but they are not user friendly enough, and I also struggle sometimes. The method most often recommended is something called grep, I think, and that is always command line which just sucks because I always fail to get a result.

The above are off the top of my head and represent just a little part of my overall "user-inducing frustration" that pretty much every Desktop Linux flavor thrown at me so far.

I don't know how to best emphasize on this: as a desktop user, I simply loathe having to open terminal and drop to root 50 times a day, when whatever I have to do should involve a right-click and picking a menu entry or a couple checkmarks selected in a configuration GUI window. People eventually start doing everything as root and then they are laughed at for "not being secure". Well, doh. It's the OS pushing that behavior, not the user choosing it deliberately.

I agree that it sucks to have to open a terminal. But I don't mind to have to enter my password to allow my computer to do something. And if anything, it seems that other OSs are going the same way. My work computer requires a password for almost everything.

Re:Usability is THE killer feature that Linux need

[war4peace]

Thank you for confirming my GP statements.
As a desktop user, I don't have to log a root shell, I don't have to read man sudo's man pages. I need a GUI with point-and-click and embedded help. Because I am a fucking desktop user, yeah, the "idiot" who is referred to as "luser" and has to work on those boring spreadsheets and webapps that the mighty developer doesn't give a fuck about.

With most of my work taking place in web-based applications I struggled to switched to Linux for no compelling reason. Nobody's forcing me to do so.

Re:Usability is THE killer feature that Linux need

[war4peace]

I was talking about me. I am not unfamiliar to computers. But fine. I am crazy :)