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Raspberry Pi Foundation Unveils New LXDE-Based Desktop For Raspbian Called PIXEL (softpedia.com)
Raspberry Pi Foundation's Simon Long has unveiled a new desktop environment for the Debian-based Raspbian GNU/Linux operating system for Raspberry Pi devices. From a Softpedia report (submitted by an anonymous reader):Until today, Raspbian shipped with the well-known and lightweight LXDE desktop environment, which looks pretty much the same as on any other Linux-based distribution out there that is built around LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment). But Simon Long, a UX engineer working for Raspberry Pi Foundation, was hired to make it better, transform it into something that's more appealing to users. So after two years of work, he managed to create a whole new desktop environment for Raspbian, the flagship operating system for Raspberry Pi single-board computers developed and distributed by Raspberry Pi Foundation. Called PIXEL, the new Raspbian desktop offers a more eye-candy design with the panel on top (not on the bottom like on a default LXDE setup), new icons, new Applications Menu, and new theme. "It's actually surprisingly easy to hack about with the LXDE desktop once you get your head around what all the bits do, and since then I've been slowly chipping away at the bits that I felt would most benefit from tweaking," reveals Simon Long. "Stuff has slowly been becoming more and more like my original concept for the desktop; with the latest changes, I think the desktop has reached the point where it's a complete product in its own right and should have its own name."
Features like "new icons", "new Applications Menu", "panel on top" etc requires hiring a programmer, there's something wrong with your desktop environment. These are all trivial configuration options which any user should be able to make for themselves.
Does the fact that my configuration files differ from the default ones mean that I created a new desktop environment?
This guy sounds like a complete tool. He did a little artwork and messed with some of the configuration scripts and came up with a new name that brings to mind one of Adam Sandler's biggest movie flops and thinks we should all bow down and kneel at his feet? Puh-leeze.
It is going to get really confusing soon with everything getting named and renamed to "Pixel".
I would be happier if the Raspbian/Pi team or whoever could concentrate more on mobile/touch and/or improving Android support. Things are starting to move in the right direction; fairly recently Raspbian simply had touch hacked on top of it and Pi could only run Android terribly if at all, but not fast enough for my tastes. Broaden support for homebrew/embedded mobile applications which is what the pi as a tiny computer inherently appeals to rather than continue to focus on the rather limited idea of it as simply a smaller replacement for a desktop computer.
I don't get the point. My beloved KDE + Plasma desktop works just fine on the Pi.
It certainly did not take me two years to move panels around or change icons and menus. Minutes at most. No programming required!
Not everyone wants eye candy cluttering up everything they see.
Totally true. I'm guessing only 95% of people want things to look nice.
I wasn't aware there was anything wrong with LXDE. I bit plain, yes. But certainly not ugly and it was without confusing control widgets some other desktop environments have.
UX engineer, cruciverbalist, slightly morose
Needs a stable, standard, unencumbered, free GUI -- windows, menus, toolbars, widgets, mouse, touch, etc. It'd be lovely if it was open source and not a barely-masked invitation to buy a new Porsche for some lawyer, too. IOW, no GPL infection.
Till then, still only developing for Windows and OS X. Because they both provide exactly that. Built into the OS, even.
Us little developers can't afford the premium charged by outfits like Qt that gouge the living shitfucktard out of any even slightly commercial project, while simultaneously trying to tie you to a "subscription" mechanism that puts your customers in the no-update-zone if you let the subscription lapse. XoJo isn't a whole lot better. Plus it's slow as a pig, but you can still make some applications with it without having to build libs in c. All apps don't have to be lightning fast.
Just sayin'.
The speed of the Pi 3 is mostly limited by the Micro SD card. Put in a SATA interface and a way to power an SSD on the Pi 4 to create a desktop killer.
Assuming that by "infection" you mean "causing [a larger work] to be distributable only under copyleft terms":
Both GTK+ widgets and Qt widgets are under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Because LGPL is a weak copyleft, use of an LGPL library in a larger work does not "infect" it. It does, however, require an application's object to be available to a licensed user without digital restrictions management, which rules out a port to iOS or major video game consoles.
Google will probably be interested to learn about this, seeing as they own a trademark on "pixel" for "Computers; desktop computers; laptop computers; tablet computers; mobile phones".
There are 2 pictures on TFA and I couldn't find a difference to LXDE besides the bar being on top.
They probably made something else in those 2 years, but It's not mentioned on the resume and I'm too lazy to read the article.
Is Pixel the kind of generic term that anyone can use? It's getting annoying.
Microsoft: "[Xbox One] has the highest quality pixels!" (uh huh).
Google: "Nexus is no more, say hello to the Pixel and Pixel XL"
Now the RPi foundation.
Why can't the lazy marketers come up with something that doesn't already have an established meaning, and I don't know, DIFFERENTIATE their products easily?!?
If the pictures in the article are an example of the new layout, I'm confused.
I don't see a difference.,
All of my RPis that have screens already look like that and have the bar at the top. I've never seen anything else.
Looks to me like someone published six months early.