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  • #41
    Originally posted by Dukenukemx View Post
    Gnome3 and Unity to me look the same. Both look amazing, but function as bad as Windows 8. KDE does work amazingly well, and looks great, but I always use XFCE for performance and lack of issues. XFCE really needs to improve the way their UI looks, at least by default. Cause it looks like someone took Mac OSX and gave it to the artist who styled Windows 95.

    If you want a good looking UI with good performance and lack of problems, get XFCE Mint. The people at Mint, know how to make any UI look good.
    Unity isn't any different than Windows 7 with the task bar on the left side of the screen, a mini-taskbar with a system indicator on the top right corner, a start menu that only functions as a quick universal launcher, a convenient HUD to control GUI programs without knowing their keyboard shortcuts, and a global app menu like from Mac OSX, with nice integration with fullscreen windows. Not sure how that's even remotely close to Windows 8.

    GNOME 3.x is more or less what Windows 8's interface should have been like. It's not really similar to Windows 8's interface at all really. It doesn't have two completely different desktop interfaces fighting for the user's focus. It has one desktop interface that uses an overlay to manage and launch programs on the desktop. If anything, it is vastly superior in every metric in comparison.

    What a DE looks like by default doesn't matter since your average users will download a distro with a preconfigured desktop interface in the same way Windows and Mac OSX are already preconfigured for users. The latest Xubuntu 14.04 has Xfce looking very nice -- much better than XP. The same goes for lxde with Lubuntu 14.04 looking perfectly fine as a compositless desktop running off Openbox and looking beautiful in comparison to XP.

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    • #42
      Originally posted by egrath View Post
      Eventually Linux will come to the desktop at some time of the future for more people than now, but there's a huge amount of work to do.
      Or undo.

      Gnome 2 and KDE 3 were both very good desktop environments. The problem is that they didn't know when to stop. Gnome 3 and Unity are regressions. KDE 4 is too, to a lesser extent -- at best it breaks even. Gnome 2 lives on as MATE. Cinnamon is the only modern desktop that might be better than what we had 5 years ago.

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      • #43
        Allow me to jump on the bandwagon.

        I think ReactOS is a great idea and wish them success. When I need to open an "Aldus Pagemaker 5.0" file that someone made in 1997, I do not want to have to pay Microsoft for the privilege. I just want to spawn a ReactOS VM, install Aldus PM, and get my work done.

        I agree with others in this thread that MS Windows sucks and that the current generation of convergence-style linux desktops are horrible, but fixing that is not really what ReactOS is all about. It's about a free and open source foundation to the Windows legacy. There are so many windows-only hardware components and software programs that have been relegated to the dustbin, we're literally losing our history.

        I believe we really need to start supporting SteamOS and examining what OSX does so f'ing right if linux is going to replace Windows.

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        • #44
          Originally posted by Nille View Post
          There is zero progress. The fragmentation of the Desktops is progressing well. Everyone has its own APIs (if APIs for an integration exist.) If you want to write a program thats nice integrated in the Desktop, you has todo it for each Desktop and Distribution again.
          The "fragmentation" issue is always made to sound much worse than it really is. The relevant toolkits (e.g. Gtk and Qt) are the same across all distros and desktops. So are dbus, xdg, udev and cups. The only part of the infrastructure that comes to mind that isn't standardised is upstart/systemd, but that is just about to be solved (and most desktop apps aren't affected by it anyway).

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          • #45
            I disagree with the idea that font rendering in Linux is bad. FreeType with Infinality patches result in the best font rendering I've ever seen (and I've used Windows and OS X).

            Qt and Gtk differences are not really an issue IMO. They look right when proper (similar) themes are selected. Even then slight differences in applications are common in Windows and OS X too. If you don't think that's the case, then you really haven't used professional apps on either platform (Photoshop, CorelDraw, audio editors). Not to mention the big difference between Metro apps and old apps in Windows 8.

            I have to disagree with the user that compared Gnome 3 to what Windows 8 should have been. Gnome 3 is IMO the DE that is most similar to OS X. Just move the left bar to the bottom and put workspaces on top. Not the same, but quite similar.

            I also disagree with the user that considers Gnome 3 and KDE 4 to be 'regressions'. I personally don't. I find myself quite comfortable with the new DE paradigms. I am also faster at starting and switching applications than ever before. Not to mention handling lots of different apps and windows at the same time.

            But hey, open source has always been about choice, so I understand when people don't like changes. That's why MATE or Cinnamon exist.

            Edit: and for the user that said dbus is 'ex-bonobo'... You can't really say that's the case. Bonobo was based on CORBA, dbus is a new design based on ideas from dcop. IPC is necessary, thankfully there is a pretty much a standardized alternative in the Linux ecosystem, and everybody is using it: dbus. Dbus is getting much more traction than bonobo and dcop ever had.
            Last edited by Pseus; 19 April 2014, 08:41 PM.

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            • #46
              Originally posted by Pseus View Post
              I disagree with the idea that font rendering in Linux is bad. FreeType with Infinality patches result in the best font rendering I've ever seen (and I've used Windows and OS X).

              Qt and Gtk differences are not really an issue IMO. They look right when proper (similar) themes are selected. Even then slight differences in applications are common in Windows and OS X too. If you don't think that's the case, then you really haven't used professional apps on either platform (Photoshop, CorelDraw, audio editors). Not to mention the big difference between Metro apps and old apps in Windows 8.

              I have to disagree with the user that compared Gnome 3 to what Windows 8 should have been. Gnome 3 is IMO the DE that is most similar to OS X. Just move the left bar to the bottom and put workspaces on top. Not the same, but quite similar.

              I also disagree with the user that considers Gnome 3 and KDE 4 to be 'regressions'. I personally don't. I find myself quite comfortable with the new DE paradigms. I am also faster at starting and switching applications than ever before. Not to mention handling lots of different apps and windows at the same time.

              But hey, open source has always been about choice, so I understand when people don't like changes. That's why MATE or Cinnamon exist.

              Edit: and for the user that said dbus is 'ex-bonobo'... You can't really say that's the case. Bonobo was based on CORBA, dbus is a new design based on ideas from dcop. IPC is necessary, thankfully there is a pretty much a standardized alternative in the Linux ecosystem, and everybody is using it: dbus. Dbus is getting much more traction than bonobo and dcop ever had.
              I find myself quite often jumping between UI's simply to get certain task-types done. Making a mooovie, I'll be in KDE with KDenlive to go with all the other programmes, day to day I'm in Mint, MATE's there if I just wanna mousey everything =P

              And I'm typing this on Windows because I usually go to bed after playing a Windows only game. And it's configured such that it looks like Windows 95! Not that that was my intention. It's just for gaming and I'm probably throwing Michael's stats out by reading his site on the last OS I was using =D
              Hi

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              • #47
                Originally posted by mmstick View Post
                Unity isn't any different than Windows 7 with the task bar on the left side of the screen, a mini-taskbar with a system indicator on the top right corner, a start menu that only functions as a quick universal launcher, a convenient HUD to control GUI programs without knowing their keyboard shortcuts, and a global app menu like from Mac OSX, with nice integration with fullscreen windows. Not sure how that's even remotely close to Windows 8.
                Because like Windows 8, I find myself doing more for things I used to do easily. Switching between applications can be cumberson, and the task bar on the left is a waste of screen relastate. It's not even a task bar, but more like a huge line of applications that you would normally put as shortcuts on your desktop. It's like someone took the bottom bar from Max OSX and threw it to the left side, vertically.

                What a DE looks like by default doesn't matter since your average users will download a distro with a preconfigured desktop interface in the same way Windows and Mac OSX are already preconfigured for users. The latest Xubuntu 14.04 has Xfce looking very nice -- much better than XP. The same goes for lxde with Lubuntu 14.04 looking perfectly fine as a compositless desktop running off Openbox and looking beautiful in comparison to XP.
                The problem is that anyone new to Linux won't know what UI they want. I myself use Mint for it's Cinammon UI, and now realized it has a lot of limitations. For example, switching hybrid graphics and forcing the GPU to run at high speeds just to render the desktop. So I shopped around by installing other UI's. Gets ugly when the default for every UI is messed up. For example, XFCE with terminal uses black text over a black box. Who was the genius who thought that up? You know how many of these UI's I had to get simple things working like a way to see my wifi and sound volume controls?

                But yea, the best way to experience a UI is the install a distro made specifically for it. Like you said, Xubuntu or Kubuntu. Just stinks that after you went through the trouble to setup an OS, that you may have to reinstall it again.

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                • #48
                  ReactOS will be like DOSbox

                  Originally posted by russofris View Post
                  Allow me to jump on the bandwagon.

                  I think ReactOS is a great idea and wish them success. When I need to open an "Aldus Pagemaker 5.0" file that someone made in 1997, I do not want to have to pay Microsoft for the privilege. I just want to spawn a ReactOS VM, install Aldus PM, and get my work done.

                  I agree with others in this thread that MS Windows sucks and that the current generation of convergence-style linux desktops are horrible, but fixing that is not really what ReactOS is all about. It's about a free and open source foundation to the Windows legacy. There are so many windows-only hardware components and software programs that have been relegated to the dustbin, we're literally losing our history.

                  I believe we really need to start supporting SteamOS and examining what OSX does so f'ing right if linux is going to replace Windows.
                  russofris, I think you are the only voice making any sense in this conversation. Thanks for commenting.
                  I don't ever expect ReactOS to become viable as a competitor to modern OS's, but I think it will may yet have a valuable place in running those legacy apps.

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                  • #49
                    Originally posted by d4ddi0 View Post
                    russofris, I think you are the only voice making any sense in this conversation. Thanks for commenting.
                    I don't ever expect ReactOS to become viable as a competitor to modern OS's, but I think it will may yet have a valuable place in running those legacy apps.
                    Again though, what advantage is there to ReactOS over WINE? Since ReactOS relies on WINE, it can't run anything that WINE can't run anyway, so really, why even bother?

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                    • #50
                      Originally posted by tga.d View Post
                      Again though, what advantage is there to ReactOS over WINE? Since ReactOS relies on WINE, it can't run anything that WINE can't run anyway, so really, why even bother?
                      Two really key things:
                      1) They're doing their own Kernel implementation, which will allow any software that requires kernel hooking and verification to run. There's plenty of hackshield software used my MMOs that do this, that'll never work in WINE because WINE doesn't implement the Kernel or HAL of Windows. Such software always sounds a bit shady, but it exists and is largely used. Full implementation of the kernel may also bring up the possibility that viruses may run rampant, but due to its Open Source nature and reverse engineering of the kernel, there's certain things that they can do safer and better than the Windows kernel to prevent 0-day exploits and allowing viruses.

                      2) They're shooting for full windows driver drop-in support. So for any legacy hardware that linux no longer supports, or never supported, where Windows drivers exist, because we have to admit that people still tend to create Windows drivers first and foremost due to commercial support, end goal is that it should work in ReactOS.

                      WINE and its API implementation is mostly only really valuable for user-space programs. Sure we may already have plenty of FOSS Kernels out there, but none of them are compatible with NT Windows applications like what ReactOS is shooting for.

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