4 ms·

Elementary OS is very similar to Mac OS in terms of UI. Of course the project is rather new, but is very promising. The desktop environment (Pantheon) is insta

Elementary OS is very similar to Mac OS in terms of UI. Of course the project is rather new, but is very promising. The desktop environment (Pantheon) is installable in Ubuntu, though. Once in a while you might end up with a messed up situation that might require some effort to fix.

willismichael 10y ago
How well does it work to install Pantheon on Ubuntu? I'm curious to try it on a home computer that has other users without impacting them, is there a simple way to make it launch Pantheon when I sign in, but still use Unity for other user accounts on the machine? Ages ago I remember using a login client that allowed you to pick which desktop environment you wanted to use, but I'm not sure how to do it on Ubuntu... I guess I could google around for whatever command-line-and-text-editor-fu is required.
- fiddlerwoaroof 10y ago
  Lightdm/gdm (the service that provides the login screen) generally provides a way to choose an alternate session to start on login and then remember it on a per-user basis.
  - guitarbill 10y ago
    The way this works on Ubuntu is there's a small icon (circle-like) next to the user name, click this and if you have other desktop environments installed, you can select it. It's a great way to try out new ones. I tried Ubuntu + Cinnamon before making the jump to Mint.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 10y ago
      I've pretty much given up on Linux desktop environments in favor of tiling window managers. First I tried XMonad and then, when I had an issue with my monitor layout that was causing XMonad to crash (X reporting my monitor size as 0x0 for some reason). I jumped to StumpWM and have been using it ever since (it had the same problem, but I found it much easier to locate and fix the bug in a Common Lisp program than in a Haskell program: especially because I could connect to the running window manager with Slime in emacs, catch the error, and then fiddle around in the REPL for a while to find the X calls that could actually return the right monitor size).
- partycoder 10y ago
  At least most desktop managers (gdm, kdm, etc) allow you to establish a preferred desktop environment. You can have KDE, Gnome, XFCE, Unity, LXDE, etc... all installed, and pick which one you want to start your session with. The only thing that becomes messy is that some applications might use Qt, others GTK, and the themes might be inconsistent. Fortunately there's a GTK engine for Qt and a Qt engine for GTK that allow you to have a more unified experience. The menu also might end up with many applications and the preferred applications for each file type can be a bit hard to manage when you have multiple desktop environments installed.
- SuperPaintMan 10y ago
  And now I need to go install e17 and play around (is that still possible?).
autoreleasepool 10y ago
XFCE can also be configured to mimic OS X enough where you won't really miss anything. It can also be configured to look like windows. In general, XFCE can be made to look like anything that's why I'm such a fan.
matt4077 10y ago
Elementary OS is a shallow, ugly, uninspired and lazy attempt to make money. It's trying really hard to imitate Apple – they even have these "Human Interface Guidelines" somewhere that read like some sort of Apple parody. In reality it's a fake, thin veneer of a user interface bolted onto a generic Linux distribution. Apple software may have their own faults. I think most of the whining is just boredom, but iTunes for example is definitely not the pinnacle of UI. But the beauty of macOS has always been in getting some things exactly right with the competence and attention of a master craftsman/woman. I'd name text rendering as an example, or sleep. Elementary OS is made by people who think wearing a turtleneck makes them Steve Jobs, but they just don't get that you also have to throw a prototype or two at your CXOs from time to time :) I don't think Linux on the desktop will benefit from such cloning. Just look at Open Office: a UI that perpetually felt four years out of date that probably took five times as many hours of work as the google docs that actually made Office unnecessary.

willismichael 10y ago

How well does it work to install Pantheon on Ubuntu? I'm curious to try it on a home computer that has other users without impacting them, is there a simple way to make it launch Pantheon when I sign in, but still use Unity for other user accounts on the machine? Ages ago I remember using a login client that allowed you to pick which desktop environment you wanted to use, but I'm not sure how to do it on Ubuntu... I guess I could google around for whatever command-line-and-text-editor-fu is required.

fiddlerwoaroof 10y ago
Lightdm/gdm (the service that provides the login screen) generally provides a way to choose an alternate session to start on login and then remember it on a per-user basis.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  The way this works on Ubuntu is there's a small icon (circle-like) next to the user name, click this and if you have other desktop environments installed, you can select it. It's a great way to try out new ones. I tried Ubuntu + Cinnamon before making the jump to Mint.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 10y ago
    I've pretty much given up on Linux desktop environments in favor of tiling window managers. First I tried XMonad and then, when I had an issue with my monitor layout that was causing XMonad to crash (X reporting my monitor size as 0x0 for some reason). I jumped to StumpWM and have been using it ever since (it had the same problem, but I found it much easier to locate and fix the bug in a Common Lisp program than in a Haskell program: especially because I could connect to the running window manager with Slime in emacs, catch the error, and then fiddle around in the REPL for a while to find the X calls that could actually return the right monitor size).
partycoder 10y ago
At least most desktop managers (gdm, kdm, etc) allow you to establish a preferred desktop environment. You can have KDE, Gnome, XFCE, Unity, LXDE, etc... all installed, and pick which one you want to start your session with. The only thing that becomes messy is that some applications might use Qt, others GTK, and the themes might be inconsistent. Fortunately there's a GTK engine for Qt and a Qt engine for GTK that allow you to have a more unified experience. The menu also might end up with many applications and the preferred applications for each file type can be a bit hard to manage when you have multiple desktop environments installed.
SuperPaintMan 10y ago
And now I need to go install e17 and play around (is that still possible?).

autoreleasepool 10y ago

XFCE can also be configured to mimic OS X enough where you won't really miss anything. It can also be configured to look like windows. In general, XFCE can be made to look like anything that's why I'm such a fan.

matt4077 10y ago

Elementary OS is a shallow, ugly, uninspired and lazy attempt to make money. It's trying really hard to imitate Apple – they even have these "Human Interface Guidelines" somewhere that read like some sort of Apple parody. In reality it's a fake, thin veneer of a user interface bolted onto a generic Linux distribution. Apple software may have their own faults. I think most of the whining is just boredom, but iTunes for example is definitely not the pinnacle of UI. But the beauty of macOS has always been in getting some things exactly right with the competence and attention of a master craftsman/woman. I'd name text rendering as an example, or sleep. Elementary OS is made by people who think wearing a turtleneck makes them Steve Jobs, but they just don't get that you also have to throw a prototype or two at your CXOs from time to time :) I don't think Linux on the desktop will benefit from such cloning. Just look at Open Office: a UI that perpetually felt four years out of date that probably took five times as many hours of work as the google docs that actually made Office unnecessary.