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Twister OS: Make Raspberry Pi Look Like Windows or macOS
- MichaelZuo 6y agoThat is cool! Seems like it opens up the possibility for easy GUI customization too.
- chadlavi 6y agoneat
- DataCrayon 6y agoLooks great! Are you aware of anything that gives a macOS look-and-feel to Ubuntu Desktop?
- selftest 6y agoLike a dock and menu bar? Tint2 for the dock. I believe Cairo dock is also an option. Polybar for the top bar. Keep in mind that achieving specific looks often requires tons of time in configuration and hunting down specific tools or fixes. For instance, rounded corners might be a feature of your WM, your compositor or a combination of both. Some stuff will only work correctly if you’re using the right DE while others will only work if you use no DE at all.
- DataCrayon 6y agoThanks, not heard of Tint2 or Polybar before, will check them out.
- moonchild 6y agoYou may be interested in elementary os[1]. All their stuff is oss, though I don't know how easy it would be to use it on ubuntu. 1. https://elementary.io/ https://elementary.io/
- traceroute66 6y agoI don't get these sorts of "make X look like Y" products (Twister OS isn't the only one out there). You can't polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter. A Pi is always going to be a Pi. Its always going to be a Linux thing (Debian IIRC). If you want Windows, buy a PC. If you want macOS, but a Mac. But to me at least there's very little point indeed making the UI look sort of, maybe, like Windows or macOS if the UX is going to still be Linux.
- jagged-chisel 6y ago> You can't polish a turd. You can[1]. I think projects like this are a good step to/from familiarity. "Oh, it looks like what I'm accustomed to, maybe I can learn this..." or "I'd really like something small on which to emulate my desktop of choice, but it's not available on the small device, maybe I can start from here..." 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI
- aequitas 6y agoProblem is even though it looks familiar it feels anything but. I spent a considerable amount of time making my work Linux environment feel (I don't care mucht about the looks) like my Mac at home, Things like keyboard shortcuts, terminal application, spotlight, expose window movement, etc. Because I just don't want to keep adjusting my workflow between two different systems. But it's really hard to get it done completely or find a common middleground that works effectively on both systems.
- asutekku 6y agoIf I’m going to use something extremely low powered that has graphical abilities, then at least i’d like it to look nice.
- Fnoord 6y agoIf you're used to X, and can make Y look and function like X, this is useful. It can also be fun, which by itself is useful. Important project? Subjective. I tend to make a lot of apps Solarized. E-mail (Mutt/Postbox), Sublime/Vim, iTerm, even HN, for example are all Solarized (dark to be precise). That's also different than the original UI. Also, for some machines there's no macOS (very high end, and embedded like this one). Hackintosh has its drawbacks, and doesn't exist for ARM. Regarding Windows, there have been UIs for *NIX which looked like a version of Windows since ever since I started using Linux (RedHat 5.2 somewhere end of 90s).
- jerrysievert 6y agoa couple of things that jumped out at me: > Is Twister OS a 64-bit OS? > Twister OS is a 32-bit OS. > Why is Steam not starting for me? > Sadly Valve will be dropping 32-bit support and due to this poor discision on their part we've had no choice but to discontinue support for Steam on Twister OS. twister os might want to consider dropping 32bit support themselves, especially given that their minimum requirements are a pi4.
- csande17 6y agoThe Steam thing looks like a separate issue from whether Twister OS is 32- or 64-bit. They're running the x86 version of Steam in an emulator, and that emulator probably only supports 32-but software.
- Hydraulix989 6y agoDo the games run in an emulator, too?
- ThatPlayer 6y agoThis is exactly it. They're using box86 [ https://github.com/ptitSeb/box86 https://github.com/ptitSeb/box86 ] which allows you to run x86 but not x86_64 Linux programs on ARM Linux.
- dleslie 6y agobox86 runs fine in a 32bit chroot. But, really, it's strange that box86 rejects aarch64. Most aarch64 chips can easily run 32bit arm code, and so ... why not?
- spijdar 6y agobox86 runs x86 binaries in an emulator that translates syscalls and library calls to native syscalls and library calls. The JIT compiler they're using and the syscalls tables are specifically for 32 bit x86, and because they're simply passing calls through the host system must match both endianness and word size, so running a 32 bit x86 executable requires a 32 bit little endian host. ARMv8 can run in either 32 bit "aarch32" or 64 bit "aarch64" modes, and both require separate runtimes, as does 32/64 bit x86. So you need 32 bit ARM libraries for box86's translation to work. It could be updated to support 64 bit executables, but that would be an amd64/x86_64 -> aarch64 translation layer. Doing 32 -> 64 bit or vice versa is much, much harder, and requires manual translation of calls for specific libraries and kernels to be done, as nested binary data is passed in some library/syscalls that needs to be converted.
- 0xCMP 6y agoWow, there are a lot more features in this thing than the website says. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaSujCZFIgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaSujCZFIgs I wish they'd explain more on the website on what this offers, how it's configured and etc.
- summitsummit 6y agocool! i didn't realize until i watched this video that looks were such a dominant factor making me amenable to making a switch to such an os
- adamkochanowicz 6y agoDitto. Why did they use the least compelling screenshot on the homepage? The other macos theme is way more like the original. Spotlight search, notification center, dock, etc.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoThere's more screenshots, you can go through them.
- Brett_S 6y agoPossibly they did not want the attention of the legal departments at two very large companies given they developed GUIs that look very similar to their IP?
- dheera 6y agoWhat window manager is this, and are the themes available outside of TwisterOS? This might actually be a good WM for Ubuntu desktop! On my Pi I don't take a crap about how it looks, I usually disable the GUI anyway for efficiency in IOT and robotics projects.
- buzzert 6y agoThis looks great, but why is it a whole OS image and not just a set of themes?
- eloisant 6y agoMarketing! Also probably ease of install for newbies.
- peacefulhat 6y agoI thought this meant that Twister was so barebones it would make Raspberry Pi look like a heavyweight desktop OS.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoReally nice effort. The question is though: why? :) But cool nonetheless
- KMnO4 6y agoI'll answer your question with a story. My grandfather used to use Internet Explorer. I tried to get him on Chrome, but he refused to even open it since it was "too difficult". One day I removed IE from the desktop and changed the icon of Chrome. He now uses Chrome and I sleep better knowing he's using a more secure browser.
- rvz 6y agoI mean. On the Windows side, you can actually try out the real Windows 10 on your Raspberry Pi and actually run full x86 Windows programs on it. [0] So looking at this, it is more like a re-heated version of Lindows. [0] https://www.windowslatest.com/2020/02/09/heres-how-windows-10-runs-on-raspberry-pi-4-and-3/ https://www.windowslatest.com/2020/02/09/heres-how-windows-1...
- nailer 6y agoExactly. raspberry pi is a hardware platform - if you want it to look like Windows you can run Windows
- geek_at 6y agoJust tried it and got a kernel panic on a Pi4 at first boot. Damn it really looked nice on the website
- k_sze 6y agoDid the kernel panic look like a BSoD or a macOS kp as well? :P
- k_sze 6y agoThe other day I learned about a thing called “trade dress” while reading up on the seizure of the OnePlus earbuds as “counterfeit Apple AirPods” by the US Customs. And now I’m wondering how all these theming things that make one OS look like another are not violating trade dress protection. Can anybody shed some light on the topic? I wouldn’t be surprised if this is enforceable in some jurisdictions and not in others.
- unicornporn 6y agoChicago95 for those who run XFCE and just want the best of the looks... https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
- TazeTSchnitzel 6y agoThat's one of the best-looking Windows 95 themes for Linux I've seen. I like that they made the deviations from the actual 95 layout feel at home.
- yowlingcat 6y agoWow, super impressive. May have to set this up on my dualboot!
- hatenberg 6y agoBeen using it for the kids to get acquainted with MacOS/Win but also terminal. They found the win95 theme and refuse to change it now