4 ms·

Not to diminish the effort, but I think replicating the look and design (as in how things work) of MacOS (or Windows 10) is a pitfall that very few alternative

Not to diminish the effort, but I think replicating the look and design (as in how things work) of MacOS (or Windows 10) is a pitfall that very few alternative OS developers manage to avoid. It's just a bad idea. They'll never get even close, and those screenshots on Imgur prove it. What I'd prefer is if these definitely brilliant developers would "own" the Unix history more, and build upon Motif. Put the effort do create a mimicry of MacOS into modernising Motif. Hopefully not just make the chrome translucent, but really think about how Motif would look if invented in 2021.

dmitriid 5y ago
> It's just a bad idea. They'll never get even close, and those screenshots on Imgur prove it. It's a great idea. Because developing your own look and feel for the entire OS is an enormous task. This way you at least have a foundation to build upon.
- suction 5y ago
  As I'm saying, to choose MacOS or Windows 10 as your foundation is a dead-end. Many have tried before. If you read my comment, you'd have read that I propose to look to the history of Unix as the foundation.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    Why is it a dead-end and building on the outdated Motif isn't?
    - suction 5y ago
      Exactly because it's outdated and there for the taking.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  It looks like a counterfeit operating system though.
- neilalexander 5y ago
  It's also an enormous task to replicate one. User interface design isn't just about rounded edges and aqua chrome, it's about all of the small details: spacing, scale, padding, margins, font rendering and hinting, colour, arrangement, target zones, interactive feedback, discoverability. While I am delighted that there are people out there trying to build open source desktops that are more friendly and attractive, it isn't going to turn out well unless you have people on board who really know and grok user interface experience and design. For a good example of this, look at the vast quality difference between helloSystem and elementaryOS — the latter having significantly more attention poured into the smaller design details and it is immediately obvious how much of a difference that makes. You can't just duplicate what you think you see. You have to also understand why it was designed that way in the first place.
  - hda111 5y ago
    hello started out of dissatisfaction with elementaryOS. hello tries to replicate Mac OS not how it looks but how it works. It’s not fair to compare elementary to such a new project maintained by one person.
    - neilalexander 5y ago
      There's a big difference between replicating how something looks or works and replicating how something actually feels to use. Granted, elementaryOS is a more mature project with more people behind it but the attention to all those little details is what makes it feel nice to a user. My point is that helloSystem and/or Airyx are going to need that same level of design attention if it's ever going to feel like an adequate substitute. That tends to be where most open source desktops miss the mark today — they feel like they were designed by developers, not people who understand what makes up a good user interface.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > You can't just duplicate what you think you see. You have to also understand why it was designed that way in the first place. Of course, that should be the main driving force: to understand the why and the how. All I'm saying is that it's easier to do by copying an existing design than trying to come up with your own. Fake it till you make it is also a part of the process :D
rwmj 5y ago
You want developers to start with the clunky design, poor usability and terrible implementation of Motif?
- suction 5y ago
  Yep.
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
Gnome is good enough.
- chakkepolja 5y ago
  This but unironically for KDE. (UI wise)
- zokula 5y ago
  Gnome was good enough until the Gnome 3, by then it lost the plot.
mhd 5y ago
That's an interesting take. It would've been interesting if Motif were open sourced a few years earlier, as there would've been fewer wars about the correct Linux X11 toolkit (amongst the commercial Unices, this was just settled with Motif/CDE being the winner). The first Gimp version even was written in Motif, before its developers started Gtk (and bikeshedding Xt)... (I wouldn't start with a 2021 vision, as that seems to imply bad versions of over-stylized web and app interfaces, being almost as bad as the worst of the skeuomorphic UIs) So, looking at CDE, what was specifically "Motif" about it? I don't think the file management was as special and intrinsic as the spatial Finder, Win95s tree+file view explorer or even NextStep's Miller columns. Prominent virtual desktop usage? More "active" use of color? I think the dtksh part could be something interesting. Bridging the gap between regular Unix shell scripting (still more common than VBS or Rexx usage on other platforms) and UI creation. Now, I don't think this is the way of the future, but it's not like anything will come out of the Mac clones (Etoile, hello, Airyx) either, and this seems like a more original thought experiment.
muterad_murilax 5y ago
And while they are at it, they really oughta think about how that Unixy 3D file manager from Jurassic Park would look if invented in 2021!
- Perstone 5y ago
  There is a re-implementation of that you can find on github and compile relatively easily on Linux. It isn't great to use. It looks cool, but it totally useless.
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/ [2] https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE [3] https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/ https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/ [4] https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace & [5] https://trunkmaster.github.io/ https://trunkmaster.github.io/
anthk 5y ago
XFCE is the modern CDE and GTK was the modern Motif on UI. XFCE was born as a CDE clone, then it switched to GTK from XForms, but the essence looked really close to CDE. On philosophy and universalitiy among Unices, QT won.

dmitriid 5y ago

> It's just a bad idea. They'll never get even close, and those screenshots on Imgur prove it. It's a great idea. Because developing your own look and feel for the entire OS is an enormous task. This way you at least have a foundation to build upon.

suction 5y ago
As I'm saying, to choose MacOS or Windows 10 as your foundation is a dead-end. Many have tried before. If you read my comment, you'd have read that I propose to look to the history of Unix as the foundation.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  Why is it a dead-end and building on the outdated Motif isn't?
  - suction 5y ago
    Exactly because it's outdated and there for the taking.
speedgoose 5y ago
It looks like a counterfeit operating system though.
neilalexander 5y ago
It's also an enormous task to replicate one. User interface design isn't just about rounded edges and aqua chrome, it's about all of the small details: spacing, scale, padding, margins, font rendering and hinting, colour, arrangement, target zones, interactive feedback, discoverability. While I am delighted that there are people out there trying to build open source desktops that are more friendly and attractive, it isn't going to turn out well unless you have people on board who really know and grok user interface experience and design. For a good example of this, look at the vast quality difference between helloSystem and elementaryOS — the latter having significantly more attention poured into the smaller design details and it is immediately obvious how much of a difference that makes. You can't just duplicate what you think you see. You have to also understand why it was designed that way in the first place.
- hda111 5y ago
  hello started out of dissatisfaction with elementaryOS. hello tries to replicate Mac OS not how it looks but how it works. It’s not fair to compare elementary to such a new project maintained by one person.
  - neilalexander 5y ago
    There's a big difference between replicating how something looks or works and replicating how something actually feels to use. Granted, elementaryOS is a more mature project with more people behind it but the attention to all those little details is what makes it feel nice to a user. My point is that helloSystem and/or Airyx are going to need that same level of design attention if it's ever going to feel like an adequate substitute. That tends to be where most open source desktops miss the mark today — they feel like they were designed by developers, not people who understand what makes up a good user interface.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > You can't just duplicate what you think you see. You have to also understand why it was designed that way in the first place. Of course, that should be the main driving force: to understand the why and the how. All I'm saying is that it's easier to do by copying an existing design than trying to come up with your own. Fake it till you make it is also a part of the process :D

rwmj 5y ago

You want developers to start with the clunky design, poor usability and terrible implementation of Motif?

suction 5y ago
Yep.

otabdeveloper4 5y ago

Gnome is good enough.

chakkepolja 5y ago
This but unironically for KDE. (UI wise)
zokula 5y ago
Gnome was good enough until the Gnome 3, by then it lost the plot.

mhd 5y ago

That's an interesting take. It would've been interesting if Motif were open sourced a few years earlier, as there would've been fewer wars about the correct Linux X11 toolkit (amongst the commercial Unices, this was just settled with Motif/CDE being the winner). The first Gimp version even was written in Motif, before its developers started Gtk (and bikeshedding Xt)... (I wouldn't start with a 2021 vision, as that seems to imply bad versions of over-stylized web and app interfaces, being almost as bad as the worst of the skeuomorphic UIs) So, looking at CDE, what was specifically "Motif" about it? I don't think the file management was as special and intrinsic as the spatial Finder, Win95s tree+file view explorer or even NextStep's Miller columns. Prominent virtual desktop usage? More "active" use of color? I think the dtksh part could be something interesting. Bridging the gap between regular Unix shell scripting (still more common than VBS or Rexx usage on other platforms) and UI creation. Now, I don't think this is the way of the future, but it's not like anything will come out of the Mac clones (Etoile, hello, Airyx) either, and this seems like a more original thought experiment.

muterad_murilax 5y ago

And while they are at it, they really oughta think about how that Unixy 3D file manager from Jurassic Park would look if invented in 2021!

Perstone 5y ago
There is a re-implementation of that you can find on github and compile relatively easily on Linux. It isn't great to use. It looks cool, but it totally useless.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago

[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/ [2] https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE [3] https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/ https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/ [4] https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace & [5] https://trunkmaster.github.io/ https://trunkmaster.github.io/

anthk 5y ago

XFCE is the modern CDE and GTK was the modern Motif on UI. XFCE was born as a CDE clone, then it switched to GTK from XForms, but the essence looked really close to CDE. On philosophy and universalitiy among Unices, QT won.