7 ms·

HelloSystem

144 points by marcodiego 5y ago

giancarlostoro 5y ago
Looking at the github pages for this https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/ https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/ It looks really nice. Reminds me of MacOS X a bit, but I'm not complaining. I do hope to see a few new DE's hit the scene in the next few years that challenge our existing UX and UIs for Linux and operating systems in general. I feel like early Gnome 3 had some interesting features that I don't know if they're still on there or not. Like there was tight UI / DE integration to chat apps, to where you could talk around all your other active windows and then go back to what you were doing, regardless of Virtual Desktop being used at the moment.
- stanislavb 5y ago
  It’s intended to resemble OSX as I’ve understood.
- felixding 5y ago
  Speaking of alternative DE, there is also NEXTSPACE: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
  - sandij 5y ago
    It also reminds me (in a positive way) of Étoilé which seems to not be developed anymore, but had a similar Mac OS / NeXTStep inspired approach to design: http://etoileos.com/ http://etoileos.com/
- girvo 5y ago
  Similar ideas as elementary OS (built on Linux) I suppose. I’m a fan.
willhinsa 5y ago
I'll definitely be digging into this more! Poking around the repo, and I stumbled onto this great resource, First Principles of Interaction Design[0]. Great stuff. [0] https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/
- dotancohen 5y ago
  Thank you! I've seen this years ago, probably bookmarked it, but never gotten back to it. This should be its own HN submission. EDIT: I've submitted it. Interestingly, it has been submitted before [1] but not generated any real discussion. I would think this is very relevant, and not often repeated, subject matter for a majority of HN readership. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=First%20Principles%20of%20Interaction%20Design&type=story&sort=byDate https://hn.algolia.com/?query=First%20Principles%20of%20Inte...
  - rawoke083600 5y ago
    >it has been submitted before [1] but not generated any real discussion Side Note: Yea it's kinda weird, I also have seen this "phenomimom" a few times. Same story get submitted same "title/desc" zero or little discussions. Then BOOM next submit 100+ comments :)
- frupert52 5y ago
  Lovely stuff. Back of the net
mavelikara 5y ago
If you, like me, was wondering what this is, this bit from https://hellosystem.github.io/docs https://hellosystem.github.io/docs might be helpful: > helloSystem is a desktop system for creators with a focus on simplicity, elegance, and usability. Its design follows the “Less, but better” philosophy. It is intended as a system for “mere mortals”, welcoming to switchers from the Mac. FreeBSD is used as the core operating system. Please refer to https://github.com/helloSystem/hello https://github.com/helloSystem/hello if you would like to learn more about the ideas and principles behind hello.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dotancohen 5y ago
  > for creators What do the omnipotent need with a desktop system? No, seriously, what does this bit mean?
  - cyounkins 5y ago
    In this case it means people that create things using computers. Digital artists, programmers, authors, etc.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      I see, thanks. I suppose that is in contrast to consumers, those who e.g. watch movies and read news.
    - aetherspawn 5y ago
      Which is a funny thing to say because creators are results focused and not technology focused, so the likelihood that they would install this system is practically zero compared to ie consumers, who can still browse the web or watch movies without the big AAAA software suites. Putting aside developers, who might use this.
      - 5y ago
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
WTF is this? Asinine post.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sen 5y ago
This looks awesome. Will definitely throw it on a Pi and have a play. Life the idea and the aesthetics.
INTPenis 5y ago
It's so arrogant to make a "welcoming" system for people based on FreeBSD. Arrogant because it assumes the system and its ecosystem of packages will never break and the user will never have to troubleshoot. Either that or they have amazing restore capabilities. Which is something I'd like to see in BTRFS on Linux now that it's being used in Fedora by default. Because once they inevitably have to troubleshoot they'll discover a much smaller community with much fewer blogs and articles about it than Linux. Disclaimer, I was a BSD fanboy from 2003 until about 2012.
- nix23 5y ago
  My FreeBSD system's never failed me, and if one uses pkg quarterly (not ports) you have not more problems than you have in any other linux distro. And speaking about btrfs...man that's some unwelcoming filesystem, i tested Kubic out some month ago, one of the node filled it's fs to 98%, i cleaned it up, rebooted and the result? Un-bootable OS...thanks btrfs.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    > one of the node filled it's fs to 98%, i cleaned it up, rebooted and the result? Un-bootable OS...thanks btrfs. Oh. Thank you; I think you've just cleared up how my opensuse box broke a while back.
- lugu 5y ago
  My advise to beginner is: yes troubleshoot if you feel like, else just reinstall. You are your own system admin, so find a way that suits you.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  > Arrogant because it assumes the system and its ecosystem of packages will never break and the user will never have to troubleshoot. Everything breaks. FreeBSD, Linux, NT, Darwin; every OS breaks and requires troubleshooting. And yes, it can be nice to have more blogs to reference, but I think you're overestimating both how much it matters and how few blogs talk about FreeBSD. > Either that or they have amazing restore capabilities. ... Like ZFS snapshots and boot environments?
jcelerier 5y ago
Good to see another OS shell written in Qt ! It's definitely the most used base platform for GUI shells at this point. That's a rather good sign for the longevity of the platform !
- pjmlp 5y ago
  It is also the only surviving C++ toolkit from C++ GUI Frameworks from the 1990's. Microsoft can talk as much as they feel like from using WinUI from C++, but their C++ loving team club just messed up the whole tooling. Don't touch it unless feeling nostalgic about using ATL tooling from 2000's. C++ Builder is great, but given its history and Windows focus, naturally only an option for enterprises with deep pockets. wxWidgets and JUCE were never part of OS stacks. Qt is really the only one left, with a quite cool development experience. I am also migrating my last C++/WinRT endeavour into Qt LTS 6.2, ironically so, as it was originally started on Qt 5.0. :)
  - jcelerier 5y ago
    > I am also migrating my last C++/WinRT endeavour into Qt LTS 6.2, ironically so, as it was originally started on Qt 5.0. :) yeah, every time I started a project on a non-Qt stack I always ended up porting it to Qt at some point later. Recently started an Android/Kotlin thing and it's so much more complicated than Qt with so many randomly moving under-engineered parts (android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1 ? come on...) that I feel it's definitely going to go that way too.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Yeah, the future on Android is Composer, but it still comes with lots of issues, and lacking feature parity with Views.
    - UIZealot 5y ago
      > android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1 The Android API is primarily geared towards constructing GUIs declaratively in XML, and as with anything infected with the XML plague, it's a huge bloated mess half of which is braindead useless. I honestly can't blame anyone for screaming in horror and running away to ReactJS, or just anything else.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Borlands 5y ago
It mentions and links to Haiku in the wiki as Hello done consenquently. Does this means Hello is the concept and Haiku the implementation? Should I install and try Haiku instead https://www.haiku-os.org/ https://www.haiku-os.org/
- forgotpwd16 5y ago
  Where you saw the link? They aren't related in any way. Haiku is an independent operating system inspired by BeOS. Hello is FreeBSD with an interface inspired by macOS. But you should give Haiku a try. Creator of Hello liked it[0]. [0]: https://medium.com/@probonopd/my-first-day-with-haiku-shockingly-good-8930cad4bbb0 https://medium.com/@probonopd/my-first-day-with-haiku-shocki... (it's a series of posts)
rawoke083600 5y ago
I'm a Linux fan and user for many many years now. I could never go back to Windows With Desktop Linux (or BSD), I feel you either a) Settle and go down the route of a tile-manager (i3/xmonad/...N). It's definitely worth it ! OR b) Use KDE/GNOME while silently swearing and hoping the next release will be better. * As an outside option there is also XFCE (old reliable) Always glad to see new movement and innovation in the DE space. This(HelloSystem) looks very good ! Well done to everyone involved.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  XFCE certainly deserves to be counted as the 3rd variant. Since 2004, I have been using only Linux on all my desktops and laptops. In my opinion, KDE 3.5 was a much better desktop environment than any earlier or later Linux DE and also much better than any MS Windows version. I am excluding from this comparison tiled WM's, as they belong to a different category, not directly comparable. The reason is that KDE 3.5 was extremely customizable. I did not like KDE 3.5 in its default configuration, but I could change absolutely every behavior detail to match my personal preferences. Unfortunately KDE 3.5 was followed by KDE 4.0, which retained only the name from KDE and it removed all the features that I liked in KDE 3.5. I stayed with KDE 3.5 one or two years, but eventually I had to give up because it was far too difficult to update other parts of the system without breaking the old KDE. The rescue came from XFCE, which does not include many features, but it covers all the basic needs and it is customizable enough to be able to make it never stand in my way. In more than a decade of using XFCE I have never encountered any problem with any GUI application, regardless if it was originally intended for Gnome or KDE. I have tried occasionally, from time to time, various KDE or Gnome versions, but I have never liked any of them, in comparison with XFCE. I also work professionally with MS Windows, but I have never seen any advantage there. For example, the modern Windows Explorer has a user interface far worse than any file manager that I have been using on Linux and launching an application from the Windows Start menu is far slower and more inconvenient that the kind of menus I am using in XFCE.
  - rawoke083600 5y ago
    i think you right. Before i moved to i3. XUbuntu was .y distro of choice

144 points by marcodiego 5y ago

Looking at the github pages for this https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/ https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/ It looks really nice. Reminds me of MacOS X a bit, but I'm not complaining. I do hope to see a few new DE's hit the scene in the next few years that challenge our existing UX and UIs for Linux and operating systems in general. I feel like early Gnome 3 had some interesting features that I don't know if they're still on there or not. Like there was tight UI / DE integration to chat apps, to where you could talk around all your other active windows and then go back to what you were doing, regardless of Virtual Desktop being used at the moment.

stanislavb 5y ago
It’s intended to resemble OSX as I’ve understood.
felixding 5y ago
Speaking of alternative DE, there is also NEXTSPACE: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
- sandij 5y ago
  It also reminds me (in a positive way) of Étoilé which seems to not be developed anymore, but had a similar Mac OS / NeXTStep inspired approach to design: http://etoileos.com/ http://etoileos.com/
girvo 5y ago
Similar ideas as elementary OS (built on Linux) I suppose. I’m a fan.

willhinsa 5y ago

I'll definitely be digging into this more! Poking around the repo, and I stumbled onto this great resource, First Principles of Interaction Design[0]. Great stuff. [0] https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/

dotancohen 5y ago
Thank you! I've seen this years ago, probably bookmarked it, but never gotten back to it. This should be its own HN submission. EDIT: I've submitted it. Interestingly, it has been submitted before [1] but not generated any real discussion. I would think this is very relevant, and not often repeated, subject matter for a majority of HN readership. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=First%20Principles%20of%20Interaction%20Design&type=story&sort=byDate https://hn.algolia.com/?query=First%20Principles%20of%20Inte...
- rawoke083600 5y ago
  >it has been submitted before [1] but not generated any real discussion Side Note: Yea it's kinda weird, I also have seen this "phenomimom" a few times. Same story get submitted same "title/desc" zero or little discussions. Then BOOM next submit 100+ comments :)
frupert52 5y ago
Lovely stuff. Back of the net

mavelikara 5y ago

If you, like me, was wondering what this is, this bit from https://hellosystem.github.io/docs https://hellosystem.github.io/docs might be helpful: > helloSystem is a desktop system for creators with a focus on simplicity, elegance, and usability. Its design follows the “Less, but better” philosophy. It is intended as a system for “mere mortals”, welcoming to switchers from the Mac. FreeBSD is used as the core operating system. Please refer to https://github.com/helloSystem/hello https://github.com/helloSystem/hello if you would like to learn more about the ideas and principles behind hello.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dotancohen 5y ago
> for creators What do the omnipotent need with a desktop system? No, seriously, what does this bit mean?
- cyounkins 5y ago
  In this case it means people that create things using computers. Digital artists, programmers, authors, etc.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    I see, thanks. I suppose that is in contrast to consumers, those who e.g. watch movies and read news.
  - aetherspawn 5y ago
    Which is a funny thing to say because creators are results focused and not technology focused, so the likelihood that they would install this system is practically zero compared to ie consumers, who can still browse the web or watch movies without the big AAAA software suites. Putting aside developers, who might use this.
    - 5y ago

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

WTF is this? Asinine post.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sen 5y ago

This looks awesome. Will definitely throw it on a Pi and have a play. Life the idea and the aesthetics.

INTPenis 5y ago

It's so arrogant to make a "welcoming" system for people based on FreeBSD. Arrogant because it assumes the system and its ecosystem of packages will never break and the user will never have to troubleshoot. Either that or they have amazing restore capabilities. Which is something I'd like to see in BTRFS on Linux now that it's being used in Fedora by default. Because once they inevitably have to troubleshoot they'll discover a much smaller community with much fewer blogs and articles about it than Linux. Disclaimer, I was a BSD fanboy from 2003 until about 2012.

nix23 5y ago
My FreeBSD system's never failed me, and if one uses pkg quarterly (not ports) you have not more problems than you have in any other linux distro. And speaking about btrfs...man that's some unwelcoming filesystem, i tested Kubic out some month ago, one of the node filled it's fs to 98%, i cleaned it up, rebooted and the result? Un-bootable OS...thanks btrfs.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  > one of the node filled it's fs to 98%, i cleaned it up, rebooted and the result? Un-bootable OS...thanks btrfs. Oh. Thank you; I think you've just cleared up how my opensuse box broke a while back.
lugu 5y ago
My advise to beginner is: yes troubleshoot if you feel like, else just reinstall. You are your own system admin, so find a way that suits you.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> Arrogant because it assumes the system and its ecosystem of packages will never break and the user will never have to troubleshoot. Everything breaks. FreeBSD, Linux, NT, Darwin; every OS breaks and requires troubleshooting. And yes, it can be nice to have more blogs to reference, but I think you're overestimating both how much it matters and how few blogs talk about FreeBSD. > Either that or they have amazing restore capabilities. ... Like ZFS snapshots and boot environments?

jcelerier 5y ago

Good to see another OS shell written in Qt ! It's definitely the most used base platform for GUI shells at this point. That's a rather good sign for the longevity of the platform !

pjmlp 5y ago
It is also the only surviving C++ toolkit from C++ GUI Frameworks from the 1990's. Microsoft can talk as much as they feel like from using WinUI from C++, but their C++ loving team club just messed up the whole tooling. Don't touch it unless feeling nostalgic about using ATL tooling from 2000's. C++ Builder is great, but given its history and Windows focus, naturally only an option for enterprises with deep pockets. wxWidgets and JUCE were never part of OS stacks. Qt is really the only one left, with a quite cool development experience. I am also migrating my last C++/WinRT endeavour into Qt LTS 6.2, ironically so, as it was originally started on Qt 5.0. :)
- jcelerier 5y ago
  > I am also migrating my last C++/WinRT endeavour into Qt LTS 6.2, ironically so, as it was originally started on Qt 5.0. :) yeah, every time I started a project on a non-Qt stack I always ended up porting it to Qt at some point later. Recently started an Android/Kotlin thing and it's so much more complicated than Qt with so many randomly moving under-engineered parts (android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1 ? come on...) that I feel it's definitely going to go that way too.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Yeah, the future on Android is Composer, but it still comes with lots of issues, and lacking feature parity with Views.
  - UIZealot 5y ago
    > android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1 The Android API is primarily geared towards constructing GUIs declaratively in XML, and as with anything infected with the XML plague, it's a huge bloated mess half of which is braindead useless. I honestly can't blame anyone for screaming in horror and running away to ReactJS, or just anything else.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Borlands 5y ago

It mentions and links to Haiku in the wiki as Hello done consenquently. Does this means Hello is the concept and Haiku the implementation? Should I install and try Haiku instead https://www.haiku-os.org/ https://www.haiku-os.org/

forgotpwd16 5y ago
Where you saw the link? They aren't related in any way. Haiku is an independent operating system inspired by BeOS. Hello is FreeBSD with an interface inspired by macOS. But you should give Haiku a try. Creator of Hello liked it[0]. [0]: https://medium.com/@probonopd/my-first-day-with-haiku-shockingly-good-8930cad4bbb0 https://medium.com/@probonopd/my-first-day-with-haiku-shocki... (it's a series of posts)

rawoke083600 5y ago

I'm a Linux fan and user for many many years now. I could never go back to Windows With Desktop Linux (or BSD), I feel you either a) Settle and go down the route of a tile-manager (i3/xmonad/...N). It's definitely worth it ! OR b) Use KDE/GNOME while silently swearing and hoping the next release will be better. * As an outside option there is also XFCE (old reliable) Always glad to see new movement and innovation in the DE space. This(HelloSystem) looks very good ! Well done to everyone involved.

adrian_b 5y ago
XFCE certainly deserves to be counted as the 3rd variant. Since 2004, I have been using only Linux on all my desktops and laptops. In my opinion, KDE 3.5 was a much better desktop environment than any earlier or later Linux DE and also much better than any MS Windows version. I am excluding from this comparison tiled WM's, as they belong to a different category, not directly comparable. The reason is that KDE 3.5 was extremely customizable. I did not like KDE 3.5 in its default configuration, but I could change absolutely every behavior detail to match my personal preferences. Unfortunately KDE 3.5 was followed by KDE 4.0, which retained only the name from KDE and it removed all the features that I liked in KDE 3.5. I stayed with KDE 3.5 one or two years, but eventually I had to give up because it was far too difficult to update other parts of the system without breaking the old KDE. The rescue came from XFCE, which does not include many features, but it covers all the basic needs and it is customizable enough to be able to make it never stand in my way. In more than a decade of using XFCE I have never encountered any problem with any GUI application, regardless if it was originally intended for Gnome or KDE. I have tried occasionally, from time to time, various KDE or Gnome versions, but I have never liked any of them, in comparison with XFCE. I also work professionally with MS Windows, but I have never seen any advantage there. For example, the modern Windows Explorer has a user interface far worse than any file manager that I have been using on Linux and launching an application from the Windows Start menu is far slower and more inconvenient that the kind of menus I am using in XFCE.
- rawoke083600 5y ago
  i think you right. Before i moved to i3. XUbuntu was .y distro of choice