5 ms·

Before the advent of Mac OS X, Irix definitely had the best looking, most consistent and most usable GUI of any Unix system.

anthk 11mo ago
If you install EMWM and the goodies from the author's page you can get a very close system. Also, some guy at Nixers.net it's trying to recreate the whole Irix interface under EMWM. https://fastestcode.org/emwm.html https://fastestcode.org/emwm.html Also if you want to program something in Motif: Motif prog. manual https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/motif/vol6a/Vol6a.pdf https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/motif/vol6a/Vol6a.pdf Motif reference manual https://www.ist.co.uk/motif/download/6B/6B_book.pdf https://www.ist.co.uk/motif/download/6B/6B_book.pdf For the X11 books, current X.org manuals are easily found under X.org docs and they will work nealy the same. Now they promote xcb instead of xlib but xlib itself still works. You'll might (not sure) need: - Xmu.pdf XMU, low level - intrinsics.pdf X11 inners, useful to debug X11 stuff - icccm.pdf Basically window manager standards - libXaw.pdf Athena/X11, if you need something lighter than Motif For instance, you can create some MPV frontend with XEmbed and Motif. MPV can be controlled by sending commands to a socket, and creating a GUI for it can be first prototyped with TCL/Tk and then done with MPV.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- fithisux 11mo ago
  I really appreciate the help. Personally I find libxcb is better for bindings. Unfortunately I mostly use my work Windows11 laptop and I think lack of Motif is a big omission. But o lot of X libraries work under Windows too.
  - pjmlp 11mo ago
    Back in the day you could have a X client environment with Hummingbird. Still around under a new name. https://www.rocketsoftware.com/en-us/products/remote-access/exceed https://www.rocketsoftware.com/en-us/products/remote-access/...
lproven 11mo ago
There's a Linux version. https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/ https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/ I do not know of a single distro that includes it, but then, this may be because I think it's not 100% FOSS.
- coredog64 11mo ago
  That, and it's been developed in fits and starts. There was like a year where the primary (and AFAICT only) developer lost access to the domain name he was using. I had this installed on an old X220 running Fedora and it was fun, but I wouldn't dare run it on anything that I needed to work day in and day out.
pjmlp 11mo ago
I disagree, due to NeXTSTEP and Sun NeWS/OpenLook. However I do agree those three were the only UNIXes that I actually enjoyed exploring/researching as desktop experience.
- mixmastamyk 11mo ago
  Next was cool, but openlook fugly!
- Cockbrand 11mo ago
  Probably fair re: NeXTSTEP, as I never had a NeXT to play with.
somat 11mo ago
Irix did have a very nice and flashy desktop, but compared to bsd or even linux the underlying unix system was... a bit off. and I don't think this was just familiarity with bsd, solaris felt the same way. I think it is the dynamic pressure of a commercial closed source unix vs a community source available unix, where the commercial unix is pressured to maintain compatibility and thus also maintains a ton of old footguns. The community unix allows itself to file them smooth and become more ergonomic over time. At the cost of being incompatible. However compatibility is not as much as an issue because you have the source for most of your programs, it is much easier to adapt to incompatible changes.

anthk 11mo ago

If you install EMWM and the goodies from the author's page you can get a very close system. Also, some guy at Nixers.net it's trying to recreate the whole Irix interface under EMWM. https://fastestcode.org/emwm.html https://fastestcode.org/emwm.html Also if you want to program something in Motif: Motif prog. manual https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/motif/vol6a/Vol6a.pdf https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/motif/vol6a/Vol6a.pdf Motif reference manual https://www.ist.co.uk/motif/download/6B/6B_book.pdf https://www.ist.co.uk/motif/download/6B/6B_book.pdf For the X11 books, current X.org manuals are easily found under X.org docs and they will work nealy the same. Now they promote xcb instead of xlib but xlib itself still works. You'll might (not sure) need: - Xmu.pdf XMU, low level - intrinsics.pdf X11 inners, useful to debug X11 stuff - icccm.pdf Basically window manager standards - libXaw.pdf Athena/X11, if you need something lighter than Motif For instance, you can create some MPV frontend with XEmbed and Motif. MPV can be controlled by sending commands to a socket, and creating a GUI for it can be first prototyped with TCL/Tk and then done with MPV.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
fithisux 11mo ago
I really appreciate the help. Personally I find libxcb is better for bindings. Unfortunately I mostly use my work Windows11 laptop and I think lack of Motif is a big omission. But o lot of X libraries work under Windows too.
- pjmlp 11mo ago
  Back in the day you could have a X client environment with Hummingbird. Still around under a new name. https://www.rocketsoftware.com/en-us/products/remote-access/exceed https://www.rocketsoftware.com/en-us/products/remote-access/...

lproven 11mo ago

There's a Linux version. https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/ https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/ I do not know of a single distro that includes it, but then, this may be because I think it's not 100% FOSS.

coredog64 11mo ago
That, and it's been developed in fits and starts. There was like a year where the primary (and AFAICT only) developer lost access to the domain name he was using. I had this installed on an old X220 running Fedora and it was fun, but I wouldn't dare run it on anything that I needed to work day in and day out.

pjmlp 11mo ago

I disagree, due to NeXTSTEP and Sun NeWS/OpenLook. However I do agree those three were the only UNIXes that I actually enjoyed exploring/researching as desktop experience.

mixmastamyk 11mo ago
Next was cool, but openlook fugly!
Cockbrand 11mo ago
Probably fair re: NeXTSTEP, as I never had a NeXT to play with.

somat 11mo ago

Irix did have a very nice and flashy desktop, but compared to bsd or even linux the underlying unix system was... a bit off. and I don't think this was just familiarity with bsd, solaris felt the same way. I think it is the dynamic pressure of a commercial closed source unix vs a community source available unix, where the commercial unix is pressured to maintain compatibility and thus also maintains a ton of old footguns. The community unix allows itself to file them smooth and become more ergonomic over time. At the cost of being incompatible. However compatibility is not as much as an issue because you have the source for most of your programs, it is much easier to adapt to incompatible changes.