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I have been a developer for elementary for 3 years, and I am part of the elementary core team. I am also personally close friends with much of the design and de

by aroman 13y ago

I have been a developer for elementary for 3 years, and I am part of the elementary core team. I am also personally close friends with much of the design and development team, including the project's founder and lead designer, Daniel Foré. There seems to be a lot of feedback here which basically says "this trying to rip off OS X". I would like to offer you some insight into our internal assessment of these claims. Is elementary OS reminiscent of OS X? I can't disagree. Did we actively intend for it to be reminiscent of OS X? Absolutely not. We build upon good ideas from all sources. We don't have a dock and silver window chrome because OS X does. We made those design choices because they work (Windows has slowly made its task bar more and more like the OS X dock) and because they look good. Could we have changed the window chrome to be, say, green, just to try to make ourselves stand out from OS X? Sure, but frankly, we don't feel we have to. I think there is a strong sense in our design team that we shouldn't change things simply for the sake of being "different" -- we should change things to actually improve them. Disclaimer: I wrote this post myself and it reflects my own personal opinions, though I'd be happy to ask other core team members to back me up here -- I think they'd agree.

nsmartt 13y ago
I can agree with this to some extent, and I don't have a solid answer as far as a different approach. However, knock-offs feel cheap, and because elementary feels like a knock-off, it's having trouble gaining some mindshare. Taking steps to differentiate from OS X a bit more would (arguably, perhaps) be an improvement, albeit not a technical one.
jalcine 13y ago
I'd like to nudge in one thing: option flexibility. I'm still downloading and about to try it out; but I hope that the setting does allow the user to tweak everything they can tweak and not hide options away for the sake of hiding things. My personal thing, but it's shared with many, is that flexibility can lead to a personally complete design.
- aroman 13y ago
  Flexibility is definitely something we try to be opinionated about. We don't offer a lot of easy GUI customization out of the box, but you'll find that there's quite a bit hidden beneath the surface or is easy to code up yourself. If you're really interested in a completely customizable and hand-tailored OS, I'd honestly suggest you look into something like ArchLinux or Gentoo[2]. Both platforms have made available most of our applications and components, so you can pick and choose to build the desktop you personally want :) [1]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/?O=0&C=0&SeB=nd&K=elementary&outdated=&SB=n&SO=a&PP=50&do_Search=Go https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/?O=0&C=0&SeB=nd&K=element... [2]: http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Pantheon http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Pantheon
  - munchor 13y ago
    Pantheon's Arch Linux support is not finished - I'm pretty sure you can't run Pantheon on it. However, on Gentoo I'm sure you can. Besides that, we do offer some customization, you just have to use dconf-editor to change the configuration keys and not a GUI for several things. And there's also "elementary Tweak" which adds even more configuration.
clockwork_189 13y ago
I am a bit confused. A lot of it looks like Ubuntu, but with slightly different GUI. At first I thought it was just a variant of Ubuntu(like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc)...is it? How does it differ from it? Sorry if this seems like a naive question. I am really interested in trying it out...will do so shortly after I am done my exams :P
- aroman 13y ago
  Hi, thanks for the interest! Our desktop interface and apps are actually quite different from Ubuntu, though we are an Ubuntu-based distribution. To give some concrete examples: - We use our own desktop environment and window manager, Pantheon and Gala, respectively.[1] - We write many of our own apps in-house or work closely with the third-party apps we ship with. For example, our music player, settings application, and calendaring program (to name a few) are all written completely by us. Our mail program, web browser, and photo management app are developed by third-parties who we have strong developer and personal connections to. - Similar to the above point, we have our own human interface guidelines[2]. You might find you like it more than Ubuntu's. - elementary OS is extremely fast and lightweight. Our ISO is ~200 MB less than Ubuntu's, and our OS boots faster and is more responsive. A simple youtube or google search should back me up here. I hope this was helpful to you and perhaps others. Again, we really appreciate your interest and curiosity. I'd definitely encourage you to give it a whirl once you've aced your exams :) [1]: http://elementaryos.org/journal/meet-gala-window-manager http://elementaryos.org/journal/meet-gala-window-manager [2]: http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines
  - sandGorgon 13y ago
    Why browser and mail program ? I mean I can understand usability considerations of photo apps and music player, but you can do so much more by dropping effort on those two apps. I dont mean it in a "resistance is futile" kind of way - but more in terms of not-immediately-needed kind of way. Especially the browser. Webmail suffices for now - I know people want a Sparrow-like mail app on the desktop, but there is so much more effort that can be put in on projects like color calibration, Redshift-like functionality [1], etc. You are off to a decent start - I really, really hope that you guys dont start building Twitter apps. Instead you should expose API guidelines for things like Contractor (OSX Services?) and have something like extensions.gnome.org - but maybe in Vala for performance. Just my $0.02. [1] http://jonls.dk/redshift/ http://jonls.dk/redshift/
ChuckMcM 13y ago
FWIW I don't think it is a bad thing [1]. KDE's look was clearly inspired by Windows XP. But I'm a user. Designers, people who make their living giving life to a "look" or a "user experience" feel pretty strongly about their work (this is typical of many artists, programmers, architects, musicians, Etc.) In part because they often see their own work as a reflection of them, and in part, and I speculate here, because the creative process is mysterious and it is easy to feel like a fraud when you don't really know how you come up with something, you just do. So designers look at Elementary OS and they evaluate its look, its theme, its "presence." And what they see seems to remind them strongly of Apple's OS. I completely understand that because that was my first thought as well and I'm not a designer, I thought "Oh, this looks like they put an OS X shell on top of Linux." I happen to think the other stuff you did, the performance tuning, the application integration, the "fit and finish" if you will is very impressive and it reminds me of how Ubuntu took something mashed up and made it more cohesive. How ever the design elements always dominate product discussions, even if they shouldn't. Look at the discussion around the Honda Element (car) are they about its innovations in how it converts its internal spaces? Its motor design? No, people talk about how stupid it looks to them (which completely misses the point of the car). What I'm saying is the Elementary team is going to get razzed a lot about the design elements. Try not to take it personally. The correct response is the one you've latched on to, "We built an OS we wanted to use based on technology we wanted to use, we built it this way." Own the vision. [1] "rip off" sounds bad "homage" sounds good, both mean "it looks like."
- jorgecastillo 13y ago
  To you it might be clear that KDE was inspired by Windows XP, I differ. KDE independently developed a Windows-like feeling because it has always aimed at being very configurable. Since I first used KDE (when using XP) I felt that it was better than Windows, that feeling has never left me.
  - inthewind 13y ago
    Kde was inspired by Windows 95 (which was ripped off from...). Vista later borrowed alot back from Kde.
pilgrim689 13y ago
I never heard of elementaryOS but it looks great at first glance. I have a specific question I was wondering: how will distributions using non-Unity DEs/WMs such as elementary handle the replacement of X with Mir? I'm not familiar with how child distros handle divergent dependencies in general so I'd love to hear what elementary is doing.
- aroman 13y ago
  Great question. The simple answer is: we don't know yet. We actually had a conference call with some folks from Canonical a few weeks ago discussing this very issue. At present, it seems like there are three options (I'm taking these points mostly from the minutes from that call): 1. Port everything to Qt and use Mir (because GTK+ might not work under pure Mir -- they've been backing Wayland so far). This would require an IMMENSE amount of work and would be tantamount to rewriting almost every line in our codebase. 2. Help port GTK+ (or make an extension/fork of it) to Mir. This might honestly be less work than #1, but elementary would be at a specific disadvantage because most of our developers (speaking for myself as well) don't really have the skills needed for something like this. 3. Do nothing and use XMir until we absolutely must switch. We don't have an official or internal consensus on this point yet, to my knowledge. However, I would personally tend to think we'll be leaning toward #3, depending on how XMir shapes up. This is definitely an area of interest and importance for us, and it's something that will undoubtedly continue to be discussed as we begin the L+1 cycle and beyond.
  - pilgrim689 13y ago
    Wouldn't Canonical be largely helping with the GTK+ port? Otherwise, that would mean that Ubuntu will only support Qt applications, would it not?
    - aroman 13y ago
      I would imagine they would help with the porting effort, but I really have no idea. I can't speak to Canonical's intentions or Ubuntu's plans, I'm afraid.
  - 13y ago
fizx 13y ago
Perhaps you should change the background image in the demo video away from a photo of a galaxy. I'm sure there's many images (e.g. http://archive.org/download/313253main_moon_landscape_HI_full/313253main_moon_landscape_HI_full.jpg http://archive.org/download/313253main_moon_landscape_HI_ful...) that don't so directly evoke the OS X default wallpaper.
- aroman 13y ago
  100% agree. I personally only noticed this tonight shortly before the launch (at which point it was too late to change), but I definitely dislike the fact that we (in fact, the video was created by a fan) used a video which showed off a wallpaper Apple used in OS X. Frankly, I expect we'll try to get that amended soon.
joel_perl_prog 13y ago
Hello. I'm super late to this party, it looks like. I only have one question: will my retina display (on a MacBook Pro) do all the right things, just as it does under MacOS and MacOS programs?
- aroman 13y ago
  I honestly don't know! I don't know of anyone who has tried Luna on an rMBP. I would encourage you to burn a copy of luna to a USB disk and boot into the live environment. You can play around with it and see how it looks, with no changes to your hard drive. I'm sure other people with rMBPs will be trying Luna in the coming days, so hopefully we can assess what the current state of affairs is and make any necessary changes. Speaking on behalf of the whole elementary team, it would be greatly appreciated if you gave it a shot and reported your findings to us via Google+, Twitter, or via direct bug report here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/elementaryos https://bugs.launchpad.net/elementaryos You can use this guide to prepare the USB drive with Luna: http://www.maketecheasier.com/install-dual-boot-ubuntu-in-macbook-air/2012/08/27 http://www.maketecheasier.com/install-dual-boot-ubuntu-in-ma... The relevant steps are the first few. Obviously replace the filename of the Ubuntu ISO with the Luna one :) I personally used that guide this morning to create a bootable USB Luna liveCD with the final ISO to install it on my Macbook Air, so I can vouch for its credibility and compatibility.
  - joel_perl_prog 13y ago
    Nice. I'll look into it. Thank you!
- munchor 13y ago
  elementary OS Developer here, I believe GTK 3.10 (and we use GTK+ for all our apps) will be the first GTK version with High DPI support, so I'm not 100% sure retina will work perfectly (you'd have to try). Also, I'm no pro on this, I'm not even sure if retina is that high DPI feature they keep talking about. However, if it is, Luna+1 (code name for next version of elementary OS) will use GTK 3.10 (or a newer one) for sure.
sandGorgon 13y ago
There are a million and one themes for GTK. I wish they had picked one - anything except the OSX clone. What they don't realize is that there are a bunch of howtos out there around customizing Ubuntu to "look like OSX" and this looks like one more. I wish this discussion could be around performance enhancements and innovations in usability, but I cannot get past the OSX clone-ness. In an admittedly egoistic sense, I am a loner Latitude/Ubuntu user in a world of Air/OSX all around me. This is not something I will be able to explain off. And this is in India. I assume it will be much worse in the US.
- aroman 13y ago
  I appreciate your honesty. You should know that we didn't "pick" our GTK+ theme. In fact, it predates the OS itself and is the result of (seriously) 100+ man hours of refinement and tweaking, including working with GTK+ theme engine developers. It was created to be beautiful and usable, not as an OS X clone. I can assure you OS X was used (along with Windows, iOS, and Android) purely as inspiration -- not as a target or design guide. There are only so many neutral window control colors. We use silver and black (apps can request to use the dark variant), Windows uses transparency, Ubuntu uses a muddy brown, and OS X uses chrome. If you really feel opposed, as you pointed out, there are dozens of excellent GTK+ themes. Some people have even written them specifically with elementary in mind[1]. Feel free to use them :) [1] http://www.elementaryupdate.com/2013/07/5-new-awesome-elementary-themes.html http://www.elementaryupdate.com/2013/07/5-new-awesome-elemen...
rob05c 13y ago
I don't have nearly the problem of an OSX-lookalike as some. I used OSX for years because it was basically the prettiest POSIX system available. And like you say, a lot is simply good design. Apple didn't invent nearly as much as their marketing department (and legal) would have us believe. Tangentially, I've fallen in love with tiling WMs, but they all seem mediocre at best. @aroman it'd be awesome if you guys made an alternative tiling WM that was as sleek as your windowing manager.
- aroman 13y ago
  In fact we are very very interested in investigating tiling WM capabilities for the next release of our window manager, Gala. As someone who suffers from the lack of good touchpad drivers for my primary computer, a Macbook Air, I am very excited for tiling support as well :)
- boyaka 13y ago
  I'm kind of the same. I still use OSX on my 2007 MBP for portable, and I'm using Awesome WM with Ubuntu on my desktop. What other kind of tiling WMs exist and/or what do you use? I still switch to Windows occasionally for gaming (although I try to limit my gaming habit). Another reason for using Windows for me would be screen capture software (Webcammax [best], Manycam, more...) which is completely absent from Linux (hint hint, elementary. I think this could be revolutionary).
  - rob05c 13y ago
    I use i3. It's not perfect, but it's the best I've found. I like: 1) tile movement is very dynamic; it's tree-based 2) supports transparent terminals; I like seeing my pretty wallpaper 3) mod key works well for switching desktops, and moving tiles between desktops 4) good multi-monitor support. I don't like: 1) no dropdown application menu. dmenu is ok, but I need to find a good menu bar app. 2) You can mouse drag-resize, but not drag-reorder tiles. It's on their todo list.
TheLegace 13y ago
I was really interested in developing something like this. But I see you have made a ton more progress. I am working on plans to design a Linux Laptop(and I mean a very sweet laptop), but I had plans of trying to make it accessible to people like my mom and basically everyone. I would love to collaborate on such a product. I am really glad I'm not the only one thinking about these things. Can we work on making optimized hardware in the same way Apple products are. Can we work on optimizing power consumption, apparent load time etc etc. I can't wait to give this OS a shot.
- aroman 13y ago
  We too would love to build hardware to market along those lines, though, of course, such initiatives require talent we don't have access to right now and costs we can't afford. One day though... :) By the way, I'd definitely encourage you to get involved with elementary. New collaborators are always welcome, and it seems like you've got a lot of our same design principles in mind. Have a look here: http://elementaryos.org/get-involved http://elementaryos.org/get-involved
  - TheLegace 13y ago
    Thanks I will. Right now I have some experience in PCB design and I am just building my skills to design full blown ARM and i7 based laptops to cover both low/high end markets. We'll see where things so. Good luck.
millstone 13y ago
OS X System Preferences screenshot: http://imgur.com/RLB8JZp http://imgur.com/RLB8JZp ElementaryOS settings screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/vnjmHrQ.png http://i.imgur.com/vnjmHrQ.png It's got the same left-aligned, bolded categories, in the same order, with almost identical text. It even senselessly copied the choice of the Apple Magic Mouse as the mouse icon. That tiny smudge at the bottom represents the Apple logo! I don't mean to suggest that an ElementaryOS designer is responsible for this instance. A similar layout and icon is used in Xubuntu. But Linux is clearly doing more than "building on ideas" in its relation to OS X.
- unknownian 13y ago
  > Linux is clearly doing more than "building on ideas" in its relation to OS X. I hope this was a typo. But other than that you have a point.
- rookieMP 13y ago
  Yeah, I can see that they ripped off the magic mouse icon, but nothing else stands out as being in the least bit egregious.
  - sjwright 13y ago
    They're definitely similar; there's no doubt the magic mouse is what's being portrayed. But it's not a direct copy. I'd be more worried about Document Viewer using a variation of the Adobe Acrobat logo.
- aroman 13y ago
  As a matter of fact, I wrote that very program, Switchboard. It's getting late and I don't want to write a whole book about it's design (though I could), but basically here's the story: I saw some mockups Daniel Fore (the project's founder and lead designer) created for a hypothetical system settings app. Here's an example: http://danrabbit.deviantart.com/art/User-Accounts-Plug-198608643 http://danrabbit.deviantart.com/art/User-Accounts-Plug-19860... I set about coding the app. I was painfully aware of the visual similarities between OS X and Switchboard. I spent literally MONTHS wracking my brain trying to find a better design which was as elegant and efficient. I argued with Dan (who had created a mockup which would become the main interface for switchboard, which you linked), I talked to other designers, I mocked things up by hand. And I/we came up with some really creative alternatives which looked very little like System Preferences in OS X. In the end however, I was faced with an ultimatum. Do I change the settings app JUST to look different than OS X, and lose out on the well-established excellence of Apple's design? I truly felt awful about having to face that question. Frankly, it made me upset and depressed for quite a bit. Ultimately however, I was convinced and just said "screw it". You're absolutely right that I'm not the first one to "copy" Apple's settings program. Here's Ubuntu's. It's extremely similar to the two ones you linked: http://zeth.net/archive/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ubuntu1110-2-settings.png http://zeth.net/archive/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ubuntu111... You could say that I failed. You could say I failed to come up with a better interface. And in that sense, I did. But I get extremely frustrated when people dismiss the product of my careful investigation and thought into this matter as "oh, he just wholesale copied OS X". Because it ignores the fact that I really tried to come up with a better solution. In the end I couldn't, and it seems nobody else has either. I will say though, I did really try to innovate on the technical side. And in that sense, I think I succeeded. You can see that in some of Switchboard's finer points, such as exposing APIs to the settings panes (which are called Switchboard "plugs") which allow them to actually interact with Switchboard's internal UI, providing, among other things, progress bar support in the title bar. I wrote an article for the elementary Journal announcing Switchboard here: http://elementaryos.org/journal/attack-settings http://elementaryos.org/journal/attack-settings And I put together a quick presentation highlighting Switchboard's vision and architecture here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF37THZoNsA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF37THZoNsA | https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Aah2wnTpXrZAZGRuaDI4bmdfNWYyOWpzN2Rm&hl=en_US https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Aah2wnTpXrZAZGRuaDI... Hopefully, you can see that we did not just "senselessly copy" anything.
grey-area 13y ago
Firstly, this is really impressive and a great idea. Thanks for starting this project, as Linux badly needs some new ideas for UI design. I've had a look at the video. Unfortunately, my first impression from the video was that this is a direct copy of OS X, down to the apps, and in terms of UI and experience, not in terms of skin-deep chrome. The reasons for that were: General window chrome - toolbars, buttons Dock on bottom (why not sides, our screens typically have too much horizontal real-estate?), bouncing icons in dock, similar 3D shelf feel to earlier Mac OS dock. iTunes app demonstrated has a UI which is almost exactly like the iTunes in Mac OS - there's plenty of room for innovation here, why present things in the same way? Finder app again presents exactly like Finder in Mac OS, but with tabs System preferences again has a layout very reminiscent of Mac OS - in isolation this doesn't mean much, it's cumulative Exploded windows view is very like Mission control, X symbols on top left look like iOS Spinning progress indicator is similar to the style introduced by Mac OS Typography is reminiscent of iOS7 because of use of Raleway which is reminiscent of Helvetica Neue - not a big deal and it is a nice font. Window chrome is a close match to the current Mac OS grey, fullscreen buttons top right, titles centred etc. Again, in isolation this means nothing. So those are some reasons people might think you are copying from Mac OS X - NB the grey window chrome is the least of your problems. Individually they don't mean much, but cumulatively they give the impression you haven't spent enough time rethinking the way these apps and OS services work and have by default chosen the Mac OS way - I think if you want to call it an OS (built on Linux) it should provide a different experience, which is different enough to be new and interesting. One other tip on your video was that to me it feels like you're rehashing the discussions you had in making a video for the first 20 seconds - I don't care about all that meta stuff, I just want to see the OS in action. Just jump in with something impressive. So all that negativity out of the way (and I thought it necessary because you don't acknowledge that you did intend it to be reminiscent of OS X), this is a great effort, and I might even try it out sometime (like most people I have a very high resistance to switching OS, but this one is intriguing). You have clearly put a lot of work and polish into this, so congratulations on the effort, and I think it's a really worthwhile project, but be wary of sticking too close to existing designs. Mac OS X is not the apotheosis of interface design, far from it, it's just one of a million possible pathways, and is probably at a local maximum where you can't easily escape without trying things which are radically different. Personally I'd put some effort into differentiating yourself visually from other OS's, not just for the sake of it, but because there are so many other possibilities to explore - there are tons of areas you could improve - launchers, overlapping windows, window chrome (do we need toolbars there all the time), as that's an important part of the first impression, and if you have something sufficiently different it can really help people remember you and be tempted to try it out. Think for example of the tabbed windows in BeOS, it immediately gives it a different identity and makes it stand out, without sacrificing usability.
anonymous 13y ago
Speaking as a user, the problem is one of marketing and first impressions. In the video, the guy shows a laptop that looks a lot like a MacBook and shows an OS that looks a lot like MacOS. This gives me the impression that Elementary is the equivalent of Adibas-branded shoes - some cheap knockoff aping some of the look, a little bit of the feel and not being anywhere near the functionality. Personally, if I wanted to make an OS look like MacOS, I'd advertise it as "We wanted MacOS on the PC, but Apple don't give it. So we made an OS based on Linux that follows the same attention to design." Or better yet - change the look. I doubt that stylish grey is the only possible colour. I can see that it's not MacOS, but it feels dirty when it looks a lot like MacOS, down to using a Mac look-alike laptop in the ad, and you claim to have made something original. It may be. But it doesn't feel like it.
- rcarmo 13y ago
  I'm positive Lenovo will be thrilled to think people are mistaking their stuff for Apple's :)
agumonkey 13y ago
I clearly tought of Steve Jobs while watching the video. But not in a copy-print way. You took elements and added yours. Also I know you were using Vala to develop, is it a good part of your productivity ? It seems you were free to think about solving the problem the best way. Or maybe you're just all very good..
- munchor 13y ago
  Hello, I'm also a developer. Vala is one of the best parts of our productivity. Despite being a young programming language, I believe it has a bright future ahead. It feels "cozy" to both C/C++ and Java/C# developers and it has great documentation (valadoc.org). To write GTK+ applications, there's nothing better, Python is too slow and C would be too much work at times, so we sticked with Vala. >Or maybe you're just all very good.. We have some great programmers in the team accomplishing the seemingly impossible every now and then, I'm still amazed at some of the things we've pulled off.
  - agumonkey 13y ago
    Qt5 is very trendy and powerful, have you tried it too and preferred Vala ?
SkyMarshal 13y ago
Looks great, nice work. But where can we find a more technical overview? I wasn't even sure whether it was Linux or BSD based or something else until halfway down the front page, and had to check the Developers section to find out it's based on Ubuntu. But which version, and what big changes did you make under the hood?
- minusfive 13y ago
  > "I wasn't even sure whether it was Linux or BSD based or something else until halfway down the front page, and had to check the Developers section to find out it's based on Ubuntu." Really? Are those really worth complaining about? If anything, successful OSes (based on user base) have taught us that marketing should focus on user-centric features first, technical ones second.
  - handelaar 13y ago
    Package managers are user-centric features and I'd certainly never install a Linux distro that doesn't use apt. It's fairly important information.
    - dkuntz2 13y ago
      You'd never install a non-apt system? You should try a pacman based system, I find it to be nicer, because it embodies the Arch philosophy of keeping things simple.
      - SkyMarshal 13y ago
        So simple it didn't even have package signing until a year or two ago. No thanks.
        voltagex_ 13y ago
        And SecureApt [1] didn't exist until 2003. [1]: https://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt https://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt
asiekierka 13y ago
To be honest, I'm just jealous.
muyuu 13y ago
"Did we actively intend for it to be reminiscent of OS X? Absolutely not." I don't think you will find many people able to believe that. I have no opinion formed on the OS, but claiming for the similarities to be "coincidence" is not going to fly. If the you guys get into Apple's radar I think it's pretty safe to assume you will get sued. Which is why I understand this kind of public statement. Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense to me. Anyway, regardless of superficial concerns it looks like you are doing a good job, according to some reviews I've read.
keithpeter 13y ago
Just downloaded the (64 bit) iso and tried a live session. Looks very nice. Works fine on Thinkpad X200s. How do I make the terminal background solid? I can't read the terminal when open over another window. I could not discover any way of changing the settings in the terminal application.
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  Open dconf-editor, navigate to (I think, if I'm wrong, just look around) org.pantheon.terminal and change the opacity field to 100.
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    Yes, that worked fine. But I had to install the dconf-editor package first, then invoke dconf-editor from the terminal. Booted my ancient workstation (quad Xeon, nvidia GT520 graphics card) and had the usual issue with 'composited' dekstops and nouveau - very slow screen refresh. This is not a LunaOS specific problem, it happens with Gnome Shell based distributions. (Ubuntu 12.04 drops down to the Unity 2d shell which is much more responsive, XFCE is fine with built in compositor). My guess is that LunaOS UI is built on top of Gnome shell somehow? I'd have to install the proprietary drivers for this particular card.
    - dkuntz2 13y ago
      Weird that you had to invoke it from the terminal. It should have been added to the applications menu.
      - keithpeter 13y ago
        dconf was added to the applications menu, I just didn't see it until I went to the second page of the menu! Fault between monitor and keyboard. It also took me quite a time to work out how workspaces work...
jetaylor 13y ago
Oh please. You even use OSX wallpapers and a Macbook look-a-like laptop in your intro video.
workbench 13y ago
> Did we actively intend for it to be reminiscent of OS X? Absolutely not Sorry but this is pure BS

by aroman 13y ago

nsmartt 13y ago

I can agree with this to some extent, and I don't have a solid answer as far as a different approach. However, knock-offs feel cheap, and because elementary feels like a knock-off, it's having trouble gaining some mindshare. Taking steps to differentiate from OS X a bit more would (arguably, perhaps) be an improvement, albeit not a technical one.

jalcine 13y ago

I'd like to nudge in one thing: option flexibility. I'm still downloading and about to try it out; but I hope that the setting does allow the user to tweak everything they can tweak and not hide options away for the sake of hiding things. My personal thing, but it's shared with many, is that flexibility can lead to a personally complete design.

aroman 13y ago
Flexibility is definitely something we try to be opinionated about. We don't offer a lot of easy GUI customization out of the box, but you'll find that there's quite a bit hidden beneath the surface or is easy to code up yourself. If you're really interested in a completely customizable and hand-tailored OS, I'd honestly suggest you look into something like ArchLinux or Gentoo[2]. Both platforms have made available most of our applications and components, so you can pick and choose to build the desktop you personally want :) [1]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/?O=0&C=0&SeB=nd&K=elementary&outdated=&SB=n&SO=a&PP=50&do_Search=Go https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/?O=0&C=0&SeB=nd&K=element... [2]: http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Pantheon http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Pantheon
- munchor 13y ago
  Pantheon's Arch Linux support is not finished - I'm pretty sure you can't run Pantheon on it. However, on Gentoo I'm sure you can. Besides that, we do offer some customization, you just have to use dconf-editor to change the configuration keys and not a GUI for several things. And there's also "elementary Tweak" which adds even more configuration.

clockwork_189 13y ago

I am a bit confused. A lot of it looks like Ubuntu, but with slightly different GUI. At first I thought it was just a variant of Ubuntu(like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc)...is it? How does it differ from it? Sorry if this seems like a naive question. I am really interested in trying it out...will do so shortly after I am done my exams :P

aroman 13y ago
Hi, thanks for the interest! Our desktop interface and apps are actually quite different from Ubuntu, though we are an Ubuntu-based distribution. To give some concrete examples: - We use our own desktop environment and window manager, Pantheon and Gala, respectively.[1] - We write many of our own apps in-house or work closely with the third-party apps we ship with. For example, our music player, settings application, and calendaring program (to name a few) are all written completely by us. Our mail program, web browser, and photo management app are developed by third-parties who we have strong developer and personal connections to. - Similar to the above point, we have our own human interface guidelines[2]. You might find you like it more than Ubuntu's. - elementary OS is extremely fast and lightweight. Our ISO is ~200 MB less than Ubuntu's, and our OS boots faster and is more responsive. A simple youtube or google search should back me up here. I hope this was helpful to you and perhaps others. Again, we really appreciate your interest and curiosity. I'd definitely encourage you to give it a whirl once you've aced your exams :) [1]: http://elementaryos.org/journal/meet-gala-window-manager http://elementaryos.org/journal/meet-gala-window-manager [2]: http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines
- sandGorgon 13y ago
  Why browser and mail program ? I mean I can understand usability considerations of photo apps and music player, but you can do so much more by dropping effort on those two apps. I dont mean it in a "resistance is futile" kind of way - but more in terms of not-immediately-needed kind of way. Especially the browser. Webmail suffices for now - I know people want a Sparrow-like mail app on the desktop, but there is so much more effort that can be put in on projects like color calibration, Redshift-like functionality [1], etc. You are off to a decent start - I really, really hope that you guys dont start building Twitter apps. Instead you should expose API guidelines for things like Contractor (OSX Services?) and have something like extensions.gnome.org - but maybe in Vala for performance. Just my $0.02. [1] http://jonls.dk/redshift/ http://jonls.dk/redshift/

ChuckMcM 13y ago

FWIW I don't think it is a bad thing [1]. KDE's look was clearly inspired by Windows XP. But I'm a user. Designers, people who make their living giving life to a "look" or a "user experience" feel pretty strongly about their work (this is typical of many artists, programmers, architects, musicians, Etc.) In part because they often see their own work as a reflection of them, and in part, and I speculate here, because the creative process is mysterious and it is easy to feel like a fraud when you don't really know how you come up with something, you just do. So designers look at Elementary OS and they evaluate its look, its theme, its "presence." And what they see seems to remind them strongly of Apple's OS. I completely understand that because that was my first thought as well and I'm not a designer, I thought "Oh, this looks like they put an OS X shell on top of Linux." I happen to think the other stuff you did, the performance tuning, the application integration, the "fit and finish" if you will is very impressive and it reminds me of how Ubuntu took something mashed up and made it more cohesive. How ever the design elements always dominate product discussions, even if they shouldn't. Look at the discussion around the Honda Element (car) are they about its innovations in how it converts its internal spaces? Its motor design? No, people talk about how stupid it looks to them (which completely misses the point of the car). What I'm saying is the Elementary team is going to get razzed a lot about the design elements. Try not to take it personally. The correct response is the one you've latched on to, "We built an OS we wanted to use based on technology we wanted to use, we built it this way." Own the vision. [1] "rip off" sounds bad "homage" sounds good, both mean "it looks like."

jorgecastillo 13y ago
To you it might be clear that KDE was inspired by Windows XP, I differ. KDE independently developed a Windows-like feeling because it has always aimed at being very configurable. Since I first used KDE (when using XP) I felt that it was better than Windows, that feeling has never left me.
- inthewind 13y ago
  Kde was inspired by Windows 95 (which was ripped off from...). Vista later borrowed alot back from Kde.

pilgrim689 13y ago

I never heard of elementaryOS but it looks great at first glance. I have a specific question I was wondering: how will distributions using non-Unity DEs/WMs such as elementary handle the replacement of X with Mir? I'm not familiar with how child distros handle divergent dependencies in general so I'd love to hear what elementary is doing.

aroman 13y ago
Great question. The simple answer is: we don't know yet. We actually had a conference call with some folks from Canonical a few weeks ago discussing this very issue. At present, it seems like there are three options (I'm taking these points mostly from the minutes from that call): 1. Port everything to Qt and use Mir (because GTK+ might not work under pure Mir -- they've been backing Wayland so far). This would require an IMMENSE amount of work and would be tantamount to rewriting almost every line in our codebase. 2. Help port GTK+ (or make an extension/fork of it) to Mir. This might honestly be less work than #1, but elementary would be at a specific disadvantage because most of our developers (speaking for myself as well) don't really have the skills needed for something like this. 3. Do nothing and use XMir until we absolutely must switch. We don't have an official or internal consensus on this point yet, to my knowledge. However, I would personally tend to think we'll be leaning toward #3, depending on how XMir shapes up. This is definitely an area of interest and importance for us, and it's something that will undoubtedly continue to be discussed as we begin the L+1 cycle and beyond.
- pilgrim689 13y ago
  Wouldn't Canonical be largely helping with the GTK+ port? Otherwise, that would mean that Ubuntu will only support Qt applications, would it not?
  - aroman 13y ago
    I would imagine they would help with the porting effort, but I really have no idea. I can't speak to Canonical's intentions or Ubuntu's plans, I'm afraid.
- 13y ago

fizx 13y ago

Perhaps you should change the background image in the demo video away from a photo of a galaxy. I'm sure there's many images (e.g. http://archive.org/download/313253main_moon_landscape_HI_full/313253main_moon_landscape_HI_full.jpg http://archive.org/download/313253main_moon_landscape_HI_ful...) that don't so directly evoke the OS X default wallpaper.

aroman 13y ago
100% agree. I personally only noticed this tonight shortly before the launch (at which point it was too late to change), but I definitely dislike the fact that we (in fact, the video was created by a fan) used a video which showed off a wallpaper Apple used in OS X. Frankly, I expect we'll try to get that amended soon.

joel_perl_prog 13y ago

Hello. I'm super late to this party, it looks like. I only have one question: will my retina display (on a MacBook Pro) do all the right things, just as it does under MacOS and MacOS programs?

aroman 13y ago
I honestly don't know! I don't know of anyone who has tried Luna on an rMBP. I would encourage you to burn a copy of luna to a USB disk and boot into the live environment. You can play around with it and see how it looks, with no changes to your hard drive. I'm sure other people with rMBPs will be trying Luna in the coming days, so hopefully we can assess what the current state of affairs is and make any necessary changes. Speaking on behalf of the whole elementary team, it would be greatly appreciated if you gave it a shot and reported your findings to us via Google+, Twitter, or via direct bug report here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/elementaryos https://bugs.launchpad.net/elementaryos You can use this guide to prepare the USB drive with Luna: http://www.maketecheasier.com/install-dual-boot-ubuntu-in-macbook-air/2012/08/27 http://www.maketecheasier.com/install-dual-boot-ubuntu-in-ma... The relevant steps are the first few. Obviously replace the filename of the Ubuntu ISO with the Luna one :) I personally used that guide this morning to create a bootable USB Luna liveCD with the final ISO to install it on my Macbook Air, so I can vouch for its credibility and compatibility.
- joel_perl_prog 13y ago
  Nice. I'll look into it. Thank you!
munchor 13y ago
elementary OS Developer here, I believe GTK 3.10 (and we use GTK+ for all our apps) will be the first GTK version with High DPI support, so I'm not 100% sure retina will work perfectly (you'd have to try). Also, I'm no pro on this, I'm not even sure if retina is that high DPI feature they keep talking about. However, if it is, Luna+1 (code name for next version of elementary OS) will use GTK 3.10 (or a newer one) for sure.

sandGorgon 13y ago

There are a million and one themes for GTK. I wish they had picked one - anything except the OSX clone. What they don't realize is that there are a bunch of howtos out there around customizing Ubuntu to "look like OSX" and this looks like one more. I wish this discussion could be around performance enhancements and innovations in usability, but I cannot get past the OSX clone-ness. In an admittedly egoistic sense, I am a loner Latitude/Ubuntu user in a world of Air/OSX all around me. This is not something I will be able to explain off. And this is in India. I assume it will be much worse in the US.

aroman 13y ago
I appreciate your honesty. You should know that we didn't "pick" our GTK+ theme. In fact, it predates the OS itself and is the result of (seriously) 100+ man hours of refinement and tweaking, including working with GTK+ theme engine developers. It was created to be beautiful and usable, not as an OS X clone. I can assure you OS X was used (along with Windows, iOS, and Android) purely as inspiration -- not as a target or design guide. There are only so many neutral window control colors. We use silver and black (apps can request to use the dark variant), Windows uses transparency, Ubuntu uses a muddy brown, and OS X uses chrome. If you really feel opposed, as you pointed out, there are dozens of excellent GTK+ themes. Some people have even written them specifically with elementary in mind[1]. Feel free to use them :) [1] http://www.elementaryupdate.com/2013/07/5-new-awesome-elementary-themes.html http://www.elementaryupdate.com/2013/07/5-new-awesome-elemen...

rob05c 13y ago

I don't have nearly the problem of an OSX-lookalike as some. I used OSX for years because it was basically the prettiest POSIX system available. And like you say, a lot is simply good design. Apple didn't invent nearly as much as their marketing department (and legal) would have us believe. Tangentially, I've fallen in love with tiling WMs, but they all seem mediocre at best. @aroman it'd be awesome if you guys made an alternative tiling WM that was as sleek as your windowing manager.

aroman 13y ago
In fact we are very very interested in investigating tiling WM capabilities for the next release of our window manager, Gala. As someone who suffers from the lack of good touchpad drivers for my primary computer, a Macbook Air, I am very excited for tiling support as well :)
boyaka 13y ago
I'm kind of the same. I still use OSX on my 2007 MBP for portable, and I'm using Awesome WM with Ubuntu on my desktop. What other kind of tiling WMs exist and/or what do you use? I still switch to Windows occasionally for gaming (although I try to limit my gaming habit). Another reason for using Windows for me would be screen capture software (Webcammax [best], Manycam, more...) which is completely absent from Linux (hint hint, elementary. I think this could be revolutionary).
- rob05c 13y ago
  I use i3. It's not perfect, but it's the best I've found. I like: 1) tile movement is very dynamic; it's tree-based 2) supports transparent terminals; I like seeing my pretty wallpaper 3) mod key works well for switching desktops, and moving tiles between desktops 4) good multi-monitor support. I don't like: 1) no dropdown application menu. dmenu is ok, but I need to find a good menu bar app. 2) You can mouse drag-resize, but not drag-reorder tiles. It's on their todo list.

TheLegace 13y ago

I was really interested in developing something like this. But I see you have made a ton more progress. I am working on plans to design a Linux Laptop(and I mean a very sweet laptop), but I had plans of trying to make it accessible to people like my mom and basically everyone. I would love to collaborate on such a product. I am really glad I'm not the only one thinking about these things. Can we work on making optimized hardware in the same way Apple products are. Can we work on optimizing power consumption, apparent load time etc etc. I can't wait to give this OS a shot.

aroman 13y ago
We too would love to build hardware to market along those lines, though, of course, such initiatives require talent we don't have access to right now and costs we can't afford. One day though... :) By the way, I'd definitely encourage you to get involved with elementary. New collaborators are always welcome, and it seems like you've got a lot of our same design principles in mind. Have a look here: http://elementaryos.org/get-involved http://elementaryos.org/get-involved
- TheLegace 13y ago
  Thanks I will. Right now I have some experience in PCB design and I am just building my skills to design full blown ARM and i7 based laptops to cover both low/high end markets. We'll see where things so. Good luck.

millstone 13y ago

OS X System Preferences screenshot: http://imgur.com/RLB8JZp http://imgur.com/RLB8JZp ElementaryOS settings screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/vnjmHrQ.png http://i.imgur.com/vnjmHrQ.png It's got the same left-aligned, bolded categories, in the same order, with almost identical text. It even senselessly copied the choice of the Apple Magic Mouse as the mouse icon. That tiny smudge at the bottom represents the Apple logo! I don't mean to suggest that an ElementaryOS designer is responsible for this instance. A similar layout and icon is used in Xubuntu. But Linux is clearly doing more than "building on ideas" in its relation to OS X.

unknownian 13y ago
> Linux is clearly doing more than "building on ideas" in its relation to OS X. I hope this was a typo. But other than that you have a point.
rookieMP 13y ago
Yeah, I can see that they ripped off the magic mouse icon, but nothing else stands out as being in the least bit egregious.
- sjwright 13y ago
  They're definitely similar; there's no doubt the magic mouse is what's being portrayed. But it's not a direct copy. I'd be more worried about Document Viewer using a variation of the Adobe Acrobat logo.
aroman 13y ago
As a matter of fact, I wrote that very program, Switchboard. It's getting late and I don't want to write a whole book about it's design (though I could), but basically here's the story: I saw some mockups Daniel Fore (the project's founder and lead designer) created for a hypothetical system settings app. Here's an example: http://danrabbit.deviantart.com/art/User-Accounts-Plug-198608643 http://danrabbit.deviantart.com/art/User-Accounts-Plug-19860... I set about coding the app. I was painfully aware of the visual similarities between OS X and Switchboard. I spent literally MONTHS wracking my brain trying to find a better design which was as elegant and efficient. I argued with Dan (who had created a mockup which would become the main interface for switchboard, which you linked), I talked to other designers, I mocked things up by hand. And I/we came up with some really creative alternatives which looked very little like System Preferences in OS X. In the end however, I was faced with an ultimatum. Do I change the settings app JUST to look different than OS X, and lose out on the well-established excellence of Apple's design? I truly felt awful about having to face that question. Frankly, it made me upset and depressed for quite a bit. Ultimately however, I was convinced and just said "screw it". You're absolutely right that I'm not the first one to "copy" Apple's settings program. Here's Ubuntu's. It's extremely similar to the two ones you linked: http://zeth.net/archive/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ubuntu1110-2-settings.png http://zeth.net/archive/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ubuntu111... You could say that I failed. You could say I failed to come up with a better interface. And in that sense, I did. But I get extremely frustrated when people dismiss the product of my careful investigation and thought into this matter as "oh, he just wholesale copied OS X". Because it ignores the fact that I really tried to come up with a better solution. In the end I couldn't, and it seems nobody else has either. I will say though, I did really try to innovate on the technical side. And in that sense, I think I succeeded. You can see that in some of Switchboard's finer points, such as exposing APIs to the settings panes (which are called Switchboard "plugs") which allow them to actually interact with Switchboard's internal UI, providing, among other things, progress bar support in the title bar. I wrote an article for the elementary Journal announcing Switchboard here: http://elementaryos.org/journal/attack-settings http://elementaryos.org/journal/attack-settings And I put together a quick presentation highlighting Switchboard's vision and architecture here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF37THZoNsA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF37THZoNsA | https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Aah2wnTpXrZAZGRuaDI4bmdfNWYyOWpzN2Rm&hl=en_US https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Aah2wnTpXrZAZGRuaDI... Hopefully, you can see that we did not just "senselessly copy" anything.

grey-area 13y ago

Firstly, this is really impressive and a great idea. Thanks for starting this project, as Linux badly needs some new ideas for UI design. I've had a look at the video. Unfortunately, my first impression from the video was that this is a direct copy of OS X, down to the apps, and in terms of UI and experience, not in terms of skin-deep chrome. The reasons for that were: General window chrome - toolbars, buttons Dock on bottom (why not sides, our screens typically have too much horizontal real-estate?), bouncing icons in dock, similar 3D shelf feel to earlier Mac OS dock. iTunes app demonstrated has a UI which is almost exactly like the iTunes in Mac OS - there's plenty of room for innovation here, why present things in the same way? Finder app again presents exactly like Finder in Mac OS, but with tabs System preferences again has a layout very reminiscent of Mac OS - in isolation this doesn't mean much, it's cumulative Exploded windows view is very like Mission control, X symbols on top left look like iOS Spinning progress indicator is similar to the style introduced by Mac OS Typography is reminiscent of iOS7 because of use of Raleway which is reminiscent of Helvetica Neue - not a big deal and it is a nice font. Window chrome is a close match to the current Mac OS grey, fullscreen buttons top right, titles centred etc. Again, in isolation this means nothing. So those are some reasons people might think you are copying from Mac OS X - NB the grey window chrome is the least of your problems. Individually they don't mean much, but cumulatively they give the impression you haven't spent enough time rethinking the way these apps and OS services work and have by default chosen the Mac OS way - I think if you want to call it an OS (built on Linux) it should provide a different experience, which is different enough to be new and interesting. One other tip on your video was that to me it feels like you're rehashing the discussions you had in making a video for the first 20 seconds - I don't care about all that meta stuff, I just want to see the OS in action. Just jump in with something impressive. So all that negativity out of the way (and I thought it necessary because you don't acknowledge that you did intend it to be reminiscent of OS X), this is a great effort, and I might even try it out sometime (like most people I have a very high resistance to switching OS, but this one is intriguing). You have clearly put a lot of work and polish into this, so congratulations on the effort, and I think it's a really worthwhile project, but be wary of sticking too close to existing designs. Mac OS X is not the apotheosis of interface design, far from it, it's just one of a million possible pathways, and is probably at a local maximum where you can't easily escape without trying things which are radically different. Personally I'd put some effort into differentiating yourself visually from other OS's, not just for the sake of it, but because there are so many other possibilities to explore - there are tons of areas you could improve - launchers, overlapping windows, window chrome (do we need toolbars there all the time), as that's an important part of the first impression, and if you have something sufficiently different it can really help people remember you and be tempted to try it out. Think for example of the tabbed windows in BeOS, it immediately gives it a different identity and makes it stand out, without sacrificing usability.

anonymous 13y ago

Speaking as a user, the problem is one of marketing and first impressions. In the video, the guy shows a laptop that looks a lot like a MacBook and shows an OS that looks a lot like MacOS. This gives me the impression that Elementary is the equivalent of Adibas-branded shoes - some cheap knockoff aping some of the look, a little bit of the feel and not being anywhere near the functionality. Personally, if I wanted to make an OS look like MacOS, I'd advertise it as "We wanted MacOS on the PC, but Apple don't give it. So we made an OS based on Linux that follows the same attention to design." Or better yet - change the look. I doubt that stylish grey is the only possible colour. I can see that it's not MacOS, but it feels dirty when it looks a lot like MacOS, down to using a Mac look-alike laptop in the ad, and you claim to have made something original. It may be. But it doesn't feel like it.

rcarmo 13y ago
I'm positive Lenovo will be thrilled to think people are mistaking their stuff for Apple's :)

agumonkey 13y ago

I clearly tought of Steve Jobs while watching the video. But not in a copy-print way. You took elements and added yours. Also I know you were using Vala to develop, is it a good part of your productivity ? It seems you were free to think about solving the problem the best way. Or maybe you're just all very good..

munchor 13y ago
Hello, I'm also a developer. Vala is one of the best parts of our productivity. Despite being a young programming language, I believe it has a bright future ahead. It feels "cozy" to both C/C++ and Java/C# developers and it has great documentation (valadoc.org). To write GTK+ applications, there's nothing better, Python is too slow and C would be too much work at times, so we sticked with Vala. >Or maybe you're just all very good.. We have some great programmers in the team accomplishing the seemingly impossible every now and then, I'm still amazed at some of the things we've pulled off.
- agumonkey 13y ago
  Qt5 is very trendy and powerful, have you tried it too and preferred Vala ?

SkyMarshal 13y ago

Looks great, nice work. But where can we find a more technical overview? I wasn't even sure whether it was Linux or BSD based or something else until halfway down the front page, and had to check the Developers section to find out it's based on Ubuntu. But which version, and what big changes did you make under the hood?

minusfive 13y ago
> "I wasn't even sure whether it was Linux or BSD based or something else until halfway down the front page, and had to check the Developers section to find out it's based on Ubuntu." Really? Are those really worth complaining about? If anything, successful OSes (based on user base) have taught us that marketing should focus on user-centric features first, technical ones second.
- handelaar 13y ago
  Package managers are user-centric features and I'd certainly never install a Linux distro that doesn't use apt. It's fairly important information.
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    You'd never install a non-apt system? You should try a pacman based system, I find it to be nicer, because it embodies the Arch philosophy of keeping things simple.
    - SkyMarshal 13y ago
      So simple it didn't even have package signing until a year or two ago. No thanks.
      - voltagex_ 13y ago
        And SecureApt [1] didn't exist until 2003. [1]: https://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt https://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt

asiekierka 13y ago

To be honest, I'm just jealous.

muyuu 13y ago

"Did we actively intend for it to be reminiscent of OS X? Absolutely not." I don't think you will find many people able to believe that. I have no opinion formed on the OS, but claiming for the similarities to be "coincidence" is not going to fly. If the you guys get into Apple's radar I think it's pretty safe to assume you will get sued. Which is why I understand this kind of public statement. Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense to me. Anyway, regardless of superficial concerns it looks like you are doing a good job, according to some reviews I've read.

keithpeter 13y ago

Just downloaded the (64 bit) iso and tried a live session. Looks very nice. Works fine on Thinkpad X200s. How do I make the terminal background solid? I can't read the terminal when open over another window. I could not discover any way of changing the settings in the terminal application.

dkuntz2 13y ago
Open dconf-editor, navigate to (I think, if I'm wrong, just look around) org.pantheon.terminal and change the opacity field to 100.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  Yes, that worked fine. But I had to install the dconf-editor package first, then invoke dconf-editor from the terminal. Booted my ancient workstation (quad Xeon, nvidia GT520 graphics card) and had the usual issue with 'composited' dekstops and nouveau - very slow screen refresh. This is not a LunaOS specific problem, it happens with Gnome Shell based distributions. (Ubuntu 12.04 drops down to the Unity 2d shell which is much more responsive, XFCE is fine with built in compositor). My guess is that LunaOS UI is built on top of Gnome shell somehow? I'd have to install the proprietary drivers for this particular card.
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    Weird that you had to invoke it from the terminal. It should have been added to the applications menu.
    - keithpeter 13y ago
      dconf was added to the applications menu, I just didn't see it until I went to the second page of the menu! Fault between monitor and keyboard. It also took me quite a time to work out how workspaces work...

jetaylor 13y ago

Oh please. You even use OSX wallpapers and a Macbook look-a-like laptop in your intro video.

workbench 13y ago

> Did we actively intend for it to be reminiscent of OS X? Absolutely not Sorry but this is pure BS