8 ms·

Elementary OS Freya Beta 2

52 points by bndr 12y ago

bndr 12y ago
Plus a new Beta site: http://beta.elementaryos.org/ http://beta.elementaryos.org/
mohdmaqboolalam 12y ago
waiting for the final version
jarcane 12y ago
"Free and open" but the only way you can download it without it asking for a credit card number is manually entering $0 in the "custom" field?
- ubercow13 12y ago
  In what way does that make it less free or open
  - gnud 12y ago
    It doesn't. This distro is supposed to be about design and usability, though. If that's their idea of usability, I think I'll go elsewhere.
    - leonatan 12y ago
      Their idea of usability is different; they want you to pay. Don't underestimate the power of the default.
- ardemue 12y ago
  Ubuntu does mostly the same, except there's a "download without donation" link at the bottom : http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.04.1&architecture=amd64 http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=1...
- bndr 12y ago
  There's a clear explanation for that: Quote from their blog post: "Why We Make You Type “$0” We want users to understand that paying for software is important and not paying for it is an active choice. We didn’t exclude a $0 button to deceive you; we believe our software really is worth something. And it’s not an attempt to get rich quick; currently the only people who have received money for working on elementary OS have been community members through our bounty program. It’s about asking a fair price to offset the costs of development. It’s about securing the future of elementary OS to ensure we can keep making software that millions of people love and use every day."
  - kitbrennan 12y ago
    While I understand their explanation - and agree with the theory - in practice the same active choice would be achieved by displaying a $0 button that users have to actively click on. The simple fact is: when I first went to their website I assumed it was a paid package.
joshuapants 12y ago
I find the window management to be pretty terrible. I guess this is trying to bridge the beginner distro gap between Windows and Ubuntu, because I couldn't see anyone seriously using it for very long. Then again I felt the same way about GNOME3, so maybe I'm not in the majority there.
- bndr 12y ago
  I actually find window management not that bad, it's similar to OS X in that matter.
  - joshuapants 12y ago
    I can't disagree with you there, but my MBP does mostly sit gathering dust unless I really need OSX for something. Different strokes. It is pretty impressive how much they've been able to pull together in their desktop environment and custom applications.
- zanny 12y ago
  Zorin is a desktop designed to bridge Windows to Gnome 3, and does a better job of it than Pantheon. And I'd argue KDE has a nearly identical UX to Windows in the first place. You can even get Windows-8-lite with Homerun. So if you want a fluid transition KDE is probably the best choice, as long as you don't overwhelm them with options (start menu, task bar, system tray, min / max / close in top right, have at it champ).
microhex 12y ago
After that blog post of theirs where they called everyone who took advantage of the free option they provide "cheaters", why would I want to use or recommend a Linux distro that provides nothing but a shoddy OSX GUI ripoff?
- bndr 12y ago
  You mean this post [1] ? I find their reasoning quite logical. [1] http://blog.elementaryos.org/post/110645528530/payments http://blog.elementaryos.org/post/110645528530/payments
  - mox1 12y ago
    So they wrote all this code themselves right? No, of course they didn't. The large majority of what they are selling was written by others (kernel, Debian, etc). Are they passing any revenue to their upstream providers? They have every right to try and charge people, but it's very disengineous to run git clone on a FOSS repo,make a few changes then write a big blog post about charging for the output.
    - Siyo 12y ago
      If that's your argument, then why do we allow thousands of companies to base their proprietary web applications on the FOSS stack? How many of these companies would even exist today without Linux or Ruby or MySQL/Postgres? How much do companies contribute back to these projects? Why is it so bad if elementary OS is based on Debian, but it's completely fine when some startup runs on Debian servers?
      - krisgenre 12y ago
        Not everyone goes around calling people who download free software for free as cheaters. All this backlash is because of the attitude they are showing towards non paying customers.
        12y ago
nothrabannosir 12y ago
Side-note: please don't publish checksums over unencrypted channels, and please don't use MD5 for image checksums. Technically, it's no problem if the intended use-case is not to verify against tampering but against transmission errors. However, it's a fine line that people easily cross by accident. It helps with global education if we condition people to never accept checksums from unencrypted sources, and to be wary of MD5.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
listic 12y ago
Elementary OS. What's their deal (approach, unique selling point)?
- rukittenme 12y ago
  A mix of technology, design, and community. The elementary community are actually writing apps designed for their desktop which is sadly rare in other distros. Everything they do is design oriented. Kind of feels Mac-ish but with obvious speed and usability improvements. elementary's approach to multiple desktops is much stronger than OSX's current offering. Their theme is a bit stale now but the awesome elementary community is writing tons of gorgeous themes (worlds better than anything on gnome-look). Unfortunately a lot of them have weird quirks when run on non-elementary distros but they're perfect on elementary
spinatelli 12y ago
I am an elementary OS user and I'm a cheater. Well, kind of..I installed Freya when it started being developed and am following it's development. To those people who say that it's just a "skin" on top of Ubuntu, and that they shouldn't take let people pay for the work of others I say: then Ubuntu shouldn't take donations for the work of Debian. Then Debian shouldn't take donations for the work of the kernel developers. Then no-one should take money from anyone, unless he's developing a single library that's not dependent on anything. Also, if eOS is only a skin for Ubuntu, then Ubuntu is just a skin for Debian, with its fancy Unity and other visual stuff..right? Nah. If you cared to try, you would have seen why people like it. Because it's polished. Because it's lightweight. Because there's care in the details. Basically, everything that's missing from other DEs. The wording in the post sure is wrong, but hey, they're not PR people and it's easy to upset people on the internet. I don't feel like a cheater, but I feel a bit guilty to not have donated to a project I use and like (even though I submit bugs and stuff), and I think that is the feeling they wanted to give users that don't donate. People should be aware that if you don't have some guy with a load of money that pays for development, or some other kind of business that sustains your product, you're dependent on donations to keep the project growing. Also, if you're not helping in any way (bugs, patches, desing,..), a donation rewards someone else's work on important stuff (also upstream projects!)
matrixritter 12y ago
Selling free software is perfectly legal as long as you provide the source code. That's what Stallman itself said countless number of times. The "free" in free software stands for "freedom", not "free beer". I definitely accept this way of bringing money in the project. Software development is time-intensive labour and time is money. You all know that, do you? Some mentioned "Let the business-people pay" (better known as "Open Core"-model). This is only working if businesses are interested. Elementary OS doesn't target business usage or has business-relevant elements, so that will go nowhere.

52 points by bndr 12y ago

bndr 12y ago

Plus a new Beta site: http://beta.elementaryos.org/ http://beta.elementaryos.org/

mohdmaqboolalam 12y ago

waiting for the final version

jarcane 12y ago

"Free and open" but the only way you can download it without it asking for a credit card number is manually entering $0 in the "custom" field?

ubercow13 12y ago
In what way does that make it less free or open
- gnud 12y ago
  It doesn't. This distro is supposed to be about design and usability, though. If that's their idea of usability, I think I'll go elsewhere.
  - leonatan 12y ago
    Their idea of usability is different; they want you to pay. Don't underestimate the power of the default.
ardemue 12y ago
Ubuntu does mostly the same, except there's a "download without donation" link at the bottom : http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.04.1&architecture=amd64 http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=1...
bndr 12y ago
There's a clear explanation for that: Quote from their blog post: "Why We Make You Type “$0” We want users to understand that paying for software is important and not paying for it is an active choice. We didn’t exclude a $0 button to deceive you; we believe our software really is worth something. And it’s not an attempt to get rich quick; currently the only people who have received money for working on elementary OS have been community members through our bounty program. It’s about asking a fair price to offset the costs of development. It’s about securing the future of elementary OS to ensure we can keep making software that millions of people love and use every day."
- kitbrennan 12y ago
  While I understand their explanation - and agree with the theory - in practice the same active choice would be achieved by displaying a $0 button that users have to actively click on. The simple fact is: when I first went to their website I assumed it was a paid package.

joshuapants 12y ago

I find the window management to be pretty terrible. I guess this is trying to bridge the beginner distro gap between Windows and Ubuntu, because I couldn't see anyone seriously using it for very long. Then again I felt the same way about GNOME3, so maybe I'm not in the majority there.

bndr 12y ago
I actually find window management not that bad, it's similar to OS X in that matter.
- joshuapants 12y ago
  I can't disagree with you there, but my MBP does mostly sit gathering dust unless I really need OSX for something. Different strokes. It is pretty impressive how much they've been able to pull together in their desktop environment and custom applications.
zanny 12y ago
Zorin is a desktop designed to bridge Windows to Gnome 3, and does a better job of it than Pantheon. And I'd argue KDE has a nearly identical UX to Windows in the first place. You can even get Windows-8-lite with Homerun. So if you want a fluid transition KDE is probably the best choice, as long as you don't overwhelm them with options (start menu, task bar, system tray, min / max / close in top right, have at it champ).

microhex 12y ago

After that blog post of theirs where they called everyone who took advantage of the free option they provide "cheaters", why would I want to use or recommend a Linux distro that provides nothing but a shoddy OSX GUI ripoff?

bndr 12y ago
You mean this post [1] ? I find their reasoning quite logical. [1] http://blog.elementaryos.org/post/110645528530/payments http://blog.elementaryos.org/post/110645528530/payments
- mox1 12y ago
  So they wrote all this code themselves right? No, of course they didn't. The large majority of what they are selling was written by others (kernel, Debian, etc). Are they passing any revenue to their upstream providers? They have every right to try and charge people, but it's very disengineous to run git clone on a FOSS repo,make a few changes then write a big blog post about charging for the output.
  - Siyo 12y ago
    If that's your argument, then why do we allow thousands of companies to base their proprietary web applications on the FOSS stack? How many of these companies would even exist today without Linux or Ruby or MySQL/Postgres? How much do companies contribute back to these projects? Why is it so bad if elementary OS is based on Debian, but it's completely fine when some startup runs on Debian servers?
    - krisgenre 12y ago
      Not everyone goes around calling people who download free software for free as cheaters. All this backlash is because of the attitude they are showing towards non paying customers.
      - 12y ago

nothrabannosir 12y ago

Side-note: please don't publish checksums over unencrypted channels, and please don't use MD5 for image checksums. Technically, it's no problem if the intended use-case is not to verify against tampering but against transmission errors. However, it's a fine line that people easily cross by accident. It helps with global education if we condition people to never accept checksums from unencrypted sources, and to be wary of MD5.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

listic 12y ago

Elementary OS. What's their deal (approach, unique selling point)?

rukittenme 12y ago
A mix of technology, design, and community. The elementary community are actually writing apps designed for their desktop which is sadly rare in other distros. Everything they do is design oriented. Kind of feels Mac-ish but with obvious speed and usability improvements. elementary's approach to multiple desktops is much stronger than OSX's current offering. Their theme is a bit stale now but the awesome elementary community is writing tons of gorgeous themes (worlds better than anything on gnome-look). Unfortunately a lot of them have weird quirks when run on non-elementary distros but they're perfect on elementary

spinatelli 12y ago

I am an elementary OS user and I'm a cheater. Well, kind of..I installed Freya when it started being developed and am following it's development. To those people who say that it's just a "skin" on top of Ubuntu, and that they shouldn't take let people pay for the work of others I say: then Ubuntu shouldn't take donations for the work of Debian. Then Debian shouldn't take donations for the work of the kernel developers. Then no-one should take money from anyone, unless he's developing a single library that's not dependent on anything. Also, if eOS is only a skin for Ubuntu, then Ubuntu is just a skin for Debian, with its fancy Unity and other visual stuff..right? Nah. If you cared to try, you would have seen why people like it. Because it's polished. Because it's lightweight. Because there's care in the details. Basically, everything that's missing from other DEs. The wording in the post sure is wrong, but hey, they're not PR people and it's easy to upset people on the internet. I don't feel like a cheater, but I feel a bit guilty to not have donated to a project I use and like (even though I submit bugs and stuff), and I think that is the feeling they wanted to give users that don't donate. People should be aware that if you don't have some guy with a load of money that pays for development, or some other kind of business that sustains your product, you're dependent on donations to keep the project growing. Also, if you're not helping in any way (bugs, patches, desing,..), a donation rewards someone else's work on important stuff (also upstream projects!)

matrixritter 12y ago

Selling free software is perfectly legal as long as you provide the source code. That's what Stallman itself said countless number of times. The "free" in free software stands for "freedom", not "free beer". I definitely accept this way of bringing money in the project. Software development is time-intensive labour and time is money. You all know that, do you? Some mentioned "Let the business-people pay" (better known as "Open Core"-model). This is only working if businesses are interested. Elementary OS doesn't target business usage or has business-relevant elements, so that will go nowhere.