9 ms·

Elementary OS Freya Released

137 points by aroman 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- Hello71 12y ago
  After a 10 second look at the comment I thought "oh dear, another !@#$ty comment". But I'm willing to bet it's... no, it's just a !@#$ty comment. Same as all comments. People should give up on this concept. No-one can do it right.
- evanrelf 12y ago
  Just because no one can do it right doesn't mean people should give up. It's just not time yet... the people that can do it haven't come along yet.
josephpmay 12y ago
Talk about a terribly designed website. If someone had no idea what Elementary OS is, the website does absolutely nothing to tell them. No list of even basic features. No explanation of compatibility or how to install it. Only a single screenshot. Why is this the case?
- sshb 12y ago
  The donation money buttons are also confusing
- jamestomasino 12y ago
  As someone who knows nothing about Elementary OS, you are correct. I dug into the blog a bit and all I can tell is that it's Ubuntu with some Gnome skins. Why would I pay money for a free OS? What's the purpose? What need is this designed to fill? The site failed to inform.
  - wz1000 12y ago
    I agree that the website it poorly designed, but you can download Elementary OS for free. Just enter 0 in the "Custom Amount" box. > I dug into the blog a bit and all I can tell is that it's Ubuntu with some Gnome skins. Not really. The eOS developers wrote a whole DE(Pantheon) and the included applications from scratch. The website does a very poor job of explaining that.
    - wlesieutre 12y ago
      They used to have a better website. I think it was the victim of "upgrades".
      - amk_ 12y ago
        https://web.archive.org/web/20130302134643/http://elementaryos.org/journal/luna-beta-1-released https://web.archive.org/web/20130302134643/http://elementary... Release notes from a previous beta that explains more about the underlying infrastructure.
    - mintplant 12y ago
      Their old developer website also explained some of the new technologies that Elementary OS exposes to applications: - Contractor (like Android's Intents): https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024115/http://elementaryos.org/docs/contractor https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024115/http://elementary... - Switchboard (unified, pluggable system settings): https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024137/http://elementaryos.org/docs/apis/switchboard https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024137/http://elementary... - Granite (GTK+ widget collection): https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024129/http://elementaryos.org/docs/apis/granite https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024129/http://elementary...
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - djschnei 12y ago
    Totally agree. Especially since this is far from Ubuntu with GNOME skins. In fact it doesn't use GNOME at all. It's a completely custom built desktop environment.
- dakoon2003 12y ago
  While true its not clear you can click "Custom Price" and input $0 dollars.
- dag11 12y ago
  Even as someone familiar with Elementary OS in the past, I can't figure out what's new with this release.
- reactor 12y ago
  Agree, its buried. http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here in case if interested.
- sudioStudio64 12y ago
  Designers take themselves so seriously... sometimes they need to be reminded about usability.
- wanda 12y ago
  elementary OS have a similar mentality to the Vivaldi browser -- it's just for our friends. Despite leading with donation panhandling. Still, I'm using it now because I am tired of Slackware. I love Slack to bits but the amount of work involved in making my setup look and play nice is just silly. I'm looking for something like a one-click-pretty-usable Linux for random laptops/PCs I've accumulated. PapyrOS might be nice if it's ever finished.
  - amk_ 12y ago
    Good pointer. I have an old laptop with Arch that basically only runs Chromium apps and terminal programs -- PapyrOS looks like the logical step up from there, when it's ready.
  - jqm 12y ago
    I've never seen making Slackware look nice as a burden. Especially since I can generally just copy over config files. I love Slackware for the simplicity and that's why I use it. So many of these feature filled pretty systems work nice.. until they don't. Unneeded features are just more stuff to learn and more stuff to break in my opinion. Slackware is a rock solid work horse and I know right where everything is and can change it if I need to. But to tell the truth, just give me a nice Unix terminal and a web browser and I don't really care that much what it's sitting on.
  - morbius 12y ago
    I'm going to get a lot of hate for this but if you really, honestly want a no-frills, easy to set up UNIX for your personal computer, there really is no better machine than a Macintosh.
    - erokar 12y ago
      I have to agree. As ridiculous and disgusting Apple is as a company, OSX still offers the best UNIX experience. But I applaud any attemt to change that fact.
      - tormeh 12y ago
- forscha 12y ago
  Yes! I looked at it, like, "Is this elementary the linux distribution that I have at least heard of by name or is this some completely different thing?" That's a serious failure on their part.
- sbuk 12y ago
  Ironic really, especially give the teams focus on usability!
whitlock 12y ago
There is no upgrade path from OS Luna (previous release) to Freya. Their own web site states, "elementary OS Luna users should back up their data and perform a clean install". Given that the operating system is built on Ubuntu I should be able to upgrade from Luna to Freya without too many issues. Disappointed? Yes. I wrote this post on my Cr-48 running Elementary OS Luna. Instead of running Apt to update my laptop now I'm browsing DistroWatch in another tab to see what else has come out.
- wz1000 12y ago
  You can install Pantheon(the eOS DE) on other distros if you want, though you'll have to put in the time and effort to get it to work and configure it. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon
- ossreality 12y ago
  Ah yes, because you're unhappy with a build-everything-new OS, so you're going to DW to look for even newer distros? Well, good luck.
- synchronise 12y ago
  As a workaround you could probably add their Freya repositories and perform an apt-get upgrade. Whether or not it would work flawlessly is another question altogether, I would do an image backup of the drive just in case it goes pear shaped.
gpmcadam 12y ago
For those wanting a little more substance, here's the blog post announcing Freya: http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here
pain 12y ago
No bitcoin paincoin? I'd have a few cents or a dollar to research and and develop if it was a button without a singular centreal payment pain point. Reality is their strings are tied.
GoatXYZ 12y ago
Does anyone else see a problem that they want you to input all your CC details but does not have HTTPS on by default?
- machbio 12y ago
  thats handled by stripe..
  - evanrelf 12y ago
    It doesn't matter who it's handled by, the fact is that credit card numbers are being transferred over regular, non-encrypted HTTP.
    - imron 12y ago
      Actually, it does matter. The webpage might be http, but the Stripe Javascript library connects to Stripe's servers over https. The website never sees your card number and your card number and info is never transmitted over a non-encrypted connection.
      - justin66 12y ago
        In that case the process is merely broken from a usability standpoint (a user can't click on the browser padlock to verify certificate information). Which is ironic.
      - kaitari 12y ago
        I had to look around for a minute to find the "powered by stripe" message in the bottom left corner of the overlay. Simply seeing that message shouldn't be synonymous with security. I'm trained to look for the secure lock in the address bar of the browser.
      - Titanous 12y ago
        Since the page is loaded over plaintext, there's no easy way for a normal user to know that the credit card isn't being intercepted by a malicious script. It's not safe to serve a payment page over plaintext HTTP, even if it POSTs to a HTTPS endpoint as it could be modified in transit. Stripe explains that TLS is required in their docs: https://stripe.com/help/ssl https://stripe.com/help/ssl
tywkeene 12y ago
I can plainly see the backlash they got from that arrogant blog post about 'making you not pay for the download of our ubuntu clone we slapped a pretty ui on' didn't do much at all.
- sbuk 12y ago
  You are relatively new here, but you should've seen this. Please read it. http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline
  - morbius 12y ago
    This is a red herring -- the OP's post didn't say anything that was overly or gratuitously negative, at least not compared to many of the other comments on this thread. It's very true that saying that users are 'cheating the system' when they expect a libre product to be provided to them free of charge when the developers of said product themselves have added little more than a glossy sheen upon years of blood, sweat, and tears is an arrogant thing to say. Modifying GNU/Linux isn't new and it doesn't give you the right to say such outlandish things in defence of your own project.
    - sbuk 12y ago
      You are welcome to download the source code to Elementary OS for free. Whichever way you frame your "think of the children" logic, the team at eOS are doing things the right way. The gripe here seems to be that they are monetising. Free as in liberty, not as in beer. There is nothing in any version of the GPL that says money may not be charged for compiled binaries. From the debian.org site, on whose shoulders eOS is ultimately standing; "Many people new to free software find themselves confused because the word "free" in the term "free software" is not used the way they expect. To them free means "at no cost". An English dictionary lists almost twenty different meanings for "free". Only one of them is "at no cost". The rest refer to liberty and lack of constraint. When we speak of Free Software, we mean freedom, not price." Canonical ask for donations on the download page too. The BSDs have donation drives. eOS are monetising in a different way. I have not seen the "cheating the system" comment/article and if they did say it, it was wrong. That said, it isn't there now. The "little more than a glossy sheen" remark is off too. They are considering usability and are adding to the community. But hey, pretty doesn't belong in Linux does it? This attitude stinks and is largely why designers won't engage with the community, that and this self righteousness that pervades.
Trufa 12y ago
Only negativity in this thread. You're being offered a desktop environment for free, and all you can do is point out its problems. I think it looks pretty slick, and will give it a try, why are people so nitpicky here?
- tywkeene 12y ago
  It's things like [1] that really irk me. Yes, they're working 'hard', yes they deserve compensation, no, there isn't any license conflicts (that I'm aware of) that would make selling eOS illegal, it's the fact that they wrote this justification to make you feel like a thief. Really, it's just an ubuntu clone with a pretty osx-like gui. This isn't really anything amazing or new, and it makes it seem like they're trying to tap into the elitist osx market. If that is indeed what they want, they should really check out [2] So it's not really the software that's bad, really it's all what you can get on any other distro with a little work, it's their attitude about it. [1] http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments [2] http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/ http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/
  - ics 12y ago
    > tap into the elitist osx market I think it would be more accurate to say that they are trying to expand the Linux market by wooing those whose main barrier to using Linux is the UI/UX. Whether or not you find the endeavor to be "noble", the attempt is worth something to the Linux landscape even if your takeaway is "don't run it quite like them".
    - tywkeene 12y ago
      Well whatever it they're doing guilt tripping people into giving them money for something that's free everywhere else isn't helping.
      - pekk 12y ago
        OS X is hardly free
krick 12y ago
> open replacement for Windows and OS X It sounds like promising a lot. So after confirming the suspicion of it not being something that would actually allow to run some essential software we still don't have replacements for (AutoCad, Native Instruments stuff, Ableton Live, etc.), but simply yet another Linux distro with custom DE I wonder if this lack of information on the website is on purpose.
- wz1000 12y ago
  > So after confirming the suspicion of it not being something that would actually allow to run some essential software we still don't have replacements for (AutoCad, Native Instruments stuff, Ableton Live, etc.), but simply yet another Linux distro with custom DE What? You actually expected somebody to come up with a whole new OS that runs software written for another proprietary, closed source OS? eOS is a replacement for those users who want to browse the web, read email, watch videos and look at photographs. These people are its target demographic, not professionals who rely on specialized software to do their job.
  - krick 12y ago
    You might want to pay attention to the word "confirming" so you would feel more relaxed about other's expectations. > eOS is a replacement for those <..> I would argue that for that matter it isn't a "replacement" whatsoever. If you are somebody capable of suddenly finding eOS on the internet and understanding what this thing actually is — there's a ton of "fast and open replacements" for you already. (Except, well, they are not "replacements" because they do not fulfill everything you might want to do with mentioned operating systems. But whatever.) If not — you don't even really care if you "pay" for your OS, because you're using the one that came pre-installed on your laptop, without thinking much how much money you spend on the processor, on the RAM, on the OS… it's just a "computer", you paid what you were asked for that. Nd if you would, it doesn't matter because, well, why would it matter if you want to use something you don't event know it exists?
- Mikeb85 12y ago
  > So after confirming the suspicion of it not being something that would actually allow to run some essential software we still don't have replacements for (AutoCad, Native Instruments stuff, Ableton Live, etc.) Because the average user totally uses those programs... Anyhow, I've installed Ubuntu for 'average' users with old, virus riddled machines and they love it. I use Linux every day for University stuff, and have for nearly 4 years. My wife uses it for her computing needs. Linux, any Linux distro, is 'enough' for the average user. Elementary OS is enough too, just a little prettier out of the box (I don't use it, my laptop has openSUSE, but eOS does look pretty).
dmix 12y ago
Just noticed that Elementary OS iso doesn't download using HTTPS because they use sourceforge: https://imgur.com/ZsnQI6e https://imgur.com/ZsnQI6e
amk_ 12y ago
This is the distro GNU/Linux needed in 2009. I used to be a big fan, but these days I can't help but feel they are off the mark by focusing on so heavily on creating a "beautiful" 00's desktop environment when the rest of the world has moved on to new form factors, touch screens, tight coupling with cloud services, and automatic backup and recovery options. That said, I do like the enhancements they have made to some of the 'classic' native apps (Geary is a great email client, Maya calendar works well, and I really like the shell history search baked into the Pantheon Terminal UI). Here's to hoping this release forms the foundation that allows them to tackle some of the sticking points above in the future.
- Brakenshire 12y ago
  I haven't used it yet, but I think this will have greater integration with online accounts, a single place to enter email accounts, calendar accounts etc which works across the system and so on. I'm not sure about touch screens, I think most people view them as optional extras. And although of course people are shifting towards other form factors, huge numbers still use a desktop or laptop, and have no expectation of convergence between the devices. I agree about automatic backup. I actually wonder whether that might be a route towards monetization which would be more palatable to the general community - an edition which is provided free with donations as is, and an edition which has automatic cloud backup built in, along with integration with Android and iOS devices for things like photos.
donatj 12y ago
Ooh, super excited. Elementary gave a new life to my old black macbook.
nodesocket 12y ago
Refreshing to see somebody attacking the consumer operating system market. The UX and design looks super clean.
hippich 12y ago
Did anyone try it on recent macbookpro? I have one somewhere I am not using, because i did not like how kde/gnome shell looked on retina screen, and wonder if eOS solved this problem.
- thoreauway 12y ago
  If you have a MBP Retina you're not using, maybe I can use it? :)
  - hippich 12y ago
    company laptop. if it would be mine - i would just sell it :)
- Brakenshire 12y ago
  I haven't used it yet, but I understand that perfect retina rendering (as in something they would advertise as a feature) is pencilled in for the release after this.
deevus 12y ago
My 67 y/o mother is using Elementary OS on a refurbished Toshiba L50D and she loves it.
octref 12y ago
It really saddens me how much people underestimate the effort it takes to create a good UI by saying eOS is just a "pretty Ubuntu clone". I don't think their blog post[1] is offensive at all. Ubuntu does this too. [2] People consider Sublime's popup and "unregistered user" acceptable. How often do you install/download eOS? Once in a year? And you use it every-day, not only when you do text-editing. And there is no difference between paid or free user. [1]: http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments [2]: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.04.2&architecture=amd64 http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=1...
- mksaunders 12y ago
  It's not offensive now because they've changed the text (a while ago). Originally it said that people who didn't pay for eOS were "cheating the system". Some people could find that offensive, especially when eOS gets the vast majority of its codebase for free from Debian, Ubuntu and the rest of the FOSS world. What the eOS guys said was offensive to some people, and downright idiotic to everyone else!
- Brakenshire 12y ago
  Yes, elementary have put in a huge amount of work to produce an excellent product, and a major step towards where Linux needs to be to attract non technical users, and it is disappointing that so many people seem to be willing to throw them and their years of work under the bus for what amounts to poorly chosen wording. On the substance rather than the wording, surely Hacker News does not agree, as a group, that open source software should never be monetized, especially on a voluntary basis. They have rewritten the Linux desktop environment from scratch, which is an enormous amount of work, and in my experience it works very well. Why not expect that you could find 10,000 users, many of whom people spending their professional life on computers, willing to pay $20 (which in the UK is about 4 cups of coffee), and actually be able to support some developers working on the project full time? That is not at all an unreasonable goal. I know about 20 people over the age of 70 who I periodically help with computer problems, I would say about half of them still using XP on computers that cannot be upgraded to Windows 8. They principally use their computers for checking webmail and browsing the internet. I have tried Ubuntu, but unfortunately it has all sorts of minor UI ruffles which make it difficult for many non-technical people to use. Some examples are: people really struggle to use its pop-up scroll bars, partly because the concept is apparently non obvious, and needs to be explained, and partly because they're fiddly. Then, programs often open in the background, and don't come to the front, so the only sign they're ready is an illuminated icon to the left. And, you get regular pop-up which say 'serious system error detected' which never seem to amount to anything. And in general, I would say my experience is that it is not beautiful, polished or consistent enough to justify to non technical users the change in user interface which it asks them to make. Linux is effectively a developer market, it is written by and for developers, to stratch and itch or for infrastructure. But there has been a consistent failure to produce an operating system that ordinary people want to use. In my opinion, Linux also needs a consumer market, which is willing to pay to bring in other professionals, principally designers, and support them in polishing the user interface, in the way that users want, to a heavy sheen. Elementary OS was a step in that direction, and it's very disappointing to see it apparently shot down for a lack of ideological purity and/or just being abrasive. Hopefully, despite the level of outrage which many people feel, they will be able to find their 10,000 users out of the general Linux community, and carry on regardless.
hanlec 12y ago
I saw today on HN PapyrOS. Anyone can explain the difference between the two? (leaving aside that PapyrOS is still unreleased)
- zer0rest 12y ago
  Entirely different desktop enviroments, eOS is based on Ubuntu and PapyrOS is based on ArchLinux.
- anonbanker 12y ago
  zer0rest, if you can read this, you are hellbanned.
cubano 12y ago
Overall; disappointing. I am looking for a lightweight linux OS for some old laptops I am refurbishing and giving away to homeless people, so I was interested in this. The price thing threw me for a moment...paying for software without knowing its value? I did the $0 hack and downloaded the iso. Stuck the USB in my worse-case system (totally broken screen, low memory etc) hooked to an external monitor, and... Nothing, except for a screen full of mountains, which was odd because every other lightweight distro I've tried worked fine. I think maybe it detected two monitors and used the external one without the taskbar, but I couldn't really tell. The OS definitely loaded as I tried to log off and the screen for that popped up. An OS targeting low-end machines should definitely default to dupe-ing the display on boot. [edit] ok...can someone clue me into what I've done wrong with the explanation of my experience with trying to use it?
- zer0rest 12y ago
  Any linux distro running LXDE should be fine, take a look at Lubuntu.
djhworld 12y ago
Some really vindictive and nasty comments on here, it's just a linux distro! One thing that concerns me is the upgrade path, it mentions in their docs that if you are using a previous version of the OS, you need to back up your data and reinstall.
twvance 12y ago
I am loving it so far! I'm really disappointed with some of the ridiculous accusations like donations not being secure.
vivab0rg 12y ago
Just donated 0.04201 BTC (USD 10) and downloading Freya now. I've been using the previous version for fun and profit on a Mac mini, netbook, notebook and desktop PC since last year. Very recommended.

137 points by aroman 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Hello71 12y ago
After a 10 second look at the comment I thought "oh dear, another !@#$ty comment". But I'm willing to bet it's... no, it's just a !@#$ty comment. Same as all comments. People should give up on this concept. No-one can do it right.
evanrelf 12y ago
Just because no one can do it right doesn't mean people should give up. It's just not time yet... the people that can do it haven't come along yet.

josephpmay 12y ago

Talk about a terribly designed website. If someone had no idea what Elementary OS is, the website does absolutely nothing to tell them. No list of even basic features. No explanation of compatibility or how to install it. Only a single screenshot. Why is this the case?

sshb 12y ago
The donation money buttons are also confusing
jamestomasino 12y ago
As someone who knows nothing about Elementary OS, you are correct. I dug into the blog a bit and all I can tell is that it's Ubuntu with some Gnome skins. Why would I pay money for a free OS? What's the purpose? What need is this designed to fill? The site failed to inform.
- wz1000 12y ago
  I agree that the website it poorly designed, but you can download Elementary OS for free. Just enter 0 in the "Custom Amount" box. > I dug into the blog a bit and all I can tell is that it's Ubuntu with some Gnome skins. Not really. The eOS developers wrote a whole DE(Pantheon) and the included applications from scratch. The website does a very poor job of explaining that.
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    They used to have a better website. I think it was the victim of "upgrades".
    - amk_ 12y ago
      https://web.archive.org/web/20130302134643/http://elementaryos.org/journal/luna-beta-1-released https://web.archive.org/web/20130302134643/http://elementary... Release notes from a previous beta that explains more about the underlying infrastructure.
  - mintplant 12y ago
    Their old developer website also explained some of the new technologies that Elementary OS exposes to applications: - Contractor (like Android's Intents): https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024115/http://elementaryos.org/docs/contractor https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024115/http://elementary... - Switchboard (unified, pluggable system settings): https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024137/http://elementaryos.org/docs/apis/switchboard https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024137/http://elementary... - Granite (GTK+ widget collection): https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024129/http://elementaryos.org/docs/apis/granite https://web.archive.org/web/20130314024129/http://elementary...
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- djschnei 12y ago
  Totally agree. Especially since this is far from Ubuntu with GNOME skins. In fact it doesn't use GNOME at all. It's a completely custom built desktop environment.
dakoon2003 12y ago
While true its not clear you can click "Custom Price" and input $0 dollars.
dag11 12y ago
Even as someone familiar with Elementary OS in the past, I can't figure out what's new with this release.
reactor 12y ago
Agree, its buried. http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here in case if interested.
sudioStudio64 12y ago
Designers take themselves so seriously... sometimes they need to be reminded about usability.
wanda 12y ago
elementary OS have a similar mentality to the Vivaldi browser -- it's just for our friends. Despite leading with donation panhandling. Still, I'm using it now because I am tired of Slackware. I love Slack to bits but the amount of work involved in making my setup look and play nice is just silly. I'm looking for something like a one-click-pretty-usable Linux for random laptops/PCs I've accumulated. PapyrOS might be nice if it's ever finished.
- amk_ 12y ago
  Good pointer. I have an old laptop with Arch that basically only runs Chromium apps and terminal programs -- PapyrOS looks like the logical step up from there, when it's ready.
- jqm 12y ago
  I've never seen making Slackware look nice as a burden. Especially since I can generally just copy over config files. I love Slackware for the simplicity and that's why I use it. So many of these feature filled pretty systems work nice.. until they don't. Unneeded features are just more stuff to learn and more stuff to break in my opinion. Slackware is a rock solid work horse and I know right where everything is and can change it if I need to. But to tell the truth, just give me a nice Unix terminal and a web browser and I don't really care that much what it's sitting on.
- morbius 12y ago
  I'm going to get a lot of hate for this but if you really, honestly want a no-frills, easy to set up UNIX for your personal computer, there really is no better machine than a Macintosh.
  - erokar 12y ago
    I have to agree. As ridiculous and disgusting Apple is as a company, OSX still offers the best UNIX experience. But I applaud any attemt to change that fact.
    - tormeh 12y ago
forscha 12y ago
Yes! I looked at it, like, "Is this elementary the linux distribution that I have at least heard of by name or is this some completely different thing?" That's a serious failure on their part.
sbuk 12y ago
Ironic really, especially give the teams focus on usability!

whitlock 12y ago

There is no upgrade path from OS Luna (previous release) to Freya. Their own web site states, "elementary OS Luna users should back up their data and perform a clean install". Given that the operating system is built on Ubuntu I should be able to upgrade from Luna to Freya without too many issues. Disappointed? Yes. I wrote this post on my Cr-48 running Elementary OS Luna. Instead of running Apt to update my laptop now I'm browsing DistroWatch in another tab to see what else has come out.

wz1000 12y ago
You can install Pantheon(the eOS DE) on other distros if you want, though you'll have to put in the time and effort to get it to work and configure it. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon
ossreality 12y ago
Ah yes, because you're unhappy with a build-everything-new OS, so you're going to DW to look for even newer distros? Well, good luck.
synchronise 12y ago
As a workaround you could probably add their Freya repositories and perform an apt-get upgrade. Whether or not it would work flawlessly is another question altogether, I would do an image backup of the drive just in case it goes pear shaped.

gpmcadam 12y ago

For those wanting a little more substance, here's the blog post announcing Freya: http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here

pain 12y ago

No bitcoin paincoin? I'd have a few cents or a dollar to research and and develop if it was a button without a singular centreal payment pain point. Reality is their strings are tied.

GoatXYZ 12y ago

Does anyone else see a problem that they want you to input all your CC details but does not have HTTPS on by default?

machbio 12y ago
thats handled by stripe..
- evanrelf 12y ago
  It doesn't matter who it's handled by, the fact is that credit card numbers are being transferred over regular, non-encrypted HTTP.
  - imron 12y ago
    Actually, it does matter. The webpage might be http, but the Stripe Javascript library connects to Stripe's servers over https. The website never sees your card number and your card number and info is never transmitted over a non-encrypted connection.
    - justin66 12y ago
      In that case the process is merely broken from a usability standpoint (a user can't click on the browser padlock to verify certificate information). Which is ironic.
    - kaitari 12y ago
      I had to look around for a minute to find the "powered by stripe" message in the bottom left corner of the overlay. Simply seeing that message shouldn't be synonymous with security. I'm trained to look for the secure lock in the address bar of the browser.
    - Titanous 12y ago
      Since the page is loaded over plaintext, there's no easy way for a normal user to know that the credit card isn't being intercepted by a malicious script. It's not safe to serve a payment page over plaintext HTTP, even if it POSTs to a HTTPS endpoint as it could be modified in transit. Stripe explains that TLS is required in their docs: https://stripe.com/help/ssl https://stripe.com/help/ssl

tywkeene 12y ago

I can plainly see the backlash they got from that arrogant blog post about 'making you not pay for the download of our ubuntu clone we slapped a pretty ui on' didn't do much at all.

sbuk 12y ago
You are relatively new here, but you should've seen this. Please read it. http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline
- morbius 12y ago
  This is a red herring -- the OP's post didn't say anything that was overly or gratuitously negative, at least not compared to many of the other comments on this thread. It's very true that saying that users are 'cheating the system' when they expect a libre product to be provided to them free of charge when the developers of said product themselves have added little more than a glossy sheen upon years of blood, sweat, and tears is an arrogant thing to say. Modifying GNU/Linux isn't new and it doesn't give you the right to say such outlandish things in defence of your own project.
  - sbuk 12y ago
    You are welcome to download the source code to Elementary OS for free. Whichever way you frame your "think of the children" logic, the team at eOS are doing things the right way. The gripe here seems to be that they are monetising. Free as in liberty, not as in beer. There is nothing in any version of the GPL that says money may not be charged for compiled binaries. From the debian.org site, on whose shoulders eOS is ultimately standing; "Many people new to free software find themselves confused because the word "free" in the term "free software" is not used the way they expect. To them free means "at no cost". An English dictionary lists almost twenty different meanings for "free". Only one of them is "at no cost". The rest refer to liberty and lack of constraint. When we speak of Free Software, we mean freedom, not price." Canonical ask for donations on the download page too. The BSDs have donation drives. eOS are monetising in a different way. I have not seen the "cheating the system" comment/article and if they did say it, it was wrong. That said, it isn't there now. The "little more than a glossy sheen" remark is off too. They are considering usability and are adding to the community. But hey, pretty doesn't belong in Linux does it? This attitude stinks and is largely why designers won't engage with the community, that and this self righteousness that pervades.

Trufa 12y ago

Only negativity in this thread. You're being offered a desktop environment for free, and all you can do is point out its problems. I think it looks pretty slick, and will give it a try, why are people so nitpicky here?

tywkeene 12y ago
It's things like [1] that really irk me. Yes, they're working 'hard', yes they deserve compensation, no, there isn't any license conflicts (that I'm aware of) that would make selling eOS illegal, it's the fact that they wrote this justification to make you feel like a thief. Really, it's just an ubuntu clone with a pretty osx-like gui. This isn't really anything amazing or new, and it makes it seem like they're trying to tap into the elitist osx market. If that is indeed what they want, they should really check out [2] So it's not really the software that's bad, really it's all what you can get on any other distro with a little work, it's their attitude about it. [1] http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments [2] http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/ http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/
- ics 12y ago
  > tap into the elitist osx market I think it would be more accurate to say that they are trying to expand the Linux market by wooing those whose main barrier to using Linux is the UI/UX. Whether or not you find the endeavor to be "noble", the attempt is worth something to the Linux landscape even if your takeaway is "don't run it quite like them".
  - tywkeene 12y ago
    Well whatever it they're doing guilt tripping people into giving them money for something that's free everywhere else isn't helping.
    - pekk 12y ago
      OS X is hardly free

krick 12y ago

> open replacement for Windows and OS X It sounds like promising a lot. So after confirming the suspicion of it not being something that would actually allow to run some essential software we still don't have replacements for (AutoCad, Native Instruments stuff, Ableton Live, etc.), but simply yet another Linux distro with custom DE I wonder if this lack of information on the website is on purpose.

wz1000 12y ago
> So after confirming the suspicion of it not being something that would actually allow to run some essential software we still don't have replacements for (AutoCad, Native Instruments stuff, Ableton Live, etc.), but simply yet another Linux distro with custom DE What? You actually expected somebody to come up with a whole new OS that runs software written for another proprietary, closed source OS? eOS is a replacement for those users who want to browse the web, read email, watch videos and look at photographs. These people are its target demographic, not professionals who rely on specialized software to do their job.
- krick 12y ago
  You might want to pay attention to the word "confirming" so you would feel more relaxed about other's expectations. > eOS is a replacement for those <..> I would argue that for that matter it isn't a "replacement" whatsoever. If you are somebody capable of suddenly finding eOS on the internet and understanding what this thing actually is — there's a ton of "fast and open replacements" for you already. (Except, well, they are not "replacements" because they do not fulfill everything you might want to do with mentioned operating systems. But whatever.) If not — you don't even really care if you "pay" for your OS, because you're using the one that came pre-installed on your laptop, without thinking much how much money you spend on the processor, on the RAM, on the OS… it's just a "computer", you paid what you were asked for that. Nd if you would, it doesn't matter because, well, why would it matter if you want to use something you don't event know it exists?
Mikeb85 12y ago
> So after confirming the suspicion of it not being something that would actually allow to run some essential software we still don't have replacements for (AutoCad, Native Instruments stuff, Ableton Live, etc.) Because the average user totally uses those programs... Anyhow, I've installed Ubuntu for 'average' users with old, virus riddled machines and they love it. I use Linux every day for University stuff, and have for nearly 4 years. My wife uses it for her computing needs. Linux, any Linux distro, is 'enough' for the average user. Elementary OS is enough too, just a little prettier out of the box (I don't use it, my laptop has openSUSE, but eOS does look pretty).

dmix 12y ago

Just noticed that Elementary OS iso doesn't download using HTTPS because they use sourceforge: https://imgur.com/ZsnQI6e https://imgur.com/ZsnQI6e

amk_ 12y ago

This is the distro GNU/Linux needed in 2009. I used to be a big fan, but these days I can't help but feel they are off the mark by focusing on so heavily on creating a "beautiful" 00's desktop environment when the rest of the world has moved on to new form factors, touch screens, tight coupling with cloud services, and automatic backup and recovery options. That said, I do like the enhancements they have made to some of the 'classic' native apps (Geary is a great email client, Maya calendar works well, and I really like the shell history search baked into the Pantheon Terminal UI). Here's to hoping this release forms the foundation that allows them to tackle some of the sticking points above in the future.

Brakenshire 12y ago
I haven't used it yet, but I think this will have greater integration with online accounts, a single place to enter email accounts, calendar accounts etc which works across the system and so on. I'm not sure about touch screens, I think most people view them as optional extras. And although of course people are shifting towards other form factors, huge numbers still use a desktop or laptop, and have no expectation of convergence between the devices. I agree about automatic backup. I actually wonder whether that might be a route towards monetization which would be more palatable to the general community - an edition which is provided free with donations as is, and an edition which has automatic cloud backup built in, along with integration with Android and iOS devices for things like photos.

donatj 12y ago

Ooh, super excited. Elementary gave a new life to my old black macbook.

nodesocket 12y ago

Refreshing to see somebody attacking the consumer operating system market. The UX and design looks super clean.

hippich 12y ago

Did anyone try it on recent macbookpro? I have one somewhere I am not using, because i did not like how kde/gnome shell looked on retina screen, and wonder if eOS solved this problem.

thoreauway 12y ago
If you have a MBP Retina you're not using, maybe I can use it? :)
- hippich 12y ago
  company laptop. if it would be mine - i would just sell it :)
Brakenshire 12y ago
I haven't used it yet, but I understand that perfect retina rendering (as in something they would advertise as a feature) is pencilled in for the release after this.

deevus 12y ago

My 67 y/o mother is using Elementary OS on a refurbished Toshiba L50D and she loves it.

octref 12y ago

It really saddens me how much people underestimate the effort it takes to create a good UI by saying eOS is just a "pretty Ubuntu clone". I don't think their blog post[1] is offensive at all. Ubuntu does this too. [2] People consider Sublime's popup and "unregistered user" acceptable. How often do you install/download eOS? Once in a year? And you use it every-day, not only when you do text-editing. And there is no difference between paid or free user. [1]: http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments [2]: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.04.2&architecture=amd64 http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=1...

mksaunders 12y ago
It's not offensive now because they've changed the text (a while ago). Originally it said that people who didn't pay for eOS were "cheating the system". Some people could find that offensive, especially when eOS gets the vast majority of its codebase for free from Debian, Ubuntu and the rest of the FOSS world. What the eOS guys said was offensive to some people, and downright idiotic to everyone else!
Brakenshire 12y ago
Yes, elementary have put in a huge amount of work to produce an excellent product, and a major step towards where Linux needs to be to attract non technical users, and it is disappointing that so many people seem to be willing to throw them and their years of work under the bus for what amounts to poorly chosen wording. On the substance rather than the wording, surely Hacker News does not agree, as a group, that open source software should never be monetized, especially on a voluntary basis. They have rewritten the Linux desktop environment from scratch, which is an enormous amount of work, and in my experience it works very well. Why not expect that you could find 10,000 users, many of whom people spending their professional life on computers, willing to pay $20 (which in the UK is about 4 cups of coffee), and actually be able to support some developers working on the project full time? That is not at all an unreasonable goal. I know about 20 people over the age of 70 who I periodically help with computer problems, I would say about half of them still using XP on computers that cannot be upgraded to Windows 8. They principally use their computers for checking webmail and browsing the internet. I have tried Ubuntu, but unfortunately it has all sorts of minor UI ruffles which make it difficult for many non-technical people to use. Some examples are: people really struggle to use its pop-up scroll bars, partly because the concept is apparently non obvious, and needs to be explained, and partly because they're fiddly. Then, programs often open in the background, and don't come to the front, so the only sign they're ready is an illuminated icon to the left. And, you get regular pop-up which say 'serious system error detected' which never seem to amount to anything. And in general, I would say my experience is that it is not beautiful, polished or consistent enough to justify to non technical users the change in user interface which it asks them to make. Linux is effectively a developer market, it is written by and for developers, to stratch and itch or for infrastructure. But there has been a consistent failure to produce an operating system that ordinary people want to use. In my opinion, Linux also needs a consumer market, which is willing to pay to bring in other professionals, principally designers, and support them in polishing the user interface, in the way that users want, to a heavy sheen. Elementary OS was a step in that direction, and it's very disappointing to see it apparently shot down for a lack of ideological purity and/or just being abrasive. Hopefully, despite the level of outrage which many people feel, they will be able to find their 10,000 users out of the general Linux community, and carry on regardless.

hanlec 12y ago

I saw today on HN PapyrOS. Anyone can explain the difference between the two? (leaving aside that PapyrOS is still unreleased)

zer0rest 12y ago
Entirely different desktop enviroments, eOS is based on Ubuntu and PapyrOS is based on ArchLinux.
anonbanker 12y ago
zer0rest, if you can read this, you are hellbanned.

cubano 12y ago

Overall; disappointing. I am looking for a lightweight linux OS for some old laptops I am refurbishing and giving away to homeless people, so I was interested in this. The price thing threw me for a moment...paying for software without knowing its value? I did the $0 hack and downloaded the iso. Stuck the USB in my worse-case system (totally broken screen, low memory etc) hooked to an external monitor, and... Nothing, except for a screen full of mountains, which was odd because every other lightweight distro I've tried worked fine. I think maybe it detected two monitors and used the external one without the taskbar, but I couldn't really tell. The OS definitely loaded as I tried to log off and the screen for that popped up. An OS targeting low-end machines should definitely default to dupe-ing the display on boot. [edit] ok...can someone clue me into what I've done wrong with the explanation of my experience with trying to use it?

zer0rest 12y ago
Any linux distro running LXDE should be fine, take a look at Lubuntu.

djhworld 12y ago

Some really vindictive and nasty comments on here, it's just a linux distro! One thing that concerns me is the upgrade path, it mentions in their docs that if you are using a previous version of the OS, you need to back up your data and reinstall.

twvance 12y ago

I am loving it so far! I'm really disappointed with some of the ridiculous accusations like donations not being secure.

vivab0rg 12y ago

Just donated 0.04201 BTC (USD 10) and downloading Freya now. I've been using the previous version for fun and profit on a Mac mini, netbook, notebook and desktop PC since last year. Very recommended.