As some of you may know, nearly every desktop environment available for modern UNIX-like operating systems is utter trash in one way or another. XFCE is ugly and inconsistent, KDE is flat and bloated, and Gnome is a massive turd in every single way. Some are more usable than others, but I haven't found any that are actually enjoyable to use. I like the look and feel of Enlightenment, but it lacks basic features that UI layout (especially menus and the settings manager) looks like it was made by gorilla with Down's syndrome. I'm just about at the end of my fucking rope with this retarded shit, and I know others are too. Let's do something about that.
I know that Sup Forums is autistic and likes to cling to old stuff and hates change, so let's make a 90s style DE. The basic idea is to have a pixelated but 3D style UI that will work well on everything from a toaster with a low resolution display to a powerful workstation with a 4k OLED panel. I want this DE to run well on everything, which it will since even the cheapest Core2 hardware is many times more capable than 90s stuff.
>What are our options? We already have a good base going with the MaXX Interactive Desktop, but the project was being worked on by one guy and he's nowhere to be found. Most of the source code is still available right now, and seems to be nearly or fully complete, though the current version he offers through the installer script seems to be heavily modified, so I don't think he released the newer source code. What we do have to work with is old (like a decade old) but still good, and the code is pretty clean and easy to read. Documentation is also there.
The IRIX desktop is going to be a nice start, but CDE was also open sourced a while ago. The source code for that is an archaic shitshow with some security issues and a severe lack of docs. The most I'd want to pull from it would be UI elements and icons, and maybe some applications if we need them. I only suggest it because CDE uses the Motif look, similar to the IRIX desktop, so some of it might fit.
>What's the target platform(s)? The source has (to my knowledge) been fully ported to x86 as of a few years ago, though I haven't compiled more than a couple apps from it to test it out. At the very least we'd be targeting Intel/AMD x86-64, and maybe Intel 32-bit stuff down the road. There's also the possibility of porting this to common RISC processors, like ARM (Raspberry Pi) or even PowerPC (old Macs), both of which run Linux/BSD just fine. And speaking of operating systems, our main targets would be common Linux distros like Debian and Fedora. I would also like to get this running on OpenBSD, since that's a more proper UNIX-like OS.
>How about licensing? Call the cyber police. I don't give a damn. We just have to host it somewhere that the jew lawyers can't fuck with it. We'll probably be fine since this is in no way a commercial endeavor.
The NeXT style has already been done to death, and the UI is just flat grey and black rectangles. The IRIX desktop was cool because of all the various colors that gave it a nice amount of contrast without being too much. The shapes and shadowing give it that nice 3D feel that I want back more than anything.
Noah Morales
There's also the visual file manager.
Justin Bennett
cinnamon. im using i3 w/o a DE rn and thats also good.
Leo Jenkins
It's a UNIX system I know this
Caleb Nelson
>cinnamon I think it's flat and ugly. Feels like another Windows UI clone. >im using i3 w/o a DE rn and thats also good Standalone window managers are light on resources and work ok, but they don't allow you to fully interact with your machine using the mouse. I can't stand tiling WMs and keyboard controls. The mouse feels more natural and user friendly. I also want a consistent UI theme throughout all of the included applications. No conflicting colors or shapes or icons like on every other DE out there. Windows and OS X have this consistency, but Linux doesn't. This is why there are always threads up complaining that it sucks. The underlying OS can be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but without a polished UI to unify the user experience, it'll always be trash.
It's a Loonix system. I don't know what I'm doing.
Jayden Campbell
>XFCE is ugly and inconsistent
I won't make the logo unless you stop talking shit about XFCE.
We already have the SGI logo. Also what I said about XFCE is true. It works but it looks horrible.
>gnome No.
Hunter Rogers
what gnome?
Kayden Price
All you've pictured is Silicon Graphics flavour of Linux from years and years back. Grow up.
Robert Robinson
>what I said about XFCE is true 4u
>it looks horrible. what exactly?
Oliver Morgan
previous thread
Benjamin Williams
>Silicon Graphics flavour of Linux It has nothing to do with Linux. IRIX was a proprietary OS based on System V UNIX with a custom UI that ran only on high end MIPS workstations that cost tens of thousands of dollars, you retarded 12 year old faggot. It was used by professional animators and scientists and not gaymur shithead kids, which is why you're here to shit on it.
Lucas Hernandez
>call him a faggot
Cooper Johnson
Faggot.
Ryan Ward
>it was used by professional animators and scientists and not gaymur shithead kids ...said the plebeian home hobbyist loonix kid looking for vintage retro cool rice so he can LARP as them absolutely love the professional machine-like design of older interfaces and hate Sup Forums as much as the next guy but you're not helping either, gaylord
Joshua Foster
seems abandonned
the 1.2.0 version scheduled for september 2017 never came out
Andrew Baker
to my understanding MaXX development is pretty on and off
Aiden Walker
if you like retro looking desktop there's GNUstep but it's not quite the same
>Windows and OS X have this consistency, but Linux doesn't eh, all of the applications I use on Windows have dramatically differing UIs, that ship sailed ages ago like seriously >my browser doesn't use native controls >my image viewer doesn't either >nor does my DAW (or basically any DAW) >MS Office hasn't used native controls since '95 and draws everything itself >and then if you're unlucky enough to be on Windows 10, you've got a bunch of Metro apps (whatever the fuck they're called nowadays) too >image editor's usually doing a bit of its own thing too, whether you're using Photoshop or GIMP >windows has like four different styles of settings panels now spread all across things (95-style, 2k-style, Vista/7-style, and 10 style) although a lot of that isn't out-of-the-box software, other than the last one
absurdly low quality posts
Juan Sanchez
just installed it and it's perfectly functional got that nextstep feel to it and is fully customizable too. i don't see why even bother building another one vased on Maxx
Jonathan Reed
GWorkspace is terrible. Window Maker, on the other hand...
Logan Hall
stop advertising some fucking chan clone, no one gives a fucking shit
Asher Lewis
who would have even bothered to notice it if you didn't point it out retard?
Eli Richardson
window maker is almost perfect
James Phillips
You want bonus points? get GEM running. It works great on FreeDOS.
GNUstep / windowmaker is pretty sweet, i'll try it for a few days.
Tyler Howard
install CDE
Levi Hernandez
we need a better logo
Jose Ramirez
Great Idea, I'll make the logo.
Benjamin Adams
I just checked out LiteStep again, it died four years ago. Fuck.
Josiah Bailey
lainchain is pretty based desu.
Jordan Jenkins
Let's go all the way back to TWM
Adrian Smith
Trying wm2 right now, it's fucking autistic, i'm going back to i3.
Nathan Robinson
Amiga OS 4 desu
the haven't fallen into the modern webfag UI meme entirely yet...
although it only runs on PPC architecture
Grayson Rivera
Mein neger
Isaac Walker
>XFCE is ugly and inconsistent ZorinOS says hi >KDE is flat and bloated You mean feature-rich >Gnome is a massive turd in every single way Nice arguments
Landon Perez
I tried to launch my polybar, oh my god it thinks the bar is a window, that's terrible,can't stop laugning how retarded it is.
Hunter Walker
whats actually wrong with gnome it's one of the favourite de's ive tried. The thumbnail thing is bullshit too it does show previews when slecting files in firefox although the previews are tiny which is pretty retarded
Henry Perry
Y'all niggers haven't tried EXWM yet?
Joshua Garcia
>And another broken ass piece of shit were born Good luck making a DE/WM around a dumpster fire that is X11/Wayland/libinput etc.
Josiah Sullivan
...
Juan Myers
I have zero experience with DEs so I don't think I can contribute
Gabriel Turner
no
Jose Hernandez
Just use FVWM. It supports most WM hints, uses 3D motif styles by default, and is more configurable than anything else.
The bar was always a window. The WM just doesn't understand that certain windows shouldn't be decorated.
Tyler Hall
Wasn't CDE open sourced and forked?
Ethan White
What's the general idea? We already have GNUstep, CDE, MaXX, amiwm, etc. You mean to bundle one of them into a newbie friendly desktop package? Like it already is.
Matthew Stewart
Just write a wayland only fluxbox using wlroots: there is a need for that and you can do it.
Hunter White
>Let's make a retro desktop environment! Hipster shit IMO.
>no Display PostScript or PDF graphics model It's shit.
Juan Gonzalez
JWM you dick.
Logan Barnes
Install powershell core on it.
Ryan Morgan
1) 3D compositor by default - no excuse not to have one, literally everyone would benefit from this 2) No new desktop paradigms - standard taskbar must be an option (if not default) 3) Simple theme without appealing exclusively to nostalgiafags - it doesn't have to look exactly like Motif or MaXX
The problem with Xfce is (1) it's barely being developed (2) it has no 3D compositor by default (3) looks like ass out of the box (4) no good support for high res displays
Cinnamon would be optimal but it depends too heavily on GNOME, which makes it trash by default.
Joseph Myers
>3D compositor by default What the fuck is a 3D compositor?
Nathaniel Rogers
Any compositor taking advantage of hardware acceleration, which even integrated GPUs are capable of taking advantage of. Like I said, no excuse not to have one enabled by default.
Carson Perez
You do realize that GPUs also accelerate 2D, right?
Brandon Davis
OP here, been working on a few of the default apps and tweaking the WM so that we can get multi-monitor support going at a rudimentary level at least. Right now I've just been using xrandr to shut off the laptop display and make the external one the default, but it reverts when I log out. I wouldn't want to make it permanent anyways. But it's not user friendly at all.
In a week or two I'll upload source and binary changes somewhere and report back.
> 3D compositor by default - no excuse not to have one, literally everyone would benefit from this We'll see. Might be optional. > No new desktop paradigms - standard taskbar must be an option (if not default) No, not happening. The point of this is to make something that isn't a clone of the Mac OS or Windows UI. It has been done a million times and I don't want to do it again. IID puts the minimized apps on the desktop as tiles like NeXTSTEP, but it's more configurable. I also plan on making fixed (fixed functionality but still movable) tiles for things like a battery monitor for laptops. > Simple theme without appealing exclusively to nostalgiafags - it doesn't have to look exactly like Motif or MaXX It's going to be Motif at first because it'll be the easiest look to pull together into a complete theme. No other icons, no other images, etc. I want everything to look the same, even if that look is outdated for now.
