Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

Obi-Lan · 2007-11-05 21:29:42

I was just thinking that big DE:s like KDE or GNOME have basically same way of doing things. You have start button, quicklaunch icons, taskbar, clock etc in same panel, Control Pan.. err Control Center, Same OK Cancel dialogs etc. These things remind me a lot about way things are done in Windows. Buttons may look different and be in different place but logic is all the same. I read this article about Microsoft being mad to Linux desktop systems about copying Windows interface: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ … on-missing

OK The Inquirer isn't the most reliable news service but I think this article has some points. It also mentioned some DE:s that arent copied from any MS operating systems are WindowMaker (originating from NextSTEP?) and ROX. Well ROX isn't even fully capable to function as a DE and it needs something like sawfish to work properly I think. Then there are these console extensions like RatPoison and minimalistic environments like openbox, fluxbox, [somethingelse]box and FVWM but Im not that console junkie.

Ive been lately messing with WindowMaker and ROX and found that ROX is a bit weird but it has a couple of funky ideas like putting minized windows on desktop but panel is quite crappy IMO. Even tough its quite usable with openbox. WindowMaker is more usable to me, I kinda like it.

Is there more DE:s with original desing to mess with?

rson451 · 2007-11-05 21:56:54

i like the tagging principle of dwm, not sure if other wm's use it or not. taken from the dwm homepage...

Tagging is a more general concept that supersedes the classical workspace model.
Here is a brief overview of dwm's tagging model:
* A tag is an alphanumeric string which is associated with one or more clients.
* A view is a set of clients matching a specific tag.
Tagging is defined by the dictionary as: attach a tag or label to something, in this particular case to clients. This way a client belongs to a set of classes.
In this case a workspace (or view) is not a set of clients but a set of tags. This enables to:
* have clients with one tag (so they only appear in one view exclusively).
* have clients with multiple tags (so they appear in different views, sticky).

www.suckless.org

Mikko777 · 2007-11-05 22:13:02

this one: (Ion is a tiling tabbed window manager designed with keyboard users in mind.)

http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/

pauldonnelly · 2007-11-06 04:07:08

Obi-Lan wrote:

Well ROX isn't even fully capable to function as a DE and it needs something like sawfish to work properly I think. Then there are these console extensions like RatPoison and minimalistic environments like openbox, fluxbox, [somethingelse]box and FVWM but Im not that console junkie.
Is there more DE:s with original desing to mess with?

ROX is a full desktop. It's got a window manager (Oroborox, iirc), panels, and everything. Of course, there aren't so many ROX apps, so you can't run a pure ROX desktop and get anything done. Its best idea, IME, is drag and drop saving and the elimination of mini-filers (open/save dialogs). It's a shame that there aren't more apps that support DnD save though. I think that's something that every program would do well to implement.

Ratpoison isn't a console extension, BTW. It's a tiling window manager like any other. Other tiling WMs you might like to look at are wmii, dwm, and Xmonad.

You should check out the Rio window manager in the plan9port package. It's pretty clever. On an actual Plan 9 system you run programs by creating a new window (new windows always contain rc, Plan 9's shell), then running a program in it. If it's a GUI program it takes over the window from the shell, keeping the same dimensions and everything. Very cool.

dunc · 2007-11-06 16:04:08

I agree, Paul. It's a pity ROX doesn't have the following and variety of apps that Gnome and KDE do.

foxbunny · 2007-11-06 17:33:29

Now that you guys brought it up, yeah, there really aren't too many alternative desktops. I've googled around and apart from the unusable-looking Project Looking Glass, there aren't many (if any) original and interesting ideas.

I don't know if this can be classified as a feature of a desktop, but the User Interface Facades are a really interesting, and, indeed, original idea:

http://insitu.lri.fr/metisse/facades/

It's part of Metisse. Dusty might have more to say on this.

Here's the paper about the Facades:

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1166253.1166301

Last edited by foxbunny (2007-11-06 17:35:16)

Dusty · 2007-11-06 17:46:55

foxbunny wrote:

Dusty might have more to say on this.

Hah! Direct all questions to my grad supervisor <wolfgang@cse.yorku.ca> ;-) I've officially escaped from academia! :-D

Dusty

PJ · 2007-11-06 18:08:27

I am not sure how to classify the gui enviroment for SymphonyOS but it's a bit different. I tried it a couple of years ago but I really didn't get use to it. Not sure if it could be classified as a desktop environment.

I also did a search for SymphonyOS on the forum and I did find a really interesting thread regarding interface design:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=28391

foxbunny · 2007-11-06 18:30:11

Dusty wrote:

I've officially escaped from academia! :-D

Good for you, Dusty. Metisse sucks anyway! j/k

Obi-Lan · 2007-11-06 18:34:43

pauldonnelly wrote:

ROX is a full desktop. It's got a window manager (Oroborox, iirc), panels, and everything. Of course, there aren't so many ROX apps, so you can't run a pure ROX desktop and get anything done. Its best idea, IME, is drag and drop saving and the elimination of mini-filers (open/save dialogs). It's a shame that there aren't more apps that support DnD save though. I think that's something that every program would do well to implement.
Ratpoison isn't a console extension, BTW. It's a tiling window manager like any other. Other tiling WMs you might like to look at are wmii, dwm, and Xmonad.
You should check out the Rio window manager in the plan9port package. It's pretty clever. On an actual Plan 9 system you run programs by creating a new window (new windows always contain rc, Plan 9's shell), then running a program in it. If it's a GUI program it takes over the window from the shell, keeping the same dimensions and everything. Very cool.

I didn't notice Oroborox. Does it come with rox package in extra? I messed some more with ROX and it has some widgets but those have to be installed trough some zeroconfiguration tool and I dont like it.

GAH the curse of mouse is touching my right hand again. Caused probably my daily job involving lots of MS. Thats why I'm looking for alternative dimension to escape nightly

pauldonnelly · 2007-11-07 05:47:11

Obi-Lan wrote:

I didn't notice Oroborox. Does it come with rox package in extra? I messed some more with ROX and it has some widgets but those have to be installed trough some zeroconfiguration tool and I dont like it.
GAH the curse of mouse is touching my right hand again. Caused probably my daily job involving lots of MS. Thats why I'm looking for alternative dimension to escape nightly

I think you've got to install Oroborox through zeroconf. It's pretty average though. I wouldn't bother with it unless I was trying to make an all ROX setup.

Obi-Lan · 2007-11-08 22:47:33

After messing while I came to conclusion that less is better for me. So I ended up with openbox. http://obi.1g.fi/kuvat/screenshotit/scr … x.png/full

Shaika-Dzari · 2007-11-08 23:46:25

I personnally like Fvwm.

You can build your own taskbar with fvwmbutton. You can do anything with this wm!

dunc · 2007-11-09 00:48:47

By the way, as a PS to all the the ROX/RISC OS talk... it's not a desktop, but there's a Linux port of the RISC OS web browser Netsurf, which does things rather differently to most browsers (although not so much that you'd be lost if you've never used it before; I wasn't). It's in the AUR, along with the SVN version.

triplefault · 2007-11-13 08:04:03

Shaika-Dzari wrote:

I personnally like Fvwm.
You can build your own taskbar with fvwmbutton. You can do anything with this wm!

Hi
Good to see another fvwm user around here
I rediscovered fvwm a few months ago, and I agree totaly with you. This WM ist absolutly cool

skottish · 2007-11-13 15:54:10

foxbunny wrote:

Project Looking Glass

I thought that Looking Glass was a derivative of Gnome (with Java controlled compositing).

E17 is somewhere between DE and WM. Although, application integration at the appearance level is kind of tricky; E17 is so much to look at that it makes the integrated apps look really dull. I've been playing around with E17 as the WM for KDEmod, and while most things work good, nothing looks quite right.

Last edited by skottish (2007-11-13 15:54:42)

moljac024 · 2008-04-27 15:37:08

Java controlled compositing ? Wow, that could get ~12 FPS with 4 SLI-ed 8800 GT-s! :-D

Last edited by moljac024 (2008-04-27 15:40:53)

darkhatter · 2008-05-03 15:02:29

with KDE 4 because everything is a widget you're actually able to completely change the way it works. I plan on porting the candy menu from the one laptop per child and tweaking it a little.

gazj · 2008-05-03 15:19:05

I did post info on a rox repo I had set up, but no one really seemed interested at the time so i dropped it. If people show an interest I might start it again

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=45309

MONODA · 2008-05-08 08:56:11

+1 for windowmaker it is pretty cool
check out this site, even though most here have probably seen it: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&c … kvSKOQhYkQ

kiwisaotome · 2008-05-19 05:49:51

Nobody mentioned Awesome... I'm surprised.

Awesome is a tiling window manager not unlike dwm (in fact it's based on that code). It seems to be developed at a brisk pace. There's also some really neat features... Just check it out.

http://awesome.naquadah.org/

freakcode · 2008-05-19 19:39:39

kiwisaotome wrote:

Nobody mentioned Awesome... I'm surprised.
Awesome is a tiling window manager not unlike dwm (in fact it's based on that code). It seems to be developed at a brisk pace. There's also some really neat features... Just check it out.
http://awesome.naquadah.org/

Because Awesome is a window manager, not a desktop enviroment.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-11-05 21:29:42

Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#2 2007-11-05 21:56:54

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#3 2007-11-05 22:13:02

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#4 2007-11-06 04:07:08

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#5 2007-11-06 16:04:08

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#6 2007-11-06 17:33:29

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#7 2007-11-06 17:46:55

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#8 2007-11-06 18:08:27

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#9 2007-11-06 18:30:11

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#10 2007-11-06 18:34:43

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#11 2007-11-07 05:47:11

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#12 2007-11-08 22:47:33

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#13 2007-11-08 23:46:25

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#14 2007-11-09 00:48:47

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#15 2007-11-13 08:04:03

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#16 2007-11-13 15:54:10

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#17 2008-04-27 15:37:08

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#18 2008-05-03 15:02:29

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#19 2008-05-03 15:19:05

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#20 2008-05-08 08:56:11

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#21 2008-05-19 05:49:51

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

#22 2008-05-19 19:39:39

Re: Linux desktop enviroments with different way of doing things?

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