A Norsified Linux for Windows and OS X wobblers

First things first: the name. The next Elementary OS was codenamed Isis – as in the Egyptian goddess of magic and life. That was until Islamic State became a thing and the distro’s team decided such associations were unwanted. Now it’s Freya, as in the Norse goddess of love and, er, war. Conflict aside, what a nice update to …

[Destroy All Monsters]

The feel of a pig in a cage on antibiotics is kept alive by cozy words

I was wise to not use ISIS because, well, Murrica.

However expect moral panic about nazi terror being unleashed by Tea Partiers deploying Freya Desktops to plan bomings in the US in a minute or two. Because, Linux is anarchist, thus potential terrorist, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The feel of a pig in a cage on antibiotics is kept alive by cozy words

The turrists have won. They have destroyed our worship of the fertility goddess Isis. Now we must support the fertility goddess Freyja.

[Kubla Cant]

Re: The feel of a pig in a cage on antibiotics is kept alive by cozy words

Tea Partiers deploying Freya Desktops

In the olden days, when people used to give meaningful names to servers, our first generation of Vaxes were all named after Greek gods such as Zeus, Juno and Ares*.

When the time came to replace these, we decided to use the names of Nordic gods, so we had Odin, Thor and, yes, Freya. Whereupon people started to say the IT department was staffed by Nazis.

* This was in the days of terminal servers, which were called Melpomene, Terpsichore, Calliope, Euterpe... after the Muses.

[DropBear]

Re: The feel of a pig in a cage on antibiotics is kept alive by cozy words

Well, you could always have gone the OpenStreetMap way - all their servers are named after dragons...

[SoaG]

Re: OpenStreetMap

Heh.So basically saying 'Here be dragons'.

I approve this nod to ancient map making tradition.

[GuildenNL]

Re: The feel of a pig in a cage on antibiotics is kept alive by cozy words

True story: twenty years ago I joined a new employer who named their Unix servers after the planets. Earth was training, Venus was primary, etc.

I received a call from an effeminate IT admin who proceeded to declare "I need your permission to back up Uranus, I've been wanting to do that for so long!"

My response was "Can we start pronouncing it Yerunus instead of YourAnus?"

[Tom 38]

<i<Freya is fast, so fast you might walk away wondering why GNOME 3 and Unity, which both have much bigger development teams, aren't this fast. </i>

Asked and answered? Freya is simpler and does less, GNOME 3 and Unity are complex and do more. Doing more takes longer.

There was a point when Firefox was a fast and efficient web browser - when it was called Phoenix 0.1 and just rendered web pages. Now it has UI magic menus though!

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

Yeah, one suspects fewer paths mean the code can be better optimised by the developers, the compiler and the CPU. But that's only a guess.

[Mage]

Bottom Dock/Panel

Why is everyone copying Apple's stupid dock?

With screens wider than tall (and currently only best suited for video) such a panel is best at the side.

For about 18 hours a day my desktop has full height of screen documents / windows open that are NEVER full width. I watch laptop video in a window (if at all), or for really watching and relaxing, I watch video in the Lounge on big TV (optionally fed from HDMI Media PC (or phone) or VGA netbook (or Laptop))

I have an auto hide/display side panel. ONE of them. So much UI design seems just glossier and prettier but backwards in useabily compared with best 1978 to 1998 designs.

But then I have actually been designing UI and GUI since 1986

[Graham 24]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

>>> So much UI design seems just glossier and prettier but backwards in useabily compared with best 1978 to 1998 designs.

So presumably, you now "design" interfaces that look just like the ones from the 1980's? After all, they are much more usable, apparently. Care to give us an example of one you've designed?

[Tom 38]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

So presumably, you now "design" interfaces that look just like the ones from the 1980's?

The Apple style is a blatant rip-off of CDE - everyone loves CDE.

[Tridac]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

Right - first thing I thought of on seeing that was cde. Back in 1995, fast and effective on the machines of the time.

What goes around comes around...

[Mage]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel (Like ones from the 1980's)

That would be an illogical conclusion.

1) I don't design desktops

2) complete UIs I've designed are for 1 x line text, 2 x line text, 64 x 128 1 bit graphic and 320x240 colour with custom buttons & Keypads, sometimes physical buttons labelled by screen.

3) Desktop Applications without stupid impossible to understand icons or daft ribbons, but intuitive

4) Sensible navigation, layout, icons and search Web sites

5) UI for gadgets with no display panel

Been on the mailing list from this guru since forever

Nielsen Norman Group

Don't agree with everything but a lot of common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel (Like ones from the 1980's) @Mage

Like the guru site and particularly like the article "Search Is Not Enough: Synergy Between Navigation and Search" which has applicability beyond websites. Without mentioning specific software products it is a damming indictment of some company's obsession with search rather than navigation and hence helps to explain why users have reacted the way they have to the latest release of their flagship product and gone out and installed products that assist navigation.

I hate to tell you this, but this bit of text is hard to parse on my return from the pub. Is there any way you can sprinkle some full stops, commas and -daringly- even some semi colons? I'm being gentle here - I'm not even asking for REAL colons, just semi ones.

[Roland6]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel (Like ones from the 1980's) @Mage

Strange, I don't understand why I didn't put the punctuation in - as I did it before having a few beers can't use that as an excuse... Any how a repost; hopefully with greater clarity:

I liked the guru site and particularly the article "Search Is Not Enough: Synergy Between Navigation and Search", which has applicability beyond websites. Without actually mentioning Windows 8, the article is a damming indictment of the obsession with search as the way to look up applications rather than navigation. It hence helps to explain why many users reacted negatively and sought out products that assisted navigation (eg. Classic Shell, Start8 etc.).

[Aside: I've withdrawn the original post, since it serves no purpose now.]

[frank ly]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

I have a 'pop-out' top panel with my favourite applications on it and a pop-out side panel with my favourite folders, including network storage locations. I also have a fixed 'system panel' on the bottom, because I like to think I know what's going on all the time. This is the arrangement I've used since the old XP days (a pox on Windows 7!!) and I've no intention of changing it. Modern UIs, bah, humbug!

[jb99]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

I think user interface designers collectively went insane about 5 years ago and it's just getting worse.

[MissingSecurity]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

"I think user interface designers collectively went insane about 5 years ago and it's just getting worse."

I think its because at some point a bunch of managers thought the Graphics Designer and the GUI designer should be the same person, and what we get is hit or miss.

[ecofeco]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

"I think user interface designers collectively went insane about 5 years ago and it's just getting worse."

They've always been insane. Now it's just worse.

[Colin Ritchie]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

In OS X you can have the dock left or right mounted too, it is just at the bottom by default. Like the new Linux flavour, I might even build one one day.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

Not only, as Colin Ritchie wrote, can one move the OS X dock. One can make it auto-hide too and, of course, change size, behaviour and so on.

I suppose it is being copied because it is rather good and, let^s face it, alternatives are limited on a rectangular, two-dimensional screen.

I note that Elementary describes itsefl as a design-driven distribution - much like OS X is, in the eyes of many. This makes a lot of sense as users intereact with the design.

Anyway, after working on Linux hosts much of the day, with Windows for all the non-technical stuff and Solaris for the rest of the time I am very happy to get home to OS X, with its excellent BSD termina/shell interface and the ability to mix with X11 twm and the standard OS X windows.. I do use windows and Linux on virtual machines to remind me why I prefer OS X/BSD. But Elementary does look rather nice.

As for Isis: I still think first of the River Isis (Thames). I think the violent Near East version does not even call itself ISIS any more. It's this pandering to the latest scare that is the biggest victory of such groups - our normal lives and behaviour are disrupted even when nowhere near the direct cause.

[Michael Thibault]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

"Plank"!? WTF? Looks supiciously famil... Oh! Don't mention OS X. Or the war.

>In OS X you can have the dock left or right mounted too

In OS X, you can have the dock left-, right-, or even top-mounted, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

Cool story, bro. Ever considered that other people might use their computers differently?

Everything full screen, multiple monitors, Alt-Tab to task switch between the tasks in hand, and dive down to the hidden dock to pull up anything that's not been used in a while.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

Why is everyone copying Apple's stupid dock?

With screens wider than tall (and currently only best suited for video) such a panel is best at the side.

Apple didn't start this AFAIK, but your argument makes sense - to a point. I personally prefer it at the bottom because it's below my visual radar, whereas on the side it is distractingly in view.

There is, however, no reason at all why I cannot be bolted somewhere else, it is sane to assume it's something that can be adjusted. Their name "Planck" rather amuses me, as "plank" means "shelf" in Dutch, nicely to the point :).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

"Why is everyone copying Apple's stupid dock?"

You know that Apple's "stupid" dock is easily set to auto hide and therefore doesn't occupy any desktop space at all, right?

You know that it can also be configured to display vertically instead of across the bottom?

Same as the "Stupid" windows taskbar really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

"...such a panel is best at the side."

So you know exactly how I and everyone else like our desktops? I have two 28" widescreens and being human and a creature of habit I have tried moving my XFCE dock about and I always come back to it being most comfortable on the left screen, dead centre and in popup on demand. I've coded on CDE desktop, another that keeps a centre screen dock so perhaps that's something to do with it. I've coded on Windows from Windows286 upwards, right through the whole Start menu of W95 and onwards, I got used to the START button on the lower left. Despite now having over 50" of screen width I still find that little dock to be most comfortable lower left and hidden.

[Pet Peeve]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

The first thing I do on a new mac is move the dock to the right edge of my rightmost display, and then start up Tinkertool so that the dock's bottom edge is pinned to the bottom right of the screen (one checkbox, tinkertool is great). I don't know who's dumb idea it was that the trash move with the rest of the dock and not be in a corner so it's easy to drag to, but this fixes it perfectly, and it also makes the dock grow vertically only. Much nicer, especially with multiple displays so it's there when you need it, but mostly out of the way.

[proud2bgrumpy]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

Yep - the NavBar on all my Windows machines since Win95 is on the Right Hand Side - best use of screen size/shape - especially now since all screens have stupid shiny widescreens

[RegKees]

Re: Bottom Dock/Panel

OS X's Dock can be put on either side of the screen instead of the bottom through a simple right click setting. Surely any Linux version has that option too.

[Mage]

ISIS?

I used ISIS II, a sort of CP/M clone in 1983 on an Intel Development system. Seemed a strange name for a Linux project in the first place.

[DJV]

Some direct links to it would have been nice!

http://elementaryos.org/journal/freya-beta-1-available-for-developers-testers

[Ole Juul]

Strange habits

You can of course, right click on a title bar and minimise windows that way, but the absence of a minimise button mars what I would otherwise consider perhaps the most new-user-friendly Linux desktop available right now.

There is no need to minimize on a modern computer. Move along your desktops and leave everything running that you usually use. Minimizing serves no practical purpose. Perhaps this is an old habit from the Windows 3.1 days?

[Roland6]

Re: Strange habits

Minimizing predates Win3, it is the manifestation of the habit of a "clear desk" where everything is put back to its 'correct' place and so is to hand. The problem with "move along" is whilst some can handle it - try using multiple physical desks, many find it simpler to use just the one desk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Strange habits

IMHO, there is no need to MAXIMISE everything. I hate it when I see people do that on any screen over 15" and then use a button bar to switch - it screws up the whole principle of a desktop with sheets you move around. Brrrr. I need a beer now.

[Roland6]

Re: Strange habits

>IMHO, there is no need to MAXIMISE everything.

>I always maximise as much as I can.

I suspect people's preference is largely dictated by the combination of activity, applications, screen (aspect ratio, resolution and physical size) and device (laptop, desktop or tablet) being used. I certainly find that my normal mode of operation will vary, so on a 4:3 display I will tend to use Word in full screen mode, whereas on an 8:5 or 16:9 display I'll use a window that will comfortably display an A4 page at 100% scale, leaving space to the side for other key application(s) to be partially visible.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Strange habits

I always maximise as much as I can. It's a far more optimal way of working.

I always do X, because it's so prima facie optimal that I don't even need to present an argument in its favor, and anyone who doesn't do things my way is an idiot.

[Barry Rueger]

Re: Strange habits

Count me among those who cannot understand why some designers INSIST on moving or removing more or less universally standard features.

Maximize/Minimize buttons are one. Moving them from the left to the right hand side without an obvious and simple way of changing it back is another.

Despite what a lot of younguns might believe, there are some things in computing UI that really have, if not matured, at least have become defacto standards.

Just because you and your mates think some new idea is super cool doesn't mean that world plus dog wants to deal with it.

(That goes double for inventing your own inscrutable icon set.)

[t.est]

Re: Strange habits

Minimizing has never been practical in any system, just as fullscreen is a waste of multitasking power of our brain.

But then Windows users never really understood how a computer should be used.

[wolfetone]

6 Months Worth of Use

I've used Elementary OS Freya for over 6 months, and I'd like to share my experience here so you can make a more informed choice.

Short answer is: wait until it comes out of Beta. It's not stable.

In the office environment I have, it's predominantly Windows PC's and Servers that make up the infrastructure. Myself and my assistant both run Linux. Up until I used Elementary, I used to run Debian 7 until I had a period of downtime where by I could afford to try another Linux distro out. I chose Elementary based on a glowing reference from a friend of mine who was trying it out. At this point I must add that this same person used Elementary for a month and switched back to Windows.

At the beginning, it worked absolutely fine. Fairly speedy, fairly easy to use, very Mac OS X like in the way things are laid out and designed.

The mail client (Geary) is lovely. Very simple and elegant - but would not work with my Exchange email account. In this case I had to switch to Thunderbird, and it works fine. Midori is the same, looked alright but it was an absolute pain to give it Flash support. I'm not even sure it has it even now, as I installed Firefox and have used that ever since.

The chinks in the armour start to appear about 2/3 months in to using Elementary. What started out as a rare event, but now happens increasingly often, the file manager wouldn't list the folders held on our Windows server. This meant a reboot of the system. Furthermore, the system will, at points, crash/hang. Doesn't happen often, but if it does happen it happens when the machine first starts up.

What has to be remembered with this distribution is that it's in Beta, so these issues are to be expected. However, I feel the beta period is too long for something that is given out as something that can be used by the general public. It'd be far better to still use Luna as a finished product and wait for Freya, but I'm not in charge of their development cycle.It's also worth noting that my assistants Debian 7 installation (which is essentially my old desktop) has not put a foot wrong.

I want to like Elementary, I really do, but it's just not that stable for me to have full confidence using it. I'm stuck with it now until at least January while I finish off another project, but after this I will resort back to using Debian 7.

So, please take my thoughts in to consideration when you're chosing your Linux Distro. Get Debian.

[keithpeter]

Re: 6 Months Worth of Use

"Get Debian."

@wolfetone

Debian stable, sure, fully agree. But you are not comparing like with like. Jessie/Testing will be 'fun' after the freeze early Nov (depending). Not for production!

Just booted elementaryOS off a live ISO dd'ed onto an old USB stick. Looks very nice, but, as you say, definitely beta.

[wolfetone]

Re: 6 Months Worth of Use

Well there was a few ways I could've gone about it, you're quite right regarding Jessie and that should be the basis for the comparison, but I haven't used Jessie. Always mean to do so but never find the time.

The one thing I love more than anything is Pantheon (the Elementary OS GUI). It's lovely, slightly buggy, but nice. I'd love it on top of my Debian install.

And I'm glad you agree regarding it definitely being beta - now imagine me using that between the hours of 9am to 6pm Mon - Fri for 6 months doing work. It mostly works, it just happens to screw up on the days when the whole world is imploding around me!

[keithpeter]

Re: 6 Months Worth of Use

"And I'm glad you agree regarding it definitely being beta - now imagine me using that between the hours of 9am to 6pm Mon - Fri for 6 months doing work. It mostly works, it just happens to screw up on the days when the whole world is imploding around me!"

I do try out testing/sid/unstable releases on an old laptop that I use for typing notes on the train. I have a live USB stick with Debian stable in the bag for emergencies so I can get to files on the hard drive and use an RDP session to talk to the work box. I also play around with distros on a spare 2.5" drive. I use recycled Thinkpads and spare caddies are a fiver. Unscrew one screw, pop the drive out, pop the other one in, and you are away.

[Norm DePlume]

A good Freya's Day article.

Bizarrely it's Saturn's day tomorrow.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: A good Freya's Day article.

..and coincidently, we just had Thors Day and Wodens Day

[James 47]

I think it looks crap

Why are the icons so massive? Linux desktops always love to waste screen real-estate.

[MD Rackham]

Re: I think it looks crap

Most likely because whoever did the screenshot wanted them to show up and chose large icons and/or a small screen size. Maybe because they've seen too many press release screenshots that are utterly illegible.

And perhaps, like OS X, the icon size is selectable?

[Anonymous Coward]

You lost me at "no minimize button"

Arrrgh.

I agree with the earlier poster - why not just use Debian (or my favorite openSUSE) with a much more mature desktop like KDE or XFCE? Is eye candy really that important?

Even Ubuntu has a minimize button now, and was very slick last time I tried it.

[Chika]

Re: You lost me at "no minimize button"

To an extent, I agree. I like KDE and don't really have much inclination to move.

I'm not in full agreement, however, and here's why. I use KDE3. Not 4. I do not like the direction that KDE are going in and for that reason I like to see what else is out there, whether it's betas like this or slightly more mature stuff like Cinnamon.

I like some of what this GUI has to offer but I'm not sure if they are necessarily going the right way either. I do like that they are trying though. If nothing else, it may eventually show developers at KDE or GNOME the error of their ways. Or not.

[Matt Bryant]

".....builds on Ubuntu 14.04....."

So why not just use Ubuntu? Or Lubuntu if you have an older PC (runs like a dream even on first generation P4s). AFAICS, Elementary adds little - if anything - of real value and removes the stability that Ubuntu is known for.

[Anonymous Coward]

Elementary a nice combined window bar/title bar that saves a bit of space and looks great

Yeah, sure, if you only EVER want to do one thing at a time.

[tempemeaty]

I see mostly good here

I see what they are doing with this Linux. They get what Apple has done. For most average people their computer is their desk on screen. It seems this distro gets together all the basic needs that most average people use the computer for.

Having a stand alone calendar app is smart. Having to use a calendar within another software like an email client is always a pain when what you are really scheduling is your meat space appointments and daily reminders that have nothing to do with email. It's amazing how a stand alone calendar makes it easier.

Adding complimentary basic text program and basic image viewer is just in keeping it all a fast and efficient experience.

If they part from Gnome and others to create a good fast OS then I support that effort too. Sometimes you just have to do some things yourself. Relying on UI's by others can disrupt your own distro and the screw your users around. Mint and Ubuntu learned this.

I'm really glad to be informed about this version of Linux and look forward to giving it a go.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wow - another Linux distro?

I'm so glad Open Source developers don't waste their valuable talents and time developing applications. Another Linux distro is just what we need!

[Anonymous Coward]

Freya fail

Gave the Freya distro a spin from a live USB key. US keyboard map was automatically selected even though my laptop uses a UK layout. Attempted to access the layout control panel from the icon in the top right met with no response. OK, let's go through Settings -> Keyboard. Selected UK layout, but keys still set up for US map according to the little test box.

Typical Linux distro fail!

[Anonymous Coward]

Elementary OS is the best Linux Desktop period.

The author, like many on the topic, is a bit misguided, so let's be clear; Elementary OS is now, without question, the best Linux desktop in existence, period. Not just for "new users" and not just for "low hardware" but it quite literally blows away virtually every other linux desktop in exitence, and by a farily wide margin.

As for elementary's competition? In my experience, Ubuntu has turned into little more than glorified adware courtesy of Amazon, with crazy crap all over the useless Unity Lens and spyware defaults...vile...

KDE is...fine, if you have a Core i7 with 4-8 gigs of RAM, and even then, it's a sausage approach to UX design, throw everything in there!

Both Unity and KDE miss what makes Linux a compelling proposition, namely, the ability to run a secure OS on limited hardware specs with a clean pleasant design.

Elementary is the most useable current desktop environment in Open Source, and the current stable release Luna basically flies on 2-5 year old hardware. It also does what GNOME used to do before their developers went insane, copy the functionality of Mac OS. I have an ASUS laptop I bought designed to run with ubuntu, swapped it out with elementaryOS and I have to say, it's a revelation, it's like walking out of the muck of bad UX ideas now in vogue (looking at you GNOME 3.x and Unity) and into an effortless, easy-to-use desktop environment utopia.

I agree with the author, the default apps are insane, but it's easy enough to swap out the defaults with mozilla, thunderbird, libreoffice, etc.

So in summary, if you want to use Linux, and need a functional desktop rather than developer pr0n, elementary is far and away the best choice. This is what makes Linux and open source great, that a tiny group of developers can achive in a couple of years what a heavily financially backed Canonical couldn't in a decade, namely, a great UX.

[sola]

Re: Elementary OS is the best Linux Desktop period.

I have no experience with Elementary buth have the same feeling when comparing Linux Mint Cinnamon to the rest of the desktop crowd.

[Grepnix]

Re: Elementary OS is the best Linux Desktop period.

"KDE is...fine, if you have a Core i7 with 4-8 gigs of RAM, and even then, it's a sausage approach to UX design, throw everything in there!"

KDE4 runs just fine on any hardware from the last few years. My main laptop is an i3 with 4gb and intel graphics. Hardly, state of the art but it runs Debian Wheezy KDE like a dream. I've got other machines of far less spec that run reasonably well to. As for KDE throwing everything in there? Thats one of the reasons I like it and will continue to use, what for me is the best desktop environment out there.