Elementary OS 0.3.2 "Freya" Released 86
linuxscreenshot writes: Just in time for the holidays, it's a new release of elementary OS. Freya 0.3.2 is a minor release, mostly focused around solving some issues folks have had with UEFI & SecureBoot, but we've also managed to sneak in some internationalization updates and a couple new features. Screenshots are available.
Now THIS is more like it. (Score:3, Interesting)
elementary OS with the dark theme is probably the most aesthetically beautiful operating system I have ever seen.
This is the OS I'm going to dump Windows for. Great job elementary LLC! Keep it up.
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I guess some people care how it looks: I forgot that was something to consider when picking a desktop environment (I'm not going to call it an OS).
Wow, I guess I'm a bit disconnected to actually not realize people might care about the aesthetics: that should have been obvious. I'm one of those wacky people with javascript turned off who is used to broken web UI everywhere, and happy in a terminal. I Pick my theme based on how annoying it is in a dark room. For most stuff for me its first priority is transpa
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You're way more than "a bit"' disconnected.
Re:Now THIS is more like it. (Score:5, Funny)
You're way more than "a bit"' disconnected.
a byte ?
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Word.
Re:Now THIS is more like it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. This is a true contender, like Ubuntu in 2006. I dropped windows for Ubuntu then, but was sad to go back around 2010 when Ubuntu and Gnome went off the UI deep-end. This could bring Linux back to the nerd desktop.
It's also a sad state of affairs that this really cool attempt at a usable Linux gets downvoted on /. nowadays. How I long for the slashdot where four or five actual users and maybe a core developer would be here...
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if i was sure they wouldn't abandon it in 6 months, i'd install this on my sister's laptop. she's been on ubuntu or derivatives for about 7 years but keeps quietly coveting her colleagues' osx's looks. this really is a rather presentable UI.
Pear OS before it had the looks but closed up shop after a year or so. Pear OS looked TOO MUCH like osx. i felt it would make people think one actually wanted to have osx but couldn't afford it.
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Well, not that this means it will necessarily be around at any given time in the future, but I've been using Elementary on my most-used desktop system (well, OK, a perma-docked laptop) for at least 6 months, so there's at least some track record ...
I have some minor quibbles with it (have had the occasional strangeness with printing, and my 2d monitor gets a bit wonky sometimes), but overall am very pleased with Elementary; it does a better job of "it just works" than most systems I've used before of any ki
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That's a bummer, I don't have any other kind.
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You are disparaging an OS that allows you to choose between a palette of colors, while appearing to promote in its stead an OS that only allows one color option.
Dump windows? WTF? (Score:2)
> This is the OS I'm going to dump Windows for.
I hate MS. I am using FreeBSD.
But to dump windows because you like the look of the interface of a Linux distro makes no sense at all.
When I run Windows, it is because Windows runs the apps that FreeBSD won't. Or, in rare cases, because windows works with the hardware that FreeBSD won't.
Heh, "OS" (Score:1, Insightful)
It's a fucking Linux distro, not a distinct operating system. Nothing wrong with posting articles about distro releases (Mint had one recently) but it's pretentious to think it's anything but a nicely-wrapped Linux distribution that I'd imagine still guilt-trips the user if they try to download an ISO without paying for it.
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Anyone who has not heard of it (clearly at least 90% of the /. users, never mind the rest of the universe),
would assume from the article this is actually a new OS - in the sense that it is not Plan 9, Windows,
Unix, VMS, or WindRiver (OK, I do admin others exist, but you get the point),
not in the sense "Linux with a slightly different theme on top", or "yet another BSD".
Linuxscreenshot fully deserves any tongue-lashing he/she/it gets.
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> A Linux distribution is an operating system, dumbass.
But is a distro, not a distinct distribution. Which is exactly what was claimed by the post you rudely replied to.
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> distro" is short for "distribution".
I know. I meant to post: But it is a distro, not a distinct operating system.
My bad for not proof reading.
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YALD - Yet Another Linux Distro. yawn. Distrowatch lists a couple of them per day, often more - and that barely touches the seething haystack of distro overchoice. I have to wonder what some of these distros offer in terms of actual usability and applications for doing real work, beyond just the skins, themes and icon candy. Hmm, that would reduce the list of viable distros from a couple of thousand to I guess 5 or 6.
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Yet Another Ubuntu Derivative.
Re:Heh, "OS" (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, I played around with it a bit and it's, in a word "nice". It's really nice. It's Oh-my-God-this-thing-is-nice nice. It's probably the distro now I'd demo to someone who was curious about Linux.
Linux enthusiasts are all about power. To us power equals simplicity; it really is so much easier to open a terminal and type "sudo apt-get install blech" than it is to slash our way through some kind of stupid app-store GUI. So we tolerate a lot of crap in GUIs; ugly, bad layout, lousy typography, idiotically convoluted design, because we implicitly expect GUIs to be badly designed crap. Nice isn't even on our punch list, but don't knock it until you've tried it.
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It depends if Ubuntu includes it.
Except for the root distributions like RedHat, SUSE, and Debian, the rest are just different glosses and colors of lipstick.
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Uhh, you missed Slackware, which blah blah blah
He said like Red Hat, SUSE & Debian. That means that these three are examples, not the canonical list.
Seems like you don't know much about reading comprehension at all.
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Uhh, you missed Slackware, which blah blah blah
He said like Red Hat, SUSE & Debian. That means that these three are examples, not the canonical list.
Seems like you don't know much about reading comprehension at all.
Spoken as a dedicated Nazi supporter of Systemd no doubt. ALL hail the new and mighty conqueror of common sense and sysv. Rather difficult putting the boots to Patrick though he seems to be able to keep Slackware very mean, lean, reliable, smokin' fast and rock solid security wise without the sysd Nazi's telling him how to set up a distro. I still love being able to tweek my os and you guys are dumbing down linux just so it can become mainstream. Give Patrick credit his creation has been around since the o
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Spoken as a dedicated Nazi supporter of Systemd no doubt.
WOW! Talk about leaping to wholly unwarranted conclusions on zero fucking evidence!!!
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I see Old Greybeard Sys Admin who can't evolve with the times. The old "Get off my lawn" and "Walked up hill in the snow ... both directions" type. People ranting about this or that changing and how it SUCKS DONKEY BALLS is nothing more than this.
I swore when I was younger (in the 90s) I wouldn't become one of those old fart Greybeards I was making fun of. Now that my beard is greying more each passing day, I still refuse to become irrelevant by grasping to my dying death the very things I grew up with, sim
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My point is, the world changes, adapt and move on.
Are you sure that you're replying to the correct comments? Maybe OP is who you really want to vent your spleen at?
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Spoken like a true systemd shill.
Never mind whether systemd is a good idea, or not. Just launch a series of ad hominem attacks against systemd critic.
Forget logic, just call names.
Can you give me a good reason that the UNIX philosophy, and POSIX, have become bad ideas?
Re: Does it include systemd? (Score:5, Funny)
That almost sounded like that old Apple ad...
"Here’s to the crazy ones. The nerds. The malfaisants. The socially inept. The pedophiles and terrorist sympathizers. The ones who see things differently."
This makes me furious (Score:1)
This flood of discussion about stuff I only have a passing curiosity about means I miss things that are actually really cool. Why am I just now learning about Alpine?!
Alpine looks like exactly what I've wanted dozens of times over the years and my favorite minimal hardened distros all seemed to disappear so I've been falling back to minimal RHEL/CentOS systems when I could have been using something designed to be secure and minimal, like I want, for five years!
Thanks other AC for mentioning it. Better late
Yes, it includes systemd? (Score:2)
Not sure why people are so reluctant to simply answer the question.
Practically all Linux distros include system. Only a few small, obscure, distros do not include systemd.
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You are correct.
FWIW: I am replying to you from my ex-Debian, now FreeBSD, box.
About Elementary (Score:5, Interesting)
Since I couldn't find it on their site (I had to head over to Wikipedia to find out) I figured I should post it here:
Elementary is a Linux distribution (Its based on Ubuntu). I was looking around for an FAQ, or their source code, or the license, what ABIs it supports (aka what runs on it) and couldn't find anything on their site other than stuff about how to make good UIs. I think they suck at their main goal.
ProTip: that icon in the top left of your pages: I had no idea it was a link. The web has standard styles for links, use them! Also, have an about page that says what the project is and why it exists. Your developer page should mention its Linux based, and some info about porting stuff to it, how you manage packages, what licences you like to use, and link to some source, it appears to do none of those things.
So far I believe Elementary is all about making UIs where I can't tell whats a link, does not fit on my 1440 pixels of vertical space without pages of scrolling, and does not give me any of the things I want. Is there anything good about it, or is it just the Windows 8 style take on linux: new UI because shiny is shiny?
I only looked into it because I'm interested in OS design. I was wondering it it was a microkernel or not, what licence its under, what security models it has etc. Instead I get a nearly useless pretty looking web site and another Ubuntu mod claiming to be the future. Not interested. It would be nice of the summery made it clear what this linux distro claiming to an OS was, especially since the site is trying to hide it.
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Re:About Elementary (Score:5, Informative)
Mint is the bomb. Having used Linux on the desktop for about 10 years now (since the original ubuntu release) I'm very impressed with it. It... just works. always. Never had an update break something unexpectedly, which is a Linux first for me.
Never had to manually (re)configure X after installing or updating whatever, which is a first, too.
Never had to fiddle with boot settings after updates.
I upgraded major versions with only the smallest of issues. Usually on other distributions that leads to all the things above.
In fact, the biggest problem I have with it, is the default green/silver color scheme.
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Mint is the bomb. Having used Linux on the desktop for about 10 years now (since the original ubuntu release) I'm very impressed with it. It... just works. always. Never had an update break something unexpectedly, which is a Linux first for me.
Never had to manually (re)configure X after installing or updating whatever, which is a first, too.
Never had to fiddle with boot settings after updates.
I upgraded major versions with only the smallest of issues. Usually on other distributions that leads to all the things above.
In fact, the biggest problem I have with it, is the default green/silver color scheme.
Mageia also provides these same features for an RPM-based distro. Stable. Just works. Looks good. Broad hardware support. Easy upgrades.
https://www.mageia.org/en/5/
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Lubuntu is your friend. LXDE is lightweight but easily customizable. If you have older hardware it's plenty fast and it is blisteringly fast on new hardware. It's pretty tightly put together. The default software choices aren't bad but they're trivial to change. The UI is intuitive and you get access to the vast Ubuntu ecosystem by default. It's dead simple to install, repair, and maintain. It's as secure as you're likely to get with the effort you put into it. With repositories and the likes, updating is t
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Our code is available for review, scrutiny, modification, and redistribution by anyone. Learn More [elementary.io]
And:
"We're built on Linux: the same software powering the U.S Department of Defense, the Bank of China, and more."
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Good luck (Score:2)
trying to run it under Virtual Box.
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what's the point? (Score:3)
It seems like another lightweight Ubuntu variant. Doesn't Xubuntu have that area covered adequately? I mean, if people have fun doing this, good for them, but from the point of view of Ubuntu distributions, it just seems a bit redundant.
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On the list of requirements for a desktop, "beautiful" is fairly low for most people.
And instead of making a new "OS" or even messing with the desktop infrastructure, why not just come up with better themes and theme engines for one of the existing desktops? XFCE, for example, could benefit from such contributions but is technically already established and widely used.
Sherlock Holmes response (Score:2)
"Elementary, My Dear Watson!"
GNOME Skinjob? (Score:1)
Is it just me or are those screenshots incredibly close to GNOME with some new design slapped on top?
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No they don't. They're cargo cult programmers.
Beauty = copy Apple aesthetics? (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically, it might be a good OS for the specific niche goal of needing Linux to wear the flesh of OS X, but beyond that, it's nothing special.
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It's not even a convincing clone of OS X. It has a passing similarity but beyond that the two aren't even remotely the same. There's far more to how OS X looks and feels beyond a dock and left-hand window buttons. This distro epitomizes cargo cult programming.
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I don't find it very mac-like either, but that's not necessarily a flaw. There's a lot of things I don't like about the Mac OSX GUI, starting with the stupid dock, which violates all the pre-MacOS X apple design guidelines; it's just shiny crap as far as I'm concerned; sure it works but it functions less well than the things it replaced.
The essential, most important element of the Mac interface, pretty much since the original Mac 128K, is the way menus are handled, and ElementaryOS does not copy that. St
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Er... copying the aesthetics is more likely to yield a beautiful result than copying the mechanics of the user interface -- not that they went very far on this other than the dock. I've been messing around with elementaryOS on parallels on my MacBook Pro and in fact I think the basic shell looks nicer than the Mac.
As far as the office suite, well, it's an Ubuntu derived Linux; it has all the usual Linux office suite offerings: LibreOffice, Gnumeric, Abiword, Calligra, etc., plus the usual geeky oddballs li
Poser OS (Score:1)