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GUI Software Linux

MiniGui, GPL'ed Qt/Embedded Alternative 105

Posted by michael from the smaller-than-your-average-gui dept.
joshmccormack writes "MiniGui, a GUI for embedded Linux devices that offers a GPL alternative to QT/Embedded and other embedded guis has become a 'stable, viable alternative,' according to a recent Linux Devices article. Lots of screenshots on their site, including PDA apps, a web browser and a virtual console."
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MiniGui, GPL'ed Qt/Embedded Alternative More

MiniGui, GPL'ed Qt/Embedded Alternative

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  • This is an interesting delevopment in the linux-pda saga,
    will Pda's have linux preinstalled in a couple of years time? Probably not, but we can dream.

    • Re:Pdas (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rastakid ( 648791 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @07:14AM (#7189079) Homepage Journal
      Ever heard about the Sharp Zaurus? The Zaurus series have Linux pre-installed. I own a SL-5500, and I'm really glad with it. I can do everything on it what I can do on PocketPC (including Word and Excell) + much and much more. Take a look at the Zaurus Software Index [killefiz.de] to see it for yourself.

      - rastakid
    • will Pda's have linux preinstalled in a couple of years time? Probably not, but we can dream.

      wow, you must have lived in a cave for the past 3 years.

      I've had a linux PDA for 2 now... and yes when I opened the box it magically had linux on it...

      It's called a Sharp Zaurus 5500. and you can buy one for dirt ($199.00US) most anywhere now.. in fact a couple of guys at work got them from tiger direct lately...
      • Please tell me where I can sell dirt for $200, I sense an easy way to make lots of money easily.

        *resists urge to turn this into a PROFIT!!! post*
      • It's called a Sharp Zaurus 5500. and you can buy one for dirt ($199.00US) most anywhere now.. in fact a couple of guys at work got them from tiger direct lately...

        Then they got a good deal...the cheapest price for any Zaurus (5500 or otherwise) is ~$250usd though the average price is over $300.

        AFAICT Tiger doesn't sell them anymore.

  • What about wxWindows? (Score:2, Informative)

    by csirac ( 574795 )
    wxwindows [wxwindows.org]
  • "Minigui [216.239.59.104] a GUI for embedded Linux devices that offers a GPL alternative to QT/Embedded and other embedded guis has become a 'stable, viable alternative,' according to a recent Linux Devices article [216.239.59.104]. Lots of screenshots [216.239.59.104] on their site, including PDA apps, a web browser and a virtual console."

  • wow (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by spoonist ( 32012 )

    www.minigui.org must be running on a uClinux-based web server! There are only four comments here and the site is already Slashdotted.

    Go here [google.com] for the Google cached version.

  • Unfortunatly it seems that MiniGui was running on a MiniServer :o\

    Google cache here: http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:kHpwvk7mvSgJ: www.minigui.org/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 [slashdot.org]
  • I've managed to check the screenshots before the /. effect, and I can say that I'm impressed, this GUI looks pretty well, and I think it's easier to deal with than the current GUI in Linux based PDAs, I can't actually say more since I haven't tested it yet, but it looks promising nonetheless.
  • It was featured a little while ago. It's a replacement for X, the window manager and the toolkit for today's lighter, more active PDA lifestyle.

    See here [picogui.org] but it's currently down. Head on over to #picogui on irc.slashnet.org for more info until the site comes back up.

  • GPL Alternative to Qt/Embeddded? (Score:3, Informative)

    by jryland ( 75607 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <dnalyrj>> on Saturday October 11, 2003 @07:17AM (#7189081) Homepage

    Is this to imply Qt/Embedded is not GPL?

    Shouldn't it say, "an alternative to Qt/Embedded that is also available under GPL terms" ?

    Qt/Embedded is dual licensed with the GPL being an avaiable way to license it. IMHO there is no need for an alternative that is an alternative just because it is GPL, Qt/Embedded is good enough.

    John
  • I don't think its wise to keep creating one embedded GUI after another. There is already Qte, NanoX, NanoGTK, DirectFB, and wxWindows that I can think of off the top of my head. I know people are going to reply to this about how great it is to have choices. But in this area as in desktops it would be wise to settle on one project, put everyone's effort behind, get good hardware support and a develop a full set of consistent apps, in other words do it well instead of having a dozen half baked efforts non
    • And you suggest enforcing this how, exactly?

      It's always the same thing: "We all need to get behind _one_ XYZ, lest users get confused and developers split their work". But never a thought on how to decide which XYZ to get behind, and how to enforce the ban on rival XYZ:s.

      Some will refuse to use Qt, since they feel the license is not open enough, or not enough good language bindings exist. Others will balk at anything based on GTK, since they feel those people are mutant commie traitors for refusing to bac
      • Perhaps he was assuming that the rationalisation effort would be rational?

        E.g. a set of requirements gathered based on usage scenarios then prioritized based on popularity and a solution meeting as many of those requirements as possible designed and implemented.

        Irrational developers can have their own project - I hear Mono [go-mono.org] could use more help ;-)
        • Wait a minute... You want open-source developers to sit though months of requirements and design meetings that go nowhere before writing any code, work on projects they don't like, which are led by people they don't like, for a platform they don't care about, all while neglecting their pet projects they think would be more fun? I hope they're getting paid for this, because it sounds a lot like work! Open-source isn't about making software that's useful for other people, that's just a side benefit. It's
          • Your little rant has at best a tenuous connection with what I wrote.

            I suggest that people will cooperate if it is in their interest to do so. If the idea of organizing the activities of a group repels you then you are probably best suited to a project small enough for you to accomplish on your own.
    • Things are totally different in the embedded world. Most embedded companies want to standout by doing their own thing. As far as hardware support goes, embedded devices generally have a fixed set of hardware and often the devleopers write their own drivers. Also, we are not talking about Joe Home user here, these are developers and *should* have enough knowledge to look at all the options and choose which one is best for *THEM*. Why would the embedded market want what toolkits they use dictated to them?
  • It seems the author of the review is also the person who started the project. Saying that Embedded Linux called it a "stable, viable alternative" is misleading. It should read that the programmer thinks it is an alternative.
  • Looks like they are running their website on a PDA
  • hdc = BeginPaint (hWnd);
    TextOut (hdc, 100, 100, "Hello world!");
    EndPaint (hWnd, hdc);

    Feh. If I wanted to write that kind of JanglyCaps'd verbiage I'd just use Windows. If you are making a pretty and tasteful GUI, why spoil it by making the code ugly?

    • And what exactly is ugly in this?

      BoD
    • If I wanted to write that kind of JanglyCaps'd verbiage I'd just use Windows. If you are making a pretty and tasteful GUI, why spoil it by making the code ugly?

      You haven't looked at many open source projects, have you? There are a wide variety of notation styles to be seen, of which this is not even an extreme example. Too bad about the hungarian variables, but oh well. Such things are only superficial.

      When you join a project, you use whatever coding style the leaders have decreed and get on with it.
    • That doesn't look like any kind of Qt code. It looks like Win32 code. Actually, it IS Win32 code.
    • I have no idea if that's what this GUI API looks like.. but looks vaguely like the "good ole" pre-MFC Windows GUI API? (vaguely as it's been a while since I used that API)... but if it is, perhaps it is to make it easier for Windows coders to use this new thingy? I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing to do, just that that would be one logical reasoning.

      And like someone else already pointed out; well, there are n+1 coding styles for Open Source projects, and trust me, there are much much worse examples

  • embedded devices need dedicated widget sets (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WillAdams ( 45638 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @08:36AM (#7189312) Homepage
    Preferrably ones which reduce interaction to just tapping, and possibly simple / small gestures.

    dragging should be kept to an absolute minimum, and there should be (almost) no need to double-click/tap.

    Unfortunately, with the demise of PenPoint, dedicated pen UIs have become almost non-existent AFAICT---this project sounds interesting. Anyone able to contrast it w/ Berkeley's Graphical User Interface Research Projects (GUIR) which touch upon pen-enabled UI? (i.e., SATIN, SILK &c.).

    This project is a case in point---why does an app on a pen-system need a window title bar? You're not going to be moving it, and surely you're not going to be forgetting what you've just launched, right?

    Menus at the top which drop-down are also bad on pen-devices---click w/ the pen, and they appear under your hand, you then need to move away, look, find where to click and move back---this is one of the things which I hate about Windows for Pen Computing.

    One UI which I think merits development is LCARS (Library Computer Access and Retrieval System), the ``Okudagrams'' from Star Trek: The Next Generation and later. While there are some programs out there modelled on this (including some commercial products licensed by Paramount), all-too-often it devolves to mere ``eye-candy'' (Berkeley Systems' StarDate anyone?).

    Here's hoping someone adds a suitable widget set to this project.

    William

    • More complaints about PDA GUIs:

      Scroll bars for these things are retarded. Especially when viewing web pages that require horizontal scrolling. It is no fun at all to have to use a pen to point at a teeny scroll bar at the bottom and drag it back and forth to read a couple of sentences, and then move the pen to a teeny scroll bar on the right to have to move to the next sentence. PDA web browsers/document viewers should take a hint from GhostView and allow a pen click & drag anywhere on the screen drag

    • i'm interested in mobile device development for the education market--think emate/mobile device or the current netbook pro. i agree with your assessment of what a specific mobile device does not need, so long as this mobile device is a palmtop with a pen interface. but, as mobile device proliferate perhaps what is required are categories of widget sets for the various tyoes of devices people use. the problem for getting content to be mobile is a much larger concern, and to solve this better standards for mo
  • I wish someone would come out with a Linux port that would run on the new Palm OS 5 devices. With the expanded RAM and ARM CPU, these things should handle Linux as well as the Sharp and iPaq devices.

  • Seriously. Who ported WinCE? This GUI looks inside and out like Windows. Even the use of Hungarian notion is appalling.
    • Maybe they are trying to attract that market? I am not saying that is a good or bad thing, though I cannot stand Hungarian notation. But then again, anything that can take some market share from MS is a good thing(TM) to me : )

  • Not the solution for all needs. (Score:5, Informative)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Saturday October 11, 2003 @12:31PM (#7190362)
    I've said this everytime an article on yet another embedded framebuffer attempt is posted. While embedded solutions like MiniGUI and QT/Embedded seem like great ideas, they both suffer from the same problems. First off, all though I love the GPL and wish that everything were GPL'd, in the case of the windowing system/widget set, the GPL is not appropriate. LGPL is more appropriate. Because the widget set is part of the windowing envirnoment, you can't write code under any other license for the environment, because it's GPL'd. This right away will limit MiniGUI's viability, because for most embedded developes, it will not be an option. QT/Embedded, of course can be purchased to avoid this issue.

    Secondly, like all embedded framebuffer attempts, this one yet again reinvents the wheel, defining a windowing system, event-handling, input-handling and so forth. And of course only programs using that exact API can run on this environment. This is a significant restriction that I find rather suffocating when I am using OPIE on my Zaurus.

    For many devices, including handhelds, the best solution is still venerable X11. Keith Packard's KDrive server is completely self-contained (font support, XRender support) and weighs in at just 700 kb. Run a lightweight environment such as matchbox on top of that (wonderful window manager designed for handhelds) with a nice light widget set, and you have all the same features as this MiniGUI without the restrictions it imposes. See what the gpe [handhelds.org] people have done with this. It's impressive. In such an X11-based environment, MiniGUI could be viable because it wouldn't exclude any other toolkits or APIs from being used.

    The final problem I see with MiniGUI is that code appears more complicated and MS-ish than QT or GTK. Clearly the developers come from a win32 background, as MiniGUI code is full of win32-isms, which I find harder to program and less elegant than the Signal/Slot mechanisms of QT and GTK.

    Clearly, with or without X11 you need to change the widget look and behavior from that on a desktop. The idea of "windows" becomes less important as full-screen is the only desirable mode. Modifying the input mechanism is also important. Things that we take for granted on desktops such as right-clicking don't translate well to a handheld. QT/E and gpe solve this by having the user hold his stylus on the widget for a couple of seconds to emulate the right-mouse-button-click.

    There is no perfect system, and MiniGUI appears to be yet another attempt and I'm sure has a valid niche to fill. I wish them well.

  • pointless (Score:2, Insightful)

    by penguin7of9 ( 697383 )
    X11 worked fine on 20MHz 68k workstations with 4Mbytes of RAM. In the days of 400MHz PDAs with 64M+ of RAM, there really is no need to "replace" X11, in particular given their stamp-sized screens. And because X11 is neutral on policy, unlike other window systems, you can build a great handheld or embedded environment on top of it. In practice, of course, X11 is already more efficient in both memory and speed than either Qt/Embedded or the Windows GDI, so it is also hard to see why people think they can d
    • has a lot of useless overhead in it because it is just a recompilation of a desktop server

      Perhaps if someone would release a similar slimmed-down version for desktops, then people would quit bitching about it. Seriously, for a single home-use desktop, how much of the extra stuff is absolutely necessary?
      • Seriously, for a single home-use desktop, how much of the extra stuff is absolutely necessary?

        Most of it. That "extra stuff" isn't functionality, it's all the infrastructure for making X11 run fast on modern desktop machines with large screens and lots of windows.

        Perhaps if someone would release a similar slimmed-down version for desktops, then people would quit bitching about it.

        The functionality is in X11 because people want it in their desktops. And why slim it down when X11 is already slimmer an

  • screenshots! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by breman ( 683776 )

    screenshots here [members.shaw.ca]
  • Switch from a widely used IMHO excellent toolkit to one written in c?

    No thanks, I'll stick with my beloved QT :-)

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