think osx is pretty.. its got nuthin' on XP

[n0cmonkey]

Just a quick one there. Nothing special.

 

[AMDPwred]

How about a *NIX desktop?

 

[NorthenLove]

Here are some of the desktops I have put togetheir under Linux. Of course this nothing compared to some other Linux desktops I have seen on the net.

Desktop 1

Desktop 2

Desktop 3

Desktop 4

 

[Damascus]

Ow my freakin' eyes!

 

[NorthenLove]

<< the console on the desktop is "econsole" and "coolinfo". the linux session is a vnc session. the transparency is from wb3 and does eat cpu, but thats just for the screenshot turn off the transparency and the interface is fast as hell.. no desktop icons seems to help a lot, but then again i have a 1.2tbird and 512mb, so there is tons of spare resources


and no, I was not looking for flames, just showing off a little of what XP can do for those who like to customize a little

and honestly theres not much there to call ugly, so give up the flaimbait >>



Actually your title screams of flamebait

<< "think osx is pretty.. its got nuthin' on XP" >>

.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

XP is ugly.

Your screenshot is not bad, but a bit plain and windowblinds and all that stardock crap steal CPU and also have annoying registration reminders.

OSX is pretty damn good looking (Hello MS, ALPHA BLENDING????)

My desktops are fairly boring. windows, i have no icons, no taskbar, just a tiny speck in the bottom left corner for the start button, tiny speck in bottom right corner which is a popup menu to switch tasks. top left is the systray which is always behind things so i dont really see it much.

alt+tab of course

Winkey + R to run stuff (use that 99% of the time unless i dont have a shortcut set up.)

striped wallpaper that makes my winamp blend in.

In linux, using blackbox, i have a plain wallpaper and currently use the "cthulhain" theme. i use alt+tab, and set up ctrl+R to bring up a run box (tkrunit). ctrl+1,2,3 for workspaces or ctrl+arrow to go through workspaces.

i've tried window blinds, i currently use desktopX (my little specks and custom systray), and after awhile all that flashy crap just gets old. its neat, and yes it looks nice, but i just get bored with it. i was using OSX themes in windowblinds for awhile, and in sawfish back when i used it. but they dont stack up to the real OSX gui and just get old.

thank you

oh and by the way really tiny buttons might look neat but they are horrible. search on google for "a quiz designed to give fitts" and read up. you will learn alot.

thats (i'm guessing) why wxp's buttons are so big (and ugly tooisgust

 

[fivepesos]

beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

anyone wanna host my ximian gnome 1.4 screenshot? maybe youll like it as much as i do.

bringing osx into the title was shameless to get people to comment on your theme.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I found some themes that I like (I was looking for some actually since I was bored with the current one), and when I upgrade tomorrow Ill post some OpenBSD +blackbox screenshots.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

rectumanarchy and walker @ themes.org are nice

 

[Valhalla1]

<< Your screenshot is not bad, but a bit plain and windowblinds and all that stardock crap steal CPU and also have annoying registration remindersp >>



windowblinds is one program, thats all I use, and the single program doesnt use hardly any cpu, in fact 0% as I am typing this. and I like my windows desktop plain, minimal, its what I like, and the tiny buttons are not that tiny on my big monitor, and I use keyboard shortcuts always to switch between tasks and usually to close/min/max/shade windows as well, so I dont even click them much.




<< OSX is pretty damn good looking (Hello MS, ALPHA BLENDING????) >>

not quite sure I understand, but win2k and xp support alpha blending, u could see plenty of it in my screenshot

 

[Valhalla1]

<< Here are some of the desktops I have put togetheir under Linux. Of course this nothing compared to some other Linux desktops I have seen on the net.

Desktop 1

Desktop 2

Desktop 3

Desktop 4
>>



checked out the first couple.. looks good, minimal as I like it.. I prefer shortcuts to my programs in a small toolbar that is always on top so I can always access them with windows maximized

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

well running at idle yeah its at 1-5%, most computers are, i'm talking about just general responsiveness of windowblinds, also you may have a faster comp than me so that also plays a role.

and 2k and xp do support alpha blending, but they do not implement it. you have to get 3rd party apps (again buggy and slow) to utilize it, and then it's not even useful. who wants to see through the entire window????? i mean in osx just the top bar is faded, or menus, etc etc. alpha blending is not implemented at all in 2k/xp (except fading menus, but they are only trans. for a fraction of a second, oh also i guess when you drag files around they are alpha blended, ok), and with buggy 3rd party apps the implementation is crap compared to osx.

come on, apple meant to make an unbelievable GUI and they did.

plus, they know the artsy fartsy mac crowd would like it, as opposed to pc users ("normal" ones) that will never see osx, and can only compare XP to 9x, and in that comparison XP looks great (to most, or at least a good portion, to me, it looks more up to date, more advanced than the old windows gui, however it looks too toyish)

 

[Valhalla1]

<< http://www.eurocompton.net/~ddp/dt5.jpg >>



hey now.. i like that. this setup is attainable in windows with litestep (allowing you total freedom of your user interface in windows) and also in linux. I like this osx screenshot. and after reading that "quiz to give you fitts" I am curious to try out the mac interface, to be honest I haven't spent more than a few minutes at a time on a mac, not enough to really get into the interface.

now I wanna try osx.. so who can show me how to get osx installed on my pc?

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

OSX seems cool, i mean its unix so its not some crap proprietary junk, but it does have alot of *apple* injected everywhere. i remember seeing that by default, you do not set up a root account! hah wierd. there are certain things you HAVE to be root to do, and at some point you can create your root password and start using it. i dont know, i dont use it so i'm just rambling. on to hardees i go.

 

[Elledan]

<--- wonders what n0cmonkey has with using nekkid women for his wallpapers

Anyway, no matter what anyone tells me, I'll take an OS like Linux over Windows any day. CLI rocks. WIndows is a crippled OS, where any powerful features it might have are hidden from the user.
*NIX can be customized beyond the wallpaper and other eyecandy, Windows can not, so no matter how nice WinXP looks, it still lacks any power.

 

[CTho9305]

how do you take a screenshot in solaris? My desktop owns all of yours (my windoze one is pretty generic though)

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

there is not built in way in X to take a screenshot. gotta get some other prog, theres plenty of them.

 

[HigherGround]

<< there is not built in way in X to take a screenshot. gotta get some other prog, theres plenty of them. >>



xwd

if you want something more useful than X Window Dump file, than you can convert it to a variety of different formats by piping the output to xwdtopnm | pnmquant 256 | ppmtogif > filename.gif sequence ( there are other routes, but that's the one i remember of top of my head )

 

[MGMorden]

<< how do you take a screenshot in solaris? My desktop owns all of yours (my windoze one is pretty generic though) >>



My desktop in Solaris consists of fvwm (changed the color scheme) and a wallpaper I threw up with xv. Guess I'm not very creative . Of course the only wm choices I actually have are twm, fvwm and CDE. Not much chance at creativity there (CDE probably looks better but I can't stand it).

 

[nortexoid]

OSX is by far the nicest looking OS ever...period.

windows XP is a huge improvement over previous windows version, but still not as nice as X...

i agree w/ bigbong that they need to implement proper alpha blending beyond transition effects and a few others...and the fact that the crappy 3rd party software that allows alpha blending of windows sucks since it fades everything, including the text (which it shouldn't)...so u have a semi-transparent (translucent) window w/out being able to see jack shizite in it.

window blinds 3 + icon packager definitely helps tho - if u have a nice X theme

desktop X will allow u to get your interface pretty much identical looking to X, if u really wanted to...

 

[jhu]

hey n0cmonkey, who's that girl in your osx background? and where'd you get it?

 

[n0cmonkey]

<<

<< http://www.eurocompton.net/~ddp/dt5.jpg >>



hey now.. i like that. this setup is attainable in windows with litestep (allowing you total freedom of your user interface in windows) and also in linux. I like this osx screenshot. and after reading that "quiz to give you fitts" I am curious to try out the mac interface, to be honest I haven't spent more than a few minutes at a time on a mac, not enough to really get into the interface.

now I wanna try osx.. so who can show me how to get osx installed on my pc? >>



Darwin will install on x86 but aqua wont. And the problem I had with your screen shot was there was still too much microsoft there. I could tell it was Windows and I hate the way Windows looks before you fiddle with it. BTW, I spent ~$1500 on an iBook just to play with OS X. It was WELL worth it.



<< OSX seems cool, i mean its unix so its not some crap proprietary junk, but it does have alot of *apple* injected everywhere. i remember seeing that by default, you do not set up a root account! hah wierd. there are certain things you HAVE to be root to do, and at some point you can create your root password and start using it. i dont know, i dont use it so i'm just rambling. on to hardees i go. >>



They do setup sudo though, which is more than most linuxes



<< <--- wonders what n0cmonkey has with using nekkid women for his wallpapers >>



She isnt naked! She has wings! (and you cant see anything anyhow, I put it up there for the poem or whatever on the right)..

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< hey n0cmonkey, who's that girl in your osx background? and where'd you get it? >>



There is a girl back there? I just liked the poem thingy... Im almost positive I didnt cover up the url at the bottom of the pic...

 

[fivepesos]

you call windows and osx purrtty? lol

its called ximian gnome

who wants to host my screens? my apache install is crapped right now.

 

[kylef]

<< Please, give us some links. Id love to see some actual innovation from that company. >>



Okay. Here are some of the various conference and journal papers that Microsoft Usability Labs have published in the past few years, and should give you an idea as to the scope of their research.



<< Id also like to see what "good" interfaces arent "good" anymore since Microsoft proved them "bad". >>



Microsoft never proved interfaces "bad." But they have shown that some things don't work as well as designers had hoped. One of the most famous of these is the "double click." MUL found that double clicking was not at all obvious to those not familiar with computers, and that the technique behind it came only with practice. Obviously the goal is that people can sit down and immediately use a computer to do something productive without special instruction. Hence, if you remember, one of the options with Windows 98 was a "single-click" desktop.

Now, you're probably thinking "My (insert OS here) has single clicking too, so that's no big deal!" But you forget that without Microsoft's pioneering (and it truly was pioneering work at the time) usability research brought such issues to the forefront. Apple had no part in it.



<< Actually, they have increased usability recently. They added a good command line interface, something Microsoft has yet to do. >>



It is highly questionable whether a "good commandline interface" makes a computer more usable. Granted, to around 5% of "elite" computer users like ourselves, such an interface makes good sense and enhances productivity. But to most users, a command line interface is a step backwards. Most users feel overwhelmed staring at a blinking prompt because there are no visual hints for them to accomplish the task at hand. It's easy to confuse usability with advanced user productivity.

Besides, as a "power user" you can install your OWN command-line interface to your liking. There are several shells available for Windows. I use the Cygwin project for some work, but usually only because I'm targeting Unix development.

I have *nothing* against Apple's OS X. As a power user, I am seriously considering purchasing a powerbook G4/5/6/etc one of these days (when my current laptop stops serving its purpose).

But I *DO* have an issue with people that tout Apple's "superior product design" when 90% of what really changes are just new eye candy features. Where was the "superior product design" when for 5 years Microsoft had a 32-bit protected-mode preemptive multitasking operating system and Apple did not? Just about the only thing I'll give Apple credit for is actually managing to make FireWire an IEEE standard. Kudos.

I'm sure that I agree with 99% of what you think. But you asked me to explain my comment about Microsoft Usability Labs, and I felt obliged to defend them. It's not cool right now to like Microsoft, but people too quickly forget what Microsoft has contributed.