HelloSystem
hellosystem.github.io
hellosystem.github.io
https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/
It looks really nice. Reminds me of MacOS X a bit, but I'm not complaining. I do hope to see a few new DE's hit the scene in the next few years that challenge our existing UX and UIs for Linux and operating systems in general. I feel like early Gnome 3 had some interesting features that I don't know if they're still on there or not. Like there was tight UI / DE integration to chat apps, to where you could talk around all your other active windows and then go back to what you were doing, regardless of Virtual Desktop being used at the moment.
> helloSystem is a desktop system for creators with a focus on simplicity, elegance, and usability. Its design follows the “Less, but better” philosophy. It is intended as a system for “mere mortals”, welcoming to switchers from the Mac. FreeBSD is used as the core operating system. Please refer to https://github.com/helloSystem/hello if you would like to learn more about the ideas and principles behind hello.
> for creators
No, seriously, what does this bit mean?
Putting aside developers, who might use this.
When the technology gets in the way of the results there might be an incentive to switch.
I consider myself results-focused and use the best tool for the job without major ideological concerns (I'm fine with paying for proprietary software, etc) and used macOS for the past 5 years and Windows before that.
I originally switched away from Linux once I no longer had the time to tinker around, wanted things to "just work" and could afford to pay for the experience. I went to Windows 7 at the time.
When Microsoft decided that wasting the user's time is their new business model with Windows 8 and later, I switched to Mac, where at the time Apple was still happy to respect me and get out of my way provided I paid them money every so often (in the form of buying new machines - which I was more than happy to do so as it was worth it and I didn't really have a choice - Windows was no longer a viable alternative).
This has now changed. These premium-priced machines now come with a toy-like OS (new Big Sur UI that wastes space, and WTF is this new tab bar in Safari 15?) designed to nag you into consuming Apple services (poor-quality ones at that) rather than producing. They seem to have gone the same way Microsoft went.
At this point there's no other competitor to switch to, so this project might actually have some value.
It's a very bad faith interpretation.
[0] https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/
EDIT: I've submitted it. Interestingly, it has been submitted before [1] but not generated any real discussion. I would think this is very relevant, and not often repeated, subject matter for a majority of HN readership.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=First%20Principles%20of%20Inte...
Side Note: Yea it's kinda weird, I also have seen this "phenomimom" a few times. Same story get submitted same "title/desc" zero or little discussions. Then BOOM next submit 100+ comments :)
With Desktop Linux (or BSD), I feel you either
a) Settle and go down the route of a tile-manager (i3/xmonad/...N). It's definitely worth it !
OR
b) Use KDE/GNOME while silently swearing and hoping the next release will be better.
* As an outside option there is also XFCE (old reliable)
Always glad to see new movement and innovation in the DE space. This(HelloSystem) looks very good ! Well done to everyone involved.
Since 2004, I have been using only Linux on all my desktops and laptops.
In my opinion, KDE 3.5 was a much better desktop environment than any earlier or later Linux DE and also much better than any MS Windows version.
I am excluding from this comparison tiled WM's, as they belong to a different category, not directly comparable.
The reason is that KDE 3.5 was extremely customizable. I did not like KDE 3.5 in its default configuration, but I could change absolutely every behavior detail to match my personal preferences.
Unfortunately KDE 3.5 was followed by KDE 4.0, which retained only the name from KDE and it removed all the features that I liked in KDE 3.5.
I stayed with KDE 3.5 one or two years, but eventually I had to give up because it was far too difficult to update other parts of the system without breaking the old KDE.
The rescue came from XFCE, which does not include many features, but it covers all the basic needs and it is customizable enough to be able to make it never stand in my way.
In more than a decade of using XFCE I have never encountered any problem with any GUI application, regardless if it was originally intended for Gnome or KDE.
I have tried occasionally, from time to time, various KDE or Gnome versions, but I have never liked any of them, in comparison with XFCE.
I also work professionally with MS Windows, but I have never seen any advantage there. For example, the modern Windows Explorer has a user interface far worse than any file manager that I have been using on Linux and launching an application from the Windows Start menu is far slower and more inconvenient that the kind of menus I am using in XFCE.
[0]: https://medium.com/@probonopd/my-first-day-with-haiku-shocki... (it's a series of posts)
Microsoft can talk as much as they feel like from using WinUI from C++, but their C++ loving team club just messed up the whole tooling. Don't touch it unless feeling nostalgic about using ATL tooling from 2000's.
C++ Builder is great, but given its history and Windows focus, naturally only an option for enterprises with deep pockets.
wxWidgets and JUCE were never part of OS stacks.
Qt is really the only one left, with a quite cool development experience.
I am also migrating my last C++/WinRT endeavour into Qt LTS 6.2, ironically so, as it was originally started on Qt 5.0. :)
yeah, every time I started a project on a non-Qt stack I always ended up porting it to Qt at some point later. Recently started an Android/Kotlin thing and it's so much more complicated than Qt with so many randomly moving under-engineered parts (android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1 ? come on...) that I feel it's definitely going to go that way too.
The Android API is primarily geared towards constructing GUIs declaratively in XML, and as with anything infected with the XML plague, it's a huge bloated mess half of which is braindead useless.
I honestly can't blame anyone for screaming in horror and running away to ReactJS, or just anything else.
May I be safe from React as much as possible.
In any case, Composer just hit stable for all of those Kotlin lovers.
In other words, it's a solution looking for a problem, and it's still looking.
GUI construction? XML is the wrong tool here again, but not for lack of trying. Tech powerhouses Google and Microsoft got caught up in the hype as well. The results, the Android API and XAML, speak for themselves, negatively.
> XML is like democracy
No it's not. Please don't bring politics into technical discussions, it clouds your judgement.
I advise reading about technology sales practices.
Because once they inevitably have to troubleshoot they'll discover a much smaller community with much fewer blogs and articles about it than Linux.
Disclaimer, I was a BSD fanboy from 2003 until about 2012.
And speaking about btrfs...man that's some unwelcoming filesystem, i tested Kubic out some month ago, one of the node filled it's fs to 98%, i cleaned it up, rebooted and the result? Un-bootable OS...thanks btrfs.
Oh. Thank you; I think you've just cleared up how my opensuse box broke a while back.
Everything breaks. FreeBSD, Linux, NT, Darwin; every OS breaks and requires troubleshooting. And yes, it can be nice to have more blogs to reference, but I think you're overestimating both how much it matters and how few blogs talk about FreeBSD.
> Either that or they have amazing restore capabilities.
... Like ZFS snapshots and boot environments?