Elementary OS 0.3 “Freya” is released | Hacker News Reader

Elementary OS 0.3 “Freya” is released

sourceforge.net

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Interesting fact: This version was supposed to be called Isis until, well you know...

Isis is a nice name with interesting mythological significance. Sad that it has been ruined for the foreseeable future.

... Uhm, no, I've no idea what's wrong about it now. Care to inform us of what you're talking about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_L...

Pretty surprising that you don't know about it since they have been dominating news coverage for more than a year now.

I installed the previous release (luna) a while ago on an older pc I had laying around. I was really impressed. Though much of it is a ripoff of OS X design it's a pretty well done ripoff and coming from a Mac I think it's the most usable linux distro I've used so far. I'd love to see more adoption of this project, as it has a lot of potential to make linux more usable to non-technical types.

This is a very well-polished distribution in terms of usability and user interface. I don't care actually if they ripoff some good design examples as long as it gives a good overall feel. And it certainly does. I remember it was one of the fastest growing linux distribution some time ago...

"copy what's good, improve what's not"

For anyone who likes the look of it but doesn't want to go off their current Linux distro, you can just download the Pantheon desktop.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon

Last I tried it didn't work very well in Arch, but that may have changed over the past month or so.

Magnet link, amd64 iso:

  magnet:?xt=urn:btih:fc85dc999730a42de3924444aadbcfa183b5f388&dn=elementaryos-freya-amd64.20150411.iso&tr=https%3A%2F%2Fashrise.com%3A443%2Fphoenix%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80%2Fannounce&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fsuberb-sea2.dl.sourceforge.net%2Fproject%2Felementaryos%2Fstable%2Felementaryos-freya-amd64.20150411.iso&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fignum.dl.sourceforge.net%2Fproject%2Felementaryos%2Fstable%2Felementaryos-freya-amd64.20150411.iso&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fheanet.dl.sourceforge.net%2Fproject%2Felementaryos%2Fstable%2Felementaryos-freya-amd64.20150411.iso&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fcitylan.dl.sourceforge.net%2Fproject%2Felementaryos%2Fstable%2Felementaryos-freya-amd64.20150411.iso

You broke HN ;)

I don't know which I prefer, overly large page width, or overly large overflowed scrollable div.

Might want to prefix that link with two spaces so it shows up as code.

Official website: https://elementary.io

As a new potential user I'd like to see more screenshots on the front page before I send them my money or download and install the OS. A video preview of 2-3 minutes would be even better.

Select 'Custom' under the payment options, enter 0.00 and download. Contribute later if you want to.

Their official Download Mirror is sourceforge.

There is a surprising lack of information on the website. Here are a couple links that help fill in the gaps.

"elementary OS is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. It makes use of a desktop with its own shell named Pantheon,[2] and is deeply integrated with other elementary OS applications like Plank (a dock), Midori (the default web browser) and Scratch (a simple text editor). This distribution uses Gala as its window manager..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_OS

"elementary OS Freya vs elementary OS Luna - What's new?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CBS6RDLTNA

It looks intriguing. A host of application level services built on linux leads me to think of this as a KDE-like effort to remake the desktop.

A browser that's not Firefox or Chrome scares me slightly, considering the amount of resources that go into securing them, yet they all fall at cansecwest.

How vulnerable can I expect to be running Midori?

Midori is WebKit-based, so it's only as vulnerable as Safari.

WebKit isn't the only possible source of insecurity in an app that uses it. It may not even be in the top 10 versus things like image and font rendering libraries.

That's not actually true. A browser is not as secure as it's engine. The thing is really more complex than that.

There are configurations concern, certificates, security layer, apps/plugins/add-ons, bugs within the ui layer...

Sure, but the bulk of the issues are in the renderering engine, and for that they are sorted.

I know, it's the exposed part after all, but still I wouldn't recommend it as "secure as safari".

They did a hangout yesterday where they run through a few things here https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=wtxmBJKMrDI.

It's funny, it's like a bedroom version of an Apple conf. Similar progress pace, but small team and FOSS.

The eOS devs do seem to take a lot of cues from Apple.

Yes, it's not surprising and not limited to them either. But seeing all the similarities in a non fanatic context also makes Apple work a tad less amazing.

We've been doing boot process and default desktop screencasts for new Linux releases for a little while now at LQ. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-screencasts-11... for the elementary OS Freya one.

This is one of the linux flavors i actually like using. Great going guys.

Do you know if the Elementary OS Luna gets updated automatically to the new Freya version?

Freya Release Post: http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here

Can I Upgrade Luna to Freya?

So between this and mint cinnamon, what's the best choice to install to parents and friends that have little knowledge of *nix, but need a PC to work, email and IM with?

Anyone use linux (via Virtualbox) on a MBP? I really miss Linux but I really do not wanna fuck around with hardware/drivers anymore. And eOS is just gorgeous.

I have done this in the past and had no problems with it, besides it felt a bit slow.

I run my main Linux development system under VMWare on OSX (on an rMBP) and it is awesome. I love it. Sometimes I forget OSX is even there.

I'm sure you can run Linux without a virtual machine of any kind on a Mac. With the right hardware (which MBP of some generation just might be) there's no need to fuck around; everything just works (and, unlike Windows, you can count on pulling a hard drive from one machine and putting into another). I have installed Ubuntu 14.04 on a white 2008 MacBook and it just worked.

Indeed. Macs are pretty popular for running Linux, since they have a very small variety of hardware that's mostly supported just fine, don't have locked bootloaders or any weird stuff like that (I'm looking at you, Sony), and offer pretty good hardware and price.

I've got an Arch image on my MBP, it's just as simple to setup as it sounds, just load the iso and follow the installation steps based on the distro. You may need to install some virtualbox drivers, but that's not difficult.

How is the HiDPI support in this version? I'm afraid to go to the trouble of making a live usb if everything is small.

Since they list HiDPI support as a goal for version 0.4, I wouldn't expect much.

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+spec/hidpi-su...

> We’re pretty close to being able to support HiDPI displays like Retina, but we’re not quite there yet.

http://blog.elementary.io/post/113920029861/hey-guys-i-love-...

I wonder how sustainable is their development method, are the UI changes to apps accepted upstream?

I'm guessing you're a Spanish speaker? In English it's "sustainable", not "sostenible". :)

hah thanks ;) I do use both languages frequently, fixed.

They write their own apps for elementary OS instead of making UI changes to other apps. This includes the music player, file explorer, calendar, terminal emulator and settings app among others. IIRC the browser, email app and photo viewer are written by third parties specifically for elementary.

Thinks this Linux distribution gets the desktop look right!

For those of us who equals 'right' with 'the way Apple does it'? Serious question; I am unfamiliar with this particular distro, and I've tried using a Mac and couldn't get used to it.

For how long? Was it your main machine? Just trying it in a store you have no hope of getting to know it.

Yep, just tried it in stores a few times. Well, too bad for Apple, since I don't feel like buying a machine just for experimentation (maybe I will, sometime, but I don't feel like it right now). I respect Apple's approach to design, just don't feel like it's "the right thing" for me. Linux offers much more choice, and mimicking Apple looks funny to me, but well - that's the power of choice I guess: you are free to do what you want, including acting like there's no choice, right?

Right now I have a souped-up ThinkPad X200s as my main machine, which I use with an external monitor, keyboard and mouse via a docking station at home and at the office. I'm running Ubuntu, stock flavour; sure, getting used to Unity took some effort and I'm still not too happy with it, so I'm looking to other window managers, mostly tiled-based ones. Are there even alternate window managers for Mac? I doubt so; surely all Apple store staff I asked were puzzled by this. I figure if one desires to change desktop environments, then Mac is not for them.

To be fair I doubt any powerful desktop OS (ie not Android/iOS) demos particularly well to a new user - I bet Ubuntu with Unity wouldn't, and nor would eOS, and I bet Windows 8 didn't either. I used eOS for a little bit on my old laptop and it doesn't really feel like "acting like there's no choice", it feels like choosing design. It's compatible with everything Ubuntu, you're not giving anything up.

I won't disagree that OS X is probably not for you if you take advantage of Linux. But yes, there are programmes that claim to be window managers for OS X:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8768022 (HN comments for Amethyst, see the top comment for a few more)

> I doubt any powerful desktop OS (ie not Android/iOS) demos particularly well to a new user

Definitely so. I have switched from Windows to Ubuntu not because I liked Ubuntu in store, but because I kept encountering pieces of technology that appear first and/or work better on Linux, and I knew that I have to, for a while. I chose Ubuntu because it' apparently a solid mainstream choice and self-consciously endured the accommodation.

> it doesn't really feel like "acting like there's no choice"

I meant Apple's style here: they seem to be eager to simplify away things, making choices for you: 'you don't want to fiddle with changing batteries on your player/phone, do you?', 'who needs extra USB's, anyway?', 'you won't need that many configuration options for a PC', 'one button should be enough' - obviously, I'm not familiar with Mac software, but I get the impression that simplification is the norm there, too; which is great if the choices they make for you are mostly the ones you would make anyway, or you don't care much. I had the impression that eOS copies their style, here.

Choosing design, though, is the thing that Ubuntu really could use more of (Linux, in general, but Ubuntu seems to be the one that could potentially have resources to pull it off). I figured I could close windows with Ctrl+W: 'oh, so I can close any program with Ctrl+W instead of Alt+F4?' Nope, not just any program, e.g. not GNOME Terminal or Calculator. In Ubuntu I can start programs with 'Win+1' ... 'Win+0' shortcuts, maximize with Ctrl+Shift+Up. Not in Lubuntu/Xubuntu, it turns, out: I figure there isn't any design document for such things, spanning several official Ubuntu flavours; There isn't any reason for such things to be done differently, really.

> I meant Apple's style here

Got you. eOS has a really anaemic settings gui (or did when I used it) - I get that they're still early days, it's still Ubuntu and there's probably a wealth of console and config file stuff that fills in all the gaps, but it's very lacking in that regard. It looks like the OSX settings menu but I definitely think there's more options in OSX.

As for the weird keyboard shortcuts changes between Ubuntu versions, that's definitely a bit surprising. Again it's something I'm sure there's methods to change but still, something you'd expect to be standardised across the flavours.

> Yep, just tried it in stores a few times.

I've tried OS X in stores. It's always awkward. But the same is true of Windows in stores, Android in stores, iOS in stores, or Windows on a public computer.

When I tried OS X on my own machine, I quickly fell in love with it.

What do you love in OS X?

What kind of software did you use that switching OS was no problem for you? Did anything that working differently on your previous OS annoy you at first? Some of the software I used heavily on Windows, I was very reluctant to leave behind, and still miss, years since. One could find replacement for some; use some through emulation, but some, usually the ones deeply tied to the inner workings of the OS, are either impossible to replicate/emulate or it makes no sense: the time and effort invested into skills using them goes to waste.

Just one little thing: what are the shortcuts for 'Show desktop' and 'Maximize window' on a Mac? The store assistant I asked couldn't tell me (he was eager to Google, but I spared him the agony). When I asked him whether he actually uses a Mac, he said 'not really' (I guess he can't afford it). Granted, that wasn't an Apple Store (there aren't any here in Russia) but an 'official reseller', all fancy, shining and proud, which is the best you get around here. What is the reason to pay salary to such bored, pleasant and obliging young men is beyond me.

Show desktop: cmd-f3

Maximize: ctrl-cmd-f (in most applications)

Were your questions genuine or rhetorical?

> What do you love in OS X?

Software support, graphics and audio "just work" unlike Linux, Unix-like but can also do things that aren't just development (best of both worlds vs Windows (other things only) or Linux (development only)).

Also, the general look and feel is quite nice. More consistent than Windows certainly.

> What kind of software did you use that switching OS was no problem for you?

Well, if it runs on Windows, then it either runs on OS X or has a decent equivalent. And if it runs on Linux, it probably runs on OS X. So all the stuff I need for development ran on OS X, and most of my favourite applications ran on OS X. The few that didn't had replacements (I switched from gedit to TextMate). Crucially though, OS X let me run more than I could before, because it has far better support than Linux.

> Just one little thing: what are the shortcuts for 'Show desktop' and 'Maximize window' on a Mac?

F11 and I have no idea, respectively. You can look up or change keyboard shortcuts in the settings.

I like eOS. Like you I don't use Mac because of a few things that totally breaks it for me. eOS looks kind of like Mac OS X but IMO does a few things a lot better.

For example consider just the fact that you can get a nice desktop where you can apt-get all your[0] normal programs and they look nice. Or the fact that the menu follow the window in question instead of being locked to the top of your screen.

[0]:yes I consider myself a linux user who sometimes have to use other OS, not the other way around.

I guess I have to try it. I think they could have explained how they are different and what their point is, on their site.

Their Human Interface Guidelines are 'coming soon' https://elementary.io/docs/human-interface-guidelines.

Are they just a few guys?

Yup, it's mainly just a few guys in their free time IIRC. The HIG has been coming soon for several years now though.

Free, online operating systems that "install" in less than 2 seconds and never ask for any payment are the wave of the future. Oh, and did I mention the integrated AI?

My web-based implementation of Unix: https://www.urdesk.net

To go straight to the AI: https://www.urdesk.net/desk?intro=bertie

I am always looking for help!

> This site only works with an up-to-date version of Chrome!

Also, that's not really an operating system. It's a web-based desktop environment, like the late g.ho.st, but not an OS.

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