[HN Gopher] SerenityOS: Graphical Unix-like operating system wit...
___________________________________________________________________
SerenityOS: Graphical Unix-like operating system with classic 90s
UI
Author : Santosh83
Score : 248 points
Date : 2021-08-17 06:35 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (serenityos.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (serenityos.org)
| Quai wrote:
| The "hidden" gem here is all the videos posted by Andreas on his
| youtube channel. I've spent quite a few hours with him and
| learned a lot of things from his way of working.
| Deukhoofd wrote:
| His videos are one of my favourite things to watch, very
| calming, and there's always something to learn.
| wruza wrote:
| That help app still looks so much better and more useful than
| usual web-based "whitespace ocean bullshit" docs.
| thom wrote:
| Every time this comes up I feel compelled to say that I find the
| source code really ridiculously readable, even as the project
| grows and more apps and features are added.
| cosmotic wrote:
| Any chance we could get more than a single screenshot?
| dang wrote:
| Past related threads:
|
| _I quit my job to focus on SerenityOS full time_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27317655 - May 2021 (249
| comments)
|
| _SerenityOS: Writing a Full Chain Exploit_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26115141 - Feb 2021 (9
| comments)
|
| _SerenityOS: A love letter to '90s user interfaces with a Unix-
| like core_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23911180 - July
| 2020 (1 comment)
|
| _SerenityOS Update (April 2020)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23037581 - April 2020 (1
| comment)
|
| _Introduction to SerenityOS Programming_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22479132 - March 2020 (43
| comments)
|
| _Pledge() and Unveil() in SerenityOS_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22116914 - Jan 2020 (28
| comments)
|
| _CTF writeup: First published SerenityOS kernel exploit_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21918351 - Dec 2019 (2
| comments)
|
| _SerenityOS: From Zero to HTML in a Year_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21212294 - Oct 2019 (52
| comments)
|
| _Serenity OS update (August 2019) [video]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20851356 - Sept 2019 (2
| comments)
|
| _SerenityOS - a graphical Unix-like OS for x86, with 90s
| aesthetics_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19986126 - May
| 2019 (179 comments)
|
| _Serenity: x86 Unix-like operating system for IBM PC-
| compatibles_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19537807 -
| March 2019 (83 comments)
| unixhero wrote:
| I am trying this today.
| nullifidian wrote:
| Wanted to scoff at the retro trend, but this thing looks
| beautiful.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Thank you for your work.
|
| It is critical for the operating system space to have more
| variation and innovation.
|
| I admire your skills and dedication.
| sdfjkl wrote:
| So I'm not the only one thinking that this was the time when
| desktop UI's peaked and most things since then are fluff and
| featuritis driven by the marketing departments needs to
| constantly have something new and exciting and usability going
| out of the window.
|
| Nice work!
| kalekold wrote:
| I agree. I love the old win95 UI because everything looked like
| how it performed. Buttons looked like buttons, scrollbars
| looked like scrollbars. It was immediately usable. The UX back
| then was amazing.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Schnozzberries tasted like Schnozzberries!
| agumonkey wrote:
| it's 81% right. from this era, the only addition that fully
| welded into me was screen snapping windows
|
| there are some good fun stuff in today's desktops but .. it
| doesn't add much to your journey IMO (and often you lose CUA
| services like full keyboard access too 99% widgets)
| CRConrad wrote:
| No, there's at least two of us. Three, with Andreas.
| grishka wrote:
| Four. Though I do like how modern macOS implements trackpad
| gestures, and drawing UI on the GPU is generally a good idea.
| akling wrote:
| Hello friends! I'm the original author of SerenityOS and it's a
| lovely surprise to see it on the front page of HN :^)
|
| This project has been quite the journey for me, from starting it
| from scratch ~3 years ago, to quitting my job ~3 months ago to
| focus on this full time. [1] It's also grown from a 1-man project
| into a bustling open source community with 475 contributors and
| counting.
|
| If anyone has questions about the system I'm happy to answer
| them! I also have a huge library of content on my YouTube channel
| [2], where I've uploaded hundreds of videos of me working on the
| system in real time, and also monthly update videos (since April
| 2019) where I demo recent developments.
|
| Our main community hub is over on Discord for anyone interested
| in joining development. [3]
|
| 1. https://awesomekling.github.io/I-quit-my-job-to-focus-on-
| Ser...
|
| 2. https://www.youtube.com/andreaskling
|
| 3. https://discord.gg/serenityos
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I have seen the screenshots: I love it! It looks practical, a
| work-oriented environment.
|
| But not the font - too rounded, too jocular (I must have seen
| it a million times, but with distance it is not convincing). I
| remember having remained ecstatic with some thick versions of
| Futura on the Amiga OS in the mid nineties, maybe you could
| make some test.
| filmroellchen wrote:
| By default, we have Liberation Serif and you just have to
| drag in TTF fonts into /res/fonts to make them usable for the
| system font. So it's not hard to change many parts of the
| visuals if you don't like them.
| jakearmitage wrote:
| What typeface did you use? Looks great.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Is the hostname "courage" in the screenshot a dig at Apple's
| infamous "courage" comment when they removed headphones from
| the iPhone?[0]
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12838024/apple-
| iphone-7-pl...
| elisee wrote:
| Most likely a reference to the word in the serenity prayer,
| which is what SerenityOS is named after (Andreas mentioned it
| a few times in his videos).
| akling wrote:
| That's right, the system name and its default hostname are
| both references to the serenity prayer. :)
| sdwvit wrote:
| I believe, this is not related to apple, but rather to
| creator's grim past
| hulitu wrote:
| Is it possible to compile and run existing unix programs ?
| akling wrote:
| Certainly! We have a growing library of ports [1] that you
| can build with a single command to add 3rd party software to
| the system.
|
| Note that unlike many other operating systems, SerenityOS
| aims to be completely free of 3rd party software in the
| default install. So we build everything ourselves, all the
| way from the kernel to the web browser. It's great fun!
|
| 1. https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Ports
| anthk wrote:
| Port Nethack and Slashem. And Frotz, but Frotz it's trivial to
| port.
|
| Ah, NH and Frotz are already in ports, cool :D.
|
| Then: https://github.com/BarclayII/slashem-up
| southerntofu wrote:
| Hello, thanks for helping make SerenityOS, it looks very
| interesting! I'm afraid i don't have the skills/time to
| contribute to development, but i'm interested to follow
| discussions. Is there a way to join your room from a free/libre
| decentralized client like IRC/XMPP?
|
| A bridging bot like matterbridge is fairly easy to setup these
| days, and i'm happy to provide free hosting for it (on a small
| volunteer-run infra) if for some reason you wouldn't know where
| to host it. I'm always a little sad to see amazing volunteer
| projects organize on Facebook/Discord ;)
| jjice wrote:
| I love your content, really inspirational! What are your
| favorite resources for learning about the variety of topics
| you've tackled, from drivers, to cryptography, to compilers?
| akling wrote:
| In most cases: whatever specification document exists for the
| particular thing I'm trying to do.
|
| For things that are more open, like API's, I like to look at
| what mature API's that do what I want to do already look
| like. And then work backwards from that. :)
| stephen82 wrote:
| Can LibGUI be used independently from SerenityOS, much like we
| do with wxWidgets and Qt?
| anthk wrote:
| https://github.com/jcs/serenity
|
| jcs@ from OpenBSD it's trying to port Serenity OS' GUI to
| OpenBSD. I would like it. I use CWM, but sometimes using an
| environment from my teenage days make me feel relaxed.
| Rochus wrote:
| Is there already a Qt version available on SerenityOS, or did
| anyone plan to migrate it?
| akling wrote:
| There's a port of Qt 6 in the works (not yet merged) here:
| https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/9362
|
| While hackish, it does look pretty promising:
| https://twitter.com/linusgroh/status/1426904775623385095/
| Rochus wrote:
| That's cool, thanks for the links; I probably would have
| migrated Qt5 thought because it is much more stable and
| battle tested and uses C++98 which likely avoids many
| linker issues.
| martinbriza wrote:
| Qt6 is built with CMake which I feel way more comfortable
| with compared to the configure script from Qt5 (actually,
| I probably wouldn't be able to do this with just
| configure).
|
| However, most of the code I've changed is used in the old
| buildsystem as well so somebody could possibly reuse what
| I'm doing in a Qt5 port. I'm not planning to do that
| though, Qt 6.2 will be perfectly good for my personal and
| selfish needs. :)
| Rochus wrote:
| Thanks; I assume it's a challenge anyway.
| jhasse wrote:
| Qt5 switched to C++11 with 5.7.
| Rochus wrote:
| But it's not mandatory, is it? Anyway, I would likely use
| the 5.6.3 version which was the last with LGPL 2.
| ogoffart wrote:
| From Qt 5.7, C++11 is mandatory. Anyway, why would one
| want to use an outdated Qt version? I don't think LGPL3
| is a problem at all for SerenityOS ports anyway.
| Rochus wrote:
| > _why would one want to use an outdated Qt version?_
|
| Well, why would someone want to implement an outdated 90s
| UI? Apparently there are good reasons.
|
| I have many projects even with Qt4.4 and no need to go to
| a later Qt version. Qt4 already had everything I ever
| expected. Qt5 brings a couple of advantages (e.g. better
| modularization and backend API), but Qt5.4 is good enough
| for that.
| ncmncm wrote:
| It is never too late to decide to begin to learn again.
| The right time is always now. You never have to, or can,
| learn everything at once, but you can always learn one
| thing today, and another tomorrow.
|
| Learning is cumulative, so after many days you can look
| back on much progress.
| Rochus wrote:
| > _It is never too late to decide to begin to learn
| again_
|
| This precocious advice is also thanked.
| detaro wrote:
| SerenityOS widely uses modern C++, so I'd assume there's
| little point in restricting yourself to old C++ when
| porting a library.
| Rochus wrote:
| >> _modern C++_
|
| Well, according to Stroustrup himself C++98/03 is
| considered "modern C++" (see e.g.
| https://www.stroustrup.com/DnE2005.pdf ); and I can
| confirm from personal experience that C++98 and STL were
| a big step compared to what we had before. C++11 and
| later have some advantages, but nothing I couldn't live
| without (personally I don't consider policy based design
| the way to go). Actually Qt itself nicely demonstrated
| how to do perfectly well without e.g. move semantics.
| ncmncm wrote:
| That was published _16 years_ ago. Fortunately, Andreas
| isn 't so confused.
|
| C++20 is a wholly more pleasant programming environment
| than any previous C++. When there is a choice between the
| old way and the new--which there always is, for backward
| compatibility--the new way is almost always better.
|
| For some cases, the newer way is better sometimes but not
| always, e.g. east function return type, with "auto", vs.
| old-style west. For short functions, deduced return type,
| i.e. neither one, is often best.
|
| All that said, C++20 coroutines will be much more
| pleasant to use when thd C++23 library support for them
| lands.
| Rochus wrote:
| > _You are very confused_
|
| Because I'm not obsessed with chasing the latest thing?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Do you need it explained why a document published in 2005
| is not a reliable guide to modernity in 2021?
|
| Cppreference.com is an excellent resource to help you get
| caught up. BoostCon vids on Youtube are also helpful.
| Rochus wrote:
| > _Do you need it explained why a document published in
| 2005 is not ..._
|
| Oh yes, let your wisdom be poured out upon us. And no,
| age alone is not relevant to the quality of literature.
| detaro wrote:
| Kind of besides the point that "C++98 to avoid issues"
| when porting to a project that requires C++20 seems a bit
| odd. (And let's say that the quality of Qt's solutions in
| such cases over what you can now do is ... controversial)
| Rochus wrote:
| Does SerenityOS require all apps to be implemented in C++
| or even C++20? I guess not (didn't have a close look at
| it yet).
| ncmncm wrote:
| Obviously not, if so many non-C++ programs are ported to
| run on it. Kernel, core libraries, and native programs
| are C++20. Don't expect pull requests for archaic-styled
| patches to those to be merged.
| mysterydip wrote:
| I love the project and have it bookmarked. Your progress has
| been remarkable! I'm not sure what I'm going to use it for yet,
| but I really want to for something!
| faraaz98 wrote:
| It's been really amazing watching serenity progress over the
| years.
|
| I once tried porting Ruby to Serenity by watching your other
| porting videos but I got stuck on pthread errors.
|
| Perhaps I'll try again sometime
| akling wrote:
| Ruby would definitely be a fun port to add to our roster! The
| SerenityOS pthread implementation has improved substantially
| in the last year, so you might find it easier to get things
| working now.
| ncmncm wrote:
| This is a beautiful project, and you are a most gracious host.
| I get a strong Bob Ross vibe.
|
| I would be happier following if discussion happened on an open
| protocol like Matrix, rather than the wholly proprietary
| Discord.
| davidkunz wrote:
| Hi Andreas,
|
| It's astonishing how much you've achieved with SerenityOS. The
| sheer amount of high-quality YouTube videos explaining the
| process is unprecedented. Keep up the good work!
| als0 wrote:
| Inspiring work. When you started working on Serenity it had a
| floating dock and macOS-like menu bars. Now it looks more like
| Windows 2000 in style. What made you switch to this design?
| Familiarity?
| akling wrote:
| I removed the global menu bar after realizing that it's
| incredibly tedious to use at large resolutions. It made some
| sense at 640x480 and 800x600, but at 1080p and beyond, you
| run into a great deal of mouse travel between a window and
| its menu bar.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| Travel distance is not the right metric. The question is
| how easy is it to acquire the desired menu as a target and
| select it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law
|
| Putting the menu bar at the edge of the screen effectively
| makes it an infinite sized target so it is much easier to
| target and select. Menus at the top of a window are easily
| overshot and missed. Travel distance is easily solved by
| appropriate acceleration in the pointer driver.
| jhasse wrote:
| I much rather have my browser tabs there as I need to
| switch them much more often than accessing the menu.
| eloisant wrote:
| If the speed and acceleration is correctly configured, the
| mouse doesn't have more travel to do at a higher
| resolution.
| messe wrote:
| The DPI is also relevant. I find the global menu fine on
| my 13" MacBook even though it's 2560x1600, but it can be
| a bit tedious on my 28" display when I have multiple
| applications open side-by-side.
| uuddlrlr wrote:
| The trade-off for the mouse travel is only needing to align
| the click on the X-axis.
| aasasd wrote:
| Exactly: if implemented right and there's no gap between
| the menu and the top of the screen where the cursor does
| nothing, then you can just mostly jam the mouse in the
| general direction of the menu item.
|
| Notably, Microsoft managed to bungle this initially in
| Windows with the task bar: there was a one-pixel gap
| between the buttons and the bottom of the screen, so you
| had to aim for the buttons or to readjust the cursor each
| time. (Though personally I find the downward motion more
| awkward anyway, both because the wrist action is weird
| and because the wrist and the wrist support are in the
| way.)
| maskros wrote:
| That's only one way. Don't forget about the return trip.
| Koshkin wrote:
| This makes a lot of sense. I wish Apple did this, too.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > but at 1080p and beyond, you run into a great deal of
| mouse travel between a window and its menu bar.
|
| 1. Somehow this feels Okay on Mac.
|
| 2. You don't actually have to travel the mouse if you use
| hot keys.
|
| 3. The coolest thing the global menu system can give is
| application-agnostic menu searching.
| jhasse wrote:
| 3. can be achieved without a global menu. Menus just have
| to be registered with a global API.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Obviously. But I doubt app authors will bother
| registering menus with a global API if the global menu is
| not a platform standard every user expects them to follow
| (which is how it is in the Mac world).
| schmorptron wrote:
| A minute of silence for Ubuntu's unity, where they
| completely solved top bar UX by having the option to have
| it in the window title bar. God I wish they hadn't
| abandoned development on it.
| zibzab wrote:
| Technically gnome expands on this, allowing you to put
| even more stuff in the top bar.
|
| But yeah, I miss unity too.
| schmorptron wrote:
| I really prefer the ubuntu way to the Gnome one.
| Currently, very few actually productive apps use the
| gnome 3 way, and it's not nearly as standardized across
| Desktops as the menu bar is. On top of that, menu bars
| behave the same way across all applications. You click
| them, and get corresponding actions and menu items you
| can read and skim through. The Gnome 3 way is a lot less
| unified, because you'll have to decipher icons and guess
| at what they do ( save for the simple ones like a +).
|
| This is extra frustrating to me since I absolutely love
| everything else about the modern Gnome UX, but the
| refusal to bring in a top menu bar or at least integrate
| it for powerful apps like gimp, vscode or blender stings
| and makes it so many times you have 3 top bars wasting
| vertical space in maximized apps when it could be two or
| even one.(Activities-button bar, Window title, GIMP menu
| bar)
| tyingq wrote:
| >Now it looks more like Windows 2000 in style
|
| It looks like FVWM95 to me, which was supposed to look like
| Windows 95.
|
| http://fvwm95.sourceforge.net/screenshot-full.gif
| jscipione wrote:
| Fantastic work on SerenityOS and great videos explaining your
| progress. My main complaint is that you are solving many of the
| same problems that Haiku is also struggling with (such as slow
| git checkout speed) while building a '90's era C++ based
| operating system. There's a good chance that your little OS may
| beat ours in the end. You could have built a great C++ OS on
| top of Haiku instead but you went your own way with SerenityOS
| which is valid. You may have gotten discouraged by the
| sometimes thorny Haiku community development process anyway.
| donhaker wrote:
| I do dig the aesthetic, especially on the browser. But is there
| anything things we can do in the OS? Can it run online videos and
| play music?
| stinkytaco wrote:
| Is there a term for something that is absolutely not for you, but
| that you're still very happy exists? I can't see myself ever
| using this, but the idea that someone has put that kind of effort
| in is amazing.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| Agree completely. I would never ever want to go back to that
| interface look, but the existence of this project in the
| universe is cool. Nice work!
| metalliqaz wrote:
| So is it based on Linux or...?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| No. It's actually a new OS, as in a completely new kernel.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Beautiful. I wish I could make this my daily driver (even in a VM
| - I wouldn't mind).
| dfee wrote:
| I'd like to see a general trend in throwback UIs where, for
| example, fonts _have_ been updated. It doesn't have to be
| extravagant, but if I'm reading it, the creature comforts of a
| modern font are nice.
|
| It's like taking a classic car and putting in a modern radio.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| I think a lot of people take throwback projects and retro
| computing too far by rejecting _everything_ modern. What 's
| wrong with allowing some anachronisms for things like high DPI,
| internationalization, security, accessibility?
| vkoskiv wrote:
| Take a closer look - SerenityOS doesn't reject all modern
| stuff. The kernel has plenty of modern security mitigations
| (pledge(), unveil()), and there is basic high DPI support
| already. Internationalization and accessibility are very
| consumer product focused features, which is not what the
| project caters to at this time.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| Awesome! Definitely did not intend to make it sound like
| SerenityOS doesn't care about modern affordances. As for
| internationalization/accessibility, do you mean that these
| features are not supported in a "we can't display Unicode
| text" sense or a "we don't currently have active UI
| translations" sense?
| elisee wrote:
| Andreas has recently mentioned that SerenityOS is meant
| to be an English-language OS. (Might have been on Discord
| or a Q&A video, not sure.)
|
| I believe his rationale is that other languages are
| generally awkward at talking about technical stuff, and
| SerenityOS is addressed at technical users anyway. In my
| own experience as a French native speaker, I do tend to
| prefer all my software to be in English rather than
| getting the awkwardly-translated-in-French version.
|
| As far as accessibility goes, like anything in the
| project, it's up to someone passionate to step up and
| work on it.
| miki123211 wrote:
| > Internationalization and accessibility are very consumer
| product focused features
|
| This way of thinking is why I, as a blind developer, need
| to deal with so many horribly inaccessible tools, I guess.
|
| If you think that only the consumer-focused part of your
| tools needs to be accessible, you're wrong.
| filmroellchen wrote:
| Andreas mentioned on one of the recent Office Hours
| livestreams that accessibility is certainly compatible
| with the project goals, however, nobody has had interest
| in working on it yet.
| akling wrote:
| SerenityOS does have basic support for TTF/OTF rendering via
| our native LibGfx library [1], and it's possible to switch the
| system font to a vector font of your choice.
|
| That said, nobody has implemented kerning or hinting yet, so
| vector fonts do look pretty unpolished on screen, especially at
| smaller sizes.
|
| 1.
| https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Userland/...
| vkoskiv wrote:
| While keming is important, it's still exciting to see how far
| along vector font support is already.
| bartvk wrote:
| Is this a genuine spelling error, or did you make a
| magnificent joke?
| rathboma wrote:
| Love your development videos.
|
| When do you think you'll be able to run your dev stack natively
| on serenity rather than in Linux and virtualizing serenity only
| for testing?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I think this is the eventual goal. Andreas implemented a code
| editor within the OS, and I think some compiler could be ported
| quite easily too.
| rado wrote:
| Sensible, consistent UI. So refreshing.
| kokey wrote:
| I somehow like this a lot. This looks kind of what Windows NT
| would have been if NT 4.0 never happened, or if OS/2 survived, or
| if MacOS or Windows went to a Unix kernel in the early 90s. It's
| a bit like the Nissan Figaro of desktop operating systems. That
| said, going back to an alternative past can be useful beyond an
| art project, it could evolve into helping along the vision for
| better lightweight desktop operating systems of the future. For
| example this might work very well as a remote desktop living on
| virtual infrastructure, or work well as the base for a remote
| desktop client.
| CRConrad wrote:
| > This looks kind of what Windows NT would have been if NT 4.0
| never happened
|
| Why? As I recall it, NT4 was the one that caught the NT line up
| to the W95 look, replacing NT3.5(1)'s look inherited from
| W3(.1). So, on the contrary: This looks _just like_ NT4 / W2K.
| bni wrote:
| What happens if you have a 4K screen, is there 2x, 3x, 4x integer
| scaling built in?
| akling wrote:
| Integer scaling is in development and 2x mode is available via
| the display settings application. It's not mature yet, and most
| assets don't have 2x versions. But we'll get there eventually.
| :^)
| unnah wrote:
| It seems there is no GPU support as such. Is it even possible
| to set up a 4K resolution via VESA BIOS?
| wolf550e wrote:
| SerenityOS has implemented its own TLS 1.2 client from scratch
| (no server side support so far), currently with TLS_RSA_ and
| TLS_DHE_RSA_ only, and AES-CBC and AES-GCM only (software table
| driven AES, software GCM, naive CBC padding handling, nothing is
| constant time).
|
| It does not even pretend to be secure so far (intentionally
| accepts self signed certs), but if they ever want to make it
| secure, that would be a big task.
|
| For compatibility, they really should implement ECDHE with NIST
| P-256, because that is what most of the internet uses and what
| they support means they always fallback to no-PFS.
|
| https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Userland/...
|
| https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Userland/...
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It's great to have new OSs that are actually new OSs, and that
| eschew the brain cancer UX that has taken over since about 2010.
| Since it seems to be a pet project and toy of the author and its
| community, I guess I can't really _fault_ it per-se, but it is
| really strange to me that in its love for 90s UX it failed to
| implement a sane form of application management. It seems to have
| weirdly mixed bad ideas from Windows (installers) and UNIX (fixed
| paths), even though multiple 90s OSs got it right (MacOS, RiscOS,
| NeXT, even DOS to an extent). It is also a little off-putting
| that it explicitly "doesn't cater to non-technical users" when a
| pretty core part of personal computing back then was on ramping
| non-technical users to leveraging the power of a computer. I
| mean, don't get me wrong, a _whole f 'ing lot_ of evil has been
| done in the name of "making computing easier for non-technical
| people", but Serenity takes it to the extent that it doesn't have
| a live environment or installer and you have to compile it from
| source. I mean yeah, sure, hobby OS and all, but it just strikes
| me as missing a very essential component of 90s personal
| computing.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| First of all, not all the changes have to be implemented
| immediately. Andreas often livestreams hack sessions where he
| changes some part of the OS or the APIs, so things are very
| dynamic.
|
| Secondly, why do you expect that this OS is ready to show to
| _any_ non-technical user? If you did, they wouldn 't realise
| what they are looking at, nor why it's a valuable contribution
| to the ecosystem and the fight against the "modern" UX trends.
| The effort would be wasted until the project becomes more
| prominent
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The 3d styling in the UI is very nice, but the widgets are not
| touch friendly at all. Even "classic 90s" OS's like Windows CE
| used the pattern of headerbars with a few key widgets that could
| be easily accessed via touch, not unlike modern GTK 3.x and 4.x.
| A lot friendlier than this.
| akling wrote:
| That's correct, the SerenityOS UI does not attempt to be touch
| friendly. This is a classic mouse & keyboard system by design.
| :)
| hulitu wrote:
| This is a really good thing. A lot of desktop stuff seems to
| presume a desktop has a touch interface which is almost never
| the case. Using the keyboard and mouse for 8 (or 12 hours in
| case of IE) is tiring enough. I cannot picture someone using
| a touchscreen for 8 (or 12 hours in case of IE).
| HackedBunny wrote:
| Good! Tablet and phone concerns have been the absolute bane
| of desktop UIs for so long now.
| boomlinde wrote:
| _> Even "classic 90s" OS's like Windows CE used the pattern of
| headerbars with a few key widgets that could be easily accessed
| via touch_
|
| That's because it was made from the start for PDAs with touch
| screens. This is a desktop computer OS, and although I can
| entertain the notion that someone out there might be smudging a
| touch screen connected to their Unix workstation, I don't see
| why everyone else should accommodate this weird and
| ergonomically unsound input method at the expense of screen
| estate.
|
| Also, whether they could be easily accessed really depends on
| the device and input method. Using Pocket PCs without a stylus
| was certainly no fun.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Well, these days we have "PDAs with touchscreens" running
| "Unix workstation" OS's. Touch input is simply the native
| input method on these devices.
| boomlinde wrote:
| Yes, and for most productive work this is to their
| detriment. Lower precision, no tactility, terrible
| ergonomics. I understand the need for smartphone/tablet
| operating systems to design around this. I don't understand
| the need for every other operating system to do so.
| turblety wrote:
| > SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a
| custom Unix-like core. It flatters with sincerity by stealing
| beautiful ideas from various other systems.
|
| For a project that seems to be focused around something visual,
| it's strange to me that there's not even one screenshot on the
| home page.
|
| The github page [1] does at least have one.
|
| 1. https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity
|
| edit: the screenshot is now on the home page! That was such a
| fast turn around.
| joeberon wrote:
| That screenshot seems to be on the main page now
| akling wrote:
| I added it to the homepage after seeing your comment, thank
| you! While we're a developer-targeted project, it makes total
| sense to have at least one screenshot on the website. :^)
| szszrk wrote:
| Maybe there is no screenshot tool yet :O
|
| There is a youtube channel linked below with some SerenityOs
| content, but that's hardly an excuse.
| thepill wrote:
| there is ;)
| a9h74j wrote:
| Note to self: 1) Implement screenshot tool to provide
| motivation; 2) Implement the rest of myOS.
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