Elementary OS


Recommended Posts

KDE is too glossy to be a Mac clone. If anything, they'll rip off Windows 7 since a lot of the wanna-be Aero work is already there. If you're going

to copy someone else's design, might as well make it easy on yourself!

I kid, I kid.

It was rumored that Windows 7 was a rip off of KDE.

As for the distro, I will pass. It is not something I would pay for.

BSD called - they want Apple to kill themselves.

Seriously though, Apple needs to make their own OS without BSD.

The people who wrote the BSD code base wanted companies like NeXT/Apple to do what they did.

  • Take "good code" rather than poorly re-inventing the wheel
  • Contribute changes and bug fixes back to the original project (this is optional, but it's always appreciated)
  • Leave in 'advertising' promoting BSD in comments.

They never particularly cared about somebody using BSD code to turn a profit or bundling up their code with some new stuff and calling it a new product.

If they didn't want that to happen they could have made a license that prohibited for-profit derivative work, mandated that any linked code be opensource as well, or demanded that any changes be made public (Apple does this already, but it isn't required).

You do know how Mac OS came about in the first place, right?

Apple bought and licensed things over time while developing their own applications, frameworks and interface on top of that? Beyond that they currently make use of BSD code and share their improvements with the open source community.

Linux devs just crack me up lately. Apple introduced iOS-like scroll bars that disappear when not in use in the first Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview. Within three weeks Ubuntu suddenly has something similar as well in their beta. Implemented not quite as nicely of course. I'm guessing that too "evolved on its own" and we can yet again write it off as pure coincidence it was introduced after Apple did the same thing.

Honestly? I like it.

Better a okay rip-off than a lacking own GUI. :D

GNOME and KDE are both far from ideal GUIs.

I use Linux on a daily basis for months now and I gotta say I adore working with linux every time, it's just that the GUI is always flawy at the most initial and obvious places.

It's sad that so little effort is put into propper GUIs from the community and few big corporations try to break free from old traditions, trying to innovate proper and easy as well as focussing GUIs.

Yes, I'm a Mac fan, hence I might like the copywork, but really: Better an approach to good copying than to just let it slide.

Sure, Canonical is doing some excellent work trying to put new things to GNOME and I like their approaches, but it's still rough.

Let's hope good things develop from here...

Glassed Silver:win

@Neo: Yeah, and Mac ripped off the App Store idea because Ubuntu had the Software Center back in mid 2009, and package manager years earlier. Mac also ripped off the "launchpad" (ironically, Canonical owns the trademark on that name), because that sort of view existed in Unity since mid 2010... /sarcasm

So? My personal opinion is that the scrollbars are a coincidence, but who cares? I'm not defending Elementary, because they shamelessly "tweak" and mash the interface of OS X and iOS and add an unnecessary layer on top of Ubuntu, but Ubuntu generally tends to have an idea of where to go with the ideas they borrow. Sure they changed the layout of the buttons to the left, and at that moment it seemed like desperately copying OS X, but what they did is that they made the move make sense, unlike OS X, with the current maximized window behavior (along with another idea they took from OS X, global menu, which is also slightly tweaked). So, yeah. I'll admit that generally Linux developers tend to have sub par free versions of what already exists in the proprietary world, but what's exactly wrong with that alone? Not to mention that Ubuntu is slowly starting to build something of its own.

@Neo: Yeah, and Mac ripped off the App Store idea because Ubuntu had the Software Center back in mid 2009, and package manager years earlier. Mac also ripped off the "launchpad" (ironically, Canonical owns the trademark on that name), because that sort of view existed in Unity since mid 2010... /sarcasm

Yeah, except Launchpad comes from iOS released in 2007. An online software store hasn't been anything original for years.

So? My personal opinion is that the scrollbars are a coincidence, but who cares? I'm not defending Elementary, because they shamelessly "tweak" and mash the interface of OS X and iOS and add an unnecessary layer on top of Ubuntu, but Ubuntu generally tends to have an idea of where to go with the ideas they borrow. Sure they changed the layout of the buttons to the left, and at that moment it seemed like desperately copying OS X, but what they did is that they made the move make sense, unlike OS X, with the current maximized window behavior (along with another idea they took from OS X, global menu, which is also slightly tweaked). So, yeah. I'll admit that generally Linux developers tend to have sub par free versions of what already exists in the proprietary world, but what's exactly wrong with that alone? Not to mention that Ubuntu is slowly starting to build something of its own.

Everything is according to you right? 3D Dock? Coincidence. 2D Dock in Gnome 3D & Ubuntu? Coincidence. Expos? rip-off in Gnome 3? Coincidence. The exact Dashboard close button in Gnome 3? Coincidence. Rounded search box in Gnome 3? Coincidence. Suddenly Mac OS X Lion-like scroll bars in appear in Ubuntu two weeks after Apple released DP1? Coincidence. Icon and symbol concept rip-offs? Coincidence. Suddenly moving the window widgets in the exact same order and location as on Mac? Coincidence. Launchpad rip-off just after Apple demoed Mac OS X Lion's take on it? Coincidence. The list goes on and on. Sure, let's stick with it all being a "coincidence". (Y) :laugh:

I'm not against companies borrowing ideas from each other, giving their own spin to it in the process, everyone does that. However at this point things are just becoming ridiculous. Elementary OS still being a perfect example.

Yeah, except Launchpad comes from iOS released in 2007. An online software store hasn't been anything original for years.

Everything is according to you right? 3D Dock? Coincidence. 2D Dock in Gnome 3D & Ubuntu? Coincidence. Expos? rip-off in Gnome 3? Coincidence. The exact Dashboard close button in Gnome 3? Coincidence. Rounded search box in Gnome 3? Coincidence. Suddenly Mac OS X Lion-like scroll bars in appear in Ubuntu two weeks after Apple released DP1? Coincidence. Icon and symbol concept rip-offs? Coincidence. Suddenly moving the window widgets in the exact same order and location as on Mac? Coincidence. Launchpad rip-off just after Apple demoed Mac OS X Lion's take on it? Coincidence. The list goes on and on. Sure, let's stick with it all being a "coincidence". (Y) :laugh:

I'm not against companies borrowing ideas from each other, giving their own spin to it in the process, everyone does that. However at this point things are just becoming ridiculous. Elementary OS still being a perfect example.

I said scrollbars are coincidence. And using your rhetoric, a dock hasn't been anything original for years :p

Launchpad is unlikely ripped off, because it's been there before Lion showed it (you can go to first netbook remixes for a similar thing), and how innovative is arranging a bunch of icons in a grid anyway? As for window widgets on the left side, it's there for a reason, to remove the clutter in the panel (where they go when windows are maximized) which would occur if they were on the right side next to the notification area. There never was any reason to put them on the left side in OS X that I know of. As for the Gnome 3 stuff, I don't care and I wasn't talking about that anyway.

I just touched upon the scrollbars. If they were able to code them in two weeks, then, wow, holy sh*t, Ubuntu devs are amazing. Things like these are planned in advance. When they moved the buttons to the left, they were clearly paving the way for removing the menubar altogether (which I think is their ultimate goal, right now it's hidden in the panel until you hover it) and integrating the window border with the panel. It makes sense, two months after they moved the buttons, first version of Unity was out, using the panel/window border integration.

EDIT: Since my reply makes no sense after your last edit. As I sad, a lot of things in Linux world seem like sub par versions of what Windows and Mac have. I don't deny that. I am annoyed that you insist everything came from Mac, like Mac's totally original (hardly the case). Just like Mac took workspaces from other people, polished them up, so are a lot of distros taking some design ideas and trying to do something with them. Those that blatantly copy (Elementary, Gnome 3) will most likely fail, but I consider Ubuntu to be the one that has a chance of doing something on its own. They've already made sense of moving the buttons to the left, and generally they do plan in advance (I think even the scrollbars were tested by regular people, they do similar things all the time).

EDIT: Since my reply makes no sense after your last edit. As I sad, a lot of things in Linux world seem like sub par versions of what Windows and Mac have. I don't deny that. I am annoyed that you insist everything came from Mac, like Mac's totally original (hardly the case). Just like Mac took workspaces from other people, polished them up, so are a lot of distros taking some design ideas and trying to do something with them. Those that blatantly copy (Elementary, Gnome 3) will most likely fail, but I consider Ubuntu to be the one that has a chance of doing something on its own. They've already made sense of moving the buttons to the left, and generally they do plan in advance (I think even the scrollbars were tested by regular people, they do similar things all the time).

Like I said I don't have an issue with companies borrowing ideas from each other. Microsoft does this, Samsung, LG, Motorola and even Apple is no exception. However there's a big difference with how things go down with Linux. They don't borrow ideas, they try to copy them 1:1. Linux had multi-desktops before Mac OS X, yes, however Spaces looks nothing like the default Linux implementation. It uses its own unique style that fits in with Aqua. Things in Linux distros like the 3D Dock, 2D Dock style, scroll bars, Expos? clones and even icons in some cases are nothing but rip-offs from existing Mac OS X features and quite frankly things have been increasingly becoming worse recently. Hell, Gnome 3 even took resources straight from Mac OS X (see first page). The disappearing scroll bars are an Apple concept. If not tell me why didn't the Ubuntu team introduce these scrollbars before 2007 or even before October 2010? Why do these dings always have a habit of turning up in Linux after they are introduced in an Apple product?

Long story short: It all always makes sense and everything evolves on its own in the Linux landscape. However it never makes any sense or evolve on its own before Apple introduced it in one of their products. That's what we see right? But okay. ;)

Jeezus. Give it up already. They all copy Apple. I think we get it.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Now comes with a money back guarantee instead of a replacement! Hah
    • Rufus 4.15.2391 Beta by Razvan Serea Rufus is a small utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc. Despite its small size, Rufus provides everything you need! Oh, and Rufus is fast. For instance it's about twice as fast as UNetbootin, Universal USB Installer or Windows 7 USB download tool, on the creation of a Windows 7 USB installation drive from an ISO (with honorable mention to WiNToBootic for managing to keep up). It is also marginally faster on the creation of Linux bootable USBs from ISOs. A non-exhaustive list of Rufus supported ISOs is available here. It can be especially useful for cases where: you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, etc.) you need to work on a system that doesn't have an OS installed you need to flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS you want to run a low-level utility Rufus 4.15.2391 Beta changelog: Improve the guards for using the "silent" option Improve the ability to cancel during write retries Fix unrestricted XML entity expansion and integer overflow in ezxml parser (courtesy of @esadowski4) [GHSA-55r2-34wg-8mv9] Fix "silent" Windows installation failing at 75% in most cases [#2960] Fix a crash during boot when using UEFI:NTFS on Snapdragon X based ARM64 platforms [#2934] Fix the first WUE option always being checked by default [#2965] Fix an infinite loop when using Windows ISOs that contain multiple WIMs Fix "Enable runtime UEFI media validation" checkbox not always being properly enabled Other WUE improvements/fixes for OneDrive removal and username validation (with thanks to @christian8641) [#2984, #2991] Download: Rufus 4.15 Beta | 1.9 MB (Open Source) Links: Rufus Home Page | Project Page @GitHub | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Media Player Classic - Home Cinema 2.7.3 by Razvan Serea Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC) is a free and open-source video and audio player for Windows. MPC-HC is based on the original Guliverkli project (which is no longer maintained) and contains many additional features and bug fixes. As the continuation of the original Media Player Classic, MPC-HC isn’t flashy but it works with nearly any media format. MPC-HC uses DXVA technology to pass decoding operations to your modern video card, enhancing your viewing experience. And MPC-HC supports both physical and software DVDs with menus, chapter navigation, and subtitles. Overview of features A lot of people seem to be unaware of some of the awesome features that have been added to MPC-HC in the past years. Here is a list of useful options and features that everyone should know about: Dark interface Menu > View > Dark Theme When using dark theme it is also possible to change the height of the seekbar and size of the toolbar buttons. Options > Advanced Video preview on the seekbar Options > Tweaks > Show preview on seek bar Adjust playback speed Menu > Play > Playback rate The buttons in the player that control playback rate take a 2x step by default. This can be customized to smaller values (like 10%): Options > Playback > Speed step Adjusting playback speed works best with the internal audio renderer. This also has automatic pitch correction. Options > Playback > Output > Audio Renderer MPC-HC can remember playback position, so you can resume from that point later Options > Player > History You can quickly seek through a video with Ctrl + Mouse Scrollwheel. You can jump to next/previous file in a folder by pressing PageUp/PageDown. You can perform automatic actions at end of file. For example to go to next file or close player. Options > Playback > After Playback (permanent setting) Menu > Play > After Playback (for current file only) A-B repeat - You can loop a segment of a video. Press [ and ] to set start and stop markers. You can rotate/flip/mirror/stretch/zoom the video Menu > View > Pan&Scan This is also easily done with hotkeys (see below). There are lots of keyboard hotkeys and mouse actions to control the player. They can be customized as well. Options > Player > Keys Tip: there is a search box above the table. You can stream videos directly from Youtube and many other video websites You can stream videos directly from Youtube and many other video websites Put yt-dlp.exe or youtube-dl.exe in the MPC-HC installation folder. Then you can open website URLs in the player: Menu > File > Open File/URL You can even download those videos: Menu > File > Save a copy Tip: to be able to download in best quality with yt-dlp/youtube-dl, it is recommended to also put ffmpeg.exe in the MPC-HC folder. Several YDL configuration options are found here: Options > Advanced This includes an option to specify the location of the .exe in case you don't want to put it in MPC-HC folder. Play HDR video This requires using madVR or MPC Video Renderer. After installation these renderers can be selected here: Options > Playback > Output Ability to search for and download subtitles, either automatically or manually (press D): Options > Subtitles > Misc Besides all these (new) features, there have also been many bugfixes and internal improvements in the player in the past years that give better performance and stability. It also has updated internal codecs. Support was added for CUE sheets, WebVTT subtitles, etc. Media Player Classic - Home Cinema 2.7.3 changelog: Updated LAV Filters to version 0.82 Updated MPC Video Renderer to version 0.10.4.2550 Updated MPC Audio Renderer A few crash fixes, bug fixes and small improvements. Download: MPC-HC 2.7.3 (x64) | Standalone | ~20.0 MB (Open Source) Download: MPC-HC 2.7.3 (x86) | Standalone Links: MPC-HC Home Page | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Microsoft will finally let you sign in to Edge with a Google account by Usama Jawad As things currently stand, Microsoft Edge only allows you to sign in to the browser with a Microsoft Account (MSA). This allows you to sync your browser settings and other data across other devices, as long as you sign in with the same account. However, Microsoft is now modifying this mechanism in a way that will likely please many users. In an update to its Microsoft 365 Roadmap, Microsoft has indicated that it will soon let users sign into Edge using a Google account from the profile menu and the Edge sign-in screen. This will be in addition to the MSA login option, and it opens up new doors for people who prefer using Edge, but cannot be bothered to configure a Microsoft account. This brings several advantages such as the ability to sync your data across devices using just a Google account. It may even facilitate flexible single sign-on (SSO) experiences where you can quickly login to websites and services through a single Google account that is presented as the preferred sign-in option. Up until now, Microsoft allowed customers to indirectly use a Google account, by configuring a Google account as a Microsoft account, or by setting up a one-way sync option between Edge and Chrome. This is a rather interesting development, especially considering that Google Chrome still limits you to a Google account sign-in, but it will be interesting to see if the company reciprocates Microsoft's gesture in the future. This is not the only recent instance in which Microsoft has extended a handshake to Google via Edge. In April 2026, it began tracking the development of a work search banner for Google Search queries, just like the one present in Edge. However, if we go back almost seven years, to January 2020, Microsoft had emphasized that it had no plans to "integrate Google services into Microsoft Edge by default", in response to people requesting Google sign-in services on Edge. Fast-forward to today, and Microsoft is planning to release this feature in July 2026, with IT admins having the option to control its availability on Windows and macOS through the NonMicrosoftAccountSignInEnabled policy.
    • If they ever come out and say the AI is no longer accessible to the gen pop people aren't going to know how to tie their own shoelaces.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      Vincian earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • First Post
      Jocimo earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      suprememobiles48 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      Prasann earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      509
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      172
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      89
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      76
    5. 5
      neufuse
      69
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!