More on Symphony OS (Beta)

[KingBahamut]

Usually, a distro's most recognizable feature is the desktop environment. With SymphonyOS, the screenshots are the first hint that this is not your ordinary remix. SymponyOS is a bold step into a new desktop paradigm. It features such innovations as the Mezzo desktop environment, the Orchestra application environment, and the apt-plus software installation tool. Ryan Quinn, the lead developer of SymphonyOS, took some time out to talk with me about the distro and a few other subjects.

External Links
http://symphonyos.com/
http://debcentral.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=39

As is the case with most Debain reduxes , Ubuntu I keep aside from that for my own purposes, I try to keep an open eye to watch and see what they do. This one seems very odd to me. The desktop envoirment for and in which it lives seems so utterly counter-intuitive to me , that Id clearly not be able to use it. Im not wholely sure that anyone could, but go on ahead and call me a skeptic....Im used to it.


But reading the article above about Mezzo and Symphony OS , I find a few interesting points.

1. "Symphony OS is a project I started a little over a year ago. Originally it was simply to create a web-powered desktop using html/js/css to render the desktop, menus, etc.." -- Google OS anyone....=)

2. "Apt-Plus, our newest sub-project is a simple set of scripts that allow for the extension of apt into web-based application repositories, 1 click installs and eventually the use of external packages while not breaking compatibility with apt." -- This I find very interesting, but it doesnt encourage me to want to install this bad boy yet.

3. "Our primary audience is the novice or new computer user. Someone with very little computer experience who expects things to (to borrow a phrase) just work." -- I thought that was our job. =(

What are your thoughts?

[aysiu]

Symphony OS sounds great in theory, but it didn't "just work" for me, and I think it's still in beta... or alpha, actually.

[earobinson]

looks kinda cool, but im staying with ubuntu for one,

ps ahhhhh you changed your icon

[Qrk]

I've tried it out. Its no Ubuntu, but its nice that a Linux distro offers more than KDE or Gnome. All the distros look so similar on the desktop, something that is a little different is a nice break.

[super]

just saw on distrowatch that beta 1 of symphony_os is out.

if you are interested...

[blastus]

3. "Our primary audience is the novice or new computer user. Someone with very little computer experience who expects things to (to borrow a phrase) just work." -- I thought that was our job. =(

I think the more players we have in the game the better. It's all Linux and Microsoft doesn't have a hand in it, so I'm all for it. :)

[drizek]

downloading it now. wont install on my system, but ill try it out in vmware

[benplaut]

they seem to make good use of Fitt's Law... always a good sign

[gord]

it sounds fun.. something my mum wouldn't mind using. but doesn't have enough computer in it for me.. so to speak.

[occy8]

I saw it a while ago, but haven't tried it (I'm on dialup at the moment)
I think its really interesting because it is so different, don't know if its any good, but yeah definately want to see how it works

[tseliot]

2. "Apt-Plus, our newest sub-project is a simple set of scripts that allow for the extension of apt into web-based application repositories, 1 click installs and eventually the use of external packages while not breaking compatibility with apt." -- This I find very interesting, but it doesnt encourage me to want to install this bad boy yet.

Yes, of course this is an interesting feature, expecially for newbies. However, as Mr Shuttleworth said, packages will be easier to install in Dapper Drake. Perhaps he didn't speak about external packages (or I misunderstood the whole thing).

About Symphony's windows manager (Mezzo): it might seem a bit weird to us because we are used to Linux distros and to their old GNOME, KDE, etc. but it might be a good thing to the ones who have never used Linux or a computer in general.

We should see its hardware support (of the final version), which is fundamental to every distro, and also the way it manages the dependencies of the different applications (especially the "external packages").

[jnoreiko]

I really like the look of it.
I'm not sure it's got the right answers, but it's asking some good questions.
Like: what can be done with the desktop instead of it being a dumping ground for icons and documents?

[carlosqueso]

Hmmm....looks pretty cool, but I just got my laptop working with Ubuntu, and it's been tempermental with linux in the past.....I think I may wait to try it....

[canadianwriterman]

I think the Symphony desktop is an interesting departure from the more traditional GNOME/KDE approach. I was talking with Ryan at Symphony yesterday and he implied that there is a way to install the desktop to work within Ubuntu. Haven't tried it. See his note below:

We actually currently have debain packages available for our desktop
environment that should work just fine with ubuntu without getting in
the way. In case you want to give it a try here is the info...

They can be found at
http://archive.progeny.com/symphonyos/apt/

or by adding

deb http://archive.progeny.com/symphonyos/apt/ ./

to your sources.list

Once mezzo and orchestra are installed they will appear as a session
option in GDM. You will need to copy all the files in /etc/skel/ to
your home directory before using it (dont forget the hidden
files/directories).

[dspp]

Usually, a distro's most recognizable feature is the desktop environment. With SymphonyOS, the screenshots are the first hint that this is not your ordinary remix. SymponyOS is a bold step into a new desktop paradigm. It features such innovations as the Mezzo desktop environment, the Orchestra application environment, and the apt-plus software installation tool. Ryan Quinn, the lead developer of SymphonyOS, took some time out to talk with me about the distro and a few other subjects.

What are your thoughts?

I saw one of the project leaders (Ryan Quin) give a talk and demo at a linuxfest (http://www.ohiolinux.org) and came across a bit underwhelmed. Ryan seemed like a nice guy. Perhaps he was a bit nervous, but he didn't seem to have many answers at this point. Saying that he never heard of the window manager enlightenment was a bit scary (perhaps only to me).

In fairness the project is very new and needs time to grow. Hopefully as much work is going into development as publicity. Perhaps it is a sign that the Linux news crowd is getting larger and reporting more, even alphas. Hopefully they will build a solid project; I wish them luck and will give it a try at some point. As always, your mileage will vary.

[Kyral]

Has anyone else tried the newest release from the SymphonyOS crew? Its Beta now. I frankly am very intriegued by the Mezzo concept. And its looking very good. With Apt as its base, and Mezzo at the front, I may switch when it finally gets out of beta.

Oh something quite intriguing about its sources.list, it combines Debian Stable/Testing/Sid with Ubuntu Hoary, and its own repos. How is that combo gonna work?!

[jasmuz]

In deed the mezzo concept is interesting, but too simplistic for my taste.
I didnt know they where mixing the repos so wildly, we shall see what comes out of it.

[Kyral]

I managed to SCP the debs for Orchestra, Mezzo, and MetaTheme over to my computer running UBuntu. I am REALLY interested in seeing if they will install correctly into my system without screwing anything up :D

[ryanpq]

I saw one of the project leaders (Ryan Quin) give a talk and demo at a linuxfest (http://www.ohiolinux.org) and came across a bit underwhelmed. Ryan seemed like a nice guy. Perhaps he was a bit nervous, but he didn't seem to have many answers at this point. Saying that he never heard of the window manager enlightenment was a bit scary (perhaps only to me).

I was in fact quite nervous. First time I had done a talk like that. As to the enlightenment question I had the gentleman ask that question several times.. just could not make out what he was saying. I had in fact heard of enlightenment and had already at that point looked at evidence as a possible file manager for symphony.

The primary reason I went to linuxfest wasnt to tell the community how Symphony was going to work and what direction it was going in but rather to get the community's input on where they think it should go.

[nikopol]

Tried it out on Ubuntu and it is still quite buggy. I don't think it gives a fair representation of Mezzo as it's quite slow and some thngs don't work correctly (for example, I didn't have any window "decoration" so had to shut apps from their menu (if they had one). It also had a tendency to just be blue with a strange grey rectangle in the centre top of the screen. With a little clicking you'll find that clicking on the corners makes mezzo work the way it should (kind of).

Although it's not quite ready for Ubuntu, I'm quite interested in the new way of managing the desktop. It's new, uncluttered and intuitive - which is good. I think it definately has a market with low-technically minded end-users (which I assume is Ryan's primary target with this?).

[dspp]

I was in fact quite nervous. First time I had done a talk like that. As to the enlightenment question I had the gentleman ask that question several times.. just could not make out what he was saying. I had in fact heard of enlightenment and had already at that point looked at evidence as a possible file manager for symphony.

The primary reason I went to linuxfest wasnt to tell the community how Symphony was going to work and what direction it was going in but rather to get the community's input on where they think it should go.

Glad to hear (pun intended) that you didn't hear him (c: As noted, I will give Symphony a try down the road and I wish good luck the distribution (and, for that matter, luck to any open source distribution). You did well for a first talk especially considering the jackals (including me) in the audience.

Thanks for taking the time to reply here. Just curious...do you see anything in Ubuntu that you hope to incorporate into Symphony? Hopefully you will develop a large user community that Ubuntu has garnered rather quickly.

[fuscia]

looks pretty Mac-ish.

[peterbrowne]

yes, Symphony OS does sound a lot like something Google would do - integrate Google talk! and GMail into it and you've got Ginux (Google Linux)

[mcduck]

I installed Orchestra/Mezzo desktop to my Ubuntu, and altough it doesn't work too good yet (yes, real install sure works better) it looks very promising, and I like many of their ideas too. It's not the kind of DE I'd use myself, but for people with less experience with computers it might work very well. And I like the idea that you can use on your desktop anything that works for web, like css, java and PHP.. That would make so many cool things possible.

[drucer]

---

[bonzodog]

I just read today that Symphony OS is now based entirely on Ubuntu, starting with the feisty tree.