Where are the unique features?

[rado_london]

Hi. I just read thread about some vista features and how we have to implement them. Well then I spent some time thinking on it. We actually don't come up with unique ideas and implementation such as GUI etc. Sure we are stable but this isnt enough. We need something WIndows and OS X dont have and we can point to it in our adverts reccomendations etc.
Well what do you think about it?

[Arktis]

Look up XGL and AIGLX. Oh, screw it. Here's the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XGL and here's one about AIGLX as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIGLX

There you have it. :cool:

[rado_london]

This is beta and wont be implemented in ubuntu in the near few years I would say. And I think Vista will have that feature. So it isnt that unique is it?

[drogoh]

No ideas are ever really unique. They've been done before or thought up by someone else. This is especially true with open source applications. Everyone has their own idea of the wheel and decides to make it. It's not a new revolutionary thing, just the wheel made in a different way than N guys.

[Personatech]

It depends what you mean by "features". Perhaps an unintended problem with Linux is that if a distro were to implement a new feature that immediate excites the Linux (or even general IT) community, it's open source nature makes it relatively easy to be ported to Win and OSX (this is what happened to Superkaramba).

I personally have thoroughly enjoyed the Fluxbox Window Manager over Gnome and KDE because of what I consider to be a superior GUI design. Since the UI is a favored dogma of the commercial OSes, they would be loathe to implement such a drastic change.

Of course, the real features-advantage of Linux over Windows (and, to a lesser extent, over OSX) is "under the hood": security, reliability, scalability, freedom.

[lapsey]

i can see gmail, gcalendar and other such hotly-branded portable ajax services being a big draw.

complementing these would go some way in winning points from new adopters

[Jucato]

Some GUI features that Windows does not have (at least by default).
1. Virtual Desktops/Workspaces
2. Choice of Desktop Environment or Window Manager
3. Full themeable window decorations (without the need to buy 3rd-party apps)

Sure, it's hard to really think up of new and very innovative ideas, although it certainly isn't an impossibility. I also don't think that some of Vista's features are very "new" themselves.

Btw, what do you mean XGL/Compiz won't be implemented in Ubuntu? Aren't there packages in the repositories for it already? Granted it's still not a main part of Ubuntu, but neither is it a main part of any distribution.

[Arktis]

Yes, there are xgl and compiz packages in the repos. Shuttleworth has also stated a few things about gnu/ubuntu edgy eft development here: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2006-April/000064.html


So dream a little about Xen for virtualisation, Xgl/AIGLX and other
wonderful wobbly window bits, the goodness of Network Manager, a first
flirt with multiarch support for true mixed 32-bit and 64-bit computing
on AMD64, the interesting possibilities of the SMART package manager...
and other pieces of infrastructure which have appeared tantalisingly
on the horizon.

We can afford to take some risks with Dapper+1, because Dapper has turned
out so well. We have a great answer for people who need super-solid
and super-predictable results: Dapper is still fresh, will continue to work
on modern hardware for some time, and has plenty of legs in its support
cycle left to run.

There you have it. Shuttleworth wants to take risks with edgy and XGL/AIGLX might just be one of them. So I wouldn't rule out an earlier adoption by ubuntu than expected. Just look at what the ubuntu devs have done for the codebase in the past. They may end up making us some very happy campers.

But maybe I'm being too optimistic/unrealistic about it.

[seshomaru samma]

Hi. I just read thread about some vista features and how we have to implement them

I don't know. I'm dual booting Vista and Dapper and can't see any special features in Vista. I was expecting wonders but its nothing like XGL. Maybe I'm not well informed but after a few hours of playing Vista I concluded that XP is way better . It's new security features are super annoying . Vista is so 'friendly' that any manual configuration option is carefully hidden making almost useless in case you want to do something that MS engineers didn't think about.
This is not to say that there is no room for improvement in Dapper or Linux in general....

[-Rick-]

Hi. I just read thread about some vista features and how we have to implement them. Well then I spent some time thinking on it. We actually don't come up with unique ideas and implementation such as GUI etc. Sure we are stable but this isnt enough. We need something WIndows and OS X dont have and we can point to it in our adverts reccomendations etc.
Well what do you think about it?
Google a bit for KDE 4 stuff, they got plenty new ideas :)