Watch out Unity, KDE, GNOME, et al: CDE is now FOSS

[lykwydchykyn]

Just read the news that CDE (http://www.osnews.com/story/26247/CDE_released_as_open_source), the venerable proprietary UNIX desktop, is now open source.

How many of you will be switching?? :D :D :D

[catlover2]

I'm not sure about switching, but I'm going to have to give this a try at least...

[forrestcupp]

That's kind of like asking if I want to switch to a free copy of Windows 98.

[neu5eeCh]

I'll give it try too. But first I need to create the right atmosphere. I need some 90's memorabilia... Maybe a 28k modem, you know? Just for looks...

[lykwydchykyn]

The title's a bit tongue-in-cheek, of course; but personally I have an interest (maybe even affinity?) for funky old operating systems, desktop environments, and computing platforms; especially those with some history and culture behind them.

So I'm going to try to get this running on one of my older debian boxes, or maybe in a VM.

:popcorn:

[sammiev]

I got rid of my old laptops. Wish I would have saved a few now. Might try it in VM as well.

[qamelian]

This was one of two desktops I used way back when I started using Linux (SuSE 5.2). It may look kinda ancient, but it still ranks as one of the most usable desktop environments of all time for me. :)

[szymon_g]

frankly speaking- there was no other thing to do with it. nobody uses it (unless someone has to run a legacy system which would be ~15 years old now), KDE/GNOME overtook it (i.e. CDE) in terms of usability on the beginning of millenium. now it's dead, opening it up costs them nothing- but maybe some older unix-users (those who still remember cde from their juvenile years) will keep that zoombie "alive".

[hoppipolla]

*shudders* hehe

While I'm at it I'll switch my house for a cave xD

[Lightstar]

That thing looks pretty ugly, I doubt any other desktop environment has anything to worry about.

[mips]

frankly speaking- there was no other thing to do with it. nobody uses it (unless someone has to run a legacy system which would be ~15 years old now), KDE/GNOME overtook it (i.e. CDE) in terms of usability on the beginning of millenium. now it's dead, opening it up costs them nothing- but maybe some older unix-users (those who still remember cde from their juvenile years) will keep that zoombie "alive".

Erm, I still used it on HP-UX not so long ago. We also had it on Solaris (phased out now) and I'm sure it still comes with a few commercial Unix flavours.

[szymon_g]

Erm, I still used it on HP-UX not so long ago. We also had it on Solaris (phased out now) and I'm sure it still comes with a few commercial Unix flavours.

could you tell me why could anyone choose it? i meant: if operating system comes with something else (like: gnome 2), why one would choose CDE?
And apart from that: what's the user base of unixes (and unix-like) that use it?

[Uncle Spellbinder]

No offense to those who like the CDE look, but that is truly hideous. IMHO.

[cariboo]

I used it when running RedHat 5.2 back in the late 90's. As soon as I found Mandrake 6.0 (KDE based), I never used CDE again. :)

[lykwydchykyn]

Well, I don't know that it will make a major dent in the desktop environment market. But it's good that this code is open now; ugly it may be, but looks are one thing, and usability another. Maybe there are ideas in CDE that modern DE developers can use or evolve.

Or maybe not; I've never used it. But I'm stoked that I can now, if just for the history education.

If nothing else, the chance to experience history may prevent some developer from repeating it. ;)

[Primefalcon]

I'll give it a try, will take a lot to switch me from dolphin though tbh

[Copper Bezel]

I'd always thought that Dolphin should count as a desktop environment. =)

[KiwiNZ]

If it works fine on a server then all good, don't need pretty GUI's on servers.

[Ravi5kumar]

Just read the news that CDE (http://www.osnews.com/story/26247/CDE_released_as_open_source), the venerable proprietary UNIX desktop, is now open source.

How many of you will be switching?? :D :D :D

I am fine with my ubuntu:guitar:!

[MadmanRB]

Interesting, but its a 20 year old interface that still looks like its from the 90's

[Primefalcon]

Interesting, but its a 20 year old interface that still looks like its from the 90's
well..... considering the last stable release was in the 90's that does fit.........

[Jakin]

If it becomes easy to install as a session, or there is a live CD im game- hell i still use open step interface sometimes. (both are early/mid 90s right?)

[mips]

could you tell me why could anyone choose it? i meant: if operating system comes with something else (like: gnome 2), why one would choose CDE?

And apart from that: what's the user base of unixes (and unix-like) that use it?

It's not really a matter of choice. It comes with a production unix box that costs a lot of money and has a support contract attached to it. You don't install unsupported software on it as the vendor could quite easily not honour the support contract. The box is there to be stable and run production software and you don't wanna mess with it. I did not really like CDE but that's what we got and it worked just fine. In all the years I used it we never had software issues, only a hardware failure (psu but it had two of them). Don't fix it if it ain't broken.

They did not really function as a desktop pc would anyway, they ran certain dedicated applications and that was their main function. Once you started the box or application they never went down for about a year or so. Only time we took them down was for hardware (ram & hdd) & software upgrades (OS & apps). You did not use them for email, office, multimedia apps etc.

Same goes for the solaris boxes with cde we had.

Most of the commercial unixes I've come across had cde as a default install and was considered the defacto standard up until the 2000's somewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Desktop_Environment#Operating_systems_using _CDE
AIX (IBM)
Digital UNIX / Tru64 UNIX (originally Digital Equipment Corporation, now Hewlett-Packard)
HP-UX (Hewlett-Packard) from version 10.10[11]
OpenVMS (originally Digital Equipment Corporation, now Hewlett-Packard)
Solaris (Sun Microsystems) available as an add on for 2.3 onwards, and as standard in 2.6 to 10.
UnixWare (Univel)
IRIX (For a short time Silicon Graphics offered CDE as an alternative to IID[citation needed])

[BrokenKingpin]

Hahah, that is old school.... I love it.

[Dragonbite]

With all the back-and-forth bickering about desktop environments lately, I think it would be really cool if this environment can be built up into a viable alternative!

Think about it, it is so outdated that it would be like working with a "clean slate" though some of the work is already done.

Developers could look at the good and the bad of Unity, Gnome, etc. to find a comfortable middle ground instead of trying to push Gnome or Unity one way or the other.

Or, it could find its niche as an environment focused towards servers and workstations that all of the eye-candy and social networking integration is a negative instead of a positive! Ubuntu has been working on use-specific spins lately with the developer version for Project Sputnik and mention of a work-based version that does not include social networking applications and instead include office-orientated apps (such as for connecting to Active Directory and Evolution to Exchange servers).

As with any project, though, it all comes down to the people who get involved.

Yet this could be a fun usurper in the coming years... :)

[mastablasta]

must be light on resources...

[MadmanRB]

With all the back-and-forth bickering about desktop environments lately, I think it would be really cool if this environment can be built up into a viable alternative!

Think about it, it is so outdated that it would be like working with a "clean slate" though some of the work is already done.

Developers could look at the good and the bad of Unity, Gnome, etc. to find a comfortable middle ground instead of trying to push Gnome or Unity one way or the other.

Or, it could find its niche as an environment focused towards servers and workstations that all of the eye-candy and social networking integration is a negative instead of a positive! Ubuntu has been working on use-specific spins lately with the developer version for Project Sputnik and mention of a work-based version that does not include social networking applications and instead include office-orientated apps (such as for connecting to Active Directory and Evolution to Exchange servers).

As with any project, though, it all comes down to the people who get involved.

Yet this could be a fun usurper in the coming years... :)

Well with it being open source now there is a chance to modernize it and bring it up to speed and make it more modern but hopefully not go overboard with it.
At least create something like Gnome 2 or KDE3 with it.

[aq3e]

I would absolutly love to try this desktop environment out! I prefer it over Ubuntu's current awful unity interface (Gnome3).

[Linuxratty]

I would absolutly love to try this desktop environment out! I prefer it over Ubuntu's current awful unity interface (Gnome3).

And who is to say someone like Mint might just pick it up and run with it.

[Dragonbite]

And who is to say someone like Mint might just pick it up and run with it.

That's an interesting prospect. Mint is small enough to snatch-and-run with it before other distributions while housing enough developers to build it into something (based on what they have done with Cinnamon already).

[mips]

With all the back-and-forth bickering about desktop environments lately, I think it would be really cool if this environment can be built up into a viable alternative!

Think about it, it is so outdated that it would be like working with a "clean slate" though some of the work is already done.

Developers could look at the good and the bad of Unity, Gnome, etc. to find a comfortable middle ground instead of trying to push Gnome or Unity one way or the other.

Or, it could find its niche as an environment focused towards servers and workstations that all of the eye-candy and social networking integration is a negative instead of a positive! Ubuntu has been working on use-specific spins lately with the developer version for Project Sputnik and mention of a work-based version that does not include social networking applications and instead include office-orientated apps (such as for connecting to Active Directory and Evolution to Exchange servers).

As with any project, though, it all comes down to the people who get involved.

Yet this could be a fun usurper in the coming years... :)

We've already got XFCE for that :P :-\" :biggrin:

Trust me CDE is not the nicest DE out there, I've used it for years.

[lykwydchykyn]

Well, so far I haven't managed to compile it, so I'll have to wait until Cubuntu comes out. :)

[mips]

Well, so far I haven't managed to compile it, so I'll have to wait until Cubuntu comes out. :)

I could be wrong but I don't think compiling it will work at this stage as it has Motif toolkit dependencies which are not free or open sourced at this stage but is expected to be open sourced in the near future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motif_widget_toolkit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Motif

http://www.osnews.com/story/26247/CDE_released_as_open_source

CDE has been released as open source under the LGPL, and can be downloaded as of today for Debian and Ubuntu. Motif will follow later.

<snip>

Motif, the widget toolkit used by CDE, will also be released as open source, but since there are still a few legal issues to work out there, this will have to wait. In the meantime, the project decided to move ahead with CDE, since it can be built using Open Motif anyway.

[tobydeemer]

I for one am extremely excited for what this might turn into. I've been big fan of WindowMaker for a long time, and have always wished CDE would somehow "make it over".

For my personal machines at home, I tend to alternate between XFCE, WindowMaker, and sometimes Unity2D, though not often anymore. For my work machine, currently it's between XFCE and WM. They are both light on resources, and function extremely well while staying out of the way. I do several terminals and text editors as well as RDP, browser, mail client, chat, and occasional VM lab builds.

But for work-flow, the utilitarian nature of WindowMaker or the light yet configurable XFCE as yet have no rivals. I'm very interested to see if CDE can be as usefully utilitarian while even lighter on resources. One caveat is that I kinda need Network Manager, ugh. For VPN connectivity and just ease of management of many remembered connections, it's tough to beat. WindowMaker has the "Docker" dockapp to host applets, so it works for me. Hopefully CDE would eventually have something similar.

Plus, I'm a geek for the old school appearance. :-P

[tobydeemer]

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~psgendb/cde/desktop.html

http://edge.cs.drexel.edu/GICL/howto/cde/cde.html

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19082-01/819-7313/shared-commontasks-26/index.html

There are lots more, but that's a bit of an overview. Interesting reads.

[dusanyu]

could you tell me why could anyone choose it? i meant: if operating system comes with something else (like: gnome 2), why one would choose CDE?



the would choose it becouse It is coherently designed, well-documented and almost entirely bug free.



instructions for building om Linux can be seen here
http://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/LinuxBuild/

wpuld love to see a PPA for this (i dont have time to maintain it)

[lykwydchykyn]

wpuld love to see a PPA for this (i dont have time to maintain it)

I'm not entirely clear on how PPA's work, but I would imagine the code would have to be patched to work with Launchpad's build system first. The build instructions seem to indicate a lot of changes that have to be made to the build environment to get CDE to compile, and I doubt you can do that on Launchpad.

I'm betting it happens at some point, though. I'm not enough of a C hacker to pull it off.

[Gyokuro]

Good old UNIX days - for CDE i will dump every current DE and perfect for laptops.

[MadmanRB]

If and when this hits a PPA i may try it out for laughs, why not?

[Ibidem]

I've been running it for most of a week now (on Lucid). I rather like it.
I'm not one for eye candy; any time I've tried something with desktop effects (xcompmgr, compiz, unity, gnome+effects, xfce+effects), it seems to hurt my eyes...
The themes supplied with it are rather muddy, though. Oh well-I can live with that.
It installs fairly readily for me.
The changes to the build environment are readily handled as build-depends and build-conflicts.
debian/rules should include a line $(MAKE) -C cde World; there are options in the install script that should handle installing to debian/tempdir.
Of course, postinst should be based on configRun...that will be the harder part.
Now a proper (fully standards-conformant, ready for the repositories) deb package would be a lot harder, thanks to how it's designed to sit in /usr/dt/ ...

[Ibidem]

OK, overview:
(See: https://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/LinuxBuild/ --that's the basis of this)
Conventions:
All "code" is in script format; leading # indicates comments, NOT commands to be run as root
1. Enable "multiverse" repositories (non-free on Debian) to allow installing OpenMotif (libmotif3/libmotif4); this will get dragged in in the next step. Update.
2. Install the packages:

sudo apt-get install git build-essential libxp-dev libxt-dev libxmu-dev libxft-dev libmotif-dev libx11-dev libfreetype6-dev tcl-dev ksh m4 ncompress rpcbind xbitmaps
sudo apt-get install bison #byacc also works
sudo apt-get remove xutils-dev #this provides imake; CDE has its own imake version...

3. Prepare system:
We need German, Spanish, French, and Italian, or build breaks.

sudo locale-gen de_DE
sudo locale-gen es_ES
sudo locale-gen fr_FR
sudo locale-gen it_IT

Also, rpcbind needs to be set up properly.
The man page doesn't mention it, but rpcbind does not allow any RPC services to access ports >1024 by default (which requires root permissions!). Only by activating "insecure" mode (-i) can you allow rpc services to run with lower privilege levels (on unreserved ports); this is necessary, or ttsession (ToolTalk) won't work.
Fedora has applied patches for this, but not Debian/Ubuntu.

#Use whatever editor you prefer - vi, nano, gedit (with gksu!)
sudo vi /etc/init/portmap.conf
Find OPTIONS="-w", and change it to
OPTIONS="-w -i"

3. Get source, get ready, build, and install:

git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/cdesktopenv/code cdesktopenv-code
cd cdesktopenv-code/cde
export CDE_TOP=`pwd`
#I recommend that you set up a git branch if you might be changing the source
#git checkout -b local
# X11 headers need to be linked here.
mkdir -p imports/x11/include cd imports/x11/include ln -s /usr/include/X11
cd ../../..

#Build everything: "make" doesn't cut it.
make World

#install
cd admin/IntegTools/dbTools
sudo ./installCDE -s $CDE_TOP
#Configure
cd ../post_install/linux
sudo ./configRun -e #This complains about inetd -s being invalid; just do
# sudo service inetd restart
cd $CDE_TOP

#Fix some permissions...
# It seems this dir needs to be writable by every user of CDE sudo chmod -R a+rwx /var/dt # Directory required for calendar service sudo mkdir -p /usr/spool/calendar
#Add libraries to library search path
echo /us/dt/lib |sudo tee /etc/ld.so.conf.d/dt.conf
#As root, append "export PATH=/usr/dt/bin:$PATH" to /etc/profile


4. Restart, then follow 4) for the page I linked at the top.
Note that "cd /usr/dt/bin" is required for dtlogin.
Or follow : https://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/Createxsession/
if you want to login in lightdm/gdm/...

[dusanyu]

thanks for the instructions worked like a charm

[tobydeemer]

Hmm. Whelp. I compiled and installed, and everything appeared to complete successfully. Had no errors, etc. But logging into CDE. it shows a blue background that states "Starting the Common Desktop Environment" with some additional project info shown. There's a terminal 'window' in the upper left, and a mouse cursor that stays on an hourglass. If I move the cursor into the terminal, it becomes a text cursor, and I can enter commands. But the desktop never actually loads up.

Hrrm.

Built on Ubntu 12.04 x64.

[Ibidem]

Did you

export PATH=/usr/dt/bin:$PATH (or otherwise add /usr/dt/bin to your PATH)?
Because that sounds a lot like the X fallback (start Xterm if you can't find anything else)

Also, which option did you use? Adding a session to the standard DM, or dtlogin?
I don't think it's likely to be the issue, but did you remember to set up portmap.conf?

For a quick testrun, you may wish to type in the terminal:

export PATH=/usr/dt/bin:$PATH
/usr/dt/bin/Xsession &

[Gyokuro]

I have it running since the announcement and it's my favorite DE - I do not need eye candy and less productive DE's - CDE is enough. For comparison I have Solaris 10 8/11 running too - we have motif applications so with an open source CDE all this applications can now integrated on both systems (Linux,Solaris) very well and can be maintained for a long time. For me - open sourcing CDE is the best thing of 2012.

[Erik1984]

That's kind of like asking if I want to switch to a free copy of Windows 98.

Don't know if it would be of any practical use but a Windows 98 FOSS version would be cool. And no I don't mean LXDE or XFCE ;)

[Lucradia]

I'd sooner use TinyKRNL.


Don't know if it would be of any practical use but a Windows 98 FOSS version would be cool. And no I don't mean LXDE or XFCE ;)

That and, almost everything on Steam can run on Windows 98 with the right specifications and PAE.

[lykwydchykyn]

Hmm. Whelp. I compiled and installed, and everything appeared to complete successfully. Had no errors, etc. But logging into CDE. it shows a blue background that states "Starting the Common Desktop Environment" with some additional project info shown. There's a terminal 'window' in the upper left, and a mouse cursor that stays on an hourglass. If I move the cursor into the terminal, it becomes a text cursor, and I can enter commands. But the desktop never actually loads up.

Hrrm.

Built on Ubntu 12.04 x64.

I got the same thing, building on Debian Wheezy (32bit). /usr/dt/bin is in my $PATH, too. If I figure out the issue, I'll post up here.

[tobydeemer]

I got the same thing, building on Debian Wheezy (32bit). /usr/dt/bin is in my $PATH, too. If I figure out the issue, I'll post up here.

According to this page:
http://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/SupportedPlatforms/

It appears there's something that causes the DTHELLO part of the startup process to hang, which is the blue screen with text that we're seeing. If you switch to another tty and login, you can kill the DTHELLO process and that blue screen goes away. However, it does not "clear the way" for the DE to load up. (At the bottom of the page, ports that don't work yet list dthello hangups as part of the reason. I'm assuming that's what we're experiencing.)

[tobydeemer]

Did you

export PATH=/usr/dt/bin:$PATH (or otherwise add /usr/dt/bin to your PATH)?
Because that sounds a lot like the X fallback (start Xterm if you can't find anything else)

Also, which option did you use? Adding a session to the standard DM, or dtlogin?
I don't think it's likely to be the issue, but did you remember to set up portmap.conf?

For a quick testrun, you may wish to type in the terminal:

export PATH=/usr/dt/bin:$PATH
/usr/dt/bin/Xsession &



I checked the path variable, though I had followed the export process to add it. But /usr/dt/bin was not there, so I added it manually. Not sure if flubbed a step or what. Anyway, then running the startup manually:

Switched to a different tty and tried:

export PATH=/usr/dt/bin:$PATH
/usr/dt/bin/Xsession &

This does:

user@machine$ /usr/dt/bin/Xsession &
[1]+ Done /usr/dt/bin/Xsession
user@machine$

And it stays at the console screen without starting, or appearing to try to start, a new session.

I then rebooted, interrupted with holding shift, and put grub into CLI-only boot mode. I tried a manual start here as well.


user@machine$ startx /usr/dt/bin/Xsession

Same results. Sits at the blue DTHELLO screen with some text and a non-movable terminal. Before each attempt, I double-checked that /usr/dt/bin was in the path, and that I also ran

export LANG=C per the CDE Sourceforge documentation. No change.

[Ibidem]

I checked the path variable, though I had followed the export process to add it. But /usr/dt/bin was not there, so I added it manually. Not sure if flubbed a step or what. Anyway, then running the startup manually:

Switched to a different tty and tried:

export PATH=/usr/dt/bin:$PATH
/usr/dt/bin/Xsession &

This does:

user@machine$ /usr/dt/bin/Xsession &
[1]+ Done /usr/dt/bin/Xsession
user@machine$

And it stays at the console screen without starting, or appearing to try to start, a new session.

I then rebooted, interrupted with holding shift, and put grub into CLI-only boot mode. I tried a manual start here as well.


user@machine$ startx /usr/dt/bin/Xsession

Same results...
0. It sounds like you're starting it from console, not using dtlogin or gdm/lightdm/... Is that correct?

1. "In the terminal" = the unmovable terminal window.
I'll use VT or tty to refer to the fullscreen commandline sessions.
When X starts, every terminal/shell/other program running within X has DISPLAY set to the appropriate value (usually :0.0) Outside X it isn't set. So you would need to set it manually to start Xsession from a tty.
Instead, I meant to say "type that into the window you mentioned".

2. I forgot to mention:
As root, create /etc/ld.so.conf.d/dt.conf, containing:

/usr/dt/lib (at least if you're using 32-bit Ubuntu)
Then run ldconfig.

3. I've used dtlogin to start CDE for the most part.
To get ready, run "sudo service lightdm stop"; then log in to a tty, and start dtlogin.
(It also works via typing in a terminal window:


xhost +
sudo -i
Xephyr :1.0 & #install the xephyr X server first
cd /usr/dt/bin; export PATH=/usr/dt/bin:$PATH
DISPLAY=:1.0 dtlogin & #Should start CDE

if you want CDE in a window)

4. Is portmap.conf properly configured?

[lykwydchykyn]

Well, I've tried everything suggested and can't get anything but that stationary xterm window. I commented dthello from the Xsession script, so it's not jamming things up; but I never get CDE going.

Which command actually runs the window manager & so forth? I couldn't figure it out from the names.

[LinuxCurmudgeon]

I'm sure CDE is first on everyone's list. Especially non-linux people. :rolleyes:

The only DE's that impress anyone are for linux people. The rest of the world doesn't care.

[Ibidem]

dtwm (Desktop(?) window manager) is the most important part; it provides the WM & panel.
dtstyle is handles themes & so on
dtterm is the terminal.
dtfile is the file manager. Apparently it handles workspace objects, too.
Try running ps -e and see if rpcbind and ttsession have started.

[lykwydchykyn]

dtwm (Desktop(?) window manager) is the most important part; it provides the WM & panel.
dtstyle is handles themes & so on
dtterm is the terminal.
dtfile is the file manager. Apparently it handles workspace objects, too.
Try running ps -e and see if rpcbind and ttsession have started.

Thanks; it looks like I have several components that didn't get compiled. Trying again :)

EDIT: Well, I rebuilt it with "Make World", and I don't have a dtwm executable being created. I tried to compile just dtwm, but it gives me an error, something like ld couldn't find Dthelp. This project is quickly leaving the GAD zone for me... I may just have to wait for it to hit alioth or launchpad or whatever.

[Randymanme]

Good old UNIX days - for CDE i will dump every current DE and perfect for laptops.

Hello,

I do a lot of distro hopping. I don't remember which one it was, but some distro had cde as a theme option and I tried it out just out of curiousity. It's been at least within the last couple of years.

[Ibidem]

lykwydchyckyn:
Out of curiousity, could you tell me what

ls /usr/dt/bin /usr/dt/lib says?
How current was/is your source (git log |head would do, or tell me if you're using the tarball)?

I'm not saying "Please try again" so much as "Could you give me a few bits of info so I have an idea of where it's at for my own investigation?"
Also, I might be able to do a binary tarball...how to install that, I'm not sure at present...

[Buntu Bunny]

Just read the news that CDE (http://www.osnews.com/story/26247/CDE_released_as_open_source), the venerable proprietary UNIX desktop, is now open source.

How many of you will be switching?? :D :D :D

Well, I liked this bit from the article ...

"CDE might be lacking in the bling department, but it more than makes up for in the usability department..."

That seems to be something being left in the dust these days. ;-)

[Randymanme]

CDE theme for Gnome.

http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Themes/cde-motif-49131.shtml

[Moose]

"Why should you care? Well, most importantly, while CDE is outdated and not exactly what you'd call pretty, its usability is of a kind you don't see anymore these days."
(This was on the cde website)

Translation: WHY SHOULD WE CARE?? CDE looks like crap, was a 2 minute job and was outdated back in the day we were experimenting with fire. And we don't see Windows '98 users anymore...

'Nuff said..

[Jakin]

Why should we care? Its not very pretty..

Its not really the appearance, so much as the stability and usability of the DE; and for some, this is toplist, vs eyecandy.

[lykwydchykyn]

lykwydchyckyn:
Out of curiousity, could you tell me what

ls /usr/dt/bin /usr/dt/lib says?



/usr/dt/bin:
dsdm
dtaction
dtappg
dtappgather
dtappintegrate
dtchooser
dtdbcache
dtdocbook
dtdspmsg
dterror.ds
dtexec
dtgreet
dthello
dthelp_ctag1
dthelpgen.ds
dthelp_htag1
dthelp_htag2
dthelpprint.sh
dthelptag
dtinfogen
dtlogin
dtlp
dtpdmd
dtscreen
dtsearchpath
dtsp
dtsrclean
dtsrcreate
dtsrdbrec
dtsrdelete
dtsrhan
dtsrindex
dtsrkdump
dtsrload
dttypes
dtudcexch
dtudcfonted
huffcode
imake
instant
lndir
makedepend
makeg
merge
mergelib
mkdirhier
nsgmls
rpc.ttdbserver
startxsession.sh
ttauth
ttcp
ttdbck
ttmv
ttrm
ttrmdir
ttsession
tttar
tttrace
tt_type_comp
xlate_locale
xmkmf
xon
Xsession

/usr/dt/lib:
bindings
dtksh
dtudcfonted
libcsa.so
libcsa.so.2
libcsa.so.2.1
libDtHelp.so
libDtHelp.so.2
libDtMrm.so
libDtMrm.so.2
libDtMrm.so.2.1
libDtPrint.so
libDtPrint.so.2
libDtPrint.so.2.1
libDtSearch.so
libDtSearch.so.2
libDtSearch.so.2.1
libDtSvc.so
libDtSvc.so.2
libDtSvc.so.2.1
libDtTerm.so
libDtTerm.so.2
libDtTerm.so.2.1
libDtWidget.so
libDtWidget.so.2
libDtWidget.so.2.1
libMotifApp.a
libtt.so
libtt.so.2
libtt.so.2.1
nls
X11




How current was/is your source (git log |head would do, or tell me if you're using the tarball)?


August 15th. I pulled in the latest before compiling.



I'm not saying "Please try again" so much as "Could you give me a few bits of info so I have an idea of where it's at for my own investigation?"
Also, I might be able to do a binary tarball...how to install that, I'm not sure at present...

It's not a huge deal, I'm mostly just curious about it; but thanks for whatever you want to do.

[Ibidem]

Well, I built a tarball (dttar.Z), which ran to over 100 MB.
Converting from Z to xz put it down to ~ 55 MB.
I then split it up, getting 3.3, 14, and 39 MB tarballs.
TODO: get the tarballs uploaded somewhere...

[Orlusha]

Well, I built a tarball (dttar.Z), which ran to over 100 MB.
Converting from Z to xz put it down to ~ 55 MB.
I then split it up, getting 3.3, 14, and 39 MB tarballs.
TODO: get the tarballs uploaded somewhere......maybe some sendspace.com? (use no password to list it in their directory)

[Lyfang]

must be light on resources...
Perhaps CDE (Common Desktop Environment) is very lightweight compared to Unity and could compete with LXDE (the default desktop environment in Lubuntu)?

Well, so far I haven't managed to compile it, so I'll have to wait until Cubuntu comes out. :)
Who else is waiting for "Cubuntu"?

[Gremlinzzz]

Just read the news that CDE (http://www.osnews.com/story/26247/CDE_released_as_open_source), the venerable proprietary UNIX desktop, is now open source.

How many of you will be switching?? :D :D :D

Not me,Xubuntu is the lightest i want to go,tried puppy and the others.Xubuntu is my choice:popcorn:

[samalex]

I've heard of CDE, but I thought it had long since been shelved along side WindowsMaker, OpenStep, and similar. It just looks like a WM that that only a true nerd or Unix junkie could love.

[sffvba[e0rt]

The 90's called and asked for their DE back...


404

[lykwydchykyn]

The 90's called and asked for their DE back...


404

August called, it wants its thread back...

:D

[grayson]

I for one don't mind CDE, it's fast, light, stable, and gets out of your way and lets you get work done (unlike GNOME3 and KDE, whose development teams seem to think the point of a computer is to run a desktop environment). I used to run MWM as my window manager on Slackware back in the '90s, and back then I would have killed for FOSS CDE.

Just installed it on my old laptop running Xubuntu. It compiled and ran fine (and reminds me of my old Sun Ultra 5 on Solaris), but it's kind of annoying to use because all the Motif apps in the repositories are compiled against LessTif, which doesn't support CDE's themes. Speaking of, that's one area where CDE really shows its age. Can't use an image as a background, and have to log out and back in to change the colour scheme.

[abdelilah]

With no doubt or regret I'll switch to CDE, it is like "real men shave with chainsaw" for me "real men use CDE" :biggrin:

[Statia]

I've heard of CDE, but I thought it had long since been shelved along side WindowsMaker, OpenStep, and similar.

http://windowmaker.org/news.php
The latest stable (http://repo.or.cz/w/wmaker-crm.git/shortlog/refs/heads/master) version is 0.95.3, released on 16.05.2012.

I love Windowmaker. I used it in the nineties on Red Hat.

[Ibidem]

I for one don't mind CDE, it's fast, light, stable, and gets out of your way and lets you get work done (unlike GNOME3 and KDE, whose development teams seem to think the point of a computer is to run a desktop environment). I used to run MWM as my window manager on Slackware back in the '90s, and back then I would have killed for FOSS CDE. Just installed it on my old laptop running Xubuntu. It compiled and ran fine (and reminds me of my old Sun Ultra 5 on Solaris), but it's kind of annoying to use because all the Motif apps in the repositories are compiled against LessTif, which doesn't support CDE's themes. Speaking of, that's one area where CDE really shows its age. Can't use an image as a background, and have to log out and back in to change the colour scheme. I'm hoping that the motif apps will be switching, now that OpenMotif is free... I actually recompiled most of the stuff I have installed against OpenMotif. Image as background: Option 1: (best with smaller, fewer-colored pictures that you want tiled) Convert picture to xpm. Create ~/.dt/backdrops/. Copy xpm to ~/.dt/backdrops/.pm Option 2: Set backdrop to NoBackdrop or Transparent. Then use the backdrop switcher of your choice. Some options: xli -onroot xv nitrogen

[linbo]

Hilarious take on CDE. I work for a big box semiconductor design company and my company, as well as (almost) all others in the biz use CDE.

It may be ancient, venerable, and/or ugly but it's not out of date or non-current in the sense that it's not used. We're talking companies with a head count of thousands of engineers.

And what's up with the xD? I drive one and it gets great gas mileage; nothin' wrong with that.