If Aero was available for Linux, would you use it?

[Happy_Man]

When I say "Aero", I don't mean the clone Emerald themes that have sprung up all Gnome-look and the like I mean the full Aero theme, just like Vista has it. Because Aero isn't just the borders. I mean things like the really cool effect the highlights on the glass part of the window have. I mean the ability of the Start menu to poke up above the taskbar. I mean the icons. I mean the buttons. I mean the ability to turn the window border black when an app is maximized, and then make it transparent when the app is not. All those things, and more. However much personal tastes may differ, Aero is a very high-quality theme/iconset/whatever else is in it. So my question is: if Microsoft had not made Aero, if a full theme pack had just randomly popped up for Linux that did the exact same thing, would you use it?

[agurk]

No. I've disabled Compiz and even the Metacity effects. Real men don't theme.

[cookieofdoom]

It's pretty and all, but Compiz fusion can look a lot better, and it uses a lot less RAM. Last I checked, Aero used about 60MB of physical RAM. Compiz seems to use less than half of that.

[wersdaluv]

I think you're talking about the theme and not the desktop effects. If that is the case, I would use it. It could be the best look and feel around.

[arsenic23]

Compiz at least has some practical uses when configured properly. Aero is just resource choking glitter. I'm not too terribly found of it's looks either.

So no, no way. I don't see any reason to use Aero on linux.

[AndyCooll]

No.

:cool:

[eragon100]

Yes, definitely :)

[SunnyRabbiera]

Aero has no real value to me, its bloated, its clunky and really Compiz with emerald themes can preform and look much better.

[Sunflower1970]

No. I've seen the Aero effects, and after using Compiz, I'm more impressed with what that can do. Heck. I can use it on my PII and not have any problems. Aero I could not.

[Sand & Mercury]

Aero impressed me at first with its glass effects, but once that wore off I stopped caring for it. They made some stupid mistakes, like having dialog windows at times with an enormously thick titlebar for no reason that I can fathom, excessive thickness of borders, taskbar, etc.

Overall, it DOES look pretty at first glance, but I prefer my current linux theme over it :biggrin:

[Chame_Wizard]

Better stay with Compiz

[Tomatz]

When I say "Aero", I don't mean the clone Emerald themes that have sprung up all Gnome-look and the like I mean the full Aero theme, just like Vista has it. Because Aero isn't just the borders. I mean things like the really cool effect the highlights on the glass part of the window have. I mean the ability of the Start menu to poke up above the taskbar. I mean the icons. I mean the buttons. I mean the ability to turn the window border black when an app is maximized, and then make it transparent when the app is not. All those things, and more. However much personal tastes may differ, Aero is a very high-quality theme/iconset/whatever else is in it. So my question is: if Microsoft had not made Aero, if a full theme pack had just randomly popped up for Linux that did the exact same thing, would you use it?

All of those effects you can do with compiz anyway. Do you have ccsm installed???

[fatality_uk]

I have tried a few themes, and right now im running, tadaaaaa
Ubuntu Valilla :D Nice easy on the eay and useful; default theme

[Happy_Man]

Tomatz:

I do, sir, and there are some things you can't do. For example, I have seen no way to get the maximize effect in Compiz. Nor can you emulate the effect the borders have when you move a window. For the most part you can get a lot of the Aero feel, and there are some things that annoy me (the insane border size one of them), but I'm just wondering if the massive "I hate Aero" outpouring is because Microsoft made the theme or because a lot of people simply don't like it.

[piousp]

Althoug it looks nice, its not worth all the resources it uses. So, my answer is no.

[Tomatz]

Tomatz:

I do, sir, and there are some things you can't do. For example, I have seen no way to get the maximize effect in Compiz. Nor can you emulate the effect the borders have when you move a window. For the most part you can get a lot of the Aero feel, and there are some things that annoy me (the insane border size one of them), but I'm just wondering if the massive "I hate Aero" outpouring is because Microsoft made the theme or because a lot of people simply don't like it.


Depends which boarders you use. Have a look at mine (IMO looks alot nicer than aero anyway) ;)

[RiceMonster]

Nope, Compiz is much cooler, but I don't use that either. Openbox + a nice theme + a nice GTK theme is the way to go. Don't need any flashy effects to have your environment look nice.

[Zenze]

No.

Not because it was made by Microsoft either. The main reason being that it is just way to resource hungry. In my opinion it is pretty at first glance but after a while the effects seem to loose their appeal. I prefer everything to be cleancut and after a while the aero theme just starts to get annoying. Im not even a fan of having so much of the windows be transparent.

[Happy_Man]

Depends which boarders you use. Have a look at mine (IMO looks alot nicer than aero anyway) ;)
Ha, actually, in response to myself regarding the border effect when moving: it seems the Reflection plugin does that (not exactly what I was looking for, but hey, it's close enough).

[SunnyRabbiera]

right, having small boarders is possible with compiz/emerald.
As for my reasoning behind hating aero, it goes beyond hating microsoft...
Firstly is how much memory aero chews up by default, even with high octane memory its still troublesome for many folks.
secondly aero feels cheap, compared to other compositing engines like the one OSX has and Compiz, both seem to preform better and are much lighter compared to the hoggy aero.
and thirdly, it just looks like MS was trying too hard to copy OSX.
Compiz may have a lot of OSX or vista like effects but I feel it can stand on its own thanks to customization, Aero is not even close in my eyes.

[Tomatz]

Ha, actually, in response to myself regarding the border effect when moving: it seems the Reflection plugin does that (not exactly what I was looking for, but hey, it's close enough).

Have a good tinker and post back when your done. If you want aero like effects you will be able to emulate them yourself in compiz.


Maybe you have some better ideas for effects? That is also something you cant do with aero ;)

[Exsecrabilus]

Real men don't theme.
fail

[damis648]

Aero has no real value to me, its bloated, its clunky and really Compiz with emerald themes can preform and look much better.

Amen. :popcorn::popcorn:

[klange]

All of these things can be available, they're just not.
Different window opacity when maximized can very easily be patched into Emerald - but no one will ever work on Emerald again (Jasper will be able to do this in time, definitely before first release)
Having the "start menu" button go above the taskbar can be done, heck the only good way to get a Vista-clone start menu happens to do it - a Screenlet that launches a menu is placed over the panel, and viola.
If by "the icons" you mean how Windows Vista highlights them on your desktop, that's not exactly the most difficult thing to write.

The effect on the borders when you move windows IS in Compiz - the Reflections plugin does it (just not well due to how the shadows are drawn, this will be fixed with Jasper - which if I do my part, won't even draw shadows, I'm writing a separate shadow plugin that will do even cooler stuff)

Highlights and such for glassy widgets can be done, just GTK sucks so much no one wants to do it. Animation is supposedly going to be a critical part of GTK3. For windows with nice clear widgets, get a Murrine theme and start patching your apps. Even I use clear windows where available.


There are quite a few things I don't like about Aero:
1. Massive window borders waste space
2. Effects are over the top - and this is coming from a Compiz dev
3. Compositing manager in general has some nasty bugs
4. Zero customization (ie, shape, size, and reflection image)

[Happy_Man]

All of these things can be available, they're just not.
Different window opacity when maximized can very easily be patched into Emerald - but no one will ever work on Emerald again (Jasper will be able to do this in time, definitely before first release)
Having the "start menu" button go above the taskbar can be done, heck the only good way to get a Vista-clone start menu happens to do it - a Screenlet that launches a menu is placed over the panel, and viola.
If by "the icons" you mean how Windows Vista highlights them on your desktop, that's not exactly the most difficult thing to write.

The effect on the borders when you move windows IS in Compiz - the Reflections plugin does it (just not well due to how the shadows are drawn, this will be fixed with Jasper - which if I do my part, won't even draw shadows, I'm writing a separate shadow plugin that will do even cooler stuff)

Highlights and such for glassy widgets can be done, just GTK sucks so much no one wants to do it. Animation is supposedly going to be a critical part of GTK3. For windows with nice clear widgets, get a Murrine theme and start patching your apps. Even I use clear windows where available.


There are quite a few things I don't like about Aero:
1. Massive window borders waste space
2. Effects are over the top - and this is coming from a Compiz dev
3. Compositing manager in general has some nasty bugs
4. Zero customization (ie, shape, size, and reflection image)
I did find the Reflections plugin, so that is not an issue (as much) anymore.

When I say "icons" I mean the actual icons, not so much the highlight effects, though that would be nice too.

What is Jasper? Is it a new window decorator?

Personally, I'm not a big fan of screenlets, because they eat RAM like crazy, and I'm one of those people who enjoy being able to run a full desktop in less than 300 MB.

I suppose Murrine would be closest to what Vista's buttons look like, but I've never really themed Murrina before. Any tips?

[soccerboy]

If MS hadn't come up with Aero, If the window borders were less thick, If an idiot hadn't coded the window manager/compositor for Windows - just the icon/themes, aero is pretty good but that is a lot of ifs

[obsrv]

No, I would stick to Compiz Fusion

[grossaffe]

compiz > Aero *1,000

[klange]

I did find the Reflections plugin, so that is not an issue (as much) anymore.

When I say "icons" I mean the actual icons, not so much the highlight effects, though that would be nice too.

What is Jasper? Is it a new window decorator?

Personally, I'm not a big fan of screenlets, because they eat RAM like crazy, and I'm one of those people who enjoy being able to run a full desktop in less than 300 MB.

I suppose Murrine would be closest to what Vista's buttons look like, but I've never really themed Murrina before. Any tips?
/me prefers Tango so much he patched everything on his Windows machine to use Tango icons. And regardless, there are more Vista-clone icon sets than I can count on my two hands (and I can count to 1023)

Jasper is the current WIP decorator. It doesn't do much yet, but it will someday completely replace Emerald and have a lot more features. It uses a plugin system that was ripped straight from Compiz itself.

You seem to have had a bad first impression of Screenlets. They don't use much of any RAM any more, and at that, only the monitoring ones are a burden (my 5 or so Ring Sensors take around 20-50MB in total, depending on how long they've been running)

There are some Vista-clone GTK themes out there, none of them have the animations, but they easily could. Murrine has some stuff in it that would make adding animations to buttons easier (I have a feeling Cimitan is considering it, and he really should, fades would be a wonderful addition to Murrine)

[acelin]

Aero =/= Compiz.

Aero = Gtk+Emerald+Compiz+better than human.

[gameryoshi600]

No its not as nice as futurelooks.

[acelin]

No its not as nice as futurelooks.

Ever used both? If you have, and said that - biased.

[cardinals_fan]

Aero: bloated, ugly, in my way. No thanks.

[Delever]

Wouldn't.

Ok, one case - to demonstrate for someone that ubuntu can do that...

[madjr]

http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre3/71425-3.jpg

http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/60077-1.png

http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Vista-Panel?content=60077

http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Gimmie+vs+Vista+menu?content=73108



but i like the Ubuntu/dock look better

http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/81784-1.jpg


oh. and KDE4 looks better than Vista, check the raptor menu

[rune0077]

Compiz always felt like an ugly hack that uses a lot of roundabout barely-functionable ways to get the job done. It looks pretty on screenshots, but in action it is clunky and not very pretty at all (unless you don't move your screen). Aero seems like a much smoother and better developed way to go about it, and it looks much much better than anything I have seen on Linux. So if it were all about eye-candy, I would pick Aero in a heartbeat and never look back. How anyone could possibly think that Compiz looks better is beyond me. But each his own I guess, and that's what Aero is missing, being a Microsoft product and all: the choice to use something else if you don't like it.

But I'm tired of all the transparent glass-themes (and just transparency in general), so even if I had the choice, I don't think I would use it.

[ShodanjoDM]

No.

[Pogeymanz]

Not being a microsoft hater, but I really don't like the look of it.

I, like most here, don't like the borders at all. And I don't like too much glossy stuff.

I don't like most of the Compiz stuff either, but at least that can be useful, like the scale plugin and the workspace switcher stuff.

Shadows and Transparency are cool, though.

And of course, it eats too much RAM. I prefer my Openbox + xcompmgr taking up about 10MB on boot.

EDIT: I also hate all the glassy transparent themes.

[Delever]

If you don't like compiz effects, i think still using it with no effects and only simple things is good - lots of processing gets offloaded to graphics card, and that improves response and general smoothiness.

I use transparency for: nothing, except things i select manually to be transparent. And always with blurred contents behind anything transparent.

Transparent.

Transparent.

Transparent.










Transparent.

[rune0077]

If you don't like compiz effects, i think still using it with no effects and only simple things is good - lots of processing gets offloaded to graphics card, and that improves response and general smoothiness.


Compiz still has a few good, useful plugins (like scale) that has nothing much to do with looks. I keep it on mostly for those.

[madjr]

Compiz always felt like an ugly hack that uses a lot of roundabout barely-functionable ways to get the job done. It looks pretty on screenshots, but in action it is clunky and not very pretty at all (unless you don't move your screen). Aero seems like a much smoother and better developed way to go about it, and it looks much much better than anything I have seen on Linux. So if it were all about eye-candy, I would pick Aero in a heartbeat and never look back. How anyone could possibly think that Compiz looks better is beyond me. But each his own I guess, and that's what Aero is missing, being a Microsoft product and all: the choice to use something else if you don't like it.



Aero only has like 2 or 3 functions.

sure it has to feel smoother and finished product.

If compiz would just support and work on those 3 plugins it would be a polished beast.

oh and remember that our linux drivers are still lacking that DRI2 thing

[klange]

oh and remember that our linux drivers are still lacking that DRI2 thing

You mean this one (http://random.ogunderground.com/compiz/dri2_is_win.png)? So many crashes...

[rune0077]

Aero only has like 2 or 3 functions.

sure it has to feel smoother and finished product.

If compiz would just support and work on those 3 plugins it would be a polished beast.

oh and remember that our linux drivers are still lacking that DRI2 thing

Sure, it's still being worked on, and will only get better with time.

[Tundro Walker]

I don't even use Aero in Win Vista. With that, you can probably guess what my answer would be in regards to using it in Linux.

[jimrz]

Nope ... neither the theme nor the effects.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Window borders - especially thick ones - are absolutely pointless when you have composited window shadows. Thus, I do not like the Vista theme.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Compiz always felt like an ugly hack that uses a lot of roundabout barely-functionable ways to get the job done. It looks pretty on screenshots, but in action it is clunky and not very pretty at all (unless you don't move your screen). Aero seems like a much smoother and better developed way to go about it, and it looks much much better than anything I have seen on Linux. So if it were all about eye-candy, I would pick Aero in a heartbeat and never look back. How anyone could possibly think that Compiz looks better is beyond me. But each his own I guess, and that's what Aero is missing, being a Microsoft product and all: the choice to use something else if you don't like it.

But I'm tired of all the transparent glass-themes (and just transparency in general), so even if I had the choice, I don't think I would use it.

feh, its aero that is ugly and clunky... at least compiz doesnt need a million gigs of memory just to just work.

[pseup]

Psst, come closer, I'll tell you all a little secret. You can actually change the size of the window borders. *gasp*

I'm not a Windows user at all, but its all about taste, I prefer Aero to a lot of the stupid looking compiz configs around.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Psst, come closer, I'll tell you all a little secret. You can actually change the size of the window borders. *gasp*

I'm not a Windows user at all, but its all about taste, I prefer Aero to a lot of the stupid looking compiz configs around.

feh, compiz is light and dynamic, aero is not.

[thedevnull]

When I say "Aero", I don't mean the clone Emerald themes that have sprung up all Gnome-look and the like I mean the full Aero theme, just like Vista has it. Because Aero isn't just the borders. I mean things like the really cool effect the highlights on the glass part of the window have. I mean the ability of the Start menu to poke up above the taskbar. I mean the icons. I mean the buttons. I mean the ability to turn the window border black when an app is maximized, and then make it transparent when the app is not. All those things, and more. However much personal tastes may differ, Aero is a very high-quality theme/iconset/whatever else is in it. So my question is: if Microsoft had not made Aero, if a full theme pack had just randomly popped up for Linux that did the exact same thing, would you use it?

Effects are of no value to me as a computer user. For me, performance is king. If I want 3d effects I play video games! My OS is not a video game but a productivity tool....

[SomeGuyDude]

Sure I would. I bet, if combined with Compiz effects, it'd look downright incredible. I still think Vista looks great even though my Ubuntu theme looks absolutely nothing like it.

[SomeGuyDude]

Effects are of no value to me as a computer user. For me, performance is king. If I want 3d effects I play video games! My OS is not a video game but a productivity tool....

I'm sure with the milliseconds you save avoiding eye candy, you can get all sorts of things done! :lolflag:

[madjr]

feh, its aero that is ugly and clunky... at least compiz doesnt need a million gigs of memory just to just work.

exactly,

i can do something like this with just 256mb ram on an old pc

[Trail]

Thanks but no thanks.

These 'miliseconds' taken to process eyecandy tend to become annoying in the end. And all that eye-candy tends to distract me and reduce productivity.

I might fuss with compiz or themes or whatever, but 1-2 weeks later I'll always come back to KWin with Plastik theme and no effects. Hit a button --> instant load.

[Trail]

Edit: Hmm double-post? weird.

[karellen]

No. the first thing I do on a fresh Vista install is to disable Aero (if the pc supports it)

[rune0077]

feh, its aero that is ugly and clunky... at least compiz doesnt need a million gigs of memory just to just work.

Which is why I think I specifically stated "each his own". I never claimed that it didn't require a lot of memory, just that it looked a godzillion times better than anything you can do with Compiz (so does Leopard, or even WindowsXP for that matter, in my humble opinion). People have different tastes, that's all.

[PryGuy]

I mean the ability to turn the window border black when an app is maximized, and then make it transparent when the app is not.The dumbest thing Microsoft ever released IMHO... :-\"
The answer is NO! Compiz Fusion is far superior to Aero! Why should I use crap?

[ma_nkooo]

no.

[Sand & Mercury]

Psst, come closer, I'll tell you all a little secret. You can actually change the size of the window borders. *gasp*
That's true but it does mess the corners up a lot.

[LookTJ]

No, I like it simple.

[beniwtv]

I don't like the Vista look & feel. Not because it's made by MS, but because I fee the theme too dark for my tastes (I prefer bright themes). Also I don't like those pixelated icons. Give my SVG already!

I'm one of the persons that really love the default Ubuntu theme. I'm not kidding. I'm mostly 8-10 hours daily on my computer (because of my work as Sysadmin and developer), so I prefer a theme that is easy on my eyes. The Ubuntu colors really feel easy on my eyes, and I can work 8-10 hours without problems.

Anyway, this is personal preference, at the end.

Cheers,

[pmlxuser]

When I say "Aero", I don't mean the clone Emerald themes that have sprung up all Gnome-look and the like I mean the full Aero theme, just like Vista has it. Because Aero isn't just the borders. I mean things like the really cool effect the highlights on the glass part of the window have. I mean the ability of the Start menu to poke up above the taskbar. I mean the icons. I mean the buttons. I mean the ability to turn the window border black when an app is maximized, and then make it transparent when the app is not. All those things, and more. However much personal tastes may differ, Aero is a very high-quality theme/iconset/whatever else is in it. So my question is: if Microsoft had not made Aero, if a full theme pack had just randomly popped up for Linux that did the exact same thing, would you use it?

Oh You mean the effect,icons transparency provided by compiz plus menus provided by Awn & icons themes combined??
check out my screen shot and ask me if i would like to use Aero again. why it will just eat most of my precious graphics memory and RAM why do you thing Vista require about 2Gig to run Aero.
I definitely wouldn't use it.:)

[barbedsaber]

I would use it, if people would know that I wasn't using vista, I want people to ask what I am using, so I can explain it, and give out a live cd :)

[chucky chuckaluck]

i'd give it the ten minutes i give everything else. i'm sure it would be a more pleasant experience than both the sugar and minix livecd's.

[geoken]

For all the people pointing out the memory usage differences (Aero 60-70mb, Compiz whatever it uses) Can you please also check how much memory x is using (or more specifically how much memory x is using compared to when compiz is disabled).

[mrgnash]

No. For a pimped-out wm, fusion is better; for something more understated, metacity is better.

[Canis familiaris]

Come On! Aero would never come for Linux!
And if it did, would you use a closed-source Window manager after experiencing how much problems do closed source drivers of nVidia or ATi give us? I think not.

[maniacmusician]

Ugh, no thanks. I've always been turned off by the way Vista looks (although the early longhorn demos looked interesting). Also, I'm assuming that Aero is a big part of why Vista is so resource intensive (though I most definitely could be wrong about that). Last time I was at my parents' place, I checked out my dad's new quad core desktop with vista and 2GB of RAM. I used it for about 30 minutes, and the performance difference I felt between that and my dual-core with 2GB of RAM (yes, running compiz) shocked me a little.

As soon as I had a few programs running on my dad's system, it started getting more sluggish and taking longer to perform tasks (especially opening new applications). As an experiment, I decided to set up a dual boot on his system, and put together a comparable ubuntu installation, fancy effects and all. It flew, considerably faster than my dual core. So to put it in perspective, this is the performance ranking I observed, particularly when multitasking:

1. Quad core with Ubuntu + Compiz
2. Dual core with Ubuntu + Compiz
3. Quad core with Vista + Aero

I'm not necessarily laying the blame on Aero, but let's just say that Vista was a distant third.

[Tomatz]

Also it should be noted one of the main problems with any windows OS is that the gui runs in ring 0. This means that the gui runs with the highest priority which in some cases can improve performance but it also means that its easy to hang windows because if the gui hangs, the whole OS will.

This is one of two reasons why vista performs badly. The other is all that needless Anti-Aliasing.


Mipmaps do the job perfectly for me ;)

[gn2]

There's no way I would use it.

I like Ubuntu fine the way it comes and have made no alterations to the default look.

[kk0sse54]

simple answer: no

[Eclipse.]

Compiz can do everything aero does and alot more.Plus with compiz every setting can be fine tweaked to your own liking.

[William Dojinn]

+whatever to the 'compiz is less rescource hungry and gives me the purdy I may want to dazzle people.

However normally the only 'pretty' consession I'd make are transparencies for the icon text background so you don't have blocks of color marring the background.

[Ioky]

yes, if it only take less than 30MB of ram.

NO, if it is just what it is as it is at windows vista.

in the other hand, What I really like is to have a pure CLI system. no theme no nothing, but a working system with the simplest things.

[master5o1]

I want my 'grey' bits in Gnome too be semi-transparent and blurring the background like Vista's theme -- but I don't want Vista's theme. If I did, I would use Vista.

(Of course, only reason why I would want Vista/Mac theme is to fool people into thinking that it IS Vista/Mac -- XD).

[kef_kf]

what i would like from canonical is that they pay professionals to make a few really good looking glossy themes that would define a new look for ubuntu. kde did it, and it looks better than 3/4 of the stuff on gnome-look.org.
other than that, i actually wish i could use compiz plugins like show desktop or shift switcher in windows. i know there are programs out there that provide similar functionality but i dont trust them.

[Linuxratty]

If it was "Linuxafied" I might try it...Maybe.

[Kronie]

definitely-yes ubuntu's default theme sux it hard 0_o i am using aero-like theme now, but it only changes the window borders.. and its too transparent. aero is sort of frosted..