Forbes Raves Upcoming Linux Desktop Will 'Embarass' Windows 10 and macOS (forbes.com) 261
Forbes senior contributor Jason Evangelho dedicated a whole article to a coming update for one Chinese-domestic Linux distribution:
If you haven't been paying attention to a little Linux desktop distribution called Deepin, it's time to put it on your radar. Nevermind that Huawei chose Deepin to ship on their MateBook laptop lineup. Nevermind that Deepin Cloud Sync [for system settings] is a killer, forward-thinking feature that every Linux distro needs to adopt. Nevermind that its slide-out control center resembles something sexy and sensible straight out of the future. But looking toward 2020, Deepin is poised to be absolutely stunning.
This is without question the most beautiful desktop environment I've ever laid eyes on... For me, the UX is more intuitive and more enjoyable than macOS and Windows 10. And fortunately, a quick setting can also transform Deepin to resemble the traditional Windows or macOS desktop paradigms you're already comfortable with. Hell, even the installer is a breath of fresh air.
But let's take a peek at what's coming next. This week, the Deepin Linux Youtube channel quietly released a preview of its Deepin v20 Launcher (just one component of the forthcoming OS), and it's bound to turn some heads. Take a look [YouTube video]. It's merely a tease ahead of this November's expected Deepin v20 beta release, but the Deepin developers have apparently devoted most of 2019 working on the upcoming version. From the category-driven app browser and animations, to the basic desktop layout we see in the teaser video, things appear quite polished already.
The article points out that Deepin is also a stand-alone desktop environment for any current Linux distribution -- and that it's one of the 248 operating systems available for online testing at DistroTest.net.
This is without question the most beautiful desktop environment I've ever laid eyes on... For me, the UX is more intuitive and more enjoyable than macOS and Windows 10. And fortunately, a quick setting can also transform Deepin to resemble the traditional Windows or macOS desktop paradigms you're already comfortable with. Hell, even the installer is a breath of fresh air.
But let's take a peek at what's coming next. This week, the Deepin Linux Youtube channel quietly released a preview of its Deepin v20 Launcher (just one component of the forthcoming OS), and it's bound to turn some heads. Take a look [YouTube video]. It's merely a tease ahead of this November's expected Deepin v20 beta release, but the Deepin developers have apparently devoted most of 2019 working on the upcoming version. From the category-driven app browser and animations, to the basic desktop layout we see in the teaser video, things appear quite polished already.
The article points out that Deepin is also a stand-alone desktop environment for any current Linux distribution -- and that it's one of the 248 operating systems available for online testing at DistroTest.net.
I see (Score:5, Funny)
IOW 2020 will be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Re: (Score:2)
Just like every year since like 2000....
Re: (Score:3)
Well taking into account the China market, numbers, yeah Linux Desktop looks to be accelerating real fast. They are going to push really quite hard, saves on Licence fees to the US, eliminates US back doors in the Windows OS and export restrictions become a thing of the past and in China terms, use M$ Windows and lose China social media points, use a China Linux distribution and gain China social media points. Those Trump attacks on Huawei are going to cost M$ a lot possibly up near the 100 Billion dollar m
Well if you mean Linux on the Windows Desktop ... (Score:2)
IOW 2020 will be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Well if you mean Linux on the Windows Desktop via Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux. ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Get color support for video and image work system wide as good as OS X...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: I see (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The full screen app view is a 100% rip-off of macOS's Launchpad.
Re: I see (Score:4, Insightful)
I certainly wouldn't run their OS on my system. However, if the UI work is Open Source, then others could certainly audit it and use it in more mainstream distros.
My comment was more directed at how the Forbes author gushed about how much better their UI is over macOS (and Windows), when one of the biggest fears they were showing off was a very direct rip-off of macOS.
As a UNIX-oriented person (my home and work are entirely macOS on the front end and Linux on the backend), I'm happy for Linux to have better and more polished UI options -- but it's a bit rich for the author to claim this is so much better than everyone else when it's virtually pixel-for-pixel ripped off everyone else.
Yaz
CHICOMS: "ripped off everyone else" (Score:3)
For a nation with a billion people, and an average IQ bell curve which is supposed to be five or ten points to the right of, say, the IQ bell curve for the measly 200 million White Americans, the Chinese sure do seem hellbent on never doing anything even remotely original or creative.
I know the statistics says that sooner or later they'll have to have some sort of a breakthrough, but dadgum it sure seems like their entire race would rather phone it
Re:CHICOMS: "ripped off everyone else" (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate to generalize over such a huge population, but from my experience their system of education is the very large reason for this.
From what I understand, there is little room for imagination and innovations in the vast majority of Chinese schooling. It's all about memorization and regurgitation. That's not entirely a bad thing (it leads to some great math scores), but it kills creativity.
When I taught at a University (in North America) several years ago, one of the Professors I worked with pointed this out to me: in his decades of experience, it was always the Chinese students who would come to him and ask a million questions as to how he wanted an assignment done (particularly if that assignment was somewhat open-ended). And it wasn't because the Chinese students were more attentive to their education, or because they didn't understand the requirements -- they wanted every bit of information they could extract to get the best grade possible. The pressure for good grades, combined with the systems design that you give your teacher exactly what they are expecting leaves little room for imagination.
When you encourage kids to be drones in the classroom, they wind up drones in the workforce. Chinese kids that come to the West for their higher education are often culture-shocked at how different the education system in the West is. We don't lay out the Fifteen Steps to a Perfect A for every assignment.
And just to be clear -- this isn't because of any intrinsic problems with people who are culturally Chinese. It's simply that their education system optimizes for different things that we do here in the West.
Yaz
Re: (Score:3)
Teaser video is embarrassing. It looks exactly like Windows 10 and Android got ripped off, rounded edges, and colored blue-violet. There is nothing special here.
You are racist and just don't understand the subtleties of mainland design. :-)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: I see (Score:4, Informative)
There's more to the Creative Cloud suite than PS
InDesign - desktop publishing
Premiere Pro - video editing
After Effects - digital special FX
Audition - audio editing
Illustrator - vector imaging
Dreamweaver - web design
And more. "But there are open-source versions of all of those". None of the open-source "solutions" work nearly as well, nor is it an integrated suite.
Re: Dreamweaver (Score:3)
Dreamweaver sucks.
Serious web developers do not use it.
Re: I see (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Simply finding applications that claim to be a video editor is very different from being a professional video editing application.
There are Free as in Beer Linux video editing applications that pros do use: Davinci Resolve. But Blender is not a suitable professional video editing application. Load up some Alexa footage, oh what's that you can't? How about Red? Nope? Uhh... Sony? No not that either? So it's a video editor that can't load videos? Ha!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: I see (Score:5, Informative)
Re: I see (Score:4)
In this case you have Windows machines for those few people in the company that must have it and let everyone else use a decent OS. Nobody has a need for Office anymore, and making everyone use shit because a small subset of your company is locked in is like making every driver in a fleet of cabs drive a van with foot controls to steer just because a few of the hundreds of drivers you have don't have good control of their arms.
Re: I see (Score:4)
What an absurd thing to say. It is not even close to that. It is the "People who need a pickup truck are a small subset of the people who need a vehicle, and buying two pickup trucks for the family when mom is a soccer mom because Dad is a landscaper is stupid." argument.
Wow, you really are slow on the uptake. The reasons for changing have nothing to do with what an IT guy "likes", In fact there are so many reasons to make the transition these days that I'm guessing you knew the only way you might get away with not sounding stupid is to build that strawman.
Photoshop (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: I see (Score:2)
Software branding has always been bollocks.
It is, and always has been simply, âoeDoes it do [insert list of requirements here]?â
If a piece of software hits enough of those, itâ(TM)s fit for purpose, otherwise not.
Steve jobs called (Score:2)
Wants his reality distortion field back.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Steve jobs called (Score:4, Insightful)
I just wasted a couple minutes on the article and part of the “installer is a breath of fresh air” video, and I’ve gotta say... is the author still using Windows 95? Cuz I’m not seeing what it is the author thinks is so amazing. The installer seems to mimic the macOS installer (except it uses a blurry background image), and the app launcher looks like the stupid macOS Launchpad, which has been around for more than a decade (and no one actually uses because iOS is a bad paradigm for a computer). The desktop itself looks like a poor ripoff of Windows 7.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, it looks like a random hodgepodge of Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows Vista and OSX with a healthy dash of Android.
It's got Windows 8's giant wall of icons launcher... except without the really cool and useful bits that LiveTiles have/had like inbox summaries, calendar events, music controls, groups or alphabetical groupings.
Its start menu is essentially Windows Vista's quick launch... but no All-Programs slide out.
The launcher is clearly OSX.
The right panel\Notifications pane is clearly Windows 10.
The
WOW! China has shown it cares about GNU licensing! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:WOW! China has shown it cares about GNU licensi (Score:4, Informative)
Do you have some evidence they don't, or are you talking out of your ass? A few U.S. and European companies have been caught violating the GPL though in the last 20 years...
Re: (Score:3)
Check out Allwinner. Have they ever released their code?
Re:WOW! China has shown it cares about GNU licensi (Score:4, Informative)
You're talking about that issue in 2015? they have released source code since then, don't know if ALL done since some parts were mixed in proprietary code they licensed.
Meanwhile we have Cisco, VMware, d-link, fortinet, AMV, Fantec, etc. in the West.
Saying "the chinese" is silly. as if they were the big offenders on planet earth as a nation.
Re: (Score:2)
but nobody here said "the chinese". you should even stop thinking "the chinese".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Check out Allwinner. Have they ever released their code?
kind of [linux-sunxi.org], A10, A20, and A64 are finally fairly well-supported.
Re: (Score:2)
How can we expect a Chinese company to respect a GNU IP when it regularly steals IP from Korean companies.
Remind me again how many popular apps and widgets for iOS Apple has stolen over the years feeling so entitled to do so they've not even had the decency to do more than a minor altercation of the icon from the original for said stolen software?
Re: WOW! China has shown it cares about GNU licens (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
How can we expect a Chinese company to respect a GNU IP when it regularly steals IP from Korean companies.
Remind me again how many popular apps and widgets for iOS Apple has stolen over the years feeling so entitled to do so they've not even had the decency to do more than a minor altercation of the icon from the original for said stolen software?
Many times they buy them. You know the voice assistant Siri? Siri was originally an app for IOS. Apple like it so much they bought it and incorporated it into the IOS. Found an old phone a while back that had the original Siri app still installed.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes but but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
It's Chinese so I can't use it
It's Chinese so it uses you.
Re: (Score:3)
Only during the Soviet era.
Re: (Score:2)
No matter which country is spying on you, a tin foil hat protects just the same.
Re: (Score:3)
>"It's Chinese so I can't use it"
If it were like Red Flag Linux, I would agree. But this is different. It is not a state-sponsored project. And, much more importantly, it is OPEN SOURCE. If you like the desktop environment, it will probably be available for any distro, eventually (Fedora, Mageia, Ubuntu, Mint, SuSe, etc).
Re: (Score:2)
Open source, yes. But let's be completely honest here, how large is the source for a full OS? Are YOU going to read all of it? Are you going to put together a team of trusted coders to read all of it? Is ANYONE going to read every single line to make sure there isn't a root level spykit in it?
Re:Yes but but (Score:4, Insightful)
But let's be completely honest here, how large is the source for a full OS?"
True, although I was more targeting just the desktop- which is presumably the only thing of differential value compared to other distros (which are already reliable, secure, flexible). And if it really is a healthy open-source desktop, then people from all over will examine and contribute to it. If it were not healthy, I would advise against it.
My example was valid, if for the whole OS- Red Flag contained binary-only blobs and/or blatantly anti-privacy/freedom components with penalties for removing them. Either would be a huge red flag (pun intended).
>"Is ANYONE going to read every single line to make sure there isn't a root level spykit in it?"
Yes. If the project is important enough and interesting enough- we start seeing the "many eyes" kick in.
More realistically, anything of true interest/value in the desktop or other parts of the distro will just be copied/lifted and put in established projects which do have the eyes :)
Re: (Score:2)
It's available in English, as you can see from the links in the summary.
Stop the madness! (Score:5, Interesting)
A slide out control center? This is supposed to be better than Mac or Windows? Has the writer never used a Mac or Windows machine recently? They are nothing but slide outs or animations or pop ups of some sort. Nothing is ever select > appear. It's all, "Look at me! Look at me! I'm flying into view!".
Every single day I have to use Windows 10 and every single day I have to wait for something to appear or there's some sort of pop up window/hint/whatever interfering in my work. I don't want a window to pop up if I accidentally move my cursor over one of the open windows on my task bar, I don't want screens I'm trying to find information on to swing into view or slide out of my way if I accidentally move my cursor over an edge.
I keep hearing how Linux is, supposedly, about getting things done. Instead, I keep seeing distros trying to emulate the worst of the OSes it's trying to replace.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually the slide out control centre proves that it's going to be shit, like all desktops. Seriously, they all suck.
Look at that slide out for a moment. The thing on it are not quick settings you need instant access to. Scaling? Because I change my monitor that often.
Watching the video it's got a hybrid start menu and app tray, the worst of both worlds. Apps are sorted into categories which means they haven't figured out how to use tags yet.
No sign of a decent file manager either.
"Deepin" (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I assume it means that the Chinese government (and chinese corporations) have spyware built "Deepin" the OS?
You mean like the back doors within CISCO equipment; that enabled the NSA to spy for years? [engadget.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like the back doors within CISCO equipment; that enabled the NSA to spy for years?
Sure, just like that.
Would you run Cisco Linux?
No?
Me neither.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It means Winnie the Pooh is balls "deepin" your ass
"Windows" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Forbes is wrong about everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Forbes is wrong about everything (Score:5, Informative)
Forbes the magazine is journalism, with fact checking. Forbes the website is just a bunch of blogs with some minimal occasional editing, and no fact checking to speak of. Literally. Why they're permitting this brand dilution to occur is beyond me, I guess they're just transitioning willfully into the post-truth era.
Back on the topic of Deepin, cloud sync of system settings? #donotwant
Op never used Enlightenment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sexy GUIs have been around for ages. After the novelty wears off everyone goes back to functionality because it is more important then form.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you want sexy use emerald with truglass, it works again. (It was missing for a while there, and wouldn't build, but it's back baby.) And hey, avant-window-navigator is back, too! Put that together with MATE and Compiz and you've got all the shiny shiny plus all the functionality — all the best user interface bits of Mac, Windows, and Linux. I had this positively ages ago, and people walking by my desk would say "hey, what's that!" when they saw my PC. Unlike OSX you can configure the useless eye ca
Re: (Score:2)
First thing I do after installing an OS is disable the fancy animations and space wasting graphics.
Can I move a window on screen w/o tearing? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Use compiz, turn on vsync, and turn down the number that affects latency. framestep I think? It works for me.
Steam (Score:3)
I will move to Linux when my Steam library is compatible. I do not even play all the games in my Steam library, but if ever try to play a game and it does not work with my OS I am angry at the game maker and the OS.
I will move to Linux when hardware drivers are updated on or before they are updated for Windows.
I will move to Linux when the OS is probably not compromised with negative security features. Sorry, China, but your Great Firewall of China reputation precedes you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Steam's ProtonPlay is surprisingly close to making Linux gaming a reality. You might want to check ProtonDB [protondb.com] for your favorite games and see whether they are actually compatible. I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the games I actually play are compatible (notable exceptions are Space Engineers and Empyrion, though for the former there is now a workaround, albeit a really tedious one). Some games require a little tweaking but most actually work out of the box, either natively anyway or with proton
so why? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is some Forbes guy which promoting this Linux means he knows nothing about anything pushing an OS from a CHINESE based company? Is this fool being paid by this company to promote this which wouldn't shock me one bit if he was but who in their right mind would install something from a Chinese company that has who knows number of spying programs installed.
If you live in China, having the Chinese spying on you is bad.
If you live in the West, having the Chinese spying on you is probably better than having the NSA/GCHQ/CSIS/* spying on you
Re: (Score:2)
If you live in the West, having the Chinese spying on you is probably better than having the NSA/GCHQ/CSIS/* spying on you
We can buy billions of dollars of merchandise from them, but we can't buy your data? Does not compute.
Re: (Score:2)
Why?
For exactly the same reason if you live in China, having the Chinese spying on you is bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Then its time for intensive re-education..
In the West the NSA/GCHQ will pass on actionable information to US and UK law enforcement/mil.
The "answer" after that is a visit by the SAS in the UK... or some "random" US law enforcement action in the US.
Outside the USA? The "answer" is direct action by the US mil.
The difference in the West is freedom of sp
Re: (Score:2)
You must work for China. Western government will not be attacking the west. Chinese government will.
So, no thank you.
The funny part is your fear of China makes your own government watching you easy.
Scary terrorists also. Be afraid.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The Chinese government can and will disappear you. The US government won't (yet).
How would you know? People go missing and never turn up all the time.
Personally, I think you gotta be nuts to trust the Chinese government more than the American one.
I think that's true too, but I think the difference is one of degree. Yes, China has organlegging, and labor camps. But we buy their slave shit, and we put children in camps for profit and have no way to return them. We probably buy their prisoner-harvested organs, too, we buy everything else from them and the USA is a hotbed of criminal activity. For example, we're one of the world's largest importers, traffickers, and exporters of illega
What do you think the USA PATRIOT Act is? (Score:2, Interesting)
Please explain it in detail to your fellow citizens at Guantanamo Bay. The ones who made it there alive.
Or the citizens of any other country on the planet, who have been abducted by the US to one of their global concentration camps called "black sites".
Noo, that is not a "conspiracy theory". The Polish government leader lost his post because there was a black site on Polish ground. Something the Poles, still remembering WWII, found not funny *at all*.)
China's leadership are pieces of shit, but they grew on
Re: (Score:2)
Knights who say CHINESE! (Score:2)
"Do not say that word. It hurts us!
We prefer to say UK-UK-UK-MURICA!
Now bring us a nice shrubbery!"
Deepin, for all your Chinese Backdoor needs. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Holy shit (Score:2)
Check out that video! It's got rounded corners!
Actually, the corners are a little too rounded. I like the macOS ones better. But I guess they're patented so....
Other than that it looks pretty much like Gnome.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah makes sense (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As a recent purchaser of a laptop... (Score:2)
...infected with Win 10 I was totally flabbergasted by its insistence it be connected to internet to fully take advantage of the benefits owning a $MS operating system provided.
Imagine China putting just a little ... (Score:2)
... effort into a FOSS Linux desktop. For good. For free. They'd could squish MS Win and macOS like a bug. Can't say I don't like that idea a little.
This is not Forbes Magazine. It is a blog site (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminder: This is not Forbes Magazine. It is a blog site featuring contributing authors and nonpublished authors.
not sure if i should (Score:4, Informative)
laugh or cry
i think the forbes guy is easily impressed *and* has no idea what the linux (and bsd and variants) community has achieved for over a decade now
No thanks (Score:2)
All that candy sounds like there are some "UX experts" constantly tweaking and redesigning.
Sounds like a distro I'll stay away from.
Windows 8 launcher? (Score:2)
Cloud sync? Adopt? ... Are you literally insane?? (Score:2)
This is a serious question: Are you in a mental hospital? Did you forget to take your pills? Do you regularly wear Joker face paint?
NO! Nobody in the history of the universe should *anything* "cloud" anything!
Let alone at an unknown third party's unknown server with an unknown time span until they decide to end the service.
People should have small home servers, stuck onto their routers, that all their computers (be they stationary, portable, pocketable or wearable) are connected and sync through, using thei
Forbes self identifies as China Propaganda now (Score:2)
seems legit
UX nightmare with Forbes by-line - GIGO (Score:2)
1. Every Desktop environment is standalone. KDE, Gnome, Mate, Cinnamon, XFCE, LXDE, LXQt
2. Just because something looks cool doesn't mean it should be done - a slide out control panel with a whole slew of buttons is poor user experience when the control panel has a zillion choices. This is as bad as the charm bar in Windows or the new scattergories in the Windows 7 update, or the hiding of everything in Windows 10. You want a clean interface - look at ClassicShell. The best of Windows 95 paired with the men
You funny (Score:3)
You're trusting a Chinese OS? *points and laughs*
Smells Like Paid Sponsorship (Score:3)
It is very rare to see a single online review or editor these days who isn't "influnced" in some way. Honestly you really can't trust anything you read to have any integrity anymore. I'm sure this is yet another paid shill. Especially when if it involves anything related to China right now.
Re:Country of Origin: China (Score:5, Insightful)
Out of curiosity, how many things in your house are marked "Made in China"?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
>"Nope, nope, nope, HELL no."
If it were like Red Flag Linux, I would agree. But this is different. It is not a state-sponsored project. And, much more importantly, it is OPEN SOURCE. If you like the desktop environment, it will probably be available for any distro, eventually (Fedora, Mageia, Ubuntu, Mint, SuSe, etc).
Re: (Score:2)
As long as it's open source it's fine. Otherwise I'd have to add Linux to my list of banned products because too much of it comes from the US and other compromised Five Eyes countries.
Own government spyware then? (Score:2)
From those with actual power over your anus-prison-Bubba distance in spacetime?