eXtern OS

[Anesu]

Not sure if this falls under "News", might be better in general? Anyway I have been working on an OS for a while and end of last year I released the first Beta after a friend suggested that I should release it (I hadn't planned to release it publicly, well maybe later, it was mostly a personal project). Truth be told the idea of it is relatively polarizing so the first Beta was essentially to see how many people were interested in the idea (i.e if it was enough to keep developing a public release version). Anyway long story short I got enough interest and have been developing an actually fully usable version (Beta 2) and should hopefully be releasing it soon. The polarizing aspect of it is the design (one of the main reasons it exists really) and that it's a Linux based OS but powered with Node.js. It started as an experiment as I wanted to learn node.js whilst also learning the hidden corners of Linux. Later on, I actually realised this might actually work so I continued working on it and you can watch the live demo of Beta 2 here! I understand the technology behind it doesn't excite a lot of people (was kind of the point of the experiment) I will address a few things before someone asks. The code in the release will be/is compiled into native code/binary (the node.js code). The front-end is the one coded in this way (Apps, desktop etc). I have also attached some screenshots I took from it the other day! I just thought this community might have some people who always wanted an OS like this.

 

Ok I just figured out I can insert Images inline haha:

 

The File manager

 

 

 

The Music Player artist view

 

 

 

The music Player play view

 

 

(Okay last one on Music Player haha) The music Player online library view

 

 

 

(Last one, you can watch more from the video) The Web Browser and Personal assistant

 

 

 

Anyway, that is probably enough, the link to the video of me playing around with it is above!

 

- Anesu

[Sauron]

I saw this back on reddit - it's a cool project, I'm not sure I'd want to use a js desktop though.

[Shally]

5 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I saw this back on reddit - it's a cool project, I'm not sure I'd want to use a js desktop though.

Has potential for a great media box

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Shally said:

Has potential for a great media box

Don't know, Kodi already does that pretty well

[Anesu]

1 minute ago, Shally said:

Has potential for a great media box

Might have it transform into a TV UI Mode as well? Sounds like something that could be added haha

[Anesu]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Don't know, Kodi already does that pretty well

I mean there is also Plex I guess

[yian88]

So let me get this straight, you are the actual creator of the desktop? or just promoting it?

I totally dig the glass/gaussian blur backgrounds/ macOSX like themes its right up where i see the perfect desktop.

 

The real issue is obviously performance and resource usage, CSS/HTML + noje.js is not known for speed and its resource heavy as anything GC'ed.

I have concerns about responsiveness in multitasking scenarios.

Altough im not a node.js guru i dont know if you can call efficient C/C++ libraries from node.js, if you can than using node.js for GUI and efficient low level libraries for background work might just work perfectly togheter.

 

Ineed to try this out if actually become a beta product and not just a concept art presentation.

 

 

[Radium_Angel]

Just now, Anesu said:

I mean there is also Plex I guess

Well, I'm impressed by this. Nicely done.

[AngryBeaver]

Looks very nice IMO

 

Good work!

[mynameisjuan]

When this was release it was a shit show. Over done UI, performed like shit, OS tracking the every loving hell out of you. 

 

I checked on this like two weeks ago and people just hate it in general still. 

[Anesu]

1 minute ago, yian88 said:

So let me get this straight, you are the actual creator of the desktop? or just promoting it?

I totally dig the glass/gaussian blur backgrounds/ macOSX like themes its right up where i see the perfect desktop.

 

The real issue is obviously performance and resource usage, CSS/HTML + noje.js is not known for speed and its resource heavy as anything GC'ed.

I have concerns about responsiveness in multitasking scenarios.

Altough im not a node.js guru i dont know if you can call efficient C/C++ libraries from node.js, if you can than using node.js for GUI and efficient low level libraries for background work might just work perfectly togheter.

 

Ineed to try this out if actually become a beta product and not just a concept art presentation.

 

 

Yes you can call C++ modules in node.js. Part of why something like this is possible haha

[yian88]

How do you compile the node.js to native is what im interested in and do you have any benchmarks or tests that show multi window responsiveness and resource usage?

 

 

Are you also looking for help on your project or you work alone?

 

Do you plan this as a free desktop or plan to charge money like elementary?

 

What is it based on? ubuntu? pure debian? arch?

 

[rcmaehl]

Don't feel this is news but looks good. Tempted to try it myself.... but I always break things >_>

[Anesu]

18 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

When this was release it was a shit show. Over done UI, performed like shit, OS tracking the every loving hell out of you. 

 

I checked on this like two weeks ago and people just hate it in general still. 

That was massively a loud minority from my side anyway. Yes the first version wasn't great, the whole point was to see if people liked the idea. A lot has been redone since then. Also "tracking" there was literally none of that. The only time it got your location was using your public IP to get the weather (and timezone). There was some massive overreaction to the fact that it got it right first time to a lot of people when it was simply based on the IP. Another thing was the whole personal assistant being processed server side, which is literally every other personal assistant, also you don't have to use it. But I have been slowly working on making a local version since that overreaction happened. It all started with the guy that made the video with "worse than windows 10 spying" video of which I addressed in the comments.

[Anesu]

13 minutes ago, yian88 said:

How do you compile the node.js to native is what im interested in and do you have any benchmarks or tests that show multi window responsiveness and resource usage?

 

 

Are you also looking for help on your project or you work alone?

 

Do you plan this as a free desktop or plan to charge money like elementary?

 

What is it based on? ubuntu? pure debian? arch?

 

What kind of benchmarks? It's kind of hard to do with something like this. Launch times? That would probably be unfair, I actually optimized it specifically to launch Apps faster recently haha. I actually got a few people. But most of them have been busy for a while so they have barely contributed and the other had a natural disaster that resulted in no reliable network for a while. Elementary OS is free but you can pay for it if I recall correctly. Anyway, currently I plan to make it free, but the App store will have support for paid Apps (with similar implementation to that of Elementary OS where a dev can make it "pay the amount you want" model or fixed) and we would get a cut from that. I would like to point out that its still in development so optimizations etc are still a work in progress whilst adding features. As I pointed out it was only recently I optimized launch times as well.

 

Edit just read your comment again and saw your other examples of "benchmarks". Ok will have it run a lot of Apps later on and see how that goes. I am currently doing exams (2 more) and will look into that

[mynameisjuan]

3 minutes ago, Anesu said:

Yes the first version wasn't great, the whole point was to see if people liked the idea.

The hype was huge when it first hit, its how I heard about it. Linux is desperate for a good looking OS.

 

4 minutes ago, Anesu said:

Also "tracking" there was literally none of that. The only time it got your location was using your public IP to get the weather. There was some massive overreaction to the fact that it got it right first time to a lot of people when it was simply based on the IP. Another thing was the whole personal assistant being processed server side, which is literally every other personal assistant, also you don't have to use it. But I have been slowly working on making a local version since that overreaction happened. It all started with the guy that made the video with "worse than windows 10 spying" video of which I addressed in the comments.

That would have been good to have right off the bat. This is linux, the moment you start prompting for using an IP for literally anything you should know they freak out. I couldnt care about tracking for any reason but many people just removed the OS after they got the pop-up. 

 

That video was the second video I saw of the OS and even though he mentioned not knowing all of what is happening, him and others bailed. First impressions matter. 

 

Honestly if you had an option to turn down the frosted glass effect I would try it, but I will also have to wait for Beta 2 performance results. 

 

[Anesu]

15 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

The hype was huge when it first hit, its how I heard about it. Linux is desperate for a good looking OS.

 

That would have been good to have right off the bat. This is linux, the moment you start prompting for using an IP for literally anything you should know they freak out. I couldnt care about tracking for any reason but many people just removed the OS after they got the pop-up. 

 

That video was the second video I saw of the OS and even though he mentioned not knowing all of what is happening, him and others bailed. First impressions matter. 

 

Honestly if you had an option to turn down the frosted glass effect I would try it, but I will also have to wait for Beta 2 performance results. 

 

I get your point. But doesn't literally every website get the IP address anyway? Also if you watch the video, you have a lot of customization of the UI. I take all the feedback though. I knew a lot about the Linux community and changed a lot of things before that release, like default search engine, music player album art and information source etc just so that people would be happy. Didn't realise the public IP was also an issue. I mean now I know, will remove that and just make them have to look through the list for their location instead.

 

Edit: I do agree now that first impressions matter a lot. Problem is it's difficult to figure out how to know if it's worth my time or not without getting some feedback. Maybe I could have just showed a video of it in action and then just asked people to comment that way. But then again, most would have been asking where the download is. I also got a lot of decent feedback from people using it on different hardware that I didn't think of, so at least I gained some info from it. But yeah, you are somewhat right about the first impressions thing.

[yian88]

I think privacy is one of the most important issue nowdays. Even if some dont care i think if you want a successfull distro you need to go the privacy route and dont collect anything, sadly the only way to prove that is by making source code open source, not necesarely free to reuse lincense,  otherwise this will be a really weird combination of open source with windows like data collection spying and you will get a lot of flak and hate for it, you should be prepared if you do that.

 

Also the fact that linux has some very bad issues, i just recently post a reply in this thread https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/988915-over-2500-windows-games-now-run-in-linux-thanks-to-proton/

 

The problem is that linux isnt a platform for developers, each distro is trying to "force" their own design or way of using a desktop and everyone comes up with their own idea of an app center/delivery model that most of the times doesnt wokr and what it does is it fragments the linux community even further.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ8OXf7o6UA

This little simple talk touches that exact subject, i dont know if aproaching this distro by locking in people to a certain number of software and a certain app store that costs money, has tracking and ads will work, i will certainly not even bother with it.

 

My advice(again do whatever you want) is that you should create an app center where existing apps and new apps(maybe built with similar UI style in nodejs) can be basically plugged in. In other words make your app center a platform for apps through your distro, i think it would be a mistake to do what Microsoft did with windows 10, where you basically have 0 good apps in the Store that are free when you can find hundrets of thousands of programs on google for windows. And the only thing microsoft cares about in MS Store is charging money for useless apps, i think that its an illusion that people will pay for simple apps like calculators and photo editors in your app store that already have powerfull free alternatives since forever.

 

I think the OS/Distro needs to offer a solid base of software, calculators, screenshot tools, sound recorder, weather apps, file managers, photo managers and other basic stuff that a user needs to get going but allow easy access to powerfull third party apps trought the app center and there are many free ones.

 

To recap, i think you should defer profit making to a later date and not build the OS based on it:

1. Dont make the OS a data collection milking cow for profit with disregard to privacy.

2. Dont make an App Store that locks people out of free software in favor of new made software that costs $ that might have many free alternatives. If people  want to push a free app old or new trough your store they should not have to pay a dime for it.

3. Software that people want to charge money for shouldnt have to pay more than 10% or max 15% royalties to the store owner, i think google play store charging 30%, or steam 30% for games thats ridiculous.

 

 

I wrote all of this because i feel there are many linux distros or OS changes/updates. be it microsoft or apple or google done for the wrong reasons.

An OS is simply a platform for people to get work/entertainment done and developers to push their software through, not a cash milking cow with disregard to privacy, morals or economics in the detriment of the users.

 

[soldier_ph]

Looks sharp 

[jagdtigger]

4 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

Linux is desperate for a good looking OS.

Kubuntu is pretty nice IMO...

[Noctus]

6 hours ago, Anesu said:

-snip

Very nice looking, will be keeping an eye on this. Good job 

[mynameisjuan]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Kubuntu is pretty nice IMO...

I checked it out last year and its a bit heavy but its top two for sure. 

[Anesu]

5 hours ago, yian88 said:

I think privacy is one of the most important issue nowdays. Even if some dont care i think if you want a successfull distro you need to go the privacy route and dont collect anything, sadly the only way to prove that is by making source code open source, not necesarely free to reuse lincense,  otherwise this will be a really weird combination of open source with windows like data collection spying and you will get a lot of flak and hate for it, you should be prepared if you do that.

 

Also the fact that linux has some very bad issues, i just recently post a reply in this thread https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/988915-over-2500-windows-games-now-run-in-linux-thanks-to-proton/

 

The problem is that linux isnt a platform for developers, each distro is trying to "force" their own design or way of using a desktop and everyone comes up with their own idea of an app center/delivery model that most of the times doesnt wokr and what it does is it fragments the linux community even further.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ8OXf7o6UA

This little simple talk touches that exact subject, i dont know if aproaching this distro by locking in people to a certain number of software and a certain app store that costs money, has tracking and ads will work, i will certainly not even bother with it.

 

My advice(again do whatever you want) is that you should create an app center where existing apps and new apps(maybe built with similar UI style in nodejs) can be basically plugged in. In other words make your app center a platform for apps through your distro, i think it would be a mistake to do what Microsoft did with windows 10, where you basically have 0 good apps in the Store that are free when you can find hundrets of thousands of programs on google for windows. And the only thing microsoft cares about in MS Store is charging money for useless apps, i think that its an illusion that people will pay for simple apps like calculators and photo editors in your app store that already have powerfull free alternatives since forever.

 

I think the OS/Distro needs to offer a solid base of software, calculators, screenshot tools, sound recorder, weather apps, file managers, photo managers and other basic stuff that a user needs to get going but allow easy access to powerfull third party apps trought the app center and there are many free ones.

 

To recap, i think you should defer profit making to a later date and not build the OS based on it:

1. Dont make the OS a data collection milking cow for profit with disregard to privacy.

2. Dont make an App Store that locks people out of free software in favor of new made software that costs $ that might have many free alternatives. If people  want to push a free app old or new trough your store they should not have to pay a dime for it.

3. Software that people want to charge money for shouldnt have to pay more than 10% or max 15% royalties to the store owner, i think google play store charging 30%, or steam 30% for games thats ridiculous.

 

 

I wrote all of this because i feel there are many linux distros or OS changes/updates. be it microsoft or apple or google done for the wrong reasons.

An OS is simply a platform for people to get work/entertainment done and developers to push their software through, not a cash milking cow with disregard to privacy, morals or economics in the detriment of the users.

 

Sounds good! Also about privacy especially the IP address, I have a feeling a lot of people don't fully understand what it is. Like it's what is used for computers to communicate (i.e computer and server). So for any kind of connection to be established, each of these devices would have to know this information (so that we can route the information to the correct device). What matters is if each of these devices decides to keep the IP address in a database or something (of which I don't do in eXtern OS). I did networking, so this for me this is like the most public thing you can have on a computer. If I was to collect data, I don't even know what use that would be for me, I am not some cooperation that can use it for personalized Ads or something, besides the servers could barely keep up with just normal visits anyway lol (upgraded recently though for the App store, hopefully that helps). The exception being the personal assistant (this was from a project I worked on like several years back, it was one of those chatbots, so it was server side from get go). My current option is that it's disabled by default and you will be asked if you want to enable it during the installation. For a decent personal assistant it needs to know you (literally why I made it back then, for an actual personal assistant), like if you told it to do something later on, you would expect it to remember this. If you told it that you don't like something, you would expect it to remember this and take this into consideration. Lets say you ask it to make a random playlist, if it knows you don't like a specific artist, it won't include that artist in the playlist. I feel like this was a pretty cool implementation as it takes all these variables into consideration when talking to you. Hence why I am trying to get it working in the same way but locally instead.

 

No I am not making it to make "profit" as a motive. You need to remember that there is quite a bit of costs to keep this running especially the App store. As a university student, this is also something to consider especially if I am to also use my available free time (which isn't a lot, I am a double degree student) to work on this instead of going to work at some fast food restaurant (hence money to maintain this is pretty sparse). For example, in the music player there is/will be support for online streaming services for those that have them to support google play music, deezer, spotify etc. For those to be implemented, I am paying for those accounts during testing etc. So the small fees add up. It's also optional for devs to make a paid App and it's optional as to what kind of paid Apps. Apps can be free, open source etc as usual (I would like to think majority will be as usual), I believe options are good especially if a dev has an App that actually is costly for them to maintain and they don't have the money to! The only reason I would prefer the node.js Apps is that from ground up it's ready to also be a mobile OS. Unlike MS for example we have a clean slate whilst MS had a whole thing built without this in mind and tried to add another layer on top of it. I absolutely understand this isn't for everyone though, especially in the Linux community, which is fine and again the beauty of Linux is that there is a tonne of options to pick from. I just had a dream OS I wanted to have and what you get here is essentially the realization of it.

[GoodBytes]

-- Moved to Linux, macOS, and everything-not Windows for this Linux distro --

 

[Guest]

Why making a whole OS tho? 

Imo just releasing it with packaging or even a snap (idk if that's possible for desktops) would be even better, is this running on X? 

Also I would like to know how the system theme would react to GTK & QT apps (fragmenting things is not a good idea)