Submitted by Some Friday fun: OSDir has some sweet screencaps of Ubuntu 6.06 RC, Kubuntu 6.06 RC, Xubuntu 6.06 RC, and Edubuntu 6.06 RC. Along with Fedora Core 5 and SuSE 10.1, this generation of desktop Linux distros has really stepped up the polish. Updated by AS: Added Xubuntu and Edubuntu links.
Friday Screenshot Tours
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Adam Scheinberg
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Kubuntu looks pretty nice.
I will probably go with that one
OSDir need to learn what AJAX is. Reloading the whole page just to change the image is a nightmare on those occassions where they are getting slashdotted / dugg.
Sad thing is, this doesn’t even need AJAX. Just a little iframe in the middle would do nicely.
Ad impression revenue keeps the site online. No additional page reloads = no additional impressions.
When JavaScript or frames (inline or not) are used to navigate a site, the address bar no longer reflects where within the site user currently is. In this particular case, if the gallery was implemented using JavaScript or frames, user could not longer send a link to a particular image to a friend by simply sending him the content of the address bar.
Stay tuned… I’m looking at some options on how to best implement navigation via ajax, while maintaining a permalink to specific screenshots.
Awwww, poor users… That’s why you put a little “link to this image” link.
Sometimes usability issues are acceptable to give up to save bandwidth. Although a very basic page for the gallery would do just as well.
Does anyone know if it’s possible to add this style menu:
http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/img/preview_screenshots/menu…
to SuSE 10.1????????
There’s plenty to choose from:-)
It’s so cool to look upon such well-executed desktop themes and know that with a little bit of work, they can all be mine. The bonus is that very little of this has led to show-stopping obfuscation of late, as opposed to the bad old day where I wasn’t sure where anything was on a base install desktop. Kudos to all the developers of these fine Linux-based products and the Open Source Community(tm) in general for working such wonders. Keep up the great work!
No thats a picture of SLED 10 and it’s new menu system, maybe if they release for source for it then yes.
I’m afraid that with “apt-get dist-upgrade” it will download me all ubuntu/gnome packages (as it did last time before I’ve formated). Do you know how to upgrade to new xubuntu without dist-upgrade?
Change repos pointing to dapper and do apt-get install xubuntu-desktop. Though it will update your gnome installation next time you do security updates or something.
And about Kubuntu. I can’t understand how they managed to f–k it up. Kubuntu breezy was the best looking distro ever and now it looks overly candy and background is hideous.
Is it just me or the screenshot really looks like from Windows 95 era?
Honestly the Linux desktop looks so dull and lifeless. Specially when i compare it with Vista screenshots or OS X screenshots.
I mean the finish on Vista and OS X is so much better, its like a beautifully polished desktop with proper fonts, shadows etc where linux desktop just makes me feel like Windows 95 again.
Look at them:
http://www.activewin.com/screenshots/vista/5268/explorer9jr.jpg
http://clockskew.com/images/osx86.jpg
I know i will be voted down because in lInux world, anti-linux guys are not allowed to live. I could get voted up by simply praising the desktop
Considering the relatively short life of the Linux GUI, I’d say it’s pretty good, with plenty of room for improvement.
No shorter than the OS X GUI and look how far that has come
Personally, I like the very clean, professional look.
My first thoughts about hte Vista screen show is its horrible. The task bar is very difficult to read, there is excessive dead space in the window, the blue green gradient doesn’t seem to match at all with anything (taskbar, icons, etc..). There are column headers (name, type, size, free space) but no columns underneath (inconsistent), the drop shadow is very heavy and dark. Visually coloring seems way off (why is the text at the bottom of th window a light blue?)
I like the OS X desktop, it is nice and clean and easy to read (like the Linux desktops).. about the only thing I dislike is the inconsistency in the windows (brushed steel vs aqua).
I love xubuntu JUST for the spartan look: I do not need any “look” when working with full-screen apps, the simplicity is the key. I installed xubuntu on PIII 450MHz at work, and after some testing and plying with the distro I decided to migrate from mandriva at home as soon as I buy a new HD drive. Simplicty of xfce + the power of debian is incredible improvement for me.
I tend to have my desktop covered with application and/or shell windows regardless of the platform I’m using, so the appearance of the desktop UI isn’t that important to me. I mean, windowframes are windowframes and icons are icons. Things like drop shadows and transparent border effects and such are pretty, but they don’t really help me in any way.
I’ve never understood why eye candy like that seems to drive modern desktop development. I’d rather see more usefuol features packed into a less resource-intensive package.
I realize that it’s somewhat cool to “bait” people into reacting and then predict their reaction with some self-fulfilling prophecy, but it doesn’t give the accompanying argument the same level of respectibility that would be availed by simply posting the links and letting others decide on asthetics. Both of the desktops you linked were well and good, but to say they are several generations ahead of the Linux offerings is a bit caustic. What I see is parity and a good smattering of selective choice, not obvious inferiority.
Perhaps the “lifelessness” could be applied to Xubuntu, since XFCE is designed with minimalism in mind, but the SUSE and Kubuntu offerings seem almost lush. Fedora looks progressive, even playful, and Ubuntu is, well, brown. All in all, a strong showing with plenty of good to choose from.
Note that until you commented negatively, the posts were all firmly on-topic and at least semi-constructive. I am quite sure that when Vista finally releases, it will have a gorgeous front-end. As for the foreseeable future, I’ll comment on the artworks I’ll actually get to use.
(Editing for poor grammar.)
Edited 2006-05-26 21:59
based purely on these screenshots, here are some thoughts
Ok, so Fedora looks pretty nice with the new clearlooks themes and whatnot, the only problem now is that those bluecurve icons look a little dated and really don’t go too well with the theming.
Suse isn’t overly bad in its GNOME incarnation, the tango icons look nice, window title bars are chunky but pleasant, it’s let down by some of the very KDE styled icons that appear in an otherwise attractive preferences window.
Ubuntu’s new gnome splash screen looks awful, its icon theme is a horrible mixture of styles, using some tango while having shiny glossy folders and rather uninspired device icons. The icon theme atrocities continue on dialog windows where an alien cancel button sits between gnome default apply and ok buttons. Evolution gets a similarly odd mixture of classic and new icons too. On a more positive note, the Ubuntu logo, which previously looked as though it had been slapped in place of the gnome foot on as an afterthought, now has better definition and some shadowing, the window titlebar colour isn’t as offensive as it could be and their version of the clearlooks gtk theme is rather stylish. Oh, what’s that big red power button all about?
Kubuntu has the usual problem of those crystal icons but that’s nothing new so we’ll ignore them, the install icon on the desktop is considerably less lousy than those exhibited by Ubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu. The most visibly offensive elements of these screenshots has to be the titlebar theme’s window controls, they don’t seem to have been designed to follow the same colour scheme as the rest of the desktop, or indeed the titlebar, they are far too squat and the symbols inside neither clear enough nor well aligned.
Edubuntu has the over the top curved highlight, overly soft corner shadows and diminutive status text or its gnome splash screen in common with ubuntu, its titlebar colour scheme is far too red, the icon theme is incomplete leading to that same problem of inconsistency in some programs.
Xubuntu has obvious icon issues where certain aspects of tango are incomplete and a few of Xfce’s icons are a little rudimentary, this aside it still looks more consistent than Ubuntu itself. The overall themeing is clean and pleasant, thunar looks nicely designed, the settings manager is, in some areas, more comprehensive than gnome’s preferences but less daunting than KDE’s kontrol centre. It really looks quite nice.
Now, before anyone starts whinging about me bitching about these distros, remember that several of them aren’t final versions yet, and while i know there are better places to discuss bugs this just happened to be where i was when they occured to me.
I really like how xubuntu looks just like gnome with a… less hot more cool theme
. With its light weightedness and such It looks like xfce could be a real gnome replacement! way2go XFCE and xubuntu 
GNOME on any system other than ubuntu is, IMO, a far more palatable colour though, while Xfce does look nice it’s not that different.
i personally liked the look of XD2 way back,
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3807&page=1
The old XD2 doesn’t look bad with the thicker borders but I like the newer icons. What is this tendency to make borders so thin with Linux today? Looks like paper although the newer XFC don’t look bad
The older topbar does look like a better Win2000 one, better then PlastiK, but the newer one is probably nicer.
I like GNOME better on Windows, it’s more WXWidgets I think. It seems more responsive to me with the plus box foldout trees rather then the (no tree) arrow ones that annoyingly spin slooooowly. I want by tree to open fast not watch spinny things.
KDE, please get rid of the bouncy default cursor for KDE, it seems like something for a kid. Add a rotating one at least like Windows or Mandriva.
The Ubuntu look has this old hardware feel that has been magically made to work very well as software. Interesting. Reminds me of the old HBO and cable box. It does have a great UI look though instead of the linear look. Seems more up to date.
I would like to stick with Linux only but doesn’t play my games.
Do you mean you like GTK with the GTK-WIMP theme on windows because it doesn’t use the swiveling arrows? I personaly like the arrows, they don’t slow things down for me and the plus boxes are a little ugly.
I kinda like the WIMP theme but the Linux GTK is fine. I am also a little biased because it seems that on Linux GTK flickers and is slower while in Windows it is solid like QT apps on KDE.
I want to have a choice between arrows and plus box trees. Maybe it would be good to have that option in the Gnome Theme Changer in KDE.
I use KDE with GIMP and such.
(WIMP = Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointing devices)
Screenshots are overrated, IMO. A pretty-looking desktop can be awkward to use (and it usually is). For example, you won’t find any screenshots of the Ratpoison window manager at shots.osdir.com although Ratpoison is one of the simplest and easiest to use window managers available. Ratpoison just doesn’t fit well into the “desktop” metaphor — it doesn’t look pretty but it’s fast, it doesn’t need much RAM, and it makes your work more efficient (it can also make playing games more efficient ;-). Ratpoison’s job is simply to manage windows and it does that very well.
If I was to introduce GNU/Linux to newbies, I’d show them how to use Ratpoison. All the “desktop environments” for GNU/Linux seem to imitate Mac and MS Windows. Yes, they’re becoming pretty good in this imitation but I still think that many newbies would find Ratpoison’s approach to managing windows quite refreshing if they only had the courage to try it. But I don’t expect that Ratpoison will ever become very popular because people are always afraid to try new and different approaches, even if these new approaches are actually better than the old ones. Also, people generally prefer to look at pretty pictures rather than be efficient.
Nevertheless, I thought that this “pretty desktop screenshots” thread might be a good place to remind people that there are also alternative approaches available. Try Ratpoison, you might actually like it very much — even if it’s no good for making pretty desktop screenshots. 😉
http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/
Don’t forget anything can be changed in 5 mins. A default theme rarely stays with me for that long and Ubuntu can look just as gorgeous and blue as to how KDE fans seem to like it when I am reading about ‘dull gnome icons’ and the ‘horrible brown in Ubuntu’ (not in this thread).
I’ve got the Glasscube borders and glass icons theme on since months, with a nice blue wallpaper (turtles underwater apparently nicked from a preview of Vista), or one could just import the crystal background from KDE if a fan or some of these SUSE backgrounds if you like nature and the wide open. Then go to gnome art and install a few themes for the login manager. Your desktop is what you make it.
similarly, don’t forget that first impressions matter, if it’s so easy for people to customise then why not get it right in the default state, give them a full icon set with no fallbacks to another theme when icons are missing, then users can choose to use any number of the incomplete themes from a.g.o as they see fit.
Remember that GNOME in its default state, while not as blue as KDE, is certainly not orange and brown.
Ubuntu looks so 1980 with the brown corduroy look, other then that it’s a perfectly solid look. I guess that’s what color changers are for.
Some of the media players look generic though still. They need to be spruced up, Amarok and Kaffeine still look like crap, It’s funny as the old black polished XMMS looks great as it kept up in looks compared to WinAMP and Xine’s newer interface is much nicer.
Looks like Rythambox in Ubuntu’s picture. Just looks bad. Looks like a test app. Are there themes for it?
Don’t think there are themes for Rythmbox. Don’t think it’s skinnable.
Yes, with Ubuntu it’s the Debian look to a certain extent with icons and task bars. Not really too hot I agree.
I can imagine where the idea for brown came from, they wanted it to appeal to people sitting at Starbucks with their laptop sipping fair trade coffee. And, like it or not, brown is distinct and makes them stand out from other distros.
For the looks, I’ve just installed Zenwalk 2.6 on a second hard drive – nice! Faaaaast. (900Mhz Duron)
Does anyone know if it’s possible to add this style menu:
http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/img/preview_screenshots/menu…
With KDE, almost anything is possible…
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=24898