Submitted by “The ROX Desktop is a lightweight alternative to GNOME or KDE built around the ROX-Filer file manager. The project’s name is an abbreviation of ‘RISC OS on X’. The ROX Desktop’s performance is reminiscent of IceWM, and it’s noticeably faster opening programs than GNOME or KDE. However, its speed comes at the expense of a needlessly redundant default configuration, and some users may balk at some of the assumptions its design makes about how they prefer to work.”
i actually like the desktop of ROX but the file manager irratates me at best. for any one out there running linux and a non KDE or Gnome window manager you should really give Endeavour2 a try. i actually prefer it to the KDE and Gnome file managers.
you should really give Endeavour2 a try
Now if it weren’t GTK1 without any hope for porting it to GTK2…
You could always give Thunar a try, you know. It is the file manager for Xfce but, it is pretty slick and competent at file management and it is Gtk2 based.
Thunar is nice, I agree. But it’s a pity anyway that Endeavor won’t be ported – it’s richer feature-wise…
why is it a big deal that endeavour2 is still GTK1? it doesnt conflict or hurt anything else on my box…
Edited 2007-02-08 16:53
Has anyone tried to use Beryl with ROX?
If so, do you have a video of it?
Has anyone tried to use Beryl with ROX?
Yes; I didn’t find it very nice. The Panel doesn’t work properly (it gets pushed out by its width, so there’s a gap between it and the edge of the screen). So on my laptop which can use Beryl I’m currently giving Beryl+ROX-Filer under Gnome a go. But I think I’ll go back to using Sawfish, because Beryl keeps giving the focus to the wrong window (I like focus-strictly-follows-mouse, and Beryl’s focus-follows-mouse mode keeps leaving the wrong window focussed).
I could give you a video if I knew how… (Do you just mean running my digital camera in video mode, or is there software that can take a video of it?) In all honesty, I’m not sure why you’d want one, it looks no different from anything else under Beryl.
As for the Filer’s general look, I actually have the toolbar completely disabled, and I have a dark picture as its background. I did this as a lark one day, but now I find that whenever I set up a new computer, I copy my theme across as almost the first thing I do because it helps me to see the windows and so forth. I’ve done something similar to GVim as well. Here’s a low-quality screenshot that illustrates it:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=384555919&size=l
(those filenames which appear to lack extensions … actually lack extensions. ROX-Filer works out the filetype based on the contents).
When properly configured, I find my ROX desktop to be a very efficient desktop. The use of context menus to the exclusion of menubars makes it a lot quicker to get the menu and makes much better use of my small 1650×1050 and 1900×1200 lcd screens. Drag-and-drop saving means I only need to browse to a folder once & helps keep me organised. AppDirs make installing my important software easy when moving to a new computer. And the computer only does what I want it to! Still, it’s very different from Windows/Gnome/…
HTH
I could give you a video if I knew how… (Do you just mean running my digital camera in video mode, or is there software that can take a video of it?)
Actually, more along the lines of capturing the video, then posting it to Youtube or Google Video.
Here are a few resources on video capture in Linux:
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/1843204
Plus, berly-vidcap is in the works, I think.
http://forum.beryl-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1020
So I dunno if the camera is necessary in the latter case.
I don’t use the ROX Desktop environment, but I am a huge fan of the ROX Filer. It’s a refreshing departure from its competition which, quite frankly, try too hard to be Macintosh or Windows replacements.
Unlike its competition, the ROX filer is lean and fast. That’s great for people with slower hardware, and for people who want their fast computer to feel fast. It doesn’t chew up much screen real-estate either, so your 1280×1024 screen won’t feel as cramped as 640×480 felt a decade ago.
The Filer makes extensive drag-and-drop, while providing excellent command-line integration. I know that it sounds like a bit of a paradox since most people are firmly in either the GUI or the CLI camp, but I kinda like using both without having to mentally switch modes. ROX Filer also allows you to use a verb-noun sort of setup, which seems to mesh with my thought processes nicely. (The Filer allows me to ‘delete file’, while the competitors want me to ‘file delete’.)
It is dead simple to configure the things that matter. I don’t care about choosing themes, or creating them. I want to be able to set file associations, choose how much information is shown to me, and change file permissions because that sort of thing allows me to get work done faster.
ROX Filer is a no-nonsense environment that helps people get things done. If it is confusing to use, it is only because it sets out to do things in a different way. That only implies that it is different, not that it is the domain of experts or other such nonsense.
that is really not so great when compared to polished desktop like Vista or OSX. I think it will be much better if OSS folks spend more time creating one useful and polished desktop instead of 10.
Waiting for the intolerant zealots to mod me down now:)
I’ll snap up the bait:
I think it will be much better if OSS folks spend more time creating one useful and polished desktop instead of 10.
There are different desktops in the OSS world because OSS developers realize that the one-size-fits-all mentality is pure nonsense.
Gnome targets people who want a clean interface with well targeted features. KDE is made for people who love having every feature at their finger-tips. Think about it for a moment: they are analogs of Macintosh and Windows. Different audience. Different needs. Different products. All four of them are also well polished and usable.
The same can be said for ROX, for the reasons I outlined in a prior post.
I’m glad there are a variety to choose from, because what’s great for you probably isn’t good for me. This is yet another reason to like GNU/Linux.
Well, choice is good in this case as you can hardly run KDE or Gnome with all the bells and whistles on e.g. a 64 or 128 MB RAM machine. But such machines do still exist and the ROX desktop, just like any other lightweight solution, helps the owners of such machines to continue being productive. I cannot see what should be wrong with that.
Sure, some nice looking desktops are always welcomed, but the getting the work done efficiently is imho more important than some glassy windows and funky taskbars.
News flash!
OSNews user posts flame bait and laments the fact that he sometimes gets modded down.
Film at 11…
There really should be a classification in the mod system for “-1: Worn out old flame bait ploy with even more worn out ‘I’ll probably getted modded down now’ suffix.”
“Waiting for the intolerant zealots to mod me down now:)”
I was waiting for the intolerant zealots to make a moronic post just like yours.
I Simply fail to see how could one classify rox as a NEW desktop… I wont mod you down but you should really check your facts before posting.
This is perhaps unfair of me to say, but judging from screenshots it just looks plain ugly IMHO. I remember trying it many years ago, and it looked very similar and was somewhat annoying in its behaviour. I am not sure what it is like now, and maybe it can be themed and the behaviour has changed. All in all it is nice to see projects like XFCE and ROX. I use KDE as my main desktop, but do love the XFCE for its clean fast simple approach.
ROX-Filer does not in itself look good or bad, it’s entirely up to your gtk2 theme.
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/8155/2004-08-25-20-57_1600x1200.pn…
What are the GTK theme and font that you used? Also, what about the panel – is it ROX-Filer’s own panel, XFCE panel, perlpanel, or LXDE panel?
I’m sorry, but the screenshot is not mine. I just linked to one of the better looking ones on the ROX homepage.
However, I found a thread for you on Gentoo’s forums, with a similar looking theme and a little more info;
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-204046.html
Don’t know what’s ugly – I like it, but I don’t use anything but mc
I was surprised that the author didn’t go into the similarities to Risc OS, since I thought that Rox was inspired by it. For instance, the ability to save files by dragging them to the folder you want to drag to, the spatial folders… also perhaps the 3rd mouse button? (I don’t know; I read the article because I wanted to find out.) It seems like this review just covers everything that is comparable in the major DE’s, but doesn’t cover anything that is actually unique to Rox (other than speed). I’d really like to hear more about Rox’s unique (and perhaps Risc-OS-inspired) features, if someone would like to enlighten me ;-).
To me ROX is what you’d get if you took the RISC OS desktop, added very decent command line integration and keyboard accessibility and included an automatic update feature (using zeroinstall).
Some features…
drag ‘n drop saving (not well supported by most applications though),
easy assignment of keyboard shortcuts for menu options,
ability to run shell-commands from a currently open directory, using that as the working directory,
easily scriptable send-to menu option (I think gnome does this now),
easy opening of terminal at a particular directory,
Oroborox (the default window manager) allows window dragging without changing the windows’ stacking order,
support for SVG themes as it uses gtk2,
a Clock applet (very similar so !Alarm on RISC OS — priceless),
keys can be used to launch items on desktop,
currently selected files can be remembered and associated with a keybinding,
select if — select files where their names or metadata match a particular pattern,
paths of selected files are inserted in the primary selection so they can be pasted into a terminal,
many of the Dialogs which appear have a RISCOS feel to them.
To honest I’m a bit of a fan, but if you’re looking for negatives…
ROX’s default appearance could do with improving (I think anyway),
it’s feature-set isn’t as tidy and focussed as Gnome’s,
Zeroinstall (assuming you use that for updates) isn’t ideal for dial-up users),
and the last time I installed ROX it required a good bit of time to set it up just right.
Edited 2007-02-07 23:55
A nice balanced review that weighs up some of the pros and cons rather than being a fan letter.
The thing I hate the most about ROX (Although I really like it) is that there doesn’t seem to be anyway to change the size of desktop icons. The default size is too small for my taste. I guess thats what I pay for a fast light desktop that works on my slower computers.
It looks just a little bit dated overall.
How very shallow of you.
I dont use an OS because it “looks good” (though seems like a lot of Vista people do) I use it because it works efficiently; like RISC OS. Think about it, why do you use a computer? to get the job done, well at least I do. Anyway like its said in an earlier post, high graphical desktops slow everything down.
You may hate the appearance of a product and decide not to use it because of that. That is your choice. But it makes a very bad basis for a “review” because people’s tastes will vary a lot.
As for ROX: I love that flat, “dated” appearance. If it’s faster and uses less memory because there are fewer pixmaps, and the pixmaps that do exist are 8-bpp instead of 24-bpp plus an 8-bit alpha mask, all the better!
Edited 2007-02-08 04:13
It surprises me that all non Gnome/KDE desktop environments depict themselves as lightweight. That’s bogus.
Er, I know at least XFCE4 and E17 and Equinox actually are, either in size or system requirements or both.
> The ROX Desktop’s performance is reminiscent of IceWM, {snip}
Hey! Some of use are currently using IceWM!
I have made the video in Ogg Theora format, but I can’t upload it anywhere. I could email it to anyone if they want it… Sorry it took me so long. If you want it, email me using the username ftc, the obvious punctuation, and the domain name thecartographers.net