The MaXX Interactive Desktop a.k.a. The MaXX Desktop is the continuation of the 5dwm.org implementation released many years back. So don’t be mistaken, there is only one implementation of the SGI Desktop on Linux.
Our goal is to bring to the masses this great user experience which focus on performance, stability and productivity. The MaXX Desktop is available in two versions, the free Community Edition (CE) which provides basic SGI Desktop experience and the commercially available Professional Edition (PE) that comes with support, CPU and GPU specific optimizations and a full SGI Desktop experience. The MaXX Desktop PE is excellent for SGI customers using both IRIX and Linux platforms or for power users using pro applications.
The first release was released a few days ago. And yes, I used the SGI database category for this news item. Try and stop me.
Looks like the 1990s called and wants its desktop back, complete with bitmap fonts. Does anyone need this in 2017?
Yesss! Not sure If I can be as productive as I am in a tiling wm, but man I want to use it. Good memories of really expensive high quality machines, in a sea of terrible windows and macs, I could count on IRIX. Linux wasn’t nearly as performant at the time.
As odd as it may seem to you and your ilk, some of us prefer a desktop from the 1990’s that is light and responsive and gets out the way while we get things done!
Why are you even here commenting on it when you obviously have no intentions of even looking into it?
Some of you probably like working on VGA resolution, too? Isn’t that true? Because using a desktop like that definitely mandates the use of 640×480 or 800×600… Would not feel right otherwise.
Actually yes, for a lot of things I do I use 800×600. It depends what platform/machine I’m working on at the time. Very rare I go as small as 640×480 though, unless I’m gaming on one of my Amiga’s then I even go 320×240 for some.
That’s my point. That GUI goes very well with VGA or 800×600, but neither of them are by any means 2017.
So you would rather have a super-high resolution desktop with all kinds of flashy effects that uses excessive amounts of processor time and memory?
There are still plenty of valid uses for these ‘outdated’ environments given that they tend to work much more efficiently than their ‘modern’ counterparts.
Put another way, I can run CDE on my laptop without using the GPU as more than a framebuffer with zero lag and near zero impact on the performance of the rest of the system. If I try to run KDE 5, GNOME 3, or almost any other ‘modern’ desktop without using the GPU, the system is unusable. And this isn’t some dinky little Atom or E-series APU system, it’s running a 7th-gen i7, and even that doesn’t have enough processing power to allow for software rendering in KDE or GNOME.
I do like old window managers and desktop environments very much. I used to like WindowMaker and FluxBox on Slackware the most.
What I am saying, is that in year 2017 you can have properly drawn fonts, window borders and controls. Properly = without such a horrible pixelation that you can physically feel those jagged edges scratching your eyeballs. Retain all the same functionality, same lightness, same efficiency, just make visuals themselves less offensive.
1280×1024 which was likely the lowest resolution that SGI Indigo Magic ever ran at.
from my laptop and my phone
slashdotted?
The official site is still up and you can find out a little about it there. http://5dwm.org/
It’s been slashdotted and under a DDoS attack. When the site comes back up, I have posted unofficial instructions for Debian Testing.
Yes, I do get the nostalgia and all… But fonts there look like shit, as well as anything else that is not made of straight lines either parallel or perpendicular to monitor edge.
On a whim I tried this out on Bash on Windows Subsystem for Linux and I’m really impressed that it worked out of the box (using VcXsrv for X). It’s really quick and responsive.
I’ve been using twm for the few applications I’ve run lately that won’t work without a proper window manager (VcXsrv can run in “multiple windows” mode where X applications appear as normal MS Windows application windows).
I checked out the license:
1) The limited license from Silicon Graphics, Inc. permits The MaXX Desktop to be deployed and executed ONLY on the following Linux platforms; x86, x86_64, amd64 and ia64.
So… I wonder if I would be violating the license if I ran it this way?
Technically, you’re still running “Linux on x86/amd64), so probably not.
Is he? Seems to me that that’s where the GNU/Linux distinction actually means something – if you’re running under subsystem, you’re running pretty much everything except the actual Linux kernel…
A proprietary, GPU vendor specific, desktop for only certain CPU architectures of Linux, that looks like it crawled out of the 90s without picking up proper font rendering along the way? This is going to flop like an epileptic whale.
Meanwhile other 90s-style desktops like GNUstep (and Window Maker), FVWM, Enlightenment, IceWM, JWM, and even freaking CDE are FOSS, portable across Unix flavors, and CPU architectures.
Makes me miss my O2.