Linux UI should copy Amiga OS
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- As my first (that I owned) childhood computer was Amiga 500+ it is only natural that I have affection for it. But even beyond that - I believe that its user interface still holds up today and I would love to see Linux steal some of that awesomeness.
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Today I have learned that System76 is CONSIDERING universal menus for their upcoming COSMIC desktop. Considering, as in “not on the roadmap, yet”. But it’s clear that there are more fans of universal menu and I like that.
AmigaOS themes have long been available on linux. Whether 1.0 or 3.0 themes, arrows, boot screens, there’s even GRUB boot menu with Amiga os. Even Gnome has GTK+ themes for AmigaOS. I think even Compiz window manager had Amiga themes already like 15 years ago.
Themes, yes! But the global menu thing is what is not “standard” in any Linux GUI because many 3rd applications simply aren’t designed with it in mind. Perhaps if you ONLY use Qt apps then maybe you will have a good amount of global menu compatible apps in KDE, but you can’t get it from a GTK app while in Plasma.
You CAN implement a global menu in some GTK apps but you need Gnome, then.
It’s just not meant to be :)
The problem with a global menu is that screen size has drastically changed over the years. On the Amiga, it made a mot of sense, especially once you installed MagicMenu. On modern systems that potentially have multiple monitors, and no MagicMenu... it is a pain. When Gnome was trying it out as default... well, let's just say that I hate applications that go full screen, and on a super ultrawide monitor, that mouse travel to get to the top left corner and then back to your window app gets to hurting your wrists way faster than they should.
@slaapliedje someone already mentioned screen size and it’s true. we now have a lot bigger screens and mouse travel would not be pleasant in the long run. Not sure how this is not a problem on a Mac already? I don’t use one / no experience.
@@LinuxRenaissance Yeah, I run into the issue all the time on macOS. Especially when trying to use the touchpad... when trying to drag / drop icons from one finder window to another, you have to do a funky thing with your fingers, and keep one on the pad, while you move your other finger up so you can drag from there... People always say how great the trackpad is on the macs... I think they're 'meh' and would rather use a Thinkpad's Trackpoint.
It’s amazing how comfortable Amiga OS is in this day and age. Using it now it still feels ‘natural’ and makes using some modern operating systems (I’m looking at you Windows!) clunky and illogical.
I have some tricks up the sleeve of my Amiga with RTG graphics so I get a lot of physical space on the monitor because of 1050p resolution. Amazing for coding! And it feels like it’s an Amiga from the future. It’s an acquired taste, mind you, to have it modded this much.
I'm still running it on original hardware. A500/A600. Both systems have some upgrades and are running AmigaOS from CF Card.
I mix a bit of PiStorm and a bit of original 020, depending on my mood.
Have you used Linux KDE nowadays?
It has everything anybody wants, I have 3 panels with menus and icons other hidden other on top.
Anyhow, Amiga theme is available in Linux but I don't know anybody who use it
I use KDE 6, but you can’t fully replicate Amiga OS with it some themes are available, yes. I use Amiga-looking login screen.
Ya, back in 1990 I got my Amiga 500 and my first taste of a multiasking OS. Back then Windows/MAC were single tasking basically. But by 1994 with Commodore going bankrupt I had to migrate to the PC. Windows/Intel I had a hard time transitioning to them over the years and missed how the Amiga was. Funny seeing the old Amiga Workbench thanks for bringing this up.
I stuck with my Amiga 500+ until 1997 when my father was financially able to get me a PC. From Amiga straight to Pentium. I have had many happy days with my first computer and now I use it again and the comunity is quite alive. The Workbench you saw in my video is actually a new version from 2023. Believe it or not it is still being developed and version 3.3 is planned in the future.
@@LinuxRenaissance Ya, I actually had to work and save from 1995-96 then I bought a Pentium 133Mhz system in 1996. Nice to hear development is still going on; is it still memory efficient and 64bit? It is funny my Amiga had 2.5 Megs RAM; I bought that trapdor 2meg RAM upgrade and a 52MB HD. Now I have a 7800x3d 7800xt 32 GB and 16 GB VRAM, 4 TB SSD. But I noticed because of 64 bit everything is inflated. It is crazy my youtube tab I saw take 3 GB ram. I use Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and seems a bit more efficient than Win11; but even Linux is abit inefficient.
@cybernit3 well, Motorola 68k are 16bit/32bit hybrids, AFAIK, so the Amiga OS certainly isn’t 64-bit. Amiga OS 3.2.2 (the latest one) works perfectly fine on a stock Amiga 1200 with 2MB RAM, but I am not sure how well would it work on 1MB machines. I have a random question: If I would make some Amiga-related content would you prefer to ser it on this, otherwise Linux-specific, channel or on a my second channel (does not exist atm) that would be Amiga-only?
Just stopping at 1:56 to say that this kind of reminds me of BEos, but intead of the side pull down menu on the right hand side; you have more the Mac OS style top bar thing you are saying you like a lot. And I kind of agree. I did like that about Macs when I was using them briefly a long time ago.
I think you can get a similar setup going with Xterm I think it's called, sans usual GUI's like gnome, kde, etc. I've yet to try, but the style of the Amiga gui you are showing kind of probably can be replicated in it. A minimalist GUI essentially at that point?
Anyways. I don't think you are wrong about the way the interface operates, and how it should be used more in Linux gui's as a option. Even with heftier rigs, it's nice knowing that only the absolutely necessary resources to run the background operations for the GUI are in use; so that everything else is freed up for the chosen application to run, etc.
For example. (Also, LR, this kind of stuff is mostly expected to be known by you, but is written in the aspect of those who might not. Possibly you as well?)
I'll disable explorer exe on windows to achieve similar with even windows 11. You just use the run command through the task manager more often, or search a file location from one of the processes to get into the file manager without pulling up explorer's taskbar cousin at the same time. (Or rather, if there is a way to open only the file manager through a run function without activating the taskbar, I don't know it yet; so I use that workaround instead.)
This basically gives me the full functionality I need for when I am using Windows for gaming. There is no task bar to minimize to, with background apps running within. They stay 'active' in the sense that they are still running without it, unless you disable them of course. But they do and consume a lot less relatively comparatively. Probably something to do with the quality settings in the GUI options for windows. Anyways, this gets rid of all of that temporarily, until you run explorer exe again. And as for minimizing apps running still? They just get put into their own little windowlet blind thingy in the bottom area until you pull them up again with an alt tab or something else.
The difference in ram usage is significant too when I close everything that doesn't need to be open but insists on trying to run still while explorer is up. (Seriously, it's annoying.) Even though I have 32 GB of ram, due to the way windows uses ram, and their swappiness default setting you can't change *unlike in linux. No not the swap file/page file. That's a different setting. Windows starts to try to use your swap file at about 65-70% of your ram utilization. Linux let's you change this with some settings, windows does not. Well, not easily. That asterix before... Windows can technically do it if you change some regedit settings I believe, but I cannot for the life of me find the forum post that mentioned it in the past. Heh... )
Anyways. So because of that nuance, and also the way GPU shares system memory, thus sort of locking some of it up when playing some games that end up using it somehow or the other; having a lot of ram doesn't always mean you have... a lot of ram... available for the random things that pop up needing resources... which leads to a system crash. Even with 32GB of ram. Easy solution is to dial back some game settings of course, but that's kind of a bad solution. More resources would help, but well, everyone has a wallet limit on that.
So I cripple windows.
And now, back to the video. Thanks for reading this far, anyone who does.
Boy was this a nice comment! Thank you very much for taking your time to type all that. I also have some kind of weird “need” to optimize stuff on my computer. I just installed Arch for the first time (on my laptop for a test) and already I can see why people like it. First of all the battery lasts longer than with Debian. One would think that Debian is not bloated, however Arch truly is a minimal install as much as you want it to be. I do have 32GB RAM as well, but I don’t mind having 28GB free 😂 because I like things to be snappy, optimal. Also a reason why I dislike many modern “apps” being Electron based. I seriously don’t like it. It is a totally unnecesarry resource hog in most app scenarios where it is used. Modern programmers have discarded the art of optimization due to computers having a ton of resources.
Anyways, this will end up a long discussion unless I wrap it up here. Join my Matrix if you feel like getting rid of some more words that are waiting to be shared 🫡
@@LinuxRenaissance Thanks. I'll consider the matrix invite; but do I need to take a dodgy pill from some strange dude in a trenchcoat and glasses first? (j/k, i know what matrix is.)
Yeah, Arch is nice. I usually set it up with BTRFS instead of EXT4, and with a KDE environment. Usually ends up using about half the system resources as my Windows setup, currently W11; and it easily takes 8-9GB of my ram just running the desktop, maybe with a browser open. And yeah, I totally get what you mean about Electron apps. I am of the same opinion that developers have become sloppy. It's part of why I kind of refuse to learn from anyone else anymore unless they can prove they are actually worth learning from now. (Which means less resources to learn from...)
Since I don't use Discord, I avoid it's bloat via Electron. But I have Steam of course, and they use electron now too I believe. 🤮
I personally wouldn't mind if there was some sort of global malfunction of all the cpu/gpu/ram fabs out there, so that developers are forced to have to make due with what we have for a lot longer than usual.
We'll get so much better programs and games that way into the future, once they learn how to optimize effectively again.
As for myself. I figure I'm gonna learn Assembly and Basic first, along with C and Python. I have a plethora of older laptops of different architectures I can optimize code for, and newer hardware I can use to test the same code under the premise of letting it stretch its legs. Even have an Opteron CPU that could be up and running if I could find the appropriate C32 I think chipset motherboard it needs.
I'll probably add Javascript into the list, but only because it's so commonly used... Can't really avoid it without taking the extra trouble to. But then again, maybe I will take that extra trouble. As for Rust, since it's super popular lately... not til after I have become proficient enough in Assembly to need something like Rust.
Oh, and Vulkan only for graphics, DX gets the gravestone.
Anyways. If I join your matrix, you'll see me pop in as Johnny likely. Til then, if at all, ttfn.
@ManuFortis we have the exact same mindset over programming languages choice. assembly, C, and Python are on my list too, and I am already making an Amiga game in BlitzBasic. But before I touch Vulkan I need to learn OpenGL
What was the name of that software for Workbench that let you edit everything about the guy? what colors you wanted, you could have windows casting shadows and so on.
Scalos?
I will echo comments about Window Managers, not sure creating an own is the easiest ever.
Anyhow, I know there existed one for X Server that looked like my Amiga500 UI, Googled and I found one called AmiWM. Not sure that was the one I was thinking of, it was a long time ago.
Regarding a common UI standard, Unix used to have it, it was called CDE (Common Desktop Environment) and was used on commercial UNIXs. Due to license, it didn't really catch on to Linux. I used CDE on Solaris and I have to say I liked it.. maybe nothing special, but it was fine. And before anyone replies with that the license has been resolved nowadays.. I know, but so used to Ubuntu now, I probably never run CDE again.
Oh my, CDE. Before I had a PC I used Solaris on university server via X terminal. I remember it now, but it is a vague memory. Thank you for reminding me of that!
I havent got to daily drive anything using the global menu like that. I could see the benefits though.
I agree it would be good to see more standardization amongst the various desktop environments to allow for various control flows.
As I said, it would be contary to the freedom that we enjoy, to wish for having just one choice. But at the same time I am a big fan of having unified look and flow of my applications. That’s why I loved Nokia N9 smartphone that just happened to run Linux. But more importantly its UI was Qt+QML based with strong design guidelines.
You could create your own Window Manager with the behavior of the Amiga Workbench. Also there is AROS Research Operating System available, that tries to be an open source re-implementation of Amiga OS.
The comment before yours told me the same and honestly I just placed the idea on my TODO list. Whether I will really do it I am not sure, but it would be an amazing learning experience, no doubt.
@@LinuxRenaissance it's a lot of work for one person. and it would be a little bit easier than creating an OS from scratch. but if one person could build serenity os, then it's not impossible.
My opinion is that menues are obsolete. DIgging through them is not something a modern OS should chase. All options should be either in the place they should be in the dynamic UI or on context menues. So everything should be "with context" so that the app does not need a menu.
That’s a truly valid point. I am living in nostalgia.
You don't Digg through them since if they don't change places you know always were they are, if they changing all the time it's a bit harder, and if they aren't there to start how do you know what functions they represent. I would like to believe that if this was like you say at least apple would have done a long time ago.
A lot of UNIX-isms were put into AmigaOS, especially from version 2 and on. Many of the people working on AmigaOS were SUN UNIX users (including some of the original early-mid 1980s Amiga dev team).
Also what many VIM users are not aware of is that VIM is a program created for Amiga
@@LinuxRenaissanceI thought vim is based on vi, which is also the common ancestor for Amiga‘s ed.
@@20windfisch11 what I meant was that VIM author created VIM for his Amiga first. Other ports (Linux) arrived later, AFAIK. Also “based od VI” may be slightly misleading. I think VIM was heavily inspired by VI, like a clone? But it does not share any code with VI.
@@LinuxRenaissance I mean “based on” in the sense of “works like” here. But that was also the first thing I noticed when I installed my first Linux in the 1990s on my 486, how similar many concepts were to the Amiga. So much so that I was confused when I typed “ed something” and didn’t get what I expected to be “ed”, but learned that it’s “vi” or “vim”. But I am still an EMacs guy for things too big for nano but not big enough for vscode - and I also have to thank the Amiga for that by having bundled a version of EMacs ever since, even though the “MEmacs” on OS 1.3 through 3 was pretty much scaled down.
4:02 I've seen some software that can run on either gtk or QT. Transmission has gtk and QT builds for instance.
Yes, Transmission is what inspired a part of my sentence. 😌 When it comes to FOSS I suppose everyone can contribute code and eventually get the app to the point where it both GTK and Qt adapted.
I agree, the global menu works great! You have more space to show many items, but most importantly, you can easily target it with the mouse by just throwing it up instead of aiming at a tiny portion of the screen. Amiga OS and macOS got it right from the beginning. Unity was also great, I liked it a lot. But now GNOME wants to get rid of menu bars altogether. Works for simple apps, but not for more complex ones.
Regarding different toolkits: Well, it's hard to get the different camps to agree on stuff, especially with GNOME doing their own thing more and more. I get why they do stuff like this, it results in a very coherent UX, but it locks others out, and makes apps developed for GNOME feel out of place in other desktop environments. Non-GNOME apps feel just as alien in GNOME, and KDE apps also often carry lots of dependencies. Sometimes I prefer the simplicity of GNOME apps, sometimes I appreciate the power of KDE apps.
GTK3-based apps, like in Mint's X-Apps, can bridge the gap, but they are prone to be stuck in the past. Still, they might be the most universal ones, working great with Xfce4, Cinnamon, Mate, Unity and more. Usually with per-window menus, but in Unity, you get your global menu again!
I lived in a GTK world for a long time and now I switched to KDE again to get a good feeling on where we are at. I will try to use as many Qt apps as I can, but Konqueror is quite bad.
I remember there was a Windows app that would make all applications have the top / main menu, making it look very OS X like :)
Windows used to be fairly customizable :)
The global menu is one of the only things I miss from using Mac OS at my old job.
I never really had a chance to really use a Mac. I mean I never owned one, but I know that both the original Mac OS and Amiga Workbench are from the exact same era :-)
One thing unity did differently is that you could also search the menu entries
I liked Unity more than Gnome 2 at the time. Ubuntu kinda lost its visual identity when they switched to Gnome 3, IMO.
man i lowkey miss Unity, it made many things right. and especially it worked in its own way, if i wanted to use windows or macos i'd just install them
It definitely has some great universal design elements that are independant of ‘style’
I feel like Puppy Linux did do this.
I never tried it, but by looking at some Puppy screenshots I would say no.
As customizable as Linux is, this shouldn't be too hard to implement. Use AmiWM as a starting point to recreate the Amiga experience.
I tried AmiWM previously, but it is abandoned. But I think I can customize a modern DE enough to get an Amiga look, just not the menu system because that depends on how apps are designed.
The top/global menu bar has one major drawback. The distance you have to move the mouse between the menu and the active window can be very large, especially on widescreen, multi monitor setups, and the like. There isn't any magical solution to solve this; mouse acceleration or increased sensitivity helps to get to the top corner without picking up the mouse, but then working within the application gets jittery. Now, if all your apps are fullscreen or maximized then its a moot point, provided you duplicate the menu bar across all desktops/monitors.
True but at the same time you can throw the mouse cursor to the top of the screen and it will stop at the edge and the menu drops down. But yes, on really large monitors the distance you have to move the mouse is a bit tedious.
You may be on to something valid. My Amiga had a 14” monitor while my PC has a 43” one 😂 so it is a lot of mouse travel!
linux is kernel, on gnu/linux system there are dozen UIs. you can create one more. what is stopping you?
Haha you are 100% right, but it is a bit challenging to avoid calling all the distros Linux. So what is stopping me… You just gave a new hobby idea, thank you!
If you search for window managers, it would be surprising if someone didn't try to emulate the behavior already. A quick search suggests amiwm for a window manager. Also videos are available for making linux look like amigaos.
Thank you for searching, but you did not have to. My point was that I would like to see some effort invested into that UI direction which would involve basically all app developers. It’s not a realistic wish by any means, but more like a dream. I am okay with current offering of GUI’s.
Or RiscOS
kde is nice, unfortunately, it is based on a proprietary system and anybody who (is not kde) wants to use it will need a team of lawyers to make sure they aren't breaking some kind of licensing requirement.
with linux being an OS construction kit, one could potentially create an amiga-os like operating system that runs on the linux kernel. that team would just need to create their own graphics/gui libraries for it.
Making a new GUI seems like a lesser challenge than asking developers around the world to use your design guidelines.
@@LinuxRenaissance the challenge of getting people to use it still remains.
now while i would personally love to use an OS that looks like the amiga os, if it smells like POSIX, i likely would not use it.
@@androth1502 which OS do you like?
@@LinuxRenaissance honestly, none of the existing OSes appeal to me. so i just use the one that is the most functional which at this moment is microsoft windows.
as much as the microsoft cruft and internal corporate politics disgusts me, the same cruft exists in the linux and apple spheres.
if i had the time, i would just build an OS layer, something that runs on top of an exiting OS, but i would just use the OS libraries like a kernel API, and then disable as much of the host OS as possible.
@androth1502 interestingv. 🤔 I generally like the Stallman way of doing things, so if I wouldn’t be so addicted to modernism I would be able to assemble my perfect OS right now.
I’m with you 100%.
Let’s see if System76 will do anything about it. They kinda hinted that they like universal menus as well.
You didn't really explain why you prefer the global menu instead of the window menu. I'm trying to imagine how a global menu would be helpful, but my thought experiments tend to conclude that window menus are better... Window menus don't take extra space on the screen compared to the global menu, and they tend to be closer to the important content, and so I don't need to move my mouse as far. Also, each app is free to implement a custom menu style that makes sense for their situation. They don't need to conform to the global structure. This is important to me because I run a hybrid development system, and some of the apps I use are native Linux GUI apps, some are windows apps running via Wine, some are pure terminal apps. Some are remote sessions on other computers. Some are VMs. I can't imagine how to get all this working with a single global menu system.
I am sure that I see things through pink glasses because my Amiga had a 14” monitor and a 640x256 resolution so not much mouse travel. And it was too early to have many software devkits so most apps had conformed to Amiga UI design language.
However, global menu used to not take up more space on screen but less because all open windows would have one row less drawn on them. Nowadays menus tend to be hidden behind Alt keypress. Maybe menus are going away?
Either way I believe that I enjoyed the simplicity of Amiga UI (I still use it) and mouse travel does not bother me even on 1920x1080 24” but maybe it would become a problem on even larger screens.
Then make it so! Make your own desktop environment! I will not use it though: I'm an XFCE guy.
I placed it on my TODO yesterday after five of the comments proposed the same thing. But I have sincere doubts that I have enough time to learn how to do it well.
What exactly is stopping you from implementing your idea? Are you such a Windows user that you can't adapt Linux for yourself? You are the problem, not Linux. Just build it...
hehe, I love the comment!
Time maybe?
Ha. Well, others have done some work, there was AmiWM, which is a window manager styled after the Amiga. Various themes are out there...
Anyone remember Spatial Nautilus in Gnome? They tried to make the file manager work the same as Workbench (every folder opening in it's own window in the saved position). Almost everyone HATED it, and the option was removed.
One of the things that makes AmigaOS so awesome though is the underlying architecture where a driver is just a .device file. This would be missed by just skinning Linux to look / act like the Amiga.
I switched to using a CDE clone for a while, just because I wanted something different for a while. There are things I love about every desktop graphical interface I have used. Hell, I would probably be fine with a modern version of GEM from the Atari ST as well.
i hate global menu. when are working with servers. having menu at the top of screen when you have several things working is extremely inconvenient.
i owned an amiga and it was great but for managing an ad server then managing services window side by side or installation of rolls not very good that you have to go back to the top of the screen for a menu. na guys i have worked every single os and i prefer menu in the window.
Perhaps I am looking at it through purple glasses?
Doe the red hat mean you use Red Hat?
I use Arch, BTW. I did try RHEL 9 when it had freshly released, but it's not very convenient for desktop.
@@LinuxRenaissance I tried Red Hat but it was a bit beyond me. So, I went the Mint route. I can hear the boo-hisses from the knowledgeable, but I am just not there yet, and it suits the needs of this retired engineer just fine/
@@The-Friendly-Grizzly Mint is actually very cool. I am especially a fan of their Debian Mint version. But it is not exactly what I am looking for right now.
@@LinuxRenaissance I do email, surf the web, want to get good at photo editing, and am trying to muster up the gumption to maybe do a memoir-of-a-boomer channel on TH-cam. I am not a gamer, and my machines are all those little mini jobs that folks like Bee-Link sell. I had a powerful Intel NUC but can't seem to find it.
@@The-Friendly-Grizzly I have two computers. the one I call "main" is my desktop PC with plenty of grunt both in terms of CPU and GPU so I do everything on it, literally. I am a gamer as well and I play with LLM's (what they call AI nowadays). My second PC is a 2018 ThinkPad laptop which I bought in 2024 for 200€ and I find it bloody amazing! It can't play modern games, of course, but other than that it's quite good and I love it. I just bought a new WiFi card for it because I like to upgrade PC parts when I can. Good luck with making videos :) The hardest part is to get the ball rolling.