Some Screenshots from Pyra OS?

[Alperoot]

Well, that's also because the screenshots you see are 1920x1080 I will work on the default XFCE-Config as soon as I got a Pyra with screen, otherwise it's not possible to decide the needed sizes of all items

For the sake of my eyes, make them BIG! But I'm more worried about "desktop"programs from the PC that are not made for such tiny screens or mobile devices at all. I can imagine browsing with Firefox will result in very tiny fonts, it's even already small on the Pandora.

Calm down! We will have readable fonts!
I guess...

 

[edgex004]

Well, that's also because the screenshots you see are 1920x1080


I will work on the default XFCE-Config as soon as I got a Pyra with screen, otherwise it's not possible to decide the needed sizes of all items

For the sake of my eyes, make them BIG!
But I'm more worried about "desktop"programs from the PC that are not made for such tiny screens or mobile devices at all. I can imagine browsing with Firefox will result in very tiny fonts, it's even already small on the Pandora.

You can change your zoom and minimum font size to make everything easier to read. I have set all my fonts in Qupzilla to 14 if I remember correctly.

 

[fusion_power]

Yupp, but then it can get messy with some websites, Firefox just does not support the "fit to width" feature that automaticly sets wordwraps to keep a website in shape to fit the screen without zooming. No other Broser has this feature, not even the "new" Opera versions after 12, sadly.  It would be a perfect feature for devices like Pandora actualy. I could zoom in to have BIG fonts but the website still is correctly formatted and I don't have to scroll horizontal.  I use this function even on my PC to increase the Font size with zoom or have forum threads aligned when a huge picture is posted that goes over the screen  res.

 

[aidenn]

Just a thought - did you guys look at the Elementary OS desktop? Its footprint is somewhere around XFCE, but it's much more streamlined and looks better too (IMO).

 

[bzar]

It will be quite simple to switch to another desktop environment if it's in the Debian ARM repository. The default one should be something stable, functional, maybe even bordering on boring. This eases support burden for people new to linux and its various desktops. It also allows you to get that nice Ikea Effect feeling when you make the device your own by swapping parts in and out. This makes the desktop simple by default, customizable by preference and replaceable by design.

 

[_jr_]

Reading the design guidelines of Elementary OS; it is totally not what I want from the Pyra (aiming at a consistent user interface across all apps isn't bad per se, but doesn't at all make sense for a platform that is intended to literally run every piece of software ever written - with or without the help of emulators). Also it looks like Gnome 3 with composition enabled, does this really have a footprint comparable to XFCE?

 

[aidenn]

Yes, it uses GTK3, but it's much lighter than Gnome 3 (it's just a bit similar in the design department). I don't have the numbers, but I used both XFCE and Pantheon on my 1st gen Atom netbook and they performed very much alike. "Non-native" apps also run just fine, it's a fully functional DE after all. The main selling point of Pantheon is its lightweight set of fully integrated base apps (Geary for mail, fork of Midori for web browsing, etc.), all optimized and set up from the get go. It's also better suited to touchscreen use than XFCE, and IMO looks really good.

I'm an Openbox/tiled WM + console user myself, so I don't really care all that much about DEs, however, as far as DEs go, I really like Pantheon.

 

[_jr_]

Thanks for the comparison, but does it run without Open GL? Couldn't find much info (the elementary os web page is not very helpful), but it doesn't look like it can. In my book that wouldn't be lightweight at all.

 

[aidenn]

Gala is the name of the WM, its compositing features are based on libmutter, but I believe it can run without them, although I haven't tested it. But if not - it's Linux, you can just swap Gala for whatever you wish.

Still, compositing in Pantheon/Gala is done very conservatively, nothing flashy or heavyweight like in Compiz, just your basic fade-in/fade-out and smooth animations, even super old integrated Intel GPUs with no memory of their own can handle it.

-- edit --

I checked, it does run well without OpenGL.

Oh, and its Wayland support is pretty advanced (official support slated for the next release), should Pyra ever wish to go this way.

-- edit --

Correction; it does run well without 3D acceleration - Gala still requires OpenGL. Nonetheless, Gala doesn't have any special features besides compositing, one could easily make a similar theme for Openbox and run Pantheon/Openbox, or any other WM.

Another good thing about Pantheon is that it's very intuitive, OSX-like. I installed eOS for all my friends and relatives with old machines, who were frustrated with how slow they ran, but weren't technically inclined to use "real" Linux. I didn't even have to explain where is what, it's that self-explanatory.

As for power users, it doesn't hide anything either, there's even a nice 3rd party app for changing advanced settings of the DE. I'd put Pantheon/eOS somewhere between XFCE, Gnome 3 and Unity, with usability, integration, and performance being the main ideas behind it.

 

[mrpalmtop]

Gala is the name of the WM, its compositing features are based on libmutter, but I believe it can run without them, although I haven't tested it. But if not - it's Linux, you can just swap Gala for whatever you wish.

Still, compositing in Pantheon/Gala is done very conservatively, nothing flashy or heavyweight like in Compiz, just your basic fade-in/fade-out and smooth animations, even super old integrated Intel GPUs with no memory of their own can handle it.

-- edit --

I checked, it does run well without OpenGL.

Oh, and its Wayland support is pretty advanced (official support slated for the next release), should Pyra ever wish to go this way.

-- edit --

Correction; it does run well without 3D acceleration - Gala still requires OpenGL. Nonetheless, Gala doesn't have any special features besides compositing, one could easily make a similar theme for Openbox and run Pantheon/Openbox, or any other WM.

Another good thing about Pantheon is that it's very intuitive, OSX-like. I installed eOS for all my friends and relatives with old machines, who were frustrated with how slow they ran, but weren't technically inclined to use "real" Linux. I didn't even have to explain where is what, it's that self-explanatory.

As for power users, it doesn't hide anything either, there's even a nice 3rd party app for changing advanced settings of the DE. I'd put Pantheon/eOS somewhere between XFCE, Gnome 3 and Unity, with usability, integration, and performance being the main ideas behind it.

I've not tried the trunk version but there are real issues with high DPI support on Pantheon. That matters for the Pyra given its ppi.

Imo XFCE is probably best with KDE a close second. The latter can be really optimized for small screen usage as almost every KDE app has user defined keystrokes and the application menu can be put into a panel to save vertical space.

I'm attaching a pic of my KDE setup on my 1Ghz pocket computer, the Viliv N5 which works really well on KDE despite having an ancient Atom processor and only 1GB of RAM.

 

[TrashyMG]

Currently aTc has a Mate build in his latest build, but don't forget you can just apt-get install your favo(u)rite.

 

[mrpalmtop]

Yes, that is the beauty of a nice sized internal storage and stock Debian.

 

[comradekingu]

What version of Mate is it?

 

[KidPaddle]

Mate Desktop Environment 1.8.1