- Journal
- Meet Me at the Pantheon
Meet Me at the Pantheon
Submitted by cassidyjames on Thu, 06/16/2011 - 19:40We released our first ever operating system back in March, and boy have we been busy since then! Of course we’ve been tweaking and improving our apps that come with Jupiter, but what else have we been up to? Laying the groundwork for what is to come from elementary in the future.
One of the questions we’ve heard a lot on IRC and other places is, “Why is Jupiter based on Ubuntu 10.10, and when will the next release be?” The first part of that question is simple; it was the latest available version while we did the majority of the work to make Jupiter. Releasing something based on Ubuntu 11.04 before 11.04 itself was released would have been counterproductive, as would waiting to begin development until 11.04 was stable. Ubuntu 10.10 is a very solid release and serves as an excellent base that we can confidently support until our next release.
The second part of that question, however, is not as easy to answer--at least not at this point in time. We release on a “when ready” schedule, which may be different for you if you’ve come from Ubuntu or other operating systems. The reasons behind this are many, but there are two that stick out in my mind: our whole goal is to bring awesome, stable software to our users and we can’t do that and implement all the features we want in a set amount of time; and we’re actually quite a small team, especially compared to the big guys like Ubuntu (seriously, think about how many people are involved with Ubuntu!). This is also compounded with the fact that it takes the Ubuntu developers six months to release Ubuntu, and then we go and turn that into elementary which also takes time.
We’ve been working out how we're going do our next release, and it looks like we’ll tackle it pretty well. First of all, we’ve learned a ton from our Jupiter release and will put all of that knowledge--plus the vast amounts of knowledge and experience we’ve gained with our increase in developers--to good use. Second, we’re not going to build “on top of Ubuntu” so much as build from Ubuntu’s core. This means that not only are our future releases going to look different from Ubuntu, they’ll be quite different further down.
How is elementary going to be different? Our developers have been playing with taking GNOME out of future elementary releases completely. This isn’t because of some political talks or because we don’t like GNOME, but is because we’ve been finding ways to make elementary even better, and it’s often involved removing and/or replacing some component of GNOME. While GNOME provided some flexibility for our first release, we keep running into the fact that it does not provide the flexibility we require as we move forward.
Instead, we will be building our own DE, called Pantheon. As of this writing, Pantheon does not consist of an entirely self-sustained DE. In fact, the developers (for the most part) have still been building it alongside GNOME (or in some cases, XFCE). But what is different is that we’ve been slowly replacing bits of the other DEs with our own bits, and boy is it incredible. We’re able to provide a much more seamless and beautiful experience. Another point to note is that we’ve been developing Pantheon to avoid DE-specific configrations and to support FreeDesktop.Org specs (something that’s not done well in GNOME), so it’s very simple for others to use! It’s also very modular; every component can be replaced by a completely different component.
Unlike other “shells” that have recently been released (i.e. Unity and GNOME Shell), Pantheon runs as modules that can run alongside the existing DE, with the eventual goal of replacing the old DE completely. However, also contrasting from the aforementioned shells, Pantheon is being designed from the ground up to be modular and not all-or-nothing. For example, you could use our lovely WingPanel, but drop Plank in favor of something like Avant Window Navigator (if that floats your boat). Or you could use a more classic double panel approach while keeping all the other parts of Pantheon in tact.
Now, I’m not a desktop developer, so that’s just about the extent of my knowledge regarding Pantheon. However, we have many developers working on it and we just might be able to coerce at least one of them into writing a developer journal entry to shed some more light on Pantheon’s inner workings. Stay tuned for that.
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Cool. I already figured out some of these without the help of this table, but the table definitely will come in handy. Oh, and by the way, great operating system guys! Keep up the good work!I already had the intention to participate in the project or at least develop your style, for now I have to study the elementary technology.
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Pantheon looks fkng great!!
Hello. I have installed GNOME 3 and Pantheon from <_-_-_>. Now on the login screen I selected Pantheon before logging and I get an error message saying to log off because Pantheon failed to start. How I can fix it?
PD.: Sorry for my low level of English, I'm from another country and used the Google Translator.
It's the first time that Google Translator worked as intended. o.O
Is the title in reference to the song Meet me at the Equinox? I gather you're a Death cab for cutie fan? Awesome!
It wasn't a direct reference, no. But I do like that song and Death Cab. :P
Looking forward to Luna as Jupiter was and is great as the soul purpose of it providing the non-open source nvidia drivers for me lol. Where as Debian made it hard.
I just installed Jupiter, and I'm in love with it. I bought a netbook recently, mainly because my macbook is too "fancy" to be really portable and a tablet isn't as comfortable as a real keyboard. I spent a month or more (!) looking for a slick OS, trying and installing dozen or more different linux flavors, and elementary OS was the only one fast enough, with an acceptable performance and a clean visual.
Then, hearing about a new DE, I was asking myself it this performance would be maintained (or improved, that would be awesome). So please, pretty please, pretty please with a cherry on top, don't forget about performance!! Gnome isn't very speedy (acceptable, though), and a new and faster DE would be a better desktop option.
Cheers and a big hug from a new fan!
Only problem with elementary on netbooks is that the dock is a bit intrusive and takes up to much screen space
I have some good news: elementary OS Luna, our next release featuring Pantheon, is faster than Jupiter. :D
This sounds amazing!
Although you guys started out trying to give it an iOS look by using the Safari-like Midori, I would replace Midori with Chromium (or Google Chrome); Midori lacks some important features that Google Chrome has (such as password management).
Rather than scrapping our whole philosophy and including a non-native and cross-platform app, why not bring password management to Midori? :)
Very true @cassidyjames :-) I used to love Chrome, until I started to see Google's definition of open source wasn't all that open. So I switched to Firefox 4 ( now its like 6 or 7 I guess ) But Firefox is well known for being slow and power hungry. It might be really nice having all those Add-ons, but they eat up alot of power. Even Chromium slows way down after you get more than 15 extensions. So I decided that when I put elementary OS on my laptop ( third device to have elementary OS on!!) I would try to stick with as many of the default apps as possible. And relized that Midori is actually really awesome.
The only thing I truely missed was Lastpass. But then found the open source alternative "KeepassX" and am loving it!! Found a really awsome python script that took Lastpass's exported CVS file and converted it to the XML file that KeepassX can import. It actually works better cause the Auto login isn't based off of reading the code of the web page, it just simulates your typing in text box, so it will work on any site, where Lastpass screws up sometimes when it can't read the code.
Midori does need a little optimizing cause it slows down when on OMG! Ubuntu's site and some others, But I'm not sure if that's just cause of all the content and java script on their page or not.
Any ways, keep up the great work guys!!! The thing I love most about elementary OS is that you never compromise on your values, open-ness in everything and keeping all the apps as native and open as possible, and not allowing anything to slow down your system or make it even a little buggy.
You know, talking about eating your own dogfood, what do you think about GIMP? I always have a hard time using it, mostly because of what I think, its unintuitive interface. What changes do you think GIMP needs to better itself? Personally, I would like to see more designers and coders get involved with that project.
GIMP isn't an elementary product :p But personally I find it better than Photoshop at least.
you've obviously never used Photoshop much then :P
Only when forced to. I had to use it for classes and sometimes I'll get a PSD file at work. It's just a crap program. Takes forever to start, buggy as hell, confusing UI. Not digging it.
I agree!
Well there's an interesting question. You always struck me as a Photoshop guy. Do you do all of your mock-ups / design-work in GIMP then?
No, I do almost all of my work in Inkscape :) I only use GIMP for photo manipulation.
I must try Inkscape!!!
you are working with one of the core fundamental things I truly belive in: Simplicity, modularability, usability and stability :D Because of your work with this I have a sudden urge to maybe try to learn myself Vala as my third programming language :D
Yay! We'd be happy to accept you into the developer team. :D Hit up the Get Involved and Developers sections of the site to see what's available, and come chat with us on IRC!
I wish the elementary Desktop, I was also a theme Black and transparent medium in the style of Globus Preview ...
There is some experimental work on a dark theme for apps such as video players, the terminal, picture apps, etc. I imagine it would be pretty easy to grab that theme and make it a standalone one! :)
I won't be surprised if you would need more and more servers.I see every major distribution,remix applying you Nautilus-elementary and other nice UI tweaks you have applied.I hope marlin does good job.I am sure it will and you're going to be huge more than you'd expect.
We've learned that we often attract more interest than we expect, which is really awesome. Because of this, we've got a pretty nice server set up that should serve us well with any major traffic. Hopefully we'll have to upgrade it sometime soon as the project continues to gain popularity! :D
I have a question. Will it be possible to have window buttons and window title on the wingpanel when applications are maximized? I use a 14 inch laptop, and screen estate is really precious to me.
By the way, I am really looking forward to Pantheon and your next release.
With WingPanel, no, there are no plans to include such functionality. A separate project may provide that functionality, in which case you could easily replace WingPanel since Pantheon is modular by nature.
One thing I'd personally love to see with WingPanel is an optional (and off by default) intellihide mode, similar to what Docky and Plank have. When a window overlaps the panel or is maximized, WingPanel could slide up and hide until the mouse hits the top of the screen.
Fantastic, De, with switchboard will be better!
Yeah I can't wait for Switchboard and its plugs to come together. I think once they do, people will realize even more what we're doing with Pantheon and elementary in general.
Jupiter is a great release, guys. I use it every day. I've been with Ubuntu since Dapper Drake. I've also owned Macs since the Apple II. You guys reflect a genuine love for clean asthetics, without being overly derivative. Awesome job.
Here's a bit of a spoiled brat question: One of the things that's always seemed in need of "polish" in every Linux distro I've tried is "window tearing" when I drag things around the desktop. Mac OS X (forgive me for saying so) is such a SMOOTH visual experience. There's no lagging or tearing, even on my old 700 megahertz G4. Why is that?
Will Pantheon provide smoother DE graphics? Or, are the choppy window dragging graphics a function of the "X desktop" (I forget what the underlying technology is called, but I know it has an "X" in it)?
Thanks guys. Keep up the great work. Beautful technology. Again - I use your OS every day!
Another thing about Mac OS X being so smooth: they have complete and total control over both the hardware and the software. With elementary, we only have control over the software (and even then, not all of it's written by us). If we ever provide hardware with elementary preinstalled, you can be sure it'd be as smooth as OS X on Apple hardware. :)
Do a tie up with System76. I would buy.
It's properly due to Xorg. Ubuntu will be moving to Wayland when the project is matured enough - and it should solve problems like the one you have.
Will I be able to choose this "shell" on login as I can do with Unity and GNOME Shell? Can I have it installed alongside others?
You already can.
Yes.
Will it have a global menu option??
If you really want, you can use gnome-panel instead of Wingpanel and add the global menu there. Or, if you perform some voodoo dances, you may be able to run the unity-2d-panel instead of wingpanel.
By default, there will be no global menu, but you're free to customize the shell away :)
No, there is no need for a global menu when there is no menus ;)
Menus look confusing!
:D
I was wondering this too. All elementary apps use Appmenu, so they don't need global menu support but for third party apps would be great an option to put the menus in an Appmenu, although I don't know if that's possible.
Yes, I'm hoping for that option too. Also, while on the topic, I'm wondering will there be compatibility for GNOME applets?
No, indicators only
great article. I started using the elementary stuff like 2 years ago, and still my favourite theme ever. then I begun using elementary apps, wich are powerfull, but a little bit buggy, i've been using pantheon session since the first release and I musy say I really love this desktop: clean, beautiful and effective. So, I can only say:
Thank you
From all of the team: You're welcome! We aim to keep making our software cleaner, more beautiful, and more effective. We're happy we've pleased you and we encourage you to stick around to install our next release once it's out. You won't be disappointed. :D