Bill Hayden, the initiator of the Cosmoe project has released a developer version. Bill is looking for feedback, bug reports and even code contributions. You will need a 2.4.x Linux kernel, RPM and a framebuffer graphics driver loaded through LILO. At this point, Cosmoe should only run via the console, as root. A mirror and an additional screenshot can be found here. Recently, OSAlert featured an interview with Bill.
Cosmoe Developer Release 0.5 Available
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Although, I plan on installing it to see what it is like, I still will always think AtheOs is better ;-).
Does anyone else have the same problem as me with this new version, where when moving the mouse the whole screen becomes full of black rectangles and you can’t click anything and stuff? And when you are pressing ESCape the whole screen becomes black? And when you are changing a console, and try to get back to X11, you get an error message that “xf86InterpretedEDID from module /sur/X11R6/lib/modules/libvbe.a is unresolved!”
BTW, when I tried to install the RPMs, RPM said that I have an dependancy problem, that libpng.so.3 is required, while I have libpng.so.2.x.x.x. I had made a symlink a week ago, so the libpng.so.3 now links to the .so.2.xxx, but the RPMs today were still complaining about it. I had to install with –nodeps.
I do not want to upgrade to the new libpng because it is not binary compatible with the older one, which means that I will have to recompile the whole KDE and any other program that was built around the older libpng, if I install the new one as default. Gentoo Linux got into the problem a month ago and I fell in. I don’t want this to happen again.
BTW, I use the VGA=0x31A on my lilo.conf to get to the framebuffer.
Yay!
Nice to see someone try to do something better with Linux… I am not impressed yet with it.. I miss BeOS… cant run it on my AMD 1700 XP. for some reason cant apply SSE patch… GRRRR…
Why can’t you apply the SSE patch? Email me if you need help, I will guide you through.
The guy commented on how ugly the other UIs from Linux look like, and how great an artist he is, yet from the sceenshot, it looks like a cheap rip off from BeOs, with BeOS icons and some Windows 9x looking icons (but not the same) in the AEdit window. Maybe he should stop critising until he gets better, cause right now, I would prefer standard KDE 3.0 to Cosmoe in terms of beauty (can’t comment on ease of use, never use Cosmoe). What more when you use themes like QNX For KDE 3.0 and icon themes like iKons….
Although, I plan on installing it to see what it is like, I still will always think AtheOs is better ;-).
I don’t know, but I though Cosmoe is an fork of Atheos… plus I heard Atheos isn’t maintained currently as the guy behind it like to take long vacations every once in awhile…. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I don’t think that Cosmoe is a fork of AtheOS. It is just using AtheOS’ app_server and Interface Kit, nothing more.
But yes, generally speaking, AtheOS is largely unmaintained currently.
The binaries really don’t want to work on Slackware 8.0 (nor do they work on my PPC
), but the compilation is a nightmare… Anyone succeeded it fixing the makefiles/missing files/ etc?
> The guy commented on how ugly the other UIs from Linux look like, and how great an artist he is
What guy? I did not read anything like that anywhere. And as for the Cosmoe GUI, it is not Bill’s. It is the AtheOS-looking GUI, as for AEdit it is not Bill’s either, but the person’s who wrote AEdit (Vanders).
You truly don’t have any of your facts right. Neither Cosmoe is able to compete with KDE at this point. It is a developer’s release, not a user’s one.
I’d really like to build this sucker myself…
Thanks
-fooks
The source is included in the RPMs. Look in /usr/src/cosmoe once you’ve installed them.
In the FAQ, Bill goes into how he’s writing Cosmoe because the ui’s for Linux suck (along with the typical “no offense KDE/Gnome guys”) and then continues into how much X sucks, and that Cosmoe is his gun to kill it. I believe that those are the comments rajan was speaking of.
It does say that stuff in the FAQ, but for now Bill is trying to get a version out. So that everyone can get a taste of it. He does plan on reworking the gui a little bit. As do I for the original
. Starting with the Desktop.
“New Desktop” http://students.cup.edu/cau0730/desktop.html
“New Desktop Photo Gallery”
http://students.cup.edu/cau0730/pictures/desktop_pictures/index.htm
I have mandrake 8.2,I had same problem as reported by eugenia I get black rectangles all over the screen when I move the mouse. You can’t click anything stuff.
At this rate, by the end of the century there will be at least one half-baked OS for every man, woman and child on earth!
Today I downloaded Cosmoe. After some hack to make it install on my custom Linux, I succeded to crash the kernel… humm… it seems that the framebuffer code do a lot of memory corruption. I tried a recompilation, it fails, wrong path, wrong includes…
I fixed them but it still crashed. Then I rewrote a driver to make it works, and fixed some ‘features’, a ‘simple X11 based driver’ is born, here is the result:
http://blueos.free.fr/XCosmoe.jpg
It’s slow but it works. I will release the code tomorow, now I have to sleep, good night!
Regards,
Guillaume
haha… looks good.
Can’t wait to try it under X, it may fix my mouse problems…
The guy commented on how ugly the other UIs from Linux look like, and how great an artist he is, yet from the sceenshot, it looks like a cheap rip off from BeOs, with BeOS icons and some Windows 9x looking icons (but not the same) in the AEdit window. Maybe he should stop critising until he gets better, cause right now, I would prefer standard KDE 3.0 to Cosmoe in terms of beauty (can’t comment on ease of use, never use Cosmoe). What more when you use themes like QNX For KDE 3.0 and icon themes like iKons….
Picked right off the UI:
“Lastly, I have a bit of graphic-designer blood in me, and frankly I think the existing Linux desktop efforts look amateurish compared to the luxuriousness of MacOS or the crispness of BeOS or QNX. (no offense to the KDE/Gnome folks, who have obviously puts hundreds of hours of work into their respective products) I believe that there should be an open source desktop operating system that doesn’t skimp on behaving correctly and looking good while doing it.”
BTW, I have tried AtheOS before, the UI isn’t that ugly. Maybe he should just try to put his graphic-designer blood into good use
> as for AEdit it is not Bill’s either, but the person’s
> who wrote AEdit (Vanders).
Yup, thats AEdit 0.5.1, and the icons are directly ripped off from Windows Wordpad (From a screenshot, actually). However, 0.5.1 is an old version, and almost all of the AtheOS developers are now using derivatives of the KDE iKons icon-set, including myself. AEdit 0.6 is much nicer than 0.5.1
Why Bill chose to use (Include? I see an “Editor” icon on the desktop?) an older version of AEdit I have no idea, unless the newer button classes in AEdit 0.6 were causing him problems…
Anyway, yeah, without a spare Linux box around here at the moment, I can’t try this just yet. It looks like it is unlikely to be much different from libatheos on the Linux Framebuffer though, at this point.
The black rectangles when you move the mouse is because you have gpm running, at least it was on my system. When I stopped gpm the rectangles disappeared, but the mouse pointer wouldn’t move. So I disabled gpm in the startup and rebooted, and now the mouse works as it should, without any black rectangles.
–Vegard
Hi,
You will find at: http://blueos.free.fr/CosmoeCats.tar.gz
an archive which contains a full and non intrusive install (4 MB)
(no rpms, it will help debian or joe users) of Cosmoe
which works under X11 (you can run it without problems
in a Gnome or KDE terminal, ie you need a running XFree server).
To install, just type:
tar -zxf CosmoeCats.tar.gz
cd Cosmoe
more README
I hope taht it will help people (like me) who had install,usage or installation issues.
Screenshot: http://blueos.free.fr/XCosmoe.jpg
Regards,
Guillaume
Im using RH7.2 and the original Cosmoe worked just fine. The drawing seems to be quite slow compared to AtheOS though (with TNT2), but I guess thats just a matter of getting better device drivers.
I installed CosmoeCats, ran it according to the instructions in readme and it funked up the upper part of my (x-win) desktop, complaining “not Error: Layer::DrawString:2() failed to load glyph”.
X-windows vs. framebuffer 0-1
You have maybe a problem with libfreetype, I compiled the appserver with mine which is surely not the same than yours. Just recompile and see which library is used.
(look at your LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable too (set in sourceMe.sh).
People with idiotic comments like “rajan r” make me want to close up shop and just develop Cosmoe for myself like I did before. Of course Cosmoe is still ugly — I haven’t touched the UI yet, which you would know if you read the FAQ. You don’t paint the car before you get it running… Same goes to the “what is he using AEdit 0.51 for” guy. Sheesh, there’s only 24 hours in the day, and I have a full time job (in addition to being a father of three). The AEdit code was complete spaghetti and I didn’t feel like fixing it yet again for a new version. Can you tell I’m mad? If you have a problem, fix it and submit a patch, don’t bitch about it. I’m working as fast as I can.
>People with idiotic comments like “rajan r” make me want >to close up shop and just develop Cosmoe for myself like I >did before. Of course Cosmoe is still ugly — I haven’t >touched the UI yet, which you would know if you read the >FAQ. You don’t paint the car before you get it running… >Same goes to the “what is he using AEdit 0.51 for” guy. >Sheesh, there’s only 24 hours in the day, and I have a >full time job (in addition to being a father of three). >The AEdit code was complete spaghetti and I didn’t feel >like fixing it yet again for a new version. Can you tell >I’m mad? If you have a problem, fix it and submit a >patch, don’t bitch about it. I’m working as fast as I can.
Whoa!! Bill don’t get upset. Their is always going to be people who will bitch, but they don’t do anything to help the situation. You are doing a great job, keep up the good work :-).
Same goes to the “what is he using AEdit 0.51 for” guy. Sheesh, there’s only 24 hours in the day, and I have a full time job (in addition to being a father of three)
As the “what is he using AEdit 0.5.1” guy, I would like to point out that I am also “the guy who wrote AEdit in the first place” guy. I guess that makes me uniquely placed to question your use of my own code?
The AEdit code was complete spaghetti and I didn’t feel like fixing it yet again for a new version.
I know its spaghetti code. Thats why I re-wrote it for version 0.6. Hence my queistion why you’re using AEdit 0.5.1 Its an old version, and AEdit 0.6 is a huge improvement over it.
Can you tell I’m mad?
Yes, but you could have saved yourself the heart attack if you’d spent an extra two seconds to look at the name attached to the post!
If you have a problem, fix it and submit a patch, don’t bitch about it. I’m working as fast as I can.
http://www.shagged.org/~vanders/aedit.shtml or http://www.kamidake.org in case you need them.
I’ll level with you Bill; I’m chuffed that you chose to include AEdit with the base distribution. I’m slightly miffed that you are using an old version, and that you then acuse me of being an idiot for questioning that. I like AtheOS, but I don’t like Cosmoe. No offence and all, but I think the concept is bad.
Good luck with it though.
Vanders:
Your chuffed taht he included it? Well its under the GPL so who cares, just like his fork of the AtheOS GUI. I once tried to watch the development of AtheOS, but tehre was never any updates. Its unmaintained pretty much. Ipersonally would have respected the creator of AtheOS’s feelings on forks and stuff IF he actually maintained it. Yes, real life gets in the way, thats when you get help from others, and I doubt that he would have a hard time finding volumteers. Well if its just a hobbyist OS and youy us taht as an excuse for AtheOS then why would it matter at all if it is forked in any form, let otehr people work on their hobbies.
I looked at when you released AEdit 0.6. He said he is limite on time. Maybe he didnt have time to move to your it when it was released in february. He forked about 9 months ago. Maybe hasnt had a chance to update or didnt notice a new version before.
Dont like Cosmoe? Get over it. I think it can be a good idea if done right. Like maybe develop a video card architecture that is compatible with X drivers, so that it easily supports a wide range of video cards easily with advanced features. Then 3D and multiple head (if not already done) and other things people use a lot. Port this to many platforms and maybe work along side the OpenBeOS people for evolutions in the software. I would actually like to see Kurt give permission for OpenBeOS to fork with their chocie of lisence to jump start the efforts.
Ed, just because AEdit is under the GPL doesn’t mean I can’t be pleasently surprised that Bill is distributing AEdit with the base distributon of Cosmoe (The word “chuffed” is a positive British-English slang word, meaning “happy”)
I looked at when you released AEdit 0.6. He said he is limite on time. Maybe he didnt have time to move to your it when it was released in february. He forked about 9 months ago. Maybe hasnt had a chance to update or didnt notice a new version before.
Thats fine. All I did was wonder, out loud, why Bill was using an older version of AEdit. It was more rhetorical question than anything else, I’m not really that bothered either way. However, I then see Bill make himself look silly in public by flaming me about it. Nice.
If Bill had simply replied and said “Yeah, I havn’t had time to put the newer AEdit code into the tree” then that would have been fine. If Bill had said nothing, then fine, I’m not going to throw myself from a bridge because someone didn’t answer a rhetorical question.
Dont like Cosmoe? Get over it. I think it can be a good idea if done right.
Thats fine. I think its a bad idea for technical reasons. If you think it’s a good idea, great! Go for it. Develop it, evangalise it, sing from the rooftops, whatever. I can still not like it if I want to. As you say yourself, “Get over it.”
I think that you’re confused by my position on Cosmoe. I like that Bill has included AEdit. I don’t like the concept of Cosmoe on technical grounds. These are two different things, totally unrelated, and they’re not mutually exclusive. As I said in my previous post, good luck to Bill. I mean that sincerely, I know how hard it is to manage OSS projects, and Cosmoe is a big one to manage.
I would rather lay my crds in the table though, and be honest, than play cloak and dagger political games over some GPL source code, frankly. I have more interesting things to be doing.
I havent had a chance to play with this yet, but Im really looking forward to when I can. As a long time BeOS user this looks promising.
Thanks!
WhiteRabbit
People with idiotic comments like “rajan r” make me want to close up shop and just develop Cosmoe for myself like I did before. Of course Cosmoe is still ugly — I haven’t touched the UI yet, which you would know if you read the FAQ. You don’t paint the car before you get it running… Same goes to the “what is he using AEdit 0.51 for” guy. Sheesh, there’s only 24 hours in the day, and I have a full time job (in addition to being a father of three). The AEdit code was complete spaghetti and I didn’t feel like fixing it yet again for a new version. Can you tell I’m mad? If you have a problem, fix it and submit a patch, don’t bitch about it. I’m working as fast as I can.
Hey hey, cool down. Sorry :-). Just got pissed off. I’m weirdly, unable to install this except through that 4mb hack up there /. Looks pretty good (and slow, but it’s not your fault). Pretty cool… i have to admit. So, good job. I have send an email to you voluntaring for UI design (I have no idea how to program just yet, I’m just learning C++ and Qt).
Anyway, here’s a few suggestions. Go for Unicode, once and for all. Have no support for bitmap fonts. And I meant that. The biggest priority of the OS should be making it ready enough for ISVs and IHVs, not adding features (that could be done later :-). But don’t get mad at this suggestions
Thats fine. I think its a bad idea for technical reasons. If you think it’s a good idea, great! Go for it. Develop it, evangalise it, sing from the rooftops, whatever. I can still not like it if I want to. As you say yourself, “Get over it.”
I don’t know which is a better idea, AtheOS or Cosmoe. But AtheOS is largely unmaintained. Why won’t anyone fork from it? Sure, Scott would get all angry, but if he can’t live with forks, why did he use GPL/LGPL in the first place? Seems like a pretty good OS to me, except most of my hardware, except my processor, motherboard and HDD (as well as basic support for the keyboard and mouse – but the mouse was unable to use the third and fourth button as well as the whell), and all that is keeping me from using it.
Just thoiught Id apoligize to Vanders. I was using the context to figure out what chuffed meant and was mistaken. Sorry
I installed Cosmoe on Mandrake 8.2 and got the ugly black rectangales that eat up the screen ( as was mentioned earier )…then i though about this being atheos code…..no usb yet….tried a ps2 mouse…..my nipples haven’t been this hard since i installed BeOs 4.5 Great job Bill!
I think you should kill gpm. This what I did and everything goes normal.
Thanks emey…stopping gpm took care of the black boxes…but
didn’t do anything for the USB mouse ( and yes i tryied rebooting
with gpm disabled )….could just be my mouse…i just upgraded
to Mandrake 8.2 so i may just now be noticeing a bigger problem
….so I’ll just be using two mice for a while