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93 Comments
- caldroun, on 10/12/2007, -7/+69"Why is he comparing a non-windows based OS to windows? There's no comparison."
Sure there is...Available Software, Speed, usability...I think that you can compare any OS to and OS.
People do it all the time...Look at Steve Jobs comparing OSX to Windows Vista :P - abohling, on 10/12/2007, -3/+30Do we really need another .. mode of transportation, way of communicating, government system, etc...? This is how innovations happen.
- Jon855, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21It's not a matter of why but because they can and well, we have over 100 OSes out there already most of them are *nix variants... I for one appauld them cause they went out and did something that somebody liked given that you don't really sound like U do like their work. You don't have to.
Dugg for article and I was looking for something to use on my older system, I may give this a spin. - SbooX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18One point I'd like to make is that Syllable is no where near a "new" operating system, unless you mean new compared to *nix or Windows. Syllable was forked from AtheOS ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheos ) , which was essentially abandonned by the creator, Kurt Skauen. AtheOS was revealed to the world in 2000. Kurt did AtheOS as a hobby and didn't really welcome other people contributions or assistance, and would disappear for months at a time, frustrating those that saw the potential of what he had created for ***** and giggles. Syllable was forked and released in 2002 and was usable right off the bat.
- apocalizer, on 10/12/2007, -7/+25The problem with operating systems (you could also apply this to web 2.0 sites as well) is that these things are dependent on the amount of users supporting them. If 75% of Windows users switched to Mac or Linux, in six months Windows would be worthless. If 75% of Linux users switched to BSD in six months Linux would be worthless. If 75% of Digg users switched to Reddit, Slashdot or Netscape, or if 75% of Myspace users switched to... I think you get my point here. The likelihood of this OS taking off is precisely zero... unless they make a brand new kind of hardware that puts all current PC's to shame that only works on this OS. The likelihood of THAT is almost precisely zero as well.
- apocalizer, on 10/12/2007, -6/+23I apologize for mashing that last comment into one practically unreadable paragraph.
- stevetures, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Decent OS. Quite an admirable effort. The review is correct. They need more development in the everyday apps dept. If you dig through the syllable site, you can find a VMware image hosted by a third party that works reasonably quickly. Enjoy the fruits of a lot of labor, but don't expect a mature set of apps to go with the OS.
My one smal UI request: please don't cover up the taskbar when you maximize an application. - gaijin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15@Veamon
No, we probably do not need another OS, no, it probably will not make a dent in the modern OS world. What we DO need is people like this working on these kinds of projects. It enables them to understand the complexities and problems of OS development and leads directly to the next generation of computing. If you think you are still going to be "pointing and clicking" 20 years from now, you are dreaming. Participating in these kinds of projects will help shape the future for all of us.
I may not believe that this one OS is that earth-shattering but I applaud them for their work. At least they are not sitting in their cozy little rut saying, "Whatever!" - stevetures, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Forgot to mention... those intersted in alternative OSes might enjoy ReactOS. They're goal is an GNU OS that can run Windows API apps and use WDM and other windows drivers. Its reasonably usuable right now, despite being an alpha state (heavy development, unimplemented sections).
http://www.reactos.com - mikeroySoft, on 10/19/2009, -7/+18Vector Linux is another great distro for older hardware. Very zippy on the crappiest of machines.
vectorlinux.com
AND it's based on Slackware =) - maverick97008, on 10/12/2007, -7/+17If the web browser works correctly, you have 90% of what anyone will need in 2 years. That makes it a valid comparison.
- HarryBauzonia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10You can try it out on live cd's here:
http://www.syllable-livecd.info/
...and here's their homepage:
http://www.syllable.org/ - Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15i dug you down because i couldnt understand what you were trying to say.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9screenshots, compliments of google image search:
http://images.google.com/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&q=syllable&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images - bribera, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9@apocalizer:
I don't think that's necessarily true. In terms of desktop market share, Linux is far, far behind Windows; yet, it's arguably valuable. It's only with things like telephones, social networking, instant messaging, et cetera that the number of other people using it matters. Operating systems are far too general to fit that bill.
99% of Linux users could abandon Linux, and the remaining 1% could still find it just as valuable as before, simply because much of what they do could be OS independent. If this new OS can do what people want, it'll provide value to whoever uses it. An OS can be valuable and unsuccessful, but not worthless and successful. - Patented, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I was almost heartbroken when BeOS hit the *****. I considered that OS to be one of the fastest, and most elegant operating systems on the planet.
I will be installing Syllable soon. - stevetures, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Here's the link to a recent VMware image.
http://84.16.244.210/Syllable-0.6.1.zip - mr.hostility, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Oh this will be great when I go back to my 386dx.
- gsmolders, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Syllable supports nowhere near as much hardware as DSL because DSL supports whatever Linux supports. Syllable is a much smaller project so there aren't as many hardware drivers available (they just aren't written), and certainly no 3rd-party proprietary drivers.
- GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There's an elite club of ugly old GUI hackers out there writing ugly old GUI's just tick you off.
Seriously, beauty is in the eye... and, some of grow weary with CPU hogging trash.
Well, back to my little Korne Shell World. - KhaaL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4One thing should be said about syllable OS: it's focused on the average desktop user and it shows. installing and removing applications in syllable is easy, you just drag them/untar them to the folder and the removal is just as easy. Personally, i hope this gets as big (or bigger) as linux, because frankly linux is a pain for a newcomer to do what s/he wants in it unless s/he is a guru.
Ubuntu brings linux much closer as a working desktop alternative, but there is still progress to be made. Hopefully the progress won't be restricted by the nature of *nix. - lwatcdr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Wow it is so fast!
" I was floored by how fast it was on my test machine, a 1.8GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB RAM."
Good freaking grief! Any OS should be fast on a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB!
People an 800 Mhz machine with 256 MB of memory should be fast enough for most users that don't do CAD, video editing, or gaming. - haelios, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I'd say functionality is more important. Call me strange, but I don't find OSX all that pretty. I'm quite happy with KDE and Windows MCE 2005. All those things flying about and popping out here and there got tiresome after a few months. My Macbook Pro still looks damn fine though ;)
- Malcx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Veamon
>>Well, I COULD stick my weiner in a meat grinder, but it's pointless.
Not really, it thankfully would mean you can't have any offspring. - darwin22, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5um.... it's not NEW...
"Statistics: Version: 0.6.1 (21 May 06)" - Hurricane, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is a fork of AtheOS and is a new implimentation of the Posix system (Unix , Linux, BSD...) with a more hardcoded non X11 GUI (Windowish) here is the original project, however you will find that the website does not work right under Firefox OR IE. >>> http://www.atheos.cx/
- gsmolders, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's funny that whenever one of the Syllable people write about the forking, they stress that it was Skauens prerogative to not work on or even destroy his own efforts. Its just a shame that he wasn't always welcoming to those offering friendly help...
Syllable has a decent but very small community and you can easily tell that additions to the OS and software for it come every few months. I regularly check the Syllable website but rarely find even a recent newsposting. It's hard to tell what's really going on with the development, and a peek into the mailing lists tells that there are not many people actively developing for Syllable besides (but this i also don't know) perhaps the devs who keep their thoughts to themselves... - zephyrxero, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Actually, I'd say that Debian is the OS, and Ubuntu is a distribution of it ;)
But yeah, I do agree, the Linux kernel, nor the GNU tools alone are a complete OS. Linux, the OS, does not exist...the real OSes (Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo, Arch, etc) and their derivatives just happen to work similarly and use alot of the same components. Gobo Linux is a good example of how a Linux based OS can easily deviate.
I say the more power to these Syllable guys! You wouldn't want the evolution that is open source to stagnate... - Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7Even though Ubuntu itself isn't an OS...I detect sarcasm in your post towards it, so I'll digg you up.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Linux evolved from the server world. Now Windows is base on NT which was also targeted at the server world. And, what's the Mac got inside? Syllable may be the first to be built as a light client OS (outside of embedded things, which are a little too light)."
Linux evolved from the mind of Linus Torvalds, who has stated time and again that the OS was originally his hobby OS, and that it was intended to be a clone of Minix, which was more of a teaching OS based off its bigger BSD brothers.
Windows XP, as we know it now, is based off aspects of the original VMS kernel (which was intended to be used as both a desktop and a server OS, as there was no distinction at the time) combined with an OS Microsoft and IBM were working on together called OS/2. Microsoft hired all of the developers from the VMS team and turned OS/2 3.0 into Windows NT (3.1) which is one of the first OSs to actually declare itself as being a 'role OS' intended for server environments. That being said, Microsoft also released desktop clients of Windows NT.
On the inside of the Mac, you'll find a kernel called Darwin, an evolution (pun intended) of FreeBSD with the Mac(h) microkernel. For the user, Darwin behaves like FreeBSD in most ways, but for the developer, you get an interesting blend of FreeBSD code with Mach microkernel hardware drivers. Mach has its origins in being a microkernel experiment OS with all kinds of cozy features that make it well mated with a multitasking kernel layer that could be placed on top of it. FreeBSD serves as most of this layer for Mach, with its origins dating back to the original Berkley code, being intended as a generic operating kernel (both client and server, once again, as there was no real distinction between the two).
In fact, the generic distinction between a "server" OS and a "client" OS still isn't that strong today; Linux supports both server and client almost seamlessly, containing technologies that make both aspects of computing faster. Most of the changes that make the difference between Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X are applications that make administering low-level daemons more efficient (aka no command line). You'll find the same in Windows-space.
Syllable, AtheOS, is very much like Linux in origins; it's a hobby OS that just so happened to have a very devoted developer that committed a huge deal of code to make everything run. SkyOS is much the same way as a commercial venture, a new OS from the ground up including new GUI code. While AtheOS isn't quite ready for the desktop (and would need thousands of developmental hours to be), it was never intended to be someone's every-day OS, just a piece of code they could beat around on and try new ideas.
In all likelihood, Syllable will probably remain as it is now, a hobby OS, with parts of it scavenged and added to other operating systems as they see fit. I used to hack on AtheOS a long time ago (as back then you literally had to "hack" it just to get it to run on your hardware), but now that I'm at an age where I'd rather just use my computer and where I don't have much time to kick my OS's ass every day, I tend to spend more time on other unicies. Syllable is a great OS, and it was ahead of its time when it was released (and absolutely amazing work from a sole developer), but please, don't try to make it into something it isn't. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2How does this compare to DSL linux? i find it very hardware friendly
- gsmolders, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Think: "under the hood".
Linux looks like OS X and Windows and Amiga OS, but still it is a little bit different.
This is even more so for Syllable. - proxybot767, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I played with Syllable a few years back. It ran fast then. I still think Zeta/PHOS runs faster at boot time and you can run Firefox. The load time for the OS was under 5 secs with tweaks or about 8 secs default 2.0 P4 512MB
- aptiva, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You do realize that this is not a beos clone? the only thing modelled after beos is the filesystem..
- gsmolders, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Probably not. I think Novell is actually making some good moves on the OS market with their latest desktop OS. Really what "people" need is the availability of a system they can deploy in enterprises and big offices. Systems that will work and are cost-effective. They won't care for anything else if they can just interoperate with other businesses (read: use MS Office files).
- olegk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Is there any software for it? Is it *nix compatible?
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Syllables Browser was still alpha standard when I last saw it as was much of the code base. The amazing thing I used to find with it is a 6 second from bootloader startup time. Made the 30+ sec slog that is both Windows and Linux seem unreasonably slow. I've said before on here though Syllable is still too early, it will be a great OS if it gets finished though.
- mikedoth, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1Take a look at Haiku, a open source BeOS in developement right now.
To reply to aptiva, it's based on AltheOS, which is based on AmigaOS's design. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1People like POSIX because it is a standard and thats why a lot of things are similar. The OS and its code base are entirely different to Linux, BSD or any other Unixy OS. The GUI is hardcoded into the OS Windows style, you can't get a naked command shell in Syllable.
- haelios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree with you that having one OS would allow for development time to be spent elsewhere. However, the next best thing might well come from someone doing something completely different rather than working on that one-OS's code.
- martalli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Heck, I am running edubuntu 6.06 on my son's p3-667 with 256 mb memroy and its runs great. I would say almost snappy, even playing video off youtube goes swimmingly. Although *buntu linux is a fine system, I don't think it is especially tuned to older machines like Vector linux.
Other than the claimed eight second boot time, I am little impressed at the speed issue. Besides, how often does any of us actually reboot the computer. Better benchmarks for older machines would be how fast does the web browser/word processor/etc. load? If you are considering using it for the web because of a lack of apps, then has java/flash/realaudio/etc. been ported?
Still, if it's open source, then the good ideas developed can be borrowed by other projects. Say what you will about the OS or whatever, but if they have great ideas they may be a success. If they're not a success, any great ideas they did have won't have to be thrown in the dust heap. Vive la libre! - martalli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree. I bet FreeDOS would boot in seconds, too.
- stevew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't need an oerating system, I use mozilla.
- requiem18th, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@thechilde
http://www.youos.com - haelios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Maybe the file is more compressible? Do you wonder why a 100MB zip file compresses less than a 100MB text file containing only one word repeated over and over again?
- GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This thing is small, and I expect that there is very little in the way of code bloat.
There also aren't as many features as you'd find in a server style O.S.
But then, a lack of feature bloat (which contributes to the lack of code bloat) means that you won't find all your favorite features.
I've been watching this thing for a while now, and I'm expecting that this will eventually be the new standard for compact client systems. - madIvan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Have you bothered to RTFA you'd notice that it is not linux in any way.
- Grimboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Shame the package management is, IIRC, tar.gz since it's based on slackware. DSL actually has quite nice package management, but not very many packages. Debain and its children have good package management, but I'm not sure if they're are particularly fast.
Of course the ultimate option for speed would be gentoo, everything is compiled from source in gentoo, but the tools provided make this a fairly easy (but slowww...) task from what I've heard. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yep you can run bash on it though the CLI runs on top of the GUI WinXP style as opposed to the other way around. It aims for POSIX compatibility but isn't there yet (is anyone, I've never seen a 100% POSIX compliant OS).
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Linux with the GNU system tools is an OS. All the distros are extended systems, its just MS keep screwing over the definitions of well defined terms like OS. Also Ubuntu is not all Debian, most Debian fans are complaining about the .deb files being incompatible so it shows the Ubuntu project must have changed at least a few things.
Debian is still a more important project to Linux at the moment though. It will be interesting when Ubuntu switches to smart though since that would deprecate a key part of the Debian system. -
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