elementary Blog

> My advice to you coming from macOS is to explore Gnome using either Debian or Fedora. I love Debian. But really, if you want the best experience on the desktop you really want to be using a rolling release distro or something that’s released more often than Debian. If you’re coming from MacOS something like elementary OS [1][2] might also be a good starting point. [1] https://elementary.io/ [2] https://blog.elementary.io/elementary-os-6-odin-released/

> Similarly, you can just Ctrl+V to paste in the terminal instead of having to work around with extra modifier keys. – that's a bit dangerous; Ctrl-V is normally used to "escape"/make literal the following keypress, or do block select in vim. The notification-on-long-running-process looks very handy though (I've been using https://gist.github.com/unhammer/01c65597b5e6509b9eea , but of course clicking it doesn't put me back in the right tmux window). And the "energy-sucking apps" indication mentioned in http://blog.elementary.io/post/152626170946/switching-from-macos-the-b… looks very handy. (I've been considering creating wrapper for Firefox that Ctrl-Z's it when it's minimized …) Is anyone running the Elementary DE (or parts of it) on Ubuntu? Does it work OK, or do you have to run the whole OS for it to be worth it?

It's things like [1] that really irk me. Yes, they're working 'hard', yes they deserve compensation, no, there isn't any license conflicts (that I'm aware of) that would make selling eOS illegal, it's the fact that they wrote this justification to make you feel like a thief. Really, it's just an ubuntu clone with a pretty osx-like gui. This isn't really anything amazing or new, and it makes it seem like they're trying to tap into the elitist osx market. If that is indeed what they want, they should really check out [2] So it's not really the software that's bad, really it's all what you can get on any other distro with a little work, it's their attitude about it. [1] http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments [2] http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/

> We’re pretty close to being able to support HiDPI displays like Retina, but we’re not quite there yet. http://blog.elementary.io/post/113920029861/hey-guys-i-love-the-design…

elementary supports upgrades since OS 8 https://blog.elementary.io/os-8-available-now/#:~:text=In%20elementary…

One is sharp and one is either tiny or a blurry mess. I honestly believe you don't know what HiDPI is or does different to a normal resolution change maybe this easy to understand blog post can help https://blog.elementary.io/what-is-hidpi/ Ofc... we could also start using an established technical term for something completely different. Looking at you USB 3.X O_O

> Also, I've made the tragic mistake of installing previous Elementary OS versions for non-techie friends I rarely see. Not anymore! What am I supposed to do Elementary? Inform my friends I've got to basically rebuild their computer the next time I see them at Thanksgiving to keep them safe? You're not supposed to do anything at all! https://blog.elementary.io/updates-for-june-2020/ > elementary OS 5 will continue to receive security and stability updates to its underlying libraries until April of 2028.

That is simply not true: https://blog.elementary.io/linux-experiment-interview-cassidy-james-bl… They have done pretty much the opposite - they added a proper API of theming instead of having a stylesheet override. GTK didn't really have themes before, so this is quite nice.

Yes, elementary OS is preparing for an eventual switch to Wayland. > The primary motivation for this change is the eventual move to Wayland (a protocol that will make your device faster and safer), but this also gives us more creative control over these features. https://blog.elementary.io/platform-changes-in-elementary-os-6/

It looks like there is still no fractional scaling out of the box (always possible with hacks). The elementary team has defended the choice not to introduce it before [1], but it just makes it unusable for me and many other users. KDE Plasma handles fractional scaling well. Gnome does it mostly fine on Wayland. Now you can also run Gnome on X11 with fractional scaling (at least with Pop OS [2]). There's a cost of running the DE with fractional scaling of course. But I am fine with that if that makes the DE usable! [1] https://blog.elementary.io/what-is-hidpi/ [2] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/10/system76-continue-improving-pop-…

Read up on it here: https://blog.elementary.io/elementary-os-on-pinebook-pro/ This version has some experimental support for Pinebook Pro in early-access builds.

Agreed on the need for fractional scaling, there is no escape from 13" 1080p and 27" 4K screens. Dell used to sell some laptops and monitors that worked well at 200% zoom, but even they stopped. I've rolled my eyes at the "What is HiDPI" blog post for so long. However, there has been some movement on this issue! Search for "fractional" in this recent blog post: https://blog.elementary.io/look-and-feel-changes-elementary-os-6/

And finally good default touchpad gestures on Linux in the next version. https://blog.elementary.io/multitouch-gestures-in-elementary-os-6/#win…

Looking at the Bountysource docs, it looks like users can offer bounties. Do you know if it has a Github integration that allows developers to post some sort of price schedule, or to request a bounty on a given issue? Edit: It looks like there are red flags around Bountysource too: https://blog.elementary.io/goodbye-bountysource-hello-github-sponsors/ "If no Solution is accepted within two years after a Bounty is posted, then the Bounty will be withdrawn and the amount posted for the Bounty will be retained by Bountysource." "In December, 2017, Bountysource was acquired by a cryptocurrency company called CanYa who redesigned the Bountysource site and service with a new cryptocoin focus."

In case you're looking for an OS for the P64 Pro: https://blog.elementary.io/elementary-os-on-pinebook-pro/

You can read a lot about it on their blog, specifically this post: http://blog.elementary.io/post/153360513026/busting-major-myths-around…

On their blog [1] and repository [2] there were some clarification about this "trick". [1]: http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments [2]: https://github.com/elementary/website/pull/655 It is a shame for Elementary OS Team, because this issue was many times discussed on GH issues / IRC about implementing just a "$0" button. As I remember in launchpad there is also a task or discussion about suggestion of the dialog which will remind about donation after certain time duration. Edit: Found https://blueprints.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+spec/donation-process

Here is the correct link to the full text of that blog post. http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments

I'm part of the community. I have seen alot of work being put into making hidpi work properly. I can't find any changelog mentions though :( Here's a community post: https://www.reddit.com/r/elementaryos/comments/53gkr1/elementary_os_lo… And some hidpi icon work: http://blog.elementary.io/post/124193007916/whats-up-with-hidpi-icons

On Linux, there's Geary (now pantheon-mail): http://blog.elementary.io/post/139731273161/re-geary

It really saddens me how much people underestimate the effort it takes to create a good UI by saying eOS is just a "pretty Ubuntu clone". I don't think their blog post[1] is offensive at all. Ubuntu does this too. [2] People consider Sublime's popup and "unregistered user" acceptable. How often do you install/download eOS? Once in a year? And you use it every-day, not only when you do text-editing. And there is no difference between paid or free user. [1]: http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments [2]: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/contribute/?version=14.04.2&…

Agree, its buried. http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here in case if interested.

For those wanting a little more substance, here's the blog post announcing Freya: http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here

Freya Release Post: http://blog.elementary.io/post/116134677986/freya-is-here

This is a big update for a relatively small community distro. Kudos to the team. A summary of some of the cooler features: Performance: General performance improvements on all hardware resulting from optimizing for Pinebook Pro and Raspberry Pi - namely, reducing and asynchronizing inter-process communication between desktop components, removing unused code, and reducing disk I/O. Firmware: Linux Vendor Firmware Service now built-in, enabling firmware updates from within the OS. Flatpak: all-in on flatpak, all AppCenter apps are flatpaks, as well as some Elementary apps like Web. Portals: apps must explicitly request permission to get access to files or interact with other apps. Can tweak these permissions in System Settings. Mail: The Mail app now sandboxes html emails. Multi-Touch: Extended from supporting just desktop to various apps now too. Multi-Tasking: Better hot corners + new window and workspace controls. CalDav: Tasks and Calendar now designed around the CalDav format, making importing and sharing of tasks and calendar items with other CalDav apps easier. Dark Theme: system-wide, applies to GTK apps too. Terminal: smart-paste protection extended from sudo pastes to multi-line pastes. More OEM/Vendor friendly: - Installer is simplified and streamlined - network connectivity, user account creation, and updates moved out of the installer and into the installed OS. Better for vendors & OEMs. - Startup is intentionally non-Elementary-branded,…

Yeah - I mean certainly home folder with restrictions would be good. Things link dotfiles in home and ~/.ssh should certainly not be accessible or editable by a sandboxed application without knowledge. I think the Downloads, Documents and Movies folders people tend to have etc. those major sub-folders would be enough for normal use. Also, perhaps file type limits could be imposed that mean at that files are only accessible to apps that can open them. Of course, I'd want my text editor to be able to open files across root file system, if I open it as root - so I can see how quickly a person can want sandboxing, and then also want none - but the less apps with privileged access, the better. Also I think some people had hopes it would be closer to IOS level sandboxing, which is heavily restricted on file access, and frankly can be annoying because of it, but does have the security benefit at least. Also, the security update gripe is significant. The isolation of packages only matters if it works. Like at least if I run stuff myself inside container, I can choose to update the underlying OS and force certain packages etc. at the same time as sandboxing, and mount only certain folders if I actually need them. I think it's hard to make it both simple for users and powerful enough provide the levels of granular access I'd expect for context specific sandboxing. I would want a principle of least required privilege, with some ability to escalate it (like Android asks me all the…

I don't have eOS as a daily driver (I've got the Pantheon desktop on top of Ubuntu as a chroot environment on my Chromebook and a full Elementary VM on another laptop), but I've been playing with it for some time. One thing that really irks me about the OS is the designers' reluctance to actually let you customize anything. For instance, the lack of a minimize button really bothered me, and I ended up having to install a third-party program called elementaryTweaks just to restore that functionality. The designers have outwardly refused to incorporate any of that and have repeatedly defended the decision to not give us a minimize button: http://blog.elementary.io/post/131034577721/will-any-of-the-options-ad… http://blog.elementary.io/post/130282384916/i-was-wondering-if-you-guy… To me, that reeks of Apple's walled-garden "We know better than you do what you want" attitude.

> Give me a random ARM computer, you’re lucky if you can get it to boot. That's wildly inaccurate. Many distributions have ARM builds that works perfectly fine (at least for me, YMMV), have you tried any of them? Here is some of them: - Arch Linux - https://archlinuxarm.org/ - Ubuntu - https://ubuntu.com/download/server/arm - Alpine Linux - https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/ - Elementary OS - https://blog.elementary.io/elementary-os-on-raspberry-pi/ - NixOS - https://nixos.wiki/wiki/NixOS_on_ARM