Miscellaneous Operating Systems/Hardware

http://www.cdesktopenv.org/

Not ready for real use, but the code is now out there.

This is really cool!

I hope it will be soon available for Linux distros. As far as I can remember, CDE was an option on some early Red Hat releases.

I like CDE a lot, but that's mostly from working on commercial Unix so long. Glad to see it finally become an option other places.

If Arch got it I would give Linux a second thought.

I am the documentation lead for the CDE project. It's been a wild few months.

CDE runs on Linux. Here is a list of supported distributions:

https://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/w ... Platforms/

The code isn't from 1999. It's from 1995

It's pretty stable on my Ubuntu 12.04 box. Somethings don't work but a lot does.

Stud! I bet you've been busy!

Or maybe 1993, depending how you want to define things. The project wiki main page mentions 1993 as the start of development and says that the current release "represents the source code state in 1999." Over on the project Q&A page mentions 1995 as when "Release 1.0" came out, and says that the current release is "almost identical to the 2.1.30 release The Open Group made available to their customers in 1999." I know, I know. I have a lot of nerve... you probably wrote those pages!

Since you are the documentation stud, do you have a sense of how the version of CDE bundled with IRIX 6.5 matches up to this open source release? For example, is SGI IRIX CDE 5.3 the SGI implementation of CDE 2.1.30, or is it naive even to ask that question? I know that SGI's implementation is derived from TriTeal Corporation's CDE (the same company that made the original CDE implementation for RedHat, but declared bankruptcy in December 1999), but I presume that the TriTeal/SGI release tracked the standard release in some general way.

I wasn't a big fan of CDE way back when, especially since IRIX was my first Unix, but I would definitely prefer the simplicity and predictability of CDE over the latest Gnome or other gee-whiz linux desktop environment that's out there. I just hope that it doesn't end up getting fubar'ed by overzealous linux interface developers.

My first thought was: greaat, now I can relive the horror on my Linux installations.

My second thought was: there's probably a thread about this on Nekochan already.

I think it's great that they've released it, and kudos to zizban for all his hard work!

Uhm, can't actually say I'm all that eager to use it... Every SPARCstation 20 or Ultra {1,2} on my desk got FVWM on it as quickly as possible, back in the day. And I've embraced it once again for use on virtualized machines. But as josehill points out the GNOMEfolk seem to be determined to eliminate themselves from the realm of possible options. And I definitely am grateful to see another option emerging.

I've been selecting CDE as the desktop on all my Solaris boxes for years despite the repeated deprecation warnings. Glad to see it will be available for those who want it on other platforms. I read Motif will also be open sourced soon.

Hi, some answers:

CDE is the Open Group's reference base. There is no vendor specific code in this release.

Looking at screenshots of CDE on Irix, it doesn't look like SGI varied too much from the default code but it's hard to tell for sure.

Motif will be released in a few months. We are trying to get contributor agreements from everyone and it's a long, hard slog.

CDE should compile on any processor.You may have to add some defines to the makefile for some, though. There is a guy working on a PowerPC 64 bit port and he only had to change a couple of lines to get it to compile. It doesn't work yet but it compiles.

Thanks for the info, zizban. It's appreciated.

Update: someone just a sent tarball full of patches for FreeBSD in. In theory it will work. Details later.

Not strictly speaking IRIX/SGI development, but I thought it might be of some interest that CDE was just released open source: http://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/Home/

Motif is soon to follow, according to the FAQ.

I suggest to sign petition on freeing IRIX Interactive Desktop: http://www.change.org/petitions/silicon ... ve-desktop .

http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/7/3849284/piston-valve-steam-box-xi3

That looks... familiar. Where have I seen that design before?

Baby Tezro

Quad o-ring from a brake cylinder.

I'm getting mixed reports that this might NOT be the final product.

Cute, good thing I got some paint and SGI cubes laying about.