
SymphonyOS – Light, Friendly, and Useful - nikolay
http://www.symphonyos.com/
======
mikegioia
I'm downloading it to try in a VM, but this website has almost 0 information
on it. Where are the screenshots? FAQ? Where is any information about what
this is or why I should use it?

The amount of time it would take to add this info must be a pittance compared
to the dev hours they put into the OS!

~~~
pidg
There's a little more in the wiki entry for Mezzo:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzo_%28desktop_environment%2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzo_%28desktop_environment%29)

Looks like it challenges elements of the desktop metaphor. The white paper
(from 2005) on the ideas behind Mezzo explains a bit more:
ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/voyager/docs/MezzoGreypaper.pdf

~~~
johnchristopher
I remember Mezzo from that time. I found the ideas interesting but I couldn't
understand why they couldn't plug them into an existing WM via plug-ins.

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david-given
tl;dr: it's a Debian derivative. (I could be wrong. The wikipedia page is very
mangled, and the website is entirely content free.)

It looks like it mainly exists as a platform for Mezzo, a desktop environment.
I skimmed the design document; it's painfully opinionated, and keeps repeating
the tired old cliché that users can't handle configuration options and we
should make their lives easier but not letting them change anything...

~~~
ryanq_do
The design document is 11 years old. Symphony has been a solo side project for
the last 6-7 years with a release once or twice a year. There are a few more
recent updates on the project's facebook page including screenshots of the new
build in progress.
[https://www.facebook.com/SymphonyOS/](https://www.facebook.com/SymphonyOS/)

~~~
david-given
Are there any videos of the new Mezzo in action?

It occurs to me that my post was unduly dismissive. I totally believe that
most modern UIs are horribly broken, and I completely sympathise with the
'burn it all down!' approach. But forcing everybody to change their workflow
because reasons is, I believe, not it. (Though I'm willing to be persuaded
otherwise.)

~~~
ryanq_do
Many of the concepts we built into Symphony have since become common in major
desktop and mobile environments such as fullscreen menus and hot corners. The
project started in 2004 when I as a web developer wanted to start playing in
the Desktop space and decided to give it a shot with the tools I knew. These
days it's a personal side project that I wish I had more time for. I do not
have any videos of the new build in action, just the screenshots on the
project's facebook page:
[https://www.facebook.com/SymphonyOS/](https://www.facebook.com/SymphonyOS/)
I'll see what I can do about that this weekend when I am back into it. The new
build is coming together but I am not trying to convince anyone that this is
what they should use. It's a fun personal hobby at least until more developers
get involved.

~~~
david-given
Mmm.

I loathe hot corners; every day or so I accidentally lock the screen on my
work macbook because when I fling the mouse pointer out of the way of what I'm
looking at it hits a corner.

I also loathe full-screen menus. Screens are big, and having the entire
contents of my screen be replaced with an information-heavy overlay is a non-
trivial perceptual context switch which instantly causes me to lose my place
in what I was doing. You underestimate how cheap a right-click menu selection
can be; press, drag a small distance down, let go. And if the app's designed
properly you can right click _anywhere_.

(Which, to be honest, most apps aren't. I grew up on RISC OS, which was driven
entirely by context menus, and did this stuff right --- each app was a single
context target. Modern apps have different contexts for every tiny UI element.
Web browsers are particularly bad; I can't count the number of time I've done
'Open in new tab' rather than 'Back' because the mouse just happened to be on
a link rather than a text area.)

My point is: one size doesn't fit all.

~~~
arm
You know you can change the function of the hot corner (or simply disable it),
right?

(In case you don’t know how: go to System Preferences → Desktop & Screen Saver
→ Screen Saver → Hot Corners…)

------
willismichael
Wow, I remember hearing about this project over a decade ago, and liking some
of the UI concepts. I followed the progress on the website for a little while,
and then it seemed to stall, so I mostly forgot about it. As others have
mentioned here, the website is unclear. What's going on with this? Is it
progressing again?

~~~
ryanq_do
I am the sole developer/maintainer of SymphonyOS these days and it showing up
on HN today is a bit of a suprise since it's been several months since a
public release.

Development is progressing albeit slowly since my day job takes up most of my
time. I am currently in the middle of a rewrite of the desktop environment
making changes like moving from FVWM to openbox and rewriting some Perl code
that has been around in one form or another since 2004 in Ruby. I am hoping to
have a new release out in January :)

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fak3r
I was very interested in this back in the day, in fact, I wrote a HOWTO to get
the desktop bit run under Ubuntu: [https://fak3r.com/2006/01/31/howto-mezzo-
desktop-on-ubuntu/](https://fak3r.com/2006/01/31/howto-mezzo-desktop-on-
ubuntu/)

I'm sure that's not going to work anymore, but I got a lot of questions and
comments about that post, there was significant interest. Here's hoping a new
release comes out in January and people can try it out.

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jbssm
I fail to see how a desktop UI based on HTML5 can be marketed as "light".

~~~
ank_the_elder
Absolutely. If anything, it should be tight, native code with little bells and
whistles and tuned for speed. HTML5, its DOM model and Javascript are hardly
fit for embedded / old / constrained environments.

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mixmax
It's a little light on details.

Is this related to the symphony framework in any way, or is it just a naming
coincidence?

~~~
agumonkey
Name collision I believe, there's a russian language demo on youtube. It seems
to me as a tiny fltk based WM to fit the current UX trends without having a
"heavy" DE like Gnome3.

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andrewthetechie
I work with the maintainer of Symphony and it is still "alive".

~~~
keithpeter
Perhaps you could find a volunteer with a little time to just add a list of
packages and functions available from the live image to the Web site?

That would help the distro collectors to decide if this is interesting or not.

~~~
ryanq_do
Distrowatch has a partial list here:
[http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=symphony](http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=symphony)

Symphony showing up on the front page of HN was a total surprise to me today.
As a sole developer my focus right now is on the new build and next month's
release. I agree that the site is way to sparse and could be much better (it
was thrown together in one evening) but focusing on the site would only take
away from the limited time I have available to work on the distro itself. If
after the January release I am able to get a few more developers involved I
would love to improve the site, documentation and community around the
project.

~~~
keithpeter
Get a volunteer on it. Someone who wants visibility and to develop some
documentation skills. You stay with the main focus. Your HN exposure has
convinced me to try the iso!!

~~~
ryanq_do
Absolutely. Right now I am heads down to get the new rewrite released in
January. Then the focus will be back on building the community, bringing on
some more volunteer developers and putting together good documentation.

------
isxek
Any torrents we can use? I'd rather not get it through a huge HTTP download.

~~~
infinityplus1
use Burnbit.com

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sgt
There is remarkably little information on the website. I don't really want to
download it without at least some indication that it's going to be worth my
time. Is it just a modified fvwm running in Debian?

~~~
ryanq_do
The currently available release is Debian based utilizing FVWM along with
tint2 and a custom launcher written using HTML5 and WebKit. It's worth trying
out in a VM or as a LiveDVD. I am currently in the process of doing a complete
rewrite of most of the Desktop environment, replacing some very old Perl
pieces with shiny new Ruby ones.

------
methyl
If it's as friendly as the website, there is still plenty to do there.

~~~
ryanq_do
Unfortunately SymphonyOS is a one-person project right now and has been for a
long time. My focus has been on the codebase and the website which I will
admit is crap was put together in one evening. Currently I am in the middle of
a complete rewrite of the desktop environment with a new release coming in
January. Personally, I would not have submitted it to HN with the website in
it's current state but was surprised this morning when a co-worker told me it
was on the front page

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riyadparvez
Please not another Linux distro.

~~~
everfree
Which distro, in your opinion, is 100% perfect and can't be improved on?

~~~
ank_the_elder
FreeBSD :)

~~~
noir_lord
[https://www.dragonflybsd.org/](https://www.dragonflybsd.org/) those folks
would disagree.

~~~
ank_the_elder
If it must be Linux, there's always [https://crux.nu](https://crux.nu)

------
perlgeek
Is this based on one of the popular linux distributions? If yes, which?

~~~
keithpeter
Currently Debian (Wheezy according to author of distro in this discussion) in
future Ubuntu

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qwertyuiop924
Yay! Another F*cking linux distro to learn about! Linux distros may not be as
common as JS frameworks, but they're almost there. Just install Arch and have
done with it, people. It's like having your own distro, but without all the
annoying bits.

~~~
keithpeter
Quote from Wikipedia page about the OS

 _" At first, Symphony OS was based on Knoppix. Since its May 2006 release it
is no longer based on Knoppix, but rather on Debian unstable, and features a
functional hard drive installer."_

Debian Sid is viable as the basis for desktop use, but there can be _issues_
now and again and they can persist for a week or two. Just wondering at the
target market for this one.

Always fun to do a dist-upgrade on anything Debian derived to see what
happens...

~~~
ryanq_do
The current release available on the website is based on Debian Wheezy and was
released in January. A new release, with a completely re-written desktop,
based on Ubuntu will be coming out next month.

The wikipedia page is out of date in many places

~~~
keithpeter
Thanks for clarification. Wheezy is mega-stable at present. Good luck with the
transition to Ubuntu!! Quite a job.

