
Elementary OS Loki 0.4 Stable Release - iamcreasy
http://blog.elementary.io/post/147637979911/loki-04-stable-release
======
tbrock
The team behind Elementary is great. The ecosystem badly needs the polish that
these developers are meticulous about applying to their particular flavor of
linux.

It's not sufficient to just slap things together and hope they are somehow
cohesive to compete in the desktop space today.

These people get it.

~~~
pavanky
Oh please, just because you don't like something does not mean people in the
Linux space before elementary were just slapping stuff together.

Sure, there are a lot of distributions and desktop environments that focus on
getting stuff done and let the user customize the look to their needs, but
that is hardly the only choice.

For anyone wanting to try out a cohesive setup try one of the following:

\- GNOME on Fedora (or Korora if you want binary repos).

\- Unity on Ubuntu

\- KDE on OpenSUSE

~~~
tbrock
Sorry. I've used Gnome, Unity, and KDE extensively. There is an incredible
amount of work that goes into them sure but they are definitely not polished.

I'm the definition of UnixPorn junkie and customize my linux box to the hilt
but even I have to admit when there is a benefit of standardization and the
work the elementary people are doing.

~~~
jahitr
I used elemeentary os at work for a while.

Looked great at the first view.

Months after using it became a living hell to work with it.

The delay between app switches is a shit.

Swiched to GNOME/Debian. Never looked back.

~~~
oconnor0
Any idea what causes the slow app switches?

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iamcreasy
"Privacy & Security : We always strive to provide the utmost level of privacy
and security to users of elementary OS, and Loki is no different. We’ve made
improvements to Privacy Mode, which is like “Incognito” for the entire OS. For
example, now when you’re using Privacy Mode, the Videos and Music apps won’t
remember what you last played the next time you open them."

Ah, this looks interesting.

------
exmuslim
And they say Linux can't be pretty. If only this distribution had more
support! The team hs already done wonders making it the most well-polished
Linux distribution out there. Perfect for those transitioning from a
Mac/Windows.

~~~
TsomArp
I'm a Windows/Linux user. I feel like something like Linux Mint is very much
polished. My complain is the lack of main apps: adobe suite and visual studio
in my case.

~~~
exmuslim
I agree that Mint is very much polished but I actually started recommending
Elementary over it just because of well it looks, it's quite subjective.

Adobe suite and VS are also the sole reason I have a Windows dual boot set up.
Hopefully in the future but I honestly doubt it.

~~~
hsitz
Looks are pretty silly and irrelevant for most power users. I run Ubuntu with
the i3 tiling window manager, which doesn't even have a desktop. Having a
desktop is another thing that's pretty much irrelevant, given the way i3
works. I would never sacrifice the functionality I really like just to get
something that's supposedly "prettier".

~~~
kijin
There are different kinds of users. No need to call something silly and
irrelevant just because it doesn't fit your preferences and priorities.

For example, one of the first things I check when trying out a new Linux
distro is whether I can tweak the font rendering exactly the way I like. If
this takes more than a few minutes, or if Firefox and LibreOffice don't pick
up my tweaks consistently, that distro is out. I don't care what other awesome
features it has. If I'm going to be looking at it for 10 hours a day, it had
better not hurt my eyes. I would never sacrifice visual comfort just to get
something that's supposedly "more functional". But that's just me. Other
people will have other priorities.

~~~
iamcreasy
How do you tweak the font of the entire environment?

~~~
kijin
In most desktop environments, you can change the system font, font size,
subpixel rendering options, etc. in the "Settings" (or equivalent) menu.

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le-mark
I'm fascinated by Vala, can anyone talk about how it's used in elementary and
if it's a huge productivity benefit? I really think Vala and its ecosystem
should get more attention!

~~~
oblio
Vala seems interesting but at this point in time I wish that Vala, much like
Gtk, wasn't ever necessary.

Both were created due to licensing concerns (Vala -> C#/Mono, Gtk -> Qt).

~~~
Longhanks
Comparing Vala to C# isn't fair. Vala is transpiled to C, then compiled to
machine code, therefore has source compatibility with C and uses automatic
reference counting, while C# is compiled to byte code, needs wrappers around C
and uses garbage collection. They both are high level languages, but definitly
with different goals.

~~~
carussell
Why should this matter to someone interacting with Vala as a programmer the
language?

These are implementation details of the runtime. Vala predates the new plans
laid out over the last ~18 months, but at this point, shouldn't Vala be a
research branch of C#? Seems like this kind of approach would serve as a
multiplier for the benefits Vala is trying to bring to the world, from both
sides.

~~~
bsznjyewgd
"shouldn't Vala be a research branch of C#?"

Vala is a nicer shinier layer for programming with GObject in C. I don't
really understand what it has to do with C#? Do you mean just the syntactic
influence?

Keep in mind, lots of vocal people hated Mono, not just because of some vague
looming threat of possible patent action, but because they disliked the memory
heavy and slow startup nature of the runtime (see: Tomboy).

~~~
carussell
1\. Start with C#

2\. Create research fork

3\. Change it just enough until it can do what you're trying to get out of
Vala right now (including whatever sweeping changes you want from the runtime
by targeting GObject, so that it exhibits the static properties Vala wants
here)

Result:

GNU/Gnome/Vala benefits from it, and the C#/.Net folks can benefit from it, if
ever that research makes its way upstream. Which in turn brings another round
of benefits to Vala's users and maintainers. My overall point is that
symbiosis is nice. There's strength in numbers.

------
mattkevan
A fantastic job, really well done.

It's great to see a distro with such a strong focus on design.

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macco
I wish they could create a bigger team. Then eOS would be a real contender.
Their ideas and their execution are great, but their output is far too low.

I personally would prefer arch as the basis - like Antergos and Manjaro. But
this is a different thing.

~~~
oceanofsolaris
I think using arch as its basis would clash too much with their target
audience. I have not tried Antergos or Manjaro, but at least arch itself is
often rather high-maintenance due to its rolling release nature.

I think someone looking for an easy-to-use desktop would not be amused if
her/his touchpad stops working one day or the system would not boot properly.

Using a LTS Ubuntu or Debian as a basis allows you to not worry so much about
things breaking and focus your energy on the added value you provide.

~~~
macco
Yes, I know. That's why it is my personal preference.

With Manjaro it's working quite well, because their repos are 2 weeks behind
of arch.

With Antergos it's a problem sometimes. My system was never unusable, but
especially Gnome updates introduced some errors.

That said, using an arch based distro as dev machine, is insanely great.
Installing the newest version of Android studio is like:

yaourt android-studio

~~~
TheHippo
Does Android Studio have an built in upgrade option?

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Anthony-G
They were quite quick at getting this release out. I had been using Luna in
2014 and remember waiting a long time for the release of Isis (which was
renamed to Freya before it was released in 2015). I eventually gave up waiting
and went back to Lubuntu (which was a better fit for my 10 year old laptop).

I like what they’re doing a lot and think they carved out a unique space in
the world of GNU/Linux distributions. There’s a lot to be said for emphasising
usability and aesthetics and not overwhelming the user with too much software
choice or OS customisations. I’m not the target market because I spend a lot
of my time in the terminal but I’d be happy to recommend Elementary to friends
and family who don’t want to have to think too much about their computing
environment.

------
hitlin37
Lubuntu and xubuntu are also quite good if you have old laptop. They eat ram
in mb not gb.

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andrewclunn
Didn't know that they had a development podcast. Ooo that intro is classy,
much like Elementary.

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rcarmo
This is great. I've been waiting for them to catch up with Ubuntu LTS so I can
move over. I already know Geary is quirky and still doesn't handle contacts
and that the calendar apparently doesn't sync with anything (at least one of
the betas didn't), but the nice, clutter-free desktop (mostly) makes up for
it.

------
stonogo
Another year, another Geary release without even the slightest support for
address books.

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bkhurjawal
Until i hadn't purchased macbook, I always had my eyes gazed upon elementary
OS. Everyone wants to have OSX look and feel but this linux distribution
actually did it.

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banterfoil
The last time I tried Elementary, I had significant problems getting Geary to
play nicely with Gmail. Gmail didn't recognize Geary as being a "verified"
mail client. I ended up using Thunderbird, but that seemed to defeat the
purpose of having Elementary at all (at least for me). Does anyone know if
this problem has been resolved? The Loki notes didn't seem to mention this.

~~~
exmuslim
I've been using it on Freya and it works very well with my Gmail account.

------
maxpert
As much as I love the looks and the design theory of Elementary OS I hate the
task switcher! In 0.3 my Alt+Shift+Tab didn't used to work, and well if I have
10 windows open and I missed the window while speed switching, good luck. I
wish someone can implement a better switcher!

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owaislone
I would think of using this if they switch to rolling release system or had
Ubuntu like release cadence

~~~
Sanddancer
Rolling releases and ubuntu-like cadences are why Linux environments are
pretty much always ugly and have usability problems. It takes time to work on
UX, which is something a lot of projects don't do.

~~~
pavanky
Good luck supporting newer hardware without such a cadence.

~~~
macco
Ubuntu and subsequently eOS does that via hardware enablement stacks, ie new
kernel

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nojvek
Is Loki based on Ubuntu at all? I've just been very used to Ubuntu. The skin
looks very pretty. I'm gonna try this out in a VM.

~~~
aorth
Yes, it is literally just Ubuntu underneath, but they don't mention that on
the release notes—it bothers me that they're not more open about that.

Every two years, they take the latest long-term support (LTS) Ubuntu release
and then install quite a number of their own applications to replace stock
GNOME and Unity ones. To their credit, they have a good eye for UI/UX and
actually write applications—not just themes—that are simple and look nice.
They care about fonts, colors, etc, and even have some decent style and code
guidelines for developers:

[https://elementary.io/developer](https://elementary.io/developer)

~~~
rvschuilenburg
They recently launched this page referencing all open source stuff that's
included in Elementary OS: [https://elementary.io/open-
source](https://elementary.io/open-source)

------
moondev
Still no hidpi support?

~~~
iamcreasy
The core devs said Loki now supports HIDPI out of the box.

Here is the youtube video :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN8dVJ6_AL8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN8dVJ6_AL8)

