ravynos VS nextspace

Hi A long time ago i saw an opreating system called ravyn os(it's name was airyx before) and i was impressed by how beautiful they made thier gui to look too similar to apple one's and when i get a bit deeper in thier the code i discovered that thier gui was made by using apple cocoa 😅https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos So here's my question could i make a gui library using opengl and make it look like apple cocoa 🤔 or it's not the thing that is made by API like opengl and is made by a ready gui library 🤔

Hi Since a bit longer i found an open source opreating system called ravyn os (it's name was airyx before but it changed now) and i was impressed by how the made thier gui which was too similar to apple cocoa gui but when i get a bit deeper in the gui code i found that they did it by using apple cocoa library 😅 https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos So here's my question how could i make an application using a library or even an opreating system that pop up a window with a good looking such as apple or even to design my own style for the window and should i use any API such as vulkan or opengl to make such a thing or this is unnecessary?

Here is the ravyn os https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos

My feelings about Mac OS X are similar to the author's. I switched from a Windows XP/FreeBSD dual boot configuration to Mac OS X Tiger back in 2006 when I bought my first modern Mac, a Core Duo MacBook. I've remained a Mac OS X user from Tiger all the way to Mojave. Mac OS X in the 2000s to me was heads-and-shoulders better than the competition. It had a well-designed user interface, and most applications conformed to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. It also provided me a Unix shell whenever I needed it. In my opinion Mac OS X peaked at Snow Leopard; in fact, I'd be comfortable using Snow Leopard (or even Tiger) as my daily driver today if it supported current hardware and if there were a modern web browser for it. It was a nice marriage of NeXT technology and an updated version of the venerable Macintosh user interface. It felt much more pleasant than Windows of the era (though I admit I liked Windows 7), and the desktop environments for Linux and the BSDs simply didn't compare.

Then came the Tim Cook era, and with it came the gradual locking down of the Mac, both in terms of hardware (for example, the soldering of formerly upgradable components such as RAM and storage) and software (for example, notarization). The user interface also gradually started adopting more iOS influences, which I think take away from the desktop experience. Due to my disappointment with Apple's direction (especially since roughly 2016), I opted not to upgrade my aging 2013 MacBook Air and 2013 Mac Pro with new Macs, instead switching to a Microsoft Surface Pro (running Windows 10) and a custom Ryzen 3900X build (which runs both Windows 10 and FreeBSD). I miss macOS, but I enjoy the openness of PCs, and I enjoy the flexibility of Windows and FreeBSD.

I am keeping an eye on two very interesting projects that attempt to replicate the spirit of early Mac OS X: helloSystem (https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/) and airyxOS (https://airyx.org/). Both projects are based on a FreeBSD foundation, but the major difference between the projects is airyxOS is a much more ambitious attempt to reimplement macOS's infrastructure (even going as far as to aim for supporting "trivial" Cocoa applications), while helloSystem has different (Qt) underpinnings, with an emphasis on replicating the Mac OS X look-and-feel and promoting adherence to the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines. If these projects become successful, this will provide people who desire the early Mac OS X experience modern systems that will maintain that experience.

As another commenter mentioned, AiryxOS is working on an API-compatible open-source implementation of many macOS Frameworks, however it is incomplete.

Our focus right now is on running FreeBSD and Linux applications. But the https://airyx.org/ project is aiming for source-level compatibility and eventually possibly even binary-level compatibility. If they succeed, maybe the improvements will flow back into FreeBSD and helloSystem one day.

> … Probably best to not try to make BSD into modern Linux which is basically FreeWindows. …

airyxOS, based on FreeBSD, aims to provide "… the finesse of macOS with the freedom of FreeBSD. …".

<https://airyx.org/>

I wish well to projects such as this, however I rarely engage – testing and feedback – because the focus on Apple keyboards is too much for me.

(I taught myself to use the keyboard in a very different way when I switched away from Apple after twenty-something years. I don't intend to un-learn that switch.)

0.5. Wait for airyxOS to be fully complete and run it. It is a freeBSD based system that aims to be compatible with MacOS.

Interesting project. Any link to NEXTSPACE?

I'd love to run GNUStep on my Linux machine simply because The NeXT heritage brings with it the only sane keyboard shortcut / keybinding system on the Linux desktop. Before I go on a tangent, let me link to NEXTSPACE [1] which is a CentOS based GNUStep OS. Sadly, since the author is from the Ukraine, all development has halted since last February :( I hope he is ok.

Now the keybinding tangent: If you're not rolling VIM keybindings in the whole desktop (which is tricky for non-modal interfaces and alienating a large amount of users), the next best ergonomic keybinding scheme is the Emacs / Gnu Readline system [2]. It allows moving the cursor without having to move hands around (e.g. going to the arrow keys, coming back to the alphabetical keys). It is one of the base tenets of unix systems. Every terminal supports it. Yet, the whole bunch of Linux Desktop systems completely ignored these keybindings and copypastaed the Windows concept instead, coming up with a weird chimera of readline in some places, and half-windows, half-self-invented in others.

Gnome used to have an Emacs compatibility mode that was somehow off by default and had to be enabled in a tweak. It was removed with GTK 4 however. If you want to do that in KDE, you have to run a weird python daemon, and half the apps constantly stop working because they key codes are being messed with.

MacOS on the other hand, supports these keybindings in every input dialog, it is a pleasure to use. Even more so, to have the same keybindings in every app and not having to learn new ones on a per-app basis.

Of course, running weird python key code daemons runs into the other problem that macOS & Gnustep solved in a much nicer way: By copying the shortcut system from Windows and patching it on top of Readline, many shortcuts have double entries. Printing is CTRL-P, but so is readline "Previous Line". macOS and Gnustep solve this by having a separate key for app actions: Command (or Hyper or Alt). So print is Command+P. Everywhere. Previous line is CTRL-P. This is always my go-to Linux joke where "Copy" is "CTRl-C" everywhere, except in the Terminal, where it's CTRL-SHIFT-C because yeah, CTRL-C has another meaning. Talk about a sane shortcut system if apps have to use different ones per shortcut because the amalgamation of Windows Shortcuts + Readline is a match made in hell.

[1]: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace

In case you want to have a NeXT-like experience on Linux, I’ve had good fun with NEXTSPACE:

- https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace

Alas, the developer is Ukrainian, and hasn’t committed anything in a long while. But maybe someone could help out?

I described some of my feelings on the matter fairly recently here:

https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/17/linux_desktop_feature...

My personal preference, and what I'm writing on right now, is Unity.

I am also very fond of the ROX Desktop.

What would I really like to see? Well, barring attempts to just rip up everything and start again for no good reason, I think there would be a lot of mileage in recreating some of the classic UIs of the past that many people have loved.

* Classic MacOS was a sublime UI, with a lot of subtle non-obvious features. In its way it was far more polished than Mac OS X, even now.

* OS/2 2.x's Workplace Shell was not one of my personal favourites, but it had some excellent design features, and was loved by many.

* I have an Amiga but I never was a big fan back in the day, but a good solid modern Amiga Workbench clone would have some mileage, and as I said in the article, there are already FOSS implementations, just not for xNix.

* GEM is FOSS now. Why not recreate DR's multitasking GEM/X on Linux, or any of the late-era multitasking GEM desktops from the Atari ST, such as Thing or TeraDesk?

One of my favourite UIs is undergoing a pretty good re-implementation effort, in the form of NeXTspace:

https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace

There are more than half a dozen non-Windows-like desktop metaphors. Is that enough for you or shall I find some more? :-)

AFAIK, NEXTSPACE is the only NeXTSTEP-like desktop environment that is (was) actively being developed (https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace). The author had been working on this project for more than 5 years and he had been pushing code almost every single day.

Unfortunately, he had to stop development since Russia invasion of Ukraine, as he lives in Kyiv, Ukraine. He said he was OK and would like to continue development "after Ukraine’s victory" (https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace/discussions/412). But that was about 4 months ago.

As someone who really likes NeXTSTEP and hopes NEXTSPACE to succeed, the current situation is sad.

Just wanted to inform the crowds at HN about this.

:wq

[Article author here]

> I think my ideal Linux OS is probably Ubuntu/CentOS + something like macOS’s .app bundle file format for distributing end-user applications.

Then I suggest looking at NeXTspace:

https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace

It does exactly that. CentOS, plus .app bundles, all integrated into a single bundle.

But the .app bundles come from GNUstep, so you can't pick your own desktop.