Project Looking Glass from Sun (Cool 3D interface)

[Renew Deal]

This is the most dramatic improvement in interface since OS X.

http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x2519595

[alfredo]

1. I will reserve judgement until I get a chance to use it, but it does

look very good.

[Renew Deal]

2. It looks like it's past where Longhorn is going.

Or as Wired refers to it, Longtime.

[alfredo]

3. I've pretty much given up on Longhorn. I wouldn't use it anyway.

I like unix based OS's.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

4. I think Steven Jobs just had a nosebleed. (nt)

[SKKY]

5. Wow! Now THAT'S an interface...

I'm looking forward to seeing it on my machine.

[Solon]

6. Just an FYI...

You can have it on your machine, look on this website first:

www.gcclinux.com

and also this is sun's site:

https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/

If you want to download it, you need some things first, mostly Java Dev related, but oddly enough, the actual looking glass software is a little over 20 MBs. Also, another requirement is to have a linux distro, and follow the instructions here:

https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/lg3d-getting-started.html

Look here to see my desktop with it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=2747795&mesg_id=2747795

Couple of warnings, one is that it is NOT stable, I don't use it as my primary window manager, it still has problems with Mozilla and other programs. But I never suffered freezes from it oddly enough. One nice thing about it is that it is released under the GNU GPL so the source will always be availuable. Right now it has limited usefulness, but then again, its only for proof of concept purposes, its a toy, and a development tool, so that those of us who want to fool around in Java development could possibly make the next gen in user interfaces. I'm trying to learn Java now, I want to make a usefull and cool file manager for it. :)

Also, if you don't want to go through all of that, you could try the LiveCD, its a bootable Linux distro based on Games Knoppix with Looking Glass and KDE as the window managers on it.

Link here: https://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net/

Just another FYI, this software is java based, and as such, can, theoratically run on other platforms, such as possibly MacOS X and Windows, in fact, up in the first site link, they have a how-to on setting it up for Windows as well, though I don't think that is useful, but knock yourself out.

Just to tell you something important, the minimum requirements for this software is pretty high, 2GHz system with 512 MB of RAM, and of course, a 3D accelerated card, perferable Nvidia. It runs pretty good on my system though, usually these things are exagerated, so I tried it, and it works fine, despite the bugginess and some jumpiness, but not alot of quirks.

My specs are this:
Ubuntu Linux (Debian based)
1.25GHz AMD AthalonXP
256MB of RAM
128MB Nvidia GeforceMX4400(AGP)