Praying for Syllable

It’s no secret I use Linux. Indeed, I write here about how openSUSE 11.2 crashed on me and took a bite out of my desktop configuration. So I gave Ubuntu 9.10 another try. But this time I ran it from CD first. It did a much better job of setup this time. I have no idea what difference it makes, but for the first time every a Linux distro gave me the proper resolution on the console without prompting from me. So I was wondering if it did make some difference, and installed it from the live CD session. Works okay.

But it could be better. A lot better. I have come to utterly hate the X server. I don’t care why they do it, for desktop use, the thing should be fully integrated with the OS. And it should not be so doggone fat. Nor should all the world be fighting over whether they will use GNOME or KDE, when both are as about as fat and cluttered as can be. Massive huge collections of overly-complicated libraries and heaps of idiotic dependencies. I hate them both. Not in the sense I refuse to use them, but in the sense there isn’t anything better right now, when either of them could easily be much better, and any number of other things could also be better.

Haiku OS is coming out soon with the 1.0 release. There is a substantial community of developers and users held over from the BeOS days. That’s good, because it’s apparently pretty tough to port stuff over from the Open Source world. After looking at the list of ports, I’m disappointed by what’s missing, and by what is so very far behind the curve. Still, it’s up and running, and it’s not Linux or Windows. Congratulations.

Still, I find the philosophy and structure of Syllable is much better. It’s far tighter, much lighter on the resources, and is also independent of the old cobbled together systems known as Linux and BSD. Syllable is all one thing, with ports carefully selected to fit the philosophy.

No, it’s not there yet. Currently they are on release 0.6.6, and you can find a developer’s pre-release of 0.6.7. Some things don’t work. If it did, I’d be running it right now. There are just a handful of people working on it. After reading some of the ideas and playing with the Live-run CD, I realized this was what I had been wishing for all along. Frankly, there’s nothing right now to write home about. I’ve been hanging out on the forum and just trying to absorb the atmosphere, the basic assumptions and concepts.

Frankly, I’m praying for the folks who work on it, and I’m praying the project not die. So many very good ideas collapsed in the past, and I’m sad to see them go. Other really good ideas simply took off in the wrong direction for me. Understand, this is not really about what is best in all the world of computing, but what works for me. Millions of folks love Linux, and X, and GNOME and KDE… fine. But those aren’t for me. I tolerate them until something I like better is available. I really like Syllable, and I’m hoping God is at least amused enough by it to protect it and keep it going.