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So, firstly I realise I haven’t posted anything in a while and for that I’m truely sorry.

To be honest I’ve been busy with selling my house, cycling from Paris to Chamonix and having an awesome snowboard season while avoiding work as much as I could. Well they say all good things come to an and so I’m back from outerspace and this time I’m going to show you something ooh so pretty. Fasten your seat belts and have a gander at this:

 

Well I don’t know about you but that looks like some beautiful Linux going on right there.

If you’re not akin to the world of Open Source Software then Linux is basically the key bit of brains behind such Operating Systems as Ubuntu, Arch, Debian, Crunchbang, Fedora and ElementaryOS to name but a few. What you’re looking at has all been created by people who explicitly given their works away for free to share with others.

So – how does ElementaryOS differ from the other Operating Systems listed there?

Well, the team of devs has used a stable version of Ubuntu – which has gained many followers and has substantial backing – to create their own simple, yet functional system with style and minimalism in mind.

Those apps shown on the desktop are specially created for Elementary (although you can install them on Ubuntu also) and control the functions of email client, contacts organiser and web browser. They are Postler, Dexter & Midori.

The benefits of Linux is that you can chop and change what you don’t like – creating a really customised system to suit your needs.

With these apps being created as lightweight alternatives to bulky (although feature-rich) programs such as Thunderbird, Evolution, Firefox and the like, the user is left with what is essential to the app, built with speed and good looks at the fore front of the process and with a future of further connectivity in mind.

Let’s start with Postler:

Postler is an email app that handles multiple accounts, IMAP, simple set-up and minimal clutter. It’s also fast because it’s not trying to do too much. You get notifications on the dock (at the bottom of the screen) as well as a notification in the top-right when an email arrives. You may have seen this in Ubuntu – they are now common across apps that want to update the user on what is happening. Postler is also made to work with…

Dexter. This app handles your contacts, so in collaboration with Postler it does much of what Outlook or Thunderbird tries to do but with a lot less effort, clutter or RAM Dexter allows importing from Gmail or any other contacts list using vcard or .vcf files. You can add pictures to contacts to boost the visual appearance of people listed. Also you can obviously export your contacts again or use Dexter to merge selected contacts together. Again, simplicity is key but you can access your contacts at any time when creating emails in Postler.

Midori. This is possibly the most minimal looking web browser I’ve ever seen. It’s plain looks are deceptive though. Features included are; tabbed browsing, private browsing, bookmark import/export and a range of search engines that can be used straight from the address bar. You can do everything you usually do with a browser, but again – it’s probably faster than your lumbering old bloated software.

The rest of ElementaryOS is made up of the “dock” at the bottom which is Docky, soon to be replaced in the new version of ElementaryOS with Plank. It allows dragging and dropping of all your programs and bits of the system you want instant access to, right there at the bottom of the screen. It’s a bit like the Unity panel in Ubuntu – but I prefer this one. Another feature found in eOS is actually something they chose to leave out – the Twitter / Facebook client Gwibber. I cannot express how happy I am that they did this as Gwibber use to be the most RAM hungry background “service” ever to plague my Ubuntu system. The issue for me was that removing Gwibber in Ubuntu was known to ruin other parts of the OS such as the afore mentioned notifications system.

Another part of Ubuntu you won’t have to put up with is Evolution. Again this is great as I never used it and it became extra software I had to leave on the machine so that Thunderbird would run properly for me. Elementary 2 – Ubuntu 0.

But the best… BEST bit of all – if you’re an Ubuntu user who didn’t want to “upgrade” to the Unity desktop interface or put up with Evolution & Gwibber hanging round, you could still enjoy everything and anything designed to run on Ubuntu, after all – this is a “fork”.

With regards to the future of eOS I’ve got it on good authority that the devs are working on a very clever system to share anything between apps known as Contractor. It will hold a bit of information on what each individual app on the system can do. This means, for example, that when you are emailed a picture you can right-click and upload to Facebook. At present this means saving the picture, opening a browser or app that can upload the pic and then selecting the pic from the saved folder and so on. Contractor will allow all of your apps to talk to each other when they need to.

So in conclusion, I’m more than a little bit fond of ElementaryOS. It feels very good as is and has a very promising future too. You can download the ISO as a 32bit or 64bit version to either try or install as you please and there is support given by some very friendly folk in the #elementary room on irc.freenode.org

Here’s some links in case you missed them in the article:

• ElementaryOS
• Postler
• Dexter
• Midori
• #Elementary – a support on Freenode
• Docky
• Gwibber – and my preferred alternative to it Hotot