Pantheon Desktop Environment - A Beginning

Mrkvonic reviewed it:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/pantheon-de.html

But I think its not a completely objective review. First, the beta of elementaryOS Luna has the FULL System Settings menu, so its not really crippled for the average Linux desktop user. Second, its designed to work in conjunction with a dock, like in Mac OSX - which is its inspiration. (The dock in eos is called Plank but you can use any dock with it.) Finally, its true the native Pantheon File Manager keeps you from placing icons on the desktop and such like but this is easily remedied by replacing it with the GNOME Nautilus File Manager which gives you full desktop functionality and more.

And in the eos beta version, there are daily updates that constantly improve and refine the sleek look of this MacBuntu operating system. Unlike the Ubuntu Quail version Mrkvonic tested, the eos version is based on the stable and reliable Precise Pangolin LTS Ubuntu build. For the above reasons given, I have to disagree with the review posted today and it probably wasn't the fairest test of this new operating system, which it takes styling cues from Mac OSX, underlying technologies from GNOME and puts it all together in an elegant and easy to use desktop environment. There is much to commend it in that you aren't required to need outrageous GPU acceleration to run it!

Cheers. Here is a Macbuntified eos screenshot - just lovely!

 

I shall definitely test that too.
Mrk

 

To me, I think Pantheon is the best looking Desktop Environment seen in any Linux Distro.

Testing Elementary OS now

 

I agree. The alpha release I tested had a libgranite patch pushed forward that made it unbootable but the beta version has been rock-solid. Its was a good decisionto base it on Pangolin (to get a LTS stable build) and its fully compatible with Ubuntu and third party repositories.

The developers keep coming out with daily updates and a final version will only be released when its ready! What's good about it is you can swap out any component and it will still work. This lets you build a desktop environment as you want it. It shows a great deal of promise for a user-friendly low intensive DE that's very badly needed and it will get better with time.

Mrkvonic is right the smartphone approach is too simple but the other extreme with GNOME 3 is also too complicated. It should be "just right" and a new user shouldn't have to learn too much to use Linux. That is the philosophy behind Pantheon Shell.