I'm going to see if I can get it to build on a modern distro

Story: CDE Unix desktop open sourcedTotal Replies: 9
Author Content
caitlyn

Aug 07, 2012
4:35 PM EDT
I always liked CDE. By today's standards it's resource utilization will be tiny. I'm going to see if I can make it work on a modern distro. It's worth a try :)

Some of you may remember that XFCE started out as a free CDE look-alike based on XForms.
number6x

Aug 07, 2012
5:14 PM EDT
I think S.u.S.E. 6.2 was the last time I used CDE.

My then employer had either Linux or Solaris workstations. All had CDE. CDE was standard on Solaris at the time, until they switched to gnome sometime after 2000. They had to buy licenses for Linux, but got some sort of site license.

It was a nice desktop.
caitlyn

Aug 07, 2012
7:55 PM EDT
I still remember Triteal selling CDE for Red Hat 4.0. That's the original Red Hat, the precursor of Fedora, before there was an enterprise produce, back around 1996-97.
JaseP

Aug 08, 2012
4:47 PM EDT
Well, nice to see it GPL'd,... or LGPL'd,... That means parts of it can be cannibalised into other DE's... Or the other way around... But one commenter noted "19 years too late." Very true...
gus3

Aug 08, 2012
4:56 PM EDT
I'm with number6x. I've liked Mwm ever since I was exposed to its derivative UI, GeoWorks Ensemble. When I found CDE in Solaris 9, I fell in love with it, and would have studied it more and used it more if I'd had my own Sparc system.

I'm looking forward to the patchset to get it to build on Lesstif.
Fettoosh

Aug 08, 2012
6:16 PM EDT
Quoting:But one commenter noted "19 years too late.


You guys are having a severe case of nostalgia, that is all. :-)

Yes, it is many years too late.

caitlyn

Aug 08, 2012
9:18 PM EDT
Quoting:You guys are having a severe case of nostalgia, that is all. :-)
Maybe, maybe not. For those of us who prefer a lightweight, rather minimal desktop to begin with this may actually be worth a look. There is also OpenCDE, which is a separate project.
CFWhitman

Aug 09, 2012
9:39 AM EDT
They'll have to blow a lot of dust off. I'm not sure if anyone's willing to put in the effort to make CDE really viable again. It could happen though.
Bob_Robertson

Aug 09, 2012
10:02 AM EDT
olwm and olvwm are still packaged in Debian.
caitlyn

Aug 09, 2012
9:06 PM EDT
There was another article talking about merging CDE and openCDE and working together on new features. It's going to be interesting to see how well the developers can revive this.

Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]

Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!