Symphony OS

Symphony OS running Firefox in Mezzo
Website:	www.symphonyos.com
Company/ developer:	Symphony OS Project
OS family:	Linux
Source model:	Open source
Latest stable release:	2006-05 Beta / May 18, 2006
Kernel type:	Monolithic kernel
Default user interface:	Mezzo Desktop Environment
License:	Various
Working state:	Current

Symphony OS, or Symphony Linux, started out as a Knoppix-based LiveCD Linux distribution, created by Ryan Quinn and Jason Spisak. It is under active development and is beta software. Download high resolution version (1024x768, 357 KB) This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ... Mozilla Firefox is a free, open source, cross-platform, graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Corporation and hundreds of volunteers. ... Mezzo is the desktop environment created by Jason Spisak. ... This page as shown in the aol 9. ... The term software company could be applied to; a) a company that produces software or b) a company that distributes software from a third party or c) a company that provides services for software. ... A software developer is a programmer who is concerned with one or more facets of the software development process, a somewhat broader scope of computer programming. ... Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a computer operating system. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... May 18 is the 138th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (139th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... In computer science, the kernel is the core piece of most operating systems. ... Graphical overview of a monolithic kernel A monolithic kernel defines a high-level virtual interface over the hardware, with a set of primitives or system calls to implement operating system services such as process management, concurrency, and memory management in several modules that run in supervisor mode. ... The user interface is the part of a system exposed to users. ... Mezzo is the desktop environment created by Jason Spisak. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... Knoppix is a computer operating system which runs entirely from a CD or DVD drive, without performing an installation process or using the hard drive. ... Gnoppix 0. ... A Linux distribution is a Unix-like operating system comprising the Linux kernel and other assorted free software/open-source software, and possibly proprietary software. ... Ryan Quinn is the founder of The Symphony OS Project and lead developer. ... Jason Spisak is the co-leader of The Symphony OS Project. ... In software engineering, development stage terminology expresses how far through the development sequence things have progressed and how much further development a product may require. ...

Since it's May 2006 release it is no longer based on Knoppix, but rather on Debian unstable, and features a functional hard drive installer. The unstable distribution is the development version of Debian. ...

The primary difference between Symphony OS and other distributions is the addition of the Mezzo desktop environment. This environment, like other aspects of Symphony, was designed with an eye towards extreme simplicity and usability. Symphony also includes its own Mozilla-driven application environment, called Orchestra. Mezzo is the desktop environment created by Jason Spisak. ... In graphical computing, a desktop environment (DE) offers graphical user interface (GUI) solution to operate a computer. ... The Mozilla Application Suite (originally known as Mozilla, marketed as the Mozilla Suite, and code named Seamonkey) is a free, cross-platform internet suite, whose components include a web browser, an e-mail and news client, an HTML editor, and an IRC client. ...

Symphony OS uses a custom packaging system utilizing the *.sym package format; through a simple GUI interface a user may install any application in the Symphony library without dealing with "dependency hell". Because Symphony is Debian-based, it also supports the Debian package format. Dependency hell is a colloquial term for the frustration of some software users who have installed software packages which have dependencies on specific versions of other software packages. ... It has been suggested that Embedded Debian be merged into this article or section. ... deb is the extension of the Debian software package format and the most often used name for such binary packages. ...

Orchestra

Orchestra is an incomplete rapid application development environment which is being written for Symphony OS. It allows programs composed of HTML and CGI-style Perl to run as local GUI applications. Rapid application development (RAD), is a software development process developed initially by James Martin in the 1980s. ... An excerpt of HTML code with syntax highlighting In computing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages with hypertext and other information to be displayed in a web browser. ... The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard protocol for interfacing external application software with an information server, commonly a web server. ... Perl, also Practical Extraction and Report Language (a backronym, see below) is a dynamic procedural programming language designed by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ... Gui is short for Guilherme or Guilhermo or an iteration of that, in English it translates to Will. ...

Orchestra is made up of two main parts: a lightweight localhost-only HTTP server written in Perl, and a slimmed down Mozilla renderer. Because Mozilla is used as the base for rendering Orchestra, applications can utilize the following technologies: The correct title of this article is localhost. ... The term web server can mean one of two things: a computer responsible for serving web pages, mostly HTML documents, via the HTTP protocol to clients, mostly web browsers; a software program that is working as a daemon serving web documents. ... Perl, also Practical Extraction and Report Language (a backronym, see below) is a dynamic procedural programming language designed by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ... Mozilla logo Mozilla Firefox is a computer term that has had many different uses, though all of them have been related to Netscape Communications Corporation and its related application software. ... A layout engine, or rendering engine, is a software that takes web content (such as HTML, XML, image files, etc) and formatting information (such as CSS, XSL, etc) and displays the formatted content on the screen. ...

• Plain HTML
• JavaScript
• Perl and CGI
• Java applets (using a plugin)
• Macromedia Flash applications (using a plugin)
• Embedded media players (using a plugin)
• XUL interfaces

JavaScript is the name of Netscape Communications Corporations implementation of ECMAScript, a scripting programming language based on the concept of prototypes. ... A Java applet is an applet written in the Java programming language. ... A plugin (or plug-in) is a computer program that can, or must, interact with another program to provide a certain, usually very specific, function. ... Macromedia Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both the Macromedia Flash Player and to a multimedia authoring program used to create content for it as well as games or movies created using the program. ... XUL (XML User Interface Language) is a user interface markup language developed to support Mozilla applications like Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird. ...

Mezzo

It has been suggested that Mezzo (desktop environment) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Mezzo is the desktop environment created by Jason Spisak. Added to Symphony OS, it aims to pose a new way of presenting data to the user. Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ... Mezzo is the desktop environment created by Jason Spisak. ... Mezzo is the desktop environment created by Jason Spisak. ... In graphical computing, a desktop environment (DE) offers graphical user interface (GUI) solution to operate a computer. ...

Mezzo disposes of standard concepts like "The desktop is a folder" and nested menu systems and instead presents all needed information directly to the user via the main desktop and four desk targets for tasks and files related to System, Programs, Files, and Trash. The developers claim that this makes the desktop easier to use.

Development

Symphony OS is still in its early development.

External links

• Official site, including a forum and FAQ
• Mezzo Desktop
• Act 3 - Symphony OS review
• Orchestra overview from the Symphony OS wiki
• OneClick - software store which uses the Symphony OS-native apt-plus client and protocol to install precompiled third-party software onto Debian-based distributions
• Screenshots of Symphony OS at OSDir.com