I was just wonder if there are any Gui's for linux like OSX's Quartz Extreme, or what M$ has planned for longhorn? For anyone that dosn't know what i mean. A Gui that passes most of the gui functions from the cpu to the Video card. I have used OSX for a little bit and found it VERY nice looking, without effecting the overall speed very much.


I would be very interested in reading up on the development of these guis and thier features/requirments.

Have you tried the GNOME and KDE web sites? I am pretty sure someone whipped up "skins" for both of these environments that look like Windoze and OS X. In fact, I think KDE 3.x comes with a skin that somewhat resembles OS X.

If you ask me, however, I just love RedHat's new BlueCurve. I'm addicted to it for now. Nice, clean and straightforward.

I think your miss understanding me. I'm not asking if there are skins that allow linux to look like OSX or Longhorn.

Currently Windows XP, Linux and previous versions of Apple os had the CPU proccess all the graphics for the gui. With OSX it hands all that stuff over to the video card, very similiar to having T&L done by the video card. This allows effects to be done that would be to procesor intesive to be done by the video card.

In effect it turns your gui into a bunch of OpenGL textures which the video card is designed to handle.

"I have used OSX for a little bit and found it VERY nice looking, without effecting the overall speed very much."

I agree that OSX looks good and is functional but do not agree with the speed comment. OSX is slow! Obviously the high level of colours and graphic detail do not help, but really is slow. I often use a iBook with OSX and Xwindows/WindowMaker. WM loads and operates significantly faster.