Callisto Desktop

An X11 desktop environment centered around FVWM and MATE. It has been lovingly described as "terminally Mac-brained."

Etymology

"Callisto Desktop" is a working title for efforts that coalesced over the years into my daily-use graphical computing environment. It is named for callisto, my first self-built PC and my first foray into "modern" generic x86 machines. It grew up in a family mostly consisting of Macs and SGIs, and it was my first encounter with the open world of noncommercial Unix-like desktop software that stuck. Over 15 years of research, experimentation, and migrations back and forth among a few platforms, the tentative stabs at getting comfortable on a Linux desktop I began on that machine ultimately led here.

Philosophy

Callisto Desktop works toward a few clear goals that may be familiar to someone who had a taste for a particular kind of Mac advocacy in the 1990s. These concepts are very much out of fashion and tend not to be well understood, even by people who were avid Mac OS users, so I will try to lay them out concisely.

• Objects stay where you put them
• Objects unambiguously indicate their state
• Direct manipulation is encouraged
• Modes are bad (all functionality should be available from a single, coherent interface)
  • As a corollary, applications and documents in use should be able to share the screen gracefully. No maximizing, and no Alt-Tabbing!

References

• MacKiDo: User Interface - Late-1990s apologia for the traditional Macintosh desktop (mostly defined in opposition to Windows, and to Mac OS X). The articles are not perfect, but they clearly illustrate the nuts and bolts of what makes Mac OS "good" from an end user perspective. This site was a favorite of mine at the time, and my work continues to share most of the values expressed within.