Hey all!
Inspired in part by Sean's (of Action Retro) use of Claude to code some retro software (Artful Type and Tabby Haiku), I decided to see what I could do by scratching an old SunOS itch of missing the old OPEN LOOK (Open Windows) window manager but as a Wayland compositor.
Back in the day, I lusted after having a SPARCstation but could never afford one, even used. About the same time, the open-source world did get the olvwm project, which allowed us to create a SunOS-like system based on Linux or FreeBSD. But, over time, it was largely overshadowed by more visually striking desktops like Enlightenment or more functional ones like Gnome or KDE.
Fast-forward decades, and many of us find ourselves in the thralls of nostalgia, and I was taken back to when I longed for a Sun-like experience. However, olvwm has long been demoted out of package repos due to its code having hard dependencies on i386 beyond being only for X11.
So, after doing some research, I was able to dig up old olvwm source code and specs on the OPEN LOOK and related standards (Xview). Sharing all of that research and source code with Claude, along with many iterations of back-n-forth, we created olwc-- the Open Look Wayland compositor.
It's very much just a proof-of-concept right now with fairly janky operation lacking advanced configuration or Settings. I would not yet use it as a daily driver desktop, but it's fun to play around with in a nested desktop just for the novelty.
Anyway, if you have fond memories of SunOS/Solaris or simply would like to experience SunOS desktop for the first time, I encourage you to take a look.
ZW
Inspired in part by Sean's (of Action Retro) use of Claude to code some retro software (Artful Type and Tabby Haiku), I decided to see what I could do by scratching an old SunOS itch of missing the old OPEN LOOK (Open Windows) window manager but as a Wayland compositor.
Back in the day, I lusted after having a SPARCstation but could never afford one, even used. About the same time, the open-source world did get the olvwm project, which allowed us to create a SunOS-like system based on Linux or FreeBSD. But, over time, it was largely overshadowed by more visually striking desktops like Enlightenment or more functional ones like Gnome or KDE.
Fast-forward decades, and many of us find ourselves in the thralls of nostalgia, and I was taken back to when I longed for a Sun-like experience. However, olvwm has long been demoted out of package repos due to its code having hard dependencies on i386 beyond being only for X11.
So, after doing some research, I was able to dig up old olvwm source code and specs on the OPEN LOOK and related standards (Xview). Sharing all of that research and source code with Claude, along with many iterations of back-n-forth, we created olwc-- the Open Look Wayland compositor.
It's very much just a proof-of-concept right now with fairly janky operation lacking advanced configuration or Settings. I would not yet use it as a daily driver desktop, but it's fun to play around with in a nested desktop just for the novelty.
Anyway, if you have fond memories of SunOS/Solaris or simply would like to experience SunOS desktop for the first time, I encourage you to take a look.
ZW