The ROX Desktop is a discontinued graphical

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...

for the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

. It is based on the ROX-Filer, a drag and drop spatial file manager. It is

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

released under the GPL-2.0-or-later. The environment was inspired by the user interface of

RISC OS RISC OS () is an operating system designed to run on ARM architecture, ARM computers. Originally designed in 1987 by Acorn Computers of England, it was made for use in its new line of ARM-based Acorn Archimedes, Archimedes personal computers an ...

(not to be confused with RISC/os). The name "ROX" is derived from "RISC OS on

". Programs can be installed or removed easily using Zero Install, a decentralized software installation system. The project was started by Thomas Leonard as a student at the

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

in 1999 and was still led by him in 2012.

Software components

The ROX Desktop is a

based on the ROX-Filer

file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage computer files, files and folder (computing), folders. The most common Computer file#Operations, operations performed on files or groups of files incl ...

. Files are loaded by applications using

drag and drop In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user (computing), user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, i ...

from the filer to the application, and saved by dragging back to the filer. Applications are executable directories, and thus can be installed (copied), uninstalled (deleted), and run directly through the filer interface. ROX has a strong link with Zero Install, a system for identifying and executing programs via a

URL A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web, is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identi ...

, which aims to make software installation automatic. The desktop uses the

GTK GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both Free software, free and ...

toolkit, similar to the

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

and

Xfce Xfce or XFCE (pronounced as four individual letters, ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Xfce aims to be fast and Lightweight software, lightweight whil ...

desktops. The design focuses on small, simple programs that use drag-and-drop to move data between them. For example, a user might load data from a compressed file from the web into a spreadsheet by dragging the file from the web browser to the archiver, and then from the archiver into the spreadsheet. A program could be installed similarly, by dragging the archive from the web to the archiver, and then from the archiver to the applications directory in the filer. Drag-and-drop saving allows a user to save a file to any directory, or directly to another application, such as an archiver on the panel.

ROX Filer

ROX-Filer is a graphical spatial file manager for the

. It can be used standalone or as part of the ROX Desktop. It is the default file manager in certain

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

s such as Puppy Linux and Dyne:bolic, and was used in Xubuntu until

Thunar Thunar is a file manager for Linux and other Unix-like systems, initially written using the GTK+ 2 toolkit and later ported to the GTK+ 3 toolkit. It started to ship with Xfce in version 4.4 RC1 and later. Thunar is developed by Benedikt Meur ...

became stable. ROX-Filer is built using the

GTK+ GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprietary s ...

toolkit. Available under the terms of the GPL-2.0-or-later, ROX-Filer is free software.

Zero Install

Zero Install (or 0install) is a multi-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS) system for running applications, enabling decentralized publishing (without using a traditional central repositories, directly from project websites). Unlike simple xcopy deployment, Zero Install retains the advantages of repositories, such as

shared libraries In computing, a library is a collection of resources that can be leveraged during software development to implement a computer program. Commonly, a library consists of executable code such as compiled functions and classes, or a library can ...

, automatic updates, and validation of digital signatures. Zero Install uses metadata (sometimes called the ''feed format'') written in XML. Similar to xcopy deployment, each application gets its own directory, and there are no side effects on the OS. This eliminates the need for administrative rights, and different versions of the same application can be run side-by-side without special modifications. To run an application, the user uses a launcher in ROX-Filer. This launcher instructs the system to run the application specified by a URL within the launcher's script. The first time it is launched, the system uses the URL to download the program and save it. On subsequent launches, the system does not download it again. This mechanism is referred to as 'Zero Install' because the launcher aims to run the program directly rather than performing a traditional installation process.<

References

Sources

Notes

Bruce Byfield Bruce Byfield (born May 13, 1958) is a Canadian journalist who specializes in writing about free and open source software. He has been a contributing editor at Linux.com, and his articles have appeared on the Datamation, LWN.net, LWN, Linux Devel ...