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In Linux, the prefs are under Edit -> Preferences, to obey the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines, since they use the Gnome libraries. In Windows, it's still under Tools -> Options, since the goal for Firefox 1.0 is to attract IE users.

Maybe it was better to point to this link about GNOME screenshots, since the KDE screenshots in your post where from the default install while the GNOME ones where the user customized one.

Here are some GNOME and KDE screenshots.

Anyway, namesapce clashes between movies and FOSS projects is not new at all.

Doesn't anyone wonder if the folks at Ximian ever got harassed with C&D nastygrams over confusion between this project and this movie.

On Linux, try dia. Not finished yet, but already very useful. It does the "sticky lines" thing just like Visio.

I'm wondering whether the "Data Soup" concept will be adopted by any major free, open source software (FOSS) system.

The Newton, the Canon Cat, the shareware word processor Yeah Write, all had some kind of system where the user didn't need to worry about files. (I don't really know enough about the Newton data soup to comment on how similar or dissimilar these all were to it.)

The only project along these lines that I know of is Gnome Storage.

steveha

what other good, solid business apps are available for Linux?

Abiword, Gnumeric, and Evolution are also cited a lot, these are GNOME packages. Then there is KOffice, part of KDE, which few seem to use or talk about, but which does seem solid and extensive.

50%? Are you kidding? It's rare to see a Windows computer with less than 100% pure, unadulterated, stolen shit in it

That certainly rings true among the people I know - at least with regards to their home computers. 100% of them run pirated copies of WinXP, pirated photoshop, pirated Office, etc...

Personally I think the likes of Abiword make a perfectly acceptable replacement for Word, at least for home users - and often times businesses would do just fine with it. I think Abiword is an upgrade from MS Word - others my not agree. But it's definitely faster to load, looks just as good (better in my opinion), uses less memory, and has more than enough features to keep home users, college students, and business people happy.

I'm not a huge fan of Open Office - not because there's anything wrong with it. It's just that I don't really need an Office Suite. (I imagine most home users don't.) But for those who do "need" it, I think it's a great substitute for the $300+ MS Office Suite.

For my own spreadsheet needs, I prefer Gnumeric because it feels very light weight while still having all the features I need. Plus I think it looks great and it's a heck of a lot faster to load up than OOo. The only problem with Gnumeric is that there isn't a Windows port (that I know of).

I also have several friends who pirate the "Pro" version of Trillian. I finally convinced my friend to give the Windows Port of gaim a try and he has been using it ever since. Bonus - download the encryption plugin for gaim and have secure messaging.

I don't know enough about Photoshop and image editing to know if The Gimp is an acceptable replacement. I've read several posts where people say it is *not* (an acceptable replacement.) I'll have to take their word for it. My image editing needs are very basic so gThumb is about all I really need.

I have another friend who pirates FTP software. With the existence of FileZilla, I fail to see the point. What can't FileZilla do?

A lot of people pirate WinZip. I have to admit that WinZip does have a pretty interface (if you use Windows), but if you don't want to pay for it, and you don't want to take the risk of infecting your Windows computer with a virus when you download a WinZip crack of Kazaa, then I recommend 7-zip as a free alternative. Also, the last time I saw WinZip (which admittedly was years ago) there were a few archive types it didn't handle.

There are so many great Free and Open Source alternatives available, even if you use Windows.

Get FireFox now

Personally I think KDE sucks. It's ugly, it's cluttered, it's convoluted, it's messy, it looks and feels like a complete hack. KDE users argue that it's more configurable. Whatever. Having 800 useless options that 95% of the population doesn't care about doesn't make it more configurable, it just makes it more of a hack. Especially when those options are strewn about randomly without any thought put into. Gnome has the right idea with this.

Besides, if you like KDE (more power to you), there are plenty of KDE centric distros for you to choose from.

First off, I'm not a coder, so if I'm talking out my ass, feel free to slap me down for it...

All that aside, YOU ARE a coder.
Quote:
"(And no, I cannot switch, I develop products for x86/Windows)"

You could work on something like this yourself... isn't that the point of Open Source Software? YOU could stop waiting for it and actually do something about it yourself! Don't some of the best/most successful OSS projects available exist due to someone "scratching an itch" like that?
The Evolution Project Pages even provide direct links
to developer info and contributor info. I have no doubt that it would be some sort of monumental undertaking, but hell, if YOU want it - it has to start somewhere. The sources are freely available to you and me and anyone else interested in doing something along those lines.

Like I said before: I'm no coder. Aside from a few handy shell scripts and customizing some application compiles, I'm pretty much of no use in the coding situation, but then again, I'm not the one asking/wishing about if/when it'll happen...

First off, I'm not a coder, so if I'm talking out my ass, feel free to slap me down for it...

All that aside, YOU ARE a coder.
Quote:
"(And no, I cannot switch, I develop products for x86/Windows)"

You could work on something like this yourself... isn't that the point of Open Source Software? YOU could stop waiting for it and actually do something about it yourself! Don't some of the best/most successful OSS projects available exist due to someone "scratching an itch" like that?
The Evolution Project Pages even provide direct links
to developer info and contributor info. I have no doubt that it would be some sort of monumental undertaking, but hell, if YOU want it - it has to start somewhere. The sources are freely available to you and me and anyone else interested in doing something along those lines.

Like I said before: I'm no coder. Aside from a few handy shell scripts and customizing some application compiles, I'm pretty much of no use in the coding situation, but then again, I'm not the one asking/wishing about if/when it'll happen...

First off, I'm not a coder, so if I'm talking out my ass, feel free to slap me down for it...

All that aside, YOU ARE a coder.
Quote:
"(And no, I cannot switch, I develop products for x86/Windows)"

You could work on something like this yourself... isn't that the point of Open Source Software? YOU could stop waiting for it and actually do something about it yourself! Don't some of the best/most successful OSS projects available exist due to someone "scratching an itch" like that?
The Evolution Project Pages even provide direct links
to developer info and contributor info. I have no doubt that it would be some sort of monumental undertaking, but hell, if YOU want it - it has to start somewhere. The sources are freely available to you and me and anyone else interested in doing something along those lines.

Like I said before: I'm no coder. Aside from a few handy shell scripts and customizing some application compiles, I'm pretty much of no use in the coding situation, but then again, I'm not the one asking/wishing about if/when it'll happen...

The answer to that appears to be in one of TFA's

http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/evolution/2 .0/evolution-2.0.0.tar.gz
http://ftp.gnome.org/pu b/gnome/sources/gtkhtml/3.2 /gtkhtml-3.2.1.tar.gz
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gn ome/sources/gal/2.2/gal -2.2.1.tar.gz
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sour ces/evolution-d ata-server/1.0/evolution-data-server-1.0.0.tar.gz
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/libsoup/2. 2 /libsoup-2.2.0.tar.gz
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gn ome/sources/ximian-conn ector/2.0/ximian-connector-2.0.0.tar.gz

LaTeX produces the most visually attractive documents out there--there's no reason not to use it.

There are some GNOME bounties, one of which is worth US$ 2000, for those who implement some features integrating Gaim with GNOME.

The moral of the story? We need some Free^2, good, cross-platform fonts specifically designed for the web. Especially useful is bundled with our OS, or browser, or something.

Like the Bitstream Vera fonts?

• ...like copying Unix

Copying and improving. They are evolving an existing design, a design that hasn't changed in 20 or 30 years. That design hasn't been frozen for so long because it's perfect, but because it's "just good enough" for people to consider and rethink.

• What? Copying Windows? I thought we already were...

Yep. Everyone is copying everyone else. It's the nature of design: for the next generation, always combine the best bits of everything else.

Somebody tell the GNOME people that.

Maybe until recently I would have agreed. However, recently I have started noticing projects relating to desktop search: Dashboard, Beagle, DBFS, etc. This is the hot new area of desktop innovation, and at the moment it seems Gnome has an early lead, with KDE looking to start up some related projects too. Off the desktop, Namesys is moving towards related technologies on the filesystem level. To the extent that MacOS-X can be said to be OSS, they have their Spotlight technology. On the other side, well, it looks like we won't be seeing WinFS in Longhorn afterall.....

Maybe until recently I would have agreed. However, recently I have started noticing projects relating to desktop search: Dashboard, Beagle, DBFS, etc. This is the hot new area of desktop innovation, and at the moment it seems Gnome has an early lead, with KDE looking to start up some related projects too. Off the desktop, Namesys is moving towards related technologies on the filesystem level. To the extent that MacOS-X can be said to be OSS, they have their Spotlight technology. On the other side, well, it looks like we won't be seeing WinFS in Longhorn afterall.....

For example...?

Let's see.... the internet, the web, email, chat, network-aware windowing systems, DNS, NTP, security systems (like kerberos), and a slew of other network stuff that we take for granted these days.

More recently:

CODA, GNOME Storage (RDBMS-based filesystem), Dashboard (which Microsoft bit off of and calls "implicit query"), Wiki, . . .

A *lot* of true software innovation starts in the free software world. Often it's taken, usurped, and out-marketted by commercial vendors (like the case of MS Internet Explorer). That doesn't mean it didn't start as free software.

There are quite a few examples of commercial innovation, too, especially in the case of business software like the various office suites, database query tools, etc. Innovation is not exclusively a free software activity. But I think the GP post was correct: the free software community has demonstrably provided more innovation than Microsoft.

An 8 month old that can ask for more milk is an impressive thing.

My baby, (not yet 8 month old) can crawl to backup nursing botle when the current one is finished.

Isn't that impressive? :)

... but some of the more interesting stuff happened more recently (but still awhile ago). I have recently been looking at Fast Multiresolution Image Querying as a means to find similar images for f-spot. But it sounds like this patent is very broad and generalized, and systems like those described existed long before the patent. In fact, the paper linked above describes some of those systems.

After years of everyone saying that the relational model was the answer to all data organziation needs... the hierarchical model reappeared in the form of XML, and people realized that it is convenient to organize some types of data hierarchically.

Convenient, and flawed.

XML isn't designed to handle changing data. It's designed to be a data markup language, which indicates it's used for presenting data, not managing data.

So far, the relational model is the best mathematically-rigorous method of managing sets of data. There are many advantages to hierarchical data representation, but for manipulation, the relational still trumps.

Do I want to use SQL to access my files? Not if I don't have to. There are perhaps better methods, even some transparent methods.

But, do I want to continue to self-organize my data? Hell, no! There's just too much information stored on my computer, and on my network, these days. And, considering that much of my data has multiple relationships, the hierarchical model is growing a bit long in the tooth. Many of my documents belong in multiple hierarchies.

But, there might be a real solution soon:

Gnome Storage looks to be a good first step.

http://www.gnome.org/learn/admin-guide/2.6/ch01s06 .html#gconf-14

Anybody know if thispatch made it in? I just recently switched from KDE to GNOME and switching desktops with the scrollwheel is what I miss the most.

Personally, I used Gnome because the interface was clean and fairly simple. With the 2.8 release, a few of my major concerns have been addressed. Namely, the ability to automatically mount USB and other removable devices, improved file browser/mime support, and so forth (here's a link to the particular page of release notes of interest to me.) The auto-mount removable storage devices feature is more important to my girlfriend than to me.

I never really got into KDE too much because it seemed too cluttered. Granted, it can be reconfigured to remove the clutter, but my first impression with it has been a lasting one.

Unfortunately, for gnome anyway, my desire for unclutter has brought me back to fluxbox, but I will still pick up gnome 2.8, if nothing else, just so I can support any of my gf's questions.

Aha... I tend to like standardization, too, just not on my own computer ;)

Also bear in mind that Linux was weak areas (eg, games, off-the-shelf software).

I'd actually say that Linux is weak in supporting off-the-shelf games; however, there are numerous fun, high-quality games available Free and/or for free. KDE provides many addictive games and edutainment applications that I can't live without (speaking as a GNOME lover, when using Linux). GNOME also has many high-quality games (my favorites are Mahjongg and Robots). Then there many other favorites like Tux Racer, Frozen Bubble (like Snood), and GL Tron (you have to play this one) among others. Another really cool diversion is Celestia, which allows you to zoom around the galaxy and visit planets, moons, comets, astroids, spacecraft (like Hubble, the ISS, or even Friendship 1). And despite my premise, there are also quite a few commercial games for Linux. There are many fun games that run on Linux - some aren't even available for Windows or non-unix platforms! Check your favorite Linux Distribution for more examples.

No it is not a plugin. It is a control (widget in Linux land) to allow your OWN APPLICATION to use the gecko rendering engine. IE the browser is really just a wrapper application around MSHTML the engine that does all the work. The same for Mozilla/Firefox. They are the GUI and gecko is the main engine that does all the displaying of content. With the gecko ActiveX control, you can program your _own_ web browser using gecko similar to KMeleon which is a light weight MS Windows browser that uses gecko. You can also do this in Linux such as Galeon and Epiphany, though they obviously do not use an ActiveX control.

It's 3 fonts really...
Bitstram Vera Sans
Bitstram Vera Sans Mono
Bitstream Vera Serif

Bitstream Vera Sans is very readable in web pages - IMHO more so than Verdana. And the mono font is ideal for when I write SQL/XHTML/etc at home/work.

http://www.gnome.org/fonts/

I dont have any problems with fonts on Fedora Core 2. The fonts look pretty decent in Knoppix 3.6 too.

PS: Bitstream fonts look great in Macromedia Fireworks, but the gimp still rocks. ;-)

Perhaps that's closer than you think.

A GNOME port of khtml:

gnome-webkit

Gtk Layout Containers

The ones I frequently find myself using:

GtkTable - which is much like GridBag without the need of the overly verbose GridBagConstraints object.
GtkHBox
GtkVBox
GtkHPaned

Gtk Layout Containers

The ones I frequently find myself using:

GtkTable - which is much like GridBag without the need of the overly verbose GridBagConstraints object.
GtkHBox
GtkVBox
GtkHPaned

Gtk Layout Containers

The ones I frequently find myself using:

GtkTable - which is much like GridBag without the need of the overly verbose GridBagConstraints object.
GtkHBox
GtkVBox
GtkHPaned

Gtk Layout Containers

The ones I frequently find myself using:

GtkTable - which is much like GridBag without the need of the overly verbose GridBagConstraints object.
GtkHBox
GtkVBox
GtkHPaned

Gtk Layout Containers

The ones I frequently find myself using:

GtkTable - which is much like GridBag without the need of the overly verbose GridBagConstraints object.
GtkHBox
GtkVBox
GtkHPaned

I'll pull out the link again: Storage (a GNOME project) uses some nice algorithms to let you look up anything from '1960s music' or 'films directed by Francis Ford Coppola' to 'pdfs from joe'. All in natural language and over a wide range of formats, although evidently it's still a work in progress.

Storage would be one example. I bet there are others.

Before inventing something you should check if no one did this earlier. Because there you have GNOME Storage. Don't be fooled by screenshots there. Storage isn't only cool search facility with native language parser ("computer, find me all porn I've downloaded yesterday" anyone?).
Storage is, suprisingly, method to store files decomposed to contents. The great searching ability is a side effect.

Imagine collaborating in of group of people over one document. Every one got some paragraphs to edit. With Storage, everyone can edit this document in the same time, seeing other's changes as letters are typed. Store version history and you have revision control. Throw in network transparency (you go to other department, connect laptop and automagically you can work on those department files) with OpenTalk (Zeroconf/Rendezvous) and you got best idea since hierarhical directories.

Be sure to read whitepaper about Storage available on mentioned site. Also check for Storage related entries in Seth's blog (Seth is one architect of GNOME Storage). Now if only KDE people work on compatibility with Storage, freenix desktop would rule the world.

BTW, KDE, don't miss chance of integration! KDE is planning to introduce google-like search in desktop. Don't reinvent wheel! Beagle is here, working. Just integrate Beagle with KDE desktop and we are set.

Before inventing something you should check if no one did this earlier. Because there you have GNOME Storage. Don't be fooled by screenshots there. Storage isn't only cool search facility with native language parser ("computer, find me all porn I've downloaded yesterday" anyone?).
Storage is, suprisingly, method to store files decomposed to contents. The great searching ability is a side effect.

Imagine collaborating in of group of people over one document. Every one got some paragraphs to edit. With Storage, everyone can edit this document in the same time, seeing other's changes as letters are typed. Store version history and you have revision control. Throw in network transparency (you go to other department, connect laptop and automagically you can work on those department files) with OpenTalk (Zeroconf/Rendezvous) and you got best idea since hierarhical directories.

Be sure to read whitepaper about Storage available on mentioned site. Also check for Storage related entries in Seth's blog (Seth is one architect of GNOME Storage). Now if only KDE people work on compatibility with Storage, freenix desktop would rule the world.

BTW, KDE, don't miss chance of integration! KDE is planning to introduce google-like search in desktop. Don't reinvent wheel! Beagle is here, working. Just integrate Beagle with KDE desktop and we are set.

Before inventing something you should check if no one did this earlier. Because there you have GNOME Storage. Don't be fooled by screenshots there. Storage isn't only cool search facility with native language parser ("computer, find me all porn I've downloaded yesterday" anyone?).
Storage is, suprisingly, method to store files decomposed to contents. The great searching ability is a side effect.

Imagine collaborating in of group of people over one document. Every one got some paragraphs to edit. With Storage, everyone can edit this document in the same time, seeing other's changes as letters are typed. Store version history and you have revision control. Throw in network transparency (you go to other department, connect laptop and automagically you can work on those department files) with OpenTalk (Zeroconf/Rendezvous) and you got best idea since hierarhical directories.

Be sure to read whitepaper about Storage available on mentioned site. Also check for Storage related entries in Seth's blog (Seth is one architect of GNOME Storage). Now if only KDE people work on compatibility with Storage, freenix desktop would rule the world.

BTW, KDE, don't miss chance of integration! KDE is planning to introduce google-like search in desktop. Don't reinvent wheel! Beagle is here, working. Just integrate Beagle with KDE desktop and we are set.

Not really still activities in the CVS
The current release (0.2) is just some proof of concept, devels
are working on a nice'n'real solution.

Read about Beagle here. I posted about this on Slashdot a few days ago.

Storage has been more or less dead as far as I can see for a while now, however Beagle is showing good progress on the same front, having been demoed at conferences recently.

...seems to have something more interesting: storage

sort of like g_strdup or g_strdup_printf. Btw glib provides something similar

So the Gimp hackers work on the functionality that they need to compete with PS (like adjustment layers),

given that the BZ for adjustment layers was created in early 2002, and has had no activity since late 2002 (set to Milestone 'Future' in early 2003) I'm not sure just how interested the Gimp developers are. Given just how majorly important this functionality is for any serious Gimp/PS user this is very disenheartening. At times it feels as if the Gimp developers are 'just' developers and don't really have that many heavy/pro PS users to consult with.

I really wish that an experienced PS person or two drew up a list of the most important PS features missing in Gimp (my guess: CYMK, Adjustment Layers, PS-like UI) and the developers actually followed through implementing them regardless of how they felt about them.

I guess this is the main problem with Free Software, a lot of the time it's written by developers for developers and not for average users: note the tutorial on how to draw straight lines in Gimp referenced later in the thread, if the Gimp was developed from a user-centric perspective, a 'straight line' tool would've been added to the UI. I don't care that having a shift modifier is 'more elegant' or 'more in tune with the dev's vision', if so many people find it troublesome, it should be changed.

At least this is the way things work in the 'commercial software' world, where the customer most of the time is king: often it's the only reason why developers end up spending a lot of time on complex low-reward (for devs) tasks that in the end, though, make life that much easier for the users. I totally understand how if I was coding for fun in my spare time I wouldn't want to deal with a lot of things that I have to deal with in my job, but if we want Gimp to become a good alternative to PS, well, somebody will have to make the calls about what to work on next regardless of how appealing it is.

4) Gnome Storage

You're misreading those screenshots - GNOME apps almost universally apply changes immediately, so 'close' doesn't mean 'abort', it means 'continue'. So it's quite consistent for 'OK', 'add' and 'close' buttons to be in the same location - they all mean 'continue with this action'. Meanwhile, the 'abort' button is second from the right in all those screenshots (except for the first, where 'abort' doesn't make sense, so there is no 'abort' button).

The consistent, well thought out, placement of the buttons in GNOME is one of those little things which make it's UI such a pleasure to use - check out the Human Interface Guidlines for more details.