Slashdot Mirror
Gnome 1.2.0 Released
Well, those wacky Gnome boys have gone and done it again -
you can grab Gnome 1.2.0 from the FTP site. Nat e-mailed me last night to say that it was coming out. As well as the above distro-friendly link, we've got a link for the stable sources ftp site.Update: 05/25 12:25 by H :Hey, I got e-mail from the Gnome folks again - they're going to update the mirrors and everything in half an hour (9 a.m. EDT), so hold off until then on downloading.Update: 05/25 02:12 by H : Check out HelixCode for an update on the release.
Gnome 1.0 was unstable and unpolished. This one is a lot better and is usable as an everyday desktop. Perhaps this should have been 1.0. Xav
I agree, moderators on Slashdot are completely stupid.
$25 seems to be a bit much for a repackaging of GNOME....
i didn't click enough to see if that included shipping, but i think that Helix should have worked something out with CheapBytes and sold the 2CD set for $5 or something...
I hope this isn't part of their biz plan.
I'm just curious about users using CVS Enlightenment and current GNOME together. Both provide mechanisms to have toolbars, menus, filemanagers, etc.
Exactly which components of each are you using?
I'm very impressed (Ok, so maybe I'm easy to impress) with both of them. I haven't compiled an Enlightmentment since they started the FAM stuff in the CVStree, so I'm a bit out of date but I'm rather fascinated by Mandrake's use of no terminal windows for daily operations
Comments ? (please)
.... except for it being slow as dog shit and getting internal server errors all over the place!
:)
Course, I'm quite sure that this is because they're being slashdotted ATM
"Without low-level compatibility like that, it becomes impossible for apps from one side, to run in the other's enviroment"
Actually, the WM-SPEC is for window managers, not apps in general. The point of WM-SPEC is to kill two birds with one stone; instead of a separate set of window manager hints for KDE and a separate set for GNOME, one set of window manager hints--the WM-SPEC--covers *both* KDE- and GNOME-compliance.
Most apps, though, don't care what the window manager hints are, so the WM-SPEC won't affect them one way or the other.
I think that CDE had its taskbar long before the release of windows 95. Also, as another poster suggested, FVWMButtons was around before then. And what about the Wharf in NeXT?
I personally think that the Windows taskbar is the worst of all. That start button is just a huge waste of space, and there's nothing you can do about it. Just the windows icon would be better. GNOME gets it right: use that extra button anywhere on the bar.
As for quantum leaps, I don't think that's what people are really looking for. Getting people to use windows 95 in the first place was not easy. Users resist change.
That's funny, I ran Helix-update almost immediately after I saw the story on Slashdot (before the update about helix was added), and I am running it on my laptop right now!
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
How is this unethical? Helix merely packages GNOME, the same way SuSE, Debian, and RedHat package Linux + tons of other software. This is analogous to having an update saying "RedHat has kernel 2.4 packages already available" appended to an announcement about 2.4.
Sure, they also sell a CD with the packages on it, just like RedHat and SuSE, but you can also download for free (again, just like Debian and SuSE).
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
You thought that was wild, try loading raster's redesigned site on a regular modem. On the ISDN at work, it was a PITA, but I shudder to think about it on a modem. Looks cool on broadband, though....
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
>I HATE window shading. While the effect is cool and you can read all
>of the window's title, it takes up too much fraggin screen space! Not
>all of us have multiple monitors or HUGE 21 inch screens.
>Iconification is better.
??? Window shading works just fine with a 15 inch monitor. Far less anoying than a bunch of icons.
That's because it's not out yet :)
So it does look like Meta was invented before Alt, or was considered more basic. However the numbers are all assigned next to each other, with Alt in the middle, so I believe that keyboards existed at that time with both identifiers on the keys.
EVERY other system before W95 turned miniaturized/hidden windows into an "icon" that had to be placed on the desktop by the user. This "icon" also tended to put a lot of prominance on an image and very little (or none) on the text identifier. W95 realized that these "icons" could be arranged automatically, that a long horizontal shape is more efficient than a rectangle, and that the picture could be deleted (they actually shrank it so small as to be indecipherable, but it proves the idea).
The "start" menu did have precedence with the Apple menu, but Apple did not put *all* programs on it, only "accessories".
The NeXT "dock" was somewhat like a taskbar + start menu, but missed two innovations: it put way too much importance on the picture (there was NO text), and iconized windows were put into the dock only if they were launched from the dock. The NeXT did have the innovation MSoft seems to have missed: when the program is launched the entry can be reused as the icon.
I also think a W95 innovation was the simplification of window borders. Until then everybody drew an "inner edge" on the windows borders and they were much thicker and wasted screen space. I like to think I came up with this first (see the ViewKit I wrote for NeXT in 1987) but I doubt they saw my stuff and copied it.
Another innovation is the use of Alt+Tab to switch windows. This was somewhat stolen from CDE, but CDE only used Alt+Tab to switch between uniconized windows. W95 came up with the pop-up box to allow you to switch to any window.
My copy of XFree86 seems to make the "Menu" key send the X XK_Menu keysym. This seems like a reasonable standard, too.
Also I would like to see some company make a "geek" keyboard not by replacing the windows logo with little penguins, but by printing "Meta" on the keys (and "Menu" on the menu key). That would be nice, we could finnally unambiguously communicate about key strokes.
Does anyone else think GNOME's versioning is a little... inflated? If "October GNOME" is any indication, GNOME should still be pre-1.0. I'm not trying to troll or flame here. Let's be realistic about GNOME. It's still slow. It's still big. The apps still spew numerous GTK+ warning messages (aren't you supposed to supress those in "stable" versions of software? Or at least FIX the problems?). When are they expecting GNOME 2.0? Not any time soon, right?
The only reason GNOME still exists is because it's shipping as the default environment in RedHat and Debian. The rest of the Linux industry has standardized on KDE. And rightly so; KDE doesn't require extensive training and hair-pulling like GNOME does. The one advantage Windows has over Linux is consistency: once you know how to use Windows, you can sit down in front of any Windows machine and already know how to use it. Ditto for KDE, which is why the smart distribution vendors have standardized on it. As long as GNOME continues the "window manager agnostic" approach, it'll always be a "weird" environment.
I know this will get moderated down and/or start a flame war, but I don't care. This is Slashdot, the home of KDE/GNOME flamewars. Deal with it.
--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Our web site is a bit misleading regarding Debian Potato - I need to fix that. Our packages work fine with either the unstable (Woody) or frozen (Potato) distributions.
:)
You can just use our packages, if you want.
Peter
We ran out of file descriptors on the main web server, and our scripts couldn't be opened. This is being fixed. Be gentle with us, Slashdot. :)
Peter
The Helix installer delete all the downloaded
.com in the first place?
files!
Even if it can't do the instalation because
of no space left.
Is this just a Windows 98 updater.
This is really sad.
And there is not Official RPMs from gnome.org.
So, it should be called gnome.com now?
What happen to opensource? Why did
Gnome started with
I am using Gnome since 0.99, and this
new HelixCode installer really sucks!
It sucks!
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
The best way to get people to jump ship is to move your ship closer to theirs.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
One such idea could be the 'zoomable user interface'. Actuallly another desktop analogue, but it's not a desktop but a 3D space in front of you. Icons hang suspended in space, you can zoom into windows, or flip them away etc. It also uses the idea of presenting not too complex visual clues for your data. For instance, a filetree can be extremely complex, but there is a simple structure in it. So it zoomable user interface presents a simple tree, but if you zoom in on the branches, you see more complex structures.- -----------
I don't know if the idea has been implemented. But it is something new, and worthy.
Of course there are other ideas like MsBob, where you walk around in an office analogue, or the indigo machine from SGI, where you also walk around, but much nicer. I just do not think user interfaces that look like a 3D game are productive, though.
A good user interface should visualize complex things, like filesystems or networks, or the devices/drivers/kernel of your system, in an as simple as possible way, without omitting essential information. This naturally leads to zooming and nested structures.
Real AI in your interface would also be very nice, but an SF dream for now, I think. (at least my brother says so, who studies AI)
--------------------------------------------
UNIX isn't dead, it just smells funny...
-------------------------------------------------
UNIX isn't dead, it just sme
Then don't buy it, some people don't live in their parents basement's and need to pay rent and buy food. :)
It's Gnome 1.2 that's out now, and Helix Code, being the awesome guys that they are, have already packaged it into the "Helix" distribution, or whatever. I'm not knocking Helix or Red Hat, it's just strange to see the news that Gnome 1.2 is released under the heading of "Helix Gnome 1.2 Released." Even if Helix is Miguel's company...
:)
(Hey, www.gnome.org has a new look, too!)
---
Good point, have you ever compiled all of gnome though? You gota admit it is a major ordeal...
"better ways of doing things eventually just replace the inferior things" - Linus Torvalds 09-08-07
Well, you could use the GNOME development framework with WindowMaker and skip GNOME the desktop, that would give you a different type of desktop.
Another alterntive is mixing GNOME and Englightenment also there skipping the panel.
Of course they are all more or less the same. I think it will be hard to truly do something different until technology which makes a immersive 3D environmet possible.
--
Much of GNOME 1.0 was way ahead of KDE 1.1.2, with things like ORBit and the panel. themeing etc.
So this is more like leaping further ahead when it comes to technology and catching up when it comes to maturity and width of applications.
--
be-fan is right when he says that for a desktop Linux is bloated.
If you want to use all the cool apps you needs both Qt and GTK loaded at the same time.
You obviously are running Linux as a server and you feel that Linux is good, but that's not the point. He was talking about the CLIENT so you are "off-topic".
I feel also that Linux is quite poor on the client (too many unfinished apps), diversity is good but consistency and avoiding wasting memory by having to load n equivalent toolkit at the same time matters too.
I believe that Macintosh's "Apple Menu" predates Windows' "Start" menu, does it not?
Just being picky.
--
Wade in the water, children.
Oh that's interesting.
I've never heard of that.
Thanks
Finkployd
Thay have since fixed this. Nevermind.
Anyone notice the date stamp on the new files is may 25, 1999? (on the ftp.gnome.org site?)
Finkployd
I said nothing about replacing a taskbar being wrong. I just said that replacing the app launcher, with one that's tucked in a slew of cascading menus, is wrong.
:-)
And, as for your problem... Alt-Tab is handy.
Does Sawmill attempt to follow the WM-SPEC in development?
That's one of the few things that can't be different between KDE and GNOME. Without low-level compatibility like that, it becomes impossible for apps from one side, to run in the other's enviroment)
Comparing KDE 1.1.2 to GNOME 1.2.0 will probably show that GNOME has "caught up", because KDE 1 hasn't been updated since September.
This is one upgrade that is definitely worth the effort. GNOME is now really nice to use, and stable. I especially like being able to synchronise my Pilot with the GNOME apps just by putting it in the cradle and pressing the HotSync button. The whole thing is very polished.
The new web site is also an amazing effort. The old one has been looking a bit icky for a while, but the new site looks beautiful. Actually, it reminds me of the Apple site a bit - is it the font?
Anyway, congratulations to all the GNOME developers on a job well done.
I start helix-update
and I get
temporarily offline for GNOME 1.2
Agreed. My download whizzed to package 57, and the last 5 have taken 20 minutes now, or more.... those bastards. Wait... I am one.
One word: Sawfish.
--
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
Just curious, what server is that? I don't have nslookup handy right now ;)
/etc/apt/sources.list already contains a line for some machine in the helixcode.com domain, I'm wondering if this is the same box.
My debian
Floris
------
--- Your superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons
Is there a way to get helix's updater to install the rpms with a --nodeps option ?
;-)
Because I installed XFree 4 (tar.gz, not rpm) and a couple of things like this (gtk, glib) I must download by hand and install by hand helix's rpms.
I know we should not use the --nodeps, but when you know what you do, it would be cool to have that option
Red Hat does this - whenever a new release is out, they instantly put it on a server where only mirror maintainers have access to it. First when they've finished uploading it there, they put it on their main server and announce it. Their main ftp site will of course bli slashdotted instantly, but all the mirrors will be able to get it immediately from that special mirror server.
This is of course given that the main ftp server and the server for the mirrors is on different networks - bandwidth is the problem.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
I'm running October GNOME right now (possibly a little newer). I have yet to see anything explaining why I should (or, for that matter, shoudn't) upgrade to 1.2.
And I mean real reasons, but because it'll make me a 1337-@$$ d00d.
I can't see windows 2000 getting bug reports for KDE myself :)
:)
But yeah, then again, I never claimed win2000 had lots of bugs
The HTML code isn't valid so that it degrades if you have a crap browser.
The images for text are so that the menu doesn't take HUGE amounts of space, when using a small window.
I think someone ages ago showed me a screenshot of Microsofts next generation desktop and this was what they were doing, or seemed to be doing (it also involved a lot more HTML crap too IIRC)
Okay, not very impressive, I just wanted to show off that screenshot :)
if you're compiling from source, make sure you use
./configure --prefix=`gnome-config --prefix` --sysconfdir=`gnome-prefix --sysconfdir`
that'll make sure everything gets installed over the top of rpms so everything will still work right.
NB: those are ` and not '
Obasan
If a tree falls in the forest, and kills a mime, does anyone care?
It looks like the Slashdot effect has begun already. No luck with the ftp site, which is o.k. because it's always annoying to sort out which files are really necessary. The Helix-Code guys have done a great job repackaging the installation process, but it's only available on a few distributions so far.
After loading up Helix-Code, I get the message:
"Temporarily off-line for Gnome 1.2. Please try again around 9 A.M. EDT".
Guess I'll go make some coffee.
I actually use Slackware's package facilities quite often. Everytime I compile a new piece of software from scratch (which is usually the only route for slackware users), the first thing I do is to create a corresponding slackware .tgz package and place it in my package archives.
I do this for a lot of reasons. Uninstalling (and sometimes upgrading) software on slackware can be a major pain in the ass. Also, after my system breaks, I have an easy way to get most of my system back in a fairly decent amount of time providing I don't loose the package archive.
Oh, LinuxMafia Package Central has a decent amount of 3rd party slackware packages. In most generic cases, if I can find something there first, I'll end up using it. Gnome 1.2.0 isn't available there yet, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it showed up there soon.
Isn't that true even if you use the magic cookie? It's pretty easy to snoop the IIOP message and grab the principal field; isn't that like sending the password in the clear?
This is off-topic. I hope all these W95 threads are moderated as such, and yet here I go...
Whee!
I know there will be lots of flames here saying that the taskbar is not revolutionary, but I agree with you.
Mistake #1. =)
EVERY other system before W95 turned miniaturized/hidden windows into an "icon" that had to be placed on the desktop by the user. This "icon" also tended to put a lot of prominance on an image and very little (or none) on the text identifier. W95 realized that these "icons" could be arranged automatically, that a long horizontal shape is more efficient than a rectangle, and that the picture could be deleted (they actually shrank it so small as to be indecipherable, but it proves the idea).
You mean, "square," right?
The Application menu in traditional Mac OS (the menu to the far right of the menu bar) accomplished this first and best, IMO. Since the menu contains and hides the names of running applications, the full names of running programs (unencumbered by shrinking taskbar space) can be displayed and selected via this menu, without wasting permanent screen real estate. Personally, I really don't care to see ten horizontal buttons on a taskbar that _ALL_ say "Website name goes here - Microsoft Internet Explorer" whenever I open that many IE windows in Win9x. (Even then, it ends up looking like, "Websi...") That's akin to having the output of ps as part of my bash prompt. On Mac OS, "Internet Explorer" appears (once =) in the Application menu.
When I want to know what's running, I'll check for myself. I think many Windows users agree, which is why MS was forced to implement auto-hide for the one region of the screen that should be universally obvious on that OS: the taskbar. So typically silly of them.
The "start" menu did have precedence with the Apple menu, but Apple did not put *all* programs on it, only "accessories".
The start menu does not list all available executable programs, nor should it. Only programs which their own installers or the user decides to place there are displayed there, same as in Mac OS (yep, pre-System 7 too). This says nothing of MS's deficient implementation of menuing, which forces one to maintain a synchronized set of "shortcuts" for actual working program directories, whereas Mac OS navigates and displays aliases to either files or folders within the menu.
The NeXT "dock" was somewhat like a taskbar + start menu, but missed two innovations: it put way too much importance on the picture (there was NO text), and iconized windows were put into the dock only if they were launched from the dock. The NeXT did have the innovation MSoft seems to have missed: when the program is launched the entry can be reused as the icon.
A lack of textual, erm, context is admittedly short-sighted. But I don't understand this last sentence. Are you referring to using the minimized window's icon as a drag&drop target? Windows can do that, although it forces you to drag the d&d object into the window proper after it is "restored."
I also think a W95 innovation was the simplification of window borders. Until then everybody drew an "inner edge" on the windows borders and they were much thicker and wasted screen space. I like to think I came up with this first (see the ViewKit I wrote for NeXT in 1987) but I doubt they saw my stuff and copied it.
The W9X window border is thicker on all sides to that of Mac OS < 8.0. Mac OS has since "caught up." =) Is this what you meant? I don't really want to see your ViewKit. =P
Another innovation is the use of Alt+Tab to switch windows. This was somewhat stolen from CDE, but CDE only used Alt+Tab to switch between uniconized windows. W95 came up with the pop-up box to allow you to switch to any window.
Alt-Tab-switching itself was not also a feature in pre-9X Windows?
< tofuhead >
It is still the dark of night.
Finally! The site is *much* improved!
I hate to say it, but I was always put off Gnome by the website!
but... but... the information wants to be free, er I mean, to be on Slashdot. How can one be expected to sit on this story when it pratically posted itself? :-)
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
... but how do its features compare to those of the latest *stable* version of, er, another open-source desktop?
Please, no flamewar in this thread! I'm not sure I could stand the guilt.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Hmm remember Microsoft has spent hundreds of millions on usability research. I'm not saying that an open development method can't beat that, but I don't think it will without getting some newbies/non-techies involved in the development process (giving feedback etc). The project probably needs to get a bit bigger before that can happen.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Helix Code now use akamai, so it won't be a problem.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
YES!
Bitchslapped? Give Rob a bitchslap from bitchslapped.com.
Warning: Failed opening 'akamai.php3' for inclusion in HELIX_header.php3 on line 16
Bitchslapped? Give Rob a bitchslap from bitchslapped.com.
Gnome is nice and everything, but does anyone else see an add for the best open source desktop: gnome 1.2 in the banner ad on top of this slashdot page? Seeing as how I've never before seen a KDE add ( and correct me if I'm wrong KDE is more popular), I can only assume that the little gnome( gnomes? ) who left the footprint must be performing some sort of sexual favors for the slashdot gang.
2 comments:
Something like that, I guess. One of the key factors IMO is the way information is presented to the user. For instance when the user works with a database, the data can be input using regular dialogs or the user can interact with the conceptual schema of the database.
Better and more innovative information presentation could make a lot of programs more effective to use. I'm talking about for instance information presented in interactive diagrams (like graphs, trees) that can be manipulated.
I just spent quite a while searching the HelixCode site for a list of mirrors, but couldn't find any. Am I just being blind or is the list not there...?
Re: Speech recognition integration
."
I has long been said that as it is now, the thing that most slows down a user's interaction with a computer is the interface. It takes a heck of a lot longer for someone to navigate even two(2) menu sub-trees than it takes for me to type in a 56-char command line. With a person experienced in the CLI(command line interface), I have never seen them do anything slower than someone using a GUI(graphical user interface). Now, you say, how can we expect people to learn the CLI well enough so that it's faster than the GUI? Easy. We make them. I suspect that, after learning how to touch-type, and given a good instructor, it wouldn't take more than a few weeks of concentrated study to become proficient. After all, people learn a WHOLE lot faster than a computer. It's taken twenty years to come up with what I consider to be a mediocre GUI. Sure, it does what it's supposed to. But it's hardly efficient, it's often cumbersome, and sometimes it can't do what you want it to. It takes people a lot less time (much less than twenty years) to adapt to a CLI. Now, let's not throw in speech recognition. It'll slow things down even more. It'll take the average user two or three seconds to launch a oft-used program from a GUI. It'll take them more time to say "Computer - launch
Just my two bits.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
I'm serious, moderation on Slashdot is getting worse and worse. Just because you don't agree with something does NOT MAKE IT A TROLL, DUMBASS.
Also... whats' the keyboard shortcut to traverse through the different virtual windows..ie: ctr tab does it in kde... what's the gnome sequence.
The keyboard sequence to traverse through different virtual desktops is handled by the window manager, which in KDE's case is KWM. So if you're using GNOME, which has no official window manager, you need to configure that in your wm, whether it's E, Sawmill, etc. It's all handled there.
What I would like to see are real useful keyboard bindings (ie. use the "Windows" key or Ctrl-Esc to bring up the Gnome menu), then use my arrow keys to navigate through them. Also, a lot of GNOME apps don't seem to have keyboard bindings for the menus. If I want to quit, I just want to use Alt-F, X. I want to use tab to switch between tabs! No screwing with the mouse any more than necessary. KDE developers do tend to get that part right at least. You seldom see QT/KDE apps without keyboard bindings, but with GTK/GNOME apps, it seems to be the norm. Real pain.
I should note that I'm a GNOME user despite that little downfall.
And they do the same job. What a coincidence!
BeOS doesn't have nearly as much crap in it as Linux does.
I guess by "crap" you mean "applications"? Seriously, Linux and Gnome could be a lot smaller if they ditched support for existing Unix/X applications and standards, but then nobody except you would use them. Unfortunately a lot of computer users want to do useful work with their computers rather than spending their time measuring each other's kernels.
Take the whole KDE/GNOME/X thing. If someone runs KDE 2 and GNOME 2, they will have a total of two large cobra implementations, three drag and drop protocols, three print servers, three+ widget sets, dozons of critical libraries, and an ass-load of duplicated functionality.
You said it. Why would anyone run KDE and Gnome when they do the same job? And by the way, it's CORBA, not COBRA.
Why cannot a Linux-wide COBRA implementation be used?
It's CORBA you monkey!
How exactly is GNOME different from KDE aside from ascthetics(namely that until 2.0 the KDE people had none)? Sure there are some architecture differences, but to the app, they provide basically the same services with the same features.
Oh, it's just architecture differences? Well then, they're basically the same, aren't they? Just like Windows and Linux are basically just two operating systems that provide some services to applications. Monkey.
It would be really nice if someone would define a standard set system of objects, (or function calls, no-one cares) that could be implemented by and DE and widget set of the users choice.
They did. It's called Xlib. That's exactly what it was designed for.
Now THERE is smart flexibility.
I'm glad you agree. :)
So here's a second attempt at a reply, much shorter because it's been rewritten from scratch to remove redundancy. :)
You have libraries crawling up the walls. Is there a reason I have to have curses on my system? Or if I don't have that, I have to have TK? Would it kill the kernel developers to make a X based config tool (Native, not dependant on TK)? Redundancy is the #1 problem in Linux.
I quite agree. Unfortunately the solution is to spend a year writing the Toolkit To End All Toolkits, then a thousand years rewriting all your existing apps to use it.
Currently, I use GNOME with Sawmill because it looks so much nicer, and the environment is much better. I do, however, like KDevelop. Thus, I have to install both GNOME and KDE.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. If you really want to reduce bloat, port KDevelop to Gnome.
You settle for trivial responses, but think about it. Why NOT a system-wide CORBA implementation. What's there to lose? There is a lot to gain!
It's a good idea, one which is mentioned in the CORBA 2 specs - a system-wide ORB provided by the operating system. Unfortunately that requires writing a new operating system. At the moment I have more urgent things on my to-do list. :(
You are so shallow. Do you even think before you post?
Not in this instance, no. I'm sorry.
If you ever read the DirectX docs, you should realize that architecture is independant of interface IN A WELL DESIGNED SYSTEM.
OK, I've heard the OO dogma as well, but in real life it's rarely that simple. People don't just work with the interface provided, they think about what goes on behind that interface and make design decisions based on their conclusions. If you don't provide any information about the implementation, they will reverse engineer it. It's one of the basic hacker drives - "find out how it works, and exploit that knowledge to make it work better". So there's rarely as clean a separation between implementation and interface as designers would like. And even when everybody sticks strictly to the API, new features get added and the interface grows. Give DirectX or BeOS 30 years and see how clean the API looks then.
Take the CORBA implementation. CORBA has a set API, no? Why not make an object (or a library or whatever) to allow an app to access CORBA. Now, you can use whatever damn CORBA implementation you chose, as long as it responds in a given way to a given input.
That's what the developers of Mico and ORBit both set out to do. Unfortunately they disagreed about how it should be done. If you want to extend ORBit to allow it to replace Mico in KDE setups, I'm sure the Gnome project would welcome your patches.
this is sweet, as I spent about 3 days trying to get 1.9 or whatever going last week, only being successful in getting the new panel stuff working and in the process disabling my control panel and most gnome applets and utils heeh. Is there a resource which describes some of the stuff like how the control panel loads and finds applets, and misc. info on upgrading the rpms that come with redhat? I'll give this version a go but figured it'd be a good time to ask :)
It seems that every UI that I "U" with, is a matter of compromise. This is, as I see it, due to the incredibly limited feedback that the UI processes. When I use a new command line tool, I curse the learning curve. But once I've invested the time to learn the switches, I relish the power. So how can the UI know my level of knowledge, my goals, and what I'm thinking about? ((un)intellisense is a half-assed attempt to solve this. I believe that once that UI might be the next computer revolution: our 3d cards can render more polygons than most users could possibly care about every second, and we are networking with fatter pipes? UIs that intelligently process user feedback are next. just my 2c, zaugg.
Gorkman
The steering wheel in a car is also not revolutionary, but I wouldn't suggest replacing it just because its NIH (Not Invented Here). Trouble is, some things have no improvement in their current situation. Given a square screen, a keyboard and a mouse, many of the current GUI "innovations" are optimal. jalalski...
.sig available on 'Need To Know' basis only!
I agree with you. however they really ought to go through the list with a fine toothcomb and clean the bugs list out. When I want to report a bug, it takes ages to search the lists (especially for gnome-core) to see if it has already been reported.
I think MS Users whould really appreciate the possibility to shade/unshade the window, as an alternative to iconising.
I don't know which window manager came out first with it, but it seems that everybody likes it, since all others have added this feature since.
I got so addicted to it, that I keep double-clicking on the title bar even when I'm working with Windows9*, getting the *opposite* result :-).
Ciao
----
FB
Ehhm... "ORBit", not "Oracle"...
Do you mean like OS/2's WPS?
Actually, CDE has a nice mixture of the two. If you don't have a commercial UNIX handy, there's a lookalike window manager out there (can't remember the name offhand) written in gtk+. You have 8 (I think) icons on your panel that can be launchers, and each has a submenu above it. That way, your most used editor goes over the "editors" menu, etc.
FVWM has, as someone else pointed out, the goodstuff launcher which has been out since '92. It's basicly a little window (no decorations or titlebar) that you can put launcher buttons in, and have icons and labels on them.
I would tend to think that microsoft either came up with this idea on its own (it's not that hard to think up) or got it from an older environment, since linux wasn't very well known when IE4 (IE actually puts the launcher there) came out.
spauldo
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Er, this is not intended to be flamebait or anything, but if you hate compiling, why do you use slackware?
Don't get me wrong, I love slackware to death (I'm using it right now), but I also love compiling my own stuff (only thing on this system besides the base install + networking I compiled myself, including GNOME). Slackware's for the more do-it-yerselfer or I-want-something-like-BSD-but-I-dont-want-BSD type of user. If you like binary packages, but like a more slackwarish feel, you'd probably be happier with debian (or maybe stormix - never tried it myself).
spauldo
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Er, isn't that what ALT is for? I thought it was the intel version of META...
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Since when has that been a bad thing? :)
Just joking, folks...
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
this is so new it's not even announced on news.gnome.org yet!!
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
.... quite simple really.... unless you use som of those "smart" dists like RedHat, then you'll end up en dependency-hell.... The reason I switched to Slackware...
Bjarne
I LOVE gnome, but I can't monitor the leaks whe I use netscape! I use Mozilla to browse the web mostly because X doesnt run up to 89% memory usage when I use it..although..if I open more than one window (which I do ALOT)it'll just "poof" disappear on me :( When I get really pissed, I start using Hotjava..doesnt display html4.0 perfectly, but i can open 10 windows all day if I want
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
> actually, it's not possible to really work on a box running gnome/kde with 64Mo of ram. yes sir.
:-)
I do it all the time. Tip: stop Netscape as soon as its leaks are too big
It's... It's...
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
I think that they are using Zope? Anyone know?
Someone raised an issue here about ORBit's interoperability with other ORBs. Are there any problems in this arena?
BTW. It seems that OMG's Corba Component Model is cristalizing. I think they are arleady thrashing out final details. Are you planning to embrace this in Bonobo. Isnt' CCM actually going to make Bonobo a proprietary solution? Yes, I'm no components expert either ;-).
I too have more questions than answers about ORBit. If you just want to play with an ORB I recommend you look into MICO, TAO or omniORB. All three have lots of good stuff and are tested for interoperability with other ORBs. I'm sort of looking into ORBit because I might need C bindings fairly soon.
You could try and write a simple "hello" server and a client and use stringified IORs to see if they talk to each other. If it interoperates with say, MICO it's using standard IIOP (mico passed OMG's conformance tests). If it doesn't then it's crap and they shouldn't be calling it IIOP because ORBs are supposed ot interoperate on that level.
How the f**k is the parent post off-topic? He's obviously looking into writing Gnome component(s) in Java and wants to find out about interoperability issues. I'd say it's probably the most ON-TOPIC post so far. Just because it's way over your head doesn't mean it's not on topic. Frigging schoolboys moderating! Moderate it back up now.
Even without Java bindings he should be able to use another ORB (such as JacORB) and interoperate with ORBit. After all that's what CORBA's all about.
The "start" button has one function, and one function only. I thought that was obvious. To make the "user" comfortably feel as if he's just turning on a TV, not using the dreaded, oooooo, computer.
There's obviously no need for a "start" button on a GUI, and naming the button that resides on the taskbar "start" dosn't even vaguely describe its actual function as a popup menu.
Which brings me to my first reaction when being introduced to the "start" button anyway.
"Who the hell reads from the bottom left to the top right? Is there ANY Language written this way?"
Apple had the drop down menu system knocked. It's perfect, why mess with it? The taskbar isn't for menus, it's for managing tasks!
So, what is the killer GUI? It's only my opinion of course, and your milage may vary, but all the pieces are already in place.
Let me ask you, what is the number one ap a *nix GUI is used to launch? The terminal emulator!
So, imagine a GUI with drop down menus for core functionality following the Apple user interface research. User definable icons for launching key programs and functions on the desktop and/or taskbar, a user configurable taskbar of course, a drag and drop file manager optimizied for simple file manipulation, a simple unified configuration GUI for COMMON and simple settings and *an always live command line.*
What more could you want short of a psychic computer that just "knows" what you want to do?
Dont know about CDE but RiscOS had a taskbar and a start button like object before Microsoft had even begun to think about Win95. For those not in UK RiscOS ran on the acorn/archimedes range of machines.
>The W9X window border is thicker on all sides to >that of Mac OS up." yeah, and win98 now got an thicker menubar in each app. yet more pixels lost... BeOS got one of the neatest UIs I've seen. Those little tabs are wicked - now if you only could shrink thos borders a bit...
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Windows 2000 have a 20-megabyte-heavy kernel. Not Linux.
And, seriously, I doubt Gnome and KDE can be as bloated as windows. I've recently downloaded the whole KDE 2ß sources-tarball, with all packages, including the Qt library, french i18n packages, and unecessary stuff (like kdegames). Total around 30 megs.
I know we can't download a source tarball of MS-Windows+Explorer+MS-Office weighting only a little more than 30 megs. Even if the base OS files are removed, keeping only GUI, applications and MFC.
sigmentation fault
I know we can't download a source tarball of MS-Windows+Explorer+MS-Office, but if it was possible, it wouldn't be weighting only a little more than 30 megs. Even if the base OS files are removed, keeping only GUI, applications and MFC.
sigmentation fault
A good C++ toolkit is not too slow. Else it's a bad C++ toolkit. This will looks like trolling (and it's not) but, for example, the TrollTech guys (when we speak of trolling, actual trolls can be nearby ;) ) claim applications converted from Motif to Qt are faster with their baby. Yes, I know it can be just pure self-promotion.
Of course, C++ tend to be slower than C, and C slower than assembly, but when you use function library, you can end up with a greatly optimised C++ function being faster than a less well-designed plain C equivalent.
And with Sawmill instead of E, Gnome will finally deserve its faster-than-KDE reputation.
sigmentation fault
Impressive, but why the hell did the navigation panel on the left side use IMAGES instead of plain text ? I know that have an ALT thingies, but, hey, these images weren't really necessary. And users have more control of font size and readability than on images.
And, just for fun, try to validate this GNOME site. I may be a poor web designer, but MY HTML is always valid!
sigmentation fault
Oh, that silly "start" menu. Hey, it is in fact usable once you've customized it and move all entry to another place. I typically organized it by themes (applications, utilities, multimedia, internet, help, etc) whereas things always want to be installed by editors.
Each time another software is installed, I have to move (and, often, rename) its help to put them in the Help folder, to keep my Apps folder clean.
The Start menu is a pain (and put "stop" in "start" is a so strange idea). Gnome and KDE have a more rationnal approach of this menu, and we seldom need to have more than two levels of submenu (the first being the launcher menu).
Happily, we can in Win98 create a "Quicklaunch" bar, with icons for what we need. This has been obviously copied from Gnome and KDE.
sigmentation fault
When I was a kid, I always donned a mask before asking to lick the spoon so my mother wouldn't know I was trying to get more than my share. As an adult(?) I make "first post" trolls as an anonymous coward. Old habits die hard, don't they?
Now I have an urge for chocolate chip cookies smothered in cake frosting. This will play hell with my blood sugar problems. Look what you did to me, you Pavlovian bastard!
Damn, time to re-caffeinate
"I am an American. You are a sick asshole!!"
Does it still feel like Gnome is hold together with spaghetti?
Ore has this been resolved now that Enlightenment is no longer involved.
I sincerely hope that Gnome is now well on its way too bee a stable environment, it is the unstable nature of former Gnome releases that has helped KDE to gain such a phenomenal user base not to mention almost all distributions uses KDE as default environment, Debian is almost the only distribution too not do so.
There is still lots of Linux users that can not, even if they want too, use Linux exclusive on their hard disk without wasting partitions too that thing from Redmond.
I don't men this as a flame, I only hope that now there will bee something too help a lot of people away from Windows.
Diversity (Choice?) seems to bee weary good from a user perspective.
KDE The Real Desktop
From the press release:
"Thanks to Glade, even the most inept programmers can construct beautiful user interfaces."
Yeah, that certainly makes me respect the individual[s] responsible for constructing that press release.
Only in a culture where people buy books that call them dummies, could programmers refer to each other as inept in good spirit.
I 'm using it on this P166 with 32MB and It's running just fine
The P500 w 128Mb beside it running Win 98 is rebooting
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
I'm not sure that I agree there. I remember when I first started using computers, in the Win 3.1 days. The program that I used the most was Paintbrush. Since the 14" screen is so small, the program manager was usually maximized. This meant that whenever I accidentally clicked the program manager, paintbrush disappeared. Of course it was still running in the background, but I had no idea where it had gone, and instead opened a new paintbrush window. (Waiting five minutes for it to load...)
With a Start button and a taskbar this wouldn't have been a problem.
Color me silly, but didn't CDE, among other desktop environments, have a 'taskbar' long before (or at least sometime prior to) Win95? CDE's been around a while. I seem to recall back in '95 using FVWM which had a taskbar but I can't recall if that feature made it in before the release of Win 95'.... Don't give credit to the behemoth where it isn't due.
I tried to like KDE, but couldn't, because it had one nagging thing MS Windows has, the taskbars are pretty much rigid and uncustomizable. GNOME on the other hand, allows lots of flexibility with panels, that and GTK+ themes. Now, I probably just overlooked junk in KDE that would allow me to do that kind of stuff, but still... Also, I'm quite sure X windows had one of the first taskbars and so called "start" menus. Heh, yeah, I'm sure they innovated that, just like the innovated symbolic links (featured in Win2k, and yes, they claim to have invented them). Remember, as a rule of thumb, if you see it in a Micro$~1 product, it's been around for a while. Do some research, they innovate little more than new ways to further tangle up spaghetti code.
Regarding the UI in TVs, digital cable (even just regular cable I believe in some areas like Texas) does have the ability to let you know what's on the next/prev channel and you can also move forward in time too. This is not done via a TV guide button; it's actually an info bar on the screen. They still have the TV guide of course, but w/ the new info bar, you really don't need it unless you're browsing up to 7 days in advance. Consequently, they added a 4 button select pad for channel up/down and time forward/backward.
64Mb- I should get so lucky :-)
... been running Gnome (with enlightenment) on a 32MB Toshiba libretto up until very recently. Ran fine, admittedly a litle slow some times, but very few problems.
Wanted to become a little more productive so have switched to AfterStep (amazingly fast!) However it doesn't seem to like Gnome much. Something to do with session management, I think. Guess you can't have everything all in one day!
Am missing the eye candy, and the configurability, but am loving the speed increase.
Look forward to seeing the new kernal/gnome/kde releases (and hope the ratio of bug squashing to new features stays high!)
Julian
in the speech recognition department, all I need right away is a high priority STOP! and its equivalents, like AAAAAAARRRRGGHH!!
So this is more like leaping further ahead when it comes to technology
What other changes to the technology have been made?
you have no idea how much HelixCode actually puts into GNOME development, and HelixGnome is not exactly the same as your "regular" GNOME
The Tiny Window Server on the Amiga, 1987.
This is what I mean. From the Orbit Beginners Documentation FAQ
Does ORBit work with other ORBs?
Yes. This is one of the primary features of CORBA, and available through the Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP). There is one pitfall: ORBit has a proprietary security mechanism to authenticate clients. If interoperability is desired then you might have to figure out a work around for this.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
This is a bug in your browser, triggered whenever it's looking at files in an FTP directory dated in the future, a relatively common occurrence when looking at fresh files in from a different timezone.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
Seriously, have you ever installed a Slack package that wasn't part of the distribution?
1. Yes you can: right click on a panel -> panel properties -> hiding -> auto.
2. Alt-Tab traverses trough the various windows on the default setup
Miguel
It is simply amazing to me how this figure has spread. It was the largest reasonable figure that you could quote from the original report.
63,000 is a figure based on an internal email which in turn looks to be based on output from an automated testing tool. The internal estimate for real problems detected is about 28,000 or so. Plus some unknown number of interface issues, interactions not detected, documentation mistakes, etc, etc, etc.
But read the original report for yourself. Mary Joe Foley was careful in what she said, virtually nobody commenting on it has paid attention to that though.
Again, Microsoft has a long internal list of potential known problems. They think that slightly under half of those are actually bugs. There are an unknown (and probably large) number of real bugs out there that their tools didn't know to look for. There are large numbers of potential issues which people can legitimately differ on whether or not it is a bug or user confusion.
Given all that, the real figures are bad enough. There is no need to misquote them to make them look worse, then run the risk of running into Microsoft supporters who can demonstrate that you don't have a clue what you are talking about...
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
You are joking, right?
Szo
Red Leader Standing By!
I got my A3000 at its launch, running RISC OS 2, in 1988.
It had the task bar and disk controls.
--
Peter
In 1992, fvwm had the GoodStuff window, which is an application launcer. Is that what you're thinking of?
FVWM 2.x and FVWM95 have that extra window that looks like a taskbar and has a Start-like menu on it. That was done in emulation of Microsoft AFAIK. (I'm probably wrong on that last point, so don't flame me if I am. cavet lector!)
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Gnome is nice and everything, but does anyone else see an add for the best open source desktop: gnome 1.2 in the banner ad on top of this slashdot page?
Yep, I saw it.
Seeing as how I've never before seen a KDE add ( and correct me if I'm wrong KDE is more popular),
I'm not going to say you're wrong, but it's certainly subject to opinion.
I can only assume that the little gnome( gnomes? ) who left the footprint must be performing some sort of sexual favors for the slashdot gang.
Or they could have *gasp* PAID FOR A BANNER AD.
The ad is actually for "Helix Code", the company formed by several of the core GNOME developers, and whose current (but not only) product is "Helix GNOME", a Helix Code-branded version of GNOME.
Jay (=
Yeah, and when the directive came down to "Obey Fitts law," the team delegated that task to the lawyer.
Slackware has the simplest package format around: .tgz files!
Somebody at Helix needs to get slack, and fast!
That's the whole point. Lots of people are used to having a CDE taskbar and an Apple Menu. GNOME/KDE aren't trying to make a new GUI; they're trying to make a GUI similar to what the mainstream uses.
Don't hold your breath waiting for GNOME/KDE to "revolutionise the way we use our computer desktop" because that's not what they're trying to do. The purpose isn't to give Unix the best possible GUI, it's to give Unix a mainstream GUI.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Just for once, why not hold off on announcements until the sodding mirrors have updated. Then *more* people can get at the stuff quicker rather than the core site and the mirrors that are attempting to update being pounded into oblivion.
Responsible reporting doesn't mean first post.
And then the guy in the cubicle next to you freaks out starts screaming "@#$@ Biff! Shut up! If you want it bold hit Control-B! Do you realize how annoying your voice is? How hard do you think it is for me to listen to you talking at your computer for 8 hours a day!!! And about that letter you dictated to your doctor yesterday, yes of course you should have that rash looked at! No, it's not normal for ones privates to ooze green pus, and no, there is no cure for chronic anal leakage!"
Execpt a lot of those "bugs" fall into feature requests, bugs for versions years ago, or bugs for other things, like Redhat, or KDE, or even Microsoft.
And there's even some "Why do you use Linux you stupid nerds, Microsoft Rulez!!!" flames there too.
I'm not saying there's not bugs, but there's not as many as bugs.gnome.org says.
Wow. I agree. The new gnome site is impressive. I wonder who the designer is because they really must understand design! Which seems to be rather rare in our community. No offense.
..that further standardization is a must?
I'm not talking about ditching either KDE
or Gnome, although I'm more in favor of Gnome.
I'm talking about:
1. Making KDE and GNOME work together, being
able to drag and drop to eachother, and sharing
objects.
2. Making KDE-apps look like Gnome-apps when
run under Gnome, and vica versa.
Some sort of QT 2.0/GTK theming-schema, that contains information about what QT-theme corresponds to what GTK theme.
This would make it possible to make the fact that
they aren't really the same transparent to the
user.
Think about being able to mix and match KDE and
Gnome apps as you want, without sacrificing much
of the interoperability.
This is truly necessary, IMHO, because both
DE's have some great applications, that I want
to use without loosing funcionality, and without
switching DE.
I have heard something about 1. at least. Which
is good, but do you have any further information
as a GNOME-developer?
The same can probably be said about the famous 63k-bug-list MS had for W2K.
0x or or snor perron?!
or probably earlier
~ppppppppö
Yes, "Helix" GNOME ... they customize GNOME somewhat, so they have reason to stick their name on it. You get some stuff in Helix's GNOME packages that don't come with standard GNOME of the form you find at ftp.gnome.org. To the best of my knowledge, what Helixcode adds is all under the GPL, though, so if the GNOME team decided to add those programs to the standard distributions, they could.
If RedHat released a custom kernel that extended the capabilities of the kernel, then yeah, they could call it "RedHat kernel 2.4" Of course if they did, they'd have hell to pay. Or maybe not, since it would be GPL'd, and everybody could use it and we could thank them for contributing yet again to kernel development, and there'd be no point in calling it "RedHat kernel" any more.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
- Change the xmodmap file to recognize the "windows" button on the keyboard. Some distros, such as Mandrake, do this for you.
- Changed the binding for "move to next virtual desktop" to win-right, and "move to previous virtual desktop to win-left. That way, I hold down the button, and can move left or right through virtual desktops. Plus, since Sawmill can dynamically expand the number of desktops you have, you never run out!
- I made it even better by making win-l be the same as win-right and win-j the same as win-left. That way, when I am typing I never have to remove my fingers from their "home position" to move around desktops.
Believe me, this setup is really fast, and you can't get used to anything else. I love Sawmill, er, Sawfish.Got HTML? Want LaTeX? Try html2latex
The Start button was truly revolutionary as was the task bar. It was these revolutions that made Win95 so popular, why would any of the other desktop programs not one to include their own version of these useful features?
&
It is not that they "are unable to think on a large enough scale", it is more like waiting for the next "quantum leap". These things don't happen everyday, someone will come up with the next thing eventually, that someone may work for GNOME, KDE, even Microsoft; it doesn't matter. Once that new thing is worked out and in the next release of code, the others will copy it (even/especially Microsoft).
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
Oh, please. It is this diversity that makes us strong. I can't decide if this is a troll, or not. Choice is a GOOD THING. If the open source model works, then people work on what they like to - who cares if it's stable? If you don't like it, don't USE it! Or, even better, go write something that you like, then we can all benefit from your infinite wisdom and code grace. :)
I have a 486 router running linux that fits on a floppy. No bloat there. Try THAT trick with windows 2000! The fact that linux is that modular and customizable dispite being in the millions of lines of code is a phenominal effort. Do you know how many people microsoft employs just managing builds of windows? Did you know that managing the development of the bloated mess windows is more of a hinderance to the development of the OS than bugs themselves?
Linux absolutely floors me with the sheer volume and quality of the software available for it, all through the work of people that do it for the love of the art, not money or fame. Remember the 1.1.x days? When slackware was (the?) only distro? Ahh yeah. Remember ordering CDs of buggy software from Walnut Creek or the like to hack on it, for the fun? This is the result of all that effort. If you want stability, run a old version of X, with a window manager like IceWM, and enjoy!
The french said it best: To each, his own. Use what you like, and hang on for the ride. It's going to get wild. It's barely been a year since gnome was stable enough to stay up for more than an hour or two!
Kudos!
..don't panic
Windows 2000 have a 20-megabyte-heavy kernel. Not Linux.
Not Windows 2000 either. The so-called "kernel" of Windows 2000 is more like "Linux Kernel + X windows + video drivers + very complete graphics library."
The Open Source Way: clone other software, take all the credit, keep all the bloat. I mean that seriously, not as a troll.
In all honesty, both Gnome and KDE are turning into free Windows clones. They're not any slimmer, not any easier to use, not any more stable. 'twould be nice if we could say "Look at how we can do the same thing as Microsoft in 1/20 the resources!" or "Look at the bold ease of use changes we're making!"
And they do the same job. What a coincidence!
>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, quite a coincidence. Its incredible how Linux zealots complain about Window's bloat, UNTIL, Linux gets just as bloated. BeOS (and a number of other OSs) do the same job, yet are much slimmer.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I guess by "crap" you mean "applications"? Seriously, Linux and Gnome could be a lot
smaller if they ditched support for existing Unix/X applications and standards, but then
nobody except you would use them. Unfortunately a lot of computer users want to do
useful work with their computers rather than spending their time measuring each other's
kernels.
>>>>>>>
No, I don't mean apps. I was talking about system size. The crap (crap in the sense of legacy code, not bad systems!) I mean isn't support for POSIX either. I am talking about the huge amount of redundancy present in a desktop Linux system. You have libraries crawling up the walls. Is there a reason I have to have curses on my system? Or if I don't have that, I have to have TK? Would it kill the kernel developers to make a X based config tool (Native, not dependant on TK)? Redundancy is the #1 problem in Linux. It isn't like Linux has that much legacy app support over BeOS, it's just that the BeOS ones are immature. Already, BeOS has a decent X server, nearly full POSIX complience, a nearly finished NATIVE GTK+ implementation, and a BeWine project that is progressing quite nicely. Yet, still, the average BeOS system (even loaded with these goodies) is hugly less memory intensive than a Linux system. I don't measure the kernel for no reason. I measure the amount of resident memory each takes, and I measure swap activity, and I measure system responsiveness. If these are trivial, well, we have different priorities.
You said it. Why would anyone run KDE and Gnome when they do the same job? And
by the way, it's CORBA, not COBRA.
>>>>>>>>>
Sorry, I've always thought it was COBRA. Sounds much less cooler now. Anway, I see that you are someone who doesn't like GNOME, yet love the KDE apps. Currently, I use GNOME with Sawmill because it looks so much nicer, and the environment is much better. I do, however, like KDevelop. Thus, I have to install both GNOME and KDE.
It's CORBA you monkey!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You settle for trivial responses, but think about it. Why NOT a system-wide CORBA implementation. What's there to lose? There is a lot to gain!
Oh, it's just architecture differences? Well then, they're basically the same, aren't they?
Just like Windows and Linux are basically just two operating systems that provide some
services to applications. Monkey.
>>>>>>>
You are so shallow. Do you even think before you post? If you ever read the DirectX docs, you should realize that architecture is independant of interface IN A WELL DESIGNED SYSTEM. It is very possible (using a COM-like object system) to design a DE whose backend architecture can be seperated from the middle-ware, and still stay compatible with any GUI the user wishes to use. Take the CORBA implementaiton. CORBA has a set API, no? Why not make an object (or a library or whatever) to allow an app to access CORBA. Now, you can use whatever damn CORBA implementation you chose, as long as it responds in a given way to a given input. Thats why apps designed for DirectX 1.0 still work perfectly on DirectX 8.0 AND take advantage of the speed of the new implementation. As long as a higher level GUI uses only these objects to access services, the backend architecture can be changed without having to keep around two complete implementations. Think about it, no more keeping around two different widget sets that do the same thing, but only differ in HOW they do them.
They did. It's calle Xlib.
Xlib is good for what it is, but it is feature poor and NOT IMPLEMENTATION INDEPENDANT. It relys too heavily on X providing the backend services. Plus, it does none of the things the new DEs have set out to do.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
One the basic things about the usability of menus is that multilevel cascading menus have poor usability. They may work for beginners since they are possibly intuitive, but that's about it. The taskbar works, but there are probably better solutions.
I'd like to see more apps that let the user work with the document and not fill the screen with all kinds of toolbars, wizards, dancing paperclips and whatnot. More visible tools does not mean better usability. Simple direct manipulation interfaces are often better. There's a distinction between usability for novices and usability for experienced users. Designing for the latter usually means that the former is not as good and viceversa, so making the most stupid and simple UI is not the best solution.
Oddly enough, it doesn't look like there are Java bindings for Orbit (Unless I was just looking in the wrong place.) That's a bit odd since there seem to be bindings for everything else. It might make an interesting project to add them in. Or ask IBM to -- They've got an interpreter and should be open to an idea that cool, if you can get it to the right people in the company...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Check on developer.gnome.org. They seem to have more comprehensive information there, though you have to dig around a bit to find everything.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
October GNOME hasn't got KDE quite beat yet. With KDE's panel you can easily chinge the hieght and such. With the current stable, you're pretty much stuck.
With Helix Gnome (and CVS Gnome) you get a little more control of panel sizes and placement. I just finished compiling Helix Gnome yesterday, and I'm pleased. I like the small panels (24 pixel height) so much better that being stuck at 48 pixel panels.
The next stable release will probally have KDE2 beat (my opinion, never was a KDE fan) The KDE browser might be the only good reason to add some KDE suppot packages. =)
For interested Potato users, I threw up the Helix Gnome packages I compiled under potato here:
ringworld.org
ringworld.net
g33ks.net
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
The Win9x GUI is one of two things Microsoft managed to get right (Word97 being the second), and at the time it was revolutionary.
But, it's still based on the work done by Xerox in the 70's, as are all desktop systems. Obviously coming up with a new way to interact with a computer isn't such an easy task.
Maybe with technology such as voice recognition (Who needs a GUI when there's no mouse?), or even 3D Graphics & VR (How about a 3D desktop that you can navigate on the Z axis as well? A wheelmouse could do that...). Direct nueral interfaces (Hitch Hikers GTT Galaxy has an interesting concept)...the list goes on.
As long as we are stuck with archaic typing and pointing devices to interact with our computers, we'll be stuck with the desktop IMHO.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
i succeded at using java with Oracle, (i needed to use gnome-db from an application I wrote for my thesis). The big problem was the authentication scheme: the only solution was to use the Visibroker for Java ORB, which supports Principals. The build-in sun ORB does not support it, so i can't use the ORBit cookie file for the authentication...
huh - you must type in really speedy. Of course it depends how you use those menus: with some jumpy dirty mouse or good mouse w/ keyboard.
For example say I want to start netscape (or new netscape window if it's already running). I press following keys: ctrl-esc (root menu) n(etscape). On the other hand to start it by typing ctrl-alt-t (for terminal window) and after that "n e t s c a p e" and pressing enter would be slower (but again for my typing speed) or even ctrl-alt-t n e t s c tab enter.
And image doesn't change even if application that I need to start is not in the root menu because I can open each one of the submenus with one keypress. For example ctrl-esc a(pplications) w(ww-browsers) l(ynx) would start lynx with with equal number of keypresses as using cli and you could do that even if you wouldn't remember program's name in the beginning (because you see possible choices in the menu in each step).
Of course if I want to do something like "replace all references to your old email user@domain1.com to user2@domain2.org in text files under your home directory" I would do it with perl from command line. But trying to explain/teach that to Average Joe would be pain in a butt and he would probably do it faster by opening one file at time and fixing it.
I'm aware that I'm not average user and that some people use more mouse in GUI but if you are going to teach average people to use CLI I would consider other choices also.
Now go spend some quality time here.
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Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
I've also been annoyed that Linux GUIs tend to either copy the Win95 look'n'feel or neXt. There just isn't much else, except maybe plain old Motif.
I enjoyed using the OS/2 Workplace Shell for years, while that was viable. The WPS was the only GUI that was sufficiently functional that I didn't always feel the need to have a command prompt open. Of course it had a command prompt, and I used it, but I just felt less compelled to than with any other GUI.
The true strength of the WPS was in consistently applying an object model to everything visible from the desktop. There was no 'extension hiding' shortcuts like in Win95, and file-association-type-things were much better and more consistently handled.
There was a partial attempt called DFM a while back. It wasn't really deep enough to do the whole job, but it was an interesting start. Unfortunately it was hosted on MassLinux, and never came back.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Basically it works, but there are two pitfalls:
The easiest is the name service (CosNaming). Orbit doesn't yet implement the bootstrap protocol for finding the name service, so your Java ORB will probably not find it. The workaround is to run the name service of your Java ORB, and let Gnome components register themselves there. You have to start the name service before Gnome, somehow obtain its stringified IOR, and tell the Gnome apps about the IOR. OK - I'm handwaving a little here.
Second, there's authentication. ORBit does nothing nonstandard here, but Gnome apps use ORBit through the Gnorba library. Gnorba embeds a magic cookie in the principal field of IIOP. If your Java ORB lets you manipulate the principal field, you can configure it with the cookie, which you can find in a property of the root window of your X display. See gnome-libs/libgnorba/orbitgtk.c for the gory details.
If you can't tell your Java ORB what principal to use, you can disable authentication in libgnorba. This is only safe in a secure environment - everybody on your network will be able to do what they want with your Gnome components. But what you do is patch the function gnome_ORBit_request_validate in orbitgtk.c to always return ORBIT_MESSAGE_ALLOW_ALL. Build libgnorba and install it in place of the version you've got. You don't have to reinstall anything else.
But remember, this is unsafe on an open network.My point is, surely there must be another quantum leap which can be made, which will again revolutionise the way we use our computer desktops? I just hope GNOME has the vision to try to discover the way forward, rather than living in the shadow of Microsoft. Despite the Open Source development model allowing humanity's greatest thinkers to collaborate on GNOME, it seems that these developers are unable to (or are afraid to) think on a large enough scale to surpass Microsoft.
Yes, that title is leading to some confusion. There are actually two things being released at the same time. One is GNOME 1.2, the other is Preview 2 of the Helix GNOME Desktop. This release of the Helix GNOME Desktop includes GNOME 1.2.
As you said, we just re-package GNOME in an easily installable and updatable form.
Peter
Yes, ORBit can be used independently of GNOME.
Miguel.
"Oh yes, and don't credit Microsoft for the "start" menu. Apple had the "apple" menu a while before that, providing the same functionality."
Right. And the rest of the taskbar is isomorphic to that "other" menu on MacOS (on the right side, I don't know what it's called). Furthermore, does anyone remember Dashboard (?) for Windows? It provided a "taskbar" and virtual desktops (much like many Linux window managers do today) for Windows 3.x back in the early 90's. The extent to which Win95 is revolutionary it is useless and the extent to which it is useful it is conventional.
Microsoft's UI research team must consist of:
1) A guy named Joe who reminisces about UIs he used to use.
2) A woman named Kathy who periodically downloads/buys other operating systems, has her son install them, and then picks three random features from each.
3) A lawyer (no name)
4) A program to generate marketing text: "Revolutionarily easy to use!", "Next Generation Innovation", "As easy as a prom date!"
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Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
And, just for the sake of it, you might want to check out the new look on www.gnome.org... ;)
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
It's true. Linux is becoming increasingly more bloated. In terms of memory use, its true. GNOME +X +Linux take as much memory as Windows. I find it incredible how much bloat is left in Linux in general. Sure, it is much better at managing it than most other OSs, but a clean kernel does not a clean system make. The Linux kernel has around 2 million lines of code and takes 10 minutes to compile (on my PII300.) It takes 90 minutes to compile X, so lets be conservative and say that X is 10 million lines of code. That is 12 million lines right there. GNOME takes almost as long as X to compile, so lets estimate another 8 million lines there. (I'm hugely low balling it.) That is around 20 million lines of code. With QT/KDE (which is almost required for the GNOME-faithfull to run cool apps like KDevelop), that climbs to 25-30 million lines. That is nearly as much as Windows 2K (only 3-5 million lines less). In comparison, BeOS is a sevelte 1.5 million lines for the entire OS. Don't belive me, root around the /boot/beos/system directory some time. The kernel is about 700K, the servers about 3.5 meg, the drivers are less than 500K(it loads drivers dynamically) and deskbar and tracker are about 2.5 meg. In total, the entire /boot/beos/system directory is 36 meg which incluldes all libraries, codecs, kernel add ones, unused drivers, etc. It is easy to see why. BeOS doesn't have nearly as much crap in it as Linux does. Take the whole KDE/GNOME/X thing. If someone runs KDE 2 and GNOME 2, they will have a total of two large cobra implementations, three drag and drop protocols, three print servers, three+ widget sets, dozons of critical libraries, and an ass-load of duplicated functionality. Choice is good, bloat is bad. This is why Linux cries out for standardization. Why cannot a Linux-wide COBRA implementation be used? Is the one time loss of a little bit of programming flexibility (face it, GNOME and KDE do the same thing. For the programmer, it is just an API preference.) worth the extra 30 meg loss in memory? Is it really necessary to have a seperate GNOME print architecture, or for Qt and GTK+ not to be binary compatible? How exactly is GNOME different from KDE aside from ascthetics(namely that until 2.0 the KDE people had none)? Sure there are some architecture differences, but to the app, they provide basically the same services with the same features. I don't begrudge people flexibility. I just think that Linux is becoming increasingly bloated, and people aren't taking any steps to curb it. It would be really nice if someone would define a standard set system of objects, (or function calls, no-one cares) that could be implemented by and DE and widget set of the users choice. Now THERE is smart flexibility.
PS: I know flamers won't read this far before responding, but I'll try anyway. Don't say that Linux is so flexible you can leave these things out. If you want a modern feature-rich desktop OS, at the moment, KDE and GNOME are the only players. Until KDE 2.0 becomes stable, the situation is even worse, because GNOME has a better environment, while KDE has better apps.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
This is actually Gnome 1.2. As Helix code often point out, they simply re-package Gnome. Having said that, this is a great leap forward for gnome, now if only they went through the bug reports and fixed them all. In the current state, Microsoft could say, look at all these bugs, they have thousands to fix as well.
Hey, great! I hear that Red Hat Linux Kernel 2.4 will be out soon, too. ;)
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Just because computer technology evolves and improves rapidly, it doesn't mean that user interfaces need to change so quickly.
People are not like computers; they can't switch their behaviors with a simple configure; make; make install Habits are learned, and hard to break. Why go to all that trouble, to make change for its own sake?
Take the "revolution" you mention: Microsoft's start menu. The whole idea of replacing the big, easy-to-use Program Manager, with a little menu hidden in the corner, is absurd.
You'll notice that GNOME and KDE provide far more functionality in their panels, than Microsoft ever provided in Win95..98.. NT 4.. 2000. The ability to place buttons on there, to run frequently-used apps, is a nice way to workaround the usability nightmare of the tiny start button.
Oh yes, and don't credit Microsoft for the "start" menu. Apple had the "apple" menu a while before that, providing the same functionality.
While I'm pleased that the GNOME project is coming along well, I must admit that I still find it truly underwhelming. GNOME still feels to be very much emulating the look and feel of Windows 95, although GNOME's superior stability is the major difference.
From where I'm sitting, I'd say you can just about configure a window manager running Gnome applications to look like almost any windowing system currently available. Because the majority of people who use computers these days are used to the GUI paradigms of Windows and Mac OS, it's hardly surprising that much of the Gnome functionality is familiar too. If they had produced something a long way away from the current User Interfaces they would have faced accusations of being out of touch with current GUI thinking.
Much as I hate to admit this, Microsoft revolutionised GUI with the "Start" button and taskbar, which provides an easy and efficient way to get things done.
B*&^^%#@!!!
Sorry. I get so mad when somebody gets this idea that MS came up with the taskbar first for Windows 95, especially since I'd been using a system with a taskbar and application launcher for about 7 years in 1995 (Acorn Risc OS, preceeded by Acorn Arthur for those with long memories). And I'm fairly certain Risc OS was not the only GUI using a taskbar before Windows 95.
The other GUIs (CDE, KDE, GNOME) have all followed suit with similar taskbars, and have been sucessful in their attempts.
The taskbar is a useful guide which should, at it's most basic level, provide two things:
Anything else is window dressing or convenience, but these two seem to be the core requirement. Since most of the window managers, such as Sawfish, Afterstep, E, etc., all provide copious mechanisms for customizing or doing away with the taskbar altogether, it's not surprising that they have been successful in their efforts. It is also rewarding to see that they have not blindly followed the "Windows Way" of doing things and have left the choice of how to optimize the available tools as a customizable feature.
My point is, surely there must be another quantum leap which can be made, which will again revolutionise the way we use our computer desktops?
There may be. But first, we need to see some serious standardization in the way that the window elements are arranged so that the elusive goal of a consistent user interface across many applications is acheived. Nothing slows a GUI user down more than discovering that orders of buttons like 'Continue Editing', 'Save', 'Cancel' keep switching around so that Cancel is sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right, or ridiculously small toolbar buttons on an application which bear no resemblence to their function, or other nasties like 40+ small icons on a toolbar to distract the eye when looking for one little used function.
Once there is a degree of uniformity in the way that applications are laid out, then maybe we can step onto the next level of user friendliness. Quite where this will lead is another matter. I, for one, do not want the GUI interfering with my work or making inane suggestions - I have Vigor for that. I think that speech integration may go a long way to speeding up the interaction with the computer. For example, I want an application loaded, say Emacs (what else could I need? :-) ) and I simply ask for it to be loaded. I want to see the time, I ask for it and the computer tells me - this could be either spoken to me or shown on screen. I want to bold text while editing, I simply say "Bold" and keep typing. In fact, speech recognition should allow a user to keep their hands on the keyboard for most of the time and leave that mouse gathering cobwebs at the side. Finally all those modal windows could be dismissed with a quick word. I'd say that would make a huge step forward in productivity with a UI - effectively making use of another channel of input to supplement the accurate input channel of the keyboard.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
HelixCode has enough mirrors to stand a slashdotting, but only if those mirrors have the code. Every person who doesn't try to pound on the mirrors is 30 more that will be able to download GNOME soon.
Please be responsible members of the community!
(and BTW, gnome people are VERY mad at slashdot right now)
-Seth Nickell
- Portable Object Adapter + all policies
- Naming Service
- Event Service
- Objects by Value
- Implementation Repository
Last time I saw a posting about Orbit on comp.object.corba it did not get a great review. Does anyone know if things have improved since? Only people having a clue need reply.As a Java programmer, I would like to play with the Orbit, the Gnome ORB, from a Java program. So far I have not seen any information as to how to do this. I've asked the gnome list and no one there could help me. From what I understand Orbit more or less a standard Corba ORB but it uses some sort of different authentication scheme. Does this make it incompatable with other ORBs, or does it still work? Can anyone provide pointers or information on this?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.