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.
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
This release introduces gdkpixbuf witch add alpha-transparency to the panel, and there is other small panel fixes like the panel is now resizable.
Gnome Print went into this release.
And finally with GTk--1.2.x and Gnome-- 1.1.x GNOME finally has a good C++ toolkit.
On the usability front the replacement of Enlightenment with Sawmill creates a more integrated non-duplicating environment.
--
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 (=
I'd rather have warning messages displayed than suppressed. I'd like to see when something is going even sort of wrong.
Of course, I'd rather see the causes for the warnings fixed above all else.
pooptruck
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.
> Does anyone else think GNOME's versioning is a little... inflated? If "October GNOME" is any indication, GNOME should still be pre-1.0.
No. I do think the original 1.0 was inflated, but the 1.0.53 "October" release has been good to me. I've used it intensively at home and at work almost since day one, and have only found three bugs in it.
Actually, by modern standards 1.0.53 is more like v 5.0 of what some companies release. We've just got to learn to look past the numbers and see what's really there.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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?
EFM is using SGI's fam mainly because it is an excellent library for file management type tasks. EFM's development is quite stunning, if you watch the E CVS mailing lists you know what I mean
I've noticed some FUD floating around about EFM as of late, mainly by people who obviously haven't used it. There are no toolbars, html viewers, and other things like that. You have windows with icons and menus (translucent menus at that) and a typebuffer with glob matching and other fun stuff.
If you would like to see several shots of EFM in action, please go to my site at http://saturn5.locnet.net/dphase. There are several shots of EFM there showing exactly what it can do.
--
Joshua Deere (dphase@locnet.net)
UNIX Systems Administrator, LOCNET Internet Services
jd
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.
If you are planning on removing the rpms, I suggest getting all of the tarballs unpacked and ready, then remove a gnome application, install that application from tarball, remove the next rpm, install that tarball...
remember to recompile everything once you get to compiling gtk+ and glib...
I sugest these cautious steps because I don't trust RPMs very much and I just assume that they won't let everything work right.
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.
_________________________
_________________________
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.I think that your comment was uncalled for and inaccurate.
KDE is no more a standard than GNOME.
My guess is that you are:
1. Not a developer, or at least not a very productive developer for either GNOME *or* KDE
(Why do I say that? Because if you were a contributer to either of those 2 projects you would not have made such a comment. You are free to prefer either one over the other, but a true contributor would not put down someone elses efforts. Both KDE and GNOME are a LOT of work and should both be highly respected.)
2. Out to start a flame war because you are either a complete a$$ or you feel you have to bash GNOME in order to justify running KDE (which you shouldn't have to do if you felt it was so much better)
3. Disrespectful (relating back to point #1) and I am thus VERY glad you aren't a GNOME developer because I for one would NOT want someone like you representing GNOME. And if I were a KDE developer, I wouldn't want you either.
I am very proud to be a GNOME developer and I respect KDE for it's accomplishments and believe it is very good. I would *never* direct such negative comments toward KDE like what you just directed toward GNOME.
I think it's silly to have flamewars, this is NOT what Linux/Open Source is all about. It should be about choices, working together for a common good and respect - something which you apparently do not have.
If you cannot respect others, then you cannot respect yourself.
fejj
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!"
--
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.
Name: parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk Address: 195.92.249.252
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.