Gnome for Solaris 8 Preview

jiggywhiteboy writes: "Sun has released a preview version of the Gnome desktop for Solaris 8. The release includes version 1.4 of the desktop, Nautilus, Gnome-VFS, Bonobo, and GConf. Sun warns: "Exploring the GNOME 1.4 Desktop is an unsupported prerelease of the next-generation desktop for the Solaris Operating Environment. Given its prerelease status, we recommend that this software be installed on a non-mission-critical system, and used only by those who regularly test prerelease products" Try it out!"

Comments

Re:why platform specific?

[Skeezix]

Who said anything about a "special version"? What Sun is releasing is Solaris binaries. Someone has to do the build, and Sun is releasing their binaries. Also Sun has made numerous contributions which have gone right into Gnome CVS. These contributions include patches to fix certain quirks with running on Sun hardware. For the most part, GNOME is highly portable--and has been from the beginning. GTK+, Glib, and the gnome libs were implemented and designed using highly portable C. And yes, you can "just build it on Solaris and be done with it."
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Re:Sun did Gnome usability testing

[Skeezix]

Yes.

• Sun's Slide Presentation
• Test Script used in the study
• Comments and conclusions taken from the study

Enjoy.
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Re:why platform specific?

[selectspec]

Try it. Building GNOME on Solaris was a complete pain in the arse. http://www.clanger9.demon.co.uk/computer/gnome/ is a list of the various hacks to build on Solaris (no longer nessessary).