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Solaris 9 Will Be Updated WIth Gnome 2.0
JAZ writes: "According to this article, 'The newest version of the GNOME open source desktop will not be ready in time to ship with Solaris 9 next year, but it will be included with a subsequent Solaris 9 quarterly update ...' Go Gnome!" I wonder if anyone truly prefers CDE.
By the way... Gnome 2.0? What enhacements will they implement? I think its better to make it usable rather than making new versions. Un*x desktops have one handicap, Win-Mac are still far more usable than any combination existing on Un*x OSes.
Btw, Fp
------- The last Sig. got fired.
Yes I DO prefer CDE. Maybe its just because Ive been using it for so long, but if given a choice between Gnome and CDE on a solaris machine - I choose CDE.
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
Well, I'm just learning *nix, and I was wondering what windowmanager would be more useful to know. It looks like now I have my answer.
Why? Because its smaller and runs faster - nuff said, I'm a speed freak. I don't need bells and wistles on my Sun's desktop, I'll save em for machines that aren't expected to compile large programs on demand and as fast as possible.
man is machine
I'm not too savy on Solaris, but I do know that I like that CDE!
Can all fish swim?
I'm not big on Gnome or CDE but XFCE is a great WM I use it with Solaris and Linux it's similar to CDE but a bit more flexiable and quicker. IMO I don't see the big deal if Gnome ships with Solaris or not bacause you can always download it. But then again that may suck for people on a dial up connection.
Snoozer.
I wonder if anyone truly prefers CDE.
I do. As long I still use the older 32-bit Sun workstations (SPARCstation 10, 20, etc.), I will use CDE (or at least something lighter than GNOME).
For example, I tried GNOME on an older SPARCstation model, and the CPU utilization meter alone utilized 50% of the CPU! Talk about irony.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Solaris's CDE has great feel to it; gnome is great in concept, but without enforcing repaint discipline it's annoying to watch all the little objects bubble-up to the current state of the gui. CDE doesn't do that.
--- The reclining dragon deeply fears the blue pool's clarity.
Although gnome is yummy snd cool, it's main drawbacks (to me) are
.init file. I miss my one stop init file.
1) not stable enough. Maybe 2.0 will be different, but my win98 box crashes less frequently (although by "crashes" I should say "freezes up" I can always kill enough processess to get going again.)
2) no
3) slow slow slooow (maybe 2.0 better)
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
You're only wondering that because you haven't experienced the pain of OpenWindows[tm], winner of the [entirely fictitious and just-invented] Most Unintuitive Interface In The Entire Fscking World Award.
Drop-down menus are dropped down with which button? The first, you say? Oh no, that would be far too obvious and industry-standard. The third button drops down a menu. If you press the first button, it activates the first entry in the menu, without ever dropping the menu down. Sort of a speed-select. Confusing as flaming fuck to people who don't expect it: if the first entry is "New Window" then you merely have windows popping up. "I clicked on "File" and a new window popped up? Huh?"
If the first entry is more, shall we say, "proactive," then you just lost data. Or had a file overwritten when you were just experimenting. Or... who knows what just happened, since there may not be any visual feedback to whatever the fsck the first menu entry happens to be.
I and my users were both extremely happy when we were able to move from OpenWindblows to CDE. They will be happier still if I ever get the chance to build KDE 2.2 for my SPARCs.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I thought this statement from the article was rather strange:
:)
"The other nice thing about GNOME is you can continue running your standard CDE motif applications, they just run on the GNOME desktop. Also, Java
applications can run on the desktop, so you really end up having the best of both worlds."
Under that logic couldn't you argue that since you can use gnome applications under CDE is the best of both worlds? If they still have motif applications you're not getting the best of both worlds, you're getting gnome with some nasty motif flavored bits
Ian
Before I get flamed - I am speaking in terms of modern workstations, not servers. you shouldn't be running x on your servers anyways.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
I hope they will continue to include the OpenWindows desktop as well, does anybody know if they are planning to drop OpenWindows in favor of Gnome, or will Openwindows, Gnome, and CDE all be available?
:)
Even though I like OpenWindows, I almost always have my default sessions set to use CDE, since that way I can easily have my window manager the same on all the UNIX platforms I use (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, OSF/1), with the exception of IRIX.
man tunefs | grep fish
Not to bash Gnome, but I've had plenty of troubles getting a clean install of any linux disto w/ Gnome as the default work consistently among more than 2 reboots. Icons disappearing, bitmaps getting corrupted out of the blue, etc... It seems a bit odd that Sun is making Gnome the default desktop just out of the blue like this without first distributing it as simply an 'alternative'. Does anyone agree? Am I misinformed about Gnome becoming the new default. -C "All the world is like cereal. If you're not a fruit or a nut, you're a flake."
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD-is-dying-posting community when last month IDC confirmed that *BSD-is-dying-posting accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all troll posting. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD-is-dying-posting has lost more trolling share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD-is-dying-posting is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD-is-dying-posting's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD-is-dying-posting faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD-is-dying-posting because *BSD-is-dying-posting is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD-is-dying-posting. As many of us are already aware, *BSD-is-dying-posting continues to lose trolling share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. *BSD-is-dying-posting is the most endangered of them all.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
*BSD-is-dying-posting leader Benny "Stupid Trolling Retard" McGoatfucker states that there are 7000 *BSD-is-dying-posters. How many *BSD-is-dying-posters are there? Let's see. The number of *BSD-is-dying-posting versus Imagine-a-Beowulf-cluster posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 *BSD-is-dying-posting users. Goatse.cx-link posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of *BSD-is-dying-posting posts. Therefore there are about 700 posters of Goatse.cx links. A recent article put *BSD-is-dying-posting at about 80 percent of the idiotic trolling posts. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 *BSD-is-dying-posters. This is consistent with the number of *BSD-is-dying Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, *BSD-is-dying-posting went out of business and was taken over by Klerck who post other idiotic trolls. Now Klerck is also dead, his corpse turned over to another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD-is-dying-posting has steadily declined in trolling share.
*BSD-is-dying-posting is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD-is-dying-posting is to survive at all it will be among no life redneck retards. *BSD-is-dying-posting continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD-is-dying-posting is dead.
People actually use CDE? What on earth for? It's buggy, slow, ugly, has no apps, poorly documented, closed source and bloated. In short, it has absolutely *no* good points.
I'm flabbergasted that anyone can prefer the steaming pile of crap that includes "dtterm" and that lame "tool bar" that takes up 12% of the screen and offers no noticeable benefits. I forget what that piece o' junk is called, the "control pane" or somesuch. It's the only thing worse than the Windows tool bar in terms of incomprehensibility and unusability.
It just goes to show you - you can sell about a thousand of anything.
If you really prefer speed over bells, why don't you use something like fvwm?
As an administrator I found CDE to be overly complex, difficult to use and customize, and generally a pain in the ^@$@! Having Gnome availible on Solaris in a pre-packaged, official distribution is nice even if you don't use it as your desktop just for the included applications, which can be a pain to compile properly otherwise.
On my current desktop I'm using Gnome and sawfish and it's quite reasonable. On my Sun cluster (used solely for remote computation) I don't install CDE OR Gnome.
And I'll tell you why...Three reasons:
1) I do 90% of my work from a terminal. The only reason I even run X is to have Netscape, XMMS, and SDtMail. I actually tried running just console for a while, and didn't notice any degredation in my productivity - it was just hard to read UserFriendly.
2) This is Solaris, and GNOME is very Linux-oriented. I don't care what anyone says, it is. I don't like not having access to some Sun-specific keys in the hotkey editor, or having all these "Unknowns" pop up in my sysid.
3) It's slower and less mature than CDE. GNOME is trying to hit a moving API, and there is the one problem with Open Source development: The second-system effect. CDE knows what it does, and does it well. GNOME tries to do everything - which I don't want. I like that it just manages my workspaces, windows, cut'n'paste buffers, etc...And doesn't browse the web, grab the weather report, make julienne fries...
Anyway, just my two cents. But CDE is a good desktop if you want a more UNIX-y (small tools doing one thing well, instead of Nautilis trying to be a web browser, file manager, PIM, etc.)
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
If they can port GNOME to Solaris and offer users a choice between the two desktops, why can't they port KDE as well, which, IMHO, is far superior to GNOME?
This space left intentionally blank.
gnome is dead. why do you ask. because i say so because i know it. i am developing gnome myself and am getting pissed with every new day. GCONF = windows registry, no plugins system, 3 different configration systems, a tons of library which number increases every day. nautilus is slow and doesnt work properly, evolution permanently crashing and and and....
Not so! glib provides a plugin system; gconf is significantly better than the Windows registry; evolution 0.15 is extremely stable (I've been using it as my sole mailreader since the patch to a single disabling bug came out in version 4 of the Debian package). Yes, Nautilus sucks -- but there's no obligation to use it.
Also, as a C programmer, I much prefer the design philosophy behind GNOME to that of KDE. Yup, it's personal prejudice. Hell, maybe it's wrong. Nonetheless, I prefer it.
As for the development community, I've had excellent support from them. Perhaps you've exercised poor grammer or a conspictuous lack of research in your posts? (The lack of respect both of these show can rightfully, in my opinion, get one ignored in almost any community).
Finally, you may need to note: Wishing something dead doesn't make it so.
Although the mention of KDE in an article about Gnome is just asking for a [-1 troll] rating (wouldn't it be terrible to allow any real debate on Slashdot?), you really have to ask whether Sun gave KDE fair consideration in making their decision. My bet is that their decision to use Gnome has more to do with the geographical location of its core developers than the code itself.
I work in a sun shop. I'm allowed to run FreeBSD on an old poweredge instead of using solaris on a blade or ultra5. Almost every person around (all sun) has grabbed the gnome addons cd and installed it. At first it's so they can get xmms installed easily. As soon as they see someone else running the gnome desktop and ask about it, they are hours away from running it themselves. I pretty much compile and run blackbox on everything including solaris when I'm forced to use it. :)
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
The thing I like most about Gnome is the pretty icons and graphics. For general ease of use, I use KDE. If KDE would get some cooler icons, or just 'borrow' Gnome's....
CDE... *shudder*
OpenWindows... *shudder*
GNOME... only used it once or twice, but I think anything is better than either of them. I can't stand the unconfigurability of CDE... I literally spent HOURS trying to figure out how to customize the menus in the control panel thingy (not sure what it's called... it's ugly and silly), and it STILL doesn't behave the way I want it to. *Sigh*. Now, if only I can figure out where an unb0rken C compiler is on this miserable system, perhaps I have a chance of compiling VTWM (which, in spite of its flaws, is still my favorite WM).
But on another note... isn't it interesting how bigshot Sun is adopting a free desktop? Just a thought...
Poll Mastah
CDE is simple and beautiful. Sure, its not an entire feature plentiful graphical environment, but for what it does, it does well and in an elegant manner. Things like start menus are pathetic attempts at copying CDE's drawer-like menus. I don't use CDE an awful lot anymore, KDE has some things that prove very useful, but I still miss those niftly menus.
I'm struggling _now_ to get mozilla up and running on Solaris (sparc). I'm past adding gunzip and make, grabbing gcc now, and have the source to the gtk tool kit. Less painful then setting up Oracle on Linux, but still...
This is GREAT news for those of us (me) who are not use to "using the source" and working from scratch. If they are bundling Gnome, they will have the GTK toolkit installed too! Its hard enough for a Solaris newbie like me to get an app installed, much less this plumbing. I've really gotten spoiled by Linux distros -- a C compiler and all the other parts are usually just there.
Wish it was bundled in there now. That which does not kill us...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
It should be worth mentioning that this story is an "update" to a previous story here on /.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Umm, yeah, but have you ever had the luxury of ... wait heavens no...customizing the root window menus? What a piece of shit, then to make matters worse they hack-up some shitty Menu customizer that sucks. OLVM kicks the snot out of the CDE pager. And CDE is more bloated then Openwindows.
I could go on, but...
Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement. --Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication
Gnome if free both ways. KDE has to be licensed for commercial use. At a hefty price, too. If they want to sell thousands of workstations they will want to keep the marginal costs low.
Best Slashdot Co
It depends on what you're after and what you have the time for. CDE is simple and doesn't seem to get in the way. Having been forced to use either CDE or OpenWindows for several years, and having found OpenWindows to be a royal pain, CDE was what i stuck with. I use KDE now, because it most closely resembles CDE for me. I've tried some of the more feature-laden (or ridden) window managers - tho some of my acquaintences may grouse and complain that i don't give things a fair chance, i require two things from a window manager : that it doesn't make me use the mouse any more than necessary, and that it doesn't force me to eat up screen real-estate with whizbangs and visual funthings. I'm definitely a terminal power-user, and would operate in text-mode exclusively were it not that I require a web browser (feh). If you gave me a choice between Gnome and CDE, i'd take CDE, just because i'm not convinced spending X amount of time learning how to deal with another environment will buy me anything - it certainly won't improve my productivity, as I am definitely of the opinion that GUI's hamper productivity (unless you're doing something visual).
I've tried for ages to get Xinerama support using XFree86 under Solaris - no dice, until recently I got it all compiled. Of course, documentation is extremely scarce, and I'm pretty sure I don't need an XFConfig file for the Sun framebuffers, but there isn't one included, either. Haven't gotten it to work yet...
The problem with Sun's out-of-the-box implementation is that there are no header files or some such (can't remember exactly right now) and it works with CDE, but nothing else! That is, you can't compile sawfish or enlightenment, etc. against their libraries due to missing files. CDE which is pre-compiled by Sun, of course, works.
So unless Solaris 9 w/GNOME supports Xinerama, guess what I'm choosing to go with my two 21" monitors?
Call me a troll, but how do you back up your statement "gconf is significantly better than the Windows registry"? I'm just curious in what way you find it technologically or usably superior.
I'm not all for the registry, but please, if you're going to make such outrageous statements, give some points, please!
Well, OpenWindows was basically a port of the old SunView system, which was the original windowing system, to X11R3. SunView was rather revolutionary at the time and, I think, predates X by a number of years. Hence, it doesn't "follow industry standards" because it pre-dates them.
The Openwindows (or OpenLook) libraries are pretty well call for call compatible with the SunView library calls and look nothing like the normal X library stuff.. and are arguably easier to use, hence they were used quite widely in scientific applications.
For those who are used to the interface, moving to the other windowing systems and desktop environments can be quite a culture shock.
On our systems we have Openwindows, CDE, KDE 1, KDE 2.2 and GNOME 1.4. There are a number of people who I can't get to move from Openwindows, others who PREFER CDE, a lot who prefer KDE 1 to KDE 2 etc.
Each to their own, I say.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
Oh, certianly CDE sucks asteroids through a garden hse, but it sucks less than OpenWindows. There are far better windowing systems out there. I was just restricting my observations to the 2 choices that are currently shipping with Solaris.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Has anybody ACTUALLY tried gnome1.4 on sparc/solaris yet?
It's slower than tar in Iceland!!
I DID have 25 solaris users clamoring for Gnome on the dekstop, and after I gave them a workstation loaded with it they were singing the praises of CDE.
Comparatively CDE IS the lesser of two evils.
Hehehe, you call CDE bloated in a topic about GNOME.
FWIW, I actually use OpenWindows as my desktop (oh, the horror, the horror!) and along with olvwm, it does its job and stays out of the way. All my real work is done with xterms, gcc/cc, emacs (so go on, flame me) and custom astronomy software. If you ever had the misfortune to use AIPS, you'd be into B&D too.
With Linux (and gnome) on my laptop and on our newer production machines, I just don't know: it looks (and feels) clunky. What 5 year old drew those ugly icons? Even with the "tiny icons" on my laptop Gnome toolbar, the only icon I actually like is the simple red star of Mozilla. And my work is all at the command line, I don't use icons! But I still can't convince Gnome, even with repeated "Save settings," that I'd rather not have an icons for /dev/fd0 and /dev/hda cluttering my desktop. Non-intuitive, hard to learn (this from an OpenWindows user!!) and ugly: is there any reason for Sun to switch to Gnome besides saving development costs?
I, for one, am not impressed.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
No, you're wrong. OpenWindows with OLVM was wayyyy better than CDE.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Ok, this really isn't a troll, I'm really curious here: who actually *uses* Solaris?
Solaris has IMHO been what you run other stuff on top of... Oracle for instance or some custom, mission critical app or something (or web servers if you have too much money). Solaris has always been a kind of painfull, stripped down OS when compared to modern Linux or *BSDs.
But you don't actually USE Solaris. Do you?
If so, why?
I got to discover OpenWindows' many qualities (sigh) when working in Denmark. My machine, a SPARC, was oooold as hell. So old that I actually saw a configure script tell me:
Humiliating.
This said, it's OpenWindows that got me hooked on the 'focus follows mouse pointer' scheme. Guess it wasn't entirely bad after all.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
You are about 2 years out of date. The QT licence prevents you from using the free version of QT in closed-source code, the same is true of Gnome's license.
A comment I made during the Unix International/OSF wars, when it was Sun and AT&T vs. Everyone Else with Open Look and Motif their dueling GUIs:
"This just shows that it's not only about look and feel, but also smell."
listen, GCONF is sad... reason:
it generates a lot of subdirectories for e.g. nautilus.. over 40 subdirectories containing around 50-80 %gconf.xml files. now if you instalkl 20-30 apps then its a waste of space. not to mention that you cant maintain that shit anymore. oki i know you can write your own 1 milion backends for gconf but it doesnt change the fact that its fucked up system. no real usability for the enduser.
the gnome community usually aruguments with 'the normal enduser wont want to know that' but hell i never have seen that ENDUSER everyone involved in LINUX and GNOME has brain about the system otherwise he never gets it running. GNOME has turned into a useless piece of junk a lot of companies programmed their OWN ideas into GNOME and some of them went bancrupcy and remaining is only useless code. e.g. nautilus. permanent little tweaks but NO real enchancements because the gnome developers cant handle it. RED HAT is overtaking that project since no one else gives a fuck. the usability team behind GNOME are brainless morons nothing special. i know each of them.. well i am no troll and i dont like KDE myself but hey they ROADMAP for KDE is better, their implementation in KDE is better. write one plugin and use it in all other apps. we have this in gnome NOW named BONOBO but hey we have 200 apps for gnome now and only 10 are using BONOBO i really doubt that with GNOME 2.0 everyone will ever move to GCONF or make their app PLUGINABLE.. things look different on KDE..
QT does not have to be licenced for commercial development, provided that the result is Open Source. The GPL which Gnome is distributed under also prevents use of Gnome code in closed-source applications.
Being raised on Windows, I've found CDE is the only window manager on my university's Unix network that I can stand. It behaves the closest to the Windows 95 environment I cut my teeth on. (that X-windows-style thing where the window with the mouse pointer in it gets the focus? Gah, I'd rather die!)
Even though I use it every day, I'm gonna bitch about it. I'm really astounded that it hasn't been trumped by something better! My favorite bug is the screen lock: I'd say, maybe, 1 out of every ten times I'd enter my password to the CDE-screen-lock program (not xlock), the session would completely die and go back to the login screen the second after I pushed enter.
As far as I can tell, there are two versions of the Style manager program: one that works like you'd expect, and one that doesn't seem to save any changes after you've logged out. Which one depends on which menu you access it from.
X-windows programs like xfig look butt-ugly in CDE as compared to how they look in other window managers.
Nothing is intuitive. At all. Try making a shortcut or desktop icon or whatever, without looking it up. I gave up; it wasn't worth the trouble. And the hot-keys are not documented in the help. The help documention sucks. And you can't set hot-keys.
It's not so much any major problems, just a bunch of little problems that are each individually ignorable or workaround-able.
Maybe some of this is just bad Unix administration/program setup; I don't know much about admin'ing a *nix system. But I know buggy or incomplete software when I see it. Yeah, Windows (at least, pre-2000/ME) is just as buggy, but at least it was intuitive (shutdown-via-start-menu notwithstanding).
-Grant/JimTheta
My stupid web site
I happily compiled and ran KDE on Solaris about 3 years ago.
I've used CDE a bit, and it looks fine, but I would prefer GNOME. I'd prefer KDE more :), but surely the point for most of us here should be that GNOME's use by Sun and HP is a big vote of confidence for open-source software?
Just my two cents....
nb
MS: ALL YOUR
It is not just about licenesing but also about the choice of programing environment. My understanding is that KDE pretty much forces C++ onto you. That is fine if everything is only ever built with on compiler which is using the same revision of the C++ ABI and interepretation of the standard. For Sun customers that wouldn't work because the Sun compilers and gcc and others all get used on Solaris by different groups of people for diffrent reasons.
Note this is my personal interpretation and is not to be taken as an official Sun position.
What has Windows got to do with anything? We are talking about Unix platforms here, whatever software QT does or doesn't write, or the license they release it under, is completely irrelevant to this debate.
Whats funny about CDE is I heard it cost more to develope then MS windows.... Not hard to believe either when you look at how many companies and people developed it.
Whats also funny is it takes like 15 different steps to add a program icon - absolutely miserable. And they want lots of money for it too - CDE for linux (developed by caldera) is like a 250$ program.
This is one of my least favorite Stupid Slashdot Misconceptions (tm).
.o files so that they can re-link it themselves. (That's no big deal -- commercial UNIX software has been distributed in .o format for years.)
The "QT Free Edition" is licensed under the GPL. The GPL dictates that if you wish to distribute a derivative work of a GPLed program (or a program linked to a GPLed library), you must distribute it under the terms of the GPL. The set of all GPLed closed programs is closed under the operation of derivative work creation.
The GNOME libraries (with the sole exception, IIRC, of the non-essential libgtop) are licensed under the LGPL, or Lesser (ne'e "Library") GPL. The LGPL allows linking with closed source code; it merely stipulates that you must re-link it with new versions of the library and/or supply customers with
So, to recap: an LGPL library allows closed-source applications to link with it. It is possible to write closed-source GTK+ and GNOME apps. A GPLed library, on the other hand, can only be linked into GPLed software, so if you want to make closed-source Qt programs, you're stuck forking over the ducats to trolltech.
It is not in Sun's best interests to force Solaris application developers to pay royalties to trolltech for commercial applications.
Oh hell yeah! GNOME and KDE are greaat but they are not as useable as the CDE UI. Now if you want the CDE look'n'feel but with a much faster environment and with many more capabilities than GNOME or KDE you have to try XFce.
No, bullshit. No "Desktop Wars". Just go try it and see for your self.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
[QUOTE] Perhaps you've exercised poor grammer or a conspictuous lack of research in your posts? [QUOTE] And he probably didn`t spell very well either... This place cracks me up. Self-Sufficient people of the world...show your superiority on Slashdot.
It was NEVER the first entry, it was the default entry which wasn't necessarily first. The defaults were always no destructive in all OpenLook applications I used. OpenLook != OpenWindows (OpenLook is the look and fell of the GUI OpenWindows is Sun's shippent of that look and feel together with an X server and other stuff).
You could easily change this behaviour from the properties menu.
Also which button is the root menu usually on ?
Err the right one so this was consistancy. Remeber that OpenLook's history predates anything of CDE, or KDE, or GNOME and Microsoft Windows.
The biggest drawback of the Windows registry is that it is stored in a binary format so if it is corrupted you're basically screwed.
GConf provides multiple backends. The default XML based backend is much more resistent to corruption that the Windows registry. If something goes wrong and something gets corrupted, it's almost certainly going to be limited to a single file. Also, if you're ever in a pinch, you can easily edit XML with your text editor of choice.
System adminstrators can set system defaults for users and can make certain settings non-overrideable.
A system like GConf is necessary to allow different programs to share common settings (e.g. the user should only have to specify his or her proxy settings once rather than in each application). GConf provides a mechanism for notifying applications of changes in settings pertinent to them.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Although QT does not have to be licensed for 'commercial development', it does need to be licensed for non-Free (non-gpl) development. (see this link.)
On the other hand, gnome libraries are licensed under the LGPL, which allows non-gpl (closed source) development based on it.
Although I believe this was one of the deciding factors--potential software partners would not need to depend on an external company to develop, this is currently true with Motif, so it probably wasn't the only factor in their decision.
Probably Sun engineers felt Gnome was more true to unix traditions than KDE, felt more comfortable with it, and felt they would have a bigger say in the direction it ultimately took.
You are right, I misread the post to say that QTs licence procludes integration with commercial applications (which is no more true of QT than it is of the Linux kernel).
we have this in gnome NOW named BONOBO but hey we have 200 apps for gnome now and only 10 are using BONOBO i really doubt that with GNOME 2.0 everyone will ever move to GCONF or make their app PLUGINABLE.. things look different on KDE..
..), these thing are going to spread and GNOME community will get more of bonoable apps..
;)
only thing I can add is that Bonobo has been an "experimental" technology for a while, so there hasn't been so much adoption for it in GNOME, people just wanted it to settle down, most of issues resolved.
The exact same situation was with KDE, but as KDE people started writing their embeddable applications, things got rolling and now we have KDE in it's state. (btw, good work KDE people..).
now, that GNOME is nearing maturity (that 1.0 was really a lowly 0.5
And maybe someone will write a proxy to convert KDE parts to bonobo and vice-versa...
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
Xinerama support within either... If you watch during the "configure" script's output, you'll see that "-lxinerma" bombs out - at least under Solaris 7, it sure does. Haven't tried it on Solaris 8 yet.
I'm very excited for Gnome 2.0, not the least b/c it will support anti-aliased fonts. I know this is childish and stupid, but nothing makes your GUI look more professional that anti-aliasing. I use KDE for this at the moment, but KDE is lacking in other parts of the visual department. Gnome 2.0 sounds like just what I've been waiting for.
Anyone know how far off this really is?
I don't gnome which one I prefer. CDE is not terribly useful, and gnomeing the future of Solaris is going to be Gnome, guess I'll prefer it. If only they would have gone with a real desktop like KDE or WindowMaker...or better yet Workbench!!!
GeneralKael -- Slacker Extraordinaire
Is it just me, or does everyone who likes CDE like it because it doesn't do that much? Maybe it's because I've only used it on HP/UX, but it seemed like CDE managed to botch every single thing it did. Admittedly, you can almost entirely avoid it, but "it's almost as good as nothing, and better than many other things" is not really a good sign.
I have to admit, it does include a window manager that lets you move, resize, and iconify windows and change the keyboard focus. But, other than that, just using an xterm would be nicer.
Erm, the ones I have certainly do support CD install.
Indie rock lives! b-side!
I recently installed Ximian GNOME (recent release version) on my Sun Ultra 30 machine, and I've got to say that thing's a dog. It felt so sluggish it's not even funny.
Now I'm running KDE 2.2 on the box, and it's really snappy.
My only complaint is really slow opaque window dragging, but that's really Sun's fault, for somehow deciding not to include pixel-copy hardware 2D acceleration in their Creator3D framebuffers. (a strange reason why for some things, SunRay thin-clients feel faster at graphics) Anyone know if other newer Sun framebuffers fix this lack of feature?
Here is the actual URL to the early access for Solaris 9, but, as the AC said, it sucks rocks - 1GB download, requires 2 systems, and only installs via jumpstart.
Look for solaris 9 build 49, disks 1 and 2.iso on your favorite file swapping utility and get the real thing.
Indie rock lives! b-side!
Actually, I prefer CDE over most of the other environments available. Most of you would consider this blasphemy, but I prefer CDE-like interfaces on my Linux boxen.
:)
Sure, CDE has its issues:
1. It's quite ugly.
2. There's a clunky feel to it.
3. It's tends to be slow.
4. One word: Motif.
But it has one primary advantage: that first word in the acronym. Common. You see, the Common Desktop Environment is a very complete environment. It's very customizable, it's actually extremely stable, and you're guaranteed a consistent interface on any platform that implements it.
Sure, some vendors add their own extensions, but the base environment is the same. Config files and scripts will work across platforms. For someone who regularly works on several different UNIX boxes (and a few non-UNIX boxes as well), this is an incredible benift. Ya see, I don't care about having cool window decorations. I don't care about running Linux apps. I care about having a standard way to access servers - whether in CLI mode or GUI mode. It's a huge boost to productivty.
And when you're managing hundreds of heterogenous servers, productivity is an important consideration.
I still remember what things were like when I'd go from a HP-UX server (with VUE) to a Sun server (OpenWindows), to VMS, Digital UNIX. Each of them had different graphical environments (and trust me, OpenWindows, however much I liked it, was different). This was a bad thing.
Now, all of these operating systems use CDE - and there are more out there that either do by default or can (with installation). This is a good thing.
--
Welcome to the land of the easily amused...
Lots of people prefer CDE of GNOME. Many Solaris desktops are X Terminals in large companies--say, at banks, financial services companies and so forth. The people who use them access e-mail, do data entry, and query old big-iron databases. You want such a system toi be free of distractions and clean and easy to use.
Few things are cleaner and simpler than a stripped-down CDE desktop. A drawer with the 4 or 5 most common applications, a clock, a trashcan, and a drag-and-droppable printer icon. No taskbar, no nested program menus, no disk icons, no desktop clutter.
It may be awful for an engineer (but then, maybe not; if you primarily use the command line, who needs all of GNOME's gizmos?) or a "power user", but CDE is great for heads-down managed environments like call centers, trading floors and so forth.
Yes, a modern, flexible desktop comparable to what MacOS and Windows offer is necessary for home and small-business use, and for some breeds of power user, but that's mostly because such users have to do nearly all of their own file and system maintenance. For someone who has no need for that--and that's true of many a work environment--the empty simplicity of CDE is a virtue. Not to mention easier to deploy, maintain and support on a network. CDE is terrible as a "general purpose" desktop. GNOME and especially KDE are far better for that. But the work that has to go into stripping down and locking down GNOME or KDE for ease of use in a 100-seat call center makes me cringe.
Maybe someday, Tim, you'll work for a company where Unix people have more than 20 desktops to worry about, where most of the people using those dektops aren't techies, and servers really have to be up 24/7.
Great Scott,
Is this some kind of conspiracy from Taco to post actuall trolls as stories to circumvent the noodnick trolls who post comments? First the slackwear troll and now this... I mean, really.
Well anyways, I LIKE CDE, ya rat jap bastards. It's light and fast, even on my butt slow sparcstation. I shudder in uncontrolable spasms to think of how KDE or Gnome would behave on my box. Yeah, CDE is far from pretty, but hell, it's running on solaris so it all makes perfect sense if you think about it.
Okay, so there you go, IHBT, IHL, HAND.
All the best,
--Bob
why do you have to bash someone cause of their prefs? i mean, the whole spirit of having such a multitude of options is so you can choose what you want, not what some company thinks you should want. and i'm not talking about this thread specifically, but the whole attitude in general.
i mean... would you go up to someone and tell them "oh you have a washburn guitar? washburn sucks, so you suck".. oh wait.. people do that already...
Sure: Consider a binary format with sync markers or some sort. GIF has "restart markers", which clear the LZW dict. So, a bad character could screw up a few pixels, or at worst, a few lines, but once a restart marker was found, it would be fixed.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
But most Solaris boxes I deal with are rackmounts through a Telnet session. Maybe I have just slept through the "Solaris as a desktop" revolution. Please someone fill me in on what I missed.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I have been running KDE on Solaris since 1998. The new sun machines we currently received at our research lab all came with KDE and GNOME installed. You are given the choice at the graphical login.
things. take. time.
I love Sun workstations: speed, stability, impressive looking cases, but I always disliked Solaris because of CDE. OpenWindows never did much for me, either. I run SuSE Linux 7.1 with KDE on my SPARC 80 and Gnome on my SunBlade 1000 and I love them both. I just find them easier to use.
Gnome has significantly shortened the time required for training new employees on our system, since most of them only have Windows experience. We use CDE only when we have some hardware problem, but that happens so rarely with these excellent systems.
being Sun user for quite a long time (starting with Sun/OS 4.1.3), I *do* prefer CDE to GNOME. Solaris is a premier operating system, probably the best implementation of System V, and it has been always my first choice of desktop. I can't imagine putting on a top of it something as flaky as GNOME. I hope CDE still would be available as an option.
Right now I have a 21 inch flatscreen CRT with a 1600x1200 resolution with about 13 putty sessions open. It runs Windows2K and I get an OS where I can run almost any sofytware I want.
Keep in mind this is MY OPINION. Don't flame me for liking it this way. I never said that anybody else was stupid or useless for liking any of the UNIX desktops.
Man, I can't stand it. When I'm reading or typing, I want that pointer out of the frickin' way!
One reason I do keep using CDE is that I can have an active window in the background. There's a nice setting so that you can make the window active by clicking in the window, but only if you click somewhere on the frame does it jump to the foreground.
Don't know if Gnome can do it this way, but I couldn't find a similar setting in WindowMaker. They all seem to go all-the-way in either direction, but I've only found the happy medium in CDE.
-Grant/JimTheta
My stupid web site
Pardon -- did I say the man sucks? I don't believe so; rather, I disputed his opinion that GNOME sucks. Further, had he made some statement positing only that he dislikes GNOME, that would have gone unanswered -- anyone is free to dislike GNOME (or anything else) as he or she pleases. Claiming that something sucks, however, is a statement not about ones' internal opinions but rather about the world in general. As another user of said world, I (as anyone else) have every right to dispute the accuracy of such an opinion.
That's not to say I think *he* sucks. I just think his belief (not opinion, belief) is wrong.
If he was expressing an opinion but stating it as a belief about the external world rather than a statement about himself, then he was simply setting himself up for debate.
simply. ETHICAL in way of replies not containing 'you are an asshole, you are a motherfucker, you nazi...'...
Then the word you want is not "ethical" but "polite".
I'm not sure what you mean by "ethical" in this context -- and it's not a "windows registry" system, per se. As for a few real reasons for having such a thing:
- Having each app have its own configuration file format sucks; thus, a single format and API is beneficial.
- App configuration should have a universal means of setting systemwide defaults, without having each app hardcode such capabilities.
Hope this helps.
This story was published a few weeks ago, and portrayed as negative (oh no, Solaris 9 won't ship with Gnome at first).
and guess what license kdelibs is under?
yup, right, the LGPL
I briefly dabbled with KDE, but my inability to create a working Autostart folder (wonderful setup, Mandrake, almost matching the wonderful documentation job done by the KDE team) when I wanted to install Xscreensaver (because it, with xv, has way more flexibility than does kslideshow.kss) finally buried it. I went hawling back to momma!
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Y'know, you might be interested to know that for those of us who have used olvwm for the last five years, KDE & gnome & E & all those other nasty windowmanagers out there are just as "intuitive" to us as olvwm is to you. Most of the details for these new window managers baffle me. The only thing I've kept is the konsole application, now that KDE has finally fixed the titlebar bug...
There's no such thing as "intuitive". There's only things which are "consistant with previous experience."
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Damnit, I wish I had some moderator points.
Huh?
What benefits?
Putting everything in one file (binary or not) is a pretty stupid idea. /etc files and the KDE config files.
I just upgraded my distro and was very happy that I could copy single per-app configfiles instead of the whole "registry" (that may not work). This happyness is about both the
Okay, *that* qualifies as a personal attack.
I haven't looked at the code to gnome-core. I've spent quite a bit of time in the source to glib and gtk (which are indeed pretty damn core) and I like what I see. I like the way they're written. I like the cute macro system for allowing an object heierarchy in C. Right at this moment I'm writing CNI bindings for GPGME. I happen to think the way the GPGME API is written is really, really sweet. (Is it core to GNOME? No. Is it written by people with the same design philosophy? Yes).
I've written a fair number of Gtk apps, and a smaller number of GNOME ones; I like the way the APIs are built. I like the portability allowed by using C as a base, and the multitude of language bindings it allows. Indeed, I like most of what I see surrounding GNOME.
So... in short, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't take me for the idiot end-user you seem to think I am. I've worked with this stuff on a low level, AND I HAPPEN TO LIKE IT.
I don't particularly care for CDE, but I do enjoy using xfce which happens to be a CDE clone (who knew?)
At JavaOne this past June - Sun had banks of Solaris systems running Gnome for checking email, harasing your firnds, making fun of Sun . . .etc.
I can't imagine them having hauled out hundreds of Sol8 systems running CDE desktops for Java Devlopers to use to chek their email. What's the point of this little tirade? Um, usuability. Yeah, that's it. Somewhere, someone will claim that they prefer the CDE (note: That's a C - not a K). They're either alums of the project, or they still have the punch cards they compiled their senior theseis with tucked under their desk.
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
Well, to be fair, CDE is a LOT faster that Gnome on Solaris (I've used both Gnome and KDE on Solaris and AIX), so it really depends upon what you expect from the system. Realistically, is Solaris going to be the desktop operating system for a non-PowerUser or SysAdmin? I don't know any desktop Unix user that isn't a developer, SysAdmin or engineer. I'm not dis'ing Gnome, I'm just wondering what the big deal is.
~wmaheriv
"Shema Yisroel- Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad!"
And I don't see why a LGPL'ed library (kdelibs) could not be based on a QPL'ed (Qt) one.
Prepare to lose all karma.
I actually prefer many of the older, commercial desktop environments and window managers. These include not just CDE but vanilla Motif (mwm, the Motif Window Manager) and OpenWindows.
Why on earth would I say this, especially when GNOME is free *and* certainly looks better??
Because OpenWindows and Motif/CDE have worked. They still work. They'll most likely continue to work well into the future. And they work well with the software I use. As much as I like to fiddle and futz with GNOME (and KDE) on my Linux box at home, I'm actually glad I don't use them for work. Openwindows was fast and extremely configurable back when I used a SPARCstation 2 as my desktop workstation. Because it was running atop the X Window System, I could do far more with it than my buddies on Windows 3.1 boxes down in accounting. Several years later I moved to a SPARCstation 10 with Motif which was quite a change, but by that time most pointy-clicky gui-based software for SunOS/Solaris was becoming Motif based so the move made sense. A year later I tried CDE and found it to be a pleasant yet simple extension to the minimalist Motif/mwm desktop I had been running. Most of the time I didn't notice the difference as I had the CDE Front Panel minimized and was busy working in my own apps anyway. By early 1996 I moved to a Ultra 2, a machine that stayed with me (albeit with two new cpu modules in 1999) up until this past summer when I upgraded to a Blade 1000.
The experience has been great. Never once has the desktop gotten in the way or clashed aesthetically with Matlab, Xilinx, or any of the other tools I work with. I was never working with a piece of artwork, mind you, but it looked good enough and wasn't bothersome. OpenWindows was lean and fast back in an era when it had to be. Motif brought about some unix-wide standards (even SGI uses slightly modified Motif). In fact, I would be willing to bet that Motif has been documented moreso than even Microsoft's GUI libraries. CDE gave us a few extra goodies based on Motif. While I don't use CDE's mailer, text editor, or calculator, I do find myself relying heavily on the simple but quite useful calendar manager. These days it'll even sync with my Palm. A few other utilities are great for the little things I don't do too often (such as change the color scheme, screen saver, or fiddle with the print queue). Even the login manager is quite nice, especially for its age. Like many of the newer freeware options (gdm, kdm, etc) it allows the user to select a desktop environment at login. Quite handy when trying out a few other the up and coming environments (I tried Sun's version of GNOME 1.4 several months ago).
I say all of this as a combination hardware and software engineer, mostly working in the embedded RISC world. I'm not a sysadmin with every script, utility, flag, and manpage memorized. Nor am I a graphic artist with a need for a PowerMac and its Postscript, ColorSync, and FontSync. I'm just a guy that needs to get real work done on a platform that's both flexible and not going to give me problems. Thankfully the past 11 years have be extremely nice to me. Of the 5 workstations I've used, each has had it's OS installed only once (with the exception of the Ultra 2 which I upgraded from Solaris 2.5.1 to Solaris 7 [2.7]). I only had to install my software packages once. Of all this, the gui toolkits and windowmanagers played a very small part. But they played that part with exemplary performance. They weren't wiz-bang, but they weren't a moving target either. They did their job - well. As for me, I am going to continue working with my current setup. I don't need the toys and whistles while I'm at work and thus will continue using CDE. I'll let my two UltraSPARC III CPUs spend their time working on my code.
That said, I'm glad Sun has an open mind and is working with GNOME. I personally don't think GNOME (or KDE) is the long term answer, but at least they're looking in other directions. Motif and CDE are old, but well used and well documented. For many, it's time to move on. Lets do so with some common sense and a historical perspective.
Calculus and alcohol don't mix. Never drink and derive.
>Putting everything in one file (binary or not) /etc
.gconf]$ find . -type d -maxdepth 2
.gconf]$ find . -type f | grep galeon
>is a pretty stupid idea.
>I just upgraded my distro and was very happy
>that I could copy single per-app configfiles
>instead of the whole "registry" (that may not
>work). This happyness is about both the
>files and the KDE config files.
Whew... Good thing Gconf has nothing to do with storing everying in a single file, and allows you to copy single per-app configuration instead of the whole "registry".
[galt@damballah
.
./%gconf-xml-backend.lock
./apps
./apps/nautilus
./apps/eazel-trilobite
./apps/eog
./apps/gda
./apps/galeon
[galt@damballah
./apps/galeon/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/State/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/State/prefs_dialog/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Advanced/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Advanced/Crash/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Advanced/Filtering/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Advanced/Network/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Rendering/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Rendering/FontsColors/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Rendering/Language/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Browsing/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Browsing/Find/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Browsing/General/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/Browsing/History/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/UI/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/UI/Tabs/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/UI/Windows/%gconf.xml
./apps/galeon/UI/Toolbar/%gconf.xml
I have a burned copy of Solaris 8 I dl-ed from sun's site, but I've read before that Solaris is kind of slow on single CPU systems... Man I wish I could afford a nice Tyan Thunder K7 + 2 Athlon MP 1800's :)
The first day that I had my UltraSPARC 10 at work I tried to use CDE... I hated it. I found that it was simple and quick but it wasn't very intuitive. So, off to FVWM.org I went. And I've been happy ever since. I've played with Gnome and KDE on various platforms - they are definietly pretty but they take up way too many resources.
The difference between reality and fantasy is a nice soundtrack.
Yes, I know that GNOME is not Gtk; nonetheless, the design philosophies are similar -- it's the scale that differs. GNOME was written on top of Gtk in large part because the folks who wrote GNOME liked GTK, because their aesthetic sensabilities are similar. You think Miguel is the sort who wouldn't write his own damn widget set if he didn't like the available options?
As for GNOME itself, many of the functions for building menus, toolbars and such almost feel like extensions to gtk. The API to gconf has the same sort of cleanliness that glib has, and the conveniance functions tend to Just Work.
Bonobo isn't exactly pretty, but I haven't seen an OLE equivalent I've liked more, so it's worth living with.
I know damn well that GNOME uses a wide array of libraries, and that more than a few are being phased in and out. That doesn't bother me -- I use the ones I like. Maybe it'd be better if there weren't so much duplication, but much progress lies in willingness to go back and do something over again and then phase out the cruft.
Btw, you're right in that I didn't start writing apps for GNOME prior to 1.2.
For most people, Gnome certainly beats OpenWindows. But if you don't like the Gnome desktop (I don't particularly) and the icons, you certainly have enough choices: XFCE, icewm, and many others. That's the nice thing about X11: you get the choice.
You don't need to pay anybody to develop Motif applications: it comes with the OS for free, and you write your applications for it. Furthermore, Sun already is part of the consortium that owns the rights.
To all who complain about the too many features of GNOME (compared with CDE):
You can strip GNOME down to resemble CDE. It doesn't take much time to set your enviroment this way. Hey, you can even have your window manager look like olvwm, if you like.
So, all this comments 'GNOME has too many graphical features, I'm afraid of it' are just nonsense, IMHO.
[...] There's no such thing as "intuitive". There's only things which are "consistant with previous experience."
The internal consistency of OpenLook/OpenWindows was really useful, one of the reasons why many of our users still prefer it.
Left mouse: select, Middle mouse: adjust selection, Right mouse: menu.
I've not seen a system which does text selection as well, Single click, place cursor. Double click select word, triple click select sentence, quad click select paragraph - and before you complain how difficult it must be to do that many remember that OpenWindows uses the time between button up and button down to measure a repeat click.
The feature I miss most from OpenLook is the Push Pins on menus. Who needs toolbars on applications when you can simply pin a menu on the desktop if you use it a lot?
Sun was originally primarily a workstation vendor, their servers was just something for their workstations to connect to.
They have moved thei focus from workstations to servers recently, as NT and Linux have taken over the workstation market.
You experience with Sun is probably after this happened.
TWM did that years before.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
...it's still worse than just about any other window manager out there.
The common thread I've seen among the people who liked CDE is that "it's better than OpenWindows". Well, sure. screen is better than OpenWindows, and more intuitive too. But I don't get why you didn't install/use a more reasonably window manager over both. When I was in college nobody used OpenWindows for longer than it took them to poke the guy next to them and say "how'd you get your Sun to look like that?" (or alternately they'd ask how to actually use the damned thing and the adjacent geek would just foist a new window manager upon them to make life easier).
twm, tvtwm, and fvwm were all far more useful to me. I found them all far easier (on a relative basis) to configure and maintain, vastly easier to work with, and much less cluttered. They were also rock solid as far as stability, fast, and had a relatively small footprint. I still have my fvwm 1.24r config laying around somewhere.
I have heard reports that WinME would corrupt registries unrecoverably, so maybe it doesn't do that.
I was just pointing out that binary and robust are not mutually exclusive.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Btw, you're right in that I didn't start writing apps for GNOME prior to 1.2.
so you lied at me. you never have written any shit for anything and tell me such a crap.
I at no time claimed to have written GNOME apps prior to 1.2; thus, at no point did I lie. As for your inference that I have no programming experience whatsoever, that myth should be simple enough to dispell with a few minutes of Googling (around linuxconsole-dev, pptp-server, xsw-dev and elsewhere).
However, I no longer have any interest in entertaining some twit (nicer than "shithead", no?) who hasn't the decency to speak respectfully to those he's never met. Hence, I expect no reply to this message and will not likely respond to one should it be provided.