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GNOME 2.0 Developer Platform Beta
ambrosius27 writes: "To quote from Jeff Waugh's announcement: "The API frozen Developer Platform Beta, 'Everyone's Excited and Confused', is ready for your porting pleasure!" You can find the full announcement on Gnotices. The GNOME developers have been hard at work. Feel free to download, create/port applications, and, most of all, send in nicely detailed bug reports!"
I am now confused. Should I be excited?
Okay, this is coming from a lesser-experience Linux user so don't flame me TOO hard, but how does this tie (if at all) with Ximian's version of Gnome?
I'm really liking Evolution, and while their desktop is pretty, it seems bare in comparision to KDE's solution. To be able to port more stuff over to Gnome (and Ximian's GNOME), would be wonderful in my eyes.
Now, granted, I may be completely confused and these don't mix at all, so in that case, just tell me to shut up and I'll go crawl back in my hole.
Perhaps for GNOME 2, they should change it to a RIGHT foot instead... just a thought.
Everything is mainstream now.
I run Linux on my Sony VAIO 505FX (the first generation ultraslim) with 96MB of memory, and the highest res is only 800x600 (I know, I wish it could do better). I find the AA text from KDE to be a really nice feature to have, as it makes everything much smoother. However, KDE is gigantic bloat, and it makes my little vaio crawl.
This machine is quite zippy running Gnome+Sawfish. And I'd wish to have AA fonts on Gnome too. Is this a hi-pri feature for 2.0? Can't wait to see that.
Well, this is a developer link, not for people who don't enjoy building it themselves, but here are some nice screenshots.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
On one hand, I can see that. But remember the beef that most Slashdotters have with Microsoft: lack of choice = beginnings of monopoly = hell on earth.
I say let each develop and make the best that they can. Fair competition is a good and stimulating environment.
Font anti-aliasing is probably one of the major reasons that KDE is so slow for you. Try turning it off and compare again.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
"Pointless competition is only holding linux back."
Funny, because competition between GNOME and KDE is *EXACTLY* what has made both GNOME and KDE mature so much.
Why don't you send this message to gnome-devel-list or kde-devel-list?
I'm sure you'll hear a lot of things you don't expect (such as that the GNOME vs KDE war does not exist).
Well, I guess there's no accounting for taste... :) but for what it's worth, I think GNOME looks quite nice, especially the default look of the Ximian GNOME distribution. It's very clean and minimal, with beautiful icons. Personally, I think KDE is pretty ugly, but I haven't used it much, so take that for what it's worth. In any case, GNOME (and presumably KDE) is very customizable in the look & feel department, so if the default look doesn't suit you, you can probably tweak it until you're happy.
I use Windows XP at work, and I have to say that I think that the Windows XP GUI looks not bad at all, especially after turning off the Luna skin. The font smoothing is beautiful, and makes me pine for Mac OS much less...
Whenever I see screenshots of KDE and Gnome, the letters W,S and V look just really ugly, is this a problem which is going to be fixed as AA mature ?
...is a lyric from Man, it's So Loud in Here, from They Might Be Giants' new album, Mink Car.
They revamped the airport completely,
now it looks just like a nightclub,
everyone's excited and confused...
go gnome!
Please mod this up!
.. but I tend to flip back and forth between GNOME/KDE, usually sticking with the newest one. :)
... I take what I like best from each, and put them all together to form the uber-desktop ....
I don't know about anyone else
I don't care where anyone stands on the GNOME/KDE fence, but
KDE environment with, iKons from kde-look.org, Galeon for browsing, Konqueror for file management (ftp support rocks), Evolution for mail, Xchat for irc, liquid from mosfet, and openoffice together as one complete desktop is a force to be reckoned with. If you think that GNOME is good, and KDE is good, together, they are even more impressive.
That's why competition in Linux rules
(/me points all "you have to run multiple libraries" excuses to their local computer store for $30 of RAM)
um...it's a DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM release, i.e. we're talking about the libraries upon which the desktop environment is built. In a few weeks, after they've killed lots of the bugs hiding in the libraries and after the developers have had more time to port the key desktop applications, then the DESKTOP beta will roll out too. Some of the applications, like Abiword, may not be ported by the time GNOME 2.0 goes gold; however, all GNOME 1.4 applications will work great in the GNOME 2.0 desktop until the apps have been ported. In the meantime, the apps just won't be taking advantage of the goodies in the GNOME 2.0 libraries, that's all. So, relax! The future looks rosy. :-)
~~~~~~~~~
dissertus scribendo latine videri volo.
* (or RC 2 in case it is necessary)
Notice how the planned GNOME releases are closer together than the KDE releases. Is there any indication when GNOME 2.1 will be out? KDE usually takes 4/5 months between releases, so I expect KDE 3.1 in July, with a 3.1.1 bugfix release in August and of course a 3.0.1 bugfix release at the end of March of begin of April.
GNOME did not have as many recent releases as KDE has with the 2.x series (GNOME underwent the same large overhaul as KDE did during the transition to KDE2), so what kind of a release schedulet can we expect of GNOME after 2.0?
That's why its a PLATFORM BETA. It's not a release beta, it's a PLATFORM BETA. This means that they are working on the PLATFORM. Then they will be working on the applications. Joe Sixpack is NOT MEANT for this release. Period. When they have a DESKTOP release, and after distributions package it, then it will be ready for Joe Desktop. Don't complain simply because you don't understand the process. The process is the same for Windows, it's just that with Linux, anyone can view the progress.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Those that are, are likely to get implemented by the other system, perhaps even more cleanly. Both environments, for instance, seem to have burgeoning efforts surrounding the IETF calendaring and address standards; they may even become interoperable by virtue of there being IETF standards :-).
Those ideas that turn out to be horrid can be learned from and avoided.
After all, it's not as if throwing all the people onto one project would necessarily lead to higher productivity. Double the team sizes, and communications costs diminish productivity :-(.
There are doubtless some jibes back and forth, here and there, but if they were spending 80% of their time flaming one another, they wouldn't get much code written...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Actually, a Beta should be suitable for general use.
**************
Not a platform beta. The platform beta means that they've got all of the pieces of the platform together, and they are testing the API's to make _them_ production quality. The DESKTOP betas are scheduled for next year, in which case end-user functionality will be tested.
Engineering and the Ultimate
http://www.flying-rhenquest.net/images/screenshot. jpg Warning: Boobies
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hm, if only the API's are Beta and the UI isn't even that level, I have a hard time believing they have a realistic time schedule.
*****
Ummm...., you have to have the API's BEFORE the applications. If the APIs is only beta quality, how could the applications which depend on them be more so?
You also have to remember that the applications themselves are already written, they only need to be ported to the new API, so it's not like they are going to be rewritten from scratch or anything.
Also, fast turnaround times are essential for feedback and testing. If two weeks after Beta 1 users are still reporting bugs that were fixed a week ago, you have a bad situation. The faster the turnaround time between betas, the better. Remember, "release early, release often". That's how you find and fix bugs.
Engineering and the Ultimate
That largely depends on the API changes. I thought GNOME 2.0 was a huge improvement over 1.4 in several core areas, so porting applications might be painful.
I suspect that most of the applications are already up-to-date with the API though, usually applications in CVS change directly after the API changes. I don't think they rewrote the API first without touching any of the applications.
Maybe this is a big difference between GNOME and KDE (I'm mostly used to the KDE development model). Within KDE most applications that come with the main packages are maintained by the same people who maintain the libs, or at least people who closely follow the libs. Therefore the API freeze is at the same time as the application freeze.
GNOME possibly has a somewhat more loose connection between main applications (they're packahed seperately for example), so that might require an API freeze before the application freeze. Makes sense to me now.
>> "Pointless competition is only holding linux
>> back."
> Funny, because competition between GNOME and KDE
> is *EXACTLY* what has made both GNOME and KDE
> mature so much.
Really? Says who? You?!
I think that competition is good in some cases but there are a LOT of overlapping areas with GNOME and KDE.
We don't have to compete on EVERYTHING do we?
After all, a lot of OSS projects have no competition and they do fine. The only competition is lack of a feature set.
We don't need duplicate file formats. We don't need duplicate icon sets and teams. We don't need separate configuration mechanisms.
... etc...
I think things are stabilizing though. QT is now GPL and I it looks like the KDE and GNOME teams are cooperating.
Kevin
Question - has there been any progress made on bringing the respective component models of KDE and GNOME any closer together? It'd be nice to be able to embed a Bonobo component in a KParts document, perhaps itself embedded in a StarOffice or even Mozilla framework. How fundamentally different are KParts/DCOP, Bonobo/CORBA, StarOffice/UNO, Mozilla/XPCOM, Java/JavaBeans, Microsoft OLE/COM, (probably Xt belongs in this list too...), will there ever be any hope of unifying them a bit better ???
Choice of masters is not freedom.
I'd use gnome if one simple thing would get fixed. When you click on the titlebar of a window I think it should maximize. This shading business is silly. Shading windows in a GUI that lacks a minimize button/feature is a necessity, but in a proper GUI it doesn't really need to be there, let alone be the ONLY option available. At the very least users should be able to configure this behavior. I keep waiting and hoping that this will be corrected but so far nothing has happened. Until it does I'm sticking with KDE or IceWM sans gnome.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.