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Looking Ahead at GNOME 2
Able writes "This is a good article that will teach you how to use the new and improved libraries available with GNOME 2 so that you can write your own Nautilus view, and panel applets. It also provides you with the understanding to compile a few sample GTK+ 2 programs that will give you a good understanding of GTK+ 2's many improvements over GTK+ 1."
..Geez.. 2.0? Thats no good.. I mean look at windows for instance - Its way past 3.0, past 98.0.. I think its even past version 2000 now! How is linux ever going to competitive with such small version numbers?
air and light and time and space
"Yeah, last night I was really tring to get the object-oriented cobol bindings to gtk+ working but then in a fluke there was this gcc bug that caused my userspace code to go wonky and install the wrong x colormap which recursed until the system locked up. It was righteous."
I don't know where open source would be without the fine users of Slashdot and all the wonderful programs they develop.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
Rubbish. XFree86 has supported what Microsoft calls "ClearType" for over a year.
The method, called sub-pixel rendering, is designed to work with LCD panels. This is why Microsoft are pushing for its use on laptops and palmtop devices. On standard CRTs, it holds no advantage over standard greyscale anti-aliasing.
A single pixel of an LCD screen is actually composed of three "sub-pixels": one red, one green, and one blue (R-G-B). Taken together this sub-pixel triplet makes up what we've traditionally thought of as a single pixel. This means that an LCD screen boasting a horizontal resolution of 800 whole pixels is actually composed of 800 red, 800 green, and 800 blue sub-pixels interleaved together (R-G-B-R-G-B-R-G-B
"ClearType" can be enabled in XFree86 versions 4.01 and greater by modifying
match edit rgba = rgb;
An in-depth look into sub-pixel rendering support in XFree86 is available here.
What's the problem, exactly? Gnome will get better, KDE will get better, you can use as much of either or both as fits your needs and at worst, you can go on using the current versions.
It's not clear to me where there's a problem. What's the worst that'll happen -- you might be tempted to change desktops to something that works better for you? You can even keep using your GTK themes.
By the way, VFVTHUNTER, you can turn off the launch feedback indicator on the cursor. I'm on a Mac right now, but it's in a pretty obvious place in KControl.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Yeah, I am putting a Honda Civic backend into my F50. Oh wait, the backends for both cars are so different that trying to use the same backend for both cars is just silly. You ever wonder why the auto industry doesn't put the same backend into every car?
Yes it could be done, two wrappers around the same backend resulting in QT and GTK. However, such a task would require so much additional coding that it would negate any benefits that it was supposed to have.
I hate to say this, but what will happen, is one of the desktop environments will die out. Its the nature of Open Source Software. Things can't stay splintered forever. Eventually natural forces (user's needs, technical needs, development needs, market needs, etc) will cause the gap between both desktop environments to widen. However, the initial competition that exists when there is still more than one option helps the end user get a better desktop environment sooner.
Now this has nothing to do with other ultra-feather weight desktop environments, which will compete amongst eachother for the bare bones performance niche.
Back to the dying out of one of Gnome or KDE... well, you can give any prediction you want, but the productive thing would be to contribute to the development of the desktop you like the best. Contribute by using the desktop and reporting bugs. Contribute by writing code. Contribute by making art (icons, themes, sounds, wallpaper, etc). Contribute by educating others about the desktop of your choice.
Finally, my point is that the dream of unifying Gnome and KDE is silly. One of them will kill the other, and thats a good thing because it won't happen until one is orders of magnitude better than the other meaning that natural community and technical forces will choose the best desktop for us.
Which strides is KDE making that are more useful than the ones GNOME is making? I'm curious.
I am also concerned about the Ximian fork, (even though I use it) How long till XImian hack up all the libs to work for their effort and how compatible will it be ?
Ximian does not produce a "fork" of GNOME. Ximian packages a "distribution" of GNOME and makes it easy to download. They tweak some minor things such as artwork, splash screens, etc, but it's not a fork of GNOME. I don't think you understand Ximian's relationship to GNOME. I suggest you spend some time on irc.gnome.org in #gnome and spend some time getting to know folks better.
Does it seem to anyone else latley Gnome is becoming a throw in everything and if the kitchen sink dosent work its OK, or is it just me.
That is not at all how it works. We're very particular about what we put in the release. I suggest you spend some time reading the archives of mailing lists such as desktop-devel. Much work has gone into making GNOME 2 more usable, accessible, functional, and a better development platform while keeping it solid.
Admittedly Gnome 2 has some nice stuff but how much will be functional by first release
We won't release if it's not functional :)
-jamin
Celebrate the finer things in life