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Gnome 2.0 Beta 2 Released
plastercast writes: "Following the release of GTK2, the second beta of gnome 2.0 is available. There are also release notes here. From Gnotices: 'The GNOME 2.0 Desktop is a greatly improved user environment for existing GNOME applications. Enhancements include anti-aliased text and first class internationalisation support, new accessibility features for disabled users, and many improvements throughout GNOME's highly regarded user interface.'"
For those of you who aren't too keen on manually downloading all the individual packages and their dependencies, you may wish to try garnome (http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/garnome/).
It behaves a bit like the BSD ports tree as it'll download and install all the necessary packages. Even better, it'll install them in an out-of-the-way place so you can keep running gnome1.2!
Cheers Koz
the GNOME 2.0 Desktop is a greatly improved user environment for existing GNOME applications. Enhancements include anti-aliased text and first class internationalisation support, new accessibility features for disabled users, and many improvements throughout GNOME's highly regarded user interface.
:-)
Thanks for that info, it's not like we didn't read exactly that same blurb when beta 1 was released...
I bastun bor vi allihopa = we all live in the sauna (it's swedish)
Acts@core.mailboks.com Acrux@core.mailboks.com Adam@core.mailboks.com Adar@core.mailboks.com Ada@core.mailboks.com
"I bastun bor vi allihopa = we all live in the sauna (it's swedish)"
Damn. You mean it's not "I'm cuckoo for cocoa puffs"?
All my hopes for this release are dashed.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Uh.... no.
Gnome 1 programs will run FINE on a Gnome 2 desktop. Ever tried running a KDE app on Gnome, or vice-versa? It works fine. Gnome 1 apps on Gnome 2 desktop is just like that.
BTW, this is like your 3rd quasi-troll post on this thead. How exactly do you post with a +1 bonus?!
The Free desktop that Just Works
Have you ever noticed how, on Windows, after the desktop appears it still takes a good thirty seconds to a minute until your computer actually starts responding to what you want to do? (for me the time seems to increase proportional to how many programs you have uninstalled)
The issue is not that IE takes less time to load than say, Konqueror or Netscape, it's that it loads at startup, whether you want it to or not.
Here's a question I don't know the answer to - what happens when Internet Explorer crashes? Does it get completely unloaded from memory, like any crashes program should, or does partially remain?
An unrelated point (as in that I never thought about the relation between the two until now) but I realise that at any point that Internet Explorer has ever crashed on me before, I've had to reboot Windows before my computer "feels" stable again, and I'm the kind of person who picks up on the warning signs when a computer/program are about to crash...
Anyway, that's (some of) the reasons I use KDE on linux...
I want to have a nice looking, easy to use desktop. With a nice file manager, good web browser, extensive control panel, something that rivals windows.
Considered Mac OS X?
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Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
I did an informal test a while back. At work I have a Win2K machine (PIV 1.4Ghz) which I converted to a dual boot FreeBSD machine. Having to reboot into Windows on occasion caused me no end of aggravation, one of which was the sucky speed. So I started timing stuff.
From power on to IExplorer showing my homepage, Win2K takes 90 seconds. From power on to Konqueror showing my homepage, FreeBSD/KDE takes 65 seconds.
I don't want the simplest windows manager available so I can get similar performace to XP running on the same hardware.
I've never used XP, but the window manager for 95/98/2K sucks! It is the simplest window manager available! Maybe I've just gotten used to X window manager, but I find the Windows GUI to be horribly awkward. If you have a window obscuring another one, you have to minimize it because there's no way to send it to the back (that I've found). There's no snap to edges or other windows. No rollups. No vertical or horizontal maximizes. And the automatic placement of windows is downright primitive. Frankly, it feels like it designed for users that only have one window open at a time.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
kcalc has the biggest footprint I've ever seen for a calculator
I have a suspicion this is to do with the C++ linker problem. In a nutshell, GCC"s handling of relocating libraries when they address collide sucks. It's slow. Really slow. The KDE team have been attempting to get over this by creating one process that loads most of the libraries - kdeinit, then forking the process to be the individual applications. The long and the short of this is the libraries remain loaded at the same address, don't have to reload and relocate, and all the processes can share the same code pages since they're copy on write.
Don't worry, they know it's a hack too.
There's a lot of work going into making it such that the GCC linker can build libraries to different default virtual memory addresses, hence stopping the loader from having to relocate libraries. When this happens the individual distros can be built with non colliding libraries, the kdeinit hack can go away and all will be at peace in KDE land. Personally, I'd delay 3.0 until the situation is sorted, but it's not my project.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
all the Gnome1 programs will of course still work as usual
:( I've used that channel twice now. Twice it's hosed my entire GNOME install and I've had to uninstall everything and go back to the original RPMs from my install CDs. (On a RedHat 7.2 install.)
So they claim.
The last time it hosed some system libraries somewhere in the process, and half my applications wouldn't run. (Anything using Python or Perl, apparently... plus X was very... flaky.)
My advice would be to only use the Red-Carpet snapshots on a machine you're willing to lose.
- fader
Good theory. But false. I DO use ECC and still have that problem in windows, not in Linux, on the same box.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Good point. Is it a coincidence that Linus the Great is a native speaker of Swedish (although a Finnish national)? Methinks not.
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The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.
Windows 2K Server takes about an hour to install. However, it comes with a paucity of useful software...c'mon...Wordpad? Pinball? IE? LookOut Express? Paint? Also there's the time it takes to patch. That takes MUCH longer than the install.
I installed Red Hat 7.2 today. Again, it took me an hour. But I now have tons of useful software and even some of my favorite timesink games. Yeah, I know there's patching to do here too. But most of the patches don't require rebooting.
Don't get me wrong...I like Windows 2000. It's way better than 9x and arguably better than XP. And unlike Win2K I still have a lot to learn about Linux. But as far as tweak factors, installing Linux and installing 2K are about even. And Linux just plain gives you more good stuff to play with.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Everybody here had better learn to admit this is a problem.
The solution should also be looked at, and it is a killer: get rid of the "window manager". Most people seem to think this means that the window manager must be built into X, like Windows. But that only eliminates 1/2 the slow communication, and has the unfortunate effect of completely freezing window management design, which is a problem Windows is having relative to Linux right now (read the above comments!)
What I mean is "window managment" (meaning the positioning, decoration, moving, resizing, etc) of windows, should be part of the toolkit. The window border is no different than a button or anything elss. All sane people (there are some exceptions here) know that the drawing of the button should be up to the appliation or the shared libraries it decides to load, so why not the window borders?
But all the window borders will look different! Yes, they will. That is because it is impossible to have "consistency" and at the same time have "innovation". Think about it. And all those people who worry about "consistent user interface" should go and talk to some real users and they will find out that "consistency" is way overrated. Why aren't games "consistent"? Because they want to advance the state of the art. And I'm sure somebody will say "hey I was confused by the inconsistent Linux GUI", but think about it: what you really were confused by was two different interfaces, one a "stupid" design and one a (possibly) "smart" design. You were not confused by the inconsistency, you were confused because one of the interfaces was stupid. Also, look at the toolkits, with no requirements that they share code, they are pretty damn consistent, because they copy the working ideas from each other! If X had envorced "consistency" we would all be using the Athena widget set right now and trying to brag to Windows users that we can swap white and black in our preferences.
When we get rid of the window manager you will probably see some real innovation, like windows without borders (you move/raise them by grabbing any inactive area), and intellegent window stacking and ordering by programs that know exactly what window is important right now.
There will have to be a "task manager" (go ahead and take the Windows term, it won't bite). It would be like the "panel" in Gnome and programs would indicate they are running and respond to messages saying "appear" and "disappear" (or they can ignore the messages just to cause trouble, but it should be allowed).
Ok enough ranting on Slashdot.
There already is one. It's called Enlightenment. That's the new one I'm waitin' for.