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GNOME 2 to Replace CDE As Solaris Default DE
Gentu writes "OSNews had a quick chat with John Fowler, Sun Software's CTO about Solaris 10, Java, the web services competition and more. In the interview, Fowler reveals the timing in which Gnome2 will become the default desktop environment: Solaris 10, which is expected to have its first beta later in 2003. This is a huge step for Gnome2 in the UNIX world, as it will be replacing CDE for good as the default desktop environment (betas of Gnome 2 for Solaris 8/9 already exist) and becoming a standard part of the large operating environment with millions of installations worldwide. Additionally, Sun is now pushing developers on coding on either GTK+ 2.x or Java (they have in fact revealed plans on creating GTK+ bindings for Java which will make all future Solaris apps look like alike)."
Sun has been babbling about the switch to Gnome from CDE for almost two years now. I use both KDE and Gnome, and both are far more a "desktop" than CDE ever was.
It also confirms my decision to use GTK for GUI development under Linux (I love QT's APIs and structure under KDE, but GTK lets me port to Win32 clients without cost.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Given how expensive Sun hardware is, I'm not sure how much of a dent this is going to make for most people. Many schools have deals with Sun, as do many corporations...but I don't know of any individuals that use a Sun box themselves.
It would be more interesting to see a major commerical player, such as HP, begin to ship Linux systems with Gnome as the default. Gnome already has a strong geek following...what it needs now is mainstream use, which Sun is not.
I've been using the Gnome2 ( pre-release beta 3, IIRC ) Sun beta on an Ultra 1 in my office for quite some time, and even though the ancient graphics card only supports 8-bit graphics and 1280X1024 resolution, it rocks. hard. you can't deny the power of Motif, but as far as a solid desktop goes, GNOME has it. KDE is excellent as well, but I personally prefer GNOME.
I just hope Red Hat and Sun don't gut each other fighting over the corporate workstation market. I am perfectly content using both platforms, both at home and at work, and would like to see both prosper. Ximian is excellent as well ( actually I'm writing this from a RedHat 7.3 boxen w/ Ximian GNOME ).
I'm drooling at the thought of Solaris 10 right now...
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
I think Sun is promoting Java to push Gnome to avoid Mono.... think about it.... if they push C#, it undermines Java... why not port everything to some sort of Java binary?
This space for rent.
As a developer, the licesnce fees for QT are cheap. Really, really cheap.
So cheap, the cost is not an issue.
Their fees are equivelent to 8 billable hours per developer, the're that cheap.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
If I remember correctly, the engineers at Sun liked gtk because it used C, which they were used to. Also they felt their customers were more used C too, since Motif is C.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Last time I checked (almost a year ago), QT for Win32 was several thousand dollars, a far cry from 8 billable hours. Not that the price was/is unreasonable compared to similar products (such as the now-defunct Neuron Data Open Interface, which ran around $10K/developer.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Yes, they're both bloated in comparison to CDE - in fact on any low-end machines I setup with GNU/Linux I've been installing XFCE (a clone of CDE that uses GTK rather than Motif/Lestif.)
"As flies to the wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for sport." - William Shakespeare, King Lear
The rumors that tons of freeware software and even Gnome might be integrated into Solaris started floating around even before Solaris 8 release. After Solaris 8 release, Sun has made several official statements promissing to include the Gnome desktop in Solaris 9. Solaris 9 has been released in May and it still does not include the Gnome desktop. The last rumor I have heard, was that Solaris 9 12/02 (which was supposed to be released this month) will include it. However, I haven't heard a confmation of that rumor in a long time and now this. They're asking us to wait until Solaris 10 release, damn you Sun.
And no, an unsupported add-on beta package is not good enough. I want it to be integrated with Solaris and supported by Sun, just like any other Solaris package (this includes fixing bugs and providing patches as part of Solaris patch clusters).
I think a brand spanking new SunBlade can be had for like 999 dollars...
:). If you're not spending your own money go for one of these.
These boxes give Sun workstations a bad name and are best avoided. They're manufactured by a third party using the cheapest PC components and an UltraSPARCIIi with a tiny level 2 cache, they don't even have a real UPA - it's a fudged PC bus. The power supplies, disks and on-board ATI M64 graphics chips are all crap. The SunBlade 2000 is the first decent workstation in the product range, there's plenty of level 2 cache, decent memory bandwidth (and capacity) and fcal disks - which is no surprise, as the system board is also used in the 280R server. It's just a shame the case is so ugly
If you are spending your own money, 1000 dollars will buy you a decently spec'ed second hand Ultra2 or Ultra60 on ebay which will give you a much better all round experience of Sun kit, these boxes were selling for $20,000-30,000 5 years ago and if previous SPARCstations are anything to go by, will give good service for another 5-10 years.
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...
OK first of all, the Blade 100/150 um...sucks. I've got one on my desktop at work, and I tend to use my dual Sparc20 for everything besides websurfing. Sad but true. (and once my Ultra-2 comes in, the blade will become my blow-up box)
:-)
And "Constant change of GUIs?" Hardly! This is the third GUI that Sun has had in their history. Also, OpenWin (a better environment than CDE from the start) has officially Not Been Supported for some time now. I think late Solaris7 releases ended support, and with Solaris8 Sun stopped shipping it. (Which isn't quite true, but don't let Sun hear me say that.)
Sun won't have more than two environments to support, and there's really nothing to support with CDE.
CDE was an attempt at GUI by committee, and just never worked well. It has finally become stable, but has never had the functionality or configurability (or usability!) required. Gnome has the potential to be whatever GUI you need it to be. That is a big win for selling Solaris to specific target markets.
And in nearly 15 years of SunOS/Solaris life, I've not yet met a single CDE zealot.
My point is that this isn't indecision. It's a clear, planned progression to a modern desktop. In five years, they'll likely dump gnome for the next one, and be right in doing so. Things change.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
You never have used MFC then?
We have used both and MFC was a useless POS when it came to rapid development and maintainability. The costs for the Qt licenses paid back within a week (less time spent searching for the right (twisted and unintuitive) way of doing things the M$ way).
regards
Java bindings already exist for GTK. You can find them at http://java-gnome.sourceforge.net. This project is under heavy development and a new release is expected soon.
"why would you pay extra for widgets that look different and act different?"
Mmm... let's see... Cross platform abillities (Think Opera) maybe? Good and solid API? easy to use? Or wait, how about PDA's? Trolltech looks to me far from doomed....
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
I despise CDE. Not for its obtuse configuration scheme, but rather for the fact that it has so many security holes. ToolTalk especially is the bane of my existence. Take a look at what CERT has to say about CDE. Whoever coded CDE should be fired.
If you make GNOME so similar to CDE that you can switch desktops on someone without them noticing, then what have you gained? The reason Sun is switching to GNOME is because it is better (i.e. different).