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A Preview of Ximian's Gnome 2.0 Desktop
TweetZilla writes "Dennis Powell has a good preview of Ximian's newest desktop. But does anybody care at this point? How many people still use Ximian's desktop? As opposed to Evolution?"
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How many people still use Ximian's desktop? As opposed to Evolution?
Ximian's DESKTOP -> WM
Evolution -> Mail Client
What kind of comparison is this? And as a matter of fact, I use both...
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
The article doesn't describe anything other than how excited this guy was about the features he saw, which he really didn't go into, and there are no screenshots.
Will Ximian give me back my view-ports and edge-flipping? Gnome2/metacity/sawfish2 in RedHat 8.0 totally pissed me off with their lack, and opposed stance to such features. Don't they realize how addictive those things are? It's like UI heroine, and I'm jonesing! If Ximian implemented those features along with some other standard missing preferences like user defined key-bindings (right now you have to use gconf-editor to set them), I think a large portion of Gnome users would switch. Go Ximian.
Oh, and on an aside note, is Michael on crack? Evolution vs. Desktop?!? It must be the lack of viewports that's fucking him up.
> a number of very nice looking typefaces that exactly coincide with the ones Microsoft ships;
> as a result, their browser renders pages "best viewed in Internet Explorer," as the incompaibility
> is euphemistically called, exactly as if in Internet Explorer.
Erm, fonts != web rendering technology. If it's broke in Gecko it's broke in Gecko, and having the right fonts won't make any difference. Or does he mean, "best viewed in Windows"?
What's euphemistic about it? And why does the author call it an "incompatibility" when he means a "recommendation"? Euphemism, n.: "an inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive".
As another user points out, the article offers so salient points regarding any actual new features or improvements, just a general mish-mash. Then to round off it sounds off on a whole load of random mismatched arguements about how free software's wonderful. We've heard it all a thousand times before.
I get so annoyed by people writing pretentious twaddle using words they don't understand because they think it looks impressive, while simultaneously making grammatical, spelling and typographical errors all over the shop. You ain't fooling no one...
Next please.
It's not like Ximian's desktop is *bad*. It's certainly a nicely polished interface for those of us who like to have a constant and stable desktop, with simple ways to change things we'd like.
Ximian certainly offers that, but IMHO, Gnome2's desktop framework offers this as well. Ximian though, in contrast to just Gnome2, is a bit easier for most Windows converts than just plain Gnome/Gnome2. Also, Ximian's desktop is rather inclusive of some pretty "user-friendly" tools.
I think KDE and Ximian's Gnome2 are going to be the usual first-used desktops by most converts. This is important for those who care about making Linux a more "popular" desktop for the general populous. We should always try to encourage this type of activity, because it inspires choice.
After a convert learns about all the features, and shortcomings of their "starter" environment, they will inevitably change something, or just find something they like more.
Without a "starter" type desktop though, they wouldn't be as encouraged to find something they like more, thus stifling the overall acceptance of Linux as a general purpose desktop.
We should always try to change the negative to be positive, if it is possible. A good Linux desktop, which wins converts from Windows, will increase the popularity of Linux, thus increasing the acceptance of OpenSource software, thus increasing how much people rely on OSS, and then people will care more about it than they previously had. At least a little.
It's a chain of events that will lead more use of OSS software in general, and something we should continue to help the growth of. Not say "why the hell would anyone use that shit? I use WindowMaker and it's just fine!". Maybe once those converts are on Linux for a while, they may agree. Give'm the opportunity.
--SuperBug