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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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... would you submit a story with "Who really gives a flying fuck?" in the summary?
I'd totally forgotten that they rebranded Gnome. I tried it when it first came out, but it didn't really offer anything that the 'normal' Gnome didn't do just as well (which isn't saying much.)
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.
How many people still use Ximian's desktop?
A lot of Solaris users (including myself) that don't want to spend days downloading and compiling dependencies for Gnome.
_______
2B1ASK1
No screenshots.
Stop reading.
I like Ximian, and I like KDE. I find it easier to install Ximian, so I tend to use it. I don't want to go messing with all the RPM dependencies to get KDE going on my RedHat system. Ximian does it for my in a GUI wizard. Call me an idiot if you want.
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.
my desktop environment can beat up your desktop environment...
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
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.
Read the article- it's (will be) based on 2.2. I'd say that with the polish and finish that 2.2 has brought vs. 2.0 that this was a lot of the code maturity and consistency that Ximian was waiting for. - you have to remember that although they are not up to CVS speed for getting this out.. (I know I know it's taken them freakin forever) that they wanted to wait for a good solid "Gnome Distro" to be tested and ready. They don't target this neccesarily towards the techie crowd- but more as a corporate (easy to roll out and maintain via Red Carpet (and RC enterprise) desktop solution WITH a company in the back to optionally support it (important seling point to some mgrs.). Also it's an easy to install/maintain and 'fairly' quick intro to Gnome for a lot of folks who won't/can't/don't want to compile and put up with problems with bleeding edge code...
"You never truly understand a thing until you can explain it to your grandmother" -Albert Einstein
Well, considering that Ximian is the only easily installable version of the GNOME desktop (unless you stick with what comes default with your distro), I would say probably quite a few. And Evolution is a mail client, so that comparison doesn't make much sense.
> 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.
Ditto on that front.
If you're running RH8.0 and want to use a version of Gnome that's a little more current, may I suggest that you check out Garnome? It's a very nice ports-based Gnome distribution based (currently) on the latest 2.2RC1 (2.1.90)
I installed it on my Laptop which is running RH80, and it fixed a lot of things that were pissing me off. Upgrading galeon from their site didn't hurt either.
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
Edge-flipping and viewports are both in GNOME 2. Annoyingly enough, the GNOME people took a page from the KDE people and decided that no one would *ever* want one big desktop, so their default now sucks. It's quite easy to get things back, though.
;; set up viewports
I use sawfish. Add the following to ~/.sawfishrc:
(setq customize-command-classes '(default viewport))
(setq viewport-dimensions '(3 . 4))
(or whatever size you want -- I like 3 across, 4 high.
For edge flipping, be sure you've turned it on in the sawfish config dialog.
Finally, a bunch of the kickass features in GNOME 2 are off by default to accomodate less-than-technically-ept Windows users. You probably want them on too.
Add the following to ~/.gtkrc-2.0:
gtk-can-change-accels = 1
gtk-key-theme-name = "Emacs"
This will give you emacs style keys back again. Once more, ctrl-a will go to the beginning of the line, ctrl-k will kill, etc. It will also let you rebind menu items by simply hovering the mouse pointer over the item so that it's selected and then hitting the desired key combination.
And I agree about the Evolution/Desktop thing...how did this ever get on Slashdot?
May we never see th