Ximian's Back

An anonymous reader writes "Joe Barr at LinuxWorld has a hands-on look at the new Ximian desktop and he seems to like it a lot. The story is currently running on Linuxworld.com"

Comments

On the Mark

[robburt]

I am really glad to see that Ximian not only makes good off the shelf products for Linux, but they're now doing a great job of being really current with their technology!

Looks deadly

[Vendekkai]

Saw the screenshots, it looks great. Let's just hope that it's low on resources, as well.

Re:Looks deadly

[dreamchaser]

It's GNOME, so it won't be a low user or resources. Then again, that doesn't matter to many people who have oodles of RAM to spare for their window manager.

Re:Looks deadly

[BrokenHalo]

Let's just hope that it's low on resources, as well

It's not particularly low on resources compared to blackbox or whatever, but Gnome 2.2 still stacks up well compared to 1.4. I don't have exact figures to hand re. memory footprints, but it is definitely more responsive.

Can't say much about Ximian's implementation, though; since I abandoned RH and mdk distros some time ago and went back to Slackware, I've been using all these goodies in the excellent Dropline distribution of Gnome for a long time now.

Re:Looks deadly

[stefanlasiewski]

It's GNOME, so it won't be a low user or resources. Then again, that doesn't matter to many people who have oodles of RAM to spare for their window manager.

Hrm. What are you complaining about specificially?

Gnome, KDE = Desktop Environment
Metacity, Sawfish, KWM, Blackbox, EvilWM = Window Manager
Metacity, Sawfish, KWM = resource intensive Window Managers

Show me an advanced DE that isn't resource intensive. KDE runs at about the same speed as Gnome. Both Gnome and KDE have made incredible improvements in their speed.

Re:Looks deadly

[dreamchaser]

Where in my post did I complain? I simply stated a fact. I use GNOME myself and don't mind the resources it takes.

Re:Looks deadly

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never understood Ximian's reasoning about the their desktop. What good is a separate desktop if you only can install it on one distribution. I understand the need from a logistical point of view, but there would be a huge demand for a platform independent (within linux, at least) desktop. Someone with a polished, user-based desktop could steal that part of the market out from under Redhat, and still allow people to have Redhat support. Lindows/Lycoris/Xandros/Corel are going about it the wrong way, trying to maintain a whole distribution, when peole need to realize that X is separate from the kernel is separate from the window manager is separate from the applications. It's a whole different paradigm than the One Microsoft Way, that we are used to. But it wasn't so long ago when people believed that the OS and applications were differnt too. It used to be, even in the windows world, that the web browser, the word processor, the spreadsheet, the media players, the email client, the file compression, etc. didn't have to come from the same company that gave you the disk drivers.

Re:Looks deadly

[stefanlasiewski]

Ok, maybe I misread your intent. So many negative posts in this article, I just got confused :)

Sorry...

Re:Looks deadly

[Anonymous Coward]

"...who have oodles of RAM to spare for their window manager."

Yep. However, even on my Celeron 300A (overclocked to 450 MHz) with 512MB of RAM, I found that while Gnome 1.x and Windows XP (albeit with the eye candy turned off) were both quite zippy and about as fast as each other, I found that Gnome 2 on the same machine is a real slug by comparison. This using the latest nvidia drivers btw.

nostalgic

[lingqi]

it looks like windows on the bottom-part (task bar) and Mac on the top part (menu)... it must be... linux!

ahem... certainly not designed with normal people (i.e. those still operating on 800x600, like my parents only until a few monthes ago) in mind.

Re:nostalgic

[damiam]

You can always remove a panel and set it up however you want.

Re:nostalgic

[Nodatadj]

Most people these days are running on 1024x768 according to hits on my (computer related) website and on my friends bird watching web site.

on mine its 40% for 1024x768 and 6% for 800x600

Re:nostalgic

[ClippyHater]

And what are the other 54% running?

Re:nostalgic

[krumms]

it looks like windows on the bottom-part (task bar) and Mac on the top part (menu)... it must be... linux!

How do you come to that conclusion?

I'd be more inclined to call it "WinMac" ;)

Re:nostalgic

[Jester99]

Second that.

I've bought two new computers (one a dell, the other hp) in the past 18 months. They both booted directly int 1024x768.

Re:nostalgic

[Nodatadj]

The break down is
1024x768 - 40.16%
1280x1024 - 28.41%
1600x1200 - 11.22%
1152x864 - 8.03%
800x600 - 6.61%
Other - 5.31%
640x480 - 0.23%

Re:nostalgic

[BrokenHalo]

That's more or less true, though some have apparently had trouble getting rid of that top panel. One thing that struck me, though, was in the first screenshot: a "My Computer" icon. WTF???!!!

Re:nostalgic

[JahToasted]

THis is so true. Ever try to run either KDE or Gnome with a 800x600 resolution? Quite a few of the dialogs are bigger than the screen at that size. Obviously the developers have much bigger screens than us mere mortals. I know that everything looks great on my 19" screen at home, but on the 14" screen at work it can be impossible to use. Kinda sucks because I'd like to set up a computer lab that runs linux on some older boxes, but its just gonna give me headaches if this resolution eliteness continues.

Re:nostalgic

[Anonymous Coward]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Must .. not .. have .. My Computer .. on .. Linuxxxxxx.

Re:nostalgic

[JeffTL]

How about you try IceWM, WindowMaker, and even TWM, among other window managers that in all reality are almost as good as GNOME or KDE?

Re:nostalgic

[bogie]

"certainly not designed with normal people (i.e. those still operating on 800x600, like my parents only until a few monthes ago) in mind."

Yea because so many normal people like parents are using linux....

Linux is an OS for technically advanced users. Users who wouldn't be running 800x600 in the first place. Look I'm all for linux expanding its user base, but let's be realistic about who is actually using linux as a desktop these days. The thing that is holding linux back is an illegal monopoly, lack of popular 3rd party apps(MS, Adobe, Intuit etc), and lack of both OEM sytem builder and ISV's who want to push linux as a desktop. It's not the fact that it does't cater to the minority of people who want to use linux but only run 800x600.

Re:nostalgic

[dcuny]

That was pretty much the opinion of the article's author as well:

• The Home, My Computer, and Trash icons on the desktop proper are permanent and cannot be deleted. I really dislike them. Nevertheless, I guess Nautilus (a fine tool, but I don't use it) needs them to be there. My Computer? Please. I don't want that on my desktop.

C'mon, guys... Remember that moment when you discovered that Playboy has pretty pictures and content?

Same here. Give it a try.

Re:nostalgic

[zakharin]

And some technically advanced users are not millionaires and are using the same 15" monitors since 1998

Re:nostalgic

[Arandir]

Have you ever logged a bug regarding too large dialogs? I'm on the kde-devel mailing lists, and have seen a couple of bugs come through related to large dialogs in CVS. They ARE taken seriously and they do get fixed. But they can only get fixed if they are known.

Re:nostalgic

[bzzzt]

Please... you can get a 17" for $50 or so; all the millionaires have got a tft already...

Re:nostalgic

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a fucking loser like yourself knows what resolution their parents' computer monitor is set to.

Re:nostalgic

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is for people running 80x25 character resolution. XFree86 is still almost exclusively for people using 16 bit color or less.

Re:nostalgic

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with much of what you've posted, but not the statement:

Users who wouldn't be running 800x600 in the first place.

There are several distributions that are taking aim at the non-technically advanced users. Ximian is one of them.

I'm sure you've followed the complaints about Ximian brutally "dumbing down" the user interface. This wasn't done for the sake of "technically advanced users", because those were the ones screaming and yelling to leave their favorite tweaks in. For example, the "simplification" in Galeon for saving links.

Even discounting that, there are times when 800x600 is appropriate. For example, I've often run into issues with gimpy graphics cards that only appear to support 800x600 resolutions. There are other less typical cases, such as trying to run on an iOpener. And finally, some of us don't have the greatest eyesight anymore, and 800x600 is a lot easier to see.

There are valid reasons for working in lower resolutions, and dialogs written for larger screens are a real pain - the buttons are hidden off at the bottom of the screen, and it's a hassle - more so if you try working in the "virtual" mode where a larger screen is emulated by sliding the desktop around.

Well, since you've flamed the prior response (not mine), I won't bother wasting karma on this...

Re:nostalgic

[Dalcius]

I've found that the biggest problem for new users is installing software. AbiWord, Gnumeric, Galeon and Evolution are all easy enough to use, and anyone with a little regular experience with a computer can use these without noticing much of a difference.

The biggest problem is that they don't know what software to use for what or how to install it unless someone tells them. Windows has the advantage that most folks can click a setup.exe listed on the web, and hit "open at remote location" or whatever it is in IE, click next a few times and get an icon on the desktop. Linux users, on the other hand, download the file and place it manually (not difficult, but many folks don't seem to understand this concept), then run RPM on it or somesuch. I haven't seen Nautilus install RPMs with a double-click (as of yet), although I don't use RPM based systems anymore, so I can't say.

Package management systems have come a long way in Linux, and the last time I used Red Carpet (circa RH 7.3's release), it was fine for myself. However, my folks at home won't have a clue when they're wondering what program to use to graphically manage zip files.

The second biggest problem is integration: Linux isn't there yet. I won't go into it more than this: there have been many advances in this area, and Linux is doing well here, but the process from file download to editing to emailing out a modified version in another format... this process isn't streamlined.

That said... as long as someone knows someone who knows their way around Linux, anyone can use it, and without much hassle (if any at all). I set my folks up with RH 7.3 with Ximian extensions and a few basic programs and I rarely hear anything from them. My mom keeps commenting on how much she loves all the different screensavers; "It's like it's doing something different every time I walk in the room." She find virtual desktops helpful, and she has no problem with any of the programs installed.

Linux is a long way from anyone being able to use it. Product support is a big hurdle, but Linux tends to develop its own solutions to that (AbiWord, Gnumeric, Evolution). The biggest hurdle, in my opinion, is streamlining the system so the user can think more about what they're doing rather than how to do it.

Note that this doesn't mean "Make it work like Windows a la My Computer," but I digress...

Re:nostalgic

[Anonymous Coward]

the only 800x600 monitor I have is a $30 used Dell from 1994. I use it in text mode only for installing on (soon to be) low resource headless systems --pcs from around the same era.

Fer god's sake go and buy a damn monitor, man! You can buy a used very serviceable 17" monitor for less than $80. I know this because I have done this myself, and the store I bought it from had shelves full of them. I don't care what OS you're using, a screen resolution of 800x600 sucks to use, and you should fucking well do something about it. "Millionaires" my ass. Lack of money is not a good excuse since used monitors abound and cheap new monitors are also plentiful.

Re:nostalgic

[Anonymous Coward]

> Have you ever logged a bug regarding too large dialogs? I'm on the kde-devel mailing lists, and have seen a couple of bugs come through related to large dialogs in CVS. They ARE taken seriously and they do get fixed. But they can only get fixed if they are known.

If the developers really did take such issues seriously, they would bother to test those dialogs at smaller resolutions; no whining about inadequate user feedback would be needed.

Ximian Connector ?

[Aliencow]

Anybody has experience with that Evolution plugin and Exchange ?
It would really be fun to have instant messages and calendar sharing and all on my laptop at work without installing windows...

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[mindslip]

I'm completely Windows Free, even at work. Admittedly, using the Connector is a little slower than if the damn thing just spoke MAPI (why doesn't it again?), but if you've got a copy of Outlook Web Access running, it's great! I can do everything I need to.

On the plus side, over MAPI, I can at least get at work emails from home, which I couldn't directly do if I was running Outlook, since Outlook supports MAPI but *not* the webdav interface.

Now... if I could only find where they're hiding the Connector for Evolution 1.3.92rc1 !!!

mindslip

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[13Echo]

Often, your business (or school) will have web access to the calender. Try typing your mail server's name in a web browser. I use mine with Phoenix on Linux without a problem.

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently did some testing for an proof of concept demo and I found the connector excellent and it worked really well. That said, kde is getting many of the features that connector provides (meeting/appointment scheduling connector etc) so it may be worth seeing whether or not you need connector's functionality. Just remember that you will need a connector licence + a exchange 2000 CAL

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[IamTheRealMike]

MAPI is, as far as reimplementations are concerned, a horrendous protocol. It's based on DCOM, which is itself very complex, badly documented and so on. In Wine there is a very rough DCOM implementation, and I think Samba have one too, but supporting MAPI would be a lot of work. There are probably only about 3 or 4 people in the world who fully understand the details of it, and they all work for Microsoft.

So now you know.

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[chetohevia]

This is correct.

Theoretically you can speak MAPI if you have access to MAPI.DLL, which is part of Windows, and so not having that is sort of the point.

Other options would be to reverse-engineer the protocol, which would have been really really scary, or building a Windows proxy to speak MAPI to the Exchange server and something else (XML/RPC?) to the Linux clients, which would add latency and cost.

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[Anonymous Coward]

but if you've got a copy of Outlook Web Access running, it's great!

Huh? I haven't really paid that much attention to the Ximian Connector. Does it require Outlook Web Access running?

I use Linux at work and connect to our OWA without having the Connector, so I don't get what this statement is about.

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[tato22]

If you want instant messages in linux you might want to try jabber(gabber) or amsn

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[Aliencow]

I setup a Jabber server at work already, I use Gaim on my workstation, the Windows people use Rival which lacks some features (group messages) but still works pretty damn well..
I meant "Seeing my Emails instantly" more than "having instant messages"...
I don't know IMAP at all though, maybe I should check it out..

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The underlying transport for MAPI and DCOM is DCE RPC -- an "open systems" protocol from Sun and other UNIX vendors that Microsoft also adopted.

Problem is there's no complete DCE RPC implementation for Linux. Fix that and some smart person will get MAPI working.

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[Kunta Kinte]

The underlying transport for MAPI and DCOM is DCE RPC -- an "open systems" protocol from Sun and other UNIX vendors that Microsoft also adopted. Problem is there's no complete DCE RPC implementation for Linux. Fix that and some smart person will get MAPI working.

Probably the most insightful think said in this thread, including the original +5 parent. Too bad no one pays attention to ACs :)

Anyway you're partly wrong, there is a free implementation of DCE RPC at http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedce . I don't know how complete it is, but I think it's useable.

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[Patrick]

I haven't really paid that much attention to the Ximian Connector. Does it require Outlook Web Access running?

Yes. It connects via webdav, which is the same way that OWA connects. It doesn't connect with the native protocol that Outlook itself does.

I use Linux at work and connect to our OWA without having the Connector, so I don't get what this statement is about.

Connector requires that OWA be enabled, but OWA doesn't require Ximian Connector! Ximian Connector just makes all of the OWA features available in Evolution instead of in an ugly web interface.

Re:Ximian Connector ?

[IamTheRealMike]

No, DCOM is based on MSRPC, a forked derivative of DCE-RPC. The wire protocol is different for instance. Read up on the history of it.

Hmm

[captainclever]

I used Ximian desktop for Gnome 1.3 a while ago, and it was quite pretty. I've tried many different WMs and what-not, and I still like KDE the best.

Yeah so it uses more memory than most, but if you've got it, flaunt it.

Even if it...

[botzi]

...looks gorgeous, I won't "migrate", cause unfortunately a couple of hours erlier I found my true love ,;oP...

It's nice to see that every 3 hours we have a new Wm or Desktop reviewed on Slashdot;o)))....

Re:Even if it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. EvilWM's alright if you hate the mouse. My favourite, WindowLab is a little unusual in some ways, but it's mouse friendly and nice and efficient.

Re:Even if it...

[botzi]

I don't actually use EvilWM;o)) It's just the last WM story posted on /. , and believe me, there're many of those through the weekend;o))....

Although people say it's a bloat I've been stuck on IceWM for some time now, and I kinda like it......

Re:Even if it...

[IamTheRealMike]

Well you can use EvilWM with Gnome. Just killall metacity then start EvilWM. Voila, your favourite WM but with a proper desktop, panel and other assorted goodies.

Necessary?

[Gothmolly]

From the article, it seems that you get some games, some sexy pre-defined themes, and some non-standard app behavior (Opera, etc). How is this a meaningful review, and where is the motivation for change? What does this actually do that Gnome or KDE don't? Linux on the desktop requires a good WM and Desktop, but this doesn't seem to add anything ...

Re:Necessary?

[TheRaven64]

Exactly. I've run Gnome 2.2 on my FreeBSD box for a while, and from the review it looks and sounds exactly like what you've had by doing a 'portinstall gnome2' on BSD (and presumably an apt-get or emerge under Linux) for a while.

All the new features he was ranting about seemed to be Gnome 2.2 features. What does Ximian actually add?

Re:Necessary?

[azzy]

ximian desktop /is/ gnome .. just made all pretty like. And you don't get those games with it.. the article said that those games were previously installed.. yet ximian desktop was smart enough to add them to its menu.

Re:Necessary?

[Xtifr]

What does this actually do that Gnome or KDE don't?

What do you mean? The question is a non-sequitor. The Ximian Desktop is Gnome. Ximian was founded by the leader of the Gnome project to market Gnome.

this doesn't seem to add anything ...

Why should it? It's a free download. You can pay for support, and for some non-free addons (like the Exchange Connector), but basically, the Ximian Desktop is the Gnome folks' own distribution of Gnome, no more, no less.

Re:Necessary?

[Plug]

These things

http://ximian.com/images/screenshots/desktop/

Re:Necessary?

[IamTheRealMike]

Yeah, it's just a piss poor review. XD2 adds stuff like real printing support, themed/better integrated OpenOffice, some kind of "Dashboard" app and a whole load of other goodies. It clearly has its own theme for both GTK2 and GTK1.2 as well. Unfortunately the first thing Mr Barr did was set everything to some random settings before taking any screenshots, and then proceeded to write about the menu layout.

Basically, I suggest we wait for some real reviews.

Re:Necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dashboard won't be included. It was a hack in mono made by Nat Friedman that appeared in that screenshot.

Re:Necessary?

[cybermace5]

Not so sure that's a good indication of smartness. As you said, Ximian is Gnome, and the programs were already in the menu. Hey, Redhat has always been smart enough to keep your menu settings, when upgrading from distribution to distribution. Even Windows does this.

Personally, I got the idea this Barr character does not have a clue. He oohs and aahs about programs like File Roller, which is included with Redhat 9 anyway. And...uh...spends a lot of time talking about how he changed his theme to Grand Canyon, which comes with Gnome also.... It was basically a review of Gnome 2 and Redhat 9.

Yes folks, the time has finally arrived. You know those annoying people who use Windows, and think they are Leet because they put the Taskbar up on the side of the screen? Now we got 'em in Linux. The geeks will have to find something more forbidding and difficult to move to, in order to maintain the technology separation from Joe Six-pack.

Re:Necessary?

[the_2nd_coming]

by real printer support what do you mean? like out of the box cups with gimp-print, ghostscript and foomatic
all in a nice wizardy type set-up that makes print sharing easy?

Re:Necessary?

[chetohevia]

Yes. Out-of-the-box CUPS with gimp-print, foomatic, ghostscript, a wizard to add new printers (all gui, using gtk-usermode), and lots of drivers.

All the apps are set up to use the gnome-print/CUPS tools, so you just have to set a printer up once.

You can browse your printers in Nautilus and edit the queues there, and your active print jobs show up in the Panel Notification Applet.

Re:Necessary?

[the_2nd_coming]

sweet!!! im not gonna try it on my laptop becasue I have got my laptop working perfectly with the network printing and multimedia, but when I finaly fix my box in the basement I will try it out.

Re:Necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

The geeks will have to find something more forbidding and difficult to move to, in order to maintain the technology separation from Joe Six-pack.

That's one reason why I have been waiting for The Hurd since the advent of Emacs....

Re:Necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Gnome the Gnome folk's distribution of Gnome??? Where does Ximian come into the picture?

I tried ximian when it was 1.2 or 1.4 or something

[Anonymous Coward]

and I liked it a lot. Since then i tried gnome 2.2 which is supposed to be a lot like ximian but it was horrible. After that I tried kde 3.1.1 and it was much more like ximian than gnome 2.2 was. Is ximian going to be based on kde soon?

Also is there a prerelease or beta of the new version of ximian?

So, when ?

[noselasd]

The natural question now is , ofcourse, when will Ximian release Ximian Destop 2 ?

Re:So, when ?

[Mister Proper]

The natural question now is , ofcourse, when will Ximian release Ximian Destop 2 ?

June 9th. It's on their damn web site.

Re:So, when ?

[RestiffBard]

well la-dee-da. When will they release it distro wide? As I recall getting Ximain for red hat was easy and great. getting it for dang near any other distro was a waiting game. Thats why I never really took to ximian and gnome. gnome is great. ximain is polished gnome. KDE comes polished.

Near zero information in there.

[watzinaneihm]

From the Conclusion of the article, it appears that the reviewer actually liked Ximian desktop. But unfortunately, he hardly gives any solid examples of why it is actually good or usable.
The article is like, OK It is customisable, from GUI-apps that too (Standard with any desktop I would assume),detected all my Icons from previous gnome, looks good(?) . Only solid piece of info I got that is that it adds a program bar to the top of the desktop along with the default start menu at the bottom. And yes, most of the old bugs apparently have been fixed.
But in the "bad and ugly" section the reviewer gives real examples ... like My computer, trashcan etc. cannot be deleted. Download behaviour of Galeon has changed etc.
Unfortunately the conclusion of the article (ximian is goog) goes barely supported. though the author does call it a "first look"

Re:Near zero information in there.

[olethrosdc]

I wonder why the author devotes a section to galeon and nautilus. They are separate from ximian, aren't they?

Re:Near zero information in there.

[reaper20]

I agree. The reviewer seemed unfamiliar with gnome. The panel menu that he refers to is exactly the same one in gnome 2.2, and other than the background,s most of anything in his screenshots can be grabbed from art.gnome.org.

Where were the screenshots of these admin tools he's raving about? I know if I were in the ximian desktop the first screenie I would have taken would have been of Openoffice.org in GTK2 that Ximian was working on!

Maybe part of the agreement was to not give anything too nice away. :)

Re:Near zero information in there.

[13Echo]

They are part of Gnome... Actually, Galeon is probably going to be pulled in favor of Epiphany very soon.

Re:Near zero information in there.

[praxim]

Galeon is not part of Gnome. It was proposed for inclusion in 2.4, as was Epiphany. Epiphany won.

Re:Near zero information in there.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree - not much here. Furthermore - the info given is more a review of gnome2 than ximian. I'd like to hear about features unique to Ximian - not stuff I get with any gnome2 installation. If I change themes - does Ximian change both gtk and gtk2 together under the covers? What's different about the Ximian configuration tools from the normal gnome2 "start here" control center? Is Ximian desktop more than gnome2 with a few items/themes which I could grab from fresh meat - probably but I'd like to know why.

Re:Near zero information in there.

[13Echo]

Right. I meant to mention that the Galeon port to the new GTK libs hasn't been ready for long. For the last few months, Gnome has been without its own dedicated browser.

I just figured that many people were used to seeing it with Gnome 1.4.

Ximian Hype

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they are back but for how long ? And why does everyone hype the Ximian Desktop ? It's after all just GNOME with some minor changes.

Wisecrack

[arvindn]

"Darwin's evolution is faster than Ximian's".

Couldn't resist :-) I don't remember where I read it though.

Let's hope they improved Nautilus

[Anonymous Coward]

I currently use Nautilus in GNOME 2.2, and it's major suckage.

I can't edit a launcher, I can't create a new text file (ala 'touch'), and I had problems with creating a new "folder" as well. I wasn't able to move any files into the new folder i created, and trying to move some files into the new directory using a terminal gave me some wierd NFS error, even though I was using a local reiserfs filesystem! OK, so this is just a bug, it was still annoying because Nautilus didn't tell me what the heck was wrong. It just told be "Sorry dear user, I can't do it. I'm not gonna tell you why, but I will pesent you with the choice to try again, skip this file or just cancel. Oh, and if you skip this file, you skip all of them. Goodbye!". Well not literally like that, but it comes close.

The more I use GNOME, the more I hate the "less (features) = more (work)" philosophy. It would be good progress if they would focus on letting users perform certain actions in a more efficient (less time consuming, less handling) manner.

I hope Ximian Desktop addressed the extreme lack of usability features and hopefully GNOME 2.4 has too.

I like GNOME from a visual point of view, but in terms of usability it still lacks.

Re:Let's hope they improved Nautilus

[Ace Rimmer]

Well... Nautilus is supposed to be a graphical file manager ;)

So equivalent to 'chmod 644 *' is ....

'Do you want to open 244 windows for your 244 files?'

Re:Let's hope they improved Nautilus

[IamTheRealMike]

The more I use GNOME, the more I hate the "less (features) = more (work)" philosophy. It would be good progress if they would focus on letting users perform certain actions in a more efficient (less time consuming, less handling) manner.

Those problems have nothing to do with usability philosophy, and everything to do with simple bugs. There aren't many people hacking on Nautilus, why don't you help them out?

Re:Let's hope they improved Nautilus

[jeffphil]

Try using some of the nautilus scripts that you can find here: http://g-scripts.sourceforge.net/

Makes things a lot easier.

Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[PurpleFloyd]

It seems to me that instead of creating wonderful eyecandy (which this certainly is), the Linux community should focus on creating standards and moving away from antiquated systems like X. I would much rather have a windowing system that didn't have 20-odd years of cruft, but instead had native support for things like antialiasing and an X compatability layer.

Also, where are the easy configuration tools? Redhat is especially guilty of thinking that the user either wants everything configured either automagically or manually, but doesn't want a simple way to manage most devices in their system. Some basic standards on the locations of config files are desperately needed (just having /etc to dump everything into is not OK, as some packages put things in their own directory, some put them in the root, and some are crazy and keep them somewhere else entirely). Linuxconfig used to be good for setting up most components of a system, but it was only good for Redhat, who dumped it around 7.0, and not replaced. Debian has no central config system; this is slightly more acceptable as it is an "expert's" system, but I would still like to see some system that would shape itself to my configuration and run the configuration tools from the .deb package, if nothing else.

There seems to be a lot of great work going on in the kernel level, and a lot of great work in the desktop level, but we're still stuck on 20 year old tools in the middle. How would you like to use CDE instead of Ximian or KDE3? Yet we submit willingly to using outdated technology in the middle, for essentialy no reason at all. If Linux is ever to become a desktop powerhouse, it must be equally refined, with a good kernel, a good set of system config tools, and a good desktop. Just having two out of three is not good enough.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Aliencow]

Can you tell me exactly what is wrong with X ? Ok, it could use a little help in the fonts department, but it runs on old machines, it runs on my P4, it runs on PDAs, it runs on mainframes, it's client/server, doesn't force you to use a particular vm...

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think 20 year old technology is antiquated? I'd note that the basic unix system idea is much older, and it's been modified over time to meet newer problems. But this doesn't make the basic philosophy it was built on outdated. I'd say the same counts for X. There are alot of horror stories on it, but in reality it isn't quite that bad.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[visualight]

Or if they could just better document the config files. I reported a bug in kde 3.1 because everytime I open konqueror the View->Use Index.html option is checked and the save profile saves every setting but that one. So I started looking thru the config files (there are many) to try and set it manually. For just about any given config file there is no documentation that I could find that explains what variables/values are allowed for each rc or config file. The "KDE Handbook" is just MS type "open this window, check this box, click apply" level instructions, no really useful information. Kind of like this review.

If that documentation was readily available ala nvidia (the best readme ever) I wouldn't have to uncheck that box every time I open konq.

On the topic of Ximian's Back, who cares? It's basically a theme right? Doesn't look there's any new feature. A cool background image isn't a new feature. A new feature would be easy to implement/configure voice control of your desktop like IBM/Trolltech announced a bazillion years ago. I guess that one'll show up right after Duke Nukem.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[73939133]

and moving away from antiquated systems like X.

Antiquated in what way? X11 is a client-server system, just like Windows and Macintosh. Like Windows and Macintosh, it supports antialiasing, direct rendering, 3D graphics acceleration, alpha blending, etc. Unlike Windows and Macintosh, it has been designed from the ground up for asynchronous server operations, separate address spaces, and separate graphics processors. Unlike Windows or Macintosh, it uses a well-defined, efficient, binary communications protocol. Unlike Windows or Macintosh, it also has extensive standards for inter-client communication and distributed clients.

I would much rather have a windowing system that didn't have 20-odd years of cruft, but instead had native support for things like antialiasing and an X compatability layer.

Looks to me like Windows and Macintosh would do well to move away from their cruft. Windows pretends to use a frame buffer library even though that doesn't correspond to reality at all. And Macintosh's DisplayPDF system is really crufty--a slight variant of the 20 year old DisplayPostscript system.

One can doubtlessly do better than X11, but none of the commercial or open source projects seem to be even trying.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[nickos]

What's wrong with the X protocol? XLib isn't ideal as an API, but that's why we have things like XCB.

Old != Bad

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Larthallor]

Because that's what people are interested in working on. News flash to everyone who complains about what "THE" Linux community is working on: THE community is just a bunch of loosly (if at all) organized individuals with the talent and motivation to write software they want to have. If most of the people had the same ideas/tastes that you do, they wouldn't be focusing on [insert thing you think is overrated] instead of [insert thing you think is being overlooked]. But, if you're complaining, it probably means that your ideas don't happen to represent the majority view. This is not a bad thing and doesn't mean you are wrong. It is, however, important to remember that not everyone has the same set of priorities that you have. Instead of complaining about other people being effective in bringing their ideas to fruition, it would be more constructive for you to follow their example and create the wonderful new [insert your idea here] you keep talking about.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Seahawk]

Thank you for starting another X-flamewar...

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[PurpleFloyd]

The problem with X is precisely that it is client-server. While being able to run anything across the network is great, it doesn't work too well with accelerated graphics, like are common today. The DRI is just a hack on top of X to get it to work with 3D acceleration; all of X runs directly opposite to the concept of intelligent terminals. According to the X philosophy, all apps should be run on a blazing-fast server, which then displays the apps on a dumb client. Unfortunately, today's machines don't work well with that idea. The client-server interface generates all sorts of unneeded cruft for 90% of systems; those that need X can still use it (or, if it's just to allow users to work remotely, something like VNC fills the gap nicely).

Also, what in hell are you talking about VMs for? Perhaps you meant "window manager" instead of "virtual machine?" Assuming you did mean WM instead of VM, there's no reason that the good features of X couldn't be adopted into a new windowing system. The reason for migrating would be to drop the workarounds and bugs that result from having to keep backwards compatability with the original versions of xterm, xclock and xlogo, and the bad assumptions that get in the way of things like font AA.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Accellerated graphics work fine on my X desktop. Where have you been? My OpenGL support is even faster than it was under Windows. Tell me what's wrong with that?

Sounds like another X troll to me.

Here's a suggestion...

STOP USING THE FRAMEBUFFER DRIVERS!

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Mister Proper]

The problem with X is precisely that it is client-server. While being able to run anything across the network is great, [...]

Heh. Windows et al. are client-server too. Maybe you mistakenly believe client-server implies networking? Either how, normal use of X on you desktop will use Unix sockets instead of using a network stack, which is just some way of using IPC (like all modern windowing environments use).

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Asmodeus]

Check out Fresco

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well X right now I'm getting 200fps in bzflag. Windows version is only 56fps.

Seems to run fine with the Geforce 4 nicely.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Malc]

"Antiquated in what way? X11 is a client-server system, just like Windows and Macintosh. Like Windows and Macintosh, it supports antialiasing"

It supports it, but not implicitly. Otherwise all my apps would get it for free without having to recompile them. That's how Windows works... you don't hear people asking for AA builds of Mozilla all the time, but Xft ones are separate under Linux.

"Unlike Windows or Macintosh, it uses a well-defined, efficient, binary communications protocol. Unlike Windows or Macintosh, it also has extensive standards for inter-client communication and distributed clients."

[D]COM. Post/SendMessage()?

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have missed a few years of Red Hat releases. There are quite a few GUI-config tools available. Try looking in Applications->System Settings or typing: redhat[TAB] for a listing of them.

I've had first time users set up a box without using the command line once.

Althoug most people seem to be happier with a mix of using command line and GUIs. Command line is _so_ much faster, mopst of the time.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[corvi42]

Linuxconfig used to be good for setting up most components of a system, but it was only good for Redhat, who dumped it around 7.0, and not replaced.

You obviously haven't looked at RH 8 or 9. Redhat has replaced all the functions of linuxconf with a set of their own configuration tools. Personally I find that they all work much better than linuxconf ever did.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[BrokenHalo]

Can you tell me exactly what is wrong with X ?

Much has been made of the supposedly poor font handling of X. That is now pretty much a thing of the past, certainly under a decently-built recent distribution of Gnome and probably KDE. Font rendering is now (IMHO) vastly better than any I've seen on the recent WinXP boxes at my university, to the extent that I now find it quite hard to read text on the latter machines. Just goes to show how quickly we get spoiled...

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[73939133]

It supports it, but not implicitly. Otherwise all my apps would get it for free without having to recompile them. That's how Windows works... you don't hear people asking for AA builds of Mozilla all the time, but Xft ones are separate under Linux.

X11 had an old bitmapped font API that many X11 apps are still using and that could not be extended to anti-aliased fonts. That API has been superceded by a new API that permits anti-aliased fonts to be rendered and applications are being upgraded to take advantage of the new API. How does providing backwards compatibility with previous APIs make X11 "antiquated"? Windows and MacOS also support plenty of old APIs.

As for why Mozilla needs recompiling for anti-aliased fonts, that's a problem with Mozilla; its X11 toolkit is just not very good. If it used a better toolkit, it would also give you anti-aliased fonts automatically when available.

[D]COM. Post/SendMessage()?

Those are low-level mechanisms for sending bits and messages around; they have nothing to do with the actual standards for how applications communicate and interact with one another. Sadly, like you, most Windows and Mac programmers don't even understand the problems.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Aliencow]

The problem is not X..
It's hip to bitch about it..Like mozilla being so slow, which it was in 0.6, even though it's pretty damn fast in 1.3

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would much rather have a windowing system that didn't have 20-odd years of cruft, but instead had native support for things like antialiasing and an X compatability layer.

I think that's called Mac OS X.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[TheRaven64]

Either how, normal use of X on you desktop will use Unix sockets instead of using a network stack

Although most things will use the shared memory extension, which lets the server and the dsiplay use the same part of RAM, which is even faster.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

"One can doubtlessly do better than X11, but none of the commercial or open source projects seem to be even trying."

Fresco is trying, but they are rather hampered by a lack of developers.

Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?

[damiam]

As for why Mozilla needs recompiling for anti-aliased fonts, that's a problem with Mozilla; its X11 toolkit is just not very good.

Mozilla's X11 toolkit is gtk. The older (gtk1) builds need to be built with specifically xft support. The newer (gtk2) builds automatically support all of the X font goodness.

Why emulate windows?

[prichardson]

I noticed in the screenshots that there's a taskbar on the bottom. Dare I ask why? Emulating an OS that most people who have used agree is confusing and not intuitive. Windows hasn't kept the location of its network settings constant since, well, forever, I think.

Linux GUIs seem to have the same idea that change is good. One thing that made Mac OS nice was that until OS X it didn't change very much. Linux will never be popular if it can't offer a lot of things that windows doesn't. Linux should try to keep its GUI the same, then it will offer something windows doesn't.

Re:Why emulate windows?

[bogado]

In fact I think the standard look, from the screenshot, would be more similar to the macs then to windows. The default setting from ximian does not have a "start", instead it have a system menu. It also have a finder like icon on the right of the top menu. The bottom panel functions mainly for quick selection of running programs and switch desktops.

Re:Why emulate windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously refuse to run a Desktop- or Window Manager that does not include a taskbar.

Maybe you don't think it's intuitive, I think it helps with usability. there's nothing worse than having to press alt-tab in order to find the window you want to work with. I have to admit that I might be a strange case, since I like to have ~10 windows open at the same time... I tried OSX once, and I didn't like it's dockbar. It certainly isn't more intuitive than a taskbar.

Re:Why emulate windows?

[Psiren]

I have to admit that I might be a strange case, since I like to have ~10 windows open at the same time...

10? I have 26 at this moment in time. I also have 5 virtual desktops, so very few of my windows are covered by others. A taskbar or alt-tab is never required. Switching desktops is a 2 keystoke affair, and if you're sensible you'll keep similar apps together on the same desktop. For example I always have 2 mozilla windows open, side by side, on desktop 2. It never has anything else there. It's one reason I find Windows so difficult to use. Those few virtual desktop packages that are available for it just don't work anywhere near as well as Window Maker.

Re:Why emulate windows?

[MrHanky]

Just when I have moderator points, there's nothing interesting or funny to mod up, and nothing trollish enough that hasn't already been modded down. So I'll answer this:

I noticed in the screenshots that there's a taskbar on the bottom. Dare I ask why?

Having a taskbar is nice, because it gives you an overview of which windows you have up. That's nice when windows overlap and cover each other. Also, some apps (like Psi, a jabber-client) will change their name in the taskbar with a "* [x]" before it, telling you how many messages you've received in that chat since you last gave it focus. So a taskbar is nice for overview and notifications. It's not absolutely necessary, and you can hide it or turn it off completely if you want to. Or use WindowMaker instead. Nobody forces you to use Gnome.

Re:Why emulate windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm...Windows has native support for multiple desktops and it works just fine. And you're trying to tell this guy that multiple desktops is easier to work with when both of your methods seem to have the same number of advantages and disadvantages. Two-keystrokes vs a mouse click...who gives a fuck?

And I don't know why in god's name you would need 26 windows open at one time...it seems goddamn wreckless to me. Two mozilla windows open side by side?? Do you perhaps suffer from ADD? And don't try to tell me it's because you've got the mad skillz. I do everything from graphic design to web development to app coding and I rarely have more than 10 windows open.

Re:Why emulate windows?

[alib001]

Linux should try to keep its GUI the same, then it will offer something windows doesn't.

I disagree! The "start" button & icon dock desktop is a well-worn concept now - shouldn't new desktops be looking to innovate? Instead of emulating desktop formats from Apple and Microsoft (who've got massive resources to develop these things) new desktops should play on their strengths and try out something new (the previously mentioned big players are bound to a certain extent by their users resistance to change).

Something like trying to incorporate Fitt's Law which basically says the less effort (distance, size of target) required to get to something e.g. a menu button the better. With this in mind, I'm waiting for someone to develop a popup circular menu-thing. Anybody know if there are any projects working on something like this in a desktop?

Re:Why emulate windows?

[Psiren]

Uhm...Windows has native support for multiple desktops and it works just fine. And you're trying to tell this guy that multiple desktops is easier to work with when both of your methods seem to have the same number of advantages and disadvantages. Two-keystrokes vs a mouse click...who gives a fuck?

I never said they didn't work, I just never found it as easy to use and as configurable as any of the X window mananager ones. It a matter of preference of course, I find multiple dekstops easier, perhaps others don't. I'm just giving my opinion.

And I don't know why in god's name you would need 26 windows open at one time...it seems goddamn wreckless to me. Two mozilla windows open side by side?? Do you perhaps suffer from ADD? And don't try to tell me it's because you've got the mad skillz. I do everything from graphic design to web development to app coding and I rarely have more than 10 windows open.

I can't see how its wreckless, but okay. I have about 10 xterms open, several logged into remote machines. I generally don't close them as I use most of them on a regular basis. I happen to prefer 2 moz windows, even though I use tabs too. Just suits my working style. Gimp accounts for 9 of those windows atm, so I guess I don't noramlly have that may open. So if thats reckless, well, frankly I couldn't give a shit :)

Re:Why emulate windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is wreckless, presumably because it hasn't caused any wreckage.

The Pugnacious One probably meant 'reckless' :)

More on topic: currently I've 29 windows open on six VDTs for pretty much the same reasons as yourself, except no Gimping going on. When working from home I've Xinerama on a Matrox 550 with two 21" monitors attached (one from a former employer as part of redundancy package, the other from a friend who needed the floorspace (he preferrs two 17" LCDs and a Matrox)). I get away with four VDTs at home. (Current employer seems to think a single 17" monitor is fine - grrrr!).

The Pugnacious One seems to just have a sh*te attitude and should get out more...

Re:Why emulate windows?

[aerique]

Ugh! I hate all those panels, taskbars and what else. Such a waste of screen estate. Just give me an empty screen and a root menu.

I just use a bunch of virtual desktops with apps of similar functionality per desktop.

Also, I bound the right-most windows key to window manager operations so all those operations have become a one hand gesture. (Shading, switching apps, switching desktops, raising & lowering windows, killing them, etc. etc.)

Re:Why emulate windows?

[damien_kane]

I do everything from graphic design to web development to app coding and I rarely have more than 10 windows open.
My Job is web development and db admin.
I am usually logged into 7 servers, most of them twice, some three times. Sometimes I am logged into as many as 10 servers.
As a result, I normall have anywhere from 10 to 25 terminal windows open.
On top of that add Mozilla, Evolution, my timesheet (Gnucleus), a VNC viewer (gotta watch compatibility with IE), gkrellm, and XMMS; and I'm sitting at a base of at least 15 windows open at any given time at work; normally closer to 20 or 25.
As well, I usually have 5 or 10 stickynotes open, but I don't count those as windows, they just don't get lost as easily as paper.
I run multi-head moreso than multi-desktop, and I don't have a problem with using Alt-Tab, it really doesn't take as long.
As well, I name all my terminal windows according to which server they are connected to. Makes finding the right terminal a breeze.
So no, it has nothing to do with 'mad skillz', and everything to do with what I need to do my job efficiently.
Btw, at home I almost never have more than 5 windows open, I just don't need it there.

Re:Why emulate windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

The old version of ximian (using gnome 1.x) looked very similar to the screenshot shown in the articles, so for old ximian users, everything IS consistent.

The gui will not need to be re-learned.

Re:Why emulate windows?

[drunkenbatman]

I noticed in the screenshots that there's a taskbar on the bottom. Dare I ask why? Emulating an OS that most people who have used agree is confusing and not intuitive. Windows hasn't kept the location of its network settings constant since, well, forever, I think.

Because, even while windows probably doesn't have the best UI paradigm, and probably isn't the most intuitive... hundreds of millions of people use it in one form or another, and are used to it. MDI is considered to be a poor interface paradigm compared to something like OS9 or OSX, yet I see people get all fucked up sometimes on a mac if they are really used to the windows paradigm... it might not be as good, but its what they know and they've trained themselves (consciously or unconsciously) to get it.

It's the same reason Indesign allows you to remap the key combos to quark's, or wordperfect allows you to use word's... in all those cases the companies are trying to increase adoption by making the user feel comfortable and at home.

Cowboys move on

[jabbadabbadoo]

Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza are cowboys. They left GNOME in the ditch. They'll leave Ximian in the ditch too when they get the next big idea for a fancy desktop concept.

And it's just not good enough for the masses to migrate.

After all, it's just a pretty face.

Re:Cowboys move on

[rasjani]

What?!

Last time i checked, ximian desktop *was* just an another gnome distro.. And i belive ximian puts a shitload of code back into gnome project as whole. And question remains:

How actually they left gnome ?

Its like you are saying Alan left Linux when he was hired to work for RedHat..

Re:Cowboys move on

[golgotha007]

it's also like saying Linus left Linux in a ditch when he went to work for Transmeta...

Gnome 2.2???

[houseofmore]

Just looks the same as the current Gnome 2.2 w/ Redhat 9 no? ... aside from a few icons, what am I missing?

Ximian's Back

[smittyoneeach]

I'll scratch it, but they have to scratch mine, first. And no flinging 'stuff'!

its too bad Miguel wasn't broad minded.

[Anonymous Coward]

Their goal was to accelerate the adoption of Linux as a desktop platform.

A worthwhile goal would be to accelerate the adoption of OPEN SOURCE OSes as a desktop platform.

Instead, he's being narrow-minded.

Re:its too bad Miguel wasn't broad minded.

[mbanck]

Their goal was to accelerate the adoption of Linux as a desktop platform.

Well, that's not entirely accurate.

A worthwhile goal would be to accelerate the adoption of OPEN SOURCE OSes as a desktop platform.

Their goal was a Free desktop Environment for the GNU system (GNOME means GNU Network Object foo Environment). Thus, it was not particularly desígned for Linux, but for any POSIX-compliant OS with X11. Note that the GNU system is Free Software, not Open Source and that GNOME is used by different operating systems (Solaris, GNU/Hurd, probably *BSD), too.

Michael

Re:its too bad Miguel wasn't broad minded.

[Anonymous Coward]

GNOME is used by different operating systems (Solaris, GNU/Hurd, probably *BSD)

Yea, the part where www.gnome.com that says "It is included in almost every BSD and GNU/Linux distribution and works on many other UNIX systems." is confusing.

Alas, I can't find the even more confusing statement where GNOME took the position that 'it don't ship unless it runs on FreeBSD' (Same for *Linux, Solaris)

Re:its too bad Miguel wasn't broad minded.

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you get the memo?

BSD died dude..

There's a reason why Microsoft fears the GPL, and loves the BSD license.

I'm confused...

[Fizzl]

Should I use Ximian instead of apt-get?
Sorry. This might sound stupid. See, I have never used Debian.
I thought apt-get was just a package manager. As opposed to Ximian being just a window manager.
Could someone straighten me up... This is what I have understood of the different parts of a Linux GUI:

XFree86 = Window server
Gnome/KDE = Graphical framework
Ximian = Window manager
apt-get = Something completelly unrelated
(?)

*Fizzl is rather confused with this terminology*

Re:I'm confused...

[PerlGuru]

Parent: I think he was wanting to know should he download it directly from Ximian, as they package it, or use apt-get to pull it down and install it.

As for the Grand-parent: I haven't used thier desktop, but I have used other software from them. They have their own package distribution system that seems to work quite well, though I haven't used it under Debian.

Re:Ximian on Debian

[CableModemSniper]

This is purely anecdotal, and is from the GNOME 1.4.x days, but I found the packages in Ximian's apt sources had a nasty habit of causing file overwrite conflicts with other Debian packages. Sometimes it was a real PITA.

Don't feed the Trolls

[kikta]

No, he meant to confuse the two of you and anyone else who didn't read his nick. For future reference, messages from someone named "Debian Troll" probably aren't asking intelligent questions about Debian. :)

P.S. Fizzl, you are correct about those programs, and yes, apt-get is for updating your system.

What's actually in XD2

[RossyB]

This review is pants, it just talks about features of GNOME 2.

However, I've seen Michael Meek's OpenOffice slides and XD2 has:

* A rocking OpenOffice.org which blends totally with GNOME 2
* printers:/// so that managing print queues can be done in Nautilus
* a CUPS admin tool which isn't a web page
* tight integration with network sharing (I've heard rumours about nfs:/// working again, but most sources say that XD2 is Samba biased)

http://ximian.com/products/desktop/ just came up, but the server is kinda slashdotted atm...

Re:What's actually in XD2

[Wiener]

This review is pants

I guess I'm finally "old" because I have no idea what that means.

I'll just go play with my PDP-11 now.

Re:What's actually in XD2

[Anonymous Coward]

Pants would be a longstanding brit-slang term, roughly equivalent to 'sucks'.

Re:What's actually in XD2

[Anonymous Coward]

nfs://// ? What is the point of that? How is it better than mount or amd?

NO support for newest REDHAT???

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it doesn't work on RedHat 9, so screw it. C'mon guys, you can't support the newest REDHAT?? It's REDHAT for crying out loud, you at LEAST should make sure REDHAT is supported!

Slackware support?

[Chris Z. Wintrowski]

It's been a couple of years now since the last Ximian release, and they still refuse to support Slackware, and any other non-RPM/non-dpkg based un*x derivatives.

Come on guys! How hard is it to make a simple install script for Linux/Unix systems that don't run RPM? With all the grandeur pumped into 'Red Carpet', you can't take a couple of days to make a shell script that'll install Ximian from tarballs?

Re:Slackware support?

[robbo]

I didn't think anyone running slackware runs X, much less a fancy desktop. ;-)

Re:Slackware support?

[13Echo]

That's what Dropline is for. A new release of Dropline's Gnome just came out a few days ago. It's very nice. The installer is ncurses and web-based over sourceforge, and uses standard Slackware packages for installation. It even checks and removes old packages before installing the new ones. It's basically the Gnome 2.2 desktop with some added features and extra tools.

Check it out at:

http://dropline.net/

Re:Slackware support?

[Rooktoven]

Further...

Pat has packaged Gnome2.2 in Slackware 9. I haven't compared the differences between his pkgs and Dropline's, so I can't offer an opinion on functionality/usability.. (I open gnome every now and then out of curiosity, mostly)

Re:Slackware support?

[13Echo]

Dropline offers improved font support (including better Freetype builds), extra Truetype fonts, and extra usability features (PAM). Other than that, most of the extra Gnome desktop stuff is about the same. The extra programs and new i686 optimizations make Dropline a plus. Even the included XF86 packages are built for i686-class CPUs.

Re:Slackware support?

[RdsArts]

Install script is easy.

Guessing everything the computer's running is hard.

It's based on RPMs because 1) it's a known variable, 2) it only supports THAT on RedHat, and 3) it upgrades with it being on a RedHat system as a "given."

The reason you don't see it on other distros is because with each distro/configuration you add, you add another point of "change." Libs in a different place, same for executables, same for rc files in etc, and so on and so on.

Re:Slackware support?

[Chris Z. Wintrowski]

> Install script is easy.
>
> Guessing everything the computer's running is hard.

Isn't that what automake and autoconf are for?

I had previously considered the same issue you raise here, that perhaps it'd be too complicated to write a self-contained script that could handle the tarball installation over many different system layouts. Indeed, this is, apparently, the whole point of something like RPM. However, given that the aforementioned development tools are reasonably capable of dealing with differing system layouts, and considering that such layouts aren't in a high rate of flux, the target is not as difficult to hit as you seem to suggest.

It is wholly possible for Ximian to support other non-RPM/dpkg Unix derivatives with only a modicum of effort in comparison to their "Red Carpet" edeavour. The only reason they don't is, well, because they're a bunch of lamers.

Nice picture, Susan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Joe, would your friend Susan mind to share her great photograph (see this screenshot) with the rest of us? I'd love to have it on my desktop too :)

Re:Nice picture, Susan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Chop the side of that house out of the picture and it would be even better.

Why Emulate?

[chthonicdaemon]

Period. I must admit that the biggest problem I when explaining to people that I use GNU/Linux is `what does it look like'. I use some really strange WMs and mostly console tools, so my setup doesn't 'look' like the normal setup. It seems from your post that you think we need a unified look for Free Software to get accepted. Not true. Not even important.

Another problem for some people is the distinction that the Unix-like WMs and desktops make between the rest of the OS and the graphical interface. Network settings are not part of the WM. Desktop solutions try to do everything in one, but the Free Software world is more about small tools working well together well.

What I'm trying to say is that you should be more pissed at windows for making you think that there should be a standard place to change stuff. Not all cars have the indicator level in the same place (some right, some left). I find out when I get into the car where all the controls are, make a few mistakes and then adapt. That is what people still do a lot better than machines.

Re:Why Emulate?

[skillet-thief]

I agree. Why emulate indeed? I think that most Windows users who are thinking about Linux don't just want a Windows that doesn't crash. (Though not crashing is probably one of the better "rational" arguments for a lot of people.) Most of all they are expecting something new.

I think that is why MS tries to change things around with each new version of Windows, to make people think that they are getting something new and better.

Easy manipulation of virtual desktops in Linux was one of the things that could appeal to new users, but I am sure that there are a lot of other visual innovations that could be added to the list.

No Kidding

[kikta]

I felt the exact same way reading this article. If you turn off the BlueCurve stuff in RH9, you can do the exact same things this guy is talking about in the article. There might be a marginal improvement that I missed in there. But still I'm left asking, what's the improvement? Why should I want to upgrade to this? Why is this on /.?

The author talks about it like it's really great, but gives very little that I saw to support that claim. Did anyone see what I (maybe) missed? Thanks.

Re:Red Hat supported?

[asr_man]

> Not everybody...

Not everybody can RTFA either. That includes you.

The real thing that sets Ximian Desktop 2 apart...

[Plug]

.. is going to be Evolution 1.4 and Ximian's OpenOffice.org for GTK2.

That, coupled with GIMP 1.3 (the screenshots only appear to show GTK1 GIMP 1.2), will mean that GNOME (specifically GTK2) has all the productivity applications to finally get a consistent look across everything, something Linux has not been able to do until now.

Unlike KDE, they are not all being provided by the KDE project - Mozilla, for example, is GTK2 native now.

The real coup for Ximian will be getting GTK2 into OO.o - if they can do this, then the last minor inconsistencies will only be in applications like mplayer, realplay and xmms, and we've all expected media players to look different for years.

(Though, you could go get RhythmBox..)

Ximian's starting to look /.'d, but by all accounts this could be out very very soon. And even if you don't like the desktop, Evolution 1.4 and OO.o Ximian Edition will knock your socks off.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Stop Press

[Plug]

After beating through the slasdotting, Ximian Desktop 2 will be released June 9, 2003

A OO.o screenshot

Heres the announcement...

Ximian Announces Ximian Desktop 2 to Provide Complete Enterprise Desktop for Linux

Major Upgrade Offers Full Application Suite, Enhanced Usability and Robust Windows Interoperability to Enable Enterprise Adoption

BOSTON, MA -- June 2, 2003: Ximian, Inc., the leading provider of desktop and server solutions enabling enterprise Linux adoption, today announced Ximian® Desktop 2, a major new version of its popular Linux desktop software installed by over 1,500,000 users worldwide. Ximian Desktop 2 provides a complete productivity application suite, breakthrough usability features, and seamless Windows interoperability to enable organizations to easily and affordably deploy Linux desktops in mixed Windows/Linux environments. Innovations include an intuitive interface, the Ximian Edition of OpenOffice.org for Microsoft Office file-compatible documents, one-click Windows network navigation and easy printer setup to reduce training and support costs. Ximian will demonstrate Ximian Desktop 2 publicly at the Jupiter Media Enterprise Linux Forum in Santa Clara, Calif. on June 5 and 6. The product will be available for purchase and electronic installation the week of June 9.

"Our goal with Ximian Desktop 2 has been to enable enterprise customers to cost-effectively adopt and support Linux desktops," said Nat Friedman, co-founder and vice president of product development at Ximian. "Ximian Desktop 2 is the culmination of direct feedback from strategic design partners including over 25 enterprise customers and business partners worldwide. The result is an enterprise-ready Linux desktop that is easy to use, supports existing Windows infrastructure, and is affordable to manage."

"Siemens Business Services is seeing increasing interest from customers for Linux desktop solutions, especially in the public sector," said Duncan McNutt, senior project manager at Siemens Business Services in Germany. "Our evaluations show that Ximian Desktop 2 can be a great fit for Linux workstation deployments. Its familiar interface for Windows users, full application suite, integration with Windows environments and centralized management through Red Carpet(TM) Enterprise(TM) can help reduce support costs for enterprise customers."
Ximian Edition of OpenOffice.org Highlights Application Suite

Based on the open source GNOME 2.2 project, Ximian Desktop 2 delivers a tightly integrated suite of applications with robust support for Windows file formats, networks and standards. It starts with the Ximian Edition of OpenOffice.org, a significantly enhanced version of the open source productivity suite, which lets users create, edit and save Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint 97/2000/XP documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Ximian improvements to OpenOffice.org include default Microsoft Office file formats, 800 new icons, a host of user interface enhancements, GNOME desktop theme and font consistency, and the ability to seamlessly browse, open and save files on remote file systems.

Ximian Desktop 2 also features Ximian Evolution(TM) 1.4, the new version of the award-winning email and personal information management application that can optionally be integrated with Microsoft Exchange 2000 and other messaging and collaboration servers (see related release, "Ximian Announces New 1.4 Versions of Ximian Evolution, Connector for Microsoft Exchange..."). It also includes the Mozilla-based Galeon web browser along with Microsoft Windows metric compatible fonts and common browser plug-ins to provide access to and faithful rendering of virtually all web content. Ximian Desktop 2 additionally provides built-in Linux software updating with the new Red Carpet 2.0 application.

Other capabilities include:

* drag and drop CD burning
* buil

You think

[CptChipJew]

Once this project really starts to evolve it might become Xapien?

It still hasn't been released for Solaris

[@madeus]

I note that Ximian Desktop 2.0 still hasn't been released for Solaris, despite Ximian claming it has been (see Press Release)>

Quote:

Red Carpet version 2.0 is available on a variety of Linux distributions, including:

* Red Hat 7.3, 8.0, 9
* SuSE 8.2
* Mandrake 9.1
* Solaris 8


Obviously Solaris is not a 'Linux distribution' but I would like to know when it (and if) it will actually be released for Solaris.

Building Gnome on Linux & FreeBSD is relatively painless compared to the non trivial task of building it on Solaris. Sadly, the avalible builds for Solaris, including Sun's own Gnome 2.0 build, are either very out dated or very limited (or a mixture of both). And it's not as if KDE is a viable alternative either, many of the applications, such as KDE's mail application are actually useable on Solaris (e.g. it does not display messages in the preview window).

I'd been looking forward to Ximan Desktop 2.0 as Ximain's 1.4 Desktop is much faster than Sun's 1.4 Desktop, which I've assumed are down to Ximian using GCC rather than Forte (as I've found that everything I've used compiled with Forte rather than GCC is much slower, for example, Mozilla).

So even if Sun are interested in releasing an up-to-date Gnome desktop (which despite promises, they don't seem to be), I can't see it being nearly as good a Ximian Desktop.

I would have thought that Solaris users are far more likely to be corporate users willing to shell out for such a package (and any support options) - particularly in environments that have a lot invested in low end Sparc Stations or Sun Ray environments. I wouldn't bother with it on Linux as most Linux distributions have good Gnome desktops in any case (and it's become trivial to build on Linux).

Does anyone know if it will actually be coming out for Solaris? Can Ximian comment?

Re:It still hasn't been released for Solaris

[luge]

I can't comment on Solaris availability of the desktop, but I can note that the press release you're linking to says Red Carpet will be available on Solaris. Red Carpet is part of the Ximian Desktop, but it can also be used outside of the Ximian Desktop. Red Carpet (without the desktop) will be available on Solaris- that's all this press release currently claims.

Re:It still hasn't been released for Solaris

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Carpet for Solaris is available already, and has been for some time.

Things your distro won't install, but are good

[Plug]

Another cool thing: according to this screenshot (I apologise for contributing further to Ximian's /.ing but I have no mirroring capability), you can get the XD installer to install acroread, RealPlayer, flash, Java and the Ximian (MS web) fonts.

There was a recent distro (I forget which one) that, as its first screen, had a "Download all the things we can't distribute" menu. I have recently gone through the "Install all the Mozilla plugins for Red Hat 9" stage, and even with years of Linux experience, come up with things I've had to strace and dependencies you can't be sure about and Sun Java vs Blackdown Java etc...

This is another step forward for Everyperson Linux. If I couldn't get RP working, even as just a browser plugin, I'm sure that my parents or non geek friends couldn't!

But this does point out the obvious gap between 'Distributions that want to be Free' and 'People who want to make Linux work for the real world.' It's nice to see there are members of both camps. At the end of the day Ximian want the corporate world to buy their desktop, and I'm sure they will.

Re:Things your distro won't install, but are good

[the_2nd_coming]

so it will install the java plugin for Mozilla? that is sweet!!! becasue Java is a pain in the ass to get working in mozilla.....why can't sun make a script like flash has made?

Just wondering about these desktop screenshots....

[alib001]

The GIMP always seems to make a guest appearance in the desktop screenshots... is this because people use it for the screen grab or what?

The hunt for lib files

[zakezuke]

One of the most annoying aspect of linux, for me anyway, is the hunt for a chain of dependencies. You want a particular application, it says you need such and such... you go and find such and such, and you find out you need something else... and so forth and so on.

For me, my choice to use Ximian way back when wasn't so much for the neeto eye candy, but because they had already collected all the libs I needed for some application I wanted to actually use. To that end, I found it to be most spiffy. One massive download later, I had a slew of applications all ready to go.

Now if you are a seasoned geek, it may not be your glass of tea. If you already know what you want to run or have no interest in eye candy, or are a typical control freak who wants to do things their own way, hey that cool.

But keep in mind that part of this linux movement is making an OS that your grandmother would be comfortable using. This is something that both apple and BeOS understood very well (engage flame retardent underpants)

How easy it is to forget that goal.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[SN74S181]

But keep in mind that part of this linux movement is making an OS that your grandmother would be comfortable using.

Huh? 'this linux movement'?? I think you mis-understand the difference between rhetoric and chest-beating on slashdot and anything important.

'linux' is about cool Unix-like stuff. It's not a 'movement' to wage holy war on some perceived 'evile corporation.' Get over it.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[BigBir3d]

mandrake has urpmi

debian has apt-get

either one deals with dependencies automatically for you.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[damiangerous]

Only if it knows about them. I've still had to play the lib hunt game far too many times with Mandrake.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[the_2nd_coming]

run debian.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[f0rt0r]

I have been using Mandrake as my workstation (Red Hat on my servers ) and just recently started using URPMI to install Linux apps. I won't said it is perfect though. Two weeks ago I had to update my glib in order to satisfy the requirements of an app I wanted to use. Mandrake Software Installation manager ( which I believe is just a GUI front end to URPMI ) said it needed to uninstall some software before it could install the new glib package. Well, it did the uninstall ok, but it never completed the installation.

When I checked out my system to see what was up, I
found I could no long do things such as "ls" and "su", etc and would up formatting / reloading my system as even the login subsystem didn't work.

Does URPMI make life easier? Yes. Is it perfect ( i.e. idiot proof ), no.

On the other hand, previously I had been running Mandrake 9.0, and this debacle gave me the excuse to install Mandrake 9.1. :)

Re:The hunt for lib files

[Jagasian]

I use apt-get for rpm on with my redhat 9 install at work. The only drawback compared to apt-get on Debian is that with Debian, EVERYTHING is available through apt-get... but with Redhat... only "kosher" apps are available through apt-get.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this is stupid, but... with storage basically free, why don't we just build static binaries again and stop worrying about dependencies?

Pat

Re:The hunt for lib files

[stefanlasiewski]

either one deals with dependencies automatically for you.

Not always. You're assuming that apt can find the package, and that the package has been packaged correctly.

The advantage to using Ximain's Redcarpet over apt-get (to install Gnome2), is that a Ximian staffperson verifies the package integrity.

I tried to install Gnome2 for Debian a few weeks back, but kept running into dependancy hell.

I ran 'apt-get install gnome foo bar', go to sleep, and expected all gnome packages to be installed next morning.

Apt-get would search for a dependancy like 'libfoo.3.so', but the only thing available on the channel was a package that contained 'libfoo.4.so'.

So I would search for a fix, install the fix (usually by installing from source), and run the command again, only to run into the next dependancy problem. Find the fix, install the fix, run command again, and it failed on the next dependancy problem.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[TheRaven64]

One of the most annoying aspect of linux, for me anyway, is the hunt for a chain of dependencies.

So use FreeBSD.

portinstall gnome2

There, Gnome 2 downloaded, built from source and installed. Oh, you can't be bothered to wait for it to build? Then

portinstall -P gnome2

will install from binary packages (or source if packages are not availible). And yes, both of these get all of your dependencies.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[ksheff]

because it also helps keeps memory usage down. apps share the same library code in memory. it's also useful in that if there is a bug in a particular library, the distro organizers only have to send out a fixed version of that library - not all all the apps that happen to use that library

Re:The hunt for lib files

[fastdecade]

Maybe this is stupid, but... with storage basically free, why don't we just build static binaries again and stop worrying about dependencies?

1. Storage isn't free if developers continue to use all the excess. More and more binaries in high-level languages, more graphics etc. Although fortunately it hasn't scaled as quickly as storage space though.
   
2. Moreover, and sadly, bandwidth is far from free. Many users still on 56k. Even broadband users would find it impossible to download an entire distro if it were all static bniaries.
   
   Having said all that, I don't think it's stupid at all. It would certanily be nice if you could easily get hold of static RPMs. Sometimes I just need a friggin app and could care less if the static version's going to cost me a few more meg.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[TheLastUser]

Oh no, not the mighty BeOS, next we'll have to sort through 10,000 articles about the amiga and how they have been working in a secreat bat cave to build a 3THz chip that will asure the rightful place of amiga as the pre-eminent computer platform of the 21st century.

Give it up, unix is the only os, all other os's are just feature sets waiting to be deemed worthy of assimilation. (Note to SCO, by assimilation I mean features adopted, not source code stolen)

Re:The hunt for lib files

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the nice thing with shared libraries is that every time a bug is fixed in a lib, the bug is fixed for _all_ apps using that lib.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[JCCyC]

Actually, everybody has apt these days. I tried it for RH 8 and 9, and it works great.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[zakezuke]

'linux' is about cool Unix-like stuff. It's not a 'movement' to wage holy war on some perceived 'evile corporation.' Get over it.

While I agree the whole "evil software overlords" theme gets all my nerves, linux is a legitamate product, the likes of which that actually has a chance to suceed on the market place. It's not a holy script of madmen nor a new religion. It is a viable platform and should be considered that first.

I do look at linux as this cool *nix like software that has a lot of support and a viable alternative for those of us who are familar with that classic enviroment, but I also see it as being designed as a platform of choice.

It's a bit diffrent then the old os/2 retorical drum beating because people are starting to ask about it, and there are atleast a few power applications for it, though primarly server side.

And yes, there are those who run it just to thumb their noses at microsoft, which is fine really. I lack the same feelings that others do on this issue.

I consider it to be a movement not because of the holy war some isolated folks are playing, but because microsoft has decided to take steps preventing it's foothold in key markets. As we've seen in other /. articals microsoft has already tried lowering the price of their product in a few isolated cases. While this isn't *good* for users yet, it's damn good for businesses. "What if I consider linux.... oh I get a discount if I consider it, cool!"

Re:The hunt for lib files

[zakezuke]

So what you are saying is we should look at some of the inovations of the past in order to progress *nix forward? I think you just proved my point quite nicely.

Re:The hunt for lib files

[stefanlasiewski]

I tried it for RH 8 and 9, and it works great.

I've been using it for RH9 for a month now. The program freezes on my 50% of the time. If I kill it, the RPM database remains locked, so I can't run any another programs that need the RPM database...

Re:The hunt for lib files

[JCCyC]

This crap happens to me a lot too, but apt has nothing to do with it. A simple "rpm -e somepackage", sans apt installed, will sometimes lock. It seems RH9's rpm has serious bugs. And there is no update to it as of this time.

Lemme look at RawHide... yeah, here's an rpm package. Maybe this one will work better?

Re:Just wondering about these desktop screenshots.

[13Echo]

Possibly. But Gnome 2 can now take screenshots without GIMP. There's a screenshot option in the "Actions" menu at the top of the toolbar.

It can't grab single windows though. Nor can it do a "timed" screen grab, allowing a brief delay.

Re:Just wondering about these desktop screenshots.

[luge]

You can also just use the printscreen button in GNOME2 or XD2. ;)

My review

[IamTheRealMike]

This is just from looking at the screenshots. Let's see if I can do any better.

Firstly, it's clear that the visual style is a clean and stylish one. It's a GTK2 theme that doesn't suck, so congratulations to them for that.

The OpenOffice screenshots are nice, but simply having a good icon theme and making everything white (it follows the colours of the theme) didn't make as much of an improvement as I thought it would. Still, nice to see it better integrated. I think OO can use Gnome VFS now also.

The rest just smells of polish - what else did you expect from Ximian though?

OK. So reading the FAQ, I'm left wondering:

1) Is it really worth basically $100? Well, that would depend A LOT for me on how good Red Carpet Express it. I tried RC a few days ago, it's OK, but it has very little software available on it. Apt is good. They would have to work hard to beat even FreshRPMs, but if they did then yes, I think I'd pay for it, especially if they continue to improve the desktop to keep pace with GNOME, their own addons/extras etc as the year progressed.

2) Who are they selling this to? Corporate desktop users will probably want to have it all from one place, the distro and the desktop tied together. Are companies going to pay once for a distro, then again for a desktop? OTOH I'm not sure there's a big market for XD Pro in the home user market either. Extra commerical addons are nice, but ... not that nice.

Fascinating though. And out in only a week! I can't wait.

Re:My review

[the_2nd_coming]

I have always wondered.....

what is so hard about making a Linux system that JUST has the Ximian stuff on it with nothing else(other than CLI tools)

I mean, I could make one out of a minimal debian install (assuming installing ximian desktop installs all supporting apps like cups gimp-print, ghostscript, etc)

and then do the "get blah blah blah" but if Ximain does not install supporting programs and just assumes you are running a fully loaded distro then you have to know a lot about ximian and your distro to tune it to be just ximian.

You think that's bad, try Nautilus' Samba support.

[ddilling]

Oh, boy. If you disliked Nautilus this much just from that use, it's a good thing you didn't try to use it's (supposed) Samba support, or a tri-state rampage may have ensued.

Let's check the laundry-list, shall we?

• Randomly gives 'permission denied' to shares that smbclient sees just fine.
• Only gives you a login box the first time you open a share -- there is absolutely no way to try logging in as a different user after you're in once, and if you logged in with the wrong userid, God help you.
• The only way to even view your network is to type the magic string "smb:" into the location bar -- there is no UI for it.
• The smb: url wants not only your username, but your password -- right there for the whole world to see sitting in the location bar. Shoulder-surfing was never so easy.

If you have to co-exist in a Windows networked world, I'm afraid Nautilus is actually worse than nothing.

This is an advanced desktop environment!

[hikerhat]

"Another small detail that I have noticed and appreciated in the new Ximian desktop is that when I click on a mailto: link in Galeon, I now get a compose message window addressed to the object of the mailto:" Wow. Take that konq..., err, no. I mean take that mozi..., err, no. Take that Window... nope, works there too. Hmm. Mac.., darn! CDE, Yeah! Take that CDE!

Ximian's Back

[twoslice]

is a tad hairy...

Re:Just wondering about these desktop screenshots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Alt + PrtScr -> capture single window.

PrtScr -> capture full screen

Re:You think that's bad, try Nautilus' Samba suppo

[Anonymous Coward]

If you click Application menu there should be a Network Servers menu item. Also if you want to switch different ID's just type smb://userid@computer/share

Ximian WTF !

[alkalinelito]

Ok, This is just Gnome 2
With "my computer icon"
Ximian just do evolution, dont waste time.

Re:MPAA

[sould]

I presume you're a troll.

1) You wink and smile too much.

2) You have a big nose ;op

Re:Waste of valuable resources

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry.. KDE is ugly (even with theming) and I refuse to run an ugly desktop+

Round cornes?

[BigWhale]

Don't you just hate those? Bleeh!

Totally Non-Ximian-Specific red herring

[corvi42]

This report is a bit bogus, as he totally fails to point out any of the advantages of Ximian over the standard RH 8 / 9 desktop. Both use Gnome 2.x, and many of the features of Gnome 2.x are common to both. In the article he lists numerous "advantages" or features which he liked, but all of them are either standard to all Gnome 2.x desktops and are available with the RH bluecurve desktop or they are specific to applications like FileRoller, Galeon or Evolution which are independent of the desktop and also available under RH.

All the system-config utilities he mentions are available in redhat packages ( in fact I wonder if this author isn't just confused as to what parts of his desktop came from whom ). The only real advantage he's mentioned is the ability to use a GUI to customize the programs menus - which is one major flaw in RH 8. Other than that, there's nothing in this article to persuade me that Ximian is superior to bluecurve. Not saying that I won't give it a try myself, but this article is a bit of a red herring.

Re:Totally Non-Ximian-Specific red herring

[stefanlasiewski]

All the system-config utilities he mentions are available in redhat packages ( in fact I wonder if this author isn't just confused as to what parts of his desktop came from whom )

Are you sure that he isn't talking about the GNOME System Tools? RedHat doesn't include the GST, but Ximian Desktop does. The GST programs are readily available from the Control Center and My Computer, so this quote suggests he was using the GST:

"Clicking on "My Computer" brings up icons for various types of configuration chores, from printers to Samba to fonts"

GST and redhat-config tools both have similar functionality, but GST runs on a variety of platforms, and is much more mature then Redhat's tools: Better GUI, and the redhat-config tools have some major bugs like
corrupting /etc/shadow.

Re:Totally Non-Ximian-Specific red herring

[corvi42]

Quite possibly he is talking about this - if so, I stand corrected. However, the added maturity of these tools, nice though it is, is not what I'd consider a major advantage of XD2 over RH. Maybe a minor plus.

Re:Totally Non-Ximian-Specific red herring

[CRB]

After upgrade hell on other applications I wonder now about the Ximain way. Ximain makes there own versions of libs and this tends to cause all sorts of problems that I'm NOT willing to spend the time sorting out. Why can't I have N different versions of Foo-lib? And if Ximian is making N-4th one why does it have to break every program that needs the other version... DUMB. Yes I maybe the DUMB part of this equation but I've spent enough time (wasted) trying to sort this type of stuff out. If I want to upgrade GRIP to the latest and greatest (for the sake of ...) the last thing I want to see is that my choice of Ximain is keeping me from installing the latest RPM. Build form source? Nope still craps out. If there is a simple answer (besides just staying away from all this) then I would love to hear it. But current plans set me away from Ximian. A plain install of RH will be in the works. Give me a call on the Clue Phone if need be.

Re:Totally Non-Ximian-Specific red herring

[corvi42]

I understand your pain. I too wish there was a non-distro specific way to resolve package dependencies and automatically sort through the multi-lib version scenario. Unfortunately there is no such thing at the moment. However, this problem is not specific to Ximian, it is common across all distros - however, adding Ximian on top of a given distro does tend to exascerbate the problem, adding extra layers of (in)compatibility.

Re:Waste of valuable resources

[Anonymous Coward]

both KDE and GNOME look like if they just gave bill gates a rimjob and then got shitted on.

OSX forever!

(from what I remember of using Linux however, KDE had way betterlooking eye candy than GNOME did, but still they can't compare to silky, smooth, and finger licking good aqua goodness.)

Re:The real thing that sets Ximian Desktop 2 apart

[asobala]

The real coup for Ximian will be getting GTK2 into OO.o - if they can do this, then the last minor inconsistencies will only be in applications like mplayer, realplay and xmms, and we've all expected media players to look different for years.

I'm certain OO.o is not going to be GTK-2-ised by Ximian - it's a huge amount of work, for little benefit. They have modified it so that it emulates the current GTK2 theme in Ximian Desktop 2; that's got to be good enough.

Re:The real thing that sets Ximian Desktop 2 apart

[BrokenHalo]

GIMP 1.3 looks very cute with the GTK2 UI, but there are still some issues with scripting (amongst other things) which have caused some distributions of Gnome (e.g. Dropline) to back it out.

Re:Just wondering about these desktop screenshots.

[BrokenHalo]

is this because people use it for the screen grab or what?

No. There's a native "start menu" --> Screenshot... utility (or just PrtScn).

Reviewer chose not to migrate menus

[msobkow]

The reviewer comments on the first screenshot that it's what you'll see if you choose not to migrate your existing Gnome config. There is no mention of how well/if upgrading configs works, so I get the impression it wasn't tested by the reviewer.

Ximian: Different to GNOME

[asobala]

Ximian is put together by the Ximian company, not by GNOME, so comments that this is "GNOME's own distribution" are incorrect. GNOME's own distribution is what you get when you compile tarballs from gnome.org, and pretty close to what hits debian.

Ximian Desktop 2.0 is different to GNOME 2.2: most of the differences are public knowledge, but the review mentioned in the article is a bit crap.

-> It's integrated. Instead of having half a dozen apps to do the same job lying around, one is distributed in Ximian to be the obvious way of performing that task. Oo.o for word processing, Galeon 1.3 for web browsing, Realplayer for playing Realplayer-type things and so on.

-> It includes non-GNOME software. KDE tends to include an app for every purpose in the main KDE distribution as far as I understand; GNOME doesn't include the gimp, office applications and so on in the main distribution. Ximian does, and some of the applications such as OO.o are not GNOME applications.

-> The non-GNOME applications are integrated. There is antialised text in OO.o; it follows the main GNOME theme although it's not GTK 2; and so on.

-> Red Hat and Ximian both extend GNOME and give their users the extensions before they get upstream; there will be little goodies in Ximian GNOME that aren't in mainstream GNOME (but may be in GNOME 2.2)

-> Printers are configurable and editable.

-> The control center is fixed. Instead of having thousands of entries in a menu, it looks OS X-ey.

-> There is a "My Computer" on the desktop and various things in the menus to make the whole thing intuitive to use if you wheel along Grandma Mathilda and sit her in front of the computer.

That's all public knowledge. The best stuff is probably OO.o integration and printer configuration. Anything else will have to wait for next week when it's downloadable :-)

Screenshot mirror

[asobala]

Save Ximian's Website!

Here's one mirror I know of: http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~lindkvis/xd2/screenshots/

Re:The real thing that sets Ximian Desktop 2 apart

[GauteL]

If you hate inconsistency, then I'd go for Totem instead of Mplayer.

Not to mention ....

[korielgraculus]

... assholes who keep saying "Linux is an OS for technically advanced users"?

Grow up! People use Linux for all kinds of reasons and don't have to be technically advanced to do so. Or aren't you technically advanced enough to learn how to configure your system for usability yet? Maybe if you started to worry about helping to make systems more usable for other people you wouldn't have to keep blaming it's failings on others.

Re:Not to mention ....

[bogie]

"assholes who keep saying "

That's nice. Fuck you too dipshit.

Your the one that needs to "grow up". I've been using linux since Red Hat 5.0 and have converted tons of "newbies" to linux.

I've been answering the questions of people who are new to linux for five years now so don't try and give me any crap about either my linux skills or about my attempts to make linux usable. I've been then testing and making suggestions on how to make linux and the many apps that run on it more usable for a long time now.

My observations are about who actually uses linux, not who "should" be allowed to use linux like your trying to imply. And my point about the average linux user is correct. They ARE advanced for the most part and usually won't be running 800x600.

"Maybe if you started to worry about helping to make systems more usable for other people you wouldn't have to keep blaming it's failings on others."

Maybe if you if you had a clue about me before flaming you wouldn't look like such an idiot.

Re: My own experience

[Guido von Guido]

Installing evolution was a real pain in the ass on Gentoo even after I installed rpm. I couldn't find the rpm's unless I used the stinking redcarpet installer. I finally installed Red Hat on a spare partition, got redcarpet to download the damn rpm's, and then installed it. A total pain in the ass.

Then the connector piece to Exchange proved to be buggy as hell (even for the people who had installed evolution on an "approved" platform). I gave up and deleted the damn thing; it was way more trouble than it was worth.

I would consider trying it again if they had the rpm's readily available, but not if I have to use redcarpet.

Re:800x600

[tomhudson]

...and some of them are getting old, and even using a new 17" lcd screen, they want to run 800x600 so they can actually read all the fine articles :-)

Re:You think that's bad, try Nautilus' Samba suppo

[TheRaven64]

I found the smb support in nautilus fine for browsing files, the problem is when I try to open one. It then passes the smb://whatever path to the client program, which, of course has no idea what the hell an smb:// file is, so fails. It would be a lot better if it could mount the share in a /tmp location and then pass the /tmp file address to the program...

Re:Just wondering about these desktop screenshots.

[chetohevia]

Mostly, it's because you end up use GIMP for screenshots, or even if you don't (PrintScreen for fullscreen and Alt-Printscreen for window shots works fine) you end up opening GIMP to resize, convert, or crop the images.

I usually try & hide it because it's not the point. But it shows up because it's in use at the time.

Re:The real thing that sets Ximian Desktop 2 apart

[Karn]

Actually, Ximian's OO doesn't use gtk2..

I thought it did when I saw the screenshots, but a little birdy informed me that they only modded OO to use GTK theme info.

Re:Waste of valuable resources

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you have some shopping to do or something? Time for your bi-weekly pedicure?

boost for the desktop; FUD for the server

[squashed]

Ximian may get kudos for boosting Linux on the desktop.

But they raise questions about Linux server, when their home page is unreachable on high-volume launch day!

Multi-Head Displays

[deathcow]

I could get a gaggle of boxes switched over to Linux from W2K if I could find a multihead solution thats easy enough. I guess this Ximian would be no different than gnome in this respect?

Re:Multi-Head Displays

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry dude. If you're the guy switching this gaggle over, but you can't figure out Xinerama with Gnome 2, you've got no business admining the flock.

And no, Xinerama with Gnome 2 isn't difficult.

Re:Multi-Head Displays

[deathcow]

Thanks asshat for taking the time to input a totally useless answer. In the end I setup a prototype unit for them with Mandrake 9.1 Linux and a Matrox G550 card running dual 19" LCD monitors. Both monitors and the Xinerama extensions are working fantastic right out of the box.

Does it require Metacity?

[steveg]

I've been trying to get used to Gnome 2.2 on my new Gentoo system. I always hated Sawfish, but now I discover its great redeeming quality was that it wasn't Metacity.

I was *eventually* able to convince Sawfish not to raise a window just because I clicked on it, but Metacity sems to have even fewer customization options.

I might get used to its inability to set up any sort of useful root menu, but the lack of a rational focus policy makes Metacity pretty much unusable.

KDE works correctly, but it's just plain ugly, and not terribly configurable either.

Gnome 2.2 with Enlightenment fixes the focus problem (root menu too) but it fights with Nautilus. The only way to get Nautilus to behave is to turn off its desktop handling functions. All or nothing.

I'm starting to think that KDE might be the way to go. Ugly as it is, it looks far better than it used to, and it *mostly* seems to work better these days than Gnome.