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

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

[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

[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.

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: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 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: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: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: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: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: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.