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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"
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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!
--- I'll have a Bloody Mary, a Steak Sandwich and a uh Steak Sandwich.
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.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
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...
It's nice to see that every 3 hours we have a new Wm or Desktop reviewed on Slashdot;o)))....
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
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 ...
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The natural question now is , ofcourse, when will Ximian release Ximian Destop 2 ?
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. ... like My computer, trashcan etc. cannot be deleted. Download behaviour of Galeon has changed etc.
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
Unfortunately the conclusion of the article (ximian is goog) goes barely supported. though the author does call it a "first look"
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
Couldn't resist :-) I don't remember where I read it though.
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.
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.
Help I'm a rock.
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...
I'll scratch it, but they have to scratch mine, first. And no flinging 'stuff'!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
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.
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.
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...
.. is going to be Evolution 1.4 and Ximian's OpenOffice.org for GTK2.
/.'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.
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
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
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.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
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.
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.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin