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Ximian Desktop 2, Evolution Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the join-the-masses-grabbing-the-files dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ximian has released their long awaited Ximian Desktop 2, their popular Gnome-based desktop, and Evolution, their popular email client and calendar program. They can be found on the main Ftp server. You can also check their mirrors."

6 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. Good to see by barcodez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's good to see that someone is still trying to give MS a run for their money on the desktop. This looks like an excellent piece of software. This release is the light at the end of the tunnel for those trying to use Linux on the desktop within Microsoft-centric office environments.

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    1. Re:Good to see by __past__ · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I like the look of Gnome too, but after trying Gnome2.2 for a while now, I have to say it's probably not for me. And no, KDE is not the alternative.

      What I miss most is integration of the loads of programs available for Gnome. Wouldn't it be nice if MrProject and the Evo calendar were linked in some way? Or if I could use the same filters for mail and news? Or look up people I meet in IRC in a global address book, and send them a mail or something?

      Not to mention extensibility. How the f**k do I register spam mails with bogofilter from Evo? (I don't really know if it's impossible. The documentation doesn't mention it, but then, it thinks that using multiple mail accounts is "advanced", so scripting is probably beyond the scope of it (or Evolution). Well, at least it has documentation, unlike half of the other appps I use.)

      Funny thing is, the best integrated environment I found yet is Emacs. Granted, it isn't that visually pleasing, and not exactly quick to learn, but once you get the hang of it, everything just works like it should. Gnus handles mail, news and other data sources transparently (including slashdot, btw), the erc IRC client integrates the BBDB contact database, I can listen to MP3s from the directory editor etc. pp. In short, a complete, well-integrated, productive desktop environment that even happens to work without X, for those SSH moments.

      The only things I miss are a useable web browser (w3 sucks), an ICQ client and, more than anything, multithreaded Elisp. Or rather, drop Elisp and use a modern Common Lisp as the backend - CLISP, while not the best CL implementation of the world, would be appropriate, scince it's GPL and very portable. Writing an Elisp compat layer in CL seems possible, if not trivial. But of course, this is never going to happen.

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      Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
  2. Re:"Popular" ? by Ami+Ganguli · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure about numbers, but it's certainly popular with me. I've been waiting for months for XD2.

    Red Carpet has been unable to download the packages for the last few hours, so I guess there are enough people like me to swamp their servers.

    Just because your crowd doesn't use something, doesn't mean it's not popular. I don't know anybody who uses a Mac, much less Apple's new music thingy, but apparently that's popular too. Go figure.

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    It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
  3. Re:"Popular" ? by afidel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Trust me they are used pretty widely in the corporate linux market. Red carpet is a great rollout manager and Evolution is THE email client to use under linux if you have to talk to Exchange (requires Ximian connector which is not free software, but it truely rocks).

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    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  4. Re:Yes, but by cjjjer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    2. Why use a client that apes Outlook behavior, when better faster thinner clients exist.

    You obviously have never trained end users. The kind that when then turn on their computers expect to see it a certain way. This probably accounts for 75% of the corporate end users. The only way Linux and desktops alike will get more acceptability in todayâ(TM)s market is to mimic Windows as closely as possible. Most of the end users that I have trained are either terrified or disgusted with the fact that they have to learn the new features of an application/OS. For the most part IT/Management knows this and don't want a bunch of irate workers on their hands. Unless IT/Management wants to train its staff all over again the money then save by moving to Open Source they will need to cover the costs of re-training.

  5. BUY A COPY!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Support Ximian by buying a copy (and stop complaining). XD2 looks amazing and I just put my money where my mouth is. Sometimes I feel like the free software community (or the slashdot community at least) are a bunch of crabs in a barrel. And no, I don't work for Ximian!