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Freedesktop.org on KDE/Gnome, New Goals
fdo writes "OSNews has a long and juicy interview with the freedesktop.org developers regarding many aspects of their project, including interoperability between GNOME/KDE, the new X Server, the new Hardware Abstraction Layer library, accessibility, package management and in general, all things desktop."
Finally an excuse for even the most die-hard "oh no, I don't play games" programmer to go and get a decent graphics card, and not to use a Matrox G500 because it does 2 screens best
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
It's all very well thinking of the technical considerations (and there's quite a lot to consider), but don't forget to consider users and the usability of the desktop. Why do people use Microsoft products? because they're either forced to (at work) or they they find them easy to use (at home). Microsoft spends a lot of time ensuring their products are very usable and open source desktops need to do the same. Usability labs, heuristic evaluation etc.. all should be used (yes I am studying HCI before you ask).
Well, the implicaction of the effort of these guys probably means that there will be two competing X11 servers, very analogous to the Linux distributions versus the *BSDs.
Let's see...
It's non-root for processes/users for all NT class OSes (NT/2K/XP)
Environment variables have been around since DOS days ($var vs. %var% big whoop)
And emacs?
ACLs are a superior way (although logically equivalent) over the user/group semantics of POSIX. Try implementing "Payroll can read/write, HR can read, compliance can read, users can append" in an easily maintained manner using POSIX semantics.
becoming an "umbrella" project for
all projects that require communication
I think this hits the nail on the head--
developers *do* need an umbrella here,
one group to push apps toward one goal.
Simple examples are needing copy and paste,
drag and drop, and consistent mime types,
all so apps can coordinate data content.
Havoc points this out, and I hope his team
can push hard for these kinds of consistency.
Cheers, Joel
Hmmmm, doesn't this count for something?
Why do people use Microsoft products? because they're either forced to (at work) or they they find them easy to use (at home)
a) It came with their computer
b) It's "free" since it came with their computer
c) They don't know anything else
d) They are industry standards
e) They're the same as at work (familiarity)
f) They've had basic Windows training at work
g) Your poweruser friends likely know more Windows
h) It runs off-the-shelf software
i) It's inherently badly designed security-wise (security vs usability)
Pick any of the above, and I swear it's more of a reason than "easy to use". I bet 99%+ have never tried using a preinstalled, well configured Linux system (like the Windows install that came on their PC) at all. Without knowing the alternative, they have no basis to know that Windows is easier - they just assume so.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The biggest problem I see for desktop interoperability is the fact that there are so many GUI toolkits, and there's a huge overhead to keep them all loaded. IMHO as a Gnome user, having to run a QT app is an embarassment - takes way too long to load the QT libraries an initialize the GUI for even a small window. Of course I could keep the libraries loaded, but that's a ton of memory wasted. I'd imagine the same is true for KDE users trying to load GTK2/+ apps. This applies to loading Mozilla and OpenOffice.org as well. OOo especially runs like a cow in the mud - I can't even pay attention to the impressive feature set since it's so unresponsive. I always end up shutting it down and going with Abiword instead.
There's one good thing about MS Windows GUI; it's very responsive. That's because everything uses the same widget set that is kept in memory with little extra overhead. The fact that it runs in Kernel mode doesn't hurt it, but Linux's improved job control should balance that out. Using Linux with a unified widget set, like GTK2, is very responsive. Adding others, like QT, motif, swing, XPT (mozilla), and whatever Sun crap OOo uses, makes it very much less so.
I know nobody would agree with any proposal to scrap QT and port everything to GTK2, or the reverse. What I'd like to see instead is a library similar to wxWindows, or maybe an across-the-board improvement of wxWindows. Port QT and motif to it, add bindings for everybody's favorite language, etc. You could even use translation libraries to ease the transition process. That way you could compile Gaim for QT, Mozilla for motif, Konqueror for GTK, and everything in between. Only one GUI library would need to be loaded and everyone could use their favorite. It would certainly help for Windows ports as well. Thoughts?
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
That expert never heard of lactation consultants.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Were I still a Gnome user like I was several months ago, I might pass this off as another hapless troll. But you're entirely right -- and the reality is, even with all the usability improvements and Human Interface Guidelines in Gnome, GTK2 is still even more bloated and slow than Qt, despite the fact that GTK is implemented in "faster" C and Qt is in "slow anjd bloated" C++. I can't even begin to explain the difference in responsiveness between my Gnome and KDE apps; even the memory usage of my Qt applications is significantly lower. In addition, I gain many useful abilities: I can save files from Konqueror, KWrite, or any other KDE application directly to my webspace by either FTP or WebDAV. I have a sensible file dialog (yes, I'm still complaining about that). When I drag files from JuK to a project in K3b, they're added. Konqueror doesn't stall horribly when trying to get a directory listing from an NFS share, like Nautilus does. There's so many little things that all the "usability" in the world won't help Gnome catch it.
KDE is so many worlds ahead of Gnome in terms of sensible technology that bringing it together and eventually utilizing Gnome-like human interface guidelines will really be a breeze when all is said and done.
This is SO much better than anything I've seen in a long time on OSNews. After seeing "review" after review of what writers do and don't like about every distribution its really nice to see something on such a wide variety of important topics. It's also nice because its just not one person droning on subjectively. Really a nice article and doesn't make me think the site should have been named OSOpinions.com. More factual technology articles and less opinionated ones are the way to go.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Havoc says "When you add drag and drop to an application you have a list of types that you support dragging or dropping, such as "text/plain". Applications simply don't agree on what these types are. So we need a registry of types documenting the type name and the format of the data transferred under that name."
x .html) Why reinvent that particular wheel? Most every system has a file 'mime.types' describing some portion of the IANA media types registry.
Isn't this what the IANA media types registry is for? (http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/inde
You're thinking of the "clitoris" device, or the eraserhead in the middle of the keyboard.
Its designed for people like you who care more about running servers.
Kdrive is for the Desktop.
That's something that's bothered me for awhile, as well. Gnome applications were largely similar back in the 1.4 days, with everything beginning with "G" rather than a "K", but those days seem to be long past now. I really wish KDE would take a similar route, because it's really driving me insane. Kaffeine? Kontact? aKtion? "Konqueror" I can tolerate, because it's a vital part of the desktop environment, but I really don't like the rest.
I really don't like how even when it's not replacing a C, it's affixed to the beginning of the application name, as well. KDevelop, KWrite, KPaint, KWord, KSpread, et cetera. Just stop. You think this environment will be taken seriously by corporations while the applications all have ridiculous names? Give me Pan, Totem, Epiphany and Evolution anyday over that crap.
Considering that the Start menu is where pretty much all the functionality of Windows can be accessed by the user then, yes, I'd say it was a reasonable assumption. For those who like to play silly word games, the Start menu is where you "start" to do everything. Anyone who has used Windows for even a brief period of time will probably have figured out the Start menu is the first place to look for everything. Objectively, "Start" is no more or less logical a symbol than KDE's K icon, GNOME's Foot icon or MacOS's Apple icon.
Of course, most people who have never done it before will try and turn the machine off the same way they turned it on - with the power button. On modern machines this *should* at least trigger a graceful shutdown and, ideally, handle it as the Mac does, by popping up the Shutdown/Restart dialog.
However, if you're going to talk about someone who's just walked in on a Windows machine and has never used one before, then I propose locating the "Shutdown" option would be no more difficult on Windows than any other OS.