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Freedesktop.org on KDE/Gnome, New Goals

Posted by simoniker on from the mmmm-juicy dept.

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."

8 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. Developers get to play too by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Keith Packard: "One thing I have noticed is a sudden interest in video cards with *lots* of memory. GL uses video memory mostly for simple things like textures for which it is feasible to use AGP memory. However, Composite is busy drawing to those off-screen areas, and it really won't work well to try and move those objects into AGP space"


    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 :-) ... "but boss, I *need* it for the new application"...

    Simon
    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  2. Don't forget the users! by gilesjuk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

    1. Re:Don't forget the users! by jjhlk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Knowledge of the alternatives or not, most people barely care about their operating system, so whatever is installed when they buy it is what they stick to.

    2. Re:Don't forget the users! by acidtripp101 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm sorry, but people don't use windows at home because it is "easy to use."
      A person once told me the best reason I've heard that people use windows:
      Everybody uses windows because everybody uses windows
      If Everybody used any other OS (OSX, Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS, Amiga, etc) for gaming, productivity, media, etc. Then EVERYBODY else would use the same operating system to maintain compatablitiy.
      I have yet to hear a casual user say that they love windows.
      The honest fact is that 90% of people don't care what OS they use, as long as they can listen to MP3s, play games (in my opinion, a MAJOR obsticle that desktop *NIX has to overcome... I was excited that I could get unreal tournament to run on my gentoo box), and open office (open/star/MS/whatever) documents.
      The current state of *nix desktops is wonderful! KDE 3.x is definatly professional grade. XFCE4 is definatly ready for the desktop. Fluxbox is there for people that want the best performance with the smallist footprint. I dare ANYBODY to name something that can be done on a Windows based workgroup that can't be done on a *nix workgroup.
      I'm sorry, but the ONLY area that linux is truely lacking is in the gaming department. This includes Graphics acceleration. I don't care if the drivers are closed-source (such as the nvidia drivers, which I must admit, are awesome), or open (the DRI for the ati cards isn't as good, but it's still not bad at all).
      I'm willing to bet that if a company like loki got into the market now, with some big name titles, then the ammount of linux desktops would skyrocket. Sadly, the only precident of a comany like this is loki, which dipped it's feet in the water way too soon. Linux wasn't ready then. It is now.
      As proof of this, I have at least 3 friends (granted, they are somewhat more computer literate than the 'average joe') that want me to install *NIX on their desktop. A year ago, there is NO way that they would have even THOUGHT about dual-booting.
      I just don't believe that anyone can get away with saying that *NIX isn't ready for the desktop anymore.

      --
      Not Free(as in beer). Free(as in "I'm free to beat you over the head for being a dumbass")
    3. Re:Don't forget the users! by gnu-generation-one · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Why do people use Microsoft products? because they're either forced to (at work) or they they find them easy to use (at home)"

      Find them easy to use? Have you ever met someone who's tried MacOS, tried KDE, tried Gnome, tried Windows, and then concluded that Windows was easiest to use, went out and bought a copy?

      No? Isn't it more likely that home users were forced to use Windows just as the office users?

      If they did truly choose, you could imagine people going into the computer shop and hearing"this is the computer running WindowsXP, this is the same computer but running Windows98, and this is the same computer but running Gnome, which would you like to buy"

      Most of the computer shops I've been to say "this is the computer, and YOU WILL buy WindowsXP, because otherwise we won't sell you the computer". Say what you like about building your own systems, or going to an Apple shop, but in most cases, somebody buying a computer is forced to use Windows.

      Usability doesn't come into it. Full-page adverts in newspapers and consumer magazines, television adverts, and yes, illegal monopolistic action against suppliers who stock alternatives, is what makes people 'choose' Windows. None of these people do so because they've decided it's easy to use, quite the opposite, many people spend their lives cursing the difficulty of using Windows.

    4. Re:Don't forget the users! by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What I don't like about HCI and so called usability experts is that they seem to want to lump everybody into a single catagory. I don't use a computer the same way my grandmother does, and a system that tries to force me to isn't intuitive for me. Sometimes I want a page of 80 clickable options instead of one wizard that allows a choice of five and a requirement to then go edit a registry.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
  3. Try more like... by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  4. DND functionality and file types by skagin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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."

    Isn't this what the IANA media types registry is for? (http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/index .html) Why reinvent that particular wheel? Most every system has a file 'mime.types' describing some portion of the IANA media types registry.