Slashdot Mirror
A Look at the Upcoming GNOME 2.6
unmadindu writes "GNOME 2.6 is just around the corner, and I figured out that many GNOME users would like to know what's in store. So I installed GNOME 2.5 (development version for 2.6) in my box, and came up with a list of the new stuff that are coming up. (and just in case, copies of the article are also available here and here)."
as the Gnome desktop itself is the fact he's using the freedesktop xserver to run it. I had no idea it was so far advanced.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
If you want to help Gnome 2.6, then you are in luck! The Beta release is here and it needs testing
More details here
Don't forget to report the bugs!
GNOME ... catches the SVG fever ... quite a few of the games have switched to SVG based graphics, which is a really nice thing, and a move towards the right direction
FYI : SVG = Scalable Vector Graphics
A new GTK file selector. FINALLY. I can't wait to use the new one - the old one was one of the great warts of the free desktop world, IMHO.
But they have decided to remove the text entry box??? Eeep. I guess having the Ctrl-l shortcut to get one is OK (after all, it will most likely be geeks that want direct text on a file open) but thats one they need to document WELL.
On the whole though, it might be a good thing. I guess we'll have to wait and see. But text box or not, it can hardly be worse than the old one.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
When will we start to see serious performance improvements? Currently, GNOME doesn't feel much better than Windows XP, and it needs at least 128M to run acceptably with other apps.
Linux is supposed to get us off the upgrade treadmill, but as far as I can see, GNOME just keeps getting bigger, slower and more complex. I've switched to XFce; it's so much faster. KDE is a hog too, but at least they're concerned about performance and efficiency as the 3.2 release shows.
Really, this is something we should think about. When gconfd is eating up 20 megs (resident), just for a configuration back-end, it's evident that we're getting sloppy. A faster Linux could work wonders in terms of corporate and home adoption, but we just seem to be chasing Moore's Law and copying Microsoft for bloat.
I'll try GNOME 2.6 when it arrives, but to give a better impression to newcomers we need to make things noticably faster, more elegant and more efficient than Windows. Companies have to support all this code into the future, after all...
"and now it is much easier to manage one's wallpaper collection".
That does it. I am shifting to GNOME.
...due somewhen in 2006 will render a 2004 software obsolete. Hey Sherlock, here's a cookie for your perspicacity !
:wq
Hmm. I really hope they do have thumbnail and bookmark support, and continue to add features. Xpdf is a nice renderer, but the interface IMHO is not exactly a nice one. If gpdf can become the full equal of Acrobat Reader I'll be one very happy camper.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
They go to all the trouble of creating a decent filer, Nautilus, and then ignore it for opening and saving documents by sticking with stupid file selectors. Again. Do any GUI developers bother challenging tired, illogical concepts? (Check out ROX for true drag and drop opening and saving: here)
I've always thought that the reason having two (main) desktops (KDE and Gnome) is good is not necessarily because of the competition, but because there is a need to interoperate between the two, so sensible 'generic' programming interfaces need to be created. This should create more modular code, and modular code makes successful open source projects.
However, to what extent is this true? Can I, for instance, use just the Gnome file manager in KDE, and vice-versa? Is it an aim of these projects to make this level of interoperability a goal?
It'll be interesting to read a decent "neutral" KDE 3.2 vs Gnome 2.6 article though! And it also has to be said that the competition between KDE and Gnome really had driven both communities to excellence. Als competition has not deterred them from cooperating in freedesktop.org - something to be encouraged until hopefully one day somehow the libraries can be unified.........
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
GNOME vs. KDE will perhaps be one of the holy wars of this millennium, and this is certainly another kick in the teeth for the ever-so-slightly clunky KDE (in my opinion). As said in the article, the developers have done some superb work and, well, put it this way, it is almost making me want to lose Mac OS X on one of my iBooks. Do not underestimate the pulling power of eye candy and the HIG!
:)
Liberal inspiration has, of course, been taken from the Apple way of doing things - the spatial navigation is, as noted in the Ars Technica article, based on the pre-OS X MacOS Finder. And that's no bad thing, certainly if FOSS wants to move towards real usability on the desktop.
The file dialogue boxes are also notably similar to Mac OS X's way of doing things, although the puzzling (at least to me) scrollbars that the Mac uses to browse up and down a directory tree are here replaced with arguably simpler tabs. Very nice touch.
Personally I'll keep Mac OS X on this for the moment, if only to avoid kernel recompiles and incompatibilities arising from that, but hell, if I were a Windows user, I'd be sitting here asking myself why the fuck I am waiting till 2006 for Longhorn when I can have this now...
Zealots were quick to criticise the most prominent competition - Mac OS X 10.3 - in terms of eye candy on the desktop when it came to making comparisons with their darling Longorn (which is, rather pointedly, not available for purchase yet). Now that UNIX is offering two superb alternatives, one of them properly FOSS (and, more importantly, runnable on x86), Windows' days should surely be numbered...?
iqu
It is certainly not just geeks who will want or need to type in file names. Skilled typists will not want to move their hands from the home row to open a file. Making them use the mouse to open a file is a bad idea.
So ... type in the name of the filename, anywhere in the window. This file selector has type-ahead support so it will search through the files looking for the next file that matches the string you have typed so far. If you've been using this feature extensively in Mozilla, it'll be second nature already.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
OK - Here's a mirror that should work properly - sorry for the initial goof up http://www.clai.net/sayamindu/GNOME-2.6/GNOME_2_6. html
Have to say it, this was one of the best written personal review article submitted to slashdot in recent past.
It covers the functionality well, does not break the continuity and was fun to read.
If only we had more articles like this, slashdot might gain few more subscribers.
- mritunjai
triple slashdotting??
are you trying to break a new record or what? ^_^
"My Uncle switched Linux Desktops today." "Gnome?" "Know him? He's my uncle!"
Some people have the misconception that "spatial navigation" is about having one window per folder, but that's not really the point. In explorer-like navigation, every window is a partial view of the filesystem. Every window can be used to navigate the fs with browser-like controls (forward, backwards, folder up, folder down). Two windows are just two views of the fs, they can point to the same folder.
The defining characteristic of spatial navigation is that a folder window IS the folder. That's why there cannot be two windows on screen that show the same folder, and why there are no navigation controls. The fact that folders open in the same place as when you left them is just a result of the fact that the position is an attribute of the folder itself, not of a windows which is a viewport of a folder. It's a subtle difference that people who have worked with explorer-like browsers for too long may have some difficulty adapting to.
Personally, I feel more comfortable with an explorer-like fs browser, maybe just because I'm used to it. It seems easier to manage large trees this way. But I can easily see why new computer users would be less confused with the spatial model. It's hard for some people to understand (and remember!) that a dozen of shortcuts to "My Documents" in different places all point to the same folder "underneath".
Isn't this just a tad bit harsh? Imagine someone opening his TiVo box:
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Firefox was set to 800x300 , here's what I could read:
As a part of the Bangla/Bengali GNOME l10n team, I decided to give the GNOME HEAD
those bengali guys sure are strange...
This new spatial apperance of the new Nautilus reminds me of old MacOS finder. I liked it back then and I will probably like it in Nautilus.
But I am a bit worried, some folder hierachies in Unix is quite deep.
Perhaps they should introduce something like the Mac spring loaded folders.I.e. if you want to move a file down in the hierachy you just drag and hold it over a folder, after a short while the window opens, and you hold the file over a folder in that window, until that opens and so on. When you finally reach the right folder you drop the file, and all windows you encountered on the way is closed automatically.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER