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Ars Technica Looks At GNOME 2.6 [updated]

Posted by timothy on from the standing-in-the-garden-with-a-gun dept.

The Original Yama writes "Ars Technica takes a look inside the GNOME 2.6 Desktop & Developer Platform, due for release any minute now. It builds upon an earlier review of the GNOME 2.5 development series and their own examination of GNOME 2.4." darthcamaro writes "internetnews.com is running a story about the release of GNOME 2.6 today. They actually got a hold of Miguel de Icaza who had some real interesting stuff to say about it and the Linux Desktop in general. 'de Icaza told internetnews.com that a simpler interface has been the goal of GNOME since at least version 2.0.'" Update: 03/31 21:59 GMT by T : sn0wman3030 was one of many submitters to link to the GNOME 2.6 start page, including links to screenshots, documentation, and source downloads.

7 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. Spatial Nautilus by ultrabot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Incidentally, I'm testing it out as we speak. The Spatial Nautilus is very very annoying - it's much like the default Windows behaviour of popping up zillions of windows that you always have to turn off every time you reinstall Windows.

    Yes, I'm going to go back to kde 3.2.1 Not because of the spatial nautilus that I can disable, but because of the missing "column list" viewing mode in Nautilus. I'm the kind of guy that wants to see as much stuff as possible w/ one glance, without needing to focus my eyes too much.

    --
    Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
    1. Re:Spatial Nautilus by ultrabot · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Oh, look, it's a detailed columnized view.

      It's not the same thing. I don't want to see the details, I want to see lots of items in a small space.

      Zooming out doesn't do the trick either, because then the file names are under the icons, not right of the icons like in KDE column list mode. If the icon is just left of the file name, you can cram more objects in the same space.

      --
      Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
  2. I Like Gnome by Goo.cc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am a Mac OS X user and I have to say that I think that the UI of Gnome is appealing. If I was still using NetBSD, I would probably run it. (Hell, maybe I'll install YellowDog Linux and give it a try.)

  3. As a KDE user.... by armando_wall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'll give Gnome 2.6 a try. I find it more appealing as its team releases more versions. Its GTK library is one of my favorites to develop with. But I always got a "something is missing" impression with it (the desktop).

    Besides, I know KDE is free software, but I think Gnome is "more free" for all platforms to use (ducks).

  4. Re:USB by functor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Look for things like hotplug, HAL Project, the D-BUS Project, the kernel events layer and other components of Project Utopia to get you things like automagic USB device identification, driver loading and GUI events.

    Hopefully we'll see something in GNOME 2.8/2.10/3.0 that'll use this stuff.

    (See http://www.freedesktop.org; lots of cool stuff going on behind the scenes.)

    See http://tech9.net/rml/talks/rml_fosdem_2004.sxi for more info.

  5. Oh god... by bicho · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... I don like Gnome that much anymore.
    Besides the panel and the fact it uses gtk, I disagree with a lot of things, like absurdly minimalist configuration options AND documentation AND a regedit-like nightmerish hell with also minimalist documentation.

    Anybody has successfully compiled e17 ? (yes. I am aware its not supposed to be usable/compilable yet)
    I have been waiting for it a looong time, and it seems there is always wan problem or another.

    I remember I compiled once its file system when in e15 or e16 something, and It was really nice.... but haven been able to compile e17 ever.
    Now, that is something I really want to see...

    --

    errera hunamum ets
  6. Performance? by Moderation+abuser · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No mention?

    Not important?

    Preliminary (and subjective) testing indicates that it isn't good when compared to the competition; CDE, GnuStep and having just loaded the current KDE, it looks like that is faster as well. Testing commonly used stuff; Menu operations and such over a LAN.

    Bugger... Anyone know of a platform I can build an objective test suite on, for the various competing GUIs rather than relying on a stopwatch? I've found lots of Java specific and Web specific stuff...

    One of the benefits of Unix I suppose. On Windows you get Windows and so have nothing to compare with.

    --
    Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.