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Stirring The GNOME Fires
uninet writes "Tim Butler and Ed Hurst have discussed GNOME quite a bit. Tim likes the current trend, and Ed doesn't. Read Ed's alternate perspective at OfB.biz."
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"Many would say, "Don't like it? Here's the code; fix it yourself." The Goneme Project is taking that challenge, and building GNOME differently. The project is aimed at a totally different user base: the long-time GNOME user who needs more options. Any claim by either GNOME or Goneme to be "better" really depends on what one likes.
It's about freedom."
Um, am I missing the point, or does the last author completely forget KDE and others ? You already have the freedom, silly.
You know? It's been a long time since the KDE fires have been stirred. Just an observation.
" and thus simplifying things down to a horrid level. This not only upsets those who have followed Gnome since damn near day one"
Just a quick note on history here. For YEARS Gnome users used to hold the fact that KDE came its own WM as a huge negative. Gnome users used to constantly bash KDE because they "forced" users to use basically only one WM if they wanted the best experience. Why are they taking away our choice of WM used to be the rallying cry. There also used to be tons of threads about how Gnome was more customizeable because of the themeing you could do. In short Gnome was the desktop which upheld the FOSS philosophy of choice while KDE was the one sticking it to its users by offering less ways to setup your desktop. Yes you read that right, GNOME started off by saying choice was most important. My how things change.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Learning a bunch of different ways to do something is a waste of time. A unified desktop where all the applications work the same is wonderful.
Having said the above, I have always enjoyed having a choice of different applications to do the same thing. For instance, if a site crashes Mozilla, it is good to have Konqueror available. Perhaps a compromise would be to have a set of default applications which are tweaked to be consistent with the desktop. Other alternatives could be so indicated by changing the appearance of their icons.
The availability of alternative applications is one of the reasons that I use linux. (I feel helpless on a Windows box.) I guess that what I am asking for is some kind of compromise. The development effort would go into the default applications but there would still be alternatives.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
The GNOME folks do have some distance to go as well. Desktop integration is still not quite there - some apps play ball, some apps don't. What GNOME does have in its corner is the apps that have the mindshare of most users - Mozilla, Evolution, GAIM, OpenOffice etc. I am not claiming these are "better", just commenting on momentum.
Whats next for both is something new. Both environments pretty much do offer a decent enough environment that you can point Aunt Millie at it. Both need to start innovating with new ideas.
I am all in favor of making Gnome newbie friendly - so long as it does not exclude us non-newbies.
Consider cars as an analogy:
First of all, there are many different models of car - this would be analogous to Gnome/Enlightenment/KDE/Windows/MacOS/*. Few sensible people would assert that we should all be driving Geo Metros or all be driving Grand Marquis or Peterbuilt trucks.
But even within a make of cars, there are degrees of complexity. Most people driving an automatic transmission vehicle use P, R, and D. Those other settings (N, 2, 1) are just needless complexity, right - shouldn't we just remove them? Nobody uses them, right? Now, go for a drive in the mountains. Sure, many people only use D - you can tell them by smelling for burned-up brake pads. Better drives use 2 and 1, and not their brakes - they NEED 2 and 1. And people towing a car need N.
My car has buttons for moving the pedals forward and back. The first thing I did when I took delivery was to run the pedals all the way down, being 193cm tall. Does that mean that NOBODY needs to adjust the pedals up, so we should remove that switch? Or what about the traction control off switch?
My point is that while Granny Fanny may never use those features, some of us will - SO LEAVE THEM IN YOU BASTARDS!
Put an "Expert mode" in. Default it to OFF. Let me turn it on. Let me configure whether I feel spatial navigation is right for me or not. Let ME determine what programs play MP3s if I choose to do so.
And don't treat novice users like read-only dummies - let them know there is more power available to them, should they be interested in learning about it.
There is a GREAT difference between "ignorant" (unlearned) and "stupid" (unable to learn) - and many newbies are the former, not the latter. Don't treat them (and us) as stupid.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The current trend is good, but I would really like to see some oddities gone.
The common dislikes include comparison of 'spatial' Nautilus and 'gconf'/gconf Editor to things that bear a resemblance to it on Windows, which were hideous. However, it is not so, and the GNOME team deserves credit for providing better and good stuff.
I would like to see GNOME's current setup as default, but certain oddities would definitely drive me away. Except for a well organized and very simple home directory with relatively few files, 'spatial' can be quite limiting and makes doing thing very hard.
There should be an option to show a handy location bar (pattern matching and auto completion, for instance) that can be set in the options, at least in the 'Advanced' section.
There must be an feature similar to the 'Explore' context menu item in Windows, since, there are a lot of times a hierarchical view where new windows dont pop up for each opened directory be good.
The file dialog should have a location bar, again a handy one, not just a dumb text box. Again, since GNOME/GTK folks think people are too stupid and get confused, it could be an option, at least in the advanced section. The current file dialog is click intensive and brings up one more dialog to enter our own path.
These features are either not available, or available only through keyboard shortcuts. Having spatial mode which is limiting and a neglected 'browser' mode is not good. Why have two modes in which the system works. The 'browser' mode can be a temporary thing (as in the context menu action of 'Explore').
This, I believe is more inclusive in taking care of wide range of needs without resorting to 'modes' or excessive clutter in which the fork-plan seems to be heading.
Pardon my ignorance.
Thank you Tim, just what we needed.
And an other article that completely misses the point.
Contrary what Tim and countless others want us to believe 99% of the people criticizing gnome don't critisize the simplyfication of the interface but other things, like the gconf-editor, the imho stupid decission to change the button order, introducing spatial nautilus without giving users the chance to easily revert back to managing their files the way they are used to...
So yet an other article not addressing these points but instead attacking some phantom menace simply is a shame to gnome.
And of course it goes without saying that writing an article that goes out to praise gnome and ends up trashing kde with bogus, uninformed arguments and fud doesn't really speak for the maturity of the author.
All in all gnome is a great project though it has it's shortcomings like any project of this size. The problem is that right now you can't criticize anything about gnome without a load of gnomefanboys and sadly some devs to attacking you like this was a holy war.
I installed Fedora Core 2 and used it for a few days, and I must say I don't understand those who think Spatial Nautilus is a boon to new users. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of 'new' users are previous windows users, so emulating the Windows UI, even if you think it's flawed, is the only sensible way to ease the transition into Linux. I mean, how many people who are currently using Linux or are potential future users have never used Windows before?
Besides, I thought one of the selling points of Mozilla/Firefox was tabbed browsing, so I don't have 8 or 9 different windows open on my desktop. Now suddenly having 8 or 9 Nautilus windows open is newbie-friendly? Because the same obscure 5th level subdirectory (one of tens or hundreds of directories a user would browse) opens in the same spot consistently, that makes it friendly? I don't get it.
[Yes, I know this 'feature' can be switched off, same as the new XUL spoofing 'feature' in Firefox can be switched off, but it's about the defaults, right?]
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
No, the entire point of the first article was that it isn't just about pleasing the newbies. As a power user and GNOME user since day 1 I love the new simplicity in GNOME 2.6. Just because I know how things work under the hood doesn't mean I want to tweak my desktop all day long. I want the damn thing to just work out of the box. It's all about setting setting reasonable defaults and getting the hell out of the way so I can be productive.
While using KDE 3.2 I regularly go "Holy, shit, you've got to be kidding me" at a lot of the feature-on-crack things I see. For instance opening the context-menu in Konqueror. Have you seen the amount of ludicrous crap they've stuffed in there? Scanning the dialog is mentally exhausting, it's crammed full of completely non-relevant options. "Do I want to add this image I right-clicked to a tar.gz file?", no I blody well do not. It's impossible to find anything in the kontrol center without using the search function, the modules are a patchwork of features laid out haphazardly without any thought given to cohesion. The bookmark manager in konqueror is an monstrous application to itself that I could rant for days about. There's a lot of "import bookmarks from application X" menu choices that don't seem to do anything except open a file dialog in a specific locations based on what application X is. It doesn't understand Mozilla "Personal toolbar" bookmarks, in fact it doesn't matter at all which importer you choose the result is always the same. Somehow this feature doesn't seem quite worthy of 4-5 menu entries... In fact even if they did do different things why not do it with one menu entry and scan the contents of the bookmarks file to determine from which application it comes? Because the developer didn't think things through and shoved the task on to the user, that's why. I'm of the firm belief that every single damn text string you present in an interface must be justified and reviewed by someone else than the one implementing the feature, every single string.
I recently tried to change my clock to 24-hour format in KDE, in GNOME I right-click the clock in the panel and choose "Clock type: 24 hour" which is the first option of 4. If someone can please tell me how to accomplish this in KDE I'd be grateful. I've programmed for god knows how many users, used everything from CDE to OSX and I can't figure out the damn KDE clock. How exactly are all these wonderful KDE features helping me, when in fact they just seem to get in the way?
Overall I find using KDE simply exhausting, nearly every single thing just rubs me the wrong way, from the wording in dialogs to the feel of the start menu (The damn thing keeps being left open, forcing me to return to the start button again and again to close it, though I'm sure there's a really neat preference option somewhere to make the thing behave like I expect).
Okay, end of rant
It's like deja vu all over again.
My experience has been pretty much like the author's. I initially used KDE from it's inception, and found Gnome to be a cluttered mess. About a year ago, though, I gave it another try, and found it had improved a good deal, and I've been using it ever since.
Personaly, I've come to appreciate simple. Maybe it's just a function of old age and crankiness, but I really don't take much of an interest in tweaking my desktop to death any more. Pretty much my only interest in a desktop is an orderly way to click an icon and start an application, a decent implementation of cut and paste and drag and drop, and reasonable window management. Gnome has my needs pretty well covered.
Also, I have to agree with the author's point that while Gnome has become a more coherent desktop, KDE seems to have lost it's coherency. I can't exactly put my finger on it, perhaps it's partly a function of being overwhelmed with options, but I don't think that entirely explains it. Somehow, it lacks the feel of "togetherness" it originally had. It's basic infrastructure is still great, though, and I expect this is just a temporary slump. Both the KDE and Gnome projects seem to go through phases where they lose their focus, but usually correct themselves after getting complaints from their user communities. I'm still looking forward to checking out the next iteration of KDE. Perhaps it will be interesting enough to make me switch back. I suppose I'll continue switching between the two of them as they leapfrog each other. One nice thing about having 2 competing desktops - they keep each other honest.
The enormous amount of buzz about Gnome (and alternatively, about KDE) most often ignores the idea that perhaps there is no one way to serve all users with a single desktop (window manager, application suite, etc) and there is an inherent (although subtle) hostility directed towards other means of acheivin g the same end.
The "desktop wars" occur in an isolated (but large) community of people who somehow have come to beleive that "there is only one way to do it" and have taken as their model of excelence the very designs that many Linux (and BSD) desktop users came to OSS operating systems in order to escape (Microsoft and Macintosh).
I use no Gnome (or KDE) software on my computer, have no Gnome (or KDE) libraries installed, and am capable of the same level of productivity as those who do. I've been unimpressed with these highly integrated desktop environments, not because I beleuive them to be somehow "bad", but because I have found that they are quite limiting.
Gnome is a noble effort (as is KDE) to enforce consistancy onto a bunch of unruly OSS users, a beacon of conformity rising from what appears to be (but is not) chaos. But the truth is that all of the Gnome (and KDE) apps are needlessly complicated under the hood, use far too many resources when running, and have rediculous dependancies (why does a spreadsheet depend on a sound library) that clutter an install and are decidely lacking in Unix-like design philosophy.
That is to say that these desktop environments are lacking those qualities that make using Linux such a dream: elegance, interoperability with other programs and environments, clean non-interactive interfaces, human-readable config files, modularity, granularity, and choice.
I'm all for people continuing their work on Gnome, its fork and it's competitor, KDE. But when Gnome begins to demand conformity from reklated projects, or seeks to embrace other apps, in such a way that it makes those apps suck (Galeon was once one of, if not the best, browser available), it is indicative of a problem that can only be solved by a rewrite (ala Firefox from Mozilla), and I don't see that as possible within the enormously interdependant and complicated collection og Gnome libraries.
Read, L
"Having said that, KDE has way more bugs/quirks than GNOME but its still easier to use."
If its easier to use or not largely depends on what you use it for and who you are. If you don't know who the intended users are and their needs you will not be able to build a good system.
If you read the KDE usability list and various KDE development lists, you get the impression that the usability experts and the people that writes the code are working on two different systems.
The usabilty experts tryes to build a system that anybody including my mother can use, while most developers seam to target the needs of advanced usrs at least when the usabilty people doesn't manage to talk them out of it.
I'm not saying its wrong to target advanced users, but if you do, you should do so consistently. The risk is that we end up with systems that is dumbed down in some areas while the it is still too hard to use for some users. End result, it will be hated both by noobs and superusers.
The Gnome people seam a lot more focused at the moment. The KDE people need to make up their mind,
or they will fall behind. This would be a pity since the KDE/QT framework is really slick.
I would say that KDE is in much more need of a fork than Gnome. A fork of KDE that was as simple to use as Gnome, or perhaps even looked like Gnome but built on QT technology. It would be unbeatable.
Then the current KDE developers could continue as usual an focus more on advanced users.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
"He doesn't ONCE mention what his "problems" with gnome are, besides the fact that apparently the devs are "arrogant twits."
Is that not enough of a problem for you?
As to technical problems with GNOME, I think the writer mentions that he filed several bug reports in GNOME's bugzilla. These bugs were never fixed. There would seem to be little point in re-hashing what he wrote in bugzilla, when the problem is of users' opinions being belittled (to quote your comment, for example: "Ugh, this dude comes off as being an Iiiiddeeeeottt.") and that the problem of a hostile environment for those trying to help needs to be fixed before discussions about technical issues become relevant again.
In short, I think he's probably standing on the right side of the fork. Isn't that what open-source people are supposed to do when discussions stop being technical and start being shouting matches? You try out your way of working, and see if it attracts more users than the other way of working. "other" in this sense, consisting of insulting anyone who disagrees with you.
I've used a dozen window managers over the years, twm, fvwm, sawfish, enlightenment (which was the default GNOME window manager not so many years ago, back in the RH 5.x days, a real piece of shit. Polished to a shine, but a turd nevertheless.) etc. Today I don't want to hear the damn word window manager, I click the windows and they focus, end of story. At some level I acknowledge that Metacity must be running in the background but that is about as interesting a factoid as that ksoftirqd is the kernel process that loadbalances my two processors. The entire notion, except from a purely technical viewpoint, that your window manager and desktop is somehow different is brain damaged at worst and a relic that refuses to die at best. I'm using a dual-head xinerama setup and NEVER once in recent years have I thought "hmm, I wish I could configure my window manager.
I'm not messing with you, please seriously tell me what needs you have that more configuration options could fix? I'll give you those options as gconf keys so that you, the power user, can change them. But I will not force them upon everyone just because you can't live without them.
It's fringe users and developers pet features that are keeping Unix interfaces in the stone age. We therefore need dictators to keep these seemingly harmless features from clogging up the entire system at every point. It's only because of a benevolent dictator that Firefox has recently managed to rise out of the bog of mediocricity that is the Mozilla suite. You are the kind of person who doesn't even realize that there's something wrong with the suite. If the suite works for you, great, but we're trying to make something bigger over here. The dictator is able to save a project from itself and its developers. It's an ungrateful job but someone has to do it, otherwise we end up with projects like sawfish.
It's like deja vu all over again.
I also use XFCE. I disagree that simplicity is for the average or dumb user. You pick the right tool for the job. I don't use an electron microscope to read the newspaper. I use spectacles. Of course, if you "need" all of those KDE configuration options, then go ahead and use KDE. IMHO, Gnome is moving in the right direction.
The "new" Gnome IMHO is the first GNU/Linux desktop with a sensible default configuration and a simple, elegant and pleasant user interface. IMHO, it's the most pleasant, straightforward and stress-free desktop user interface available today; better than Windows, better than MacOS X, almost as good as the classic MacOS 7.x-9.x from which it has learned a lot. (Most longtime Mac users hate OS X for its flashy, unintuitive and inconsistent Aqua user interface, and rightly so in my opinion.) I also like that Nautilus was freed from the sidebar and toolbar bloat of today's file managers and defaults to spatial view.
On the other hand, I agree with the complaints about dumbed-down configurability and the horrors of gconf. I prefer KDE 3.x in that it allows to customize almost any aspect of the GUI directly through GUI dialogues and not arcane registry-like settings. The solution would be a desktop that is simple by default, but would have an "advanced settings" button in every configuration dialogue which then in turn would pop up a more complex configuration panel. There could be just one central control panel switch to globally turn the "advanced settings" buttons on or off in all dialogue boxes. (And it could be set to "off" for the default vanilla desktop setting.)
There could be two ways to approach this:
My real annoyance with Gnome is the discrepancy between its lean surface and its crufty and bloated code under the hood. I find it quite shocking to run memstat and see how many megabytes of RAM are eaten up by Gnome's components, with trivial panel applets that shouldn't consume more than a few kilobytes eating several megabytes, or the x86 executable of such a simplistic window manager as metacity taking up half a megabyte whereas desktop environments like XFCE show that the same can be done with a fraction of the resource usage. While KDE has a lot of code, too, its abstraction layers - like kioslaves, vfs, kparts - are actually used by K applications. In Gnome, comparable subsystems exist only in a half-broken state of competing, incompatible APIs (imlib2 vs. gdk-pixbuf, Corba vs. Bonobo vs. Mono, gnome-canvas vs. GtkGLArea etc.) that are not even consistently used at all in so-called Gnome applications.
The truth probably is that all these either KDE/Qt or Gnome/GTK specific layers/APIs/subsystems will be eventually replaced by common freedesktop.org standards and partly also improvements of the X.org X11 implementation through the work of Keith Packard and others. It would be a worthy goal for a Gnome 3.0 to eliminate all cruft in its code, standardize on one API for each subsystem, kick out broken layers and APIs to replace them with freedesktop.org's solutions (d-bus, mimedb), or, where technically feasible, KDE's proven solutions (kioslaves).
While choice and competing designs and implementations are generally good, some fundamental standardization of the GNU/Linux desktop is is necessary to allow the whole operating system to be configured and administrated over the desktop. Developers of system components such as bootloaders, MTAs, packet managers etc. need desktop standardization so that they can write GUI control panels which work on all desktops. Without that, GNU/Linux desktops remain relatively abstract, high-level shells, and free operating systems can only be run by people who either are commandline professionals themselves, or have knowledgable system administrators to help them out.
gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
From your description, that sounds like it is changing the default system time format for more than just the clock display. Even if it isn't, an inexperienced user is going to be afraid to change it, and an experienced user is going to waste time determining if it is or isn't. And if it is changing the default, then you still don't have a solution to how to make THIS clock display in 24 hour format and not change the default for other programs that use that setting.
So, GNOME has decided to take a more simple approach. How is this a bad thing? Does every desktop/WM out there have to cater to hard-core Linux geeks? If your an advanced user, there are plenty of advanced windows managers and desktops for you. KDE has options and configurability up the wazoo. KDE too bloated? You can use Ion, or Pwm, along with Xfce. You can also use WindowMaker, OpenBox, BlackBox, and a plethora of others WMs and desktops.
Personally, I think GNOME is going in a good direction, though I still like Ion and WindowMaker. A few things that GNOME could use would be a way to allow for easy arrangement of windows (tile, cascade, tile horizontally, tile vertically), and/or for an option to automatically arranged windows like Ion.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen