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Gnome 2.8 RC1 Released
FlipmodePlaya writes "Linux Today reports the first release candidate for Gnome 2.8 has been released. A look at the new stuff can be found here. Notably, the possible inclusion of Evolution, and some networking goodies. My opinion: the GUI changes look too much like Windows/Internet Explorer for my tastes; I guess it's not just KDE."
Personally (as a long time KDE user) I don't find windows all that much like KDE. I sat down at an XP box the other day to try and accomplish some simple editing in a word document with embedded visio and felt lost. Perhaps Gnome is becoming more KDE like?
BTW: open office has trouble saving (via crashes) documents with a large number of embedded visio drawings. :(
.dn
No more Micro$oft bashing from me. Its like bashing at the special olympics.
why copy the copy cat? I'd rather they copy apple, who's known for quality interfaces. luckily though, gnome has taken a page or two from them rather than microsoft. i'd say it's kde who's mimicing windows (konqueror is a file browser + web browser. in gnome these are different. gnome strives for simplicity. kde strives for features, etc).
- tristan
I looked at all the screenshots, and nothing on there jumped out and bit me and yelled "Windows! IE!" I have no idea what FlipmodePlaya is complaining about.
It looks to me like it's just the GNOME 2.x that I know and love, with subtle, very incremental bits of polish. FlipmodePlaya, perhaps you could be a bit more specific?
P.S. I'm really looking forward to some of the new features, specifically Volume Manager and the new MIME handlers. GNOME 2.8's MIME features won't just be easier to use than previous GNOME versions--they will actually be easier to use than Windows's application association system.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Honestly I'm getting a bit tired of this march towards boring copied GUIs that only half-work. I mean, KDE is becoming almost unusable with all the crap in the menu and little parts and whatnot. I mean, I suppose it's nice for new users but I really don't like it.
That's why I went with the little mouse.
No disrespect to the GNOME and KDE hackers, but it's good to have choices. The big desktops are becoming more difficult and time consuming to customize "just right*.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
My opinion: the GUI changes look too much like Windows/Internet Explorer for my tastes; I guess it's not just KDE."
You know it wouldn't kill the slashdot editors to EDIT submissions instead of just dumping them as is into the main site. Especially when one is as unprofessional as this. Flaming does NOT belong on the front page of slashdot. This is absolutely rediculous. First "four of parts", and now this bull? Why, Slashdot, do you feel like you can ask me for money when you pull crap like this?
I don't think that microsoft have done a good job of making computers easy to use at all, for a complete beginner it's completely confusing, when my father first tried to use a windows box he didn't know at all what to do with it to get the stuff he wanted done. Since using Gnome he hasn't asked me a single question and has found it incredibly easy to use. Keep it simple stupid.
I disagree, I run WindowMaker, and most kids who come over and sit at my desk figure it out quickly enough, they really dig the dock, and they LOVE the 'start menu whenever I right-click the background'. Almost everyone figures out the multiple-desktop thing too, when they see the pager with eight screens that shows a mini-screen for each one.
It helps that my menu items are named after the FUNCTION rather than the application that provides it. When you see 'music' it runs juk, when you click 'web' it opens firefox, etc.
The Windows-style taskbar interface is pretty weak if you intend to keep your session running for days or weeks instead of hours.
Everyone remarks how 'clean' and 'simple' my layout is, and the geekier note that 'it takes a lot less mousing around to get stuff done'.
The trick is that every corporate desktop needs to be uniform and MANAGED by someone who does the stuff like rename menu items to functions and remove all the excess cruft that the heavier desktop environments populate interfaces with.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Ressemblance to Windows / IE goes a long way toward new users migration for Microsoft, keep that in mind.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
I use linux and 'doze both daily, but spend ~70% of my time hacking code on linux. The WM doesn't matter that much to me, because it just needs to be a good way between 4 desktops full worth of bash shells and vi windows.. but both gnome and kde feel weak when it comes to the 'everyday' stuff I usually do on windows
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the real BUT, though, is this thought - Would it help the (big) open source groups to start being more feature focused?
Look at many dot releases from M$ or Apple.. 90% is NEWNEWNEW and a little is 'does xyz better, zyx works now'
The geek stuff needs to be available, sure, but "higher level" messages might go far to boost adoption.
My thinking is, Average Joe just dipping a toe into 'non-conformist' ways, and sees a big new announcement.. he looks in and sees a ton of stuff he doesn't understand, and a long list of bugs fixed that makes him think 'ugh, this still has too many problems.'
If he looks in and sees mostly "Now imports Word 2006 docs with perfect formatting!
$.02
http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/gnome-2-8/
There is a good reason why Evo is being included -- having the contact information centralized and standard in every Gnome installation means that other Gnome applications can use that data. This has implications for IM clients, browsers, file managers, and the interesting new fringe projects like Storage and Beagle and Dashboard. Without Evo's datastore built into Gnome, they would have to build an independant contact manager, and to me it makes sense to use the perfectly good one that Evolution already has.
And I'm not even an Evo user, I just understand the logic behind one of the reasons to include it. I'm sure there are other reasons too.
501 Not Implemented
I'm not going to make the mistake of getting in trouble for getting /.ed again. The maxclients on that server has been set down quite low, I've added a redirect to offload to offload to GNOME's webserver.
;)
If someone could update the story URL, that would be great
Anyone have a google cache of the freecache of the coral cache (which is suffering from the /. effect)?
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
GNOME 2.4 used to be slower than KDE 3.1... atleast on my configuration... but GNOME 2.8 seems to have improved hell-a-lot in terms of speed.. looks like am back to GNOME again..
It is also very interesting to see how Gnome is developing Human Interface Guidelines. I wish programmers would stick to them.
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Personally I have always found Apple's interfaces limiting. They put the most common options right out in front (as they should), but seem to totally forget the more advanced options. And the lack of an (accessable) context menu is also very weird to me.
http://brandonbloom.name
The component of Evolution that handles storage of calendar and address book data has been split off into a separate evolution-data-server module. This is the module that other programs use for calendar and address book integration.
It would also be possible for other mail clients to make use of e-d-s for address book storage, in which case they would also benefit from the desktop integration.
accesible? if you're using the provided one button mouse (and i know very few people who do), you just hold down one key, and you get your context menu. just because you don't understand how to do something doesn't mean its not accesible.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
I think button 1 does something, button 2 does something else is a lot more intuitive than button one does something if you press it for a short time and something else if you press it for a long time, and yet another thing if you move the mouse while you;re pressing it for a long time
On that note, why should a click, two clicks, and a double click be treated differently? It's actually the third that's the issue, since with all the things that in Windows were made to require double clicking people double click on hyperlinks because they've come to understand a double click is what you use to activate a stand-alone widget (and MS stole this idea from Apple, clearly, who probably got it from PARC).
:)
Fundamentally, a mouse is a pretty horrible tool to do a lot of things. Things like a second or third button and adding a scroll wheel all only attempt to overcome various limitations in control design inherent in trying to use a pointer in a 2D space. It's also a core reason why people are so attached to their keyboard, as it's often the case a lot quicker to just type a number into a spinbox or type in part of a url and arrow down to the right one (or finish it most often since your history has deep urls). Anyways, enough of that rant.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Let's look at things from a Windows user's point of view :
:
:)
1) Things work.
2) They look good.
3) Few options available, but most are hidden in the registry. Those few options seem more than sufficient for the teeming masses.
Now take someone from that environment and put them on Gnome. What does he/she experience?
1) Stuff works.
2) It looks good.
3) Few options available, but most are hidden in the registry. Those few options seem more than sufficient for the teeming masses.
Now, let's take a windows power user
1) Things work, but always looking for ways to make them work faster.
2) It looks good, but always looking for ways to customize it.
3) Few options available, so the user always has some program Xteq XSetup Pro to tweak hidden settings all over the place.
Take THAT user and put him/her on KDE:
1) Things work and work fast. User is quite happy.
2) It may or may not look good, but hey, it's VERY customizable, so it WILL look good after a week.
3) Tons of options available all over the place - the former windows power user is in heaven.
So to sum it up, KDE and Gnome in my opinion, both serve a VERY good purpose - they cater to the needs to both ends of the spectrum of Windows users - and they're both getting better/faster with each new version.
Now since we're celebrating Gnome 2.8 RC1 here, kudos go out to the Gome devs out there for capturing the essence of Windows' ease of use and porting it to Linux. You guys are doing a great job.
It would be nice to have a unified Desktop one day, but hey, I'm not complaining right now, even tho I'm a KDE fan - GREAT WORK GNOME! - I'm seriously thinking of setting up Gnome 2.8 as my mum's default Linux account and see how she likes it - she currently uses KDE 3.3
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
No one's making you use a one-button mouse.
I just checked the Apple store to see if I'm still correct. In their store, I tried ordering a Mac. A couple different models actually to be certain. The only option was a one button mouse. The two button mice are in another section of their store, and must be bought seperately. So if you want a two button mouse, you essentially have to buy 2 mice, the one button mouse that came with it (which you'll either burn for heat or use to decorate your christmas tree), and the two button mouse you'll actually use with the Mac. And of course they only resell two button mice. They don't have their own. Same goes for the tiny vs full keyboards. If it's a teeny tiny keyboard or one button mouse, it's made by Apple, if it's a 2+ button mouse or full sized keyboard, it's it's not.
But it's not the mouse and keyboard that bothers me, it's that I can't find the reason for it.
Certainly with Kopete, and presumably with other multiple desktop aware IM programs, a new message notification can be made to appear briefly on all desktops; this can be configured on a per-contact basis.
Thus, when my close friends IM me, I get a prompt no matter what virtual desktop I'm on. When it's IM spam, or a stranger, I don't get prodded.
I appear to have a blog. Odd.
Look and feel are uninteresting except where they are expressions of unique features. Gnome, KDE, WindowMaker and dozens of minor desktops I've probably never heard of are all themeable.
The real test is how FUNCTIONAL your desktop is. Does it have modern internationalization and accessibility featurs. Does it provide a framework for application cooperation? Does it provide a framework for user management of desktop features that is consistent, even for external elements?
Pretty baubles are easy and relatively universal. Functionality is hard.
There is another school of thought that says: Design for the upper tier not the Lowest Common Denominator. Who wants something designed for fools and morons?
One must learn to drive a car, ride a bike, row a boat, swim, operate power tools, et cetera. Why should one not have to learn to use a computer?
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life