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GNOME 2.8 Released
damogar writes "The GNOME 2.8 Desktop and Platform release is the latest version of the popular, multi-platform free desktop environment, out today, with an awesome schedule time. Some pretty cool improvements have been made, specially the Nautilus file manager, the new MIME system and others.
Release notes are already available, as well as screenshots and a variety of sources. Enjoy!"
jimmy_dean adds a plug for the new
GNOME Journal, which is meant to be a source of "good written material surrounding GNOME and the opinions of the community."
Let me be the first to say: what the hell does this have to do with BSD, specifically?
I sort of agree with what you are saying, and the problem of memory usage / speed on lower specified machines is a key issue. The problem is not wholly with bloat or crap code but more with the fact that the common linux desktops (gnome/kde) on newer distro's are getting heavier on the eye candy. This eats up memory increases dependancy on swap-space and starts to eat up CPU.
... I've been meaning to try Yoper linux on that box thats too slow to compile gentoo...
Its no secret however that Linux can be configured to run beautifully on lower spec machines. Dont expect to be getting great performance with KDE 3.3 on X-Org (with composite manager installed) fancy icons/fonts and the rest of it - on an old P2 , thats asking for trouble.
What is really needed is a better distinction between your flashy prosumer desktop linux distro's and the linux distro's aimed at "giving that old PC a new life" . We shouldnt stop advancing the progress of linux and the desktop just because the newer distro's are running slower on those older boxes.
Secondly
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I've been using Unix pretty much exclusively since 1997, and I love KDE because of its configurability. I'm glad that you like Openbox and XFCE4, but don't assume that only newbies are using Gnome and KDE.
I liked WindowMaker 0.5 and Enlightenment 14 even back when you had to edit their config files for pretty much anything complicated, but now I dislike the relative lack of functionality in non-KDE/Gnome systems today. Some of us honestly happen to like full-blown desktop environments; it has nothing to do with our lack of ability to use the other available options.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I supposed we have to look at open source in another way: it may lead to secure code, and it may lead to bugfixed code, but it doesn't lead to efficient, clean and elegantly-written code. Otherwise we'd have the speed advantage, and Linux's flagship products wouldn't be heavier and slower than Microsoft's.
No, not neccisarily. Clean and elegant code is usually not the fastest or lightest weight. Linux's code is probley more elegant and cleaner than microsofts, simply because it doesn't have so many workarounds for bugs in other third party applications. But I agree with you completely, on the surface you appear to be correct.
However, openoffice desends from star office, a propitary project that was always slow. Open office has been getting better. I find firefox to be faster than ie, at least on windows. I'm more of a kde guy so I can't speak of experince for Gnome or Evolution. Linux, the kernel, is probely the best argument against your view. Its fast, lean, mean, and clean.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
"I mean, I can run Office, IE and Outlook together SMOOTHLY on a WinXP box with 128M RAM."
No, you cant. Stop spreading FUD. If you have a slow CPU it might be usable if you have at least 256MB, but SMOOTHLY is something entirely different.
"Try running OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Evolution and GNOME on the same system - it slows to a crawl. There are LOADS of people with 64 and 128M boxes out there who can't run a modern, desktop Linux effectively because it's getting so large and sluggish, and there are endless posts around the Net from newcomers who're puzzled as to why Linux is 'so slow'."
You are right. But you wouldnt be able to use WinXP on the same machine either. I just pointed this out. Whats more: Gnome 2.8 and KDE 3 is about the latest and greatest as it gets on Linux. Please consider this. It is not a slick environment. It is a complete up-to-date Desktop environment up on par with OS X and WinXP (SP2). If you try a few offroad distros you might still get a performance boost. Gentoo and Slackware ARE in fact significantly faster than SusE or Fedora.
I agree, OpenOffices startup time could be faster but on a decent system (eg. an Athlon 1400 with 512MB and a 7200rpm HD) it takes about 12 seconds for startup. I cant even guess what you mean with Firefox slowing to a crawl though.
"Fewer users will switch if they just have to follow the upgrade treadmill."
Agreed. But its a trap: Look, if we dont have the latest and greatest they wont even consider it. Dont underestimate the amount of GNOME ready desktops out there. We really shouldnt try to strip down on features and looks just to get all those crappy 128MB/p200Mhz boxes. We have them already. Noone uses them for real work though. What we want is their main machine. The multimedia/websurfing/office PC. We cant get that with Fluxbox (no pun, i like it) and lynx.
Gnome and KDE are frameworks for building applications. It has nothing to do with early adopters or how long you have used a computer. What you probably mean is the gnomepanel and metacity are for early adopters. The underlying libraries which is the bigest part of gnome is for everyone who don't want to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
Getting all the new cool stuff like compositioning working will be a major focus of GNOME 2.10, to be released in March 2005.
That's one of the benefits of GNOME's rapid 6 month release cycles. At the beginning of this year nobody could have seriously expected all of this cool development happening with X.org or predicted the demise of XFree86. Already we have compositioning in CVS, but 6 months from now GNOME will be ready to take full advantage of it as we now make it a priority for the next release. The extension itself will also have some time to stabilize in X.org.
We're also seeing some very nice timetable coordination between X.org, GNOME, and Fedora Core as all projects move to shorter mutually supporting cycles, resulting in new cool stuff getting to end users faster than previously.
It's like deja vu all over again.
Ditto. Using UNIX-style systems since late 1996, and I use KDE. I get so sick of the gits on Slashdot assuming that only drooling morons use KDE and GNOME.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Let me begin by saying that I switch back and forth between Enlightenment and Gnome/KDE, so I am familiar with both sides of the argument. For the record, this takes place on a PIII 800 laptop with 256MB of RAM so I am in the middle of the curve. But I never have performance complaints with any of these. They all run better than Windows.
That being said.......
I see the point of wanting something lightweight on underpowered hardware. That is where the the Openbox's and XFCE's of the world come in. But what about those who have a big machine. If it can handle it, why not have something that can take advantage of it. It would seem to me that there should be a niche for that. Hardware specs will keeping increasing, not decreasing. So therefore, why wouldn't a GNOME or KDE take advantage of that.
I see more variance from distro to distro than I do from window manager to window manager. For instance, Gnome on Fedora to me is much slower than Gnome on Gentoo or Debian. But that is just me.
You can drive a Hyundai because it gets you where you want to go and gets great gas mileage, but that Corvette sure is good looking and fun to drive. And quite fast I might add.
I'm extremely happy because it looks like file type handler has finally been fixed, but I read through the release notes and didn't see a word on my single biggest problem with GNOME 2.6: the damn menu editor. Specifically the fact that there wasn't one, and that adding or removing items was confusing at best.
Not that weather forecasting applets and new themes aren't nice, and not that I have a right to tell people what to work on, but shouldn't the GNOME guys worry more about basic functionality instead of minor things?
the coolest club on
A basic unit of currency in the Linux world is the distribution, as you have discovered. A distribution is essentially just a collection of packages which are, in turn, just compiled versions of (mostly) upstream sources. The thing that makes a distro what it is are the customizations made to the package sources and occasionally packages unique to the distro. All the big distros (ie the ones that matter) are fully open source though so technology which shows up in one pretty quickly migrates upstream somewhere, and then back down again to the other distributions.
That leaves the customizations made, and what exact packages are included by default. This is where problems start to appear.
The traditional solution taken to things that don't really fit into any obvious upstream project is for each distribution to roll their own code. In the past this has happened with menus, hardware detection/pluggability, GUI configuration tools, bootup scripts, and installers. There are others I probably forgot.
In the case of menus, KDE and GNOME used different systems so distributions, not wanting to do a million different files in each package for each individual desktop and window manager each came up with their own solution. Debian has some custom system that Mandrake then adopted as well, SuSE only really supported KDE anyway, Red Hat 8 introduced this thing called "vFolders" which was an aborted attempt at a desktop-neutral standard and was one of the first things specced out at freedesktop.org. Later vFolders was shown to have serious problems and was abandoned but not before being integrated upstream into GNOME (but not KDE!). Red Hat abandoned vFolders in Fedora Core 2 but upstream GNOME did not do the same. So now we're still at this point where while everybody has agreed on a standard, it's not actually implemented uniformly at all.
D'oh. What a mess. This sort of thing has been repeated over and over, whenever something didn't really fit into any upstream project. As time goes by more and more is being sucked upstream into projects like freedesktop.org ... hardware detection is now being handled by HAL (though there is some internal resistance from SuSE who have a .... surprise .... custom solution called suseplugger), network config scripts are destined for replacement by NetworkManager if Red Hat have their way, etc etc.
So ... the random hacks different distros use to tie these disparate pieces of code together are gradually disappearing. This is good. It does, however, leave the second problem:
What packages are included? This is a bigger issue than you may think. There really is no such thing as the "Linux platform". There are small, mostly stable subsets like GNOME and KDE but this is the exception rather than the norm. Specialised libraries like pcre, OpenSSL, libpng and so on which aren't affiliated with any central project policies tend to break backwards compatibility all the time - often it could have been avoided. Each time this happens, you need a new parallel installable package that other packages can depend upon.
Typically, distributions are recompiled entirely on each new revision. So let's say that libfoo breaks backwards compatibility. The new version is included in the new distribution version, all the packages are recompiled or patched to use it, and now the old version isn't included any more.
This has the unfortunate side effect that you cannot make any assumptions about what features are available on any given Linux system beyond some really basic base libraries like libc, Xlibs etc.
Worse, even projects like GNOME and GTK+ often refuse to avoid breaking applications if they deem them "buggy" or "broken", which tends to have a very wide definition. So, the net result
Funny I was able to install Suse 9.1 Pro on my Anthon 3000+XP box without a problem. YaST even shrank my XP partition to 50 Gigs for me so I didn't have to get Partition Magic or anything....
I had it up and running in about 1/2 hour.
Perhaps its your distro?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
The problem here is resource allocation. As GNOME and KDE (or any other project, for that matter) have finite resources (i.e. volunteer time), if they spend some time on improving performance, it's less time spent on something else (such as the features that attract people to kde/gnome in the first place).
IMHO, KDE and GNOME have their priorities pretty well laid out as it is. The nice thing with FOSS is that KDE and GNOME doesn't have to be everything for everyone as MS trie with windows. E.g. if you want features and eye candy, use KDE or GNOME. If you want speed, lack of bloat etc. for that old P133, there's plenty of choice in lightweight WM:s such as openbox.
And if you feel KDE or GNOME is slow, it's not like a new computer is exactly expensive. Say, an athlon xp 2600 with 0.5-1 Gb RAM that runs both desktops more than well costs what, EUR 500-1000?
I wasn't aware that a 366 MHz P2 with 192 MB of ram was faster than a 1.3 GHz P4 with 798 MB of ram.
This is what I love about the new GNOME release schedule - it is results-oriented. They work out what they want in 6 months, create a list of things they need to do to get there, and then work towards the result that they want. At the end of 6 months the developers can look back and really judge how close they got to the result they wanted.
Then they can plan the next six months based on what worked the last 6 months. Wonderful way to schedule a major project.
"No, you cant. Stop spreading FUD. If you have a slow CPU it might be usable if you have at least 256MB, but SMOOTHLY is something entirely different."
Actually, I have tested load times for a AMD K2-400MHz with 128MB and 256MB RAM. WinXP gave better load times of 'intergrated' apps than 'RedHat FC2' with like apps. So I do believe that the parent that you have quoted is correct in the sense that many apps that rely on features already loaded by Windows' OS are faster.
Personally, I believe that the so called bloat and/or speed issue is that OO.org, Firefox, GNOME (apps quoted)... All depend on different base libraries. Whereas, Windows apps depend on one common framework. Each project brings with them their own portability framework, X interface API, parse features (though most are starting to move to libxml for this), and socket API.
You may try, for example, GNOME with AbiWord, and Epiphany (all which use the same CORBA framework, and graphics library) This yields much better loading times that are equal or surpass loading times of like apps on Windows XP.
Also, you should consider the base operations that are being carried out by your distro's mix of programs. In FC2, on the AMD box described above, I found slower load times of applications as compared to Slackware. Firefox loads slower on FC2 than Slack using like versions of the application using default (out of box) configuration.
This is, most likely, due to things turned on by your distro provider that are there to enhance your use of the system. However, those come with a price.
Honestly, I believe that all of the cross-API frameworks that are being developed should at least agree with some sort of common lightweight API that they can base there applications on. A good example of this is the (slow) adoption of D-BUS for Window managers versus using DCOP and ORBit. I should hope to see this being used more and more. Let us not stop only at communications but also in Graphic rendering, Cross platform API/ABI, and more adoption of libxml parse features (And I could continue with a slew of features repeated by different base API/libs).
As for those with light/older systems. One should inspect their system for performance enhancements if they wish to run an OS without meeting the system requirements. Even Windows users understand that if they wish to use WinXP and only have 64MB, they will either take a performance hit or have to change their default configuration to allow them to have a better experience. Likewise, the user may consider an older version of Windows (Win98...) in order to have a stable system. Why should we expect no difference from Linux users?
Finally, I believe that as RAM cost becomes less and less, that application developers will come to capitalize on this and thus force end users to keep with pace. However, I do believe that there is a very firm argument that someone should also provide a distro that capitalizes on the aging desktop, ala provides old KDE 2 and 3 or GNOME 1.4 and 2 packages so that older systems can migrate into a Linux fold. But to ask the developers to strip functionality from their base to support older machines is not a valid request. Software must advance and likewise hardware must advance, and reversing that statement, should always be true in order to provide a useful platform to end users that continues to keep pace with demand. It is the end-user that must adapt the software to it's final form, for it is the end-user that knows their system the best (not the developer).
Also in your post you stated that no one will use "those crappy 128MB/p200Mhz boxes." Not so true. Indeed home users are tended to have newer systems and usually make the mistake of binding hardware and software as one (aka When my software is out of date then my hardware is too. And the converse) product because their system is usually OEM. Therefore, they look to OEMs for upgrade paths (in turn new hardwa
WHY BOTHER?
I can't be the only geek left that's used Linux for more than 5 years that actually prefers Gnome. But sometimes I feel like it.
That said, for quite a while, I ran KDE on my work desktop and Gnome on my home desktop. I like Gnome's interface. I find the spacial nautilus quite useful. (Less so for directory structures that I don't often use). The only thing I miss is the lack of shading options for desktop backgrounds. [So, I have to open up Gimp and do it myself.]
Frankly, I was always a little annoyed by konquerer, and all the little buttons that I didn't use.
That said... why not Gnome? Even if KDE was the absolute best in _every_ way. What makes Gnome a waste of time? Who said it's a war? If Gnome moves forward in a technology, chances are it will urge the KDE developers to move forward as well (like the expansion of KDE availability onto more non-Linux UNIX systems). There are certainly a number of features that KDE has put out that have effected Gnome. So what?
Basically, choice is an important factor to me. I prefer having a choice over having no choice. Choice is the very thing that got me to install Linux for the first time.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
A UI are more than just graphical effects.
If we wanted those Enlightment would be it.
KDE/GNOME have a nice configurable taskbar, great applications, and an integrated programing model where you can include objects and parts of other applications into yours.
Also KDE and I think gnome is totally scriptable to make things better.
Its also nice that the newer beta's of KDE have a preview option of a closed app like MacOSX when you scroll the mouse botton over the icons in the task bar.
Previews in Nautalous or Kfilemanager are nice too.
KDE/GNOME really offer alot in terms of productivity that simple windowmanagers lack. It never was about eye candy.
The only way I could ever use WindowMaker again is if I am stuck on an older system like my pentium133 laptop which runs netbsd.
http://saveie6.com/