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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?
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
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.