GNOME 2.10 Beta 1 Screenshot Demo

linuxbeta writes "GNOME 2.10 Beta 1 has just been released. There is a nice screenshot demo here. Also known as 2.9.90, GNOME 2.10 Beta 1 is the first pre-release intended for wide public scrutiny before the final release in March. It is packed full of tasty GNOME goodness. This release is a feature frozen snapshot primarily intended for wide public scrutiny before the final GNOME 2.10 release in March. Like the good old days of Linux kernel development, GNOME uses odd minor version numbers to indicate development status. Please check the 2.9 start page for more info. - gnomedesktop.org/node/2138"

Comments

Vectorized graphics

[st3v]

I hope GNOME will take a step ahead and use vector graphics. Then those of us that use large screen resolutions (such as those UXGA laptops) will have nice looking fonts without a magnifying glass. I know it might be easier said than done, but this will push the Linux desktop miles ahead.

Volume Control

[espergreen]

Having used gnome 2.92 in Ubuntu Hoary, I have to say the best new feature is the volume control. The old one had way to much information, the new one is amazing. It's hard to describe, but it's much better than the old one. It may not seem like a big deal. But gnome currently only has a mediocre volume control. In the next release it will have the best volume control I have ever used on any platform.

KISS: Ubuntu and Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

Congrats to the Gnome and Ubuntu teams. You have taken Linux from depths of desktop mediocrity and confusion and transformed it into something that real people can use to get work done.

Question?

[Vectorferret]

As a real question (not trolling), does Gnome have a graphical way to edit the menus yet? My primary reason for staying with KDE is I don't want to have to edit them manually.

gnomeflexiserver tied in with xscreensaver

[Sark666]

I tried gnome recently and found out about this cmd to graphically quick user switch a la xp/osx. So one user can log in and leave other(s) still logged in.

This has some issues but what would give almost complete functionality right now, would be if the screensaver had an option to run gnomeflexiserver.

The other problem with this though, is if logged in as another user, the other users settings for xscreensaver will kick in after the idle time and bog down the other user(s). I also believe this will take over the 3d functionality of the users card and not allow another user to use it.

Also, I recently set up my .asoundrc file for software mixing with alsa, and used esd for gnome sounds and piped to alsa. I get sound in pretty much everything simultaneously, nothing holding the soundcard, but if another user uses gdmflexiserver to log in, that user will have no sound.

Afaik, this is also a bit of a kludge, tying another Xscreen to a vert terminal similar to some users using ctrl alt f8 for the other X session. I'm not sure if there would be a way to tie multiple users to one Xsession, but I would think it would save resources and potentionally avoid sound/video accel getting taken over by just one login.

I know this is somewhat off topic as I don't believe gdm is being enhanced in the coming future in this regard, but I'd like to know how /. users deal with this with multiple users in the household. Esp wanting to lock out kids from ones login by xscreensaver but not locking them out from theirs.

Xp and MacX have now had this for ages. The DE's for linux really need to catch up in this regard.

Re:Fonts look nice

[Admiral Burrito]

If you want to see how a good desktop environment renders text, look no further than Mac OS X.

Seen it. Not impressed. Many vertical strokes were anti-aliased to be two pixels wide when they should render one wide. It makes the text look blurry. I've seen that on Linux before too, though it's since been fixed (problem with the font hinting?).

I use Gnome. Looks great on my LCD with sub-pixel anti-aliasing. I suspect the problem with the screenshots is that they use the default fonts (the free Bitstream ones I think). I use the Microsoft fonts, mostly Verdana. Verdana may not be pretty but it's designed for on-screen readability, and renders well.

Re: It's the fonts, stupid

[gidds]

Please don't think that everyone dislikes anti-aliased fonts. Personally, I love 'em; I find 'em much easier on my eyes. Non-AA fonts may be 'sharper', but that sharpness is just an artefact of the rasterisation. To me, they look gritty, awkward and uneven; AA fonts are much smoother and easier to read, even at fairly small sizes. (At least, here on OS X.) And they're a more accurate representation of the glyphs.

As others have said, you can usually disable AA on your fonts; but if you're running at a reasonably high resolution, on a reasonable quality monitor, with a reasonable font renderer, then it's worth giving them a second try.