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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"
Yeah... 640x480 screenshots with a shitty theme really show us the changes to Gnome.
Is it me, or does this look worse than the stock ubuntu install Gnome?
wdd
But everything is so huge. The screen resolution looks really terrible. What is that 640x480? Did GNOme just enter the VGA world?
And I'm not sure I'd like that "Courtesy of OSshots" banner at the top. Ugly.
So my initial reaction, is, "Hey, that's cool. Where did the mouse pointer go?" Then my second reaction was, "It looks like every other window manager out there."
Screenshots are nice, but what are they trying to show us that can't be done with any other window manager?
I'm confused, according to their release schedule, this is due on the 9th. Is it really coming out 3 days early? How often does that happen?
Karma: Can there be a void?
.. -. - . .-. .-. --- -...
A screen shot in there seems to hint that we'll be able disable the annoying feature where nautilus opens new windows for each directory you select instead of the real estate saving tree view.
Anyone know if 2.10 can have a tree view for directory hierarcies?
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.
How many of the differences that we can see in the screenshots are from the new GNOME, and how many are from Ubuntu? I run Ubuntu, and it customises a fair bit of the GNOME desktop.
Honestly, I relaly don't see much of a difference.
A changelog be more useful than crappy screenshots...
And why is this news anyway? There's several hundred current distros. Wheres the news posts for all those?
Visually I can see no leaps and bounds here, so I'm a little baffled at the purpose of the "screenshot slideshow". Then again, graphics certainly aren't everything. I haven't been reading up on GNOME developments lately but what is "Assistive Technology"? It sounds like something dubious and misleading that Microsoft would promote...
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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.
It's not my intention to knock Gnome, but I think it future releases could have a more all-ecncompassing set of system configuration tools, like KDE has. Maybe I'm just not digging well enough, or am using too old of a version, but Gnome has always seemed to pale to K in that regard. KDE is frigging ugly though. We live in a world of trade-offs, I guess.
There's a big space between the "foot" and "Applications" (same spacing as between other menus), yet they're the same menu?! Either glue the foot to Applications, or call it foot *or* applications. What where they thinking?
Why would anyone bother using Linux, when a brand-new Mac can be had for $499?
Maybe you already have an x86 that you want to use.
Maybe you already have a mac?
Or maybe you don't like the fact that a Mac Mini only has a 32MB video card which can't (officialy) be upgraded, when to run nicely, OS X really needs at least 64MB?
Or maybe you prefer the various desktops available for linux to Mac OS X?
Aye. I wish linux was purtyer. I am probably going to get a new mini instead of make a machine with linux on it. OSX with it's security and programs makes it a better option. If you had talked to me 5 years ago, I would be pissing on macs all day. However, Apple has make a great turn-around and the price makes getting a regular machine and putting linux on it unreasonable.
Look at the version number!!! It's one more than the other versions! C'mon! Just look!
Or maybe you don't like the fact that a Mac Mini only has a 32MB video card which can't (officialy) be upgraded, when to run nicely, OS X really needs at least 64MB?
Who told you that nonsense?
This is just about the only complaint I have with gnome. You're stuck with the same desktop pic on all your workspaces. It's gone on too long, and it's silly.
I didn't think there could be much room left for new invention in volume controls.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Smaller GTK widgets (Maybe its just perceived, but GNOME, and GTK apps in general seem to waste waay to much real estate... not everyone has a 21' monitor..)
A decent default theme (Grey is ugly. Get over it.)
Well I guess my idea of running nicely is a little high. That and like to do fancy graphics stuff, which slows it down.
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.
2.10 is actually 2.1 mathematically.
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.
Um... yes, why indeed would anyone at all bother using linux. You have a flawd perception as to what linux is. Besides it being only a kernel (which isn't even the point here), it is, from the perspective of many, a highly adaptive system. A GUI, in linux, is NOTHING but a front end. It has a very specialized use. I don't think you'll ever find a linux user (one that actually knows how to use it, that is) that will brag about it's GUI. They probably don't care, and would laugh at the notion. Quit trolling, you obviously don't know what you are talking about.
Everybody in the world comes up with a better one. For what amounts to promotional screenshots, you'd think they'd try to at least demonstrate how pretty it can be, even if does eat cycles and causes noticable lag / draw in. Is it just that they dont want to play favorites with the other author's choices?
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Face it guys, it's all well and good to have principles but the average joe/jane wants to have access to closed source apps on their platform of choice.
Linux advocates must also come to the hard realization that many closed source apps have superior UI's to their open source counterparts because those companies took the time and money to hire UI designers.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
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.
.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.
/. 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.
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
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
Xp and MacX have now had this for ages. The DE's for linux really need to catch up in this regard.
But screenshots of the next version of a piece of software do absolutely nothing if it looks exactly the same!
I write code.
I can't wait to see the ScreeShots of Gnome 2.10 Beta 2!
Gray is a beautiful colour. Themes that aren't gray tend to irk the hell out of me. That theme isn't gray--it's tan. Who's bright idea was it to use a tan theme for a desktop?
Frankly, the default looks of both GNOME and KDE are rather ugly. I used to think it was just GNOME that was ugly--not only the default theme, but also most user's themes, but I've since realised that most KDE themes (including the default) are just as ugly.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Can it edit START menu?
For 5 releases (2.4 to 2.9), I haven't been able to drag and drop a new ICON/application into the START menu bar, yet.
Last time I tried this, it involved a convoluted method of editing three different files just to borne a new application menu item within the START menu.
(sigh).
Here are some better screenshots of apps in this release with descriptions. Much better than the 640x480 screenshots linked to in the article.
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
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.
To those who say the Slashdot staff are resting on their laurels, I present you with what I believe to be the first case of single-story duplicity!
Please help metamoderate.
Oh really?
Besides, I thought that personal tastes are just that. Personal.
Depends what you mean by superior. I'd agree that they're often more on target to the audience in general, but that often comes at the cost of what the more geeky crowd wants. The windows interface is well suited to, say, my non-technically inclined boss. Personally though, it seems at times that it was created by studying what I like to do and then putting in an active effort to make it difficult to accomplish. KDE fits my style well, and if it comes at the cost of it arriving on the average Joe, than so be it.
Everything will be taken away from you.
I'm guessing you've never owned a Mac. My iBook with its dinky 32MB card and 256 MB of ddr (before I added a gig) ran every graphical piece of eye candy completely fine until the harddrive got very full (98%). Then it seemed like the operating system swapped out a lot, causing it to be a bit slower. Even then, it was much better than anything I've seen in Windows, and its performance was still good enough to play World of Warcraft without batting an eye.
Apple can show you that minimalistic hardware can go a long way. No need for 256MB graphics cards on a daily user or an economy machine.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I love gnome and its my preferred gui... but why can't the default gnome have a little style? Get rid of the shitty screensavers, beef up the 1994 era icons, and throw in a few good wallpapers that aren't solid colors or a rainbow on crack like this one. I realize that graphics don't matter with regards to functionality... but dammit, a piss poor interface is just a lack of attention to detail.
[insert lame joke here]
That's an excellent point (which I talked about here). In fact, the reason I switched from Macintosh development to Windows development is because the tools on Windows are many times better than Apple's crashy UI slapped on top of Gnu's Objective-C compiler and GDB.
Best Buy can have you arrested
Prettier than what? There are tons of themes out there for both Gnome and KDE, and many of them are quite pretty. In fact, I like KDE's plastik widgets more than Aqua.
But if you think that Aqua is the pinnacle of widget looks, then there are plenty of themes that make KDE and Gnome widgets look exactly like Aqua widgets.
Perhaps Gnome could use a sleeker default theme, but saying that Linux desktops aren't 'purty' is non-sense.
I've come for the woman, and your head.
as both a mac and linux user I'm bothered by both you trolls, stop being jerks and actually realize that a) both platforms have their merits and drawbacks and b) competition is good.
[begin rant]
I'm getting goddamn sick and tired of fan-boy posts, be they linux, mac, windows, goddamn paper tape, etc. Take the time to actually use a platform and you'll realize that it probably has its merits (yes even windows). Go out, stop trolling, and get a life. Posts like the parent and grandparent are the reason why slashdot is sometimes such a pain to read.
[end rant]
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
I just hope they fix that godawful file selection thing. I have never found a tool so unfriendly to "power users". I mean, what's up with forcing people to browse instead of letting them type the path.
I mean having to browse through to
I keep trying both gnome and kde every year or so, and keep switching back to blackbox, or these days, fluxbox, they just use to much in the way resources for what they give back in functionality. I seem to remember seeing in the forums a few months back the one of the current goals of the project was to trim the fat a little, has anyone who has tried it lately noticed any improvements in this regard? or for that matter any improvements in kde's footprint also?
Just curious
my old sig is obsolete, and I haven't come up with a stupid enough new one yet
There was once a day when I was in the GNOME camp. I didn't like the non-free Qt stuff. These days, Qt is not much of an issue. I still appreciate the GNOME guys for giving us an alternative but...
Why does GNOME always seem to be in a state of trying to define itself - to always be in the concept stage? Perpetually in ALPHA state.
Is GNOME still the GNU Network Object Model Environment of old?
Now, in favor of GNOME I must add: There are some GNOME apps that just rock. I really like the process list, some of the games and the panel apps. The widgets are crisp, beautiful and intuitive just like they were on the original GIMP.
The GNOME guys have got alot of impressive code. Now to use that code to form a cohesive and easy to use interface that doesn't change drastically with every point release.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
So a Pretty GUI is the beall/endall? Comon, linux functions on many layers, and a GUI is only one of them. Yes.. it lags behind your precious Darwin (of which I'm fond of, of course). But that's hardly an obsticle for the OS itself.
Davyd Madeley's page (coral cache) shows a cute overview of the new features that you can't see at all in those stupid screenshots.
The Signal/Noise ratio can be improved in two ways. Remaining silent is the OTHER way.
Editing the menus like directories is what I meant. I was asking if there was a way to do it without having to edit a config file. Considering that those Gnome menu config files are more complex than manually partitioning with fdisk and messing with /etc/fstab to get everything mounted right, it's something they needed.
button on the top left of each window?
Alright, I love GNOME as much as the the next guy. But the plain old default GTK widgets... they're just plain fugly. In my mind, that's one of the single biggest (and aguably most retarded) things that's holding GNOME back. Why have ugly widgets by default? There are plenty of ugly interfaces out there. Why should GNOME be one of them?
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
I have seen uglier screen shots ...but not recently.
How are you supposed to tell which is the active window? Why are the window controls not vertically centered inside the window title bars? Why is the type incorrectly kerned? Why are random letters in control labels underlined? Is the scroll bar thumb the light gray part or the dark gray part? Why is some of the type antialiased and some not? Why is there a short horizontal line near the bottom of your "faux Finder" window? Why is there a white line on the left edge of your Terminal window? Where's the resize control on the Terminal window? Where's the scroll bar? And so forth and so on.
I thought that personal tastes are just that. Personal.
Most of the time, they are. But ugly is just ugly, you know?
I hate to say it but I just can't use Linux as a desktop any longer. I've completely switched to MacOS X for all my work both at home and at work. It gives me all the Unix goodness I'm accustomed to with a great zero-maintenance UI.
That's not to say that Linux doesn't have a place in my home, though. I currently have a headless box in my closet that's my home NFS server with several websites on it.
Michael.
Linux : Mac
Most pretty screenshots I've seen like this are just that. Pretty screenshots. They are mostly awkward and horrible to actually use to get anything done with. OSX manages to look pretty while still being amazingly useful, consistent and intuitive to use.
Hahahaha! And you know what the worst thing is? You probably actually believe yourself.
You know what, Mr. AC ? If we would judge an OS by it's looks, noone would ever buy WinXP or else, and Apple would've become world leader with OSX.
Thing is, which is not necessarily sad, but nevertheless true, that the most part of computer users are not in any way developers, nor do they want to do anything development related, nor do they wish to know the insides or power usabilities of any OS they ever coem in conatct with. And that means that usually the GUIs will not be suited for a power user.
From that point of view - developer, geek, power user, etc. - Linux could really prevail in the x86 world. And these prople also are in perfect knowledge of an OS's power lies not in the GUI, so your parent post has quite a bit of truth in it. On the other hand, a KDE GUI is much more user-friendly than many others, for the simple fact that be _very_ easily customized to one's needs. I've seen and heard many opinions according to whom this is exactly a drawback of KDE (too many places to tweak on too many locations), but I've come to appreciate this approach over the years.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Thanks. It's not very intuitive, but I suppose it'll have to do.
Maybe it's just me accustomed to the "old ways", but it seems that Gnome is following the "Windows way", that is, make it easy for the idiots and god help anyone else, what with the pretty icons and the amount of clicks (and only clicks) you need to do things.
If you want, you can even have the best of both worlds and dual boot Linux and OS X on your a Mac mini. :) Better yet, you can even run KDE and GNOME through X11, in OS X.
You will feel your geek penis grow...
I'm sorry, but I never agree when people say fonts on Linux look good. For instance, take a look at the "W" characters in those shots. The diagonal lines in that letter are thicker than the others. It also happens in certain digits and special characters. Diagonal lines and curves in general are uneven. People often tell me the fonts in Linux render better than in Windows, and I just look at comparison shots between the two and shake my head at their apparent delusions, especially when comparing to a shot from OS X (probably the best I've seen from any OS...everything is smoothed, and somehow it antialiases very tiny characters without making them appear too thick or too thin).
As I understand it, Longhorn is supposed to have vector-based widgets. If cairo can be integrated well enough so that this stuff is solidly in gtk and gnome in a year then we'll have beaten MS in a very obvious visible way.
I read somewhere that this will be especially useful for graphics artists and researchers because the huge displays they use make the icons almost useless. If everything was vector based then that wouldn't happen.
I'm excited. Can't wait to see this stuff in my default Ubuntu install.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
It may be a surprise, but there are a lot of people who don't live on the East Coast of the US and I'm not talking about those who live on the West Coast ;)
RebateFX.com - Spread rebates for Forex traders
And that's what he said - if you go to Nautilus and open the location "applications:///", that's the root of the applications menu. You can then navigate it just like files and folders. Note, this works fine in 2.8 (and I think all the way back to 2.4), but I have heard that 2.10 handles menus a different way. I haven't tried it, so I'm not sure.
I never said that they did not have there merits did I? The point I was making is that Apple products tend to not have longetity for the mass market. And unfortunetly, do to recent moves by Apple, certain long time developers who used to support (for example) Mac OS suddenly decided it wasn't worth their time. Apple is trying to maintain control of iTunes, the RIAA isn't exactly thrilled with the idea of future DRM being based on Apple's tech. Situations similar to that.
The computing industry is full of great products that died due to the fact that nobody bothered to develop technology for them. BeOS and Amiga come to mind.
What is hilarious is that I was modded as flame bait because I pointed out that Apple has a history of producing trendy products (good as they are) that don't really go anywhere after a few years.
I never once claimed that Linux was superior to Mac or Windows or that any particular technology was better (I simply stated that Linux would take a bigger chunk of the desktop market and as a side effect Apple would lose it relevence), but I guess people would rather assume that I am being a Linux fanboy because I'm calling out a Mac Zealot.
Take the time to actually use a platform and you'll realize that it probably has its merits (yes even windows)
Again did I ever state that I hadn't tried it? I have tried Mac OS X, find it to be a fine system, but ultimately when I use a UNIX environment I tend to not care about pretty graphics as I focus on the console.
So now you are making assumptions based upon notions you just came up with just as you are accusing me of. But hey it's /. so everyone will just spend time bitching about everyone elses opinion and then yell flamebait after which point Godwin's Law will come into effect and someone will follow with a link to goatse, all the while trying to figure out the 2nd step, which comes right before 3. Profit.
In the old days, a release came with release notes, so we knew whether we cared about a release. Maybe GNOME's release notes release is just very hard to use, but I don't see a meaningful list of changes. And I don't mean a ChangeLog, which is meaningful only to developers, people waiting for a specific bugfix, or others involved in the project enough to be upgrading from daily build snapshots.
--
make install -not war
A lot of posts so far have been criticisms from people who clearly haven't used GNOME before. How about trying the software out first, then pointing out legitimate problems with it rather than complaining about little things you've picked out of a screenshot?
What about posting articles talking about features, bug fixes and enhancements. I mean, we are talking about software after all, aren't we?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Given the relative ease of skinning with most modern window managers and desktop environments, what can anyone hope to gain by looking at screenshots?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
There will be new room left for volume control settings so long as there is room for the evolution of audio.
As surround gets better, I can see more volume controls using a 3d environment for "speaker config" so as to configure sound settings as best suited to how the speakers are placed in a room. While it's hard to imagine more improvements in the realm of audio (other than more and more speakers are different angles) I'm sure that there will be surprising new concepts which will require new ways of being configured.
Hmm. That in itself might be a problem with XScreensaver.
Wouldn't it be better if XScreensaver started as root (no, don't kill me yet) and, as many daemons do, forked off to run in a user process? The root process wouldn't actually handle the screensavers itself, just the inter-user communication. Better, you wanted, you could even have the root process become an "xscreensaver" user and then allow any "xscreensaver-user" process started by logged-in users to communicate with the master. That way, you've got a master process (non-root) that can start the screensaver, and user processes that can tell it when to start the countdown (when all logged-in GUI users are idle).
Am I the only one left who prefers clean bit-mapped fonts?
Sure, the screenshots shown in the article look pretty snappy from a distance, because the fonts are large. But to get a lot of work done you want small, even tiny fonts. That's the whole point of high screen resolution, right?
Antialiased small fonts look awful. Compare the crisp, clean bitmaps of NeXTSTEP or even Windows to the small blurry fonts in GNUStep or the Mac. With aliasing letters bleed together , the shapes aren't quite right, etc. It gets so tiring to read after a while.
And if you turn off antialiasing they're barely legible (and sometimes even touch each other - I hate it when letters touch each other!) because no one takes the time to produce correct bitmaps for specific font sizes. (OK, to be honest I haven't seen the Mac with antialiasing turned off.) I don't even care about a zillion different sizes, just give me a couple of fixed sizes, small and smaller, that look right.
As much as I hate Windows, one thing it has going for it is that the fonts are very clean and legible with antialiasing turned off. I tried the latest Ubuntu for a while, playing with all the font settings available (even LCD subpixel) and in end couldn't stand it because of the fonts. Such a beautiful OS gone to waste because it's unreadable with antialiasing turned off, and I can't stand it turned on. Isn't readability like half the point of a computer in the first place? Or do all people care about anymore is just getting a pretty "printed page" effect from a blurry distance?
The irony is that font bitmaps are not even copyrightable! Heck, just steal them from NEXTStep! Or even Windows! (The bitmaps, that is.) Why doesn't anyone do this?
(End rant.)
Holy shit! What's that running???
They probably had a look at slashdot and figured slashdotters seem to like stuff like that.
Vectorized graphics are NOT always a good thing. See a great post by Jakub, the artist behind the Gnome industrial iconsets: http://primates.ximian.com/~jimmac/blog/Artwork/Sc alableIcons/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Gnome is never going to encourage people like me that aren't interested in eye-candy and bloat as long as there is only one view style, and that is, everything is bloody huge! Windows Explorer has the best details view of any operating system, and until Nautilus and Konqueror can offer a decent - and fast - details view (where the entire column doesn't go blue when you highlight a file), then I'll just stick to the evil OS from Redmond where I don't have to contend with these shockers!
The methods you describe don't work with the new gnome release as gnome has switched to the freedesktop.org menu standard and the old way of putting things in vfolders is no longer supported.
.desktop files in ~/.config.
As of now there is no way to edit your gnome menu other than by hand, that is putting
But I sure hope that there will be a solution to this situation before 2.10 comes out. If anybody had any info about a menu-editor being planned for this release I'd greatly appreciate it.
Now the FUDees become the FUDers!
A couple of pointers:
g
If you want to rebrand the splash screen, text, icons, backgrounds or any other data-related content, you can do so and that remains protected by copyright, not the GPL. You don't have to distribute any changes at all. That's why you can redistribute Red Hat's distro, but must remove their logos and references...
And the GPL states that you only have to give people access to source that you externally distribute the changed binaries to. So if you alter a program and only distribute it within your company, no problem. If you distribute it wider, to customers, or b2b, then you may have to release source.
Any applications that you write yourselves atop Linux are yours to licence as you wish.
The only time you'd ever have to give code access is if you made changes to a GPL program and then sold that at a profit. You've clearly used someone else's work to save you time, so that you don't have to implement it all yourself, and you want to make money from that short-cut. If you want to sell someone else's work without paying them for it, you have to give something back (that's the essence of the GPL, and that something is the code changes).
EO#2: "So what you're saying is that we would be paying our developers to work on this project, and essentially anyone else can just come along, pick up where we left off and that's that? That doesn't really seem fair, if you ask me."
Reponse: So we can essentially just come along, pick up where someone else left off and sell it? Making profit without putting any effort in or rewarding anyone for the use of a product?
Would a manager say that was fair? I think that all the ones I've ever worked for, and your one, would probably see their eyes light up at the prospect of free sellable products like that.
The GPL isn't onerous; all it does is maintain fairness and prevent abuse. Your task isn't abusive, and you can very happily co-exist with the GPL and it can be beneficial to all.
As for the GUI looking old, take a look at my desktop... It's SuSE 9.2, with KDE 3.3, Plastik and Nuvola icons. It's not the default, but it took me 10 minutes to do, and if you wanted to remaster a distro with those changes, you could certainly be done within a few hours.
http://gemini.cs.cf.ac.uk/~dawnrider/snapshot1.jp
As for naming, your manager seems very hung up on those, and there's not much to be done about that. For what it is worth, every other manager I know would shrug and say "If that's what it's called, that's what the customer will get. They'll get used to it in a day or two." And that is generally the case.
But if you can, I think you really should re-open the discussion in your workplace, perhaps by taking the time to carefully read the GPL yourself and asking your manager for a written list of questions about it (scenarios, what-ifs, descriptions of what changes you might need in the OS/desktop environment etc). Then you can ask GPL developers about the list (maybe the KDE or Gnome mailing lists?) and see what their responses are. I think that your manager would be very happy and impressed that he's getting response from the people who do this for a living, who directly program the software he's thinking of using, and it might also enable him to see whether they intend to make changes he needs in the near future anyway, saving work for his employees. It will also help alleviate management anxiety as to the ability to find intelligent support.
Sorry, couldn't resist but.... remaining silent, by definition, doesn't change the signal to noise ratio at all, since it's neither signal nor noise ;-)
-chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
So after much out cry over the file chooser in 2.6, they decided to change it again. The problem with the 2.6 dialog was that there wasn't a way to type in filenames. GNOME is the only framework that doesn't allow users to type in filenames. Almost 30 years of GUI research and development had this, but GNOME decided that was dumb. Now, GNOME did allow users to type in a directory names if they hit CTRL-L. The problem with that is that it's hidden from the user.
Now, GNOME has added typeahead find to the dialog. Well, that got rid of the CTRL-L nonsense, but it's still hidden functionality, and doesn't allow users to paste in filenames.
This is just incompetence.
And still no customizable toolbars, what a shame. So much precious screenspace wasted and no way to configure them. Imagine, W*ndows had that feature since -95.
http://archonon.sytes.net/
If your superiors are idiots ("software communism!?") it's not the fault of free software.
IBM is pretty happy with linux. Perhaps you should have mentioned that instead of explaining the basics in an uninteresting way to IT staff and then come here crying.
Of course, there's the possibility that you just made that conversation up to merrily troll around.
these screenshots are pointless/ First of all they do not represent Gnome but Ubuntu and Ubunty adds all their crappy and compleatelly pointless customizations to the menues. Also ther is not a single screen shot that has anything new in it except for the really ugly background the missing MIME database and the new applets icons.
Thanks a lot for wasting my time. I am compleatelly convinced that Ubuntu is never going to get even to the level of Debian. Apparently not all changes are improvements (this one is for the Ubuntu people since the rest of us already know that).
I am an avid GNOME user. It is my preferred desktop platform. However, compared to OS X and Windows XP(especially), GNOME's user interface animations leaves me wanting for more.
Rashly speaking, why does GNOME's user interface animation suck so much? Is it GTK+ that is the culprit, or is Metacity to blame? And when can we expect animations on par, or better, than OS X or Windows XP in GNOME.
Outside the aforementioned issues, it my opinion that GNOME rocks! Yes, Johnny, I'm a sucker for eye-candy!
... esd drives me nuts. I have to kill it before I can use any sound app aside from Gnome events.
Also, sound seems to be an exclusive thing -- only one sound app at a time; I can't have multiple streams. Anyone have ideas as to why?
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
I never did like Gnome. It reminds me of those big utility crayons you give to first-graders to teach them dexterity.
Enlightenment. Now that's a man's GUI.
- IP
you can save the values of the various controls to file using the alsactl utility. You could then build a graphical widget that executed this utility that saved / loaded the different configurations you want. Somethink like Tk/Tcl could be used for the GUI part.
Another alternative might be to use the amixer utility. You could use a script to swap the volume values of the appropriate channels. eg, the script follows these steps (1) store the volume level of control 1, (2) store the volume level of control 2, (3) load the stored control 1 volume into control 2, (4) load the stored control 2 volume into control 1. Again, you could put a GUI wrapper around it to make it a mouse click.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
I had this problem too (changing line-width), so i stopped using lines. Only shapes.
For example: if you want to draw a red square with red outlines, you draw a red square WITHOUT outlines, then you draw a slightly bigger black square, and you arrange it behind de red square.
Works for me.
I thought it was frozen! ;)
There's some stuff that tells about the great new Places menu that would duplicate the bookmark feature Nautilus 1.x had - only better.
Here's my only complaint of Nautilus: I really like the spatial view, but there's no bookmarks menu for it. I don't use Nautilus to draw desktop, so I can't exactly plop shortcuts to desktop, either. I start up Nautilus at computer:///, and it's an annoying special folder where I can't put any of my own bookmarks. I so hope bookmarks finally get there in 2.10.
Of course, with my luck, the Places will only appear on the damn desktop menubar, which I don't use either... but I hope Nautilus' Places menu will have same entries.
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=DmixPlugin
In Bob we trust.
There is something wrong with the Gnome menu: the 'Internet' command has a submenu. The concept 'Internet' is tied to the browser in the average Joe's mind. So it should have been that 'Internet' should open Firefox/Mozilla. When one is on the Internet, 99.99% is on some browser.
There are many other things like this, like:
-'Image Viewer' is not the name of an application. Which Image Viewer?
-terminal server/bittorrent is not 'internet' (in average Joe's mind).
-the office submenu is litterred with 'openoffice.org' in front of every command.
-what is 'Evolution' in the office menu?
-why a terminal is in 'system tools' and not in 'accessories'?
-the 'search for files' is in the menu called 'places'; it's totally irrelevant to each other.
-screen resolution is under 'administration', which is usually something average Joes wouldn't touch. It should have been under 'preferences'.
-some programs have names, some don't. For example, 'Ubuntu update manager'. Why 'Ubuntu'? what's different than a simple update manager?
-why isn't the system object-oriented? for example, the desktop context menu does not have a 'change resolution' command.
-what panel menu will be deleted when I select 'delete'? (slide 14)
-the 'help' button in dialogs should not be in the same line with 'close' or 'ok' or 'cancel', because these buttons are for dismissing the dialog.
There are probably many more usability problems, but it's not my purpose to report them. And I am not an expert on human interfaces, I am a programmer; I just apply plain common sense and know what I want.
On OS X, fonts often appear much thicker and often very blurry, and while looking pretty are harder to read. On 'doze, well... Frankly, font rendering in Windows still looks like shit.
Mac OS X does have some major advantages with regard to fonts though, as pointed out in a few other posts.
I disagree with you about the Bitstream Vera fonts. They are very nice and readable fonts.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
But can you now select more than one file at once when, for instance, choosing desktop wallpapers ? or must you still go through the entire rigmarole of using about 5 clicks to move through the dialogs to select each file in turn... one after the other... then the next one.... and the next...
And when in Nautilus can you now use a key on the keyboard to move your current selection between all files that start with that letter e.g. pressing the "a" key will in turn select "About.html", "Alberts Pants.jpg", "another load of arse" etc. etc. (and in this case no *NIX case sensitivity please)
In other words have they caught up with some of the most basic bits of the Windows 95 interface that made it good. Or are you still expected to click & drool at everything with the mouse ?
So go ahead and mod me troll for these comments but they're the major reasons why GNOME isn't my desktop of choice. I actually do like the idea of GNOME but I simply can't stand the amount of mouse work/repetition involved. Similarly if I can add multiple items to a list I expect to be able to simultaneously add multiple items at the same time. That's good user interface design.
And I won't even mention spatial Nautilus as that's a joke too far. It's just a wretched, wretched design. It shouldn't be on by default and you should be able to turn it off directly from Nautilus. It's a view mode and it should be configurable directly from the interface.
Kudos to Rhythmbox though as that's ace !
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
until gnome and it's programs has a nice keyboard shortcut system. i will stick with windows. Linux sucks when it came with global shortcuts ...probably because IT DON'T HAVE ANY!
i like to see my IM alerts flashing in the status bar and then press some key combination when i'm confortable to read them. But with gnome + gaim, i have two options. Let the message pops on the screen when it arrives, no matter if it will cause me trouble depending on who is near my workstation, or i have to use the mouse to click the damn thing.
GLOBAL KEYBOARDS SHORTCUT NOW!
I didn't just bother to try GNU/Linux (with fvwm or KDE). I was an early adopter in 1992 originally using Slackware (I remember running around campus with a huge stack of floppies) and have ecently moved to SuSE. I have not used MS Windows for almost a decade.
My wife bought our first Apple product, a power book, about two years ago. After adjusting to its interface and learning to make it act more like a GNU/Linux window manager (fvwm or KDE) and supplementing its version of Unix with GNU software via "fink," I found it had everything that my GNU/Linux machine had plus several very important features -- the user interface was zero maintenance, automatically updated, and beautiful.
Naturally, I use GNU/Linux where it has the greatest utility. I feel for a server, the time spent configuring the system is worth the extra effort. As for a KDE-on-GNU/Linux desktop, while it is better than running Windows for its GNU goodness, the Linux GUIs are not quite up to the MacOS level yet.
I think we are all various combinations of zealot and fanboy. I am much more of an anti-Microsoft zealot than a fanboy of either MacOS or GNU/Linux. I simply choose what works best for me out of the non-MS pool.
Michael.
Linux : Mac
i REALLY hope they've improved the use of nautilus for smb browsing. It's "okay" for ftp browsing, though sometimes I have a bit of trouble getting it to accept my password, but it's HORRIBLE for samba. I use my laptop on my (Windows-)network at work, and I use samba to interact with other computers. I don't have it properly hooked up to the Windows domain server, so I manually have to enter the domain name whenever I use "smbclient". This works fine from the command line, but I've never ever gotten Nautilus to accept my domain name and password for browsing on the network. And only 30% of the time does it even ask me for my password before giving me an error.
Other than this, I absolute love Gnome (converted from KDE when I first booted up the Ubuntu live CD), and since I also enjoy working from the command line it doesn't bother me too much, but there are times I'd really like to use Nautilus for this.
In Fedora Core 3, the Gnome desktop still doesn't properly work. You have to manually refresh to get new or changed files to be properly displayed on the desktop or in the file browser. I think there is something wrong with Gnome's file alteration moniter, but it has been broken for a long time now. It is getting VERY annoying. Yes, I have many other people have formally reported the bug.
Another big gripe of mine is how you can get the Gnome file browser to crash by checking the properties of a large file, say a 7GB DVD ISO image. Sure fire crash each time. Not sure if it has been reported, but then again, reporting doesn't seem to get the bugs fixed.
Maybe I will switch to KDE, but that would require me to switch to a KDE friendly distro. Any suggestions?
KDE has had this feature for years now! Somebody needs to write up a complete critical comparison of the two desktops. I think allot of people would be surprised.
Yeah, but if you dont concentrate of advertising new features and bug fixes, you won't be keeping anybody in the Gnome camp!
compared to the Apple desktop.
Hear hear.
Sorry but every time I use a GNOME file save/open dialogue I realise how bloody good the Microsoft Common Dialogue control is (with the exception of Microsoft Office which has it's own version of the control which is absolute crap)
When using GNOME then not being able to type in a directory path and have the control switch context to the directory I've just typed slows me down immensely. Given *nixes tab complete feature this would be a tremendous productivity boost.
Also not having the ability to type in partial filenames (with "wildcards") and then hit enter to update the display to show only those files that match the search pattern is a complete pain.
And sorry but GNOMES patalogical refusal to make use of the filesystems hierarchical tree analogy is just plain wrong.
I'll say it again. I like GNOME but there's so much of it's interface that is so counter productive and seems to have been introduced in a "we know best" manner.
Finally I'll say it again, if an application allows me to add multiple file system objects to a list it should let me add multiple objects at the same time.
Maybe one day ?
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Thank you, that's great.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Hmm... I though IBM was pretty quiet about their Linux initiative these days...
End of Line.
... and I don't see the need for the extra input field. It just confuses beginners and if I really want to type in a filename,
...
/) and Ctrl-V and that's it.
You mean confused like when they use windows, or macos, or solaris, or kde, or nextstep, or beos, or
I can always hit Ctrl-L (or even
And where did you learn about ctrl-L? Google? Because it sure as hell wasn't the dialog.
Get lost, please.
Does this look all right to you?
Link
I assure you, it's plenty easy to use.
Then again, I doubt that the person in the original screenshot had trouble using his system. The only specific thing I'd find problematic with that particular desktop is that he has way too many windows open on that one desktop (assuming he restored all those iconified windows), but they're probably on separate desktops normally.
Even I put more windows in a screenshot than I usually have on a desktop, because otherwise it's almost like posting a picture of my wallpaper.
I've come for the woman, and your head.
How are you supposed to tell which is the active window?
some of the windows don't have title bars. i suspect the media player is active. or possibly the unseen application taking the screenshot.
Why are the window controls not vertically centered inside the window title bars?
because who gives a fuck? because the designer of the theme wanted it that way? because the user decides what he likes and doesn't like - not redmond?
Why is the type incorrectly kerned?
it looks fine to me - but you may be more discriminating about that. whatever.
Why are random letters in control labels underlined?
they're not "randomly underlined". it seems that labels that are native to the interface are explicitly underlined, and labels that are variable simply underline the first letter unless the user assigns a specific letter to them. letters underlined more than once are sequentially selected with each access key keystroke.
Is the scroll bar thumb the light gray part or the dark gray part?
as is completely obvious to someone without an agenda, it's the light part.
Why is some of the type antialiased and some not?
again, the type looks fine to me. what part are you having difficulty reading, exactly?
Why is there a short horizontal line near the bottom of your "faux Finder" window?
it's obviously part of the selector control right below it.
Why is there a white line on the left edge of your Terminal window?
it's obviously part of the "raised panel" look of *every* (window-decorated) on the screen.
Where's the resize control on the Terminal window? Where's the scroll bar?
they're hidden, just like the owner of the desktop wants it. transparent terminal windows without decoration are pretty common on *nix desktops.
And so forth and so on.
it's possible you're just being a jerk-off because you have a hidden agenda. on the other hand, it's also possible that you're so used to sucking on microsoft's and/or apple's tits that you can't appreciate a customized desktop.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Now that's good satire. I especially like this part:
it seems that labels that are native to the interface are explicitly underlined, and labels that are variable simply underline the first letter unless the user assigns a specific letter to them. letters underlined more than once are sequentially selected with each access key keystroke.
Man, i consider myself to be a moderately funny guy, but never in a zillion years could I have come up with something that crazy. I laughed until I cried.
You rock, dude.
i know, it's *totally* crazy! i figured it out, like, immediately after encountering this labelling scheme myself! it was *soooo* much harder than windows' 'pick the next available letter' defaults. and *soooo* much more confusing than windows' 'hide the letter until you hold down the shift key' default! crazy!
You rock, dude.
thanks, i'll take praise where i can get it. :-)
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
is the place to go.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf