Gnome 2.10 Released

Mad_Rain writes "The new version of Gnome (you know, the desktop of many Linux users?) has just been released. You can even try it out with a LiveCD (bittorrent link). There is a video player and CD-ripping utility included, and the all-important new splash screen!"

Comments

The complete release notes...

[tcopeland]

...are here.

Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

New screenies here.
It's only a matter of time.

Re:Screenshots

[mkro]

It's only a matter of time.

Don't be ridiculous. We all know who Gnome want to be when she grows up.

Speaking of the new splash screen

[Drunken_Jackass]

Does anyone else find something wrong with the progress/height chart on the new splash screen?

2.10
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
2.0

Re:Speaking of the new splash screen

[gardyloo]

Yes, I've always found that a bit troubling. I can't decide if we're supposed to believe:

i) 10 has a higher value than 8;
ii) .10 has a smaller value than .2;
iii) 2.8 + .2 = 3.0;
iv) 2.8 + .2 = 2.1.

Of course, in the case of some unforunate releases, the addition of an even extention to an even extention results in an odd extention of a lower value, such as in some of the latest Mandrake releases. Those suckers should've been knocked back to version 4.15 or something.

Re:Speaking of the new splash screen

[akzeac]

Think of them more like IPs, you can have 127.0.0.1. Between 2.8 and 2.9 can come 2.8.1, 2.8.2, 2.8.2.1, and so on.

Re:Speaking of the new splash screen

[Vaevictis666]

Think of it like a prison line up - feet.inches

It's probably as good an analogy as anyone else in this thread thinks up :P

Re:Speaking of the new splash screen

[gardyloo]

Just replace the dots with dashes if it makes you more comfortable.

Eek! 2-10 = -8!

Re:Speaking of the new splash screen

[nine-times]

Ok, so at least I'm not the blind or stupid one.

FYI: 2.10==2.1 when 2.10 is a decimal. If it's a version number, 2.10!=2.1. Well, at least depending on your numbering convention. Some people treat version numbers like decimals, but many do not. Gnome (and Apple, and the Linux kernel), use a whole number point-release system (my terminology, made up on the spot). So how that works is, when you want to divide releases, you put a point (not a decimal) and at another whole number. Therefore, 2.6.1 falls under version 2.6, as does 2.6.7. 2.6.10 comes directly after and is an upgrade on 2.6.9 in the same way that 2.6.7 comes after 2.6.6.

So 10.0 comes way after 1.0, 10.10 comes a while after 10.1, 10.10.10 comes a few patches after 10.1.1. If we wanted to further sub-divide, 10.10.10.10 would come directly after 10.10.10.9. (but that would look too much like an IP address, so maybe that's why nobody divides that far, but instead seem to label releases "r1" or "rc1" or "beta" or whatever. I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea.

Also FYI, in both gnome and the linux kernel, there's another thing to know about their versioning scheme: even and odd numbered 0.x releases should probably not be thought of as upgrades on each other. I thought that might have been the source of confusion, seeing as the list 2.2, 2.4, 2.6, 2.8, 2.10 skips the odd .x releases. The reason for that is, odd .x releases are development branches, and not everything in the 2.9 branch automatically goes into the 2.10 branch. Only the new features that are stable and ready make it. Some things might be dropped, and other things might be carried over to the 2.11 branch for further work.

Now, I know a lot of what I've just written is well known to a lot of people here, but part of my confusion (thinking I was missing something) came from assuming that this was common knowledge, which I guess maybe it isn't. Or was the OP trying to be funny?

GNOME 2.10

[pathological liar]

Now with no new exciting features!

Re:GNOME 2.10

[drew]

funny how this didn't happen (for me) when i used to use gnome back around 2.2/2.4

Hoary

[peterprior]

Packages are already in ubuntu hoary.

just do an apt-get update and then an apt-get dist-upgrade :)

Re:Hoary

[advocate_one]

yeah... that was a rather sneaky upgrade on us... we got KDE3.4 as well at the same time... ;)

Future viability in question?

[Sheetrock]

Most people I talk to who use Linux have expressed a strong preference for KDE over GNOME. I don't know if this is because they get KDE with X-Windows on there system or if they switched in disgust, but they usually say that they think it's crisper and the look is more consistent across applications.

I suppose it's another example of form over function, but there you go. Hopefully Enlightenment comes out soon.

Re:Future viability in question?

[kebes]

As a windows user migrating over to linux, I really tried to get a good sense of which desktop was "better" and would be supported in the coming years. I was never able to get a good answer. Both have their pros and cons, and both have an enthusiastic user base. So I think both KDE and GNOME are with us for a good while now... which is a good thing!

That having been said, I use KDE.

Re:Future viability in question?

[rainman_bc]

Admittedly, the transition to Gnome from Windows is easier, for the icon standards are similar.

KDE pisses me off with how cluttered the icons in the applications look. There appears to be little spacing between icons. It makes for a crammed, cluttered looking appearance.

Gnome pisses me off because its menu editing is so friggin' stupid. FWIW FC3 dropped the Gnome menue editor because it was too buggy.

I like both. However I lean towards Gnome because it's cleaner, and more polished.

If I want performance, I'll use XFce

Re:Future viability in question?

[Excelsior]

Most people I talk to who use Linux have expressed a strong preference for KDE over GNOME.
"My buddies think that KDE is better than Gnome" is moderated Informative? My faith in the public moderation system just dropped a notch.
they usually say that they think [KDE]'s crisper [than gnome] and the look is more consistent across applications.
Crisper? More consistent? Consistent in that everything starts with a K, perhaps. Consistencies fall apart after that. Gnome is designed around the principals of consistency and simplicity, requiring HIG conformance, and such. KDE is not. In Gnome, menus follow a design, preferences are always found in the same place, colors follow a pallete, etc. In KDE, none of this is the case.

If you just open a few applications side by side in KDE, take a screenshot, then do the same in Gnome, then compare the screenshots, the difference is very noticable. I'd show you some screenshots if my web-server-over-cable-modem could support a good slashdotting.

Most people using Linux today are geeks, and geeks appreciate KDE because every application offers a million different settings, where as on Gnome apps very little is configurable. That's a fine strength for KDE if that's what you want. And if you are desperately waiting on E17, you also clearly choose features over consistent, simple design.

Re:Future viability in question?

[phidipides]

I attempted to use KDE on my laptop recently because it felt more refined to me than Gnome. The menus that came up seemed to offer a more intuitive way of doing things, and the system as a whole just felt more polished. I got the sense that someone was working to make sure that the KDE experience had some consistency to it, which was much appreciated.

But I still wasn't as happy with the KDE desktop as I had been with Windows XP, so I figured I'd give Gnome a shot. After all, it had things like Beagle and Dashboard that sounded pretty cool. Plus, Hula and several other new applications were all being announced for Gnome. But I found that for a new user, there wasn't the same consistency to the Gnome experience as there was with KDE. Lots of things seemed (to me) to work differently from app to app. Changing settings could be done lots of different ways, it wasn't always clear what the preferred method of doing something was (true for the file manager, getting help, etc).

Consistency issues aside, my biggest difficulty with each of the desktops was that there wasn't an easy way to install new software. I use Debian, and apt-get is great, but half the time after choosing to install something new I couldn't find it by looking through the menus. I never even tried installing something that didn't have a Debian package, but can imagine it would have been pretty evil. I realize that the LSB and freedesktop.org are working to improve this situation, but at the moment Windows is worlds ahead with its simple software installations.

So in the end I went back to Windows XP for my desktop; I'm comfortable with it, it is stable (I've had fewer crashes/lockups with XP than I did with either Gnome or KDE), and I'm smart enough to be able to deal with the spyware & viruses. I still use Linux on my web server, and will try the Linux desktops again in the future, but for now I'll go with the evil empire simply because I like the product better. True, had I spent more time learning to use the Linux desktops I might have eventually preferred one of them, but for now the comfort factor just wasn't high enough to make me feel it was worth investing the effort.

Re:Future viability in question?

[Quino]

They're going after different demographics IMHO. The biggest complaint I hear is that you can't tweak the bejesus out of Gnome like you can KDE.

KDE is geared more towards power users who tweak for fun, Gnome is geared towards people who'll probably never change their settings (IMHO with much more sensible and aesthetically pleasing defaults for the thunderhing horde).

I consider myself a power user also, who used to spend tons of time tweaking KDE. It's a matter of preference (before this degenrates into a flame fest) but I ended up realizing that Gnome out of the box behaved and looked like what I would spend hours making KDE look like and behave like. Since Gnome behaves and looks by default in the way I've come to prefer, it's nice to install it and just use it (instead of hunting down icon sets that don't look garish with a given window manager theme, etc.). Maybe things have changed, but when I was running KDE the nicest setup I could put together was with Everardos (sp? Sorry man, cool icons) icons and some sort of crystal theme (I think). Took quite a bit of work to make it pretty though.

So, for me it's all about aesthetics and the much more (again, IMHO) unified look and feel to the Gnome desktop. Functionality is the same for me.

I don't think there's any issues with Gnome's viability. In fact, when/if Linux for the thundering horde takes off, I belive Gnome is much better positioned to be in the majority of linux desktops, since that's been the clear goal of the Gnome group for quite some time: the unwashed masses. The very design decisions that turn off power Linux users are based on serving this demographic, IMHO.

Re:Future viability in question?

[jdclucidly]

Disclaimer: I'm a KDE user.

I always give Gnome due dilligence for each release. Each time a new version comes out I test it out for one full week and see how it works for me. Since the release of 2.0 I have always gone back to KDE for this reason:

[on #gnome on irc.freenode.net]
Me: Where is feature X? It seems like I ought to be able to do X but I can't seem to find it.
Dev/Zealot A1: Yea we think that's a good idea but we haven't gotten to it yet.
or
Dev/Zealot A2: Well, X is too complicated so we did Y. You must use Y. X is not implemented.

As with other releases I will try 2.10 out and see how it's progressed but here's a list of show stoppers in previous versions:

* Inability to edit or affect the panel menus in an intuitive way (somewhat addressed through the addition of applications:/// which was hard to find)
* Inability to hold down the mouse button (drag through) while navigating the menus. The thinking was accessibility related. A click event occurs after some arbitrary criteria has been met that convinces Gnome that the user really wanted to click and just didn't know to let go of the mouse button and then click again. Very annoying.
* No window snapping
* Non-existance of KIO-slaves equivalent (ability to open and work with files on arbitrary network resources) -- very useful
* Gnome terminal lacking ability to rename tabs by interacting with the tab (can be done through menu option somewhere)
* Gedit lacking features as compared with KEdit
* Epiphany / Galeon (which is it now?) not as feature complete as Firefox
* Until recently, the Gnome file open dialog box was a nightmare. It still has some problems, though. Many of its features are hidden in shortcut keys that one would only know existed if one scoured the Gnome manuals.

A lot of people bitch about spacial Nautilus but I don't think that's nearly important as some other basic needed features (window snapping). I can modify the way my brain works with a particular computer paradigm if I think it might be more sensible but I cannot do without features that increase my productivity.

So here's to hoping.

Re:Future viability in question?

[angst7]

* Inability to edit or affect the panel menus in an intuitive way (somewhat addressed through the addition of applications:/// which was hard to find)

Agreed.

* Inability to hold down the mouse button (drag through) while navigating the menus. The thinking was accessibility related. A click event occurs after some arbitrary criteria has been met that convinces Gnome that the user really wanted to click and just didn't know to let go of the mouse button and then click again. Very annoying.

I'm not sure about this being a problem. I just now tried it on this Gnome 2.8 system and it doesn't seem to generate an action until the mouse button is released. I can click drag through any level of menus and across menus just fine.

* No window snapping

I thought this was in there, though not on by default. I personally don't like snapping windows, so I've never tried to turn it on. I could be wrong.

* Non-existance of KIO-slaves equivalent (ability to open and work with files on arbitrary network resources) -- very useful

I'd like to see something like this too.

* Gnome terminal lacking ability to rename tabs by interacting with the tab (can be done through menu option somewhere)

Interesting feature gripe. Never thought about it, myself.

* Gedit lacking features as compared with KEdit

Gedit works fine for me. What features are you missing? For real work I use the Zend IDE. I rarely use the builtins, so unless it were on par with the ZDE (seamless SFTP, code highlighting, yadda yadda) it would be a non-issue.

* Epiphany / Galeon (which is it now?) not as feature complete as Firefox

Did you mean to say that Epiphany/Galeon aren't as complete as Konqueror? Last time I checked, Firefox had nothing specific to do with KDE. (Incidentally, I use FF on Gnome)

* Until recently, the Gnome file open dialog box was a nightmare. It still has some problems, though. Many of its features are hidden in shortcut keys that one would only know existed if one scoured the Gnome manuals.

The new file open is kinda nice in alot of respects. For example, I love the ability to quickly drag folders into the left shortcut box for quick access.

I have to say - I've had sortof the opposite experience than you in many ways. I try KDE again about once each year, and each time I'm annoyed by the same aspects (over-widgety feel of everything, too many hard angles, the ugly phony-LED clock, etc). I realize alot of this stuff can be changed, but the general flavor of the desktop doesn't match my less-is-more attitude.

I've been using gnome now for about five years, and I love most things about it (I dont love spatial nautilus) -- but maybe its because that I'm a former Blackbox user. (talk about simplicity!)

To each his own. Kudos to the gnome team on another fine, timely release.

Re:Future viability in question?

[Loco3KGT]

Personally I've always thought they both sucked. In the meantime I've fallen for every damn "E .17 RELEASED!" April Fool's Day joke on Slashdot ever since .16.5 was released.

I never pay attention to my calendar so come that fateful day I go "HOLY CRAP! FINALLY!" and tell atleast 6 people.

Then my world crashes around me.

Re:Future viability in question?

[arose]

No window snapping

Shift+Drag

Until recently, the Gnome file open dialog box was a nightmare. It still has some problems, though. Many of its features are hidden in shortcut keys that one would only know existed if one scoured the Gnome manuals.

Many? As far as I know it's only the location dialog . I can't think of a good way to show it without clutering the dialog. At least it does not have the horizontal-scrolling-through-files "feature"...

Re:Future viability in question?

[arose]

But spatial Nautilus is simple. One window per folder, just a menu and a parent folders button.

Re:Future viability in question?

[jdclucidly]

* Inability to hold down the mouse button (drag through) while navigating the menus. The thinking was accessibility related. A click event occurs after some arbitrary criteria has been met that convinces Gnome that the user really wanted to click and just didn't know to let go of the mouse button and then click again. Very annoying.

I'm not sure about this being a problem. I just now tried it on this Gnome 2.8 system and it doesn't seem to generate an action until the mouse button is released. I can click drag through any level of menus and across menus just fine.

Hum, well I did ask about it as recently as 2.6 and a dev on #gnome told me that it was indeed intentional. I think it's activated by holding the mouse cursor in a location for more than a set number of seconds. Once the event occurs, the menu entry one was hovering over enters drag-and-drop mode and one must press ESC and renavigate to the place in the menu that one was at. Perhaps it has changed in 2.8 and I didn't notice.

* Gnome terminal lacking ability to rename tabs by interacting with the tab (can be done through menu option somewhere)

Interesting feature gripe. Never thought about it, myself.

Consider the situation where you are working on three customer's boxes over SSH at one time. I love being able to double click the tab and make the tab name reflect the name of the customer I'm working on.

* Gedit lacking features as compared with KEdit

Gedit works fine for me. What features are you missing? For real work I use the Zend IDE. I rarely use the builtins, so unless it were on par with the ZDE (seamless SFTP, code highlighting, yadda yadda) it would be a non-issue.

I use the XML autocompletion and validation available with KEdit as well as the ability to have the text buffer content interact with scripts and terminals and vise-versa. Also the KIO-slaves missing is a gripe but not specific to Gedit.

* Epiphany / Galeon (which is it now?) not as feature complete as Firefox

Did you mean to say that Epiphany/Galeon aren't as complete as Konqueror? Last time I checked, Firefox had nothing specific to do with KDE. (Incidentally, I use FF on Gnome)

I brought it up because the full "integrated" experience is important to me. Firefox uses Gnome's mime handler but naught else. If I were to switch to Gnome I would be more likely to stay if the browser were nicely integrated with the environment. (think consistent UI experience). Konqueror may be lacking in compatibility with web sites but what it lacks it makes up for with gratuitous integration with the KDE environment and libraries.

Feature wise, I was missing the RSS integration, the yellow SSL security indicator on the link bar and some of the FF specific plugins.

I have to say - I've had sortof the opposite experience than you in many ways. I try KDE again about once each year, and each time I'm annoyed by the same aspects (over-widgety feel of everything, too many hard angles, the ugly phony-LED clock, etc). I realize alot of this stuff can be changed, but the general flavor of the desktop doesn't match my less-is-more attitude.

I can kinda see where you're coming from. I have openned up a new KDE app on occasion and felt dizzy from the massive array of buttons and widgets thrown at me. Once I spend a little time though, the interface becomes familiar and useful.

Kudos to the gnome team on another fine, timely release.

Aye, they are nothing if not timely and well managed.

Re:Future viability in question?

[natrius]

Getting modded funny when you're serious is the ultimate bitch slap.

Re:Future viability in question?

[MBGMorden]

I don't think that a single install file working across distros and providing a simple uninstallation interface is too Windows-ish for Linux. Linux can be hip and different all it wants to be, but until the software installation is simplified mass adoption will never happen.

And for the love of God don't bring up "just type apt-get" or "just type emerge". I'm running a Gentoo system and can quite easily emerge my own packages. That's not the point. For the average user if they ever have to SEE a console (much less type anything in one of the things) then you've just lost them. Also, apt-get and emerge generally require that you already know what you want to install. Much different than finding a program on a website and then deciding "Hey, that's cool. Let me click on the file and download it".

I'd even say that there needs to be some sort of Autorun type function (or at least a standard icon like "Launch CD . . .") to run programs, as the average user isn't going to know how to browse for an executable in a file manager.

EVERYTHING to do with installing (and uninstalling ) a program needs a complete GUI path, and it needs to not be some interface where you scroll through 3 bazillion packages to find the one you want; just a simple install program for a single program - with all libraries statically linked. We need something similar to Installshield on Linux.

A BitTorrent link...

[thepurplemonkey]

in the actual article. At least we still have the splash screens we can smoke their server with.

Re:KDE trolls are coming

[Otter]

KDE trolls are coming

Err, that should be "KDE trolls are koming"!

OK, that's my contribution to the obligatory stupid DE-related comments. I won't throw in a "But I just emerged 2.8!" (even though I just did).

Nice release

[Anonymous Coward]

From using the betas and now Gnome-2.10 on Hoary for some time now I have to say that this is indeed a great release. It's probably not so much about new incredible features, like including hal in 2.8, but a lot about small polishes and cleanups.

My only problem is that the Gnome devs thought it was a good idea not to have a menu editor and no other (easy) way to edit the menus. There will be one in 2.12 afaik, but right now I'm stuck without an easy way to edit my menu and that's annoying.

Anyway, great release and a pleasure to use. Thanks to all those involved.

Re:yes!

[Sweetshark]

Gnome 2.1, now more like KDE!
If Gnome started moving in the direction of KDE with Gnome 2.1, Gnome 2.10 must be like Windows ...

Finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the past, while typing something into one application when suddenly your instant messenger offered a chat request from your friend, your words would be typed into the chat window. Imagine if you were typing your password at the time. This should no longer happen in GNOME 2.10.

Ahh, finally. This was the most annoying thing for the longest time. I actually had to change my password twice because I unintentionally IMed it to someone else. I'm actually surprised that they didn't fix this a long time ago. It was a usability/security nightmare.

Karma Whoring?

[suwain_2]

The gnome.org site is apparently having a devil of a time keeping up with the bandwidth.

Give the CoralCache a try. Nice and speedy for me.

Wow

[stepson]

I think Microsoft has some competition, finally! Check out this from the release notes:

* The path button is now more obviously a button.

Wow, a button this is ... MORE OBVIOUSLY, a button! Alright!

* GNOME 2.10 introduces a new applet for controlling your Modem, integrated with GNOME System Tools.

Words fail me. I'm going to go out and get a modem, just so I can try this!

Finally,

* daily weather forecasts / Get even more weather

This one, I am not so sure of. Geeks don't leave the house! Why couldn't they make an applet that checks how much of their parents money they've spent living in their basements? How about how much more money they need before Scott Bakula will agree to do the next season of Enterprise? THAT would have been helpful.

Re:Wow

[SunFan]

I almost wet myself after seeing how easy it was to configure a printer in JDS (based on GNOME). This was after having been absent from GNOME for quite a while, and it just blew me away. Finally, configuring basic printer functionality is easy in UNIX.

And, now, modems! I think a part of my bald head was caused by configuring modems!

Printers and modems have been the worst part of UNIX for ages. Now that's mostly history!

You're right, Microsoft really does have some competition (sarcasm noted). Seriously, with Mac OS X, Sun JDS/JES, the vastly improving Linux Desktops out there (all of the above being cheaper than Microsoft), where does that leave Microsoft's business model?

LiveCD

[lakeland]

When KDE's last beta was announced on slashdot, many people commented that a live CD was a really cool way of showing off the new system. Now we see Gnome taking this really cool feature out of KDE and incorporating it.

That is why we need to keep two desktops around. Whenever either one invents something cool, both get it. (Friendly) compertition seems by far the best form of improving software.

Oh, and why wasn't a garnome link posted? ;-)

Re:LiveCD

[4of12]

Oh, and why wasn't a garnome link posted?

Here's what came out on the garnome list a few hours ago...

GARNOME 2.10.0
==============
(the 'pink fluffy bunny slippers are in my future' release.)

My God, we made it.

Aside from marking the first time a stable GARNOME release has come out on the same day that the GNOME release did -- This release incorporates the full GNOME 2.10 Desktop & Developer Platform, as well as so much extra, new and improved stuff ... it's, it's ... it's GARNOMEtastic.

The differences between GARNOME 2.8.x and 2.10.x are huge, but in a nutshell:

* GNOME 2.10.0 desktop, platform and bindings releases.
* Evolution 2.2.0
* Mono 1.1.x and a bunch of wildly successful apps in their own right.

and yet, there's more -- geektoys (the collection of funkey GNOME apps that compliment your desktop) now includes:

* Tomboy (the most requested item in GARNOME to date)
* Beagle (all your indexing needs)
* Evince (PDF's and GNOME have never looked as good)
* Monkey Bubble :)

...and a whole lot more.

It should be noted that GARNOME wouldn't be possible without the dedicated band of testers i've amassed since taking over the project -- thanks to everyone who has contributed patches, bugreports or comments during the last release phase -- your support has been invaluable.

Tarball: ftp://cipherfunk.org/etc....
MD5: 255f984b5f438b0851fd50ae2ef14772

Onward and Outward to 2.next,

Paul

Gentoo Users

[Goalie_Ca]

There are gnome-2.10-pre ebuilds in portage now but they are all hard-masked. The only issue in terms of emerging is unmasking them and getting a libgnomecups-0.2.0.ebuild into net-print. As far as how its working... well... I'm compiling :P

Re:I'd like to try this

[Galaxie]

Try the ISO Recorder Power Toy for WinXP found here:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecor der.htm

Re:Why so modest?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I fail to see why I should get so worked up everytime a new version is released >>

I'm always amazed at how regardless of what is being announced, there is some ludicrously arrogant dork who complains that the announcement does not make him (one in six billion people on the planet) happy as if anyone would care.

Where do these people come from? Why are they unable to appreciate others' accomplishments? Is their ego so fragile that they can't accept a reality outside their subjective delusions of grandeur?

Mod these "snipers" as trolls, please, and let's get on with talking about Gnome.

Re:Why so modest?

[eln]

I tend to use enlightenment (without all the eye candy effects) specifically because it DOESN'T try to imitate Windows like KDE and Gnome do. Maybe it's because my first real GUI (even before I used Windows) was twm, but I just find the KDE and Gnome default desktops to be far too clunky. I also find they tend to waste a lot of valuable screen real estate on silly things.

But yah, I also see the GUI primarily as a vehicle to more easily handle several concurrent CLI (xterm) instances, so I guess I'm just one of the old school nerds.

Re:Why so modest?

[Coryoth]

I'm still waiting for a reasonable alternative to the underlying X server that isn't completely unheard of in 90% of the OSS world.

I'm not sure what you mean here, do you want a different implementation of the X protocol? If so, why not try Freedesktop.org's experimental XServer? It's quite a nice fast modular server. Are you looking for something other than X11 protocol? Then why not try DirectFB? DirectFB doesn't have enough supported applications for you? Why not try Quartz, which I imagine at least 90% of the OSS world as heard of. I don't really see a lack of options there.

Jedidiah.

Link to Splash Screen

[B47h0ry'5 CuR53]

here

Re:I don't understand...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should they?

And why should Trolltech do it, they would immediately void their current business model.

Things I'd like to see from GNOME.

[Speare]

• Less feature churn.
• Less feature-creeping bloat.
• More consolidation of dependencies.
• More fixing of the long-standing bugs.
• More delivery of long-standing promises.

Every release seems to have a lot of superficial changes that don't seem to buy anything, but don't really address the issues that everyone seems to complain about. Example: you'd think that the gnome-panel would be pretty ironed out after a few years, but there are still at least a dozen "critical" unresolved bugs for it, where the panel just decides to crash or hang.

It's not as glamorous as mating a couple of Bonobos and getting a new SVG Pango baby, but please, for the sake of your users, focus on the fit and finish. What good is a HIG if the average user is put off by all the splinters?

Re:Things I'd like to see from GNOME.

[havoc-]

On the one hand, you've got people complaining about not enough new features in GNOME. "Look at these release notes! No new features, just these optimizations in Nautilus!"

On the other hand, in the same story you've got other people complaining, saying "Look at all these features! Why do they keep adding and adding? Let's focus on bug-fixing and performance instead!"

There's just no pleasing some people. Really.

Re:Things I'd like to see from GNOME.

[njh]

My wife uses GNOME on Ubuntu. CD's work fine, cameras work fine, printing works, web works. She says "It's subtly different to XP, but really it's perfectly fine." regarding eating itself, I would presume that that is a distribution problem.

Check it out sometime!

Hula Hype

[twener]

> Hula and several other new applications were all being announced for Gnome.

Hula has absolutely nothing specific to GNOME.

crappy

[diegocgteleline.es]

Goneme was a project started in 2004 by someone who didn't like the placement of "accept" and "cancel" buttons and who spent countless hour trolling in osnews/slashdot. The only patch released is from July 2004, and it weights 24 KB. As it can be seen, the mailing list is full of everything except patches.

I only can define it as "dead project" - you really have to have something more than "button order preferences is wrong", "I hate windows registry" and "spatial nautilus is broken" to fork a project. Wow, "Mac OS X is better" - what a surprise. Tell me something I don't know. Not using gecko, use KHTML? Well...wow.

I'm not against forking projects, but this fork is ridiculous. No real reasons, real gnome problems are not mentioned, half of it can be solved by changing the default preferences and no code, etc etc

Still no flashing notification

[astralbat]

Looking through the release notes, there is still the problem of missing flashing notification for programs such as instant messenger clients. When minimizing the window, I would expect it to start flashing when a new message arrives (like Microsoft Windows)

Many a time have I minimised a conversation only to realise after forgetting about it that I have several messages unread

Re:Still no flashing notification

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the applets in the notification area are for. For example gaim makes itself heard very clearly if there is a new message by using the _NOTIFICATION APPLET_.

Re:Still no flashing notification

[BRSloth]

I think this is there. Reading throught the NEWS in Metacity (the default window manager) and in the panel, it looks like both support the URGENT atom (defined somewhere in freedesktop.org).

All we really need now is that the IM program you are using really sets this atom on the window (or else Metacity and the panel will never know what happened).

Re:yes!

[SQLz]

Keep those funny mods coming, the flamebaits are catching up!

Great but...

[logographer]

As much as I love Gnome and its friendly rival KDE, I dislike how bloated it has become. It seems to tax my machine more than parliament (a little joke). I cried when I found my machine was running better under Win2000 than it was under Mandrake (I personally have switched to DSL ) .
Now, I am hardly advertising that to use a windows manager such as Fluxbox or IceWM would be the most intelligent alternative, since a lot of the 'bloat' in these window managers are features which makes said windows manager easier for those new to linux. But something has to be done; along the lines of a group to go through the source, and throwing-out weight. Removing redundant code, unnecessary code, and getting rid of as many memory-hogging resources as possible.
What I am advocating is a 'slim-fast' project, to try to modify KDE or gnome to the point that it is smaller, faster, and yet still useable by Linux newbies. A true challenge, and just as important as adding features. Remember the Soviet stance in technology - The more complex an object, the more likely it is to fail.

Re:Great but...

[gniv]

Apparently there is such an effort in progress, and it was advertised on slashdot a few days ago.

Re:Why so modest?

[m50d]

Personally I've tried the lightweight window managers and found them wanting. I can do more, more easily, in KDE, or Gnome once I've rethemed it, than any of the "old-school" lightweight WMs. And I care about new releases because they usually bring very useful improvements. I haven't tried this release, but I certainly noticed important differences last time I upgraded, and they did make it more efficient for me.

whoa

[Tumbleweed]

That's such a long post that I think you should've included a BitTorrent link to it.

Re:yes!

[arose]

Are you saying that KDE is unstable and 8 versions behind?

2.10 is nice but 2.12 is where it's at...

[Stalyn]

The 2.12 release is what i'm excited about... the cairo implementation, better compositing support (aka transparency and shadows... fading in and out of windows etc), gstreamer, dbus, Beagle, Mono, memory reduction...

2.10 has some nice improvements and what one should consider as a release that smooths over some issues. But it's nothing terribly exciting and new. Hopefully 2.12 will be a release that blows people away.

Re:Why so modest?

[IdleTime]

I also find they tend to waste a lot of valuable screen real estate on silly things.

huh?
I use KDE, but I also have Gnome installed and neither one of them take up any screen real estate. Set your panels to autohide and you can, as I have done for years, use the whole 100% of the screen for whatever program your run.

Re:yes!

[Drooling Iguana]

Probably because next to nothing in KDE works unless the whole bloody thing is installed (at least in my experience) while Gnome is far more modular. The difference between a Gnome app and a KDE app is that, while the Gnome app will typically require GTK and maybe a few other Gnome packages to be installed, but will still run fine without Gnome, I've yet to see a KDE app that doesn't require all of QT, kde-base and kde-libs to run. Considering how long it takes to compile those packages (Gnome is far better than KDE in that respect) it really annoys me that I have to either include them in my regular updates even though I never touch KDE, or forfeit every QT app out there. Unfortunately, I've had to make the choice, and I've chosen the latter. Damn KDE.

Sticky Notes

[Phantasmagoria]

My sweet little sticky notes applet! I initially wrote it to scratch an itch, and stopped working on it after the Gnome 2.4 release. It's nice to see that it's been maintained well. Hopefully, once I return to the US, I can take care of my baby again. :) And to all of you who sent me mail about it, thanks, and sorry I haven't replied to any of them for so long.

Spatial Nautilus....grrrrr.....

[imemyself]

Why does Gnome keep using spatial Nautilus as default? I mean, people hated it a decade ago in Win95/NT4, and they still hate it now. I know you can change it with gconf-editor but why do they keep using something as the default that so many people absolutely detest? (Can you find one sane person outside of the Gnome dev's who likes spatial Nautilus?)

And while I'm at it, why does Gnome have icons that look really dull?(color wise) I'm not fond of everything in KDE, but atleast their icons look somewhat eye appealing.

Re:Spatial Nautilus....grrrrr.....

[the_2nd_coming]

because Spacial Naut does a better job of providing a spacial experience of "I put that file at this place in this folder which I get to by going through this directory"

Re:Still dissapointed with GNOME

[cortana]

Christ, what is it with you people? Did you all manage to remove libgnomevfs by accident or something?

I just ran "gnome-gv http://www.marcusevans.com.au/pdf/413.pdf" in Gnome 2.8 and it worked fine, just as it's done for ages.

Still no mail notification for Evolution!

[figa]

This is from the release notes:

The Mailbox Monitor has been removed because it was unmaintained and insecure. We hope to have a solution integrated with our Evolution mail client in the future. If you don't use Evolution for your mail, you can use a third party application such as mailnotify.

Does it strike anyone else as odd that after years of touting GNORBA or .gnet or whatever wonderful object/event model what supposed to underlie the gnome desktop, there still isn't a gnome applet that will tell you when Evolution has new mail? It used to be that you could tell by the text in the task list, but even that is gone. There's a bounty of $400 outstanding for this problem if anyone has some free time.

Oh snap!

[Nephroth]

And I thought they had released a new version of lawn gnomes. They've been riding version 2 since the 70s :(

Hurrah for Xfce!

Re:yes!

[Burz]

Apparently it is so modular that many Gnome apps still use custom, ugly and dysfunctional file dialogs. Can't count on the file dialog 'module' being there, can we?

And Gnome is so great that programmers have gotten into the habbit of bypassing it and using only GTK. If I install kde-base and kde-libs, at least I can be certain that they'll see plenty of use.

Re:yes!

[delete]

Considering how long it takes to compile those packages

Perhaps you should consider a distro that provides pre-compiled binaries? I'm not trying to criticise, I've wasted far too much time myself compiling both KDE and Gnome from scratch in the past, it's really not worth it. For KDE the compile time is very significant, while the compliation order for the plethora of small packages required for Gnome is difficult to remember. As a suggestion, Ubuntu Hoary already has packages available for 2.10.

As for the issue with dependencies, it's safe to assume that that for KDE applications kde-base and kde-libs are generally required. However, this is not the case for pure QT applications such as Lyx or Opera. Assuming you have the bandwidth, a binary distribution with good dependency checking should install the packages you require, allowing you access to both Gtk and Qt-based applications. A "good" Linux desktop distribution should not require the user to worry about such dependency issues.

How is that a feature?

[ex-geek]

So you are basically saying that there are few genuine Gnome apps.

And I agree with that. Most so-called Gnome apps are really GTK-apps. Especially the more advanced features like Bonobo are seldomly used.

KDE is different. I see a lot more interoperability and consistency accross the board of KDE-apps. (I may be mistaken about that, but that's my subjective experience)

True Gnome apps come with a load of dependencies, as well. Gnumeric, GnuCash, ... Try to install these on a KDE-only system and you'll see.

Re:yes!

[Mmm coffee]

Have you ever tried to compile GNOME from source?

You start off trying to get GTK+ compiled, which means pango, atk, and glib needs to be installed. In order to get those installed, I need fontconfig, freetype, some XML crap, and a few other programs/libraries which slip me at the moment. Fontconfig (or Freetype? Forget which) is a notorious pain to compile.

After that you got roughly twenty different programs to get a full GNOME system up and running, each with thier own personality quirks and workarounds. I have literally spent multiple weeks trying to get a GNOME system up and running, and even then there were many problems which showed that it was not installed correctly.

Nothing in GNOME works unless the whole bloody thing is installed, and even then you don't quite know what's going wrong when something is going wrong (and something _will_ go wrong). Is that startup error because of X? Misconfiguration of Y? Is there a bug between the versions of X and Z or something?

The compile time is not an issue, GNOME and KDE take roughly the same time to compile. You just do GNOME in stages, whereas KDE is a one time deal.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but GNOME is not easier and more modular than KDE. You just don't notice the fact that you've recompiled all of the GNOME libraries because you do it over time instead of once every 6 months or so.

Re:One question springs to mind...

[ubernostrum]

Not trolling or anything, I love Gnome, but the amount of resources required almost makes my P4 seem slow

In my experience it's the memory use, mostly. I have an old 500MHz Celeron box with a gig of RAM, and GNOME runs pretty snappily on it. On the shiny new 3GHz P4 laptop with 256M, though, it's a lot slower and mostly that seems to be because it swaps like nobody's business.

Re:yes!

[Deusy]

That's because the new file dialog used an API not compatable with the old one, so it had to be a different widget (keeping the old one for backwards compatability). When the applications' developers catch up with Gtk 2.4, you'll see the file dialog situation unify again.

Given that many developers are volunteers, and that many wanted to wait to see it settle down as a widget, I don't think it's unreasonable to give people a little bit of time (like a year or two) to get their apps up to speed.

Some apps *cough* GnuCash *cough* are still actively developed in Gtk1! The fact that some Gtk2 apps are not on the bleeding edge of Gtk2 is hardly surprising.

Re:yes!

[thisisauniqueid]

And Gnome is so great that programmers have gotten into the habbit of bypassing it and using only GTK

This is by design. The goal is to make a GNOME app a GTK app, and vice versa, by moving critical/useful stuff for all apps into GTK, and making everything else just "value-added" and "automatically utilized" if extra GNOME libs are present.

Re:yes!

[Jameth]

Wait...so GNOME apps don't need glib and gnome-print? And bonobo-ui and gconf and gnome-vfs and libglade and libgnome and gtk+ and...

Hmmm...that's a whole lot of stuff.

"I've yet to see a KDE app that doesn't require all of QT, kde-base and kde-libs to run."

Actually, those dependencies are false. The reason is that KDE itself only packages things down to that level and the distros don't bother to do otherwise, so kde-libs is only one package. That doesn't mean that a program needs all those libs, it just means that dependency checkers will think they need all those libs. If you were to build KDE from source yourself, you could pare down the deps a ton.

This is a very important distinction, as you will notice that the size in memory of most KDE apps isn't nearly as large as those theoretical dependencies would imply.

Re:yes!

[10Ghz]

Considering how long it takes to compile those packages (Gnome is far better than KDE in that respect)

Whine to the GCC-guys. KDE does that longer to compile than Gnome does. And the reason for that is that GCC is dog-slow at compiling C++ when compared to compiling C.