Slashdot Mirror
Gnome Removed From Slackware
Anonymous Coward writes "After long consideration, Pat Volkerding has removed GNOME from Slackware. Pat mentions in the
-current ChangeLog that GNOME takes a lot of time to package, so this move should allow more time to be spent on the rest of Slackware." From the changelog: "Please do not incorrectly interpret any of this as a slight against GNOME
itself, which (although it does usually need to be fixed and polished beyond
the way it ships from upstream more so than, say, KDE or XFce) is a decent
desktop choice."
After all, who wants a desktop with a big smelly foot on it?
KDE 4 EVA SUCKAS!
Please do not incorrectly interpret any of this as a slight against your sister heself, who (although she does usually need to be fixed up and polished beyond the way she ships from upstream more so than, say, Bob's sister or John's sister) is a decent girlfriend choice."
I can think of this piece of news being bought up at least 6 months ago and everyone moving over to using replacements like Dropline GNOME etc.
Gnome has been dropped and KDE 3.4 added? Wow. That says a lot in itself about the current state of the 2 leading Desktop Environments in Linux...particularly in a conservative --not--bleeding freaking--edge distro like Slack.
This guy is way out there
How ironic, seeing that Gnome tries to be the simplest and easiest to use full-featured desktop on Linux. I guess easy to use doesn't mean easy to package.
Because you can always easily install dropline gnome.
I wonder if this means Slackware will drop back down to a single CD install.
I was looking forward to Gnome 2.10 in Slack. Wanted to see how he'd do it.
We got one big Sony topic and then nothing and then a 6 month old piece which i think has been mentioned before.
Man, that's so screwed up! I just bought my mom the Platinum edition Slackware collection so she could use Gnome. Now that it's going to be removed, I'm gonna switch back to Windows 98 ME.
Gnome was wicked a couple of years ago. Now the damn desktop is in such a state of flux that you don't know which widget set is going to be used next, and when they're going to get around to building a damn file browser that won't slow the machine down to a halt.
I'm calling it: In two years it's going to be KDE versus a lightweight WM like xfce or something. Gnome will be for people who like to punish themselves.
..supposed to help with this stuff and let Gnome catch up?
Bunch of slackers.
Get ready for this one:
:: Xfree86:X.org
Gnome:KDE
Kinda scary isn't it? Anybody have any insights on this topic? I've always used KDE but am going to switch to Gnome when Gentoo 2005 comes out.
I think this happened a while ago (months?), but that Slackware, which is still a major, well thought out distribution, decides to drop GNOME support just like that is major news. Dropline GNOME and other community support projects for Slack exists, so it's not Slackware users will need to part with GNOME. But still, a slap in the face to the GNOME crew. I wonder what they have to say about it.
Anway, i found interesting that Pat mentions XFCE as a "fixed an polished" desktop. It's great, and while i'd hate to see GNOME loose popularity, at this time XFCE 4.2 is a better GNOME than GNOME itself.
you can hear Eugenia yelling "I told you so, Gnome developers!"
This guy is way out there
I don't think slackware needs Gnome. I think (which means i could be wrong) use KDE. Gnome is a little behind with features that allow customization and if a little strange to work with. Slackware is an easy distro but, it's also a small as in not heard of by some. By that i mean that newbies are more likely to use fedora or mandrake, and the rest of use can install Gnome ourselves if we want to... Or use a other distro,based on Slackware with Gnome.
don't use GUIs. I for one won't be terribly hurt by this because I can't seem to get one of these GUI thingies loaded after installing in ultra-secure-you-can't-do-anything-unless-it's-san ctioned-by-the-security-gods
mode.
On the other hand, maybe I've only been trying to install this here difficult-to-package Gnome.
Slackware claims to be the most Unix-like... KDE doesn't strike as Unix-like... GNOME does more for me.
Mr. America walk on by your schools that do not teach Mr. America walk on by the minds that won't be reached
"Please do not incorrectly interpret any of this as a slight against your sister heself, who (although she does usually need to be fixed up and polished beyond the way she ships from upstream more so than, say, Bob's sister or John's sister) is a decent girlfriend choice.""
Negative GNOME comment in -10, -9, -8, -7, -6, -5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0. We have REACTION mission control.
"But in a procedural language like C, this kind of action results in reams of code being changed. It's no wonder it's such a difficult project to adapt for release."
You don't even know what you're talking about, right? This is slashdot, after all, but still.
What you've just said is just plain:
_plain wrong,
_mindboggingly stupid.
one CD :-)
Gnome is amazing, it does everything that a simple file manager and window manager could do but manages to eat up about a gig doing it.
"I think the major problem with Gnome is that it relies on C as a base rather than an object-oriented language like C++ (like KDE). With an OO framework, a single behavioral modification can propagate to all window or widget classes without having to update any other existing code. The ramifications of this are that 1) code reuse is very high so LOC can remain very low and 2) features like skinning become a simple matter of loading an XML config file."
OH, language wars. Well my Smalltalk can beat up your "C" and his bastard son "C++" any day of the week.
"While more powerful at a basic functional level than it's successors, C lacks the powerful language features that more mature languages like VC++ and Java provide, which for developers is a double edged sword."
Why don't we simply go to C# and forget this whole C/C++ never happened?
VC++ is a language?
Before you all go freaking out, let me suggest something.
Build Linux From Scratch. Then try adding some common desktops. KDE is quite easy to add to LFS. Gnome is an absolute bear to add.
At one point, I had a printout of all the deps for Gnome. It was a huge spiderweb of tangles that had to be decoded and followed exactly to get Gnome to build.
Anyway, Gnome is lots of work.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Hey... 1998 called, and it wants that troll back.
So you have a faster desktop.
I think your ramifications are wrong, by the way.
1) code reuse in C is also high and 2) any language can be use to skin from XML configuration files.
I don't think the word you want is "mature". C, Fortran and Cobol are the most mature languages there are. Citing VC++ as powerful seems strange to me since it is infinitely easier to write GTK code in C than Win32 code in VC++.
You know Eugenia has to be keeping score.
>> While more powerful at a basic functional level than it's successors, C lacks the powerful language features that more mature languages like VC++ and Java provide
:)
I'm sure you didn't really mean to say VC++, because that's just an ide for C++ and a couple of buggy libraries. But if we went that path, BCB++ 6.0 (even being 3 years old) beats VC++ any day.
Back to the issue, this is probably why Gnome has been investing in Mono. Not everybody understands the role of Mono yet, but I'm sure they'll slap their foreheads and say "of course" sometime later down the path.
"I don't mind God, it's his fan club I can't stand!" E8
Well, I for one welcome the change. I can see how it might piss off some Gnome slackers, but then again I have a feeling that most of them would install dropline anyway.
I suspect the main reason behind this is the popularity of Dropline GNOME.
.tgz package format, in addition to the usual source code. The current release is based off of the latest GNOME 2 distribution from the GNOME Project."
"Dropline GNOME is a version of the GNOME Desktop that has been tweaked for Slackware Linux systems. It is available in Slackware's standard
Why not let Dropline do all the work... so don't fret slackware users you still have GNOME. Just not being packaged by Slackware officially.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Some people use VC++ to mean C++ and MFC. I hope that's not what he means. ;)
" Gnome has been dropped and KDE 3.4 added? Wow. That says a lot in itself about the current state of the 2 leading Desktop Environments in Linux...particularly in a conservative --not--bleeding freaking--edge distro like Slack."
Gee, and here I though it was THERE'S NOT ENOUGH TIME TO DO TWO DE'S AND SLACKWARE. But leave it to slashdot to turn it into a pissing match.
Sounds like a way of saying that they aren't terribly happy with the GNOME releases but don't want to start a big fight over it. Read the comments in the ChangeLog; when justifying the decision they hint repeatedly at the problems. I suspect they wanted to say a lot more than they did. ;)
This does open the door for third-parties to tidy up the GNOME releases and provide a drop-in package for the distro though. Perhaps one of them will become strong enough to make it back in the door again.
Anyway. Gnome and GTK+ are very object oriented, they use classes, virtual member functions and polymorphism right to their cores. Also, skinning in GTK+ is a simple matter of loading a config file.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Gnome, since 2.0 has been based on Glib/GTK+ 2.0, which is a full OO architecture built on C.
http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gobject/
...because that's the only reason I can think of to include it. I don't know anyone who runs Gnome or KDE on slackware. I run fluxbox, some people I know run Afterstep, some run Windowmaker, a lot run xfce, but nobody runs KDE. Admittedly, most people keep the kde and gnome library packages installed, so that we can run programs that require them, but as for the UI -- well, I've just never seen it.
I'd be interested to hear anecdotes from Slackware users who run Gnome or KDE. This change just won't affect me much.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
VC++ isn't a language. It's a language, C++, an IDE and a set of libraries including MFC.
1) code reuse is very high so LOC can remain very low
I think you're making generic comments without knowledge of the code. Just because a language is OO doesn't mean there is this magical code reuse that is lacking elsewhere. OO is about abstraction. The code reuse part is really just a myth, since good code in any language has reuse. In the C case, just create a window library that all your widget thingies call. Change the internals of that library without changing the interface specification or the contract and you have the same effect as the OO changes you're talking about.
2) features like skinning become a simple matter of loading an XML config file
Again, this has nothing to do with OO languages. Anything that has GUI and XML support can do sort of thing.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
"Too much change."
I'm sure that's what trilobites used to complain about.
Longhorn will be a change, perhaps for the better.
Don't fear change. Change is your frieeeeend.
Change means you can charge more for a slight variation of what you have sold someone before.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
The do so use GUIs ... so that they can have multiple sshed xterms to write assembly language programs using vi. One terminal for compiling and
the other terminal for editing the next compile
and a third for debugging.
I'll go AC on this when I say...
.. I think that about sums my up my otherwise worthless options. I would also like to thank you for reading this, the mozilla dev team for this wonderful browser and OSDN for their bandwidth.
*WOO-HOO*
I was always a big Slack fan. In fact, I run it on my server.
GNOME is my favorite desktop. Unfortunately, since you no longer choose to put it on your distro, I'm going elsewhere for a Linux distribution to run as a desktop.
I wonder if the term Dropline GNOME was any hint that this would happen.
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
;-) (long live Gnome)
Did Netcraft cofirm it though?
technicality
I just heard they're taking it out.
It's about damn time, it's been pretty clear to me that gnome is a mess, and I feel sorry for anyone trying to package it, It is probably one of the nicest fully free desktops available, but that seems to be all it has going for it, feature wise, app wise, and functionally, KDE has it beat everywhere. gnome needs a major cleanup, to just stop adding new stuff, and do a rewrite from scratch, it has some really solid idea's, but it's just crufty, and microsoft has pretty clearly demonstrated that building new and cool stuff on top of crufty old stuff hits a brick wall and causes serious problems.
"I almost wish [Linux] and [Windows] would just combine effort to create the ultimate [OS]. They both have their pluses, but individually they never seem to be better than [MAC OS/X] desktop. Damn it, when will [Apple] have [those new MS] fonts.
KDE is a whole lot better to use. gnome's time has come, can we please have a decent #2 now?
why on earth is GNOME so RIDICULOUSLY difficult to compile by hand? yes, it's a big and complicated project. so is kde. kde comes in packages: libraries, base, etc.
last time I tried -- admittedly a VERY long time ago -- compiling gnome without the benefit of something like portage was a days-long dependency hunt. dependencies of FINAL releases were often still in CVS only. ick.
if you think that's what computing should be all about, you have WAY too much time on your hands.
Netcraft confirms it: In Soviet Russia, only old Koreans use GNOME.
I, for one, welcome our new KDE overlords.
1. Remove GNOME from Slackware
2. ???
3. Profit!!
The things I want in a desktop are minimal. Gnome and KDE both have too much overhead for my poor old laptop. I use IceWM on top of Debian/Knoppix. I don't feel like I have lost anything. Since the laptop has a completely dead battery and a flaky power cord it occasionally suffers an untended power down. That trashed a couple of Mandrake 9.1 /Gnome installations but not the Debian for some reason. I also find apt-get less painful than the Mandrake package managers.
Bottom line: I don't feel like I am missing a lot by not having a more sophisticated desktop manager. In the event that I do feel brave enough to try Slackware, I sure won't miss Gnome.
Come to think of it; if you have the ability to use Slackware why do you need Gnome?
The kernel isn't written in C?
"Including GNOME is too hard"? Putting the "slack" in "Slackware".
Maybe this will pressure GNOME to become more installable. I find it worth the effort, but we'd all be better off if it were easier. Including GNOME, whose user/developer base would expand.
--
make install -not war
Some pretty silly text there, Dancin_Santa. = )
^..^
I mean, he *could* have dropped KDE instead. So if it's one or the other, the pissing contest isn't surprising. Despite what he says about gnome just taking more maintenance. ;)
Internet Explorer from Windows. Gates mentions in the -current ChangeLog that IE takes a lot of time to package, so this move should allow more time to be spent on the rest of the system's security. From the changelog: "Please do not incorrectly interpret any of this as a slight against IE itself, which (although it does usually need to be fixed and polished beyond the way it ships from upstream more so than, say, Mozilla or Opera) is a decent web browser choice.
Welcome our new KDE overlords and wish them luck in removing gnome from every other distrobution.
Humor (or lack there of) aside. KDE 3.4 made me return to KDE from XFCE. I had converted from using gnome and kde on various systems to everything XFCE for awhile now. KDE 3.4 is just amazing. I can see why Pat wouldnt have any problem removing gnome and putting in KDE 3.4.
In other Linux news, Gentoo 2000.5.0 has been released.
Distrowatch has the full story
Now I hope they drop KDE too.
What I hate most about these bloated Windows-wannabe environments is that some good software unncessarily depends on them.
I use Fluxbox and ROX for a lightning fast desktop with all the features I want, but I'm sure there are other good desktop alternatives out there.
Try MiniSlack
y =20050325224633845
http://minislack.slackplanet.org/article.php?stor
It's pretty neat, 400MB, KDE is optional
See here, Windows ME was a piece of trash and Windows 98 was useful as an arcade machine before many games were made for 2000/XP.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
I often find that their are WAY too many options shipped with a distro. Why not keep it simple start designing better all-around software, rather then 100 alternatives to the most essential linux tools? I think SOME collaboration is a good idea.
Linux blog http://nsajeff.com/blog
For those not RTFA there are two choices he recommends:
GSB
GWARE
You must be new here? That's called Free/Open Source software. Use whatever suits your needs. If you like A, use A. If you like B, use B. If it's not good enough, (help) fix it, or make something better yourself. Either way, don't bitch about it.
Arrived recently at a mirror near you ;-)
Just thought I *had* to say it, blame it on tradition.
I don't use slackware, or gnome, or kde, but I was a hardcore flux/fvwm user, until I found XFCE Just the good parts of a DE, without every single application in the world with a stupid gui and a G/K stuck on the front
Setec Astronomy
From the changelog:
There is also Dropline, of course, which is quite popular. However, due to their policy of adding PAM and replacing large system packages (like the entire X11 system)
Is PAM still insecure? Has Pat reconsidered adding it back?
PAM is a neccesity. How am i supposed to integrate the logins of all my boxes to LDAP? We wanted to use slackware, but we had to use debian because of this.
Funny that the most popular gnome choice in slack is not recommended
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Just interested - if anyone knows.....
Tell me how you feel building gnome is a mess. My guess is you have never done it. Gnome needs a major cleanup? Tell me why and how. Or is this just more uninformed hand waving?
If you haven't discovered the well-advertised build scripts for GNOME then you are a retard. They work. No one cares if you can't figure it out on your own.
You can download several of their tunes from amazon.com I believe. It's pretty good stuff.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
> object-oriented language like C++ /****/
/* so you can access widget from anywhere */
/* this can be add to g_object_new */ /* also you can do g_object_get */ /* more at http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gobject/gob ject-The-Base-Object-Type.html */
/****/
I don't think you know what you are talking about
this is very shot code I just made which to show you that C (with wonderful Glib lib) can do OOP
#include <gtk/gtk.h>
typedef struct obj {
GtkWindow *window;
GtkButton *button;
} OBJECTS;
OBJECTS obj;
static void sayoops (GtkWidget *widget, gpointer data);
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
gtk_init (&argc, &argv);
obj.window = g_object_new (GTK_TYPE_WINDOW,
"default-height", 200,
"default-width", 200, NULL);
g_object_set (G_OBJECT (obj.window), "title", "OOP in GTK/GNOME");
g_signal_connect (obj.window, "destroy", gtk_main_quit, NULL);
obj.button = g_object_new (GTK_TYPE_BUTTON, "label", "I AM OOP CODE", NULL);
g_signal_connect (obj.button, "clicked", G_CALLBACK (sayoops), NULL);
gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (obj.window), GTK_WIDGET (obj.button));
gtk_widget_show_all (GTK_WIDGET (obj.window));
gtk_main ();
return 0;
}
static void
sayoops (GtkWidget *widget, gpointer data)
{
g_print ("Oooooops\n");
}
to compile do
gcc oop.c `pkg-config --libs --cflags gtk+-2.0`
"Steve Jobs invented the world" -- Bill W. GATES
Now we just need to get rid of KDE (and a few other bits) and slackware will fit back on a single CD.
Which would you rather have?
1) A distribution that includes everything. Of course this means that the team's resources are spread too far, producing an inferior product.
2) A distribution that provides a subset, but is a solid foundation upon which others can reliably add functionality.
I'll take quality over quantity, thank you!
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
What I like about XFce (at least up to 4.0) is that it isn't like the Windows interface: no single all-encompassing menu, really quick load time, only contains what the environment needs. What does 4.2 add? An all-encompassing menu and a bunch of tools that are more for systems management, along with a much longer load time (oh, but a cute mouse to see while you're waiting *rolls eyes*). So now it's more like KDE and Gnome, and thus, more like Windows.
No thanks, I'm sticking with 4.0 for as long as GCC will compile it.
i'm glad to see it go. it's always been a big waste of burned disk space when all i want to do is upgrade the latest core packages and recompile everything else that linuxpackages.net doesn't have a binary for.
and while we're on the topic of cutting out unnecessary GNOME fat... GTK developers: please stop depending on GNOME-specific packages!! when i want a cute little program for a slim little purpose to run on my less mainstream enlightenment setup, i *don't* want to install an entire DE that i never use!! please write programs independant of GNOME *and* KDE. both Qt and Gtk are perfectly fine libraries by themselves, without the additional bloat!
There I said it. No I'm not trolling or flamebaiting, it's just the simple truth. Every time I've ever used gnome over the last near decade it's been that way.
It's a shame really because I love C and I like gnome is about, but the bottom line is the results simply aren't there. Going a day with a Segv in a gnome environment is unusual in my experience.
Sigs are awesome huh?
repeat after me. glib is really wonderful and stable, and fully worth the effort the gnome people go to maintaining it. after all, 'standard c++' is just fancy pants garbage from pointy haired intellectuals in academia. no 'real hackers' use it.
I don't see what the big deal is. If other distros can become so popular without supporting everything and build a very strong community around that streamlining concept I don't see what is wrong with Slack doing the same thing. Pat is making the right decision in only supporting one DE.
PS: yes I know some religious Gnome fan boy will come and try to comment on my post and say that I'm just a KDE fan spewing his views. Except I'm a gnome fan too.
all criticism, they wouldnt be in the mess they are in now. god forbid someone criticize the holy gods of open source. its all a meritocracy therefore nobody in a high position can possibly screw up. right.
oh wait, no they dont. and theres a reason for it.
Personally, I think that Gnome's crap, and I'm glad they removed it.
This makes the only tolerable currently updated Linux distro that much better!
Please refer to this page for further definitions, etymology, examples, etc.
Q. (The Pedant)
Insert Signature Here
My biggest concern with Gnome was the fact that its widgets weren't all that stable. I was really interested in getting into GTK programming, and had a lot of fun with it until they started messing around with the APIs for some of the core widgets. Some of the jumps between 1.0 to 1.2 were a little tough to handle, and then when I was toying with the idea of just plugging along and accepting the changes, I found out that there were going to be even more changes. And all this before bonobo is announced as the next big thing. It's hard to get committed to long-term projects for a desktop when the goal posts are constantly moving for the dependencies.
In truth, we should have expected trouble when Gnome started shouting about how wonderful Nautilus was. If you're heading into upper versions of your project, and your flagship feature is a file browser that runs slower than hell, it's time to do a little soul-searching.
What sucks is that C is my favourite language, and I really like some of the eye-candy that Gnome offers, and would have preferred to stay with Gnome for general development. But KDE in the end just offers a better all-around experience, both in general use and for development.
And I'm just a hobbyist. I can't imagine what sort of hell dedicated programmers are going through trying to work with Gnome.
I want a decent file browser, useable (system-wide) drag and drop, homogenized toolkits (none of this "three apps, three different looks" bullshit), a friendlier clipboard (I got a powerbook here, this whole THREE BUTTON MOUSE!!!!! thing is killin' me!), a non-shitty default aesthetic that doesn't compell me to change everything out of its sheer ugliness, a useful offline help system, CAREFULLY THOUGHT OUT CONSISTANT AND TESTED CONFIGURATION MENUS and.... (pause for breath) everything else MacOS had in 1994. Which so far only MacOS and OS X seem to have.
:|
Windows still hasn't caught up and freenix "desktops" are still catching up to windows. 32-bit icons and font smoothing are candy things.... and unfortunately, they're a hell of a lot easier to impliment than Basic Functionality.
The "choice" obsessed people would beat them down. They want every OSS effort to be splintered and fragmented, so that I have to install and load two entire desktop environments just to be able to run each other's apps.
In addition, if I dare load up Firefox and OpenOffice, that's two more GUI libraries in memory, so now I get to have four entire GUI libraries all doing the same thing.
And before someone replies with "Microsoft Office does that too," no it doesn't. Those are called owner-drawn controls, where you override a standard Windows control's draw event with your own function. It's still a standard Windows control and not an entire desktop GUI library.
So I guess Slackware is going back to command line only? :P
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
your coding style is atrocious. please don't help ;)
+1 mod and I'll let you slap MY forehead if you can explain the reason/role of Mono.
It can be a pretty simple explanation, btw. Although I know a little about coding, I'm most certainly not a coder. (hardware's my game.) I've been buggin' this system out (gentoo) trying to get Beagle and other stuff that uses Mono up and running.... Why? What IS the purpose?
I think the problem is whether you already have an established KDE/Gnome setup on your machine and you're just upgrading; or if you're really compiling from scratch.
Being a regular gnome user, I once needed to install a sw requiring QT; and decided to install the full KDE package along the way. I gave up after a few hours and a couple of configure/test prog seg faults (prob misconfiguration on my part).
For Gnome, I already have an established setup and normally just install new development packages as they become available. There _used_ to be a list of the compile/install order. Recently I find that new components and dependencies are not really documented as the focus shifts to the "make world" scripts. I'm hesitant to try these scripts because I don't want to recompile the full gnome environ from scratch.
Zing!
Right over your head.
Its mainly lazyness on my part as I am used to the Windows interface design and most of my time is spent working with either ReactOS or Wine code. At the end of the day you could say I think in Windows but I have the principle to run Linux until ReactOS is ready for prime time. I have given some thought to changing my Desktop Environment as KDE is a bit of a resource hog....I might switch to XFCE or MWM.
Why clone Unix when I can clone Windows instead. http://www.reactos.org
Gnome is hard to compile because the libraries are developed by very different groups of people. In KDE, everything (besides Qt) is made from scratch, so the kdelibs source has ALL the libraries. But in Gnome, you have to install the libraries for xml, wnck, gtk, vte, eel, gal, gconf, etc.
Why is this better? Because a different project, not necessarily associated with Gnome, can use these libraries, and not really require Gnome (recall XFCE). Whereas with KDE's approach, if you want to use a feature some KDE program uses, you'll need to use kdelibs, which means you are a KDE program, exclusively.
I don't know much about the build process for Slackware, but i know with my Gentoo install, installing KDE 3.4 is painless with the split ebuilds. However, when i try to install GDM for my login manager (face it, GDM is way better for themeing then KDM), the dependancies were just too much. I don't know if this has any bearing on how the rest of gnome builds for Slackware or not, but it keeps me away from most Gnome packages.
tourettes
...would be Enlightenment
You can do a lot of things in a really shitty way; doesn't mean you should. C code looks about as pretty as my hairy white buttcheeks. Make-believe OOP C code looks like something from between my hairy white buttcheeks. You know, that hot, sweaty, sticky, pimply botty area we all know and love. And that's most of GNOME!
LOL ... using GLib doesn't make your code object oriented dude. What you've got there is plain old vanilla C.
Not that I disagree that using C to write OOP is possible, that's just a non-example of C OOP.
You'd be much better of demonstrating how to derive your own type from GObject & GObjectClass. Google for "gobject tutorial" for some ideas.
Personally I think it's all a bit convoluted and you're better off just using vanilla ADTs over custom gobject types where possible - there's just too much overhead. But that's just my opinion.
It's the community that makes linux strong(er), not stubborn alliances to this or that project. It is the public nature of its evolution. Let Gnome stand on its own, let its merits and demerits be considered, argued even, and you'll find that it is not ridiculous that KDE was chosen over Gnome.
Why do linux distros include everything but the kitchen sink anyway? Wouldn't it be more logical
for a distro to include only the basics?
I for one, would like a distro that is like slackware (ideally, *is* slackware) but with flawless hardware detection, it doesn't need to package every single linux application. Ideally, just something that has basic networking up. (So you can ssh into it and do the technical setup remotely) no web server, 20000 window managers and X11 applications etc..
Why include every single linux application in existance?
In Soviet Russia, GNOME drops YOU!
The kernel is written in C, and for very good reasons.
Most definitely not a M$-only thing: Apple's OS X has been doing it since the release of 10.3, and a side by side comparison between it and XP puts OS X's implementation well in front aesthetically (I'm a typographer).
you had me at #!
Did you ever stop to consider that they're actually GNOME developers? Gtk is only a widget toolkit. Gnome libraries provide extra features and integration which many of us find extremely useful. If you don't like it, don't USE it. Or write your own damn software.
I think GNOME is in this hackers limbo, they separate more pieces and appeal to the hackers but they are also trying to make a polished end-user oriented platform. That's tough. I also think that the whole mono thing, while producing great stuff and well intentioned, split some powerful people out of the GNOME leadership. Then there was that phase of "rapid expansion" where mozilla was going to be intergrated (it actually was for a while) and openoffice was going to become the GNOME office suite and this and that and everything was going to be part of it; that's always bad for business. All isn't lost, it's opensource so it never really is, but KDE is kicking ass right now and GNOME seems to be kind of drifting.
For some odd reason, Mono hasn't really taken off. I think the idea of integrating java and mono more tightly is the way to more and better apps. It also seems like there needs to be more cohesion in their APIs... Especially if you're going after the java/c# crowd, they never write that much code, they just assemble other people's work... There aren't a lot of desktop type apps that have really taken advantage of java/c# that are also open source, eclipse does but if you look at the free plug-ins, most are just shit. The apache stuff is awesome but it's all server side.. That leaves GNOME with Mono which is getting there but still baking and KDE with a really nicely made C++ framework where they are leveraging a lot of reuse.
..haha you gnome lovers. KDE will be the true Desktop for Linux.
Note to Debian: Follow this excellent lead!!
Not one person mentioned Pat's health problems ??? What's wrong with you people? I hope he is doing better.
oh, lots of my apps use GTK base, better with the same Window Manager
should I change all my apps to QT base?
or live with GTK apps running on QT environment?
-- There is four mistake in this sentences.
Can you blame him? I've been a Slack user for years now, and I use both Gnome and KDE equally (with Wmaker) ;)
You can't reasonably blame the maintainer for not wanting to handle extra overhead (even if it's just his opinion).
Slackware has been a paragon in the Linux community, and it's one of a handful of revolutionary Linux distro's.
As if Patrick needed a reason, he's been through a lot this year, and no one on here should question his decisions about HIS distro. He's proven himself as an asset to the Linux community many times over - the least we can do is not whine/complain because we have to take a couple of extra minutes to install Gnome manually (if we want it).
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
That should read "Slackware was removed from Gnome." Gnome consists of so much memory-hogging bloat, it begins to make sense.
- IP
I prefer MWM without any desktop at all. At processor speeds over 33Mhz, it's lightning fast.
It seems like KDE is a better system than Gnome. KDE is starting to approach the ideal of what a desktop should be: everything is integrated and seemless. It's like NeXTStep. As I type this under KDE, a spell checker automatically does its thing, and I can write my own KDE app that also has spell checking, or an embedded browser, or any of the other KDE components, due to KDE's object-oriented structure. This is great and it's the way computers should be. It's object-oriented thinking, which is natural to humans, unlike computer-think procedural thinking. I think that programming languages have a big influence on how programmers think about problems.
It seems like KDE is the right way to go, and yet Gnome has the business momentum from Redhat and Sun. Is the "rightness" of KDE going to eventually dominate the business commitments of Gnome? Or will they eventually merge to some extent?
I'm very happy with KDE and have already ordered my Suse 9.3, which should be shipping in about a week.
Memorize easily using flashcards, under Windows or Linux, coming April 28th.
Looks like someone's daddy forgot to logoff again.
now i will admit im a bit of a "Newb" but frankly it saddens me to see gnome leave slackware...i dont know about building it but the idea of removing it is horrible i have used kde and i hated it. it has WAY too many buttons...i like a DE to be simple and intellegently laid out..gnome 2.10 rocks and its the main DE in my new favorite distro Ubuntu and if you guys havent checked this out yet you really should it single handedly removed windows xp from my harddrive!!!!
In 1998, Gnome was anything but useful, and Qt wasn't GPL. It was one hell of a flame-fest between Gnome and KDE at the time!
I can't remember the last time I installed Gnome.. or even Kde for that matter.. Blackbox all the way, all killer, no filler.
mount
As others have pointed out, there's nothing object oriented about your code. And, of course, if that were C++, and pretending that a C++ version of the gtk header exists, you could do this:
// return 0 is implicit from main in C++
void callback(button& b) {
cout << "click\n";
}
int main() {
init();
window my_window(200, 200, "title");
signal_connect(my_window, destroy, main_quit, 0);
button my_button("label");
signal_connect(my_button, click, callback);
container_add(my_window, my_button);
widget_show_all(my_window);
gtk_main();
}
Now look how this C++ version is 10 times easier to understand. Plus it can do many more things. The callback function can be typesafe, for instance, and doesn't need a given signature - it could be a functor, or return a value (which is presumably ignored). This is possible due to templates. C++ is better than C, period.
Hey, as long as there's a Process(tm)!
DOH, I failed to paste over the includes and using declarations from vim where I typed the code. Regardless, it doesn't matter, except I should point out that the reason you don't have to have those idiotic prefixes to all your identifiers (gtk_whatever_function, etc) is that C++ has namespaces.
I remember when I first tried out Gnome under Debian, the install was a nightmare. Some configuration GUI features were broken and I wasn't sure what all the packages were that I needed. KDE was just a question of gettting all the packages and installing them and then you're done. My friends at first didn't agree with me until they tried using Gnome and KDE as windows managers on Sparcs. The result... Well after a HUGE series of headaches due to things breaking and malfunctioning under Gnome on the Suns they switched to KDE and never looked back. I'm not saying you can't get Gnome working. It's just that it seems to need more work!
just because they aren't packaging gnome, how is this stopping you from using it?
they don't have time to support 2 ui's, so they've gone with supporting the simplest one. i'd do the same thing. this isn't even a story.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Four or five years ago??! You can't possibly be serious, thinking an experience you had five years ago with gnome has any relevance today, whatsoever.
Well, he did say he had looked over the packaging structure for Gnome more recently which also says a lot.
Wheel reinventing, like, say, Qt reinventing practically all of the C++ wheel?
Some wheels turn, others do not. When the wheel ceases turning I don't have a problem with reinventing one. And I hate code or effort duplication.
Personally, I think it's good there are two large competing desktops on Linux. But I have to say the whole QT is now GPL argument is pretty compelling on the face of it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've noticed the posts with the highest ratings are either praising or protesting gnome and the decision to not offically package it in slackware.
From what I can tell, dropline Gnome seems to be the best option for Slackware users, so it's not really a big deal that it's being offically dropped. What is a big deal is what's gonna happen to Slackware's maintainer. I've seen other posts about his recent health problems.
Slackware was my first distro. I used 3.6 and up all the way until I had to learn Redhat 7.0 for a job. I used RedHat until 9 and now I'm at Gentoo, however I still am glad my original distro has a maintainer that won't let the project die, even while he struggles with his own health.
Let's give him a hats off for all the work put into maintaining one of the original distros.
An alternative source for the latest and greated GNOME could be the T2 Project. It is not yet another distribution, but a flexible build kit that allows the automated build including cross buidls and the optimization exactly for your target CPU.
,-)
The latest and greatest GNOME is always included (includkg KDE, XFCE, and the other 1500+ packages) - 2.10.0 was added the day before it was officially announced
Replace Outhouse Express with almost anything else, put some time and thought into porting address books and mail folders...
Major security problems would remain, but this would make the most dangerous problems disappear imemdiately.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Change means you can charge more for a slight variation of what you have sold someone before.
Welcome to Slashdot, Mr. Gates.
with ubuntu i switched to gnome. it looks a bit oldfashioned. but thats much better than having trillions of useless features like in kde. kde seems to become the "marketing driven" equivalent to windows xp and what longhorm will be.
the whole desktop business became "marketing driven". edward tufte once told that in the early days userinterface designers never thought about that they would have to do what marketing guys tell them. an independent linux community should show people how a simple desktop improves the working conditions.
I used to swear by Gnome on slackware, now I just swear at it.
KDE 3.4 was a total cinch to install from source on slackware 10.1 - download about 100meg of packages, extract, make a quick bash script to compile and leave for a few hours - done !
Or you can use Konstruct.
I tried compiling the latest version of gnome, gave up and tried dropline. Dropline runs like an absolute dog on my hardware setup, whereas KDE 3.4 runs smooth. It also took almost as long to install dropline as it did to compile KDE 3.4
I can't blame Pat for deciding to Gnome - it's much better for a distribution to focus on a single core desktop. After all, if you want to install Gnome, you can.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Wonder what the price of Troll Tech stock is...
16, Lonely, single and sitting on your own in front of a computer late at night?
I was there myself. Don't worry, in a few years you'll meet someone special and you'll put childish things behind you.
A monkey is a true assertion, in that case that would also mean that nonsensical bullshit is always true. Therefore what you need.
It's a shame that KDE and Gnome do not both use Qt. It would eliminate almost all of the compatibility issues, save memory on hybrid desktops, and allow them to compete on things that really matter like UI design."
It would also eliminate the option of creating closed source applications without paying thousands of euros for Qt licenses (or at least apps that fit the general UI look and feel).
Not in million years. Companies don't want to be that dependent on Trolltech.
This comes from a KDE user (KDE 3.4 is a gem). But I'm also a developer, and I don't see Qt as *strategically* viable route to bring Linux desktop forward.
(For those that don't know, Gtk is LGPL which is more free than GPL, which is the license Qt uses).
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
As is always the case...
Personally although I think GNOME is a great destktop environemnt, it's true that it's so painful to install GNOME packages. I guess something should be done on this matter.
Your ego is Matrix!
Could this be because after only 12 years Slackware still has no friggin package management system? I don't see anyone at freebsd.org, gentoo.org or, debian.org crying about how hard to gnome is to build and all three of my boxes are humming along just fine with beautiful gnome desktops. Slackware can go to hell or wherever it is defunct unused Linux distros go when they get too lazy to continue making decent releases.
UNIX: A set of Linux-like operating systems that grew out of an original version written by some guys at a phone company
OS X has been doing it since the first release, AFAIK (the first one I used was 10.1).
I agree that OS X does render fonts more nicely than either MSWin or X11, but that doesn't have as much to do with the use of subpixel rendering as the actual shapes of the fonts, which are just...well, they just seem more polished.
GNOME's been slipping for some time now, really. They've always been more bloated than KDE, and they've even admitted so. For instance, a gconsole tab uses 300K, while a konsole tab uses 50K. The user experience has also been slipping. Their usability engineers, if they have any, aren't doing any usability studies. Mind you, KDE aren't either, but their usability seems better.
The drawback to eliminating GNOME is not the loss of the GNOME UI, but the loss of the GNOME libraries, which allow one to run GNOME apps under KDE. But it IS a huge reduction in what has to be built and packaged, a huge reduction in disk usage, and a huge reduction in memory bloat.
GNOME people need to get on the stick, cut the fat, improve the quality of the user experience, and make their system easlier to use.
I think part of their problem is over-dependence on RPC. Too many things are done by launching another process, and then calling a procedure in the other process. I suppose the RPC interface itself isn't that bloated (or is it?), but just think about the overhead!
for commercial companies we buy a product from (DVD's OS's, whatever)? If we don't like the product or find the lincense too resrtictive, didn't you tell us to vote with our wallets and leave?
Well, why don't you vote with your wallet and leave the distro's you don't like alone. If people migrate away from a OSS project, the project will die and the better solution will win.
Haha
So you're saying the problem is too much choice?
You don't really have to choose much: install KDE or install Gnome and you get the basic tools. You can find these from basically any distribution. So which distribution to choose?
Take any. Take the one you can most easiest find, or the one which was recommended to you. If you still can't make up your mind, choose Fedora, Debian or Gentoo. It's that simple.
Not all people are alike. Not all use scenarios are the same. You can get a fine-tuned tailored solution to you and your use scenario through having a lot of choices.
E.g. for text editors some people prefer the power of Vi(m), because it's a damn good editor although with a steep learning curve but once you can do it (after a few weeks or so) you'll be doing things faster and more efficiently than ever. Some people prefer Emacs since it integrates pretty much everything, if you're coding it's like an all-in-one-IDE. Some people prefer editors where you will do everything with the mouse. And so on.
Choice is not bad. Choice is good. If you don't know whether some program is for you, try it.
Time to feed the trolls..
OK, so I overstated it somewhat. Both desktops have their pros and cons, both from a user's and a programmer's perspective. Both are memory hogs, especially in EyeCandy(tm) mode, but both are looking forward to machines of tomorrow. You wouldn't want to run Beagle on a machine with 64MB RAM; you might prefer to stick with twm.
RPC is beautiful and very much in the UNIX philosophy of not writing the same program twice. If your distribution still uses sed and awk in its boot process, why shouldn't one bit of a desktop environment borrow another's print preview or file selector?
GObject is an abomination. No-one in their right mind would us it. It is not easy to do OO in C, but there are a lot more convenient ways than GObject.
This is not even an issue for the BSDs, where GNOME and KDE are all (meta-)ports. People who need them, can simply install them; those who don't, won't. Why is that a distro issue?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
God, I can't stand OS X's fonts. They're so blurry, it's a pain to read them.
Microsoft have their faults, but at least they can render crisp easily-readable text.
As a Slackware user with about 2 years experience of Linux I can only say I'm not suprised. Now before I begin what will be something of a rant let me start by saying that I like the idea of Gnome. It does after all look clean and polished and, with a bit of work, would make an excellent desktop.
However in its current state I simply cannot use it to get anything done because of its severe shortcomings (mainly of Nautilus). My main bones of contention being:
1 Spatial browsing - The worst view of a file system I have ever seen. Having it set as the default is brain dead. And there's no way to change between spatial and browser mode from within Nautilus itself.
Why ? Are they scared that no one will use it ? And yes I do know how to unset it using the gconf preferences editor the point is that this should be available from within the app.
2 Awful, awful keyboard navigation in Nautilus. Press the "f" key and it takes you to the first file beginning with "f". Press it again and it does precisely nothing. For fucking hells sake it's 2005. Even Windows 3.1 behaved properly (i.e. cycling round the list of files that started with "f")
Clue for developers: Not everyone wants to use the mouse for everything, some of us want to use it as little as possible.
3 No case insensitive sort option. This can make finding things confusing, especially if you also use Windows a lot (i.e. like I have to at work). Either that or the ability to make Windows Explorer use case sensitive sorting (fat chance of that happening)
4 The entire "one thing at a time" philosophy. e.g. When changing directory permissions there's no recursive option on the menu. How annoying is this when you've just copied in a nested directory structure from CD ? Ho hum, lets break out the terminal and use "chmod" and "chown". But then I forget Gnome doesn't want you to use nested directories, they seem to want you to have everything in a big lump in your home folder.
Need to add a list of files into an app ? No problem... But the Gnome app will probably require you to add each file individually and make you go through three forms and three button clicks FOR EACH FILE.
Computers are really good at operating on many things at once. Why can't the Gnome developers make use of this feature ?
5 The "new and improved" file open dialogue. Always starts in ~/home, doesn't remember the last directory browsed, no option to limit the list of filenames being displayed. Personally I've given up trying to understand the point of it. As soon as it appears I just press "Ctrl & L" and type the bloody filename in manually. It makes me realise how good the Windows common dialogue is and why KDE have largely copied it.
6 A general all round lack of control/options in programs. e.g. Sound Juicer STILL has no way to specify the settings for MP3 ripping. I gave up and just use CDEX on my Windows box.
Now like I say I do actually like Gnome. Every time there's a new release I eagerly install it and give it a go - only to suffer a terrible bout of swearing followed by a return to KDE, or even worse, Windows when I just want to get something done. I'd love to use it as my main day to day desktop but I simply can't.
I just wish they'd stop dumbing it down and would make the bloody thing usable. If they want to make a "newbie friendly" desktop why don't they just release a severly limited version and call it "Beginners Gnome" ? (which would just lead to more clueless computer users in the years to come)
But at least they could then also release an "adult version" which would give those of us who understand computers an interface that allows us to get some bloody work done.
And before anyone says it yes I know the Gnome developers will do what they please, I realise I'm getting someone elses work for free, "if I don't like it I'm a faggot luser and can go back to Winbloze" etc. etc.
This doesn't alter the fact that Gnome needs some serious, serious attention.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
It says "we Gnomeites don't care or have not got time for the pesky end users".
There. even if it is something you are giving away under the GPL, quality issues will hunt you and will hamper your aims: to have as many developpers and testers as possible.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I see lack of choice (i.e, Windows, MacOS) as lack of progress.
I see freedom to choose amongst many alternative as progress.
The original poster was right. You don;t like what you see then get what you need or contribute towards what you would like to see (whining does not count as a contribution, hunting bugs, participating in development forums, adopting one application and helping to steer it in the correct direction, etc is what is needed. People whining for Windows or MacOS like functionality just don't understand the philosophy of Linux and GPLed software...).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It would also eliminate the option of creating closed source applications without paying thousands of euros for Qt licenses (or at least apps that fit the general UI look and feel).
...if there was a bright light, and all the non-commercially employed developers of Gnome said "Hey, we were wrong, Qt is soo much better!", how fast would Gnome/GTK+friends come to a halt and Gnome/Qt take over?
Not in million years. Companies don't want to be that dependent on Trolltech.
I'm not saying Linux doesn't need it - a set of free basic desktop widgets to get commercial apps is good for competition (otherwise Trolltech could just jack up the price). But I don't quite see why most of the Gnome community would, or should care.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If we were giving you 200 screwdrivers to screw a cross-screw you would choose a hammer.
Use Xandros and stop whining.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Let me explain. This is not about this stupid debate which (KDE vs. GNOME) is better etc. After all it is about user experience. With Slackware now this experience is a bit worse. Of course there is Dropline (standing still at GNOME 2.8 which now is 2.10 that is stable and 2.10 *has* improvements over 2.8). Of course you can grab GNOME and compile manually. Of course you can get GNOME on Slackware in various ways - the point is right now you don't have it nicely packaged with your distro of choice - you must go third-party and it is always a flaw for the distro if it lags packages. Not the other way.
Keep in mind that you could not use GNOME as your DE but GNOME is not only DE - it is a set of applications and libraries and so on. So you actually may find GNOME sucking but you may find one or two GNOME applications actually usefull - but still you won't find them in GNOME.
Go look at http://gnomefiles.com/ site. It is big set of useful applications. That from now aren't so easy to install/use on Slackware.
Of course you can dish them all and say "stupid GNOME stuff etc." but pleas keep in mind that there are some programs in GNOME that many people (but not you) may find useful. Like Evolution or gThumb...
To be clear - I am not GNOME or Slackware user. I use Fedora with wmaker and set of cross-DE (ranging from GTK, Qt, KDE, GNOME, XFCE and whatever i like, does the job for me) applications that I like - with Fedora I have broader choice of applications to use. Peroid.
More "free" for the greedy coder.
Less free for the code.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I use Gnome because KDE crawls like an injured sloth in comparison. Many decent 'other' packages use GTK too - given that most of the best apps for any given task (Firefox, Thunderbird, X-Chat, Gimp, and Gnumeric just for example) all use GTK, loading in all the KDE apps too just to manipulate them slowly with slightly broken clipboard support, seems ... senseless.
First of all, this is unfair! If 'someone' 'thinks' something is 'the best', why is the feeling that any competition is to be banned? And you're saying that Microsoft is monopolist... how about KDE?
Why not only using Nokia cell phones, dropping all the others? Why not only using Google, dropping Yahoo? Why not using a single make of a car, etc. etc.
This is the way to slavery and communism -- the 'unique way'.
And this is not new. In 1996, everybody in my country used Slackware. I was a "RH 3.0.3 man". Now, everybody here is a Fedora fan. I was reconverted back to Slack meantimes (and MEPIS), but now, since Ubuntu, I really discovered Gnome, switching from KDE 3.3.2 to GNOME 2.8.1 (which is not the latest, but a good one).
You now, as 90% of people uses Google, I use Yahoo. I *want* to support good solutions which tend to be wrongfully kept offstage, and one of the reasons is that we *must* fight "the unique way of thinking".
Actually, GNOME is largely 'under bad treatment'; very few major distros even bother to use a fairly recent version.
Now, really, really 'Slackware is removed from Gnome'. What a pity. What a shame. What a dissappointment. Geez.
> Gnome and GTK+ are very object oriented...
And that's exactly why it would make much more sense to write them in an object-oriented language rather than in C.
The whole portability and maturity argument doesn't really apply anymore. Who has problems compiling KDE because it's written in C++?
now we just need to get X out!
PS: Yes, i'm serious.
Seriously - Slackware is proud of being obtuse, difficult, arcane and priestly. Gnome will only make Slackware head in the direction of ease of use and commonality that all the other distros are heading toward and Slackware wants to keep true to it buck the trend roots. And with Gnome there are few opportunities for Slacknauts to tell everyone else "You WILL learn the distro."
Sure, C doesn't have automatic upcasting, automatic class scoping, operator overloading, function overloading, namespaces, templates, STL, RTTI and the string class out of the box but it really doesn't take that much effort to get around these things (I know that many people won't take my word for it, but there is not much else I can say). Glib REALLY helps out with this as it provides some useful container types that are almost as good as STL and string.
In conclusion, I would summerise that as a C++ lover, I probably would like to see gnome use it. However, gnome doesn't use it, and it doesn't really seem to hurt it, so why care?
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I read this story and agreed with it. However, I went through the comments to see what the GNOME fanboys had to say about it (every desktop has a fanboy, but that doesn't mean they don't talk sense sometimes). :D
The amazing part is that EVERYONE was saying that they needed to make the build process easier. EVERYONE. Fanboys and all. There was not ONE response to the contrary that I could see.
So have we actually got something that could help GNOME here? Maybe the GNOME devs ought to listen. I bet they are
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I'm just trying to install Linux for the first time at home.
This helped make one of my decisions.
While GTK and Qt are full-featured widget libraries, that's about all they ever do. (Qt might do a bit more besides widgets, I honestly haven't checked.)
Actually, Qt has a range of other stuff like file IO, network IO, xml parsing a generic signal/slot mechanism you can use in your own code. But I digress.
I'm writing a program in Qt. Yes, Qt. No KDE-specific bindings. When Qt4 for Windows comes out, and I get it ported to 4.x, it should recompile without a hitch. If it is a KDE program, just say it is so.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
it's all about CHOICE. That's one of the main things about Linux and OSS in general that makes it such an attractive alternative to MS.
When a distro takes away one of those choices in their out-of-the-box system, it seems like a first step in paving a road to a monopolistic system.
Not that you can't use Gnome on Slackware...it's just more difficult when it's removed.
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
there must be a joke there somewhere about Soviet Russia and KGB - any program that starts with B will become KGB.. and its maintainers are evil communists
Pick and/or build a linux distro that gives you no choices whatsoever. And call it something else. And if you don't like it, tough--you only wanted one GUI, one notepad, one calculator...
Incidentally this is in general how things work in the office--someone crafts a distro like this, and/or chooses the packages that will be used in said environment. Then, the machines are installed, and the users are stuck with whatever the management picked and/or told them to use.
So, yeah, if you do it yourself, you do have a lot of choices, that comes with the territory. That's also why comparing it to oft-preinstalled OSes is a fallacy to start with.
This is a good discussion thread, and it's great we have regular stories about desktop environments (DE's). In this thread, I've learned what other DE's people use, how they feel about them, where to get them, how they compare against the others, and now have a sense of what the best ones are. I will check back later and compile a list.
On the topic, I read Pat's changelog, and my take is that the decision to drop Gnome from Slackware is more about duplicated effort than it is about absolute effort: there seem to be other folks that provide Gnome for Slackware, as indicated in the changelog.
Riscos , the OS used on 32 bit ARM based Acorn computers, had proper antialiasing of fonts over 15 years ago.
--- Commission free trading & free stock up to $500 - use http://share.robinhood.com/kelvinp6
I agree on this. I am using Mac OS X at home and partly at office. And you really have to get used to the blurry fonts. Especially with japanese Characters it can get super fuzzy. But perhaps I should turn off the font smoothing for 8px :)
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
And the sad thing is it gets this with 100x the footprint of libraries. I'm assuming that's why gnome's logo is, in fact, a footprint. Because it is huge.
Not being entirely facetious here. I tried Slack once, like before Redhat 4.0 came out. I just find it hard to believe that people today would use a distribution without any kind of package manager...
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
User highlights a problem with linux, suggests fixes. Gets shot down and told to go somewhere else. Community much?
There's no one distro to fit all. There never will be. It is like suggesting that there should be one kind of soda or one candy bar. There are distros that provide one of each, KISS.
He lists lots of WMs, lots of distros... what does he want? That the rest should just pack up and go home, and leave the playing field to a couple big players? That is certainly borderline flamebait, and got responded to as such.
His other point, with there being too many "easy" distroes just goes to prove that noone has managed to create a superior such distro, assuming the market exists (and I'm sure it does). Now how do you solve that. Do you
a) Ask all the other distros to leave the market, and let the remaining "easy" distro stay as it is? Which by most people, meaning computer users in general, isn't considered easy today?
or
b) Let the distributions battle it out? Fight tooth and nail to provide new ways of making things easier for the user? Strive to constantly improve themselves, less they be bested by someone else?
To suggest that things would get better by saying competitors should "go away" is stupid. Things get better by inferior solutions being outcompeted. Wishing the competition away is the mark of inferior products, not superior ones.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It seems that everyone plays Night Elves these days and no one even thinks about rolling up a Gnome.
Sure you see Humans and Dwarves but they are mostly paladins. Night Elves rule the alliance and us poor Gnomes get stepped on.
Now we've been removed from Slackware? This is unacceptable! We will stage another Million Gnome March until we are given the respect that we...
What? Linux? Oh. Can you run WoW on it?
nm
Only mental problems. And they have clearly not gotten better. He is not seeking treatment.
Your entire argument is based on the opinion that winning over the general public is somehow the "goal" of Linux.
Think about it for a second.
Now think about it for another.
Personally, I don't want it to become mainstream, or the OS of the general public. The general public is a bunch of morons who destroy the fun and life in everything it collectively touches. Disney is what the public wants. NASCAR is what the public wants. Windows is what the public wants.
Now I have known people, that I respect, that like each of these things. But as a whole, these things cater to the lowest common denominator. In my opinion, Linux is above that. And you can't say it is elitest, because *it* isn't a thing with someone behind the wheel steering it in any one direction. It is more like evolution than a lab experiment. In all honesty, I think it is a beautiful thing, and I don't want it to be degraded to the point where it is on the public desktop. If someone or a company can put it there, so be it. But hopefully if that happens it won't drag "Linux" down with it.
One of the problems with Linux is that there is too much choice.
I know I quoted you out of sequence, so forgive me. But choice is EXACTLY what got Linux where it is today. I can agree that it is daunting, even for me, to choose. But I would rather have the choice. I was on the same distro for about 5 years, which is like millenia in distro time. By the time I decided to upgrade, the choices were staggering! I tried one, then another, then settled on my third choice. There are still things that I don't like about the one I chose (or should I say that I like better about the ones I didn't), but I made a good choice. Linux is evolving, constantly, and is improving. I have been using it since RedHat5.1, and Unix before that. There are some tools that I use today that I used the first day I logged in. And I still learn about new tools today - some brand new, some that have been there since day 1. It is awesome, and I love it. There are 50 ways to do the same thing, some more elegant than others, some brute force. I write scripts all the time that perform actions like taking photos, resizing them to 3 standard sizes, making thumbnails, and creating HTML around them so people can view them on a web page. There are packages that can do this, there are hundreds of ways via shell scripts, different languages, etc. But I did it my way. Is my way the best way? There is no best way. My way works, and it is mine. THAT is why I like Linux. I think it is better to offer choice. Everyone can choose, but everyone doesn't have to choose the same thing.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
OS X's text rendering puts anything else I've seen to shame -- it's sickening to look at screenshots and see something as simple as text make your desktop look ugly!
I love the unwritten assumption that lingers between the lines in these kinds of posts. The assumption that Linux only exists to eradicate Windows and to fill Christmas with tales of how Grandma says "Linux is so easy to use!"
Sure it'd be nice, but maybe Linux isn't ever going to turn out like that. Does it really matter?
But anyway your post is a bit stupid. Distros like SUSE and Linspire both have marketing departments, install in 3 clicks and install with only one text-editor, calculator and widget appearance. Grandma won't be saying "I use Linux", she'll be saying "I use Linspire, what's this Linux thing you're talking about?"
We're not talking about antialiasing, we're talking about subpixel rendering, which exploits the addressability of the RGB stripes in LCD pixels to improve perceived resolution. This technology cannot work with CRTs, it is only possible with digital LCDs. A good reason why you should never buy an LCD without DVI.
you had me at #!
If you're using a digital LCD and 10.3, make sure you have Font smoothing style set to "Medium-best for flat panel" (Appearance preference). That enables sub-pixel rendering.
you had me at #!
It's called a Phillips head you insensitive Clod!
brightloudnoise.com
I ran gnome-1.x on my desktop for quite a while. I didn't care for KDE. Gnome had all the knobs to turn to tweak it and it wasn't terribly bloated. After Gnome-2.x came out, all the knobs to tweak things were gone and the dependancies were even worse. It was like a light weight window manager with all the requirements of a heavy weight one. I tried KDE and felt it was way, way better than the 2.x series of gnome. I kept trying each new gnome release and found them all to be seriously deficient in the user experience arena.
If they had just kept running with the 1.x methodologies, we wouldn't be seeing distros dropping it. It seems like all it took was one focus group giving poor recomendations to bring gnome to it's knees. Pretty sad.
This is not intended as a flame, just an observation. I've moved back to KDE on Slack and my FreeBSD systems with no problems. For antiquated hardware, XFCE is still the way to go.
I've found that the Slackware comunity is interested in the same problem space as me, and usualy has posted a resolution to problems at least a week before I look into it.
Just last week, I wanted to move to KDE 3.4. Some other slacker had already posted packages, which I upgraded with upgradepkg.
...idea :p
Seriusly, segmentation of Gnome and KDE is a good thing. If a distro is pure gnome or kde, you'll get more consistent userbase for testing and the package maintainers can focus 100% on maintaining packages relevant for the DE supported by the distro. Which makes alot of time for including more KDE | Gnome apps and goodies.
You still have your precious ""Freedom of choice", since theyre all free. And if your wanna check whats going on in "the other camp", fire up a livecd.
I would easily change to KDE + some gtk apps that I like (gnumeric r0x0rz) but there is one killer feature that I cannot find in other desktops beside Gnome: I want to configure keybindings for desktop switching. I usually use Alt-[1-4] for 4 desktops, Ctrl- for moving windows between desktops. This is very easy to configure in Gnome and it has become an almost automatic reaction in my everyday work (e.g. Acrobat in one desktop, emacs in the other etc).
Does anyone here know how to achieve this in any other windows manager or desktop? I wouldn't mind using Ctrl-[1-4] or Alt-[F1-F4] or something similar but I DON'T want to use the mouse to do this. It has to be some keybinding. Clicking around is a horrible waste of time.
P.
All together now:
Ahh, a 4x4 grid of them. Make mine half white, half green . .
hawk
Nice try, though.
pretending that a C++ version of the gtk header exists
...since, of course, there are no such things as C++ bindings for GTK+.
Your code snippet is nice pseudocode, but I doubt a real-world version would be that clean, even in C++. His C code, even if uglier, actually compiles and works. I'd be curious to see a Gtkmm version of the same thing.
The filesystem is the package manager
The problem is open source applications are becoming exponentially more complex, even more than the operating systems they run on.
For instance, it takes a couple of hours to rebuild an entire FreeBSD operating system on a AMD 750 with 256 megs of ram. But with Gentoo Linux on a Celeron 2.6Ghz with a half a gig of faster memory, it takes at least 18 hours to build KDE.
The tools and developer knowledge we have these days is still geared to building operating systems, not applications.
This entire thread is such garbage.
I am running GNOME 2.10. It is not bloated. My system has a pretty standard 512MB of RAM, and it NEVER SWAPS. My girlfriend uses GNOME 2.10 on a Pentium II 400 with 128MB of RAM. It's actually fairly snappy on there, even running Firefox and Evolution. She loves it - there was such a difference in performance compared to her old fragmented Windows installation, she thought I upgraded her hardware.
KDE people say GNOME is bloated and ugly. GNOME people say the same about KDE. Baaah! Baaaaaaah! Sheep are you all! The Bloat argument is hereby CANCELLED OUT, and I never want to hear it again. There's this saying some famous guy said about checking for logs in your own eye before pointing out a mote in some other guy's eye.
For once I'd love to see a rational feature-by-feature, project-goal-by-project-goal discussion between the two sides. There seems to be a huge chasm between the KDE and GNOME camps, and it's just not helpful. Pretty scary, actually - we all have a lot of ground to cover and there is no room for this kind of crap.
It's not in either party's interest for the other to fail; the laughter of Microsoft would be our only reward. I'll happily cheer KDE on just as readily as I'll root for GNOME.
This is slashdot. We don't question
certain things around here : C++, Apple, KDE and Java rule.
Period.
Glib REALLY helps out with this as it provides some useful container types that are almost as good as STL and string.
Almost as good as string? It must not be very good then. I'm only an intermediate C++ programmer, but IMO the ANSI C++ String class is terrible. It's better than what's available in C, which is nothing, but that's about it. The problem is that it only supplies a very basic set of string-handling functions.
The GNU String class looks like a huge improvement, although I haven't gotten the chance to work with it yet. Qt's "Qstring" class might also be very useful.
> This technology cannot work with CRTs, it is only possible with digital LCDs. A good reason why you should never buy an LCD without DVI.
You are incorrect. The quality is just slightly better with DVI, but it won't remove the color fringies (it can't, the fringies ARE the subpixel AA at work). Trinitron monitors also do subpixel AA quite nicely.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
// return 0 is implicit from main in C++
1 point - Documenting Implicit Behavior
-50 points - Wasting more time typing the comment instead of just typing return 0
Be explicit when possible, document when not or don't apply for a job with me.
Give me a break, every C++ programmer knows that return 0 is implicit from main, so it is for all intents and purposes "explicit", and I put the comment for the benefit of my post's parent who presumably didn't know C++.
but I doubt a real-world version would be that clean, even in C++
Why not exactly? It's pretty much a 1-to-1 translation of his C code. I write C++, and it definitely can be that clean for simple nonsense like this. Obviously in C++ there's no need for those big ugly macros like GTK_CONTAINER(obj.window) he uses (I assume that's doing a cast?). Or for the enums/macros to indicate types like GTK_TYPE_WINDOW, because C++ of course has built in classes. And finally, with C++, due to namespaces, you don't have to prefix your identifiers with stupid random letters like gtk_whatever_function. Eliminate those 3 things from his code, and you've basically got my code (I did also change a couple other minor things because they seemed like a stupid way to do it). So what exactly would be present to make the code uglier?
(I was actually vaguely aware that gtkmm existed, but I don't know it, so I didn't use it. Also, and this is one of the real problems with C++, chances are that gtkmm was written by people who write C++ like it was the C++ of 1992, and thus my code would probably have been somewhat uglier.)
I am the son of a murder victim. My mother was an eye witness to it.
Claims of innocence can be relevant in individual cases, but in bulk they fall flat.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Do what I do:
1. Get Slack (Done it already? Good boy!)
2. Wait for Linux Format Magazine to bundle GNOME in its cover CD/DVD.
3. Install! (You thought I was going to say Profit, didn't you?)
1. I grok the three button mouse. PPC linux installs, however, don't seem to like powerbooks. At ALL. This is pretty damned irritating. The physical hardware has one mouse button. :P
:) OS X sucks ass in terms of interface consistency- on the Mac platform, this peaked with MacOS 8.6 and Quicktime 3. (Quicktime 4 introduced the Metal look, Sherlock 2 was the second app to use it, then along came iTunes, etc, etc.) The OS X Finder really, really sucks IME. Gnome beats it in a few respects, but only because Gnome is starting to get close to the classic MacOS spatial finder, which is still better than the OS X finder. (the sidebar in 10.3 is nice, but dear gods does list view SUCK)
2. You seem to think that by ripping on linux, I think MacOS is perfect. Not so.
Virts are nice. Regardless of virts, I run multiple monitors when I need more real estate. X-windows isn't exactly awesome at multi-head.
Focus Follows Mouse can suck my ass. I'm an artist- the LAST thing I need is a terminal window popping into focus when I'm panning between photoshop windows. Blows things all to hell. It's great if you live in browsers and terminals, don't get me wrong- but for creative apps... AUGH.
Case sesnsitive filesystem? GIMME. I WANT I WANT. One of the reasons why all of my servers are linux- strip off the desktop and give me a choice between darwin and debian and I'll take debian in a heartbeat.
Sure, you can render text on CRT with colour fringes "as if" it were to be painted to a digital LCD's pixel geometry, but since the stripes aren't addressable it is impossible do any better than simple antialiasing.
When used with correct hardware, however, subpixel rendering does achieve higher perceived spatial resolution. This absolutely requires digital addressability.
you had me at #!
This is possible due to templates. C++ is better than C, period.
Obviously in C++ there's no need for those big ugly macros
What is a template, but a big ugly macro?
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
Don't worry, in a few years you'll meet someone special and you'll put childish things behind you.
You know, not everyone is so lucky, asshole.
Yeah, I have this activted. I just remember back, the first time I saw it, it looked so different to windows and linux font rendering, I really had to get used to. But now I like it a bit :)
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
This is about the fact that Gnome is a total nightmare to package, with a gigantic convoluted spiderweb of rarely-documented dependencies. Nothing more. Nothing less. That's it. Case closed.
This is not about which desktop environment is better for the end-user. This is not about human interface guidelines. This is not about resource efficiency or C vs. C++ or GTK vs. Qt.
This is about PACKAGING. You know, the actual effort the lone distro maintainer has to go through to make those nice TGZs?
I'm certain that when Gnome doesn't suffer from dependency hell, Pat will be happy to put it back in. As things stand now, it's simply too much work.
Why can some people not get this SIMPLE THOUGHT through their FUCKING THICK HEADS?
in related news:
1984 called and it wants 1998's freedom too!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
What is the best desktop?
Fluxbox is nice and light. And it's not trying to take over the world like Gnome and Linux people.
Enlightenment is there.
Why do we assume it's just KDE and Gnome?
Sure, you can render text on CRT with colour fringes "as if" it were to be painted to a digital LCD's pixel geometry, but since the stripes aren't addressable it is impossible do any better than simple antialiasing.
They're not "addressable" on an LCD either. Trinitrons are striped just like LCD's. Subpixel AA changes the color of surrounding pixels to darken the bars nearest the text, and doesn't require "digital addressability", whatever the hell that is. The digital connection just makes it so that the signal has no chance of "bleeding" the fringies over another pixel if the dotclock is ever so slightly off. If you think the DVI connection addresses the dots individually, you better read up a little more.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
Now, linux-heads love choice and more power to them for that. BUT such up-front confusion with linux is not the way to win over the general public.
.... This does not give an advantage to the small neighborhood street-corner store; people go to supermarkets precisely because of the variety. No matter what your family likes, you'll find it there.
;-). So instead I'll pick what in all other areas would be a great advantage, the variety you offer, and I'll criticize you for that. I'm smart enough to know that if you're stupid enough to believe me and offer a system without choices, I'll just tell you that I don't like the single choice you offered me, because it's not 101% identical with my old system that I'm used to."
Oh, nonsense. There are a zillion examples (;-) of similar choices presented to the public, and you rarely if ever hear anyone but a few marketers complaining.
In most of the Western world, especially the US, if you want to but an auto, you have at least a hundred choices, many of them very similar. People don't complain about this; they discuss the differences between models at the drop of a hat.
It's common to observe that supermarkets have an insane variety of many products, frm bread and cereals to apples to soft drinks to
Similarly, people overwhelmingly go to the large clothing stores in malls, because that's where you'll find a huge choice in what chothes you can buy. And they'll let you try things on before you buy.
Imagine a restaurant with just one fixed meal. Not even McDonalds does that.
There's very little real evidence anywhere that people, even stupid people, are bothered by a variety of choices. They're only bothered if they don't have a way to choose. (This is a problem for ethnic restaurants with words that customers don't recognize. That's why they'll usually provide explanations.)
We do hear this sort of claim a lot in the computer biz. But I think it's totally bogus. It's a way of saying "I don't want to buy your system, and I'm not going to admit why (because it'd make me sound really stupid
You can't win such an argument no matter what you do.
But you're a lot more likely to win if you can offer people what they really want. And other consumer products show clearly that there is never a single version that everyone wants. You have to offer choices. And you have to make it easy for people to browse a bit and pick one that they'll like. Just like they do in clothing stores and food stores.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
By being able to address a geometrically accurate pixel (as a CRT or analog LCD is unable to do), the individual stripes can be addressed. Without this ability, the colour fringes are ineffective in improving perceived spatial resolution, since there is no useful or predictable correlation between the computed image data and the Trinitron mask...
you had me at #!
Several people have mentioned that the one advantage GNOME has over the QT is licensing.
If businesses want to develop a commercial product with the QT they have to pay a fee.
Is it paying a fee at all the problem or just that the fee set by trolltech is too high?
If trolltech lowered the fee for using the QT in commercial development would more commercial development be done using the QT and would trolltech make more money?
I agree with your first two paragraphs and I'm glad you replied to the silly "dicking around" comment. But then you had to go ahead and say
People go into construction because they are not intelligent enough to become programmers.
Construction (if you're good at it) requires a fair amount of intelligence and skill. No need to slag another profession while defending your own.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
Someone mod up the parent post.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Uh oh. Now, show my what kind of moderators would fail to catch the joke and mod this "Troll"...
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.