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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."
Because you can always easily install dropline gnome.
..supposed to help with this stuff and let Gnome catch up?
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.
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.
Huh? Fonts on my KDE 3.3 DE look fantastic. Better than Windows IMHO.
This guy is way out there
Misconception. Truth be told, it's probably not hard to run something like jhbuild after installing Slackware... Very few people use Slackware anyway, and the ones that do are probably qualified to run a GNOME build system such as jhbuild or GARNOME with little trouble.
Simply put, it's probably better for Slack to work on parts they care about.
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++.
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.
What would be cool is if Pat would put the latest dropline gnome installer in the distro. That way at least people will know if they want to install or use it, then it will be as easy as pie and specifically configured for slack.
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.
Are you building and 'make install'ing, or building .tgz package files? GNOME 'make install's fine. But doesn't obey the DESTDIR envar, so making stand-alone packages is very difficult. (No, setting --prefix= does not work, because that path gets hard coded into various places.)
Actually I think he just meant 98 SE.
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. "
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?
Debian's stable release is years overdue, so their opinions about the ease of stabilizing, packaging, and distributing software count for very little in the real world.
Having done the whole "Linux from scratch" thing as a learning experience, I can tell you that building a complete Gnome installation takes at around 3-5x longer than KDE and is much more difficult. This was 4-5 years ago, but the situation has gotten worse from casual observation of the Debian packaging.
One of the biggest differences between KDE and Gnome is that KDE's use of the Qt library dramatically cuts down on dependancies. Gnome requires use of dozens of libraries to match the functionality of Qt and this complicates the build process.
Frankly, from a developer perspective, I don't think Gtk/Gnome libs have quite kept up with Qt in terms of overall quality and I'm not sure how they can be expected to. Qt is heavily supported commercially. There are people being paid full time to add features, improve performance, and write top quality API docs. Gnome expends much effort maintaining its own libraries. 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. (where there are legitimate arguments on both sides) But, unfortunately, Qt began it's life as a less-than-Free piece of code. As a result, the Gnome folks rightly avoided it. But then they continued their own efforts even after Qt went GPL.. Now there's even a GPL full version for Windows, so the cross-platform argument is totally shot.
FWIW, I'm not trying to bash Gnome, but I do think there is some re-evaluation in order. Competition is good, but wheel re-inventing is usually not.
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.
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.
KDE is already so far ahead of windows or mac on the desktop that it's laughable any time someone makes a comment like this. Though a lot of the features that make a KDE desktop so superior to windows or mac are things that are standard with most, if not all, *nix desktops, such as sloppy focus, auto-raise, drop to back, and virtual desktops. It also doesn't hurt that KDE looks great.
The Farewell Tour II
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.
The solution is quite simple: don't run the other DEs apps. Or actually pay for an OS - be it Windows, MacOS X, or something else altogether. No one is forcing you to use Linux/*BSD. If it sucks, by all means, stop using it.
The "Linux Desktop" is no some vast concerted effort, it is a hodge podge of whatever people are willing to contribute. As long as people are free to code whatever interests them there will always be splintering. If you don't like that, buy a system where there are enforced standards of what is acceptable.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
KDE may sound fine, but the way they have to spell everything with a K is retarded... might as well make it the MKDE :P
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
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.
What you fail to see is the benefit of doing it this way.
All you have to do is copy those settings to any other computer and you have exactly the same configured desktop as the first. This is a very powerful feature for remote users whose home directories are stored remotely.
Also if you wanted to preconfigure gnome in a particular way and then distribute it that it is much easier this way.
If everything was in /etc/ somewhere how you distinguish each user's dektop from the other?
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
Yeah, everyone knows masculinity is defined by your ability to play sports, the quantity of women you've nailed, the car you drive, and how much money you make.
*GeminiDomino removes tongue from cheek.
User highlights a problem with linux, suggests fixes. Gets shot down and told to go somewhere else. Community much?
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 !
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
I think the difference is that the GNOME comment referred to the fact that while GNOME may be more burdensome for the distro maintainer, it's not necessarily a bad desktop for the end user.
If you just look at the way GNOME is packaged, this should be obvious - the releases are just a collection of various libraries and apps, rather than coordinated, centrally packaged releases.
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.
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.
KDE is a kitchen sink desktop with far too many settings, GNOME is spartan and clean. I know which one I'd put in front of newbies and it doesn't start with a K.
KDE attempts to be familiar to Windows users, GNOME deliberately tries to make sure that everything they've learned about how an interface works is broken. Given that 99.999999% of newbie Linux users are familiar with Windows, I know which one I'd put in front of newbies...
Since I don't have modpoints to mod you troll, I'll bite the bait.
First. I'm seriously using Slackware right now (with IceWM). Why? Because I'm at my parents home, and they have a really old pc (266 MHz AMD K6) that had 96 Mb of RAM until a couple of months ago (now it got 128). Slackware is by my experience the lightest of all up-to-date distro (except carefully squeezed things like DamnSmallLinux). Almost everything else on this machine is too heavy. Given the processor speed, even Gentoo is not a choice.
I also have the hobby to recycle and resurrect old PC. Guess what? I use Slackware on them because Slackware works and it is damn fast. And it is fairly easy to install and configure for anyone with a bit of Linux experience.
Second. It is true for example that Fedora defaults on Gnome. Guess what? All my friends that use Fedora use KDE as their main desktop. Debian is also GNOME-centric, but all their users I know use KDE. Which distro people pick up to begin with Linux? Mainly Knoppix, Mandrake and Linspire. Guess what? They all default to KDE. Why do they do it, if GNOME is sooooo much more usable and sooooo much better for the end user? I used, maintained, configured a lot of desktops for myself and for people, on various systems. Almost everything, from Fluxbox to IceWM to FVWM...to KDE and GNOME. Guess what was the only one that is perfect from the start? KDE. Guess what was the most painful and hateful to configure? GNOME. And,oh,Gentoo does not default on KDE (it doesn't default at all, that's the shining point of Gentoo): it is simply most Gentoo users choose KDE.
Third. GNOME has decent points, I fairly admit it, and KDE can miss some. I still wait for a couple of decent things on GNOME desktops. Something shiny and that really helps usability like the KDE Control Center. Or a wonderful CD-burning program like K3b. And most of all, a file manager that doesn't flee in shame in front of Konqueror, probably the single best Linux/Unix desktop app. Nautilus is not better than the Win95 Explorer, thank you.
Business sticks on GNOME for two reasons. First that's that RH sticked on GNOME, and corporates want to play on RH playground. Second it's hard for them to build non-free KDE apps due to Trolltech QT licensing -and that's the only good point GNOME has, if only GTK didn't suck. But all distros that really focus on usability, really focus on KDE (apart from Ubuntu...but it required just a year to see Kubuntu) But I think the dropping of GNOME from Slackware, a little, historical, niche distribution, could be the begin of the reversal of the tide.
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
Really? Last time I checked, end users didn't often try to build GNOME from scratch, much less maintain all of the buildscripts required to produce Slackware packages of it.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Personally I'm surprised he didn't choose one desktop and stick with it years ago. Supporting both is doable for distros with large teams, but there's such a thing as too much work. :)
Bonch, why are you so obsessed with OSS becoming the number 1? As an OSS developer I am thrilled that some people benefit from the stuff I write. It is not a goal of mine to take over the fricking world. As the other guy said, if you don't like how OSS gets developed then go use something else. At the very least stop trolling slashdot.
I admire the way you have crafted your trolls so perfectly now to always get modded up but you totally ruin any thread you post in.
I've been using Linux exclusively since 1996. Everyone I know who uses a DE uses GNOME; I know no one who uses KDE. In fact, when my old roommate's computer broke and I lent him my Alpha, I initially installed KDE because I'd heard it was more like Windows -- he hated it and loved GNOME.
What does this tell you?
Absolutely fucking nothing. It's a fact that lots of Linux users love KDE. It is also a fact that lots of them love GNOME. If KDE really were so prevalent, there wouldn't be so many flamewars about which is better -- what, do you think there are 3 GNOME users that psychotically prowl message boards and flame anyone pro-KDE to a crisp?
I mean honestly, repeat this again and again until you get it through your skull: anecdotes are not data. Repeat, anecdotes are not data.
Me, I use neither. PWM all the way, baby, and I hack the source myself. If I were so conceited as to think that my linux usage habits were normal, I might write a long winded post about how much nicer it is to use this environment. But I don't, because I'm not a retard.
Seriously.
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.
Uh, back in the day we used to have 486's and less. And we ran Windows 98. Many years ago at work I ran Windows NT 4 on a 90 Mhz Pentium as my main machine. I currently run Windows 2000 on my 266 Mhz laptop with no problems (128 MB RAM).
I mean, I run Linux as my primary OS on most of my machines, but there are other things that run on low-end hardware. Besides, 266 Mhz is pretty damn fast unless you're a youngster that can't remember the 90's.
I mod down people as a troll when they state subtly but utterly false assertions trying to create a flamebait. Isn't it a definition of trolling?
If you define "false" as "I don't agree", then yes. It's what a lot of slashdot moderators don't understand. Disagreeing with something does not make it a troll... got it? No, didn't think so. People like you will continute to make slashdot a travesty.
Sure, it is fairly possible to recompile a vanilla kernel on Fedora
Why on Earth would you compile a vanilla kernel? If any shows that you are simply a clueless zealot, it's that. Red Hat's kernel's are no more bloated than any other -- perhaps if you went out of your way to install an smp kernel (for whatever idiotic reason), then yes. But other than that... no. In fact, Red Hat's kernel's are better tested and QA and optimium, than any other I've tried.
shutting down services, avoid useless desktop managers and so on. But why should I care to install Fedora then?
Because the parts you've just shutdown are actually needed for a good desktop experience by newbies (the very people you claim to set up machines for). I bet your one of those idiots who shuts down GAMIN/FAM because you think it's bloat, or gets pissed off because GCONF is a daemon. You clowns who believe that a machine is bloated have never actually done any real test -- it's all about "it feels faster". In my experience, it's rarely true... and just wishful thinking.
Oh, but sure you didn't try either one, because they don't have a funky hat painted on the start button, isn't it?
I've tried a great many Linux distros. I started out on slackware about 8 years ago. I used to run SuSE. I ran Debian for a while. I even tried Gentoo, but quickly got sick of the zealotry, outrageous claims by its users and recompiling. I went back to slackware and quickly tired of its crudity, and never once found it faster. I've usually ended up back at Red Hat/Fedora, and while I can hardly claim to be 100% satisfied, it's a lot better than anything else.
You're from USA,isnt'it?
No, I'm British. I work in Germany. So we can dispose with that point. And Microsoft owns the vast majority of business desktops, followed by the Mac, followed by GNOME. KDE is reasonably popular with those who haven't left home yet, but no-one cares what they think.
They thank me to have helped them drop "that shitty GNOME thing". I'm sorry, it's a fact.
Yes sure... Mr. "flee in shame from Konqueror", you're not a KDE zealot at all. You recycle PCs? Well so do I... and I've always installed GNOME on them, and every user I've ever done it for thanks me from "that crappy KDE thing." How that's that? I also visit computer shows, and absolutely no-one was using KDE... oh actually that's not true, one guy was but he was obviously a bit simple and drooled a lot. See how that "heresay" thing works? You hang around KDE zealots because you are one, and you therefore have an vastly inflated opinion of its impact and user base.
For me when I try to configure them and for end users (Nautilus behaves like Win95, no decent configuration app, no decent printer management app, "why the hell the buttons are in such odd places?" etc.etc.etc.).
1. Nautilus is not like Windows 95 -- it is (by default) a spatial file manager. Windows 95 was not, it was a brain-damaged hybrid. I used to use the old style of Nautilus "explorer", but switched to spatial fully once I got used to it. No-one I've ever introduced to GNOME as their first desktop has *ever* complained about it.. quite the opposite. 2. Button order. GNOME uses the same button order as the Macintosh and explicitly avoids OK/CANCEL dialogs (which is what most people bitch about when it comes to "order") because they make little sense and confuse people. You wouldn't know this, because you are an idiot who has probably never used GNOME in the last 3 years. 3. Printer managers? What the fuck does that have to do with